Mommie Dearest, Brothers Grimm: Thinking about Cleveland’s House of Horrors

Duane Michals: “The Bogeyman” (1973)

The Shubert. The Apollo. Carnegie Hall.

So the “Snapple Theater Center” doesn’t provoke the same reverent awe as do the names of those famous New York City landmarks, but hey, a gig’s a gig, right?

Maybe Christina Crawford inherited more of her adoptive mother’s trooper spirit than she’d care to admit.

It’s so easy to imagine Joan Crawford growling, “Snapple, crapple! The show must go on!”

And so it does: the longrunning “Mommie Dearest” franchise, one angry daughter’s single claim to fame — first a blockbuster 1977 memoir, then a cult movie — is back in a rather downmarket iteration: A Conversation with Christina Crawford: Live and Onstage in Surviving Mommie Dearest.

Or rather, was. The show’s very brief run at the Snapple overlapped Mother’s Day.

After more than 30 years of telling all, what possible secrets could Christina Crawford have left to reveal about her infamous mom?

Well, now she’s claiming (sort of) that Joan Crawford murdered her husband Alfred Steele, the Pepsi CEO whose position the widow snatched for herself after his death.

Here’s Faye Dunaway reenacting the power grab in the aforementioned cult flick, Mommie Dearest (1981):

4 Easy Steps to Pitching Your Own TV Sitcom

So, you want to pitch a TV show — a sitcom no less! Or maybe you’re just an armchair TV enthusiast, a mental writer playing out episodes of the ideal sitcom in your head. Whether your concept is ideal or idyllic, if you want to get it off the ground, you need to get your head out of the clouds and start viewing your human reality in terms of numbers — good numbers. Take a tip from Seth MacFarlane: Be sure to include an African American, a disabled character, and an Asian reporter if you want to stand a chance in TV land.

In other words, start counting your minorities.

It’s all in the spirit of being fair that we view people based on their color, class, gender, or physical ability. Not only is it fair, it is super easy to follow the 4-step program for crafting your perfectly pitch-able TV sitcom.

So, get out your calculators and get ready for a math lesson in how to write a situation comedy for television!

Quiz! What’s Your TV Sitcom Family Lifestyle?

Throughout this series I’ve questioned where the line is drawn between reflecting and affecting when it comes to the media’s relationship with real life. Either way, the determining factor is relatability. You aren’t going to imitate something unless you can relate to it, and if you can’t relate to a show, chances are it isn’t anywhere near a reflection of who you are.

So, in the interest of all things entertainment, let’s take a simple quiz to determine your relatability factor when it comes to the portrayal of “traditional family” on television using two popular prime-time family-themed shows: Family Guy and The Middle.

Family Guy: The show is apathetic, even nihilistic at times, mocks the same politically correct values it thrives on, and typifies men and women in terms taught best in Gender Studies 101. The Middle is one of a handful of shows to make it to the air that depicted exactly what its title intimated: a middle -lass, middle-of-the-road family living in the middle of nowhere, America.  As working middle class as the Griffins, the Hecks are a family of five that mirrors the demographics of the Quahog clan: father, mother, two sons with a daughter in the middle.

So, what’s your relatability factor? And how does your relatability compare with the ratings? Take this simple five-question quiz to find out!

Who’s to Blame for Fueling Pop Culture’s 5 Worst Female Stereotypes?

Poor Seth MacFarlane. The guy sings one song about boobs and suddenly he’s #1 on the Hates Women List with a Steinem next to his name.  (That means if they capture him, she gets to rag on him incessantly. Who wouldn’t want a bullet after that?)

It’d be too easy to join the chorus singing, “MacFarlane hates women.” As a woman, I despise the cop-outs women often take, chiding every man as being both the desired master of her universe and the despised crafter of her fate. If we really believe in Girl Power, what’s our responsibility in all of this? Are we allowing the fate scripted by guys like MacFarlane to come true?

