"I am big. It's the pictures that got small."
-- NORMA DESMOND, Sunset Boulevard
Welcome to America 2009. Like it or not, we're on the verge of becoming the Norma Desmond of countries.
We've been living large for so long, and the bills are coming due. We've got our Hummers in the garages of our McMansions, and the kid from Domino's is about to deliver the 2-for-1 pizza special so that our chubby little kids can get even chubbier.
Where do we go from here? The CEO of General Motors basically got fired this week because he's the guy who took GM out of the electric car business in 1999 and put it into the Hummer business in 2001.
All together now -- "Americans don't like small cars."
That's true, but is it true because we like to live too large or because we are too large? Don't answer yet.
The 25-year-old son of a friend of mine is in the hospital right now -- without insurance -- basically because he caught a virus and the fact that he was about a hundred pounds overweight exacerbated its effects on him.
I don't want to be critical, but a 25-year-old kid who's 5-foot-10 should never weigh 290 pounds. I know he's working on it, and more power to him, but my son's friend is hardly the fattest kid in America. What's really terrible is that there are real kids -- 10, 11, 12 years old -- who look like they're mainlining Ho Hos.
If you're a family man with a wife and 2.3 kids, it's tough to fit them into a small car.
What drives me crazy is that we can't get any honesty from the folks who are leading us. There are basically two things everyone running for office -- left, right or middle -- are required to say. One is "God bless America" and the other is that America's best days are still ahead of us.
Now I'm not saying they're not.
I'm not that pessimistic. But what if, at the least, we have to adjust to a world of lower consumption, a world where we don't always supersize every order and where living in a smaller house or driving a smaller car might be more sensible.
Maybe we don't need to be quite so big.
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7 comments:
Not that it matters, but how heavy are you?
It's easy to say "downsize" when you're small person. But put yourself in the body and mind of someone who is NATURALLY large.
I'm a woman who's constantly criticized by friends for being large.
I'm six feet tall and I weigh 170 pounds.
I was a former competitive swimmer (and I still swim three times a week for exercise), but I'm simply (and naturally -- no steroids) large.
My father is 6-foot-seven and my mom and 5-foot eleven.
It's in my genes.
My brothers are 6-foot-11, 6-foot-9 and seven-foot-tall
They weigh around 300 pounds. Two are football players in college and the other one is a power forward for top college team.
All are in splendid shape and at least one may become a professional athlete.
My father's been driving a minivan -- an extended version -- ever since they came out.
No one's fat in our family. We're all big NATURALLY.
How can you condemn us with example sof lard asses who eat too much?
WE neededa large vehicle for the past 15 years and my brothers could never fit in a sports car or a compact car.
I find it difficult to drive my Acura.
I think just because you're comfortably small, you're passing judgment on the rest of us.
Large is NOT necessarily bad.
CINDY W.
Cindy, you couldn't be more wrong. I have become one of those lard-asses myself.
I'm near the beginning of a diet and exercise regimen, but I'm 5-10 and weigh 270 right now.
Some LARGE is terrible.
Maybe you're too close to the firest to see the trees.
maybe you're a little biased BECAUSE you're struggling with a personal weight issue.
I can say that.
I was more than 300 pounds.
Today, I am 186 pounds (and I'm 5-foot-11). It took the better part of three years of concerted effort, eating a regimented diet, and changing my sedentary lifestyle.
But I finally arrived at a good weight.
And I'm doing all I can to stay here.
When I was obese, I was a Democrat whose policies ran middle-of-the-road to liberal.
Today, I find myself steering in the opposite direction.
Granted, I'm no neo-con, but taking responsibility for my life and my choices (and not blaming others or consoling myself with food and drink) changed me.
I stopped indulging my guilt.
I started seeing that everyone -- particularly people over the age of 21 -- are totally and completely responsible for their choices in life.
They may not be responsible for their circumstances. Life is not fair. Some people are born rich. Others are born healthy, while millions are poor or suffer terrible illnesses.
the changing point, that tipping point, for me was a poor black woman who never blamed anyone for her "lot in life" (as that old expression goes) and who challenged me to to "grow up."
She was politically neutral -- telling me that everyone in politics was in it for themselves first and causes second.
She was a small, thin woman with piercing black eyes and bore into my soul.
She told me that the best thing that everyone could do was to try to be the best person each could be -- and not to expect much if anything from anyone else, but instead to rely on God and believe the best.
At first, I dismissed her.
But since she lived nearby in a "project" home, we inevitably ran across one another.
And she never avoided the opportunity to challenge me.
"You big old fat boy.." she would begin to say when we'd be standing in the check-out line at the grocery store. "Are you really going to eat of that food?"
When I smiled and tried to ignore her, she'd nudge me and say, "You know, you could feed a small village with all that food."
When I'd be passing out literature for Obama during his campaign, she'd challenge me, "What's some old fat boy know about politics any way?"
She was a real pain-in-the-backside.
But, she'd always smile and invite me over for dinner at her apartment.
One day, for reasons I don't understand, I took up her invitation.
I was petrified with fear when the day arrived, and I parked in her part of the "neighborhood."
