Re-Markle-Bull $#*!

This is a post that I started over a month ago, but got distracted by life so it didn't finish in the intended time frame. The recent verdict that went against Prince Harry and this subsequent statement issued by his office, along with a few other developments with the Royal Family convinced me to revisit and finally publish this piece. 

I haven't written about Meghan Markle in a minute. I was content to let that woman live her best life in peace because other than a few concert sightings and public appearances at the Invictus Games with her Prince, she wasn't doing anything to draw unnecessary attention to herself. That includes starring in a new show on Netflix that premiered in March. I was all set to ignore it until y'all started complaining.

So I accept the challenge, because dagnabbit, I need to know why y'all can't leave well enough alone! Then I realized that since January and the return of the Troll King, there haven't been any Black women in the public eye other than Rep. Jasmine Crockett to draw your ire, so it looks like Duchess Meghan is the volunteer tribute...

Y'all are upset that she has a job? 

Or is it that she's getting paid to do what so many of us do every day for free, and that just doesn't seem right because she's a princess...duchess...still married to a Royal? Because stay at homemaking has always been a thankless, under-appreciated form of devalued labor; however, now that affluent women are embracing it as a form of "soft living" they can brag about, it has become a glamorous trend that they get paid for...

For the sake of argument, yes, it is crazy once you realize that an actual princess is being paid big money to appear to be happily doing the kind of work she could have had servants perform. Isn't the dream of becoming a princess to have somebody else do all of your chores? Alas, she left that life behind in merry olde England, so instead of having servants, here in America she has staff and their job is to make it look like she enjoys doing all of her own cooking and bee-keeping. It's like code-switching accents: potāyto-potăhto...

When you really think about it, her show is just another celebrity cooking show. Singer Trisha Yearwood had a show for 16 seasons as did actress Valerie Bertinelli for 14 seasons. Other celebrities who had shorter runs include Tia Mowry, Haylie Duff, Tiffani Theissen, and Rev. Run (of Run DMC). Heck, not too long ago, Snoop Dogg and Martha Stewart hosted a potluck dinner party show on Vh1. Other than being shocked that Snoop and Martha weren't pranking us, I don't recall any of those other efforts getting this much negative attention. Therefore, if you were ever bored/sick/curious enough to watch any of those other shows, then it doesn't make sense to dissect Markle's show for its lack of authenticity, unless you're a bona fide hater. 

On a whim, I googled Gwyneth Paltrow because I couldn't remember if the name of her lifestyle website, Goop, was the same as the skincare company, and yes the same entity. I guess others responded to a similar vibe because the comparison searches popped up immediately. Only, I was initially looking for that infamous vagina candle to point out how celebrities are always selling unattainable lifestyle "luxury" items, such as handbags, jewelry, and other symbols of conspicuous consumption. Look at any glossy magazine photo spread to see what I mean (e.g. Paltrow featured throughout this Vanity Fair piece). I was amazed to learn that not only have y'all been actively comparing these two women, but Lady Gwyneth Kate Paltrow was declared more relatable?!

Can we take a moment (but not ten minutes like this video I watched, so you needn't bother), to state for the record that someone actually posted on Blue Ivy's internet that Lady Gwyneth Kate Paltrow, in her wrinkled Ralph Lauren jammies baking $14 biscuits in her "own" kitchen sans makeup a few doors down from Meghan in the hills of Montecito was throwing shade?! If you sat through any of that in spite being forewarned (and to be honest, I clocked out at 5 mins), then you, like me, are at a loss in understanding this irrational hate for the Duchess. Because it is literally the same, bland, let them eat scones with expensive pots of jam (beginning at :33) schtick!

Her haters really want us to believe that Markle is some massive phony and a failure, so that leaves me wondering who bought up every pot of jam on her website last month? IDK, what do you call people who will probably plan an entire garden tea party in a few weeks just so that they can show and tell you all about the keepsake packaging that came with their runny fruit spread?

What does it say about the people who have time to hate-watch and comment on every move this Meghan makes but have no smoke for the other infamous Megs...like the one who capitalizes on her Daddy's name and reputation or the former journalist who once claimed Jesus is white and Santa too. There's Meghan Trainor who used to sing about her booty, but now that she's lost all of that baby phat, she's selling laundry detergent. There are other Megans/Meagans and so many other more pressing issues to complain about, so many injustices that should have us in these streets...

But y'all would rather take time to rail against somebody who isn't destroying the world with every stroke of her pen. She's not doing anything different than the rest of us in sharing photos of her family or of herself on IG. She's spreading sunshine and joy, sprinkling edible flowers and hanging out with her celebrity BFFs...so what is the deal?

Like WTF, Bethenny Frankel (whose video I juxtaposed on the FB page with Kamie Crawford's, formerly of MTV's Catfish a few weeks ago)! What's with the green-eyed envy? You do realize how petty and bitter you seem with your constant snipping and sniping at Markle? Rich coming from someone who rose to fame on other people's coattails--first, as a reality show runner-up and then as the unmarried wannabe on a show about NY society housewives. You had your shot, made millions selling watered-down cocktails, but now you have the nerve to opine and stew in your feelings about someone else's life? If you want a Netflix show, get a better agent!

A few weeks back when it was announced that the Duchess would get a second season to regale us with more bread baking and butter churning, I saw an avalanche of reactions, most along the themes highlighted in this article that panned the show and offered up a bunch of reasons why she's so polarizing. Perhaps it is as simple as people not liking her, which is how it goes sometimes--she's not everybody's spot of tea. My problem with these formal pronouncements is that we're constantly being told how unlikeable she is by people who are paid to write negatively about her, and that stacks the deck. It isn't my imagination that every critic writing for The Hollywood Reporter, the New York Post, Screen Rant, and Variety had the exact same reaction.

Doesn't it seem rather coincidental that there are anti-Meghan stories pumped out by the tabloids at the same time there are waves of stories written in support of various members of the British Royal family? Like Queen Camilla deciding to repurpose her wedding suit on an official state visit...it is newsworthy and laudable for the Queen Consort to repeat a 20-year old outfit, giving the impression of being budget-conscious (for once, the Frugal Queen). How about those adorable official birthday portraits being released to celebrate the Wales' spares Prince Louis and Princess Charlotte (better enjoy all of that positive attention now kids). With all of their good news and noble deeds, why was it necessary to pan the roll out of the Duchess' product line in the Daily Mail, The Sun, and the NY Post unless the entire goal was to undermine her efforts?