It took about 10 minutes to pull video for the following five most common stereotypes about women portrayed in Family Guy. The sad news is that it took about 15 to pull five examples of the same behavior from the most popular Girl Power reality television show out there: The Kardashians. Praised by some feminists as career women comfortable in their own skin, it has been observed that “50 years ago, the Kardashians could never live the way they do. It’s all thanks to the Feminist movement that they are who they are – and they embrace every benefit from it fully.”

So, culture judges that you are, tell me: Is the evidence compelling? Is MacFarlane a He-Man Woman Hater, or do the Kardashians prove that girls finally busted through the glass ceiling in the tree house and joined the club?

Totally Petarded: The Top 5 Masculinity Myths on Family Guy

Watch out, ladies in the dating world: Family Guy’s prized demographic is totally Petarded.

According to the show’s creator, Family Guy’s target audience is men ages 18-34.  This happens to be one of the most desirable demographics for advertisers and women looking to eventually get married and settle down.

Who hasn’t dreamed of a life with Peter Griffin?

Obviously, not all men between the ages of 18 and 34 are going to find the humor of Family Guy appealing.  Yet a growing majority of them do.  I long ago learned as a woman not to attempt to comment on the male psyche; why these men find Family Guy so appealing is not in my realm of interest.  However, the message Family Guy sends about masculinity is so apparent that I can’t help but laugh at this not-so-subtle irony:  Most women looking for men, the ladies trolling the clubs and hitting Happy Hours at the bars, are the ones who tend to stereotype men exactly the way they are portrayed on the show.

Boob Alert: Top 5 Side Effects of Watching Family Guy

Part 1 of a 4 Part series Deconstructing Family Guy

When Seth MacFarlane sang about boobs at the Oscars, I’m pretty sure he was referring to his own fans.

Most of the time it is taken for granted that we recognize the latent moronic nature of most television programming today.

Then again, do we?

If we agreed as a culture that television programming like Family Guy is so moronic, why would a collective cheer rise up at the sight of another Emmy win?  Would we be told by media commentary royalty to worship Seth MacFarlane, the show’s creator, as fascinating?  Not only does the guy have mega street cred in the pop culture universe, the primetime structure he’s so wholeheartedly mocked is singing his praises.  In fact, it could be said that Family Guy’s seemingly counterculture humor has been legalized by the mainstream.

What’s more, like a bad addiction, Family Guy is the drug that has turned a generation of Boob-Tube addicts into junkies.  So, what are the signs, Doctor?  How do you know when a co-worker, a friend, even a loved one has become a total Boob?  Let’s play MediaMD as we examine the 5 most common side effects of watching Family Guy.

Admiring Ann: 5 Coulterisms for Counterculture Conservatives

I used to hate politics. Then I met Ann Coulter.

In case you haven’t seen PCU, allow me to explain: I am only one of many in my generation who grew into adulthood harboring a strong desire to avoid all forms of political discussion. For many of us growing up in the ’80s and ’90s, the deafening liberal attacks coming across cable news, talk radio, and then the internet defined politics as a source of talking-head tsuris and therefore best avoided at all costs.

The unavoidable reality hit when I enrolled in grad school and promptly learned the phrase: “Everything is political.” And that was before I got the chance to interview the prospective film studies professor who declared himself a communist without blinking an eye.

Critical theory, my chosen area of study, comes in many forms. The most memorable (and popular) being a series of schools based on race/ethnicity/gender/sexual demarcations that could easily be classified under the heading “White Men Are Coming To Get You Studies.” All theories are taught under the general pseudo-philosophical guideline of postmodernism. I could spend entire articles trying to explain that one.  Instead, I’ll just let this handy little comic do it for me.

Nothing I learned made sense yet all of it was accepted as holy. Any time I would question these ideas I would receive furrowed brows, gobsmacked expressions, or simply be told in so many words that I just “didn’t get it.” These reactions probably wouldn’t have bothered me so much except for the fact that they were coming from the professor who would sign off on my thesis, providing me with the paperwork I needed to graduate and get the hell out of Dodge.

