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27Mar2011
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27Mar2011
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27Mar2011
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Archive for the 'Entertainment & Laughter' Category
To my friends, Anna, Peter and Lea, et al of Guam: This one is for all of you.
Guam Is The Most Interesting Destination In America And Here’s Why
Imagine a hybrid of Texas and Hawaii, or a cross between Spain and Japan: A remote island paradise with a rich, indigenous heritage, a contentious and diverse colonial history, and absolutely stunning vistas.
Welcome to Guam.
In many ways, Guam is a wonderfully unique contradiction. It’s a remote island and an international melting pot; it’s an American territory, but the gateway to Asia; it’s home to an intensely local culture, but it’s filled with outsiders. And to top it all off, it’s insanely beautiful.
Below, the 11 reasons Guam just might be America’s most interesting and exotic destination.
1. The diving:
The water is crystal clear and, unlike much of the world, Guam’s coral reefs are actually thriving. Piti Bomb Hole features such lushly perfect coral craters that it looks like they were sculpted by bombs. Between Apra Harbor, where WWI and WWII ships sunk on top of each other, to Gun Beach, where stingrays go for breakfast, divers and snorkelers are never, ever bored.
Apra Harbor
2. Chamorro food:
With clear influences from Spanish and Mexican cuisine, Chamorro food features tortillas, tamales, atole and chilaquiles. Locals especially crave Finadene (a soy sauce-based condiment) and Chicken Kelaguen, which features lemon, chile peppers and coconut shavings.
3. History:
The U.S. territory enjoys the culture of the Chamorro people (the indigenous Pacific islanders), but with heavy Spanish, Japanese, and American influences. It was first colonized by Spain in the seventeenth century, was occupied by Japan for two years during World War II, and is home today to a relatively large U.S. military presence.
Fort Soledad.
4. The culture:
Are you ready for this? Many equate the culture in Guam to that of Texas. Seriously. Between an obsession with high-school football and little league to the people themselves, apparently the Lone-Star state and the lone island have a lot in common. Guam locals have big hearts and even bigger parties (called village fiestas), and a frontier mentality means that communities are tight-knit and take care of one another.
5.The hiking:
To get you drooling, just try Instagram searching the following: Pagat Caves, Cetti Bay, Sigua Falls, Ague Cove, Talofofo Falls and Marble Cave. Yes, please!
Talofofo Falls
6. The beaches:
A pretty beach is a pretty beach, right? Apparently not. Guam enjoys near perfect weather year round (temperatures range from the low 70s to mid 80s) and the water, according to one local, is warm and uniquely delightful, as if “Mother Nature herself drew you a warm bath.”
7. Sunsets:
This is the kind of majesty you have to see for yourself.
Agana Bay and Alupai Island at sunset.
But seriously, the sunsets are incredible:
Tamuning beach
8. The music:
Reggae and ukelele lovers rejoice. With such a laid-back lifestyle, it’s easy to stumble upon great live music at the beach, the bars or the ubiquitous barbecues.
9. Exoticism:
Admit it: vacationing in Hawaii is so last century (ahem, “Mad Men”). Guam, on the other hand, is the new exotic destination for America.
10. A head start:
Guam is “where America’s Day begins” — quite literally. With it’s own timezone (Chamorro Standard Time), Guam wakes up 14 or 15 hours ahead of the Eastern Time Zone, depending on Daylight Savings Time. The island celebrates New Year’s first in America and movies often premiere ahead of the rest of America.
11. Romance:
Perhaps the island’s most famous landmark is Two Lovers’ Point, a dramatic and steep cliffside overlooking the Philippine Sea. According to Chamorro legend, two star-crossed lovers, forbidden from being together in life, leaped from the cliff so that they could be together in the afterlife. Not surprisingly, weddings are held there regularly.
Warm weather, beautiful beaches, exotic food, and of course, lovely people. What more could a girl ask for? I want to go.
Happy Saturday!
Blog me.
Lastly, greed over a great story is surfacing from my “loyal”(?) readers. With all this back and forth about who owns what, that appears on my blog, let me reiterate that all material posted on my blog becomes the sole property of my blog.If you want to reserve any proprietary rights don’t post it to my blog. I will prominently display this caveat on my blog from now on to remind those who may have forgotten this notice.
Gratefully your blog host,
michelle
Aka BABE: We all know what this means by now :)
If you love my blog and my writes, please make a donation via PayPal, credit card, or e-check, please click the “Donate” button below. (Please only donations from those readers within the United States. – International readers please see my “Donate” page)
Or if you would like to send a check via snail mail, please make checks payable to “Michelle Moquin”, and send to:
Michelle Moquin PO Box 29235 San Francisco, Ca. 94129
It’s not very often that I highlight men on this blog. Not because I don’t think some men do great things but because this is a women’s blog, and I am all about giving the limelight to women because women simply don’t get it enough. Like Janissaid yesterday, “We need the recognition.”
