by John Walters
Cuomo-Erotic
(Cockney accent): ‘ello, Guvnor!
Show me a woman in the work force and I’ll show you someone who almost certainly has dealt with sexual harassment on the job. It’s rather interesting to me, though, that I’m as likely to find a woman my age with little sympathy for the women accusing New York governor Andrew Cuomo of sexual harassment as I am to find those who want him to apologize and go away.
The feeling on the behalf of the former is, if I am not mansplaining it too much, I had to deal with it and now you put on your Big Girl blouse and find a tactful way to extract yourself from the situation.
My main problem with that line of thinking? He’s not Herb Tarlek and you’re not Bailey Quarters or Jennifer Marlowe. In other words, you’re not co-workers, veritable equals. He’s your BOSS and one of the most powerful men in America. You’re not on equal footing and if you in any way rebuff him or stand up to him you could be throwing your career away.
Dig, if Cuomo actually waited until he was alone in his office to ask his young female staffer if she’d ever been with an older man, that’s downright creepy and certainly a non-physical pass. Now, sure, a quick-witted lass might have said, “No, they’re so LETHARGIC and WRINKLY. Blech!” But that’s asking a lot of a millennial in a tight spot.
I’m not here to cancel everything. I just want more women and less Viagra in leadership roles.
Watt’s UP!
Superhero-armed J.J. Watt, who is currently no worse than the second-best defensive end in his family, signs with the Arizona Cardinals for two years and $31 million. Watt, who will turn 32 later this month, is a three-time NFL Defensive Player of the Year and a one-time Saturday Night Live host.
As a past-his-prime male J.W. who relocated to Arizona last March to bask in a few more moments of glory (and sunshine), I feel seen.
Welcome, J.J.
“I Am Not Throwing Away My Shot!”*
*The judges will not accept “Vaccine Waters”
Did you hear who got the vaccine? Secretly? Donald and Melania Trump. Back in January. Maybe this is why he was unable to walk down to the Capitol with the “Stop the Steal” mob he incited that day—he didn’t want to lose his place in line for his shot.
Funny how he never mentioned this.
In Harm’s Way
Watching Alfred Hitchcock’s Notorious (1946; Cary Grant, Ingrid Bergman, Claude Rains…that’s two Casablanca alums paired with Hollywood’s ultimate leading man) last night and struck by a funny thought. People always say that Hitchcock had a fetish for blondes; perhaps, though, his greater fetish was for sending in women to do the truly dirty work.
In Notorious Bergman, much like Eva Marie-Saint in North By Northwest, is working as an American spy whose job it is, in part, to seduce and bed the object of U.S. surveillance. In Rear Window and Psycho, Grace Kelly and Vea Miles, respectively, literally enter the killers’ lair and put their lives in peril in a search for the truth (specifically, the body of a dead female).
Sure, beautiful women meet gruesome deaths (Vertigo, Psycho) or near to it (Dial M For Murder, North By Northwest, The Birds) in Hitchcock films, and I’m sure I’m missing a few here, but it’s funny that rarely is the man ever asked to put himself in danger. Women are, for Hitchcock, mostly instruments to be used.
Press “Paws”
Lived with a cat for 18 years and never realized why he didn’t quite walk like a doggy. This explains it. And with all the dust in my apartment, it should have been easy to pick up on it simply by checking the footprints on the floor.