Saturday, May 20, 2006

The blonde brain of Thomas Friedman

Thomas Friedman finally emerged to face the world on Wednesday. Apparently, the hiding in the closet was much more deep rooted than I'd guessed. All of the women attacking him with purses, all the public ridicule had made him feel that even a baby-hawk like himself needed to write against his one time pin-up Bully Boy.

So he wanted to come out against the Bully Boy. He could have done as someone who'd woken up and realized they were wrong. But that's not Thomas Friedman. Wrong must never be applied to himself. He could have done it by pretending he was always against the war. Thomas Friedman is nothing but a weasel. But the purses coming down on his head must have made him realize that no one would fall for that. So when you're a hawk who self-identifies with the many famous women, what do you do? What do you do, Besides mangling the English language, of course?

You go Nancy Reagan, of course! Hence "Saying No to Bush's Yes Men" which is Thomas Friedman's riff on Nancy Reagan's laughable "Just Say No" campaign that she launched in the eighties and may have reached its most ridiculous moment when she stopped in to advise Arnold to say no to drugs on Diff'rent Strokes. I don't remember Arnold, Willis or Kimberly getting high -- though I always had my suspicions about Mrs. Garrett being crocked to the gills. But there was First Lady Reagan advising Arnold of the evils of drugs he'd never done when she should have been pulling actors Todd Bridges and Dana Plato to the side and having a non-touchy-feely moment with them.

Like Nancy Reagan cautioning potential buyers while her husband's Iran-Contra scandal allowed the CIA to flood the streets of America with drugs, Thomas Friedman's more worried about the surface. Which is why he wastes everyone's time on the cabinet of the Bully Boy. Like Nancy Reagan's nonsense that the drug issue could be solved by just remarketing, Thomas Friedman appears to think 'dickering' over strategy -- war pornography -- instead of addressing the very roots of an illegal war -- a pre-emptive one that acted as a WMD to society's understanding of "just wars" -- is somehow offering a critique. Instead of addressing the sad realities of the illegal occupation, Thomas Friedman prefers to treat it all as a lost ball game that could have been "won" if only the quarterback had utilized a different play in the fourth quarter.

Putting on his shiny black sweat suit -- he swore he'd seen Ashley Judd wearing something similar but I know I saw Rosie O'Donnell wearing it -- he was ready to face the world Wednesday morning. Shocker of shocker, he even showered! Those looking for WMD might consider standing downwind of my husband Thomas Friedman. It not nuclear weaponry, but it's certainly some form of chemical attack.

As we went on a walk -- me trailing a few feet behind every other block at Thomas Friedman's request & crying out, "Isn't that Thomas Friedman!" -- he waited for the mass adulation he was sure to come his way. He got five handbags smartly introduced to his head and a lot of jeers.

Later, back home, he decided he might have jumped the gun.

"It takes a few days for writing as deep as mine to sink into the public's understanding," he offered in between spraying canned cheese into his open mouth.

"Thomas Friedman, you stupid idiot," I said -- yes, things have truly changed in our marriage since our last fight, "when you write 'When you centralize power the way Mr. Bush did, you alone get stuck with all the responsibility when things go bad' you not only make yourself useless, you also reveal gross stupidity. Lying a nation into war was not because Bully Boy didn't surround himself with non-yes-man, it was because he wanted the illegal war. Historical record demonstrates that, demonstrates that he wanted it before 2002, he wanted it before 9/11 and he wanted it before he stole the presidency."

Thomas Friedman eyed me cautiously for a moment. During those brief seconds, I thought possibly he'd actually heard me, that somehow I'd finally succeeded in penetrating the fog of sogginess that surrounds his brain.

"Betinna, I've been thinking," Thomas Friedman said dramatically. "The highlights are all well and good but possibly I should go completely blonde?"

In his brain, he already has.













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Tuesday, May 16, 2006

Leather Prada pumps and tears

My husband Thomas Friedman continues to play mum on what he meant by his mysterious remarks about Nicky K.

I'm not sure how much of that has to do with why he left in the first place last week and how much that has to do with the fact that he's pouting still over my comments last Friday?

On the former, Thomas Friedman is the Global Drama Queen -- so his storming out on that line or any other doesn't necessarily mean anything other than the fact that melodrama pumps through his veins.

On the latter?

Was I too harsh?

He went into the closet on Tuesday of last week after writing Wednesday's column. I kept trying to coax him out. Not because I needed him for anything, please -- we're talking about Thomas Friedman, but because he had a column due for Friday's paper.

So when he wouldn't come out by noon Thursday, I moved the computer into the closet. I would have thought he'd have sobered up from his heavy drinking at the Russian embassy; however, that didn't happen. I opened the door and was hit with a heavy blast of vodka fumes. It reminded me of a documentary I heard on KPFA about how moth balls have chemicals in them that build up in the closed closet. So I guess Thomas Friedman was basically a fumes huffer. Look for the soon to be written column on that.

He was wearing my Judith Miller wig which he'd put into cornrows. He claimed it was just a hat because he was cold (which doesn't explain why he was wearing one of my mini-skirts) but I didn't even care.

