Is Mackenzie Phillips really an ‘incest victim’?

Did you watch Mackenzie Phillips on Oprah? I LOVED, LOVED, LOVED ”One Day at a Time” while I was growing up. And while I was more of a Valerie Bertinelli fan, I definitely liked Mackenzie.  In other words, I was glued to the TV screen when she pulled up a seat next to The O.

Hearing Mackenzie’s story about her father teaching her to shoot up, use cocaine and roll joints was heartbreaking. All that boundary-crossing drug use apparently carried over in even darker ways. She said she remembers a drug-crazed night that ended with her blacking out. She came to with her dad on top of her. And then there were other nights when she woke up with her pants down around her ankles and her dad asleep on the bed next to her. (I know some people have called her a liar, but I believe her.)

But then here’s the thing — somewhere along the way, and Oprah didn’t really explore this fully, IMHO, these sexual assaults transformed into a consentual sexual relationship that apparently went on for 10 or so years. So, how did it get from rape or black-out sex to consensual sex? Why are those details being ignored? Was there hand holding? Nuzzling? Pillow Talk? Well, we know there was pillow talk  because Mackenzie said that at one point her father discussed the possibility of the two of them running off someplace like Fiji where they could live together openly. And that is the moment that Mackenzie says she fully snaps to the reality of the situation: She says her father’s attempt to  romanticize this sick relationship pushed her over the edge. She realizes how wrong it all is, and breaks it off.

Unfortunately, Mackenzie’s interview with Oprah came across as staged everytime she tried to make this about a bigger group of people, when she tried to say something along the lines of “I know I am not the only one, and I want to give voice to all the other victims out there”  blah blah blah.

Mackenzie keeps calling herself an “incest victim” but I think there is a big difference between a six-year-old boy being sexually abused by a relative and a 30-year-old woman choosing to have sex with her father. Where is the personal responsibility for that? Mackenzie says her history of drug use and emotional neglect growing up led her to make this unfortunate choice, and that is no doubt true. But positioning herself as an “incest victim” because of the consensual affair she carried on with her father does a disservice to victims out there who played no role whatsoever in their abuse.

Mackenzie may think she is giving them a voice, but in the end she may be lending fuel to those who would doubt a child’s claim of abuse.

What do you think? Am I being too hard on her? I don’t mean to be. I think she is very troubled, and very brave, and still very much in denial. I hope she is able to get her act together and revive her career.

Complete and utter aside: Check out Tamerlane Phillip’s comments about his half-sister’s claims about their dad in this HuffingtonPost story.

Photo credit: Gary Friedman / Los Angeles Times

Here’s a problem I’d like to have

The St. Louis Rams have hired a personal chef for offensive lineman Jacob Bell. Seems’s he’s having trouble making weight.

So?

He needs to GAIN weight.

Where did I put that can of Lysol?

Jackie Warner's Skysport Christina House / Los Angeles Times

Just what I need.

Another reason to avoid the gym.

Photo credit: Christina House / For The Times

The vegetarian and I

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking lately about becoming a vegetarian. Thinking, mind you. Not doing too much about it.

I just wonder whether I should be eating something with a face. I mean, I am horrified at the idea of someone eating dog or cat. Yet, how different is that than eating a cow?

And the reality is, I would never be able to go out and hunt, kill, gut and cook my own cow. (If I had to do that, I would definitely be a vegetarian.)

My better half wants no part of this vegetarian nonsense. As a compromise, and for health reasons, I have been trying to make one vegetarian dinner a week.

It usually goes someting like this:

I tell Ron I’m making a vegetarian dinner. He sits down to said dinner. Looks at his plate. And says, “Where’s the meat?”

We were at the supermarket last night when I raised the issue again (we were walking past the meat selection):

ME: Do you think you could ever become a vegetarian?

RON:  No.

ME: You really couldn’t go meatless?

RON: No.

ME: What if we lived on a desert island, with no supermarkets?

RON: Are there any four-legged things running around?

ME: No. It’s just you, me, Buster & Biggie and fruits, vegetables and nuts.

RON: Buster and Biggie?

At this point, I hear him chuckle. I stop walking, and turn around and look at my husband. And he says “Buster, mmmm” and PRETENDS THAT HE’S PICKING HIS TEETH!!! HE WOULD EAT MY DOGS RATHER THAN GO VEGETARIAN!

You have to admit. That is a dedicated meat eater.

There’s not even that much meat on those dogs.

Photo credit: Kirk McKoy / Los Angeles Times

Santa baby, bring me an herb wheel

Check this out — an herb wheel. I’ve never seen anything like this. How cool!

Photo credit: chewonthis.org

Meet the “Dorkmeister 3,000″

Here’s what my new watch looks like! I know. The Garmin 305 is, in a word, dorky.

Ron calls it the “Dorkmeister 3,000.”

I call it FANTABULASTIC!!

This watch does everything that a usual heart rate monitor does. But. It has GPS!!! That means it tells me how fast I am running, WHILE I am running. This is great for me, because, you know how some people have a tin ear for music? I have a tin ear for pacing. Sometimes, I think I am running really hard, and I realize after the fact — when I add up the mileage and the time elapsed at the end of the run – that I was actually going pretty slow. Or, sometimes I think I am running slow when I was actually going pretty fast.

It did swell on its maiden voyage. I ran down in Back Bay in Newport Beach. It was gorgeous. It was also FREEZING. 47-degrees at 7 a.m. I wasn’t dressed for it. My hands were like blocks of ice, but I was too focused on my new toy to notice all that much.

We took it out for another spin today.

Thanks, Ron, for the