But today, I do want to feature men because when men are doing something to promote the protection of women…when men are advocating against the abuse of women, they deserve to be recognized. So…who are these amazing men? Well, in order to discover who they are, you need to buy a few Pixels, to unveil the mystery man. Wha’at?! :)
It’s time to stop violence against women. Together.
The Pixel Project is a complete virtual, volunteer-led global 501(c)3 nonprofit organisation whose mission is to raise awareness, funds and volunteer power for the cause to end violence against women (VAW) using social media, online strategies and new technologies. Our team of over 50 volunteers is currently scattered across 4 continents, 12 timezones and over 15 cities worldwide, proving that there are no cultural or social barriers when it comes to this issue.
Our flagship campaign is the Celebrity Male Role Model Pixel Reveal campaign which aims to turbo-charge global awareness about VAW using social media while raising US$1 million by getting a global audience to collectively unveil a million-pixel mystery collage of Celebrity Male Role Models at US$1 per pixel in benefit of a range of anti-VAW nonprofits from around the world. We also run a range of campaigns that combine social media, the Arts and popular culture including Paint It Purple, Portraits For Pixels, Music For Pixels, 16 For 16, the Twitter Tag Team etc.
Every dollar donated reveals 1 pixel of that portrait. Picture a virtual jigsaw puzzle being assembled by people from San Francisco to Sydney who donate $1 dollar per pixel to play! Donations start at as little as US$10 (10 pixels). Watch the portraits revealed in live time… and as each male role model is revealed, a special message from him will be launched on-site!
The Pixel Reveal campaign showcases the importance of including men in the movement to end VAW by uncovering portraits of celebrity male role models who share the goal of inspiring the global audience to stop VAW in their communities. The philosophy behind choosing positive male role models from different walks of life is to emphasise that men have a major role to play in breaking the cycle of violence against women. All participating male celebrities with strong family connections and no history of violence who are role models for men in relationships with women and children. This distinguished mystery Celebrity Male Role Model line-up includes a prominent Nobel Prize Winner, a Pulitzer Prize winner and a superstar Environmentalist.
Award-winning international photographer Jillian Edelstein is the project’s principal portrait photographer. Jillian’s work includes the iconic Nelson Mandela portrait for the cover of the New York Times magazine.
*****
Readers: Aren’t you curious as to who these celebrity male role models are who share a common goal in stopping abuse toward women? Yes! Well then, since you’re answer is yes, you need to buy pixels. :)
And guys…you don’t have to be a celebrity to be a wonderful male role model. All you have to do is join in and support, by helping to stop the abuse against women and girls too.
Thanks to all for all you do.
Happy Sunday! xox
Lastly, greed over a great story is surfacing from my “loyal”(?) readers. With all this back and forth about who owns what, that appears on my blog, let me reiterate that all material posted on my blog becomes the sole property of my blog.If you want to reserve any proprietary rights don’t post it to my blog. I will prominently display this caveat on my blog from now on to remind those who may have forgotten this notice.
Gratefully your blog host,
michelle
Aka BABE: We all know what this means by now :)
If you love my blog and my writes, please make a donation via PayPal, credit card, or e-check, please click the “Donate” button below. (Please only donations from those readers within the United States. – International readers please see my “Donate” page)
Or if you would like to send a check via snail mail, please make checks payable to “Michelle Moquin”, and send to:
Michelle Moquin PO Box 29235 San Francisco, Ca. 94129
A few weeks ago, we wrote about a number of states around the country that aren’t waiting for Congress to raise their minimum wages. This week brings yet more big news for those of us who believe that raising the minimum wage is a critical step in creating an economy that works for everyone, not just the wealthy few. Here are a few of the top stories:
1. Gap, Inc. Will Raise Its Minimum Wage To $10. The retail clothing chain announced its decision yesterday, which is estimated to affect 65,000 U.S. employees. “To us, this is not a political issue,” GAP Chairman and CEO Glenn Murphy said. “Our decision to invest in frontline employees will directly support our business, and is one that we expect to deliver a return many times over.” Gap joins other chains like Costco, Whole Foods and In-N-Out Burger in embracing higher wages because employees work harder and stay longer after wages increase.
3. Economists Dispute The CBO Estimate That Raising The Minimum Wage Would Cost 500,000 Jobs. The one piece of bad news in the CBO report was its estimate that 500,000 jobs would be lost as a result of a minimum wage increase to $10.10. However, numerouseconomists who study these impacts have disputed the methodology used. The New York Times Editorial Board, whichsupported raising the minimum wage in the wake of the CBO report, explains in plain language: “The budget office didn’t do its own research on those variables. It surveyed the economic literature on the subject, and chose a figure more conservative than the most recent and rigorous studies have found.”