"Write the damn column," I told him, stepping out of the closet.

He did and he e-mailed it on to Gail Collins who, no doubt, was tickled pink because she loves to hand over prime print real estate to recollections about personal friends.

Then he wanted me to read it. And I wanted him to tell me what he meant by the Nicky K remarks.

Neither of us was budging. Finally, Sunday night, he said, "Betinna, what we have here is a Mexican standoff and, in case you haven't heard, Bully Boy's sending troops to the Mexican border."

He laughed so hard he was rolling around on the carpet. He laughed so hard, I was afraid he was going to soil himself.

Finally, he stopped rolling around and laughing. Right after he soiled himself.

He asked and I said no. Hell no. He wasn't wearing a diaper. I wasn't wearing the Peggy Noonan mask and he hadn't been playing William Safire.

I hate that sex game anyway but, with a little notice, I can numb myself inside enough to play it. (Which really is the story of our marriage.)

He decided to wear a pair of frilly panties (he said he was cold in just the thong) and he'd made the mess, so he could clean it up.

"Two people!" he screamed at me as he stormed off to the bathroom. "It takes two people for a marriage to work!"

Like much of my life before mid-2005, I don't remember my wedding. (With regards to the wedding, that may be God being merciful.)

So I shouted out through the closed bathroom door, "I seriously doubt I made a vow to love, honor and wipe your ass!"

Oh, he was mad when he came out.

He yelled about how easy I had it and how hard he worked. I offered back, in loud tones, that he wouldn't even have a job if it weren't for me. Not only did I beg Gail Collins to forgive him every time he got on her bad side (which might not be all Thomas Friedman's fault -- in all the time I've know Gail and looked at her, I've never found her good side -- a problem professional photographers have as well), but I was also the only one forcing him to write those full of beans columns.

"Full of beans!" Thomas Friedman cried, seizing on the phrase. "I knew you read 'Shoe Leather and Tears'!"

"I never said I didn't," I shot back. "In fact, the empty container of Dramamine should have been your first clue that I did wade through that nonsense!"

"Nonsense!" Thomas Friedman gasped, his large hand thrown back against his forehead.

"Shall I get the vapors, Blanche?"

"You continue to fail to grasp that you are married to a creative person," Thomas Friedman snarled at me.

"And you continue to fail to grasp that no one opens the op-ed page to hear itty bitty Tommy Friedman thinks all Arabs are bad! But at least that racist nonsense beats your wasting everyone's time with obits or didn't you know that the paper already has an obituary section? Apparently Gail Collins didn't know either which is why we also got an editorial shoved off on us!"

"You just take that back!" Thomas Friedman said waving his finger at me.

"Or what? You'll burst into tears and go back to hiding in the closet!"

It was getting very Thomas Friedman in the living room. Translation, ugly, real ugly.

"I am a professional reporter!" Thomas Friedman hollered as he stamped his foot repeatedly on the carpet.

"Oh, who told you that? Dexter Filkins!"

"A.M. Rosenthal was a great man!"

"He was an anti-Arab racist! And what kind of a name is A.M. Rosnethal? Was he twins? Did they name his brother P.M.?"

"You are speaking of the dead! How dare you! He was no more racist than I!"

"You're a racist too! That's why you got along!"

"Excuse me, Betinna, I cannot be a racist, I am married to a colored woman! I mean that in a 'woman of color' way before you get all high and mighty! A racist does not marry out of his own race!"

"Well alert the NAACP and see if you can get an Image award off that!"

"I am not a racist!" Thomas Friedman yelled as he began pacing around the living room.

"Racist and drama queen!"

"Just because I sometimes enjoy a nice Prada pump does not make me a queen!" Thomas Friedman insisted. "I have flat feet! I need the built in arches! You have never understood me! Never!"

"And you've never understood that inventing a cabbie who you claim carries your columns around with him isn't talking to real people! Where do you get off slamming bloggers who you feel don't do reporting? For someone who writes War! War! War! all the time, maybe you should take your fat ass to peace rally -- like the kids did and reported on it while the lousy paper you work for wrote a bad sampler and then basically ignored it!"

"I cannot believe you said that!" Thomas Friedman squealed as he stopped pacing and clutched his chest.

"Well, it's true. You write about war all the time and you can't be bothered to attend a peace rally. How is that living up to your hero Leon Daniel's idea of being out and about and writing of what you see?"

"I cannot believe you said that!" Thomas Friedman repeated, his eyes welling with tears.

I started thinking: Geez, maybe Leon Daniels was actually a person who meant more to Thomas Friedman than Thomas Friedman meant to Thomas Friedman?

I was starting to feel a little guilty. But then I stopped.

"How dare you, Bettina! How dare you! How dare you call me a," here Thomas Friedman's face screwed into a mask of rage as he sapt out the end of the sentence, "fat ass!"

Sobbing and wailing, he ran to the bedroom and slammed the door.

"Shoe Leather and Tears"? Try leather Prada pumps and tears. The column he wrote for tomorrow should be quite interesting. "Interesting." I didn't say good.











