Because my life is oddly tied up with Dr. Phil's, I'm keeping half an eye on the rumors that his marriage is on the rocks. That's why I popped in on the Globe web discussion of this shocker.

The story itself is not available on the Web site, but I read all the comments, just for the helluvit and oh my .... What's with the spelling? What's with the random capitalizations? What's with the hate? Even I don't hate Dr. Phil that much and I know more about him than most people. No, I don't know if the rumors are true. I wouldn't be surprised. (Reason No. 4.) I don't keep close tabs on the doc these days. The book is old, it didn't sell well, I've moved on. Mostly.

Still, I was equal parts entertained and appalled. For example:

He is a big Hippocrates he writes books about weight loss, but yet he is over weight, he talks about divorce and yet he is getting on. Practice what you preach please!

Did you mean a big Hippopotamus?

I always saw thru him and Oprah, both phonies!!Once a loser always a loser! This goes to show you that Psychology is NOT such an exact science after all! Its better to have some common sense than know psychology, because psychology does not always work, all it does is lead many innocent people into taking drugs and their life when they get messed up by following the advcie of them. These so called Perfectionist are nto so eprfect afetr all!! Man I love it when I see such Fools fall off their high horses! May theya ll fall down! What I ahet it that they got so amny lives emssed up before they mesed up their own lives. Why couldnt they mess up their own lives first? Many end up in a worst state than they were before they went to see "shrinks" May G*D judge all these fools that rely on man for such advice!!!

Wow, this guy is so worked up about Psychology his typing fingers went apeshit.

Who cares if they get a divorce ~ Robin thinks she is perfect, well guess what? you are NOT

Who cares, they are all Hollywood loosers anyway!!!!

Take my wife Dr. Phil, she loves you!

alot of the people i know and spoke to always though he was a fake

Experts on the subject, no doubt.

Dr. Phil is just a guy trying to make as much money as he can. If this is true it will be great for him. He can pay off Robin and still be rich. He can now marry a hot younger which he will be much more happy with and attracted to. This is great for him, it is what all men wish they could do if they just had the money or the courage.

OK, guys, 'fess up. Is that true?

honestly , doctor phil deserves a better wife!

Who cares!!! He's a fraud! What has Dr. Phil ever said that was more than common sence? Nothing! He's a jerk on the show, so he's probly a jerk to his wife. It's no Shock to me

I need some advice on male pattern baldness. Can you help me Dr Phil?

Not suprised!!! He who giveth advice shall some day seek adavice!!!

Did you mean Ativan?

Guess no marriage is safe, god only knows the situation of that marriage, you never know what happens between close doors of a couple.

Anyway I lost respective on Dr. Phil when he bailed that girl out of jail, he actually just wants more viewers guess hes loosing hes touch anyway by him doing that he lost mine and many others......I have no intention of watching hes show any longer he uses other people tragedy for hes own wealth that to me is not a human that cares to help others just hes pocket laughing to the bank.

Good!!! I hope his wife takes him to the cleaners!!! I can't stand him sitting up there like is the almighty!! Good for you Robin.........Call me!! :)

Dr.Phil is a very good man-and his wife is a very stupid woman.No offence...

None taken, I'm sure.

wel, people i really do think there marrige is in trouble cause they seem to have such a perfect marrige an i think its all fony act for tv an i think robin loks a lil retarded or something is wrong with her she is a strange lady wearing those big boots there are bigger than her omg robin you need help try an be yourself not a fony

Dr. Phil and Robin are serious goof Balls.

I was absolutely shocked when I heard this, as much as he gets on TV and preaches to people about divorce and what they are doing wrong....Dr. Phil I'm here if u need someone!!!!!!!!!!!

Good, I hope they get divorced.
Robin isn't a good companion.
Phillip needs a better wife.

Labels: dr. phil

I passed a herd of miniature asses yesterday.

No, really. I know that’s what they were because I saw miniature asses races at the State Fair of Texas one year. They’re cute little donkeys, they look like plush Eeyores, only happier. They were grazing in a big field under a blue, blue sky studded with cartoon clouds.