Hell. I was in hell. Instead of being taught how to think, I was paying to be told what to think. Waiting in the airport for my flight back to campus after winter break, I contemplated throwing in the towel. And then, I heard an angel’s voice and a bright light beckoned me to the bookstore in the terminal…

Okay, not totally. But I do know for a fact that finding Ann Coulter’s Slander: Liberal Lies About the American Right on my way to the plane was a divine appointment. Three hours later I landed on solid ground and felt my feet beneath me for the first time in 18 months. Finally, someone was making sense.

Perhaps if conservatives had had total control over every major means of news dissemination for a quarter century, they would have forgotten how to debate, too, and would just call liberals stupid and mean.

Ann waited until page 2 to verbalize the crux of the problem I’d been facing: This liberal professor had total control and, therefore, could demean and dismiss me whenever he liked.

Or so he thought and so did I, until I met Ann Coulter.

5 Positive Personality Traits Baby Boomer Women Developed While Waiting By The Phone

“It must be him, it must be him, oh dear God, it must be him or I shall die.”

Aging female baby boomers can relate to these lyrics from a 1967 hit song by Vikki Carr entitled, It Must Be Him.

Before the advent of answering machines, and decades before mobile communications and social media, waiting by the phone for your man to call was an ancient mating tradition that single women of all ages thankfully will never again have to endure.

I was reminded of this dating ritual since we are on the cusp of celebrating what is traditionally known as the greatest date night of all, New Year’s Eve.

While wracking my brain thinking of a suitable baby boomer topic applicable to this holiday, it hit me… New Year’s Eve, 1971, when I was a high school sophomore and my boyfriend was a senior.

All that stands out about that evening was my having to wait by the phone for my boyfriend to call to tell me the time he was coming by to take me to a house party (where someone’s parents were out of town).

As 5 pm turned into 6 pm, turned into 7 pm, turned into 8 pm, I became extremely anxious, especially when my mother said, “Would it be so bad if you stayed home?” (Yea mom, how about the end of the world as I know it.)

When Mr. Considerate finally called at 8 pm the trauma ceased. But thinking back upon that 1971 New Year’s Eve, it was how waiting by the phone helped form five positive personality traits that women like me did not even realize we were developing.  Eventually these five traits served baby boomer women extremely well as we made our way through the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s taking advantage of all the new career opportunities that the women’s movement afforded.

Here are the five personality traits aging baby boomer women learned while waiting by the phone.

1. Patience

When you were forced to accept someone else’s timetable you learned it was not just all about you. Waiting by the phone developed patience and was superb training for almost any career and life in general.

2. Rejection

This feeling was experienced when you finally realized that he was not going to call after he said (or you assumed) he would. Learning to cope with rejection without feeling like a complete loser was an important life lesson. The key was to think about all your positive attributes that this man was obviously missing. Then move ahead and don’t look back. This concept was easily applied to the professional world, especially if you were a business owner or involved in sales of any kind. Women of a certain age who experienced sitting by the phone waiting for him to call learned how to be resilient in the face of rejection.

3. Self worth/Self esteem

You waited by the phone and he did call. High five! You were on top of your game. All your flirting skills worked and you were the master of the feminine universe. (But sometimes you discovered that he was not worth waiting for!)

Later in life this same initial exhilaration was experienced when you landed a new job or a new client/contract/project was won. But you never let it go to your head. One learned early on that you must never be cocky because rejection in love or life could be lurking right around the corner.

4. Diplomacy 

He called, (maybe even weeks after he said he would) and you refrained from telling him that he was an insensitive jerk. But since you were really glad to hear from him you said no such thing. Later in the business world this skill came in handy when “the customer was always right” even if he/she was not.

5. Playing the Game

Once while chatting with some guy friends in my high school classes they admitted to me that often they did not call a girl after they said they would because they did not want to appear “pussy whipped.” (Yes, that was the operative term at the time.) So from this conversation I learned that there was a lot of game playing going on when it came to the timing of “the call.”

As a result, my friends and I would discuss when it was time to stop waiting and time to start living. (However, flirting with his friends was always an appropriate response.) The lesson “stop waiting and start living” developed into positive personality traits that were applicable to many future life situations.