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Saturday, May 13, 2006

The joke is always Thomas Friedman. Always.

So my husband Thomas Friedman finally showed up Tuesday at one p.m. He'd been gone how many days? I was so focused on school, I had honestly forgotten he was gone after failing to read in the New York Times of him being mugged or worse.

He showed up in oversize sunglasses, smelling of Ikon vodka and wearing a shorty robe version of a trench coat. A little tipsy but heavy on the dramatics (in other words, basically the same), he stumbled around the living room in his flip flops as he hurried to the window, peaked out the curtains then went to the phone and picked it up listening for I don't know what?

"The Russians are coming," he whispered repeatedly at several points when not muttering darkly, " "Gosudarstvo i Evolutsia."

Sizing him up, I asked, "New shorty robe?"

He ignored me. Lowering his sun glasses and looking over the rims dramatically, Thomas Friedman added, "They are coming and they are coming to get me."

"Thomas Friedman, no one is coming to get you," I sighed. "I could not be that lucky. Now you just sit yourself down on the couch, watch your 'Saved by the Bell' and I'll fix you a grilled cheese sandwich, some coffee and we'll try to get you sobered enough to write that column that Gail Collins keeps screaming she must have in the next few hours."

As I turned to walk to the kitchen, the electricity went out.

"Betinna!" he yelled. "They are coming!"

In the darkness, I could make him out, perched on the sofa, holding a throw pillow at the ready to defend himself. I had to laugh as I pictured an army of KGB agents swarming the apartment while Thomas Friedman held them at bay with a non-lethal pillow fight.

"Gosudarstvo i Evolutsia," he muttered again, honestly creeping me out.

"I'm going to the kitchen, to fix that grilled cheese," I declared turning back towards the kitchen.

Suddenly, he was right next to me, his chunky fingers digging into my upper arm.

"We have no power!" he hissed in my ear, the alcohol on his breath so intense that even I felt a little intoxicated.

"Fortunately," I reminded him, "the stove, like you, runs on gas."

Throw pillow raised at the ready to do maximum non-damage, Thomas Friedman tip-toed into the kitchen with me still muttering "Gosudarstvo i Evolutsia."

As I fixed the grilled cheese, he darted to the window over the sink and peered out giving me a report, "I count ten maybe twelve. They are down below on the street. Dressed as construction workers."

"They are construction workers," I corrected.

He threw back his head and laughed loudly.

"Betinna, you are so simple," Thomas Friedman declared. "When they place you in the gulag, you will not see things so innocently. All this time, we have been worried about Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, Syria and Brazil when what we should have been worried about was a reunited Russia, out to crush the world and destroy our very concept of life, liberty and the pursuit of globalization."

"Brazil," I said buttering the bread, "Because Luis Inacio Lula da Silva is going to spearhead the free software movement?"

Thomas Friedman sighed, shook his head and replied, "Yes, Betinna, that and the fact that I do not believe the Lambada is honestly dead."

"The Lambada?" I asked laughing as I put the sandwich in the skillet.

"Do not scoff," Thomas Friedman insisted, "it is the forbidden dance."

I quickly gave up on the idea of making coffee both because the power was out and because it was obvious there was no sobering him up.

Thomas Friedman lumbered around the kitchen to illustrate his point about the 'forbidden dance.'

"There is revolution in these movements," he said quite seriously.

"Plop it down at the kitchen table, Ricky Martin, your sandwich is ready."

Thomas Friedman sat down and began tearing into his sandwich, smacking his lips with delight while he told me he had been held prisoner by "the Russians" for the last five days and how naive we had all been (even Thomas Friedman?) to assume that we had entered into a phase of friendly relations. He predicted the return of bomb shelters, cold war, and the imprisonment of
Yakov Smirnoff and Tatu which were both acts designed to lull us into a false sense of security and lowered expectations.

"That is when they will come for us," he said quite seriously.

In the midst of all of this, the electricity came back on. Thomas Friedman leaped to his feet, throw pillow at the ready, looking around for the non-existant KBG officers he expected to come storming across the linoleum. It was obvious to me that the current conditions in Iraq, the war he helped cheerlead, had finally caused him to crack up.

Pushing him down the hall to the office, I told him he had a column to work on.

"But Betinna, the Russians --" he began.

"You can write all about it in your column," I interrupted. "Just don't sound to nutso, I'd like us to be able to afford a real vacation for Labor Day."

Ten minutes later, he handed me "The Post-Post-Cold War" and asked me to read it before he e-mailed it to Gail.

"It is in code," he declared seriously.

"Well good," I said giving it a quick once over, "at least this time, readers will have a valid reason for not being able to grasp it."

He ignored me and went to the hall closet. Checking it out, for moths?, he finally nodded, told me that if anyone came by I was to say I hadn't seen him, then stepped inside, shut the door and remained inside until Thursday.

I e-mailed the column to Gail who called later.

I thought she was going to ask me, "What is this crap?"

But instead, it turned out that she just wanted to talk about Tom Cruise whom she was convinced had cracked up as a result of his divorce from Nicole Kidman.

