Just had to share a video (see below) after seeing Madonna perform at yesterday’s Super Bowl XLVI. It’s a video I discovered a couple months ago, released last fall for a promotion going on at the time at Macy’s. It shows Madonna and her 15-year-old daughter, Lourdes (“Lola”), talking as Madonna gets her hair done, and while you gotta think it’s probably scripted at least in part, it’s still pretty funny seeing her daughter call herself “part of the cool world” to set herself apart from her mom, who in Lola’s eyes is “old”, and Madonna shooting back at her with the word, “timeless” as an alternative to “old”. Makes us uncool moms feel good that we’re in such celebrated company! (Guess if even Madonna is considered uncool by her kid, those of you still trying hard to be cool better give it up!)
Yes, the Material Girl showed us yesterday how “timeless” she is and how great middle age can look and move. I’ve never been much of a fan before, but — WOW! If you saw it, weren’t you impressed? Sure didn’t look like a body double doing those cartwheels– and when she got to comically sing the line, “I work out!” with the guys from LMFAO, you knew she wasn’t lying!
Definitely inspired me to keep up my exercise classes.
Enjoy!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=UJ5cwjDbwq4
Category Archives: Uncool Parent Hall of Fame
Road Trippin’
Just got back from taking the kids (and the dog) on our annual summer road trip to Grandma’s (a 26-hour round trip) and while there, we decided to rent a movie and teach Grandma how to use her DVD player. It’s hard to find a movie on which an 86-year-old, a 15-year-old, an 11-year-old and two 40-something parents can agree, but at Allison’s suggestion we chose “RV”, a 2006 family road trip movie starring Robin Williams, Jeff Daniels, Kristin Chenowith, Cheryl Hines, Will Arnett and teen pop star Jo Jo. While it’s not Academy Award-caliber, it was a good choice that all of us enjoyed and has a great opening scene that Andy and I could so relate to…a darling little girl sits on her bed, giggling while her daddy (Robin Williams) entertains her with sock puppets. After Mom walks by and scolds him for getting the girl riled up at bedtime, the girl tells Daddy she doesn’t ever want to leave home and get married so she can always be with him, and he tells her that no matter where she goes they will always have a special friendship (fade to black). The next scene shows Robin Williams driving a car, a frown on his face as he angrily talks to his daughter, now 15, who sits behind him, chewing gum, Ipod earplugs in her ears. She’s mad at him and calls him a name (was it Dork? Loser?) because they’re driving to pick up her friend and he doesn’t know where the friend lives. Robin Williams looks like he’s going to cry. “Dad, she just gave you the finger!” pipes up her younger brother, also in the back seat.
By the end of the movie (and their family road trip in an RV), the daughter appears to have changed her attitude about Dad. Hmmm… even though we don’t rent an RV (yep, that’s my aravan doing all that driving), I do think my own status was raised slightly in Allison’s eyes during this trip because we visited my college alma mater on the way home and ate lunch at a sidewalk cafe near campus, and since it appeared to be freshman check-in day, Allison got to do major people-watching. We walked and drove around campus and the girls asked me lots of questions. Allison said it was the highlight of her trip.
Andy, unfortunately, didn’t fare as well. Turns out he’d turned off the AC on the second floor of our house just before we’d left town, so teen daughter did not appreciate the sweltering 93 degrees that welcomed her tired body when we drooped into our bedrooms last night at 1 a.m.
Ah, family road trips…gotta love ’em!
Road Trippin’
Just got back from taking the kids (and the dog) on our annual summer road trip to Grandma’s (a 26-hour round trip) and while there, we decided to rent a movie and teach Grandma how to use her DVD player. It’s hard to find a movie on which an 86-year-old, a 15-year-old, an 11-year-old and two 40-something parents can agree, but at Allison’s suggestion we chose “RV”, a 2006 family road trip movie starring Robin Williams, Jeff Daniels, Kristin Chenowith, Cheryl Hines, Will Arnett and teen pop star Jo Jo. While it’s not Academy Award-caliber, it was a good choice that all of us enjoyed and has a great opening scene that Andy and I could so relate to…a darling little girl sits on her bed, giggling while her daddy (Robin Williams) entertains her with sock puppets. After Mom walks by and scolds him for getting the girl riled up at bedtime, the girl tells Daddy she doesn’t ever want to leave home and get married so she can always be with him, and he tells her that no matter where she goes they will always have a special friendship (fade to black). The next scene shows Robin Williams driving a car, a frown on his face as he angrily talks to his daughter, now 15, who sits behind him, chewing gum, Ipod earplugs in her ears. She’s mad at him and calls him a name (was it Dork? Loser?) because they’re driving to pick up her friend and he doesn’t know where the friend lives. Robin Williams looks like he’s going to cry. “Dad, she just gave you the finger!” pipes up her younger brother, also in the back seat.