I was driving by on Texas highway 281, en route from Austin home. I was taking the back roads because Willy Nelson was having a big blowout at Carl’s Corner, on I-35, the main highway. So instead of coping with mind-numbing traffic, I was meandering through small towns, past "hay for sale--square or round bales" signs and roadside fireworks stands and occasionally someone selling peaches and watermelons from the back of a truck. (I should have stopped but that’s tough for me when I get moving.)

I had my mouth set on a Whataburger, but couldn’t find any on this highway so I finally opted for Dairy Queen and was enjoying a Hunger Buster Junior and Raul Malo on the iPod when I passed those cute little miniature asses.

I don’t care what anyone says, nothing beats a road trip.

I understand that the road trip might lose favor as we become more cognizant of the damage our fuel guzzling ways have wrought, and as gas gets increasingly dear. (I was pleased to have filled up a $3.93 9/10 a gallon, the cheapest gas I saw all the way home, except for the $1.83 sign still up at a long-abandoned gas station. Funny how pennies differences matter to us in this context and no other.)

So I was bummed by this cranky op-ed Michael Paterniti. The New York Times asked several writers to reflect on the consequences, good and bad, of gas prices and a diatribe against the road trip was what Paterniti came up with.

It made me sad and annoyed because I don’t understand dichotomous thinking that says if the stay trip is good then the road trip is bad. I like them both. I have two favorite ways to vacation. One is a long road trip fueled by gummy bears, beef jerky and tunes. The other is a rental cottage or apartment, where I can settle in, learn a place in microcosm and pretend to be a local.

But the road trip is my true love. My first real trip was across the United States with two girlfriends in a baby blue Plymouth Duster. I then moved on to the Greyhound bus, an alternate form of road trip. Then, I got a car. (Yeah—I didn’t learn to drive until I was 19 years old and didn’t own a car until I was 22.)

Nothing, nothing, nothing is better than seeing the country in large scale and small (Texas plains and miniature asses) through a windshield, than singing along with the radio, than road food and road thoughts and, if you have companionship, road conversations. As the body wanders so does the mind.

My alternate route yesterday took two hours longer than the usual route (five hours instead of three) and admittedly, I was a crispy critter when I finally reached my own driveway. The drive also drank half a tank of gas, about $25 worth in my car. And it gave me a Yeti-sized carbon footprint for that one day.

So I understand that the road trip may be an American icon to be relegated to history. I understand that and I hate it and if I must give it up, will do so with deep sadness. When I am old—really old—I will sit in a rocking chair and reminisce about the days when I could just get in my car and go—looking for America and finding it.

Do you like my new business card?

Labels: air travel, news, road trip, texas

I may never get anything done again, now that I've found the dancing pipe cleaner.

Tip: Click the letters on the side for music.

Labels: fun shit

I was intrigued by the Yahoo headline “4 Reasons Why Celebrity Couples Fail.” When I’m not worrying about world hunger and peace in the Middle East, I have wondered why celebrities bother marrying in the first place, considering the odds. (Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward vs. everybody else.)

The Yahoo blog post was pretty thin, though. I swear, she just made it all up off the top of her head.

I’ve given my theories a lot more thought.

Reason No. 1: They’re just too damn hot
We all tend to end up with mates who are roughly as attractive as ourselves. So, imagine if your dating pool included George Clooney, Will Smith, Brad Pitt, Johnny Depp, Angelina Jolie, Gwyneth Paltrow, Vanessa Williams—not to mention all those lingerie models and back-up dancers running around looking all hot n shit.

If you’ve ever been to a buffet and ended up with a plate loaded down with enough to feed a small developing nation because everything looks so yummy, then you understand the trouble celebrities must have in settling for just one super-hot spouse.

Reason No. 2: They fall in love on movie sets
Rather than falling in love with each other, they fall in love with the characters they’re playing, then fall out of love once the last vestiges of whoever they were pretending to be drops off and they turn back into regular super-hot, super-rich shmoes.

Reason No. 3: They’re actor-shmactors
Not all of them of course, sometimes they’re rock stars. But movie stars are paid large sums of money to be the characters other people want them to be. Can you turn off that tendency in real life? Will Katie Holmes suddenly one day realize she’s just been playing The Little Woman in a movie called Tom Cruise’s Life and want a new role?