Furthermore, whenever someone suggests that there is something more sinister behind the immense hatred aimed at the Duchess, we're accused of being woke or ultra-sensitive. Awake to the double-standards or ultra-sensitive because we recognize the abusive cycle of seeing Black women getting built up and then strategically and methodically torn down as some kind of perverse entertainment? The Duchess is hardly the first Black woman to face this; some of her best friends, supporters, and peers have braved the same firing squad of shifting public opinion. Right now, some of y'all are Red-State mad on Blue Ivy's internet that her Momma has the audacity to insist that Black Southern culture is a thing, and not just the fear and complacency y'all would prefer people to believe. 

So let's take a moment to address the irony of this backlash to a Black woman occupying a space to which we were once relegated--why is it so hard to accept the notion of an accomplished Black woman knowing her way around the kitchen? Is it more offensive that she does so while dressed in her designer duds and making use of that good Le Creuset cookware or did y'all expect for her to be sweating over a cheap frying pan from the Dollar Store wearing a red head hanky and a gingham apron?

Lawd...that can't be it, can it?

Surely, it can't be that scandalous that she opted to film her series in a rented kitchen as opposed to her own. Did you honestly expect that a woman whose husband is the son of the King of England, brother to the future King, uncle of the future-future King, and still 6th or 7th in line to the throne himself, who also happens to be fighting several high-profile battles in court to protect his family from tabloid gossip and other nefarious actors--surely she wouldn't be that reckless as to allow cameras into their personal residence to film a cooking show? Other than reality TV Housewives or the late Julia Child, who else is willing to allow a film crew all up in their personal space like that? 

To be clear, the aforementioned Lady Gwyneth Kate was filming herself (or perhaps, she was being filmed by an assistant) in a home video that she posted to her IG account. I shouldn't have to explain any of this, but you do know that most of those TV cooking shows are filmed on sets because there are strict safety protocols for food handling that are difficult to follow in one's own kitchen. If you watch any of those cooking competition shows, they are filmed in spacious studios with fully stocked pantries, farm-fresh ingredients, and state-of-the-art appliances. Do you know anybody who has butcher-block counters or a walk-in freezer?

Speaking of the incomparable Julia Child, most of us who grew up watching her didn't take much notice of her expensive cookware. But if you did, then you rarely, if ever saw her reach for any of those copper pots she had adorning her wall. So why is it unreasonable for Markle to make use of those expensive wedding gifts she amassed when she wed Prince Harry as opposed to letting them collect dust in storage? 

In Meghan's own words, this is a thing, in 2025? Really, because women have been buying discounted enameled cookware from Marshall's for years. Our pieces might not match, but most of the items in our kitchens are a hodge podge of stuff we bought or inherited. I have an enamel Dutch oven that my parents bought me during a post-Christmas clearance sale at Macy's years ago from the Martha Stewart collection. I also happily use my Circulon pots as well as my mother's 50-year old stainless steel cookware. My Mom also had a collection of decorative copper pots adorning the walls of her kitchen. So where is it written that we can't have nice things too?

So what is the big deal? It's a doggone cooking show. On Netflix. Which means, you have to intentionally decide to watch it, unlike the shows that you leave on as background from the Food Network or the Cooking Channel during the holidays. In order to find Markle's show, I had to use the search function because it didn't come up automatically as a recommendation even though every season of Bridgerton, The Crown, and the Downton Abby (2019) movie did. 

By the way, I watched one episode. But I'm not here to offer a review...

I'm here to question why this woman is more polarizing than a Kardashian (whose nonstop attention-hawking we've been subjected to for 20 seasons). Most of us American commoners couldn't care less about the lives of European royalty, yet we know more about the British royals because their family drama is inescapable. Thus, when a Black woman married into the family, more of us got invested and have taken keen notice of how she has been treated. And she has been accused of everything from contributing to global climate change and drought to worrying her husband's nonagenarian Grandparents to death. Since I don't know her personally, I can't tell if she is as terrible as Wallis Simpson...or any more of a phony than this guy.

You would think that she had falsely accused a member of the Royal Family of sexual abuse or that she was a long-lost descendant of one of the rabble-rousers at the Boston Tea Party. As it turns out, it was her naiveté in assuming that in exchange for becoming a mascot for the British Empire, she was entitled to some measure of respect. That she would prove to be as valuable and beloved as one of the Queen's corgis. Upon realizing that the household staff at Buckingham Palace was better regarded, she did what every self-respecting American has done since 1776. And they act like she stole the Crown jewels the way the Brits ransacked everybody else's treasures and antiquities as their own.

I've been trying to wrap my head around this for years, and other than the visceral hate some people seem to have for Black women (and I've got receipts), Meghan hasn't done anything to deserve this. And that's exactly how most of her haters see it too--what makes her so special as to think that she can abscond with our spare prince, keep that title while refusing to allow us to use and abuse her, and live her life on her own terms? Who does she think she is?

As Ever, and With Love...she's HRH Meghan the Remarkable Duchess of Sussex.

TIME to Shake It Off

Alright Swifties and the folks who hate them, I started this piece before the Superbowl conspiracy theories began circulating about Taylor Swift trying to influence your young impressionable daughters. She'll swear that she isn't, but if your daughter suddenly decides to watch the game to catch glimpses of her in a skybox instead of Usher at the Halftime...

Remember when I said that I wasn't going to say anything about Taylor Swift being named TIME Magazine's Person of the Year? Me neither (it's been almost two months)...but I do recall that I tasted blood from biting my tongue. So fine, I have a lot to say and I guarantee some of you aren't going to like it! 

I saw the list of finalists, and it reflects all of the appropriate choices that one would have expected: controversial world leaders; the righteous working man (as represented by the Hollywood strikers); the heroic Trump prosecutors; icon(s) of popular culture; and the random inanimate object thrown in the mix to represent the cultural zeitgeist of the moment. My best guess is that Barbie actually won, but then someone was going to have to figure out how to interview a toy without that coming across as inappropriately suggestive or weird. 

