GIGI GOES GAGA

A HEAVY LOAD

At this moment I'm having an interesting -- quite revealing, actually -- conversation on Facebook. I updated my status with what I thought was an unabashedly romantic statement the librettist and theatrical producer  Oscar Hammerstein II made to then-Dorothy Blanchard Jacobson shortly after he'd met her:

"If I were a little boy in school and you were a little girl in school I'd carry your books home for you."

When they met in the 1920s they were both already in their 30s -- and married to other people, with children. Not the best of circumstances certainly, and even today there would be a lot of tsk-tsk'ing about the way they got together. But even Dorothy's daughter acknowledges that they probably fell for each other instantaneously, and by several accounts they remained in love to the very end.

My niece C -- an intelligent, thoughtful, highly independent young woman I'm quite proud of -- however, disagrees with my romantic take on this story. She thinks that if a boy had offered to carry her books home it would be a reflection on his belief that she's not strong or capable enough to do it herself. Plus, she says, the idea of a grown man thinking of her as a little girl is pretty creepy.

I know where she's coming from; at her age I wrestled with my views on old-fashioned chivalry versus my burgeoning feminist ideals. At her age I was living on my own, supporting myself, figuring how to do things that I'd never learned how to do. I was coming to terms with falling in love, getting into relationships, and trying not to lose my identity in the process. Surely a man didn't have to open the door for me or pull out my chair during a dinner date at a restaurant; I could easily do them for myself, thank you very much.

But as I've gotten older I've learned to live with the blurry lines and interpret male-female dynamics in terms other than power and control. But of course I know when I'm being demeaned or underestimated because of my sex -- that's something I can spot instinctively and react accordingly. For instance, if a guy sees me holding a power drill and jokes about what damage I might do with it, I may just show him how I could if I wanted to (like right then and there). Or if it's suggested that I can't replace my car's automatic transmission simply because I'm a girl I might reply that I know quite a few men, including my own father, who can't do so either. Besides, I'm not too thrilled with the idea of the monstrous thing crashing down onto my chest and pinning me under the car, where no one might find me for weeks.

So I do appreciate it when a man offers to carry something heavy for me, the same way I would offer to help anyone else I were with. The way I see it these days, it's about kindness and empathy, regardless of the sex of the person who was trying to help me. Some days I might accept the assistance, other days I may not because I'm good, really -- but I'd never take it against the guy who offered to ease my load.

I've been in relationships with men who were raised to show modern acts of chivalry with the women they're with, and I've been with those who had never met a door they liked. The truth is that I know which breed I prefer -- as long as they didn't make such a huge show of doing something nice for me and expecting something in return. When a man offers to hold my heavy bag of groceries I'd like to think it means he's thinking of me kindly, period. And it's always nice to know you're being thought of in that way.

But going back to Hammerstein's quote, I suppose it knocked me off my feet in the first place because it made me reflect on meeting the right one at the right time, before life got so darn complicated. When you fall in love when you shouldn't, with someone you shouldn't fall for, then the thing you hope for the most is that you can go back in time when everything was as easy as carrying a girl's books home from school.

 

THE DIRTY DOZEN

There's this gazillionaire golfer all over the news right now. He's made explosive headlines for the past decade -- but nothing like this. Apparently he's been cheating on his gorgeous blonde wife for years, and with several women at that. I'm not paying attention -- I am purposely NOT paying attention, I should say -- but I've heard that there about a dozen now who claim to have slept with him.

I've heard my guy friends say they're surprised because these women aren't really attractive ("He could do so MUCH better than that!" they exclaim). My girlfriends seem to wonder why these "other women" are not more accomplished or from "better" backgrounds. My husband, a golf enthusiast who, unlike me, has been paying very close attention to this story, throws around the term "ragdoll" every time one of these women appear on TV -- in reference to the athlete's preference for rough-and-tumble sex apparently.

As for me, I started tuning off when the women began to come forward with their stories and proof straight from their cellphones. If the story is on the news, I change the channel or walk away; if it's on print I don't read it. I don't even know the names of these women -- and I prefer it that way. And here's why.

If a woman's going to have an affair with a married man, if she's going to insinuate herself between him and his wife, the only decent thing left for her to do -- I believe -- is to simply shut up. Not for his sake surely, but for his wife and (any) children. If she wants only sex from him, then she's getting it anyway. If she wants money or material things, she's probably receiving that, too. If she wants him only for herself, then letting his wife know about the affair will not serve her purpose because it will only get him incredibly annoyed and she'll never have him that way.

My concern isn't for this famous wayward husband, but rather for the innocents -- his wife and kids and the rest of their families, who are now subject to constant public humiliation, thanks to all the gory details being revealed practically every hour. (Seriously, if you were the wife who found out that her husband was cheating on her, would you really want to know everything?) These other women who for the past week have dominated the daily news aren't coming forward for honesty's sake (the act of cheating with a married man alone already stripped them of any semblance of honesty, let's face it), but for what they can get for their brief moment of infamy. 

I was walking by the living room the other day while my husband was listening to one of the women explain how betrayed she felt at discovering she wasn't the only one in his life as there were many others also. She continued to say that she often wondered why he never had much time for her; she thought it was only because of the demands of his career.

I stopped right in my tracks and yelled at the TV: "What you stupid whore? You thought you were the ONLY ONE? What about his wife, you idiot?"

Sorry, but I'm never going to listen to any sob story told by any mistress; I just won't hear of it. When a woman chooses to get involved with a man who belongs to another, she knows exactly what she's getting into. His wife, however, may not have had the fortune of such clarity when she married him. So I don't listen and I don't read anything about this story because I don't want a single television program or publication to profit from my patronage. I also hope that when no one else is paying attention anymore, that these women (and their new lawyers and agents) finally go away silently in the night, where they should have stayed in the first place.

CONNECT THE DOTS

Last night I was talking to a friend of mine, whose current project involves Filipino celebrities he's never heard of. See, while he moves around and regularly deals with Filipino-American entertainers and actors (as he does with many other American celebrities), he was born and raised here and hasn't been back to the Philippines since he was in high school -- when his mom took him back to see where she was born and raised, and where he drank the water and then suffered from severe diarrhea for the rest of his trip.

But I digress.

So anyway he phoned me and quickly rattled off about a dozen or more highly recognizable names (well, you would know them if you lived in the Philippines or, like me, tend to keep up with what's going on over there). He wanted to find out who they were and why exactly they were famous. And he wanted the information FAST because he was meeting with a few of them in a couple of hours. But I gave him much more than what he needed: I actually connected the dots between each and every one. Like how X is fighting with Y, who used to be married to Z, whose son used to date A, who was the ex of B, who is the brother of C, a very good friend of D -- who carried on an affair with very-much married X.

Shit, I'm so ma-showbiz pala. This is much more useless information than anyone should ever know.