"It surely does not help him," she informed me, "Seeing Nicole cavort with that strapping young man in the Chanel ads."

"Gail," I told her, "I see now you how you rose to your current position."

She took it as a compliment. Which explains how so much crap makes the op-ed pages of the paper.

Around six p.m., Yuri V. Ushakov was knocking at our front door. He handed me Thomas Friedman's silk shorty robe and explained that in the missing days, Thomas Friedman had entertained the Russian embassy with humorous tales of a world that was flat, McDonalds as the global equizaler and much more. He did not know, Ushakov said, that the "New York Times" had a humor columnist but now he was very interested in checking out my husband's writing.

It had been a time filled with laughter and vodka, Ushakov informed me, until they had made the mistake of inviting Yegor Gaidar to meet Thomas Friedman. Apparently Gaidar had raised the issue of private properties impact on liberal societies once too often for Thomas Friedman's tastes. The next thing they knew, he was screaming and running stark naked out of the embassy.

At first everyone had laughed because "we love a jolly fat man in my country as much as you do in yours." However, as minutes turned to hours and then a full day, they began to wonder that they might not be dealing with America's print version of Chris Farley and began to worry.

"No, need to worry," I explained after thanking him for returning the shorty robe, "the joke is always Thomas Friedman. Always."

When he sobers up, I intend to ask him what all that talk about Nicky K before he left was about?







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Tuesday, May 09, 2006

The hopping mad Thomas Friedman

My husband Thomas Friedman is hopping mad. He doesn't hop too high, laws of gravity prevent that for a man of his size, but he is hopping mad.

Why? He claims "those damn kids" stole his "don't hand out the car to the kids" thread in one of his recent columns for "Darfur." No, they didn't. I told Thomas Friedman that they wrote in terms of refusing to loan your car to a friend, not from the position of a grouchy old man ending his middle-aged years who wanted to ground his children. There is a difference, it's subtle, unlike Thomas Friedman's latest batch of highlights, but it does exist.

He's been so cranky of late. Attacking the Democrats he never agrees with as well as the Republicans he courted so aggresively it was like watching a love sick Sally Rogers decide that, Pickles be damned, Buddy was a man!

With no one left to root for, he invents notions of third-parties (just none existing today -- as if in two years time, a viable third party can be created and win offices) and continues his employer's hobby of smearing Hugo Chavez. Well why not? The paper's about as diverse as a GOP fundraiser.

That's an issue a real thinker could tackle, but Thomas Friedman isn't interested in real issues.
It's so much more pleasing to toss out psychobabble like "First Law of Petropolitics" which is not a new idea but he's trying to coin a phrase since that's really all he can aspire today.

The public shaming of my husband is no one's fault but his own. And he's gotten downright nasty about Nicky K's Pulitzer win. With Memorial Day on the horizon and me about to be buried in college courses, I suggested that we do a b-b-q for that weekend which he was all for. He had a new pair of pumps he wanted to wear and a thong in red, white and blue. I suggested he might want to save that for the Fourth, which caused him to pout, but he really exploded when I suggested that we invite Nicky and Mrs. K.

Like "the kids," Nicky K just ripped him off. He kept insisting that. Telling me I was too stupid to realize anything, insisting that he had "birthed" all the thinkers of today ("And I've got the hips and stretch marks to prove it, Betinna!") but that he is not given his proper credit. It was part mad genius in a James Bond type film, part Bette Davis in "Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?" and totally disgusting.

"Your ego is on full display in everything you write," I informed him, "but until you learn to put it back in your pants in real life, you're going to find yourself with a lot of 'alone' time."

What did I know, he screamed.

I knew enough, I informed him, to be against the war he cheerleaded.

He pooh-pahed that in a fussy manner, with a ridiculous facial expression that I won't characterize, while insisting that I was a fool because I still trusted Nicky K.

He was pacing around the room, shorty-robe flying in the breeze that motion from a man of his girth creates. (That could solve the energy crisis!)

Finally, he stopped, spun around (like Linda Blair in "The Excorist" -- or maybe I just thought that because he'd spilled split pea soup on his robe two days ago and refused to let me wash it), and hissed, "Saint Nicky! Sweet, innocent Saint Nicky! What do you know, Betinna, you idiot, is that Saint Nicky's the one who found you!"

With that he stormed out.

Nicky K found me? What did he mean by that?

I haven't been able to ask because Thomas Friedman's now been gone for three days in a row. He has a column in print tomorrow so I'm sure he'll show up then, demanding I read it.

If he's still alive. It was rather later when he stormed out and I can imagine what could happen to a portly man with badly frosted hair who was wearing a shorty robe and thong as he stalked the streets of NYC in the dawn hours. I keep checking the TV for a "Dateline" special on a cross-dressing, middle-aged man, found raving in Central Park after a vicious attack.







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Tuesday, May 02, 2006

Thomas Friedman's Trash Dump Psuedo Politics

Next month, I start college and I'm excited but nervous. My husband, Thomas Friedman, says I'm not focusing on him enough. I replied, "Unless you're going down to the drug store and buying the Depends, we ain't playing William Safire and Peggy Noonan."