So they went with the neurotic human Barbie that is Taylor Swift, and as is always the case whenever her name is trending, there was controversy along the predictable lines of people being elated, annoyed, or indifferent. What surprised me was the larger than usual coalition of people who expended time and energy on being offended. 

Like really? As the world burns, y'all are upset that a pop star got featured on a magazine cover? War in the Middle East, Eastern Europe, and Sudan. A wannabe dictator is running for President with a solid shot at winning, but Taylor Swift is the more worrisome influence on America's youth? I know that in theory, the TIME Magazine Person of the Year isn't supposed to be as trivial as the People Magazine Sexiest Man Alive or the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue can be. However, it is just a magazine cover as well, so by now (two, four, six...eight weeks or so later) we're just ignoring whomever/whatever is staring back at us from the virtual newsstand because no one keeps physical magazines anymore excepts doctors and dentists. 

And that would have been more than enough to say on the matter, until I noted an alliance of pearl clutchers between the Black Twitterati and the Moms of Liberty. That made for the kind of strange bedfellows which caused me to reconsider my silence. On the one hand, I understand the exasperated groans...Taylor Swift (again) when Beyonce is right there??!! However, on the other hand, just when I thought it might be best to *swiftly* walk away from what looked like white-on-white violence and head back to the hood, it dawned on me that Tay-Tay has become the most polarizing white woman in America since Hillary Clinton.

Again, we're talking about a magazine cover, not the Nobel Peace Prize. I know that we want Beyonce to be given her flowers and properly acknowledged, which we can do without going full Kanye at the 2009 VMAs. Nobody is denying the impact of Beyonce's World Tour. Nobody shrugs off the devotion of her BeyHive. And though we addressed this a few weeks ago with that cute picture of Bey and Tay together at the premier of Swift's Eras movie, nobody cares if they are frenemies or fake besties. Y'all need to stop pitting these women against each other! Seriously, you need to calm down.

Go on about your business and let Taylor Swift do what she does best, which is play the victim/anti-hero of her own success. Isn't that ultimately how she got this honor, by hamming up her "Gee, aww shucks, who me?" schtick to the kind of pitch perfection that has kept people talking about her all year? So stop helping her...PLEASE! 

She's talented. She's pretty. She can be charming. She likes cats. She has a lot of famous ex-boyfriends. By naming her Person of the Year, TIME has done us a solid by starting the clock on her inevitable popular decline. I know that reads like I'm taking shots of haterade (I'm not); however, I'm simply stating the obvious. What goes up, must come down. After a year of being the center of attention, the backlash of being weary of all things Taylor, Taylor, Taylor is just beginning. 

Is that what y'all want for Beyonce?

Congressional hearings over the availability and price of her concert tickets that result in nothing? Having your pleas for her to come to your city on her much-ballyhooed concert tour go unanswered? Getting denounced by the Alpha men and Podcast Bros as a floozy and the MAGA Karens as a witch? 

Consider what the title of TIME Person of the Year really means in the grand scheme of things. She gets to share that designation with some very honorable people such as Nelson Mandela, St. Mother Teresa, and Martin Luther King, Jr., but also quite a few terrible folks like Adolph Hitler, Elon Musk, and Donald Trump. She wasn't chosen because she's some inspirational freedom fighter standing up to a Bond villain dictator (nominated again this year), nor as a symbol of some significant movement in human progress. She's no Angela Merkel; however, she is a mega-successful multi-talented artist who had a really good year. Maybe it seems inconsequential, because making people happy through art isn't at all like working for world peace or curing lethal diseases, but Lord knows that we need some joy in these turbulent times. However, this choice feels like a set up, and a few months from now, she might wish they had gone with Barbie. 

Honestly, the person who should be really pissed right now is King Charles III. Consider that he's waited his entire life for these kinds of honors, only to be relegated to being just another name on a list. I got a certain amount of petty glee to note that the American daughter-in-law he keeps trying to make us hate, the one who was too busy living her life to attend his coronation...she found time and a sitter to attend the Taylor Swift concert.  

Even I got sucked into Taylormania this year. I had just joked with a friend that I would never, only to forget that declaration when I bought tickets to the Eras film a few weeks later. Of course, they were for the Kid, under the rationale that her ability to sit through the Swift concert would determine whether she could manage to do the same for the Beyonce film (almost). We were about halfway through hour two of Eras when I realized how many TS songs I knew from just casual radio surfing in the car. And I have to give the woman her props--it was a quite a show!

So now what? Will this be the high watermark of her career?

Since I am old enough to have witnessed this phenomenon with several other global superstars, I can say with certainty that the fall ain't pretty; the splat at the bottom is ugly; and the comeback never restores the artist(s) to the heights they once achieved. Having just watched the documentary about Michael Jackson and his iconic Thriller album at 40, it reminded me of those innocent times before everything really blew up, when I was the age of many of the youngest Swifties. Back then, Jackson was setting Guiness World Records, collecting Grammy awards, integrating MTV, and overall changing the music industry. No one could touch him, but like most people who fly too close to the sun, he came crashing down to earth. 

I imagine that a similar retrospective of Eras in 20-30 years or so will find us revisiting this moment to determine where it all began to shift. Was it Taylor's fault that her presence at NFL games to cheer on her next ex-boyfriend would annoy so many people? Didn't she know that she would never overcome the ridicule of having taken a role in the movie version of CATS (2019)? How did she always manage to reach any career milestone without the "help" of Kanye West? (Yeah, I said it!)

While we can clearly see the Beyonfluence on Swift and think the worst, it isn't like she hasn't been borrowing notes and copying from the others who preceded her. Let's begin with Janet Jackson, the Fairy Godmother of every 21st Century Pop Princess. Recognize that pose from Swift's second POY TIME cover from the janet (1993) album? How many of you remember the first Taylor (Dayne) to make it big in pop music? Or that Ms. Diana Ross the Boss was the queen of multiple costume changes in a single show? I could name-drop a bunch of girl pop acts from the 80s, from Tiffany and Debbie Gibson to the Aunties Madonna, Cyndi Lauper, Gloria Estefan, and Mariah Carey who were each, in her prime, pioneers who cleared away shards of broken glass so that Swift didn't get cut along the road to success. 

