Kamala Moves Along

Kamala Harris celebrated her sixtieth birthday today.

Her presidential campaign looks better now than it did a few weeks ago, now that she's done more media - including a pivotal appearance on Fox News - while Donald Trump is talking about Arnold Palmer's private parts and trying to show what a good short-order cook he is.   

One advantage Harris should have going into the the final sixteen days is experience.  Not hers - Trump's.  Hillary Clinton could do no more than warn voters in 2016 what a Trump Presidency could be like, but Harris has the advantage of reminding us of what a Trump Presidency was like.  And it wasn't pretty.  Add to that the fact that Trump has not promised but threatened what to do in a second term and it makes perfect sense for the once-joyous Harris-Walz campaign is reminding us just how dangerous Trump really is.

We'll see what happens. 

Nastasia Urbano at Sixty

Remember two years ago how I told all of you how one of my friends in the modeling profession, Spain's Nastasia Urbano, was homeless on the streets of Barcelona and needed six thousand euros (US$6,738.92 at the time) to get back on her feet?  And you, as well as many others responded by donating the money?  Well, you're probably wondering whatever became of her.

Well, why don't I show you? 😊

This is Nastasia this past Wednesday, celebrating her sixtieth birthday with family and friends, looking happy, healthy, and beautiful (she grew her hair back from a crew cut), appreciating the blessing of her good fortune and in the company of the ones who love her.

I, of course, love her as well, and while I can't go to Spain or anywhere else these days (a point that I am constantly and insufferably reminded of), I would given almost anything to be there.  But I'm happy to know that Nastasia is doing well, and it's all because of you and people like you, as well as yours truly.

At a time when the world is going wrong in too many ways to count, it's nice to relay good news for a change. 😊

Barack Obama at Sixty

I don't think I can do justice to assessing former President Barack Obama's importance to America as he celebrates his sixtieth birthday today. Commentators with a literary superiority that I can never hope to attain, like Peniel Joseph, are better at that.  And, in fact, I think this one sentence from Joseph's essay about Obama on CNN's Web site sums it up: "Barack Obama's enduring power is his ability to allow us to imagine ourselves as a better country, society and people."

Obama's political legacy is problematic to assess, since most of it got wiped out by Donald Trump and President Biden is currently spending a lot of time trying to rebuild it.  But his cultural legacy is much easier to define, and Joseph's comment allows us to recall how Obama, as President and as an elder statesman, holds a mirror up to us and enables us to see what we Americans could be as opposed to what we have been and what we are. America was able to see itself as a decent country because of the grace, tolerance, and prudence Obama displayed as President, and he continues to project that sense of decency in his post-presidential work in trying to lift people up and make people more aware of the challenges we face.   Good thing, since America was not the decent country we imagine - nay, fantasize - ourselves being in not just Trump's time in the White House but in the seventeen months between Donald Trump's announcement of his presidential candidacy and the day he "upset" Hillary Clinton.  (And by the way, that upset was no surprise to those of us who knew that giving Hillary the Democratic presidential nomination was a big mistake.)  The 2016 campaign brought to the fore not just our political divisions but our cultural tribalism and our social vulgarity, and Obama's wisdom was the only thing that held us together . . . until January 20, 2017.

Four years, one pandemic, one insurrection and several voting-registration laws later, we need Obama's wisdom and guidance more than ever because, as someone who broke barriers and set new standards for American greatness (sorry, MAGA guys) even while continuing to speak out for brotherhood and social justice, Barack Obama is still an important contributor to our national discourse.

Kim Alexis: Love Isn't a Mystery

How do I love Kim Alexis?  Let me count the ways . . .

The top fashion and cosmetics model from the 1980s that teenage girls wanted to be like and teenage boys wanted to be with turns sixty years old today, and the very mention of her name conjures up images of glamour, elegance, beauty, and sex appeal.  It also brings back memories of how enchanted and entranced males of my generation were by her when we were in high school and college.  She was the perfect woman in our eyes, and she brightened up our lives with her very presence on magazine covers. 