It's his sex game, let him be the one standing in line with the Depends. I'm tired of the weird looks I get. It's not really even a "sex game" -- or at least not one for two. Thomas Friedman gets off on it but diapering "Willie" does nothing for me.

He kept whining and whining, so finally last week, I said, "Show me one of your columns."

See, I used to read that garbage all the time. But now I'm focused on preparing for college and really don't have the time to read junk/trash. I know he fancies himself a modern day Montesquieu but, let's be honest, there are more philosophical truths in the writings of Erma Bombeck. I made the mistake of saying that out loud and started in with a diatribe about how his "The World Is Flat" is the natural successor to "The Spirit of the Laws."

I interrupted and asked, "You want me to read this or not?"

He shut up. "Gas Pump Geopolitics" was the title.

----------------

No sooner did I finish then he asked, "Well, did you get it?"



"Yes, Rose," I replied. " 'Never let go.' They let you run this crap?"


Jerking the column from my hands, Thomas Friedman huffed, "It is not crap. 'Titanic' was a wonderful movie. And what do you mean, 'Yes, Rose'?"



Kate Winslet he's not. Except maybe in his mind.



But who am I to gripe? If I'd just smiled and said "Wonderful" I could have day dreamed for half an hour while he went on about just how wonderful his writing was. Instead, he was thrusting another column at me.



This one was called "Go West, Old Men." Right away, I had mixed feelings. It would be fun to live on the west coast but I am about to start college. Then I read past the title and saw that Thomas Friedman wasn't speaking about himself. I know! I was surprised to. With his sassy highlights and that ridiculous black turtleneck he insists upon wearing in public, he's a dead ringer for Bea Arthur. But make a joke about "The Golden Girls" and watch him blow his top.


"Black is slimming, Betinna," he whines.



White boy's lecturing me about Black?



"And it's very Bo-ho, I'm like Marilyn Monroe at the Actors' Studio or Audrey Hepburn in 'Funny Face!' "



I guess he's been brushing up on his 'motivation.' That would explain the added 'drama' in the column. Such as this statement:




It was surely no accident that President Hu made his first stop in the U.S. in Washington State -- not Washington, D.C. -- to dine with Bill Gates, who gave him the "state dinner" that the Bush White House refused to extend.



"It was surely no accident"? Doesn't saying "It was no accident" make the same point? He's like a starlet determined never to roll on a bed half-naked again. I suspect it won't be long before he's wearing his glasses in public to look like an intellectual. In his final paragraph, he asks, "Why waste the gas?" That's a question I can get behind and wish he'd ask it of himself each time he thinks he needs to write another column.



I had a party planned. Really more of a gathering. And seeing that it was almost time for that to begin, I pretended to like the column to avoid him pulling out his notebook full of laminated "Best Of Thomas Friedman" columns. (If you guessed the notebook contains every column he's ever written, you'd be guessing right. Well, every writer needs at least one fan, right?)



"You really think it was wonderful?" he asked. "Which parts? I think I was most 'on' in the third paragraph. 'On' throughout, but I'm really impressed with that third paragraph. That's not to take anything away from paragraphs four or five, which are also quite impressive . . ."



"Uh-huh," I added every few seconds to make him think I was listening and, most important, agreeing as I set out trays of snacks.



I caught something about "sense-memory," on the third trip from the kitchen and figured A&E must have aired a bio on Marilyn this month.



The doorbell rang and pretty soon, there was Wally, Rebecca, Jess, Ty, Cedric, Elaine, Mike & Nina, Kat, Ava and C.I. Trina came in with some wonderful dishes.



So we spent the evening listening to music and discussing a number of topics. Primarily what to do about a certain situation in a certain nation.




Most of the evening, Thomas Friedman spent with his back turned to everyone.


Wally pointed to Thomas Friedman and asked me if he was having trouble with his bowel movements?


No, I explained that Thomas Friedman was merely trying to flex his buttucks because he's convinced Wally thinks he's attractive. All the straining and grunting came from the fact that the butt is pure flab.



"Ignore him," I advised, "life's so much nicer when you do."



Which is pretty much what we did even when he asked Wally if he wanted to feel his "quads." Bored, he offered to let people do canned cheese shots off his body.



"Any takers? No? Wally? No? Oh. Okay."



As soon as everyone left, he trashed them all. Ava and C.I. were nothing but TV critics, he said haughtily. Elaine was a bad influence me, he declared.



As I rinsed off the trays, I told him it was too bad he felt that way because I'd be joining them all for the big march Saturday, April 29th.



"So! So!" he screamed. "You're all so boring! Even Wally thought so. You all intimidate that poor farm boy. He wanted to feel my quads but the way you all rolled your eyes, he decided not to."



"Yeah, that's it," I said turning off the faucet.



Walking past him, I headed for the bedroom.