5. Iowa State Senate Committee Approves Minimum Wage Increase To $10.10 By 2016. A bill to raise the minimum wage in the state cleared this key procedural hurdle yesterday morning by a 7-4 party-line vote. “Nobody that works full time should live in poverty,” State Sen. Jack Hatch said. “This should not be a partisan issue, this is about working people struggling to provide the very basics for their families.”
6. State Lawmakers Will Try To Live Off Of The Minimum Wage For A Week.Five Minnesota lawmakers are raising awareness for the cause by taking the “Minimum Wage Challenge” and living off of a typical budget for a worker who makes the federal minimum wage of $7.25. The challenge allows $5 a day for food and $9 a day for transportation.
BOTTOM LINE: Momentum for raising the minimum wage continues to build. Gap, Inc. is leading the way in showing that higher wages will help, not hurt, businesses. The latest studies show that the benefits of increasing the minimum wage in additional earnings and decreased poverty rates far outnumber the potential costs. And lawmakers in the states continue to work to pass their own laws without waiting for federal action.
*****
Readers: I love posting good news because it means that we are working on things and things are happening. Yes!
So…I’ll end with a little Fashion fun. What does it have to do with today’s write? Absolutely nothing. I just feel like it. :)
So…Did you all watch the Oscar’s last night? “Plunging necklines” were the popular look this year, and I thought they were simply lovely and some very sexy* too. Here’s some of my faves.
Lupita Nyong’o wins the Oscar for her Performance in “12 Years a Slave,” (Congratulations!) and looks stunning in her plunging Prada gown in a tint of “Nairobi Blue.”
*Charlize Theron in her Ooh La La…far from a LBD, Black Dior dress:
And Kate Hudson is a show stopper in her in her Atelier Versace gown with a draped cape accent:
Readers: What’s on your mind? Money? Fashion? Anything? Blog me.
Happy Monday! xox
Lastly, greed over a great story is surfacing from my “loyal”(?) readers. With all this back and forth about who owns what, that appears on my blog, let me reiterate that all material posted on my blog becomes the sole property of my blog.If you want to reserve any proprietary rights don’t post it to my blog. I will prominently display this caveat on my blog from now on to remind those who may have forgotten this notice.
Gratefully your blog host,
michelle
Aka BABE: We all know what this means by now :)
If you love my blog and my writes, please make a donation via PayPal, credit card, or e-check, please click the “Donate” button below. (Please only donations from those readers within the United States. – International readers please see my “Donate” page)
Or if you would like to send a check via snail mail, please make checks payable to “Michelle Moquin”, and send to:
Michelle Moquin PO Box 29235 San Francisco, Ca. 94129
The world is chock full of ear hurt that some people willingly refer to as music. The Jonas Brothers, Lady Gaga, Conway Twitty; they all produce high quality records and 8-tracks for our enjoyment whether we like it or not.
But music–even terrible music–has a stunning amount of power over our bodies. For instance science says music can…
#7.
Repair Brain Damage
Slapping neuroscience right across the face, music is able to take stroke, lesion or other brain-damaged patients who have lost the partial ability to see or speak and return it to them. The Kenny Rogers Effect–not named because it deals with gorging yourself on chicken or replacing your old, grandfatherly face with a shiny new rubber one–takes patients with visual neglect, the inability to recognize half of what they see, and lightens the effects of the damage. Patients who only shave half their face or grab for the right boob at a strip club can now put that dollar bill in the left or right side of her thong. The Gambler never stops being awesome.
As long as she’s dancing to Kenny Rogers…
Patients with left-side brain damage who can no longer speak can find they are able to sing words, often without trouble or training. After that, it’s just a matter of time before they’re able to speak simple sentences with practice. That may not sound like much, but if you’ve ever tried to order a side of fries with left-hand only charades you’ll understand what a blessing this can be.
How Does it Work?
Melodic intonation therapy, or singing until you can talk, takes advantage of the fact that language functions are located in the left brain, but music lives over on the right side of the brain. So, when that asshole stroke robs you of your ability to speak, you can train your brain to move those functions to the other side by associating music with language. This essentially rewires a lifetime of growth and an entire history of evolution into meaninglessness interpretations of random head noises from a guy who hasn’t shaved his beard since the 70s.
Listening to actual non-terrible music has an additional effect, since pleasurable music releases dopamine that simply makes certain parts of your brain function better (particularly if they were damaged before).
Dopamine is your brain’s natural crack
In a nutshell, music gives your brain a massage and fills it with happy chemicals, turning you from a one-eyed mute into an Island in the Stream.
#6.