Heck, some of Taylor's best stuff has been ripped off inspired by others. Becoming BFFs with various LGBTQIA icons--that was Madonna in the 90s. The entire boudoir dominatrix aesthetic was big in the Aughts, which I remember well since one of the very first pieces I wrote about popular music back in 2001 was inspired by the remake of the Lady Marmalade video for the Moulin Rouge soundtrack. That same year Britney Spears performed live with a snake (Swift's snake at her show was an optical illusion). Swift must have been about twelve then, the kind of "good" girl who diligently practiced her instruments and jotted down lyrics (while taking copious notes) in her glitter-covered spiral notebook. She definitely spent a LOT of time watching classic MTV videos because hello, Michael Jackson did the zombie in the graveyard thing first. And that folksy rock-witch serving Sarah Jessica Parker in Hocus Pocus (1993) era was a clear nod to Stevie Nicks. How much do you want to bet that Swift assumed no one would make the association between one-hit wonderful Toni Basil and how she obviously inspired Shake It Off?  

Yeah, if Artificial Intelligence could have created the perfect pop star...

Which brings me back to where this all began with the TIME cover and how maybe it's just perfect that Taylor Swift would be named the Person of this most superlative thank-God-it-is-almost-over trainwreck of a Year. While some folks might be envious and critical of Beyonce for both legitimate and ridiculous reasons, she's a working mother of three married to a billionaire, so she's not worried about a magazine cover. And she's made it clear that she and Swift are like two vast oceans that maintain their unique attributes even as they mix, commingle, and share fans. Queen Bey don't need or want any parts of this foolishness.

On the other hand, Taylor Swift is probably writing a song about all of this backlash that will become next summer's earworm, and so all of this Taylorific disdain will have the opposite effect. She has a knack for courting controversy so that it serves her; hence, no matter what we say or how we feel about her, she's not going anywhere anytime soon. She is formidable, resilient, and she won this dubious honor over a King, organized labor, two dictators, and a $10 plastic doll. That this woman can be loved and reviled, admired and maligned, yet somehow manages to triumph is extraordinary.

Even if you're still convinced that Barbie would have been a better choice, the reality is that she would have melted under this kind of scrutiny. In the movie, she couldn't handle the perceived imperfection in having flat feet, and the other Barbies got overthrown in their own dreamworld by a bunch of idiots. Taylor (and here comes a bad pun), is too Swift to be undone by shallow insecurity or some male accessory who is only relevant because of his association with her. If for no other reason than to piss off the podcast bros who resent that she's way out of their league, Taylor Swift will always be a better choice than Weird Barbie...and the world will be grateful for that in 20-30 years.

Lionesses, and Tabloids, and Heirs (Oh My)

I know this is two weeks after the fact, but I could not resist jumping into the fray...because for this most recent installment of #RoyalNewsYouCantUse, the refrain shall be: You had ONE job!

I am referring to the PR debacle that is the British Royal Family under the almost year-long reign of King Charles III. Maybe it's me, but for someone who waited 70 years for this particular opening, he shouldn't keep having these kinds of amateur hiccups. I know he isn't the one mucking things up, but his royal handlers should be better at doing their jobs...unless they want us to think of King Midas with donkey ears whenever we hear God Save the King. As for Prince William the Favorite, he sure seems to be stumbling through this on-the-job apprenticeship, so things don't look that promising for his eventual ascension to the throne.

And you can't even blame this one on Harry and Meghan, although I'm sure someone will try.

Before we entertain those potential headlines, allow me to set the stage for what took place in the real world. The Women's World Cup Games were played in Australia on August 20, with the final match between England and Spain (definitely an ancient rivalry). Since soccer is a big deal everywhere else in the world except America, and our team had been eliminated several rounds ago, all eyes were on them. I had stopped paying attention, and don't know much about the history of either team, but I did notice an uptick in chatter on the social media app formerly known as Twitter. Prior to the game, some people were expressing concern that there would be no high-profile cheering section of spectators for the English Lady Lionesses, namely no one from Downing Street and no one representing the newly coronated King. However, to demonstrate their support of the team, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak posted several messages including a picture of himself at a pub; King Charles dictated a few words of well wishes; and Prince William took 15 seconds to post this video with his daughter, Princess Charlotte. Problem solved, right?

No. Because we keep forgetting that there are other royal families in the world, the Spanish Queen Letizia attended the game in person with her daughter, Infanta (Princess) Sofia. Her presence caused quite a bit of excitement, especially since she got to celebrate her team's win after she had been photographed congratulating the English team. Meanwhile King Charles commissioned someone to scribble his congratulations on an official notecard, and Prince William posted this tweet. 

As an American, the optics of this ain't none of my business, but I'm going to talk about it anyway! There isn't much happening on this side of the pond these days (unless you think the fourth round of indictments for our former game show host con man wannabe DESPOTUS is news you can use.)

Therefore, yes, I'm picking on the Prince of Woes because among his various assorted titles and honors, he is the President of the English Football Association (FA). And as we have already established, football (called soccer only here in the US), is a very big global deal. Even if his leadership of that organization has been a ceremonial formality since 2006, it would seem to me that once the British team advanced to the final rounds, someone should have made travel plans. Even the President of the Spanish Football Federation was there, kicking up his own PR disaster in Australia. I've seen the various explanations excuses for Prince William's absence, and each one is a gem. He was on holiday (vacation) with his family. It is asking much of him to jump on a plane to fly 20 hours for a game. It would have been a breach of royal protocol to visit Australia before the King. It isn't like anyone else was paying that much attention once the Americans got eliminated. It is the women's game and nobody cares...wait, isn't there some nonsense we can make up about Harry and Meghan to keep you all distracted?

Well, let's go through these one-by-one. It was August and summer is almost over, so the Prince and his family are entitled to spend time away before their kids go back to school. I'm sure that they deserve a break from all of their duties: garden parties, charity dinners, handing out medals at military parades, and gosh, what else do they do on a daily basis??? Not that I don't understand how it would have been a logistical nightmare to pack up the Princess, three children, nannies and attendants, and security for a plane ride to the other side of the world, especially on a mere three days advance notice. It takes at least that long to get just the right tone on a message from King Charles. Perhaps after His Junior Majesty compared fares and found that he would have to pay extra for everyone to be seated together, it wouldn't look right to fly solo. And though he might have been able to catch a ride with Queen Letizia and her daughter to share that carbon footprint, there is that pesky matter of British Royal Protocol.