I woke up a few hours later and he wasn't in bed. Thinking he might be brooding and do something foolish, like last week when he attempted suicide by injesting a box full of laxitives (which, if you think about it, really was an "inner" suicide for him), I grabbed my robe, non-shorty robe, and walked through the apartment.



He was at the computer. I started to head back to the bedroom when I realized that wasn't a fake nude of Zach or Slater or any of the "Saved By the Bell" boys he usually looks at, it was text. Reading over his shoulder, I saw: "Here's The Plan The World Needs."



"Thomas Friedman, you are not stealing their idea!" I snapped causing him to lurch in his chair, fall and hit the ground with a mighty thud.



He was about to argue when he must have seen how serious I was. Since he has only two speeds and argue was eliminated, he fell back on whine.



"Please, please," he cried sounding like an adenoidal teenager. "It would really chafe Nicky's K rear if I got this into print! You have no idea how prissy he's been since he won the Pulitzer! John Tierney told me he's insisted that the paper furnish him with a padded toilet seat and his own stall. They're calling it 'Nicky's Throne!' "



He begged. He pleaded. He said if he'd stolen "Should This Marriage Be Saved?" two years ago, he would be considered "the prophet of the paper!"



"As opposed to?" I asked.



"The blonde bombshell that I am," he replied full of defiance.



"Well, you can't be a blonde bombshell and smart," I said turning off the computer and walking out of the room.



"Jayne Mansfield was!" he hollered rushing after me. "She had a genius I.Q.!"



So far, he's avoided the topic. But he refuses to let me see his column for tomorrow so I am suspicious. Trash Dump Psuedo Politics is all that Thomas Friedman has to offer and even that's no longer cutting it. I'm concerned that all the attention Kaavya Viswanathan has recently received may be giving Thomas Friedman the wrong ideas.



















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Tuesday, April 25, 2006

Thomas Friedman is the Meanest Generation

Yesterday, we had friends over. Or rather, I had friends over. Thomas Friedman appears to have burned every bridge and tunnel he had. (Bridge and tunnel? I've ghost written too many columns for my husband.) Jane Fonda was going to be the guest on Cover to Cover with Denny Smithson and we would listen at six p.m. and then have dinner.

I think it was probably an interesting interview. I can't tell you that it was because neither I nor my guests could hear most of it. That was due to Thomas Friedman continuing his grudge against Jane Fonda.

"Why doesn't Danny interview me!"

He meant Denny.

"I'm twice as interesting. He wants protest? When I was removed as class treasurer, they accused me of taking the missing funds! Me!, I staged a protest. It lasted two weeks. They reinstated me. They said, 'Friedman, anything to stop the whining and tears.' But that was just there way of saving face!"

Saving face?

I called Mrs. K last Thursday to see how she was handling the news about Nicky K's Pulitzer win. She was thrilled. We spoke about how great it was for Nicky and then, near the end of the conversation, she raised an issue.

Someone had been leaving nasty notes on Nicky K's desk.

"Death to Kristof!" read one. "You are nothing! You will die a nothing! I am rooting for your death! In death, you may remember who your friends were and who the smiley faces who rooted for your crash-burn-smoke were!"

Uh-oh.

"It's just so strange, Betinna," Mrs. K said. "I mean, the win's good for everyone at the paper. It's free publicity and all."

"Uh-huh," I replied, sweating bullets ("and grenades," if I wanted to write like Thomas Friedman).

"You don't know anything about it, do you? I keep trying to figure out who would leave such things."

"No, this is the first I've heard of it," I said honestly.

"It's just so strange. And they're on 'Saved By The Bell' stationary."

Did she know.

"Oh, gotta' go," I said nervously. "Something's about to burn in the oven."

"Sure," Mrs. K said. "By the way, they had smears on them, the notes did."

She knew. She knew.

"It appeared to be some form of cheese."

Damn him and his fanny pack! He carried that canned cheese everywhere.

"Oh, I see smoke, gotta' run," I said nervously.

"Betinna, Nicky and I both know that Thomas has been leaving the notes."

Busted.

I apologized, explained that Thomas Friedman was . . . well Thomas Friedman. And that they weren't threats, just "wishes."

She made it clear that she didn't blame me but that before she and Nicky would visit again, Thomas Friedman would have to apologize. An occurence as rare as him airing out his shorty robe.

Which he wore to my party. Jelly stains and all. His consolation to me, what passes for dressing for company in his mind, was to wear mesh boxers instead of a g-string. I know he thinks he's hot, but looking at him, I was reminded of the song in "Pillow Talk" that goes, "He's a rolly-polly . . ."

But how could I be embarrassed by what he was wearing? I was too busy being shamed by what he was saying.

He was full of bluster about his column from last Friday, "The Greenest Generation." He cornered Jess and asked if he'd read it? Jess made the mistake of saying "no." Honesty is never always the last policy with Thomas Friedman. He whipped a copy out of his shorty robe and insisted that Jess read it then and there.

Jess did so and handed it back silently.

Thomas Friedman wasn't going for that. Like Gail Collins mooning over Davy Brooks, Thomas Friedman feels that a compliment and himself must be merged. I could see the car speeding up the ramp, headed for the highway and the 16 wheeler that wasn't going to yield.