Reason No. 4: Celebrity nurtures narcissism
For people who are even slightly narcissistic to begin with—and I’d argue that anyone who seeks the limelight must have a bit of that—celebrity is like gasoline on a red ember. And that’s not great for relationships. If they find another celebrity (narcissist) mate, they won’t get the attention and adulation they feel is their due. If they find a non-celebrity mate, then they’re probably pretty sure they deserve better.

Reason No. 5: They don’t need the paycheck
Marriage remains an economic arrangement. If you don’t need the money, if you can pay well-trained child care professionals to help with the kids, if you never have to fill the refrigerator or make the bed, if your paycheck is enough to cover your own needs and the needs of your entire extended family, why bother working through the rough patches in a marriage when you can just move on without a blip in your quality of life? What's your motivation?

Labels: celebrities, pop culture, relationships

Did anyone catch Saturday Night Live this week—the rebroadcast of the first episode, starring George Carlin?

He was great, of course. He didn’t participate in skits but instead his stand-up was interspersed among the skits and musical performances by Billy Preston and his band of nattily dressed ‘70s hipsters, and poor, unhappy Janis Ian. Such a sad sack.

The ‘70s ... so long ago.

Carlin’s schtick about the irony of going through airport security and then being handed eating utensils was prescient. His joke about threatening a stewardess by cutting her throat with a piece of paper was disturbing.

And did you catch the TV commercial satire about a razor with three blades? Three blades! Can you imagine? Outlandish!

I think we’re up to five blades now. How high can we go?

My, how things have changed.

I’ve also been watching Maude on DVD again. Most disturbing: Maude is supposed to be 47 years old in the show. The disk I have includes an episode of Walter celebrating his 50th birthday.

I'm still waiting to feel older than Archie Andrews and now I learn I'm older than Maude.

Aside from that, this disk includes the episodes in which Maude gets pregnant. (Oy, she’s so upset, she needs a double something. Looks like Scotch.) She decides, after two episodes of discussion, to get an abortion. It was weird, just weird, to hear a discussion that frank and unburdened by politics or hysteria. Her daughter Carol (Adrienne Barbeau) was all over ditching that fetus. It’s hard to imagine any television show today touching this topic.

My how things have changed.

In another episode, Maude and her “housewife” friends decide to protest a young supermarket checker getting busted for pot by buying pot and all getting arrested.

The whole episode is like entering a parallel universe.

For example: Carol comes downstairs in the morning feeling groggy. Maude and Walter had kept her up fighting about the planned protest and so Adrienne finally had to give in and take a Valium, she explains. Oh, Maude can help--here's a Ritalin to wake her up. (“That’s what mommies are for.”)

Then, their doctor buddy Arthur stops by (with a hangover) and Walter hits him up for refills on their drugs--Secenol, Miltown, Librium.

Holy crap, Maude. You’re all hopped up on dolls! Who knew?

Yes, that’s the point—the hypocrisy of marijuana laws when people are taking all kinds of other drugs, but still… Can you imagine Ray Romano downing a Miltown after a bad day?

Maude was responsible for getting weed to get herself and her friends busted but Walter confiscates her $20 bag and she ends up going to the police station with a bag of oregano. The sergeant at the desk figures that out and won’t arrest anyone for that. He also complains of exhaustion and so Maude rummages in her purse and helpfully hands him a Dexamil.

I was sure the punch line would be that she would get arrested for distributing another kind of controlled substance. Nope. Blablabla, Maude and the women end up going home, free, and after she’s gone, the cop shrugs and pops the Dexamil.

Cue the music.

MY how things have changed!

Finally, last night Tom and I wallowed in VH1 Classic’s History of Rock episodes about 1970s rock and then punk. No particular insights about that here, except to note how deep the roots of the rock of our formative years run. It just sounds, looks and feels so right to me, so personal, in a way no music from before or after does. I still belong to the Blank Generation. That doesn’t seem to change.

Labels: 1970s, music, pop culture, television

Coincidentally, here's an interesting Wall Street Journal column about downsizing, by a guy who found his career plans torpedoed because he had too much house to sell in a timely fashion in this economy. Now he and his wife are realizing that they have much more house than they need and are planning a big downsize.