By the end of the movie (and their family road trip in an RV), the daughter appears to have changed her attitude about Dad. Hmmm… even though we don’t rent an RV (yep, that’s my aravan doing all that driving), I do think my own status was raised slightly in Allison’s eyes during this trip because we visited my college alma mater on the way home and ate lunch at a sidewalk cafe near campus, and since it appeared to be freshman check-in day, Allison got to do major people-watching. We walked and drove around campus and the girls asked me lots of questions. Allison said it was the highlight of her trip.
Andy, unfortunately, didn’t fare as well. Turns out he’d turned off the AC on the second floor of our house just before we’d left town, so teen daughter did not appreciate the sweltering 93 degrees that welcomed her tired body when we drooped into our bedrooms last night at 1 a.m.
Ah, family road trips…gotta love ’em!
Laughing Outside the Box
Has being a mom for almost 15 years warped my sense of humor? I mean, my body will never truly be the same (in soooo many ways) due to giving birth to two children and my memory has suffered as well, but, I never thought my presumed “high brow” sense of humor might change. But lately I’ve found myself laughing at …gulp… Billy Ray Cyrus and the cast of the TV show, “Hannah Montana”. Billy Ray Cyrus— the guy who used to wear a mullet? Who made millions off of a stupid country song and an even stupider dance? Wouldn’t liking him be about the same as saying you like monster truck races and SPAM sandwiches? But, as much as I hate to admit it, every time I catch a snippet of “Hannah Montana” whenever my daughters are watching it, he makes me laugh. And so do some of the other people on that show. I’m amazed, and I’ve thought about this phenomenon a bunch—is Disney throwing some kind of subliminal stuff through the airwaves that’s causing this? Or is it really funny? I’m someone who laughs at Conan O’Brien, Amy Poehler, Steven Wright. I love offbeat stuff like the movies “Best in Show” and “Strictly Ballroom” and TV shows like “The Simpsons” and “Parks and Recreation”. “Hannah Montana” is not exactly in the same category, and not something you’d find on my Facebook Favorites.
But yet, again and again, it cracks me up. While it’s nice to have things in common with your kids…I wasn’t counting on that being one of them. What’s going on here?
Maybe I like Billy Ray Cyrus because he portrays an uncool dad. In one episode, he won’t let his daughter go on a trip to Europe until she improves her grades. In another, he embarrasses her as he drops her off at a party, by sticking a megaphone out of the car window and announcing that her dad had to drive her there. It’s one of several punishments after (if my memory serves me correctly) she tries to drive a car without having a legitimate license. (Wonder if he’s like that in real life.) But admiring his parenting techniques and laughing (out loud) at his corny jokes are two different things.
To help me find out if I’ve gone “off the deep end” or if that show’s script and actors are truly funny, I enlisted the help of my husband. We usually laugh at the same kinds of things. If he laughs at the show, it must be funny. So we watched an episode last night, with no kids in the house. (What a date night, huh?) Unfortunately, Billy Ray hardly appeared. We did laugh at the short kid, Rico (Moises Arias), and at the kid who plays Miley’s brother (Jason Earles). But as we sat there watching, I realized that Andy wasn’t a good subject for this experiment. After all, in addition to the stuff we both find funny, he also likes reruns of The Gong Show and The Dukes of Hazzard.
So I’m going to throw it out there to my blog readers—if you’ve seen the show “Hannah Montana”, do you think it’s funny at all? (And if so, do you also like Larry the Cable Guy and going to Branson on vacation?) Click here or see below for a link to online episodes if you’ve never seen it (might want to fast forward through the overplayed theme song.) Please leave a comment here or email me to let me know what you think. Because I really want to know if Disney has created something more than just another vehicle with which to sell music, movies, clothes, and bed linens. Or, if I should be very, very worried. ###
I’m In Good (Uncool) Company
If you’ve been trying really hard to be a cool parent, give it up. You could be a rock star and your kids will still think you’re uncool. Just look at Bono.
Did you hear last week that his kids think he’s uncool? Bono, you know, lead singer for the band U2, tireless crusader for Africa and third world countries, Nobel Peace Prize nominee…who’d of thought he’d be my first inductee into the Uncool Parent Hall of Fame?! He has not one, but (God have mercy on him) two teenage daughters, both who think he’s uncool, according to an interview he gave to London’s Daily Mail (click to go to the article). So I’m going to bestow that honor on him. I hope he stops by to claim his prize– a ride in my trashed-out minivan!!! 