"Smell the C20?" Jess asked. "I guess you thought it was funny."

"It was funny!" Thomas Friedman yelled with so much rage that his body shook sending tiny ripples through both his shorty robe and his ass fat.

Jess joined Rebecca, Elaine and Cedric at the table I'd set up buffet style and Thomas Friedman turned bright red.

The doorbell rang and I was thinking, "Saved by the Bell!"

Then, remembering those pictures of Screech and Slater that Thomas Friedman keeps under his pillow, I wiped that thought from my brain. He's taken a photo of Screech with his mouth open and one of Slater standing to make it look as though Screech is before Slater's crouch with his mouth open. When I found it, he was humilated and pouted for a good half hour before assuring me that it was an art project he was working on, a collage when it was completed, and attempted to turn the topic to Gail Collins whose new office nickname is "Ecquine."

I opened the door and there was our new neighbor Wally. I was just about to warn him to stay away from my husband, the second-rate, if not third, Thomas Friedman when suddenly he was upon us, squirting canned cheese in his mouth and extending a hand.

"You read?" Thomas Friedman said through a mouth filled with cheese.

"Lou Reed's here?" Wally asked.

"No," I explained, "he's asking if you read -- and he means his column,"

Wally looked the portly vision, clad in silk shorty robe, up and down before asking if Thomas Friedman wrote for some gay weekly out of Key West?

"The New York Times," Thomas Friedman replied.

"Oh, I hate that rag. Nothing but distortions on battles, distortions on Iraq and war pornography?"

I expected Thomas Friedman to explode but, for once, he surprised me. Which surprised me as well because I feel like I've logged enough miles with Friedman to be an expert and able to point out all the histrionic markers as well as points of intensity.

"See, I do dress snazzy," Thomas Friedman said to me, "He thinks I'm gay. Everyone knows gay men are the best dressers."

"Yeah," I said grabbing Wally's arm and leading him into the apartment, "you're right up there with the Village People."

"They were not gay, Betinna!" Thomas Friedman erupted. "They were not gay!"

Thomas Friedman got over his outrage quickly and was soon sling sass and his ass as he strutted around the room.

Pointing to Wally, Thomas Friedman told everyone, "He wants to Brokeback my Mountain!"

Which was followed, always with, "How about you?"

What initially was greeted with curious stares and the occasional polite laughter (it was a joke, wasn't it?) quickly became a never ending embarrassing moment.

I felt as though I were six inches tall and wished I could hop into his fanny pack, zip it up and disappear.

But I couldn't and, apparently, he couldn't stop shoving his column at people.

We'd missed most of Jane Fonda's interview and I was getting ticked off.

By the time he'd cornered Rebecca and was reading his column, aloud, to her, I'd had enough.

"Thomas Friedman, you have destroyed my party!" I yelled.

He attempted to ignore me and continue reading while Rebecca had that "What Am I? An Asshole Magnet?" look on her face.

"No one wants to read your lazy ass column!" I shouted across the room. "No one cares what you think and they certainly don't care for your shoving your own responsibility off on college students. Save the eco-system? Why don't you think about what you can do instead of telling colleges what to do? Or is this like every other column and our life, or lack of it, in the bedroom? When there's something that needs to be done, you'll just wait to see if anyone else will."

"How dare you!" Thomas Friedman screamed. Tearing himself away from Rebecca's cleavage, he faced me.

"I am a sensitive man! I am touchy-feely! I am a kind hearted soul! That's why, next year, it will be me and not Nicky the K winning the Pulitzer!"

"Not, if you keep writing this crap!" I shot back. "What's up with telling colleges what to do? Have you told the Times how they could be more energy effcient? No. You just want to push the burden off on others yet again."

He called me a few unmentionable names, insisted he was the most sensitive, most caring man alive and turned on Cedric for eating a Ritz Cracker.

"Mine!" he hollered, grabbing the roll of crackers and storming off to the bedroom.

"Was that a floor show or a freak show?" Cedric wondered.

Me? I don't wonder. Every day living with The Meanest Generation is a freak show.















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Thursday, April 20, 2006

When friends are awarded, Thomas Friedman goes fugue

It was shaping up to be a peaceful period. I'm nervous about starting classes in June so I've already bought my books and started reading one, Iraq: The Logic of Withdrawal, which is wonderful. I've been reading a little, stopping to think. All that went out the window when my husband Thomas Friedman had a crying jag/fugue state that was so bad, I had to write a few of the columns.

That, itself, wasn't a problem. All I had to do was sit at the computer and ask myself, "WWID?"
(What Would Idiot Do?) I got to work in a reference to Riverbend of Baghad Burning. Otherwise, I just acted the stooge. (P.S. Even Gail Collins didn't notice that Thomas Friedman wasn't writing the columns.)

What caused the fugue? What caused my pleasant ride to screech to a halt?

At first I thought he might have ripped his silk shorty robe. He'd tossed it to the floor and collapsed next to it. I picked it up. It was dirty but otherwise, no problem. Okay, it was going to be hard getting the foundation off the neck. When did he start wearing foundation?