When I knocked on her door, she was gracious and let me in, smiling the whole while.
Over a modest dinner, she quietly and politely asked me questions about my life: where I had been born, my family, my job, etc.
Toward the end of the evening, she took my hand, looked me in the eyes and told me I was confused. She said despite outward appearances, most people were basically the same, and that fear and anger often caused them to choose their jobs, their spouses, and their politics.
She told me I was angry and afraid.
Patting my hand, she told me I didn't have to be that way.
A new life was possible.
She was right.
Today, I see things much more clearly.
I no longer feel afraid. I no longer feel angry.
I hold myself and others accountable for their speech and their actions -- and I feel free and happier than I ever imagined.
Mike, you right a great deal about many issues, but I have often thought of you as angry and afraid, and that those two emotions color everything you write, perhaps even the way you think.
Now that i learn that you are exactly where I was, I can tell you this -- there is hope.
It's not just in losing weight, but in being willing to shed your preconceptions, biases, and prejudices.
You seem to hold bad feelings about losing your job. You seem to hate Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity. You chastise society and folks you don't like on a regular basis.
(Sometimes, to be fair, you write eloquently about love, mercy, and human frailties.)
But more often that not, when i read your blog, as I have for more than a year since my nephew showed me your website, I see and hear myself BEFORE I was "reborn."
I'm not going to proseltize you.
You don't need that.
You need a big kick in the pants to get busy being born or busy dying, as Bob Dylan sang.
I'd like to see you get busy being born.
You are a comnpelling writer, but one who seems to be caight up with persona; demons.
There are ways out.
There is hope.
i wish you well with your weight loss program, and I hope you're seeing a good doctor.
You may be surprised at what else changes besides your waistline as the pounds drop off.
You may discover what you're afraid of and the source of your anger.
if so, deal with them, and move on. Life is too short, too precious, to waste one more moment struggling with problems that can never be changed. Only your response can change.
Only you can change.
I think by accident you offended CINDY W.
Big is beautiful if that's WHO you are.
If that's not who you are or wish to be, then don't condemn BIG, change it.
Grow lean and wise.
You're not a "lardass."
You're just another guy who's lost his way.
If you admit that, you might just find you will discover a new way and a new life filled with new hope.
That's what i wish, hope, and pray for you.
JIM O.
What a long rant.
And to what end?
Touchy-feely issues.
Who cares?
Fat or thin?
What's the issue?
That last blog was like a soap opera. What's the point?
Mike, be smart and be responsible.
Lose weight.
It's the only sane and healthy thing to do.
End of discussion.
FRUSTRATED IN ORANGE COUNTY
" ... what if, at the least, we have to adjust to a world of lower consumption, a world where we don't always supersize every order and where living in a smaller house or driving a smaller car might be more sensible."
Never going to happen.
P.K.
Love it or leave it, comrade.
Obama's a jerk.
We don't need France or Germany. they need us.
They play by our rules or we don't play.
It's hardball.
We don't need wimps right now.
Go on, develop alternate fuels, discover oil under North Dakota and develop it.
Let's become energy efficient and energy independent.
But laying down for third-rate European powers or bozos like that socialist nut in Venezuela -- come on!
When you carry the biggest stick, sometimes you have to use it.
Damn. If we had fought Viet Nam as we fought in WWII, we would've pulverized that commie regime.
But we were too worried about our international reputation.
i say, F**K it!
We go it alone if those whining little bastards don't like it.
They need us a hell of lot more than we need need them.
And Mike, stop whining.
You encourage these freaks who respond to you.
There's the former 300-pound tubby who wants to "love" you back to a normal weight.
Hey man, eat less, exercise more and you'll lose weight.
Go see your doctor. He'll give you a diet and an exercise program. Just don't whine about it.
Most of the blog responses here (and elsewhere, to be fair) are whiners or butch wannabees.
Real men, real women don't aplogize for who they are.
If they screw up, THEN they apologize.
I don't want the U.S. apologizing for anything to do with Iraq.
Hussein is gone and so are most of the bozos who led that country into the dark ages.
We did the job.
Maybe now's the time to leave and tell those bastards over there to grow yup and stand up for themselves.
Freakish murderers never listen to reason. There's only one solution -- you cock the hammer and pull the trigger and put them out of their misery and our collective agony.
Some people just don't deserve to live. they make life miserable or unbearable for others.
If the Iraqia want us out, then don't let the door hit our asses on the way out.
You've got to stop whining and rolling over.
And those greedy bastards on Wall Street and in the banks and insurance companies and government, screw them all.
Pull them all in Attica, and let their collective asses rot there.
It's time to stop lamenting our problems and to start solving them.
Lead, follow, or get the hell out of the way so someone who will lead can do so.
Eddie in Pacoima
"We've been living large for so long, and the bills are coming due. We've got our Hummers in the garages of our McMansions, and the kid from Domino's is about to deliver the 2-for-1 pizza special so that our chubby little kids can get even chubbier."
Yeah. Like you know where we all are wrong.
Are you always this insufferably arrogant, or did you simply get up on the wrong side of the couch and waddle in to your office pissed at the world?
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