But alas, girls/women today don’t have to deal with any of this waiting by the phone. In fact, waiting is a thing of the past since now there is no stigma attached to calling a boy before he calls you. Girls today will call, text, tweet, Facebook, or email and if that does not get his attention they will have their friends call, text, email, Facebook or tweet. From what I have heard about today’s dating habits, “whatever it takes” to catch the attention of the man of the moment seems to be acceptable behavior.

This behavior is a result of both the instant communications revolution and the women’s movement which generally has made the girls/women of today much more aggressive than my friends or I ever were in high school and college.

Perhaps this more aggressive behavior is cultural “payback” for all the countless hours their baby boomer mothers and grandmothers spent waiting by the phone especially in the weeks leading up to important date nights like New Year’s Eve. For around that time whenever the phone rang, teenage girls and young women were conditioned into thinking, “It must be him, it must be him, please be him or I will die.”

Happy New Year’s everyone!

****

More on generations at PJ Lifestyle:

Dissecting Baby Boomer Liberalism Like a Frog in Science Class

Baby Boomers: The Most Depressed Generation

Young America! Stop Letting Boomers Feed Off You

Mellon Collie & the Infinite Sadness Remastered on Vinyl for $73.99

via Amazon.com: Mellon Collie & the Infinite Sadness: The Smashing Pumpkins: Music.

Amazon.com

Emotionally over-the-top pop extravaganzas like the string-swelling “Tonight Tonight,” the Metallica-influenced alternative rock of “Zero,” the techno via new wave of “1979″–the 28 songs on this swell two-disc album are as eclectic as their themes are epic and ambitious. Billy Corgan’s thin whine isn’t much of an instrument, but he makes the most of it by writing smart songs that take emotional chances that more-typical alt rockers would deem uncool. Pessimistic and feeling trapped but still wanting to believe in love, in a future, in something–this is the sound of Gen X at the millennium, with all the self-indulgence and power that would suggest. –David Cantwell

Product Description

MELLON COLLIE AND THE INFINITE SADNESS is being released in multiple physical and digital configurations, including an expanded 5CD+DVD Deluxe Box Set (also available digitally) and the remastered original album in 4LP Vinyl, 2CD, and digital formats. The Deluxe Box Set’s 5 CDs include 64 bonus tracks of previously unreleased material or alternate versions of MELLON COLLIE era songs, and its DVD features a live show filmed at the Brixton Academy, London (1996) and bonus performances from the German music television show Rockpalast (1996). It all comes housed in a 12 x 12 lift-top box with magnetic closure, reimagined cover art and velvet-lined disc holder. The package includes 2 books containing personal notes, lyrics, new collage artwork, plus a Decoupage kit for creating your own scenes from the MELLON COLLIE universe. The bonus content and special features were curated from the band’s archives by CORGAN, and have been painstakingly remastered for the first time from the original master tapes by Bob Ludwig.

Originally released October 24, 1995, MELLON COLLIE AND THE INFINITE SADNESS would debut at #1 on the Billboard 200 chart and was certified 9x platinum by the RIAA. It yielded major hits like “Bullet With Butterfly Wings” the band’s unlikely first Top 40 hit the exquisite “1979″ and epic “Tonight, Tonight” as well as a thoroughly inspired series of videos. Produced by BILLY CORGAN, Flood and Alan Moulder, the album would also earn a Grammy Award (1996 Best Hard Rock Performance for “Bullet With Butterfly Wings”) as well as seven nominations. Beyond the more obvious hits, though, MELLON COLLIE is a song cycle of unusual depth and considerable range. It is a collection of stunningly beautiful moments when everything lined up–a moment in time that’s still here to be treasured.

****

Related at PJ Lifestyle:

New Smashing Pumpkins Album Oceania Out June 19

The 3 Biggest Myths About Generation X

The 5 Best Generation X Filmmakers

Get It On!: The Adam Carolla-Dennis Prager Story

Like peanut butter and jelly, like Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen, Adam Carolla and Dennis Prager were meant to be together. Their on-air, on-stage chemistry works because it was meant to work. It’s supposed to work.