So far, email on my frugality op-ed has been almost completely positive, except for the one I mentioned. I got another email from the same guy suggesting my column was less about being frugal than being envious. Well, sure. I've never made a secret that envy is my Deadly Sin of choice. I envy people with money, yup, sure do. I particularly envy people who have money they don't have to actually work for. Wow, wouldn't that be nice?

Still, I've made my choices and it's just nice to be on what feels like winning side of the economy for once.

(BTW, the fellow who emailed concerned about my state of mind commented on an "undertow" of anger in my recent blogs. I told him he flattered me--they were blatantly angry. His concern was really nice, though.)

Labels: money, news

Hm…one stranger and one friend has expressed concern about my recent rants, wondering if I am depressed enough to require treatment. So I guess I should reassure y’all that I really am fine. It’s hot out, I’ve had some situations that have annoyed the living crap out of me, I’m cranky. But I’m actually living with a lot of gusto (Ole!) these days. The rants are just venting, for my own amusement if (evidently) not yours. I actually find my angry monkey mind strangely funny—I can see what I’m doing as I do it and it’s so stupid.

I’m certainly no stranger to depression, which is a lifelong thing—it comes and goes. Sometimes it’s a BFD, sometimes it’s a low-level psychic headache. My recent pissed-off-itude certainly is a mood swing. I’ll own that but I’m not concerned because I know what it feels like to be at the bottom of the pit and this ain’t it, I promise you. (Had you checked in with me last year, I’d have had a different story.)

What I didn’t tell you is that the same week an editor called what I wrote “flat,” another editor called something else “exquisite.” But being the Charlie Brown of bloggers, I chose to focus on the former rather than the latter. (See my post about cognitive distortions.) Besides, gloating about the latter would just sound boastful. (Rather than talk about it, I just read the email over and over.)

The former also gives me more to chew on. As Ira Glass said, “Every story strives to be mediocre.” Taking criticism seriously is the first step on the road from mediocrity. If it’s valid criticism, that is, and one of a writer's jobs is to sort out which criticism to take to heart and which to dismiss.

I promise you, I am not kicking the dog or putting my head in the oven. Life is actually going pretty well, for the most part. So thank you for your concern but I’m fine. Really.

Labels: memoir, personal growth

Black and Blue is nominated for best cover/tribute band in the Dallas Observer Music Awards. Click here for a ballot.

I missed their gig at the Cavern last night but evidently, they rocked the jernt. Their ya-yas are definitely out.

Labels: black and blue, dallas, music, rolling stones

And lovin' it.

No, not really, but my op-ed in today's Dallas Morning News welcomes the rest of the world to my way of life.

So far, emails from readers have been mostly positive, with one exception, from a man who accused me of getting satisfaction from the "suffering" of others. I wrote back that he needed to define "suffering." Living within one's means isn't suffering...it's sensible, and if cutting back is that difficult then I guess I do feel sorry for you, and not because you're having to cut back but because it's so painful for you. Time for some soul-searching? Read Mary's companion column about the satisfaction to be found in frugal living. Atta girl!

Another reader, who says he and his wife also life frugally, points out that it appears those who have lived beyond their means will be getting government bailouts, as, he suspects, will the boomers who have not saved for retirement--subsidized by all taxpayers. The grasshoppers may win this round, too.

Labels: dallas morning news, money, news

No, not my readers.

Among the many joys of my morning paper are the letters to the editor. While we do see many, intelligent, thought-provoking letters, nothing delights me and Tom more than the dopey ones. We're mean that way.

We still quote to each other letters we read years ago--like one from a woman who wrote at length about how they were serving snacks at her bank and there is a bank at her supermarket. "My, how things have changed," she concluded.

She wrote it, the editors ran it, we've been laughing at it since.

The last line of these letters, the wrap-up, is invariable the best part because they tend to make sweeping proclamations, quotable for years to come.

Don't just take my word for it...try this:



MEDIA DISCRIMINATION REMAINS!



Anybody out there listening?

Another reader responded to the letter by pointing out that pico de gallo is a lot healthier than BLTs.

And finally, this one has no particularly quotable last line, but it's very special.



I got yr F word, Sarah.

Then again, imagining a league of ladies breastfeeding "with gusto" is pretty amusing.

Labels: news, newspapers