Which means the future King of England couldn't so much as share a carriage ride through the streets of London in a gilded pumpkin carcass with his father, let alone share an airplane with a rival royal family. It would be against protocol, or am I conflating that with the edict that he can't visit any of their realms before an official visit from the reigning monarch? Is that why the Prince can come to America later this month, because we're no longer part of the British empire? He's coming to New York for a two-day trip to attend an environmental summit...

Before I get stuck in a room full of Prunellas reciting rules and arcane rituals associated with the Crown, I noted that their foreign trips are formally announced at least a month in advance. So perhaps the future King, ceremonial President of the FA, had reason to believe back in July that the Lady Lionesses (still ranked 4th by FIFA since 2019) would not have finished high enough to warrant any effort. Even though this had been dubbed the most successful women's sporting event in history, his women's national team made the finals for the first time, so everybody was anticipating the final match, it wasn't like protocol dictated the presence of royal family members at these kinds of event. Merely a coincidence that his late grandparents (at the 2:50 mark) were in attendance at England's last World Cup appearance at the finals in 1966.

If the U.S. had stayed in the tournament, we wouldn't have expected President Biden to have flown halfway around the world; instead, we might have dispatched the First Lady, who seems perfectly willing to fly off to spread goodwill anywhere they tell her it is needed. However, around that same time, we were dealing with wildfires in Hawaii and a hurriquake in California. Therefore, the next person in our delegation of official goodwill ambassadors would have been Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff, whom I bet would have gleefully turned the plane around to be that Dad on the sidelines. You know, the one who does the absolute most for his girls? Like that time he didn't wait on the Secret Service to jump in to protect his wife from a heckler...

Before anyone derides women's sports as unimportant or insignificant enough to plan a state visit, feel free to continue to argue amongst yourselves why women's sports have become ground zero in our culture wars over identity and patriotism. But I digress. 

Prince William has ONE job. 

The job of the Prince of Wales is to ensure the continuity of the Crown that he hopes to inherit. Part of that is to stay alive along enough to get married and have children, which he has done. Another aspect of his job is to show up at all of those fancy garden parties, ribbon cuttings, charity dinners, military ceremonies, etc., but also to comfort and console the nation in times of grief and tragedy. Attending a soccer game doesn't fit into either of those columns, but neither did having tea with Paddington Bear or jumping out of a plane with James Bond. Nobody expected him to have his face painted with the Union Jack, but cheering for your home team ought to feign more enthusiasm.

That this generation of British Royals keeps getting tripped up over protocol, all of these years after the tragic death of Princess Diana exposed most of those rules as arbitrary and superfluous, just fuels the anti-monarchist point. It is an archaic and excessive institution that serves no real purpose other than to perpetuate itself. These rules about flags and travel protocols aren't chiseled in stone, yet they have become part of a number of convenient excuses whenever someone is called out for hypocrisy. Is it "royal protocol" that keeps Prince Andrew from facing trial or any culpability for his inappropriate sexual fetish for young girls? I have to know, what tightly coiled chignon-wearing society matron from the Australian outback would have had her girdle twisted that she had to settle for tea with the future Queen instead of the current Queen consort? 

All of this brings us to the matter of Harry and Meghan, who have been quietly living their best lives in sunny California doing yoga, meditating, and staying hydrated. My search algorithms tend to reflect whatever I have been researching, so guess what has been trending in my feed since I clicked on a few articles about the World Cup and the Lady Lionesses? Would you believe just as many articles about the Sussexes as escándalo engulfing the Spanish Football Federation President Luis Rubiales accused of inappropriately kissing a player? Call it a coincidence or confirmation bias that there are always more negative headlines about Harry and Meghan whenever the working British Royals get into some kind of PR mess.

Imagine how relentless the British tabloids would have been if this had been a faux pas committed by the Spare instead of the Heir. There would have been news panels of Royal experts assembled to dissect every misstep by the spoiled Duke and the entitled American commoner he married if they had allowed themselves to be upstaged by a royal from another country who visited one of their realms and got feted like she was the Queen. Oh wait, that actually happened back when the Sussexes visited Australia when they were still working royals...

This is where my petty impulses kick into a higher gear. It sure does look like the peak of ironic hypocrisy to invoke protocol as an excuse for someone not doing their job when that same excuse became a reason to criticize someone else for doing their job too well. You might recall that in 2018, the late Queen Elizabeth sent Meghan and Harry to Australia on an official visit. After it was deemed a success, they returned home to some resentment from the rest of the Royal family. Then the tabloids began ripping the Duchess over everything from her attire and nail polish, to her collaboration with British VOGUE, and eventually her love of avocado toast.

It must suck to be Prince William, caught in that eternal damned if he does or doesn't place between a rock and a hard place. Heavy is the head that awaits the crown, especially when the one person who could have shut down all of this criticism has remained conspicuously silent. King Charles put more effort into the announcement of his forthcoming state visit with his frenemies in France, thus signaling to the press that it was fine to accuse William of shirking his royal duties. Notice how everything for the Prince changed the moment he donned that ridiculous costume, bowed, and pledged his everlasting loyalty in front of the entire world?

As the British are about to mark the one-year anniversary of the death of Queen Elizabeth II, we can all imagine that Prince William is feeling it because what a difference this year without his grandmother has been! She was beloved and as long as she was alive, so was he. However, since her death he has received more scrutiny and bad press over just about everything. Remember when he was the favorite? How quickly the tides have turned...

So I just have one more observation to make, since it is clear after all of these years that Prince William hadn't been made aware of this most important aspect of his job: do NOT upstage the King! Neither with too much gushing positive press, and certainly not with this kind of embarrassing negative press. As far as KC3 is concerned, he fulfilled his royal duty in siring an heir; raising, loving, and protecting his son was someone else's job. That man waited all of his life for that Crown, so if need be, there will be blood. 

Fried Chicken Wednesday: The Coronation

For this installment of #RoyalNewsYouCantUse, I thought you might enjoy a recap of the Coronation of King Charles III, but with a little Busy Black Woman Fried Chicken twist. Because if you sat through it the first time and managed to stay awake...