I am simply the one who made it all happen.

But unlike a coming together of freshly baked chocolate chip cookies and a tall glass of cold milk, the union of the foul-mouthed atheist comedian Carolla and the erudite religious conservative Prager was not something as plain as the delicious smell wafting into the nose on your face. There was preparation and man-hours involved. There is a backstory.

Here it comes.

In 2005, while sitting on the roof of a house whose shutters I was painting to make some side cash during my senior year of college, I heard for the first time the commanding voice and demonstrable wisdom of Dennis Prager. In spite of the poor sound quality my small boombox offered, I heard the intellectual mentor for whom I’d been searching. Although the work I was doing at that exact moment was mundane and thoughtless, the monologue Prager unfurled had a zeal and depth that made one want to drop the paintbrush in order that he might go read an important book or start a charity or help an old lady cross the street.

Or, at the very least, do the best job of painting a shutter that one possibly could.

Like greater men such as Andrew Breitbart and David Mamet before me, I “found” Dennis in much the same way Gary Cooper in Sergeant York “found” religion.

To be fair to the Cooper-Breitbart-Mamet analogy, conservatism already coursed through my veins, but up to that point my political appetite had been fed primarily by the red meat served up daily on cable news shows and in Sean Hannity’s books. I believe in Ronald Reagan’s 11^th Commandment, and so please understand that I mean no disrespect to any of the fine people who represent my values in the media, but it was then, finally, that I heard in Dennis’ presentation a voice of strength and breadth and insight that I had secretly craved.

A man of substance. A man of thoughtful inquiry. A man of big ideas.

This was my introduction to what I affectionately call “Prager Conservatism,” and from that point until today I haven’t gone more than a few days without listening to his nationally syndicated radio show or reading his discerning weekly columns. Eventually, after graduating from college, my friends and I began hosting “Prager Hour” nights twice a month where a bunch of guys in their 20s would come over, enjoy a cigar if they so chose, hear a pre-selected segment or two of The Dennis Prager Radio Show’s podcast, and engage in lively discussion and debate for a couple of hours.  Dennis was Obi-wan to our band of Luke Skywalkers.

Thankfully none of us have had our hands chopped off with a light-saber by a scary man who claims to have sired us…yet!

The 5 Best Generation X Filmmakers

Generation X has taken over the movies. Just this fall, new films from David O. Russell, Ben Affleck, and Quentin Tarantino promise to be major players come awards time. So who are the five best American filmmakers under 50?

5. Darren Aronofsky

Arrogant enough to turn down the opportunity to direct Batman Begins, the Brooklyn-born filmmaker has made some surprising choices. After starting out in David Lynch territory with Pi, he threatened to disappear in a fog of epic sci-fi weirdness with The Fountain but returned to Earth in triumph with the agreeably gritty and surprisingly straight-on The Wrestler, which relaunched Mickey Rourke and showed an unexpected depth of feeling and humanity. Then came Black Swan, a worldwide sensation that deservedly won Natalie Portman an Oscar and managed to be cerebral, trashy, arty, and sexy all at the same time. Now Aronofsky is going off in yet another direction, steering the mega-budget Bible epic Noah with Russell Crowe, which sounds like either a disaster or a sensation but seems guaranteed to make an impression.

How Today’s Young Women Learned to Sing the Truth About Hookup Culture

After Hanna Rosin’s glowing praise for promiscuity in her new book The End of Men, articles about the hookup culture are popping up all over the web. Is it really good for women? Do they actually like it? Is replacing forward men with on-the-prowl women really progress?

Intentional or not, many of this summer’s pop rock music releases offer songs about the truth and consequences of the hookup culture. Three of these artists in particular boldly sing about love; as products of their generations, their songs can teach us about the hookup culture. The early songs of Alanis Morissette, P!nk, and Katy Perry provide a window into how these ideas progressed from Gen X women to Millennial women. The rockers’ latest works (Alanis’ havoc and bright lights, P!nk’s The Truth About Love, and Perry’s “Wide Awake”) are about how they are coping, or not, with marriage and, in the case of Alanis and P!nk, motherhood. What truths about love and happiness do their songs tell us?