Of course, we would always sigh if we caught a glimpse of her smiling face looking back at us from the cover of a beauty magazine in the supermarket racks (such as above, which is taken from the cover of an issue of Glamour), but as we were of the wrong sex to be seen thumbing through Glamour or Mademoiselle, we would be rewarded every February with the annual Sports Illustrated Swimsuit issue, in which Kim Alexis was featured in the magazine and sometimes on the cover as well.  

Okay, the annual Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue is misogynistic, it exploits exotic Third World locations, and most of the swimsuits the models wore in them wouldn't be suitable for aquatic competition.  But,as I've said before Kim Alexis is an accomplished athlete, and she could have been a champion swimmer in her own right.

I valued her appearances on talk shows.  They were one of the few moments where she was a living, breathing woman, and not a static photograph.  Like the guys at the bar in the series finale of "Cheers," who planned their entire day around watching an awards show when they knew that Kim Alexis would be one of the presenters, I always set my VCR every time she'd be on a late-night talk show I couldn't stay up late to see, like David Letterman's old NBC show.   Heck, even her TV commercials were entertaining.  And whenever you did hear her speak, you always got the impression that she wasn't playing a role or projecting an image.  She was the real deal.

And she remains the real deal today.  Still beautiful after three score years, she is a zealous health fanatic, a devout Christian, a patriotic American, and an accomplished blog writer.  And however nice she appears on television, she is so much nicer in person.  I ought to know.  Remember, as I wrote about when it happened, I met Kim Alexis back in 2016!

This is me with Kim Alexis at a photographic exhibition in New York in September 2016 in what was a heady week for me.  (The following day I took part in a press conference with another living legend, astronaut Buzz Aldrin, when a school in  his hometown of Montclair, New Jersey was named for him.)  Stan Wan, the fashion photographer whose work was being exhibited, took the picture.   I know I showed this picture before, but of course, on this festive occasion of her milestone birthday, I can't  help but show it again . . . if only to bask in the warm memory of a dream come true . . . meeting the most stunning blonde supermodel of the eighties.

I haven't crossed paths with Kim Alexis since then, but maybe I will again, once this damn pandemic is over and I can join my model friends for another get-together.  But for now, I can only offer this lovely and incredible woman from afar (she lives in Arizona) my best wishes for this day.  Happy birthday, Kim, and many more. :-)

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P.S.  My sister owned a copy of Kim Alexis's workout videocassette, which only goes to show that my sister wanted to be like Kim Alexis as much as I wanted to be with Kim Alexis.  So I guess the Maginnis siblings were typical of the times. :-) (I actually found that video in the house; I still hope to transfer it to videodisc and send it to Kim Alexis, whom I'm friends with on Facebook.)

The Boss At Sixty

What is it about Bruce Springsteen, who turns sixty today, that keeps people coming back for more?

It's likely the way he's been able to articulate our hopes and desires, along with our disillusionment and worries, so well. He's always had and uncanny ability to turn desolation into some kind of dramatic grandeur and find majesty in the smallest positive gestures.

It helps that Springsteen is from New Jersey. As a resident of a state with everything from romanticized seashore towns and expansive pine forests to ruined cities and horrific chemical refinery scenes, a state neither rural nor urban, with wealthy townscapes and working-class neighborhoods, Springsteen has seen the best and worst of America, in all its messy diversity. He's seen it along this long, narrow corridor between the Delaware River and the Atlantic Ocean and he's been able to put it in a context that anyone can understand. Springsteen's America is our America, and vice versa. And it's New Jersey. Even if you've never been to New Jersey, you can learn a great deal about this state simply by listening to Springsteen.

Only Bob Seger, who's had more worldly experience than the Boss - Seger actually worked in a factory - rivals him as the all-American rock and roller. But while Seger has advantages over Springsteen, the Boss has his own personality and his own mystique that lends a quality to his music that no one can match. maybe that's why Springsteen felt a need to musically respond to 9/11 . . . and responded.

So what's my favorite Springsteen album? Nebraska, perhaps, because it's such a deeply personal album, with an intimacy that illuminates loneliness to an art form. Born In the U.S.A. always sounded bombastic to me, though I can listen to Greetings From Asbury Park, N.J. and Born To Run repeatedly.