Bland Chicken Broth

Whew Lawd, what a snooze! And to make matters worse, the British and American tabloid media keep pumping out headlines about the behind-the-scenes machinations leading up to and after the Boringest show on earth. We saw it all, and what we knew to be true some 40 years ago is absolutely still the case: King Charles III is a dud. Monarchy is a lot more interesting to see depicted in fairy tales, in costume dramas on PBS, and on Broadway. Perhaps he should have hired this guy as a warm-up act:

Jonathan Groff as King George III in Hamilton

(Then again, maybe not since he's why most Americans think all of this is silly.) 

As promised, I fully intended to watch this entire spectacle, and I really tried. My daughter woke up in the middle of the night with a cough, so she climbed into bed to share her cooties with me. And then I couldn't go back to sleep, so I began channel surfing and saw that CNN International had blocked off time to cover the Coronation as early as 1am EDT. I watched about ten minutes of commentary, and then it was a wrap--I was out like a light, even with the Kid's elbow jabbing me. When I woke up again a few hours later to the same boring commentary, I flipped over to PBS where there was less talk and more focus on the "action", which is the most ironic word to describe exactly what was not happening at that time.

Lemon Pepper Hot Wings

I must have nodded off again because I jolted awake at the blare of trumpets during the musical overture before the start of the ceremony. To keep the guests entertained prior to his arrival, the King had several pieces commissioned, which were all very elegant and regal. Of course, the stand-out was the South African soprano Pretty Yende, who made sure that she was not only heard (which was lovely), but also seen in this neon yellow dress: 

Winner-Winner Chicken Dinner

The long-awaited arrival of Prodigal Prince Harry was rather anti-climatic since without much fanfare, he walked in, shook a few hands, and made his way to his seat. It didn't matter that he wasn't seated in the front row or that his view was likely obstructed by his Aunt's hat, because of everyone assembled, he seemed to be the only happy person in the Abbey. The delight on his face in this picture is giving us several vibes: (1) Ha, it wasn't me pissing Father off this time (classic mischievous younger brother energy); (2) I think I can win the bet that I'll be back in the States in time to have that tray of Mama Dee's mac and cheese all to myself; (3) here comes my Crazy Aunt Anne, try not to laugh at that enormous goose feather on her Napoleon hat (too late); and (4) I wonder how unseemly it would look if I literally cartwheeled my way out of here right after the benediction?

Flipping the Bird

Speaking of Crazy Aunt Anne, the Princess Royal, who in every photo I have seen of her since Queen Elizabeth died, looks like she's about to storm the Bastille:

Kate's Classic Chicken Pot Pie

Kelly Preston as Jetstream
in Sky High

I have to admit that Princess Catherine of Wales earned my sympathy because she was obviously having a terrible day, but still managed to put on a brave face. It cannot be easy to live under the constant glare of hot lights and to have your every move dissected on social media (just ask your estranged SIL). As for the state of their marriage, it has been 12 years and three children--William is lucky she agreed to wear that ridiculous superhero costume in public. 

On the FB page, I joked that she reminded me of every Black mother I've seen rushing into church after the service has started: thank God we made it, but dammit why are we always late? My guess is that she had the same kind of morning I've had whenever I discover that my daughter has been playing in my makeup (and I swear it happens every single time when I have to be somewhere). After making sure that the Heirs and other children were dressed, Kate finally had a few minutes to focus on herself. As she was rummaging through her makeup bag, she discovered that Princess Charlotte and Prince Louis had been mixing her eye shadow colors again. Everything was a mess, and when she complained to William, he just stared at her and blinked nervously. For it was then at that moment he remembered that he had forgotten to tell her that per the Queen-to-be, Kate couldn't wear her favorite tiara. 

Which not only explains why they were late, but also why everybody in her wingspan looked so tense and mortally afraid once they arrived at the Abbey. Kate must have cursed them all out, which threw everybody off their game. Poor Prince George was trying not to trip/step on Granddaddy's train. Prince William forgot the lines he had been rehearsing all of his life and had to read from the cue cards. Prince Edward, 38th in line to the throne, looking both bewildered and ecstatic to finally sit on the front row at one of these events was thinking what the bloody hell did I do to her?

And Kate, seething with the rage of a woman who found out at the very last minute that she couldn't wear the tiara she had pre-selected so she had to do something else creative with her hair, made everybody wait. She sent Charlotte into her room to find an old doily and on the car ride over to the Abbey, they went to work crafting a Mommy and Me hairpiece. Looks pretty good, if you ask me.

The Side Dishes

Now I know what I said I wouldn't say, but you have to admit that Queen Camilla was serving Lady Elaine Fairchilde (before her modern Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood makeover):

And Rose Hanbury could be a doppelganger for Lady Betty Aberlin if this were all taking place in the Neighborhood of Make-Believe:

Chicken is the Gospel Bird

With Duchess Meghan and her Mama Dee sound asleep in California, I'm guessing the need to prove just how the British royals are "very much not a racist family" was real. Therefore, the King wisely remembered that at one point in time, the sun never set on his Grandfather's imperial spice rack, so perhaps it would be a gesture of good will to sprinkle a little seasoning into the flour. Not only did he make sure to invite all of the various heads of state and assorted royalty, he also had their presence strategically photographed and announced:

Crown Prince Fumihito and Crown Princess Kiko of Japan

Ditto for the ecumenical outreach in having representatives of every faith in full regalia as a nod to the religious diversity of modern UK and throughout the Commonwealth. The King even stopped for a quick photo opp chat with a few clergy before leaving the Abbey:

Lucky also, that the current Prime Minister Rishi Sunak had some free time on his calendar and hasn't gotten the sack yet:

And finally, the Ascension Gospel Choir, an offshoot of the Kingdom Choir that performed at Harry and Meghan's wedding day in 2018, made history as the first gospel group to perform at a coronation at the specific behest of His Majesty:

Rubber Chickens

There was a lot of talk about ancient rites and rituals which were allegedly modernized...but I didn't see much evidence of that. There were visible roles for women and we've already addressed the racial and religious diversity aspect. However, other than allowing the boys to wear pants instead of tights and not having an assembly full of old men wearing powdered wigs, everything else looked exactly as ostentatious and over-the-top as it must have looked since the Dark Ages.