The results are counterintuitive for the Rosin types who think that the hookup culture empowers women. Surely the eyes-wide-open, independent Millennial Perry is the one who has it all together? According to her songs, she is not. The truth-teller P!nk, perhaps? She is holding together if only because she hates goodbyes. No, it is angry Alanis who seems to have found peace in spite of all the havoc and bright lights. And her relative lack of experience with the hookup culture can explain why.

Hey Generation X, What’s Wrong With Change?

I recently bought Havoc and Bright Lights, Alanis Morissette’s new album. It focuses on motherhood, marriage, and womanhood. Since I write about these topics, this is of great interest to me, especially since I was among the many Gen Xers for whom Jagged Little Pill resonated. I have the new album on loop to analyze the lyrics and write a post about it.

While researching, I keep seeing an irksome comment. Many articles or reviews mention something like “don’t worry because Alanis hasn’t lost her angst.” It’s not just Alanis, either. P!nk has a motherhood- and marriage-inspired album coming in a few weeks as well. From Pop Crush’s review of her single “Blow Me (One Last Kiss)”:

For fans who worried that the singer’s reunion with once-estranged hubby Carey Hart and subsequent birth of daughter Willow Sage had softened the heavily tattooed starlet, fear not. She’s still feisty, she’s still funny and you better believe she’s still vengeful, singing, “You’ll be calling a trick / ‘Cause you no longer sleep / I’ll dress nice / I’ll look good / I’ll go dancing alone / I will laugh / I’ll get drunk / I’ll take somebody home!”

Yeah, that’s what I worry about for a new mother, whether she’s still feisty, funny, and vengeful. We wouldn’t want marriage and motherhood to soften a heart and change some fave music. That’d be horrible.

Why is there such fear of change?

3 (Conservative) Reasons to Admire Helen Gurley Brown

Yes, I know:

She advocated for legal abortion and contraception.

She made the world safe for Sex and the City.

Worst of all, she insisted on wearing mini-skirts well after menopause.

Yet I can’t help but admire Helen Gurley Brown, the author of the early 1960s self-help phenomenon Sex & the Single Girl and longtime editor of Cosmopolitan magazine who died last week at age 90.

I’ve always had a soft spot for “outsider” female writers of the ’50s, ’60s and ’70s. It’s hard to imagine two women more different than Grace Metalious and Jacqueline Susann, yet I inhaled both their biographies.

Helen Gurley Brown was part of the same cohort of fiercely ambitious, sometimes uncouth “literary” females of the era.

But while those novelists created vivid fictional worlds in which to play out their fantasies of beauty, romance, fame, and revenge, Helen Gurley Brown’s accomplishment was far more audacious:

She too imagined, in pointillistic detail, her ideal realm — then set about remaking an entire society to match her personal vision.

The old joke goes, “It’s Sinatra’s world — we just live in it,” but it would be more accurate to say we’re living in Helen Gurley Brown’s.

Not everyone is happy about that.

However, there ARE three things to love about the brash publishing icon.

But Does Paul Ryan Like Rush?

Over at PJ Media, Michael Walsh has this piece about Paul Ryan’s familiarity with the pro-freedom writings of Ayn Rand.  But the unanswered questions is does Paul Ryan also like… Rush?

No, not the Rush from Florida silly.  The Rush from Canada.

Let’s consider,

About my age (42ish):  Check (Subdivisions!).

Reads Ayn Rand: Check.

Grew up within range of WMET-FM in Chicago in 1980s: Check

Libertarian tendencies: Check

And the most important thing, male: Check

Paul Ryan is 5 for 5 on the Rush probability index.  Maybe his campaign can start playing some Rush now that the leftist bands he likes told him to stop playing them, like Rage Against the Machine.

The Mummy Wars Flaring Up Again in the United Kingdom

A stay at home mom. Real SAHM's envy her stretchy limbs. They would make multi-tasking much easier.