Kick an Addiction
As it turns out, performing music can be relaxing and can create a distraction from withdrawal symptoms; songwriting can help patients confront impulse control and self-deception and allows an output for negative emotions; hence the entire songbook of Raffi.
It has even been found that listening to music can help aid the detox stage of recovery from drug addiction, and if applied frequently could cut down on the number of pain-killers patients need. Indeed, it turns out GWAR may be just as helpful as Percocet.
How Does it Work?
Music directly affects chemicals called neurotransmitters which relay information in our head. Drugs work in a similar way, except they make your brain lazy and convince it to stop making its own chemicals, because why do work when sweet China White is there to making everything all better? But when you stop taking drugs, your brain isn’t making enough chemicals and it doesn’t know why because it relies on those drugs to get enough, so your body fails to function correctly and you turn into Joaquin Phoenix.
Introducing music can increase levels of some chemicals associated with heavy addictions, like dopamine and norepinephrine, but significantly cuts back on suzziness and the willingness to give blowjobs for your next fix. In addition, certain music lowers things like heart rate, blood pressure, muscle tension, etc., that make you feel like killing everybody around you.
Apparently the fact that half of the world’s rock stars still wind up dead from overdoses despite music’s addiction-breaking qualities is a testament to just how much those guys fucking love doing drugs.
#5.
Boost Your Immune System
It may come as no surprise to all the Cracked readers who are also neuroscientists that music helps boost your immune system. For the rest of you, word is that intangible plinking noises can create a noticeable increase in recovery from a wide range of conditions, including heart disease, lung ailments and even the common cold. While the field of study is still young compared to fancy “real medicine” like “pharmaceuticals” and “penis phrenology” it turns out that sometimes all you need to overcome your horribly debilitating illness is AC/DC.
How Does it Work?
Music, like Jurassic Park’s raptors, doesn’t just attack from one side. That shit brings out a multi-pronged assault. To start, music reduces stress by reducing cortisol levels, a chemical in your brain that causes you to feel stress in the first place. Jazz, bluegrass and soft rock have been found to be especially effective at reducing stress and increasing health because of their similar musical qualities (that quality being that you don’t listen to any of them).
If you’re wondering if your favorite music is helping your health, a good question to ask is, “Does this music make me want to riot?” If you answered yes, it’s not an optimal medicine. Likewise, if your favorite musician’s last name is Cyrus you’re probably dooming yourself to a life of erectile dysfunction and diabetes.
In addition to simply lowering stress levels, music also raises immune markers in your system, creating more antibodies to fight disease. Ironically, listening to Amy Winehouse could make you immune to all the potential diseases you’d be exposed to if you met Amy Winehouse. This effect is compounding: Over time, the body can learn to recognize certain types of music (particularly choir or classical music) as immune boosting, continuing the improvement of the immune system. As an added bonus, if you listen to choir music on a regular basis you’re almost guaranteed to be immune to STDs as the odds of you ever having sex are quite slim.
#4.
Prevent Seizures
Good news: If you’re not one of those 150 suckers who get seizures from music, you may be one of the luckier ones who benefit from decreased seizure activity as a result of listening to music. This effect has even been observed in coma patients. Bet you feel better about being in a coma now.
It’s been shown that music by Mozart played on the piano reduces seizure-causing activity in the brain within five minutes of exposure, with many cases showing immediate results in what scientists should called Seizure Wolfgang-banging. Experimentation with other forms of music has been minimal, but for some reason there appears to be a connection between our brains and piano music.
How Does it Work?
It’s theorized that “the superorganization of the cerebral cortex . . . may resonate with the superior architecture of Mozart’s music” which is a sciencey way of saying that probably Mozart gets all up in your brain in ways the Hamburger Helper jingle only wishes it could. Really though, this is another one of those medical shrug moments, as scientists really haven’t figured it out yet. Kind of unfulfilling, isn’t it?
“Mozart music hits a certain part of… There’s a connection between the structure and a brain’s…
You see, with brain music… Oh fuck you, it just works OK?”
#3.
Return Lost Memories
If you want music to help you but refuse to stop smoking pot, perhaps you can at least remember where you put your car keys. Or, more applicably, if you have Alzheimer’s it could help you remember pieces of your past.
Medical practitioners have found that music shows the potential to unearth memories associated with music for patients, even ones in late stages of dementia. So if you had your first kiss to the dulcet tones of Jefferson Starship, their terrible, terrible music could bring that memory right back for you.
How Does it Work?
Listening to music engages many areas of the brain in both hemispheres, which is why it can create brain activity other methods, like conversation, can’t. Another area it engages is the hippocampus, which would be a hilarious name for a school for aquatic mammals but in reality is the less impressive region of the brain which handles long-term memory storage.