For example, that whole bowing to the King and pledging loyalty by the Prince of Wales was definitely strange, in a King Lear kind of way. Not only that, it gave off vibes of remember Father, I'm the loyal son and it was Kate who made us late. The fact that Prince William was the only person who had to perform that ritual formally, while everyone else simply bowed or curtseyed, was even weirder.

Not sure why Katy Perry, a judge on AMERICAN Idol, kept curtseying, nor shall we discuss the overall awkwardness of this bit with the King and Lionel Richie. However, I think the fact that Brenda Richie both promotes and shades her ex-husband in her tweets is finger-licking gold!

Finally, now that the food has been eaten and the servants are clearing the dishes, there are two extra crispy nuggets left behind that sum up everything you ever wanted to know about this Coronation.  First, several of the Commonwealth nations are still intent on dumping the monarchy. They were only sticking around as a courtesy to Queen Elizabeth. Second, on Morning Joe the other day, Katty Kay, American-based correspondent for the BBC admitted that once she got back to the States, all of this coronation business looked rather silly. Because it IS!

Age Ain't Nothing But a Number

A lot of people are going to disagree with me on this, but I can deal with that, especially since most of them don't read my blog. But y'all really need to stop talking about people being too old for things. And you need to be careful how you ridicule people about their age. All of us were young once, and if you asked us what we thought about getting older when we were in our teens and early twenties, we had these very idealistic notions of living to 100, but no clue about what would happen between the ages of 40 and 99. Now that many of us find ourselves in that range, trust, we are rethinking and reimagining what "old age" is supposed to look and feel like as the years stack up and whiz by.

As many of you know, I am steadily walking on the road towards 50. God willing and if the creek don't rise (like the old folks used to say when I was younger), I will arrive at that golden shore later this year, and let me tell you...Baybee! While I never assumed I would not live to see this leg of the journey, I didn't see any of the stuff that would line my path. Like I had no idea what it would feel like to lose friends before they reached this same milestone. I had no idea what it would feel like to look back and recall things that happened 40 or more years ago. I have parents in their 70s, and I remember what it was like to have grandparents in their 70s when I was a kid. I have friends with grandchildren. Have we even discussed perimenopause? (As an aside, I am about to re-read and watch the new movie Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret because OMG, I have an eight-year old and it has been 40 years!!!)

I can clearly remember sitting in an elementary school classroom and being asked what I wanted to be when I grew up. Then I remember the moment when I was in college, sitting alone in Sisters Chapel and how it inspired my personal statement for my law school applications. I remember sitting in a lecture hall where a professor was explaining some arcane legal concept that sounded very much like he was speaking in a foreign language. But it was in that moment when I said to myself, wow you are really here! I was 21 years old then.

And then as if time suddenly sped up in a flash, I just read a FB post about a young man who had been one of my younger brothers' students in high school a few years ago. He just passed the bar! And it all seems surreal that just a few years ago, he was a high school senior escorting a young lady to her debutante ball, and during a break, he was chatting with me while I calmed my months old baby in my arms. I was at his college graduation that took place the weekend of my 25th College Reunion and chatted with him just a year ago about law school. Now that baby I was holding is almost as tall as I am and this young man is about to launch into the world. I tell you this because time waits for no one. YOU will be older sooner than you think in the blink of an eye.  

My issue is not hyper-sensitivity to the ways in which we seem to be at war against aging, because hey, I am in an intense enough battle against going grey. It is the utter disrespect and disregard for the elderly that has become the norm in this society. While I was agitated by statements that were made this past week about the President, my frustration has been building against this intolerance for years. It is beyond sad when compared to how other societies revere their elders, we make tasteless jokes about people forgetting their names and needing to wear adult diapers. Ha Ha, very funny...

Just wait until you become the punchline of that joke. Trust, you won't be laughing.

When the issue was our societal intolerance for children, I chimed in because I have a child and remember what it was like when she was younger, and the world turned a blind yet judgmental eye towards my perceived shortcomings. I was that mother on the plane, and I could share stories of other places where my child's behavior was less than angelic. Turns out, she has some neurodevelopmental processing issues, something I just learned. But nobody had time to show us any grace, except for ONCE at the Target from a cashier who immediately understood. Every other time, people have heaved and sighed or let her run into the street when I had difficulty managing her energy (but we'll address all of that another time).

Instead, let's talk about my experiences on the other end of the spectrum as a caregiver. I have been subjected to similar levels of intolerance when it comes to people's attitudes towards senior citizens. I have had people question why I took advantage of some innocuous perk, such as a discounted movie ticket or meal, and feeling self-conscious (as if my Mom hadn't earned her free drink or popcorn). How the same accommodations that I needed for navigating a stroller in public are even more necessary when pushing a wheelchair, and how people will still act like they don't see you. How this entire debate over providing public unisex family bathrooms is both short-sighted and unnecessarily transphobic.

Admittedly, I take particular and personal offense to the Alzheimer's and cognitive decline jokes made at the President's expense because I live with the reality of both. Y'all think these tasteless elder abuse comments are funny because you disagree with his policies? Meanwhile, on your side of the political spectrum, the front-runner is a caricature of a former wannabe playboy who is only a few years younger. What else suggests that there are discernable differences between the 80 year old man who stutters and the 76 year old man who thinks every woman still wants to sleep with him? 

The assertion by former Ambassador Nikki Haley that Biden is likely to die in the next five years is what prompted this rant. Because take a number lady, you could be dead in five years too! So could I. So could Donald Trump or anybody else for that matter. According to another saying from the old folks, no one knows the day nor the hour...

Let's revisit Haley's real intention in making that statement in a bit, because other people have been taking swipes and it should be unconscionable for this level of disrespect to be tolerated. I mean, why does the Speaker of the House, third in line to the Presidency, get away with making a joke about soft food without someone sending him jars of Gerbers smashed peas to represent the balls he gave up in every round of voting he lost to get that job? (Yep, I think I will do just that when I'm done here). Like really, Sir, you don't even have a fully formed spine the way you bend over backwards to appease people...