Remember a few months ago when Hilary Rosen stoked the Mommy Wars by insulting Ann Romney and stay at home moms as too uninformed to have an opinion on anything outside the home?  Well, the UK’s Mummy Wars flared up this week when Cherie Blair, Queen’s Council and wife of former Prime Minister Tony Blair made some disparaging comments about stay-at-home-mums.

One of the things that worries me now is you see young women who say: “I look at the sacrifices that women have made and I think why do I need to bother, why can’t I just marry a rich husband and retire?” and you think how can they even imagine that is the way to fulfil yourself, how dangerous it is.

Ah, yes, that is what we stay-at-home moms have done, married a rich man and retired. What exactly do some working women think that we SAHM’s do all day? And how do SAHMs handle the inevitable “what do you do?” and “isn’t it boring?” questions that we field from working women, with or without children?

Beyond the Mommy/Mummy Wars, however, I see doubt and regret. Older feminists talk about how we need to be independent for our own good, how we need to fulfill ourselves, but what really seems to irk Blair and other feminists of her generation is that younger women don’t herald “the sacrifices that women [of Cherie's generation] have made.” They want assurance through our endorsement, and they aren’t getting it.

I Kid You Not: The Top 4 Reasons I Don’t Have Children

I bow to no one when it comes to admiring conservative author Mark Steyn.

I’ve traveled miles to hear him speak and even own “Mark Steyn” t-shirts.

However, he and I disagree about arguably his most famous conviction:

That we in the West need to have more children, pronto.

The European demographic collapse Steyn warned about in America Alone and After America acts itself out every night on the news.

I might joke that the best argument against Steyn’s conclusion is, well, this.

But obviously, I know Steyn’s right.

However, like Al Gore with his private jet, I just don’t plan to do my part to ameliorate this state of affairs.

I never have.

When I was playing with a doll, all of age four, some nice lady bent down and chirped, “I guess you’ll want a real one of those of your own one day…?”

I recoiled in horror. Normally a quiet (nay, catatonic) youngster, I can still hear myself bawling, “NO!!”

I have never entertained a different answer. Not even for a moment — passionate, drunken, hormonal, or otherwise.

Why is that?

(Besides the obvious answer: Because gross!)

The 3 Biggest Myths About Generation X

Warren Kinsella is the Canadian James Carville: that is, an extremely well-compensated, high-profile Liberal Party consultant and insider.

(It’s surely just an unlucky coincidence that since he started working for them, the Liberals went from “Canada’s Natural Governing Party” to placing an impotent third in the last federal election.)

Some of us had another great laugh at Kinsella’s expense recently, after he praised a rival party’s “innovative” campaign commercial because it starred, and would presumably appeal to, members of “Generation X.”

Except the young people in the ad were just that: young — all in their twenties.

And Generation X hasn’t been in its twenties for twenty years.

I know, because I’m a member of that cohort. As is, hilariously enough, highly paid, powerful and influential Liberal Party consultant Warren Kinsella. (See: “third place,” above.)

See, being a Gen-Xer means my irony detection meter is always switched to “ultra sensitive.” And Kinsella’s gormless mistake almost broke the damn thing.

You’d think that being Canadians of a certain age, he and I would be on the same page on this matter, if nothing else.

After all, the term “Generation X” was popularized by our contemporary Douglas Coupland’s titular 1991 novel. (And Coupland swiped his title from the name of Billy Idol’s old pop-punk band; my fellow ex-punk Kinsella should know that, too.)

There are lots of things “great minds” got wrong about Generation X since they started writing and worrying about them. (I mean, us.)

After Coupland’s novel — about over-educated, underemployed pop culture addicts who’ve formed an ad hoc “family” of friends – swept the planet, countless “consultants” (including, briefly, Coupland himself) started marketing themselves as experts on my demographic.

These consultants made a whole lot of money, keynote-speaking to job-for-life CEOs about why we Gen-Xer’s were all so broke and unemployed.

And the most irritating (and yeah, ironic) thing is, none of these “experts” (“X-perts”?) even agree on when we were born.