When you listen to music you know, feelings associated with the song are returned by the hippocampus. Sometimes the memories even manage to come along with the relevant feelings, so hopefully no music was playing the first time anyone ever kicked you in the junk. Even if memories aren’t recovered, emotions and attitudes are, allowing people who can’t even remember who they are from day to day or why they loathe the FOX network so much to at least laugh and sing along with off key hopefuls on American Idol.
#2.
Increase Spatial Reasoning
If only there were some way to make yourself seem smarter without working. Oh, wait, there is. Mozart music, especially piano music, can raise your spatial reasoning the equivalent of nine IQ points. And that’s an average, meaning there are people who get even more of a boost from it. That’s over half a standard deviation or the difference between being Leonardo DiCaprio in What’s Eating Gilbert Grape or Leonardo DiCaprio inTitanic. Sure, you’re not winning a Nobel Prize either way, but it’s still a noticeable difference.
How Does it Work?
There are a lot of theories, but some claim that Mozart’s music focuses the listener more, like how if you’re in the midst of your sixth hour of questing in World of Warcraft you can still rain holy hell down on Hogger as long as you’re listening to Ace of Spades. Others say it increases activity in crucial regions of the brain and a few industrious types say “who cares why it works, how can we make money off of this?”
#1.
Cure Parkinson’s
At this point, you may be asking, “Sure, music can fix my brain, but can it fix my body?” which would indicate you expect entirely too much from iTunes. No amount of power ballads is going to cure your heartburn or trim a few pounds off anyone’s overly-gelatinous ass. However, if you have Parkinson’s disease, it just might be able to help. Victims of Parkinson’s suffer from muscle spasms, locking muscles, balance problems and sketchy scientists with kick ass time machines. As it turns out, applying music can instantly resolve the physical issues of Parkinson’s in many victims.
Take Rande Gedaliah, who was diagnosed with Parkinson’s in 2003 and found she had muscle spasms, balance problems and difficulty walking. The disease eventually led to a serious fall in the shower. Things were looking pretty grim until one day she found out she could listen to music and suddenly be able to move with ease, the type of music determining the speed she walks at. We Are the Champions let her walk a slow clip and Born in the USA made her move faster still. Anything by Nickelback sent her spiraling into a rage.
Ancient warriors listened to their Nickelback equivalent, thrashing and scraping bones on rocks,
to produce a similar effect before combat.
How Does it Work?
When you’re locked in your room, listening to your old N’Sync CDs, have you ever noticed your foot tapping on its own? That’s not just because you have terrible taste in music. It’s because the portions of the brain which deal with rhythm and movement are so automated that it requires no conscious attention to move to a beat. It’s like your brain going behind your back to get things done because it knows it can’t rely on you to bust an appropriate move when you hear “Bye Bye Bye.”
This movement isn’t handled by the same process as walking up the stairs or hilariously farting with your armpit. Suddenly, patients with bradykinesia–an inability to initiate movement–can move instantly as their brain interprets the music and sends movement signals to their legs, essentially tricking their bodies into moving. We’ll say that again for you: Music can trick your broken, unresponsive body into obedience. Think about it: How many times have you thrown your hands in the air? When that happened, did you just not care? Science says that’s because you had no control.
Music also helps other Parkinson’s-related issues, including loss of balance and spasms. It’s also been found that playing music creates an improvement in people with the disease, and drum circles are being used as treatment in music therapy groups, presumably because drums are cheaper than fancy-ass medical equipment, anyway.
When hippies become doctors.
******
Readers: Cool eh? So…which number are you?
Haapppy Fridaay!!
Blog me.
Lastly, greed over a great story is surfacing from my “loyal”(?) readers. With all this back and forth about who owns what, that appears on my blog, let me reiterate that all material posted on my blog becomes the sole property of my blog.If you want to reserve any proprietary rights don’t post it to my blog. I will prominently display this caveat on my blog from now on to remind those who may have forgotten this notice.
Gratefully your blog host,
michelle
Aka BABE: We all know what this means by now :)
If you love my blog and my writes, please make a donation via PayPal, credit card, or e-check, please click the “Donate” button below. (Please only donations from those readers within the United States. – International readers please see my “Donate” page)
Or if you would like to send a check via snail mail, please make checks payable to “Michelle Moquin”, and send to:
Michelle Moquin PO Box 29235 San Francisco, Ca. 94129
I grew up as a little girl watching my favorite little girl – Shirley Temple. Every weekend a Shirley Temple movie was playing, I would watch it with my mother. It was one of my favorite things that I looked forward to doing. I loved the stories, the singing, the dancing…I adored it all. Each movie transported me into a fantasy that I couldn’t get enough of. When I think back of those lazy Sundays propped in front of the television, it brings a smile and many fond memories.