I asked myself that and then remembered the Friday night he spent peering the mirror examing his pores and not-so-fine lines. All that thinking must have tired him out because he stumbled to the bed and fell asleep face down. Since then, he sneaks a little on here and there. When Showtime aired "Liza With A Z!", he was in evening make up including mascara. He complained it was hard to hear "Miss M." over my laughing.

So it wasn't the shorty robe. Had we run out of canned cheese and Ritz crackers? No, that couldn't be it. The pantry was stocked with both. Had someone gotten possed on "Passions"? He's obsessed with that show lately. You can't call it a soap opera because he claims it has "global implications." He's obsessed with Whitney and the monk and torn over Sherridan's choice of Chris instead of Luis. Sounds like a soap opera to me.

So he's flat on the floor and I point out that if he were really hurting he would be curled into a ball.

He opens one eye and glares at me.

Then he snaps, "Like a ball? Like a globe? "The World Is Flat," Betinna, flat!"

Even at high drama, he has to plug his crappy book.

Bored, I sit on the couch and turn from "Saved By The Bell" which causes him to struggle to get up from the floor. When you're soft, flabby and large, it's not easy to go from prone to upright. It is, however, amusing to watch.

Thomas Friedman blamed it on his hot pink thong which he claimed was riding up.

Turning back to Screech and Slater, Thomas Friedman told me that the worst thing in the world had just happened.

"Oh my God," I think out loud, "we just nuked Iran."

"Worse, Betinna, far worse."

I'm trying not to picture doomsday scenarios and remember that this might have to do with his soap opera -- like Sherridan finally made a decision and stuck to it -- when he blurts it out.

"Nicky won the Pulitzer!"

"Well, good for him."

"Betinna, you are not grasping the situation. He won!"

"I'll call his wife and we'll have them over for dinner. But you are wearing more than a thong and short robe, no one needs your full moon every time you bend over in the middle of dinner."

He grabs me roughly by the shoulders and presses his face into mine. He's so close I can see the bags under his eyes that the foundation doesn't cover. I'm smelling the canned cheese on his breath and wondering if I need to give him make up lessons.

Hygene never took but maybe make up lessons will?

"He won! That means I lost!"

"Oh, Thomas Friedman," I sigh. "It's not a competition."

"It is! It is! It's a competion and I lost!"

Then he collapses to the floor for real, curls into a ball and doesn't speak for days.

Those were some of the best days of my life.

Then, Tuesday night, he snapped out of it.

He sprung from the floor with a speed and agility not characteristic of his girth.

Immediately, he began spinning a yarn of how he had lobbied the Pulitizer committee on Nicky K's behalf. He felt it was the least he could do for his protege. As his fantasy world unfolded, I started thinking, "My life is a really bad soap opera. With no sex and no hot guys taking off their shirts. Just a fat ass with both cheeks flapping in the wind, curtain cheeks that drape all over everything."

He sat down to write his column for Thursday (without thanking me for covering for him).
But nothing came. I figured this was like when we are bed and I know how that limp story ends, so I headed to the bedroom and went to sleep.

I awoke the next morning to find him in full crisis mode. He was puffing away on an unlit cigarette. A 100 so he wasn't exactly butching it up.

I could tell he'd been crying from the mascara patterns that had dried on his face. Very Tammy Faye despite what he was saying.

"I've come to a conclusion, Betinna. The world doesn't like manly men!" he shrieked, pacing back and forth, shorty robe flying in the wind.

"The world has turned agains the Bully Boy and now me!" he continued.

I tried picturing the two "manly men" in a mano-mano fight but all I could picture was him getting to third base with Bully Boy and I loathe Bully Boy but . . . I mean Thomas Friedman is kind of like the death penalty -- you don't wish him on your worst enemy.

This hatred of manly men was all the doing of the nonstop critiques by the likes of Gloria Steinem and two TV critics named Ava and C.I. It was a plot to destroy the last of the manly men, Thomas Friedman.

Well he would not be destroyed! No, he would beat them at their game. They wanted wimpy? He'd give them that. On the last point, we were finally in agreement. Which led to Thursday's column which is kind of anti-war in a sort of cover your own ass way -- which may be the only way he can write. Fine, but if he's going to cover his own ass in print, who's stopping him from doing the same in real life? (I know I'm not.)

Having finished it, all was good in the world again and he was ready for me to play Peggy Noonan (I hate the wig!) and him to play William Safire. I spent about two hours diapering him and rediapering him.

And that has been pretty much the last few days. If William Safire requires Depends, if -- big if, I find it hard to believe he'd greet Noonan with, "Peggy, Willie made boom-boom. Change my nappy." But every time I turned around, that's what I heard. That and how his no-war-on-Iran made him the sensitive type (among the neocons?) and he just knew the Pulitzer committee would now pull Nicky K's award and give it to "the great Thomas Friedman."

I'm waiting for the explosion that's sure to follow when another of his fantasies implodes. It won't be pretty. Things seldom are with Thomas Friedman.






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