But it struck me how this level of disrespect for the elderly isn't typical in other cultures. In a week, all eyes will be on the British again as they set to crown their 74 year old sovereign, a role he inherited upon the death of his 96 year old mother. He will become the oldest monarch to ascend to the throne. Since I don't live in the UK, I can't know if people ever mocked Queen Elizabeth because of her age, but based on the outpouring of global respect that was shown at her passing, that would come across as unseemly. Other cultures demonstrate their reverence for their elders by giving them places of honor by respecting their life experience. In this country, we make jokes about dentures and walkers, while warehousing our elders in nursing homes and waiting for them to die. 

Whether that observation gets written off as a hyperbolic generalization or truth is based on your perspective. What I have witnessed firsthand in these the last 20 years of my adult life is the constant centering of self over everything else. We've become so ruggedly individualistic that we don't care about anyone, except for our pets. I could veer way off topic with examples, but just scroll through social media and take note of how many of these self-care gurus actually have families, let alone people who like them. Theirs were some of the loudest voices against COVID mitigation, those who thought that the risks were acceptable to cull the herd, and if that meant losing grandparents and other elderly relatives, then so be it. To quote their patron saint, Ebenezer Scrooge, "If they would rather die, let them hurry up and do it to decrease the surplus population."

Thus, when I see calls for Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) to resign, yes it rubs me the wrong way. I don't know the state of her health other than the published reports of shingles. I understand that her extended absence brings the work of confirming federal judges to a halt, but the Senate has other constitutional duties to fulfill. And I think that if she has been in some form of cognitive decline since the death of her husband last year, she made the right call in choosing not to run for reelection again next year. However, we don't place age limits on public service, and she is the same age as Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA), who just won reelection. I was a Hill staffer when the late Senator Strom Thurmond (R-SC) had to be escorted around the Capitol by his staff. Several Senators have continued to serve even as they battle serious heath challenges, and at least two very prominent ones died while in office. Just last year, another veteran Senator in his 80s broke his hip, and I don't recall hearing any impassioned pleas for him to resign before his term ended for the good of the country.

That doesn't mean that people ought to treat these jobs as lifelong entitlements, and I can respect the arguments made in favor of giving younger people a chance. I remember that fateful night in September 2020 when I saw the breaking news that Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg had died. Lots of think pieces were written about her refusal to step aside and how that led to the current ideological leanings of the Court. Hard to say what the future might have looked like, and I'm guessing Ginsberg felt the same way right up to the moment before she died. And that is the actual point here: none of us knows the day or the hour, so as long as we're here, we have the right to give life the very best that we have.

That means we allow Clint Eastwood (92) to continue to direct films, if that's what he wants. If Rita Moreno (91) and Chita Rivera (90) want to stage a dance-off to see who the better Anita was in West Side Story, have at it. And we're not going to prevent Mel Brooks (96) from doing whatever the heck he wants, even if we're not sure that part two will be as funny as the first part he directed 40 years ago. If William Shatner (92) ever gets another chance to really blast off into space, who's going to stop him? Dan Rather (91) is a lot more entertaining now that he isn't sitting behind a news desk. For her 90th birthday, Carol Burnett got a primetime TV special. We should be happy to learn that Jack Nicholson (86) is still living his best life. Weren't y'all just praying for Betty White to live long enough to see her 100th birthday a year ago?

If nobody is the least bit worried about Smokey Robinson (83) or Mick Jagger (80) breaking their hips onstage, why are we convinced that Joe Biden needing a phonetic spelling to help him from mispronouncing someone's name is some doomsday indication of mental frailty? The very idea that the country would be better off with a restored Regime of Donald the Trumpet or under the leadership of a cranky Bernie Sanders (81) versus jolly Joe Biden is...

Which brings me back to the racist fear-mongering of folks like Nikki Haley in her sideways attack of Madame Vice President. This ain't the first time Haley has tried to score points by throwing cheap shots, but this recent tactic of hers proves that she is in dire need of attention. Mad that nobody cares that she's running for President too, she's made the cynical gamble that people are far more afraid of another Black President than they are of losing this democracy to authoritarianism. So what do you think they see when they look at you, Nimarata?

What y'all need to fear, more than Black people running the country again, is Marjorie Taylor Greene or some other loose cannon sycophant being chosen to ride shotgun with the Donald. Because if he is reelected, then that puts the inmates back in charge of the asylum, and they just might succeed in destroying the country this time. 

Furthermore, I don't get why Haley isn't satisfied that she was the catalyst for Don Lemon's ouster from CNN as a sexist jerk. How many others have tried and failed to get him fired and cancelled? Girl, take that victory lap because that is the only decent fight you've picked and won in recent years. (Yeah, I said it--y'all seem to have forgotten how Lemon was famously uninvited to the cookout during the Obama years. Look at who is now past his prime and out of a job at 57?)

Let's begin our conclusion on that particular triumph, because ageism is the one form of discrimination that all of us will face, if we are lucky to live long enough. Everything that you ridicule can possibly become part of your lived reality if you don't screw up and die young. Describing a woman as past her prime isn't the worst thing that a man can say, but if that same man has a history of being an asshole, it can be the cherry on top of the shit sundae he gets served on the day he is forced to clean out his office. You still think dementia jokes are funny when the projection in global diagnoses is expected to triple by 2050? Where will you be in these statistics, one of the millions at risk, or one of their un/der-paid caregivers? Irony would be if one of these unruly toddlers you want to have banned from airplanes grows up to be the person who develops a cure. But karma is more likely: that child will be one of the Certified Nursing Assistants who is emptying your urinal and serving you soft food one day in some nursing home where your self-care centered grandchild will only come by to visit if his brunch plans fall through.

Yep, in 20 years, ANYTHING is possible if you are still here. 

There is a reason why we give out participation certificates and honorable mentions to young children while reserving Lifetime Achievement Awards, Presidential Medals of Freedom, and Kennedy Center Honors to folks over 50. We recognize what people have actually accomplished in their lives instead of what we see as their potential. We can all understand the excitement that comes from being the young phenom, but we respect the wisdom and knowledge that comes with age. We mourn when the lives of young people are cut short due to some tragic, unforeseen circumstances; we celebrate when beloved elders like Harry Belafonte or Cicely Tyson reach the end of a long journey of lives that enriched us so much.

Let our elders live and thrive! If they are still in positions of leadership or otherwise still able to contribute to the world in some way, be smart and patient. Sit with them to learn, be available to assist, and be wise enough to heed their warnings. In the words of an African proverb: The youth can walk faster, but the elder knows the road.