Shirley Temple Black, who as a dimpled, precocious and determined little girl in the 1930s sang and tap-danced her way to a height of Hollywood stardom and worldwide fame that no other child has reached, died on Monday night at her home in Woodside, Calif. She was 85.
Her publicist, Cheryl Kagan, confirmed her death.
Mrs. Black returned to the spotlight in the 1960s in the surprising new role of diplomat, but in the popular imagination she would always be America’s darling of the Depression years, when in 23 motion pictures her sparkling personality and sunny optimism lifted spirits and made her famous. From 1935 to 1939 she was the most popular movie star in America, with Clark Gable a distant second. She received more mail than Greta Garbo and was photographed more often than President Franklin D. Roosevelt.
The little girl with 56 perfect blond ringlets and an air of relentless determination was so assured that the usually unflappable Adolphe Menjou, her co-star in her first big hit, “Little Miss Marker,”described her as “an Ethel Barrymore at 6” and said she was “making a stooge out of me.”
VIEW SLIDE SHOW
When she turned from a magical child into a teenager, audience interest slackened, and she retired from the screen at 22. But instead of retreating into nostalgia, she created a successful second career for herself.
After marrying Charles Alden Black in 1950, she became a prominent Republican fund-raiser. She was appointed a delegate to the United Nations General Assembly by President Richard M. Nixon in 1969. She went on to win wide respect as the United States ambassador to Ghana from 1974 to 1976, was President Gerald R. Ford’s chief of protocol in 1976 and 1977, and became President George H. W. Bush’s ambassador to what was then Czechoslovakia in 1989, serving there during the fall of Communism in Eastern Europe.
After winning an honorary Academy Award at the age of 6 and earning $3 million before puberty, Shirley Temple grew up to be a level-headed adult. At a time when operations for cancer were shrouded in secrecy, Mrs. Black held a news conference in her hospital room after her mastectomy to discuss her experience and to urge women discovering breast lumps not to “sit home and be afraid.” She is widely credited with helping to make it acceptable to talk about breast cancer.
Shirley Jane Temple was born in Santa Monica, Calif., on April 23, 1928. From the beginning, she and her mother, Gertrude, were a team (“I was absolutely bathed in love,” she remembered); her movie career was their joint invention. Her success was a result of both her own charm and her mother’s persistence.
In “Child Star,” her 1988 autobiography, Mrs. Black said her mother had made a “calculated decision” to turn her only daughter into a professional dancer. At a fee of 50 cents a week, Mrs. Temple enrolled 3-year-old Shirley in Mrs. Meglin’s Dance Studio.
In 1932, Shirley was spotted by an agent from Educational Pictures and chosen to appear in “Baby Burlesks,” a series of sexually suggestive one-reel shorts in which children played all the roles. The 4- and 5-year-old children wore fancy adult costumes that ended at the waist. Below the waist, they wore diapers with oversize safety pins. In these heavy-handed parodies of well-known films like “The Front Page” (“The Runt Page”) and “What Price Glory” (“War Babies”), Shirley imitated Marlene Dietrich, Mae West and — wearing an off-the-shoulder blouse and satin garter as a hard-boiled French bar girl in “War Babies” — Dolores del Río.
When any of the two dozen children in “Baby Burlesks” misbehaved, they were locked in a windowless sound box with only a block of ice on which to sit. “So far as I can tell, the black box did no lasting damage to my psyche,” Mrs. Black wrote in “Child Star.” “Its lesson of life, however, was profound and unforgettable. Time is money. Wasted time means wasted money means trouble.”
“Baby Burlesks” was followed by five two-reel comedies and a year of casting calls and bit-part auditions that which garnered young Shirley half a dozen small roles. By Thanksgiving 1933 she was growing older. She was 5 ½, and in the previous two years she had earned a total of $702.50. Her mother did the sensible thing: she shaved a year off her daughter’s age. Shirley would be shocked to discover, at a party for her 12th birthday in April 1941, that she was actually 13.
Her career began in earnest in 1934, when she was picked to play James Dunn’s daughter in the Fox fantasy “Stand Up and Cheer,” one of many films made during the Depression in which music chases away unhappy reality. She was signed to a two-week contract at $150 a week and told to provide her own tap shoes.
Within an hour of completing her song-and-dance number “Baby, Take a Bow,” she was formally placed under contract to Fox for a year at $150 a week. The studio had an option for seven more years and would pay Gertrude Temple an additional $25 each week to take care of her daughter.
On ‘The Good Ship Lollipop’
In its review of “Stand Up and Cheer” (1934), Variety called Shirley Temple a “surefire potential kidlet star.” She made eight movies in 1934 and moved from potential to full star in February, when Fox lent her to Paramount for “Little Miss Marker,” based on a Damon Runyon story.
