Secrets, secrets are no fun – especially if the secret is yours and you’ve kept it hidden for fourteen years, Mr. Schwarzenegger. That’s when Journalism goes from eating dirt to filling bathtubs with money.
This column rises from the burning ashes of Arnold’s latest media attention surrounding a lovechild he fathered with housekeeper Mildred Baena, born the same week as his child with soon-to-be ex-wife millionairess Maria Shriver. Here are simultaneously thoughtful and useless commentaries I have subsequently mulled over. Let’s focus on the takeaways here. Mistakes should be learning experiences, right?
1. Cheating is bad. You’re not cool enough to get away with it.
Someone always finds out. 14 seconds or 14 years, it’s always going to hurt 1000x more than the cheating felt good. Always. There’s a reason they call it true love. It’s forgiving, but it calls for a LOT of honesty. If you think you might cheat or say things that are reminiscent of cheating or you did cheat, talk it out. With yourself, with your other, with a shrink. And then act positively to modify such behaviors. Simple, right? Apparently not, says Secret Life of the American Teenager (So glad I’m 20 and this show no longer allegedly applies to me).
Rihanna did not really ‘love the way Chris Brown lied.’ Just watch the music video – the house is on fire. Cheating leads to arson. If you love someone, you wouldn’t want to even consider that they might feel that sort of pain. Would you? No. So, don’t cheat, kay? And if you don’t love him/her enough to not think about hurting him/her like that, then you probably should revisit being with him/her. I just got really into the him/hers – since this was getting too serious.
Basically, Shame on you, Arnold and all of the other cheaters out there. Just because it’s cool on Madmen doesn’t mean it’s cool now. Someone will probably tweet about it, including a picture, within 10 seconds, and everyone from your boss to your unborn illegitimate love child will know and you will look like a fool. Just assume that’s what happens if you cheat.
2. Money and love are not consistent
If anyone wants to pick up this column and pay me for readership, I’d be down like Jay Sean. But I write this column out of love – for writing, and nonsense, and laughter, and you. And even though The Sperminator and Mariaaa were both ridiculously rich and probably quite in love, things didn’t work. With individual net worths in the multimillions, I don’t think they were clinging to each other for the money. But, clearly, they had not been working for 14 years. Arnold had been paying his way out of admitting his infidelity and keeping his relationship with Shrives media-stable. Who knows what home life was like, if they even ever saw each other etc., etc. I never thought much of them. But just because they had a lot of money doesn’t mean they had a lot of love. Correlation: 0. At least in their case as should be in every case. The only correlation is negative: money should not be used to save broken love or hide love children. A for effort, Governor.
3. Political Lovebug
Most would agree that actors are sexy. But to me, politicians are sexier. Smart, do-gooder, get-ahead, men in suits pushing agendas and using big words – ahhh. Like I said, I don’t YET identify with political fortunes but a girl has dreams and an agenda as pushy as any.
It’s just when the image of the strong and eloquent politician sours over at the muckraking hands of journalists lurking in D.C. hotel lobbies to scout out the prostitute-loving, housekeeper-banging 50 to 60somethings tired from a long Capitol Hill sesh.
Post-‘Cheating-is-bad,’ it’s clear you should keep it in your pants, or keep it in the right pants: the lawfully-wedded pants. Why should I trust any of these folks to design budgets when their personal fiscal policies seem to tend toward sleeping with hot 20somethings and then paying for subsequent ‘Oops’-babies.
It doesn’t just look so bad from the values point-of-view. Moral failure is less important to me here. A few moments of passion for a couple hundred bucks with the caveat of a potential loss of career – fine, whatever, if that’s what you’re in to. Even I have had occasional judgment lapses in honest and fairness in the occasional Kellogg study just to make a few extra bucks or save time.
But seriously. Why do we continually elect people who are our big problem-solvers if they don’t face their own problems and use money and sex to pretend their emotional relationship issues don’t exist. If they can’t fix their lives, how can I trust them to fix Healthcare, foreign wars, trillions of debt, and those horrible pot holes all over New Rochelle?
This is the rantiest, unsexiest, and possibly longest column yet. That’s how you know I’m getting burnt out with this school year. Four more weeks in Evanston. Those already home
Image from egotastic.com.