Playing a child left with a bookie (Mr. Menjou) as a marker for her father’s gambling debts, Shirley reforms a gang of gamblers, bookies and horse dopers. She would play a similarly wise and maternal miniature adult, dominating the adults around her and solving their problems with unbounded optimism and common sense, in most of her films.
She brought peace to a British regiment fighting rebels in India in “Wee Willie Winkie” (1937) and to white men and Indians in “Susannah of the Mounties” (1939). She was frequently cast as an orphan, the better to show adults how to cope with adversity: her father committed suicide in “Little Miss Marker”; her aviator father crashed and her mother was killed by a car in “Bright Eyes” (1934); she was the sole survivor of a shipwreck in “Captain January” (1936).
“People in the Depression wanted something to cheer them up, and they fell in love with a dog, Rin Tin Tin, and a little girl,” Mrs. Black often said in appraising her success.
It is no surprise that Shirley Temple dolls were the best-selling dolls of the decade (and are valuable collectibles now). In many of her films she was a living doll, adored by entire groups of men: aviators in “Bright Eyes,” a Yankee regiment in “The Little Colonel” (1935).
No Shirley Temple movie was complete without a song — most famously “On the Good Ship Lollipop” and “Animal Crackers in My Soup” — and a tap dance, with partners including George Murphy, Jack Haley and Buddy Ebsen. But her most successful partnership was with the legendary African-American entertainer Bill (Bojangles) Robinson. She may have been the first white actress allowed to hold hands affectionately with a black man on screen, and her staircase dance with Mr. Robinson in “The Little Colonel,” the first of four movies they made together, retains its magic almost 80 years later.
Not everyone was a Shirley Temple fan. The novelist Graham Greene, who was also a film critic, was sued by 20th Century Fox for his review of “Wee Willie Winkie” in the magazine Night and Day, which he edited. In the review, he questioned whether she was a midget and wrote of her “well-shaped and desirable little body” being served up to middle-aged male admirers.
After the failure of “The Blue Bird” (1940), a film version of the Maeterlinck fantasy that Fox had expected to be the bonanza MGM’s “The Wizard of Oz” had been a year earlier, the studio dropped the 12-year-old actress’s contract. Even before the movie was released, her mother had decided it was time for Shirley, who had been educated in a schoolroom at Fox, to go to a real school.
She entered the private Westlake School for Girls in seventh grade, with little idea of how to cope. She had sat on 200 famous laps and found J. Edgar Hoover’s the most comfortable. Amelia Earhart had shared chewing gum with her. She had conversed with Eleanor Roosevelt. The Brown Derby restaurant in Hollywood had created the Shirley Temple — a nonalcoholic drink of lemon-lime soda, grenadine and a maraschino cherry — in her honor. (She didn’t care for it.) But her playmates had been few and carefully chosen.
At Westlake, after months of being given the cold shoulder, she decided she might as well be herself. She eventually spent a happy five years there.
What Fox had dropped, MGM picked up eight months later. But the little girl was now entering adolescence. On her first visit to MGM, Mrs. Black wrote in her autobiography, the producer Arthur Freed unzipped his trousers and exposed himself to her. Being innocent of male anatomy, she responded by giggling, and he threw her out of his office.
Curls and Girlish Magic Fade
She made “Kathleen” (1941) for MGM and “Miss Annie Rooney” (1942) for United Artists; played supporting roles for David O. Selznick in two 1944 films, “Since You Went Away” and “I’ll Be Seeing You”; and made “Kiss and Tell” on loan to Columbia in 1945.
But her golden hair had turned brown, and, as the film historian David Thomson observed, she had become “an unremarkable teenager.” After nearly four dozen films, the public had lost interest.
By then she was a strong-willed, chain-smoking 17-year-old. Determined to be the first in her Westlake class to become engaged, she had accepted a ring from a 24-year-old Army Air Corps sergeant, John Agar Jr., a few days before her 17th birthday. They were married on Sept. 19, 1945.
Unable to handle being Mr. Shirley Temple, Mr. Agar began drinking excessively. While his wife was appearing in “The Bachelor and the Bobby Soxer” with Cary Grant and Myrna Loy and “That Hagen Girl” with Ronald Reagan, Mr. Agar began an acting career of his own. He appeared in several low-budget movies, in support of John Wayne in a few westerns and war films, and on television. But he failed to achieve anything close to her success.
They were divorced in December 1949, a year after the birth of their daughter, Linda Susan. Less than 60 days after her divorce, Miss Temple, 21, met and became engaged to Mr. Black, then the 30-year-old assistant to the president of the Hawaiian Pineapple Company, who claimed he had never seen a Shirley Temple movie. They were betrothed after a 12-day courtship. Their marriage lasted almost 55 years, until his death in 2005.
Mr. Black, who was dropped from the San Francisco Social Register for marrying an actress, told a reporter in 1988: “Over 38 years I have participated in her life 24 hours a day through thick and thin, traumatic situations, exultant situations, and I feel she has only one personality. She would be catastrophic for the psychiatric profession. You can wake her up in the middle of the night and she has the same personality everybody knows. What everybody has seen for 60 years is the bedrock.”
Shirley Temple had left the movies for good by Dec. 6, 1950, when she married Mr. Black. A son, Charles Jr., was born in 1952; a daughter, Lori, in 1954. They survive her, as does her daughter, Linda Susan.
During the Korean War, Mrs. Black followed her husband to Washington, where he was stationed at the Pentagon as a Navy lieutenant commander. In later years he would follow her to her diplomatic postings.
Late in the 1950s, with her old movies being shown on television all over America, she briefly returned to show business. From 1958 to 1961 she was the host and an occasional performer on the television series “Shirley Temple’s Storybook” (also known as “The Shirley Temple Show”), an anthology of fairy-tale adaptations.
By the early 1960s she was president of the Multiple Sclerosis Society and co-founder of the International Federation of Multiple Sclerosis Societies, raising funds to fight the disease that struck her brother George. She was representing the federation in Prague on Aug. 21, 1968, when Soviet tanks rolled in and brought a premature end to Alexander Dubcek’s effort to remodel the Communist system.For many years the Black family lived in the San Francisco area, where Mrs. Black was active in civic and community affairs. She worked particularly hard for the development of the San Francisco International Film Festival, but quit the festival’s executive committee in 1966 to protest a decision to show the Swedish film “Night Games,” which she called “pornography for profit.”
A Conservative Republican
Mrs. Black had become interested in politics when she lived in Washington. In 1967 she ran for Congress to fill a seat left vacant by the death of the Republican J. Arthur Younger. She hoped to emulate the California political successes of George Murphy, her dancing partner in “Little Miss Broadway,” who had become a United States senator, and Mr. Reagan, who had become governor.
A backer of the Vietnam War, she lost to a more moderate Republican, Pete McCloskey, in the suburban 11th Congressional District south of San Francisco. It probably did not help that the bands kept playing “On the Good Ship Lollipop” at her campaign stops.
But Mrs. Black pressed on with her goal of a career in public service. In 1969, President Nixon appointed her to the five-member United States delegation to the 24th session of the United Nations General Assembly. She acquitted herself well by all accounts, speaking out about the problems of the aged, the plight of refugees and, especially, environmental problems.
When she was appointed ambassador to Ghana in 1974, some career diplomats were outraged, but State Department officials later conceded that her performance was outstanding.
Among her duties as the government’s chief of protocol was heading a training program for new envoys. She flashed her wit in describing it: “We teach them how to get used to being called Ambassador and having Marines saluting. Then, on Day 3, we tell them what to do if they’re taken hostage.”
When she arrived in Prague as ambassador — a post usually reserved for career diplomats — she discovered that there had been a Shirley Temple fan club there 50 years earlier. Officials brought “Shirleyka” old membership cards to autograph. Having been Shirley Temple was extremely helpful to Shirley Temple Black, she told reporters, “mainly because it provides name identification,” although it had no bearing on her future success or failure. Mrs. Black succeeded beyond almost everyone’s expectations, winning praise during her three years in Prague from, among others, Henry Kissinger, who called her “very intelligent, very tough-minded, very disciplined.” It was a fitting tribute to a woman who had left the screen at 22 saying she had “had enough of pretend.”
*****
RIP Mrs. Black.
Readers: I already knew quite a bit about Shirley Temple Black’s life…but some of these tidbits in the write made me raise my brow. They are shocking, but I shouldn’t be surprised. After all it is ”Hollywood.” Still…Really? “Baby Burlesk?” Pretty sickening. Leave it up to two males – a Hollywood Producer, and a Director, of “Educational Pictures” (Yeah? Not sure I like what you’re films are teaching.) to come up with a series of sickshort films that featured a bunch of toddlers in diapers acting out creepily grown-up plots. Child exploitation at its finest. Yuck. Not to mention these shorts were sexist and racist. And when the children “misbehaved” they were locked in a windowless sound box with the only thing to sit on, a block of ice? Hello…isn’t that child abuse?
And shouldn’t we be surprised that an MGM exec, Arthur Freed, freed himself and exposed his little willy to little girl Shirley? No doubt her innocent giggling of his “male anatomy” left him feeling insecure enough for him to throw her out of his office. Can you imagine? What did he expect her to do, jump on it and start sucking away at it like a pacifier? Men. They were sick then and they continue to be.
Calm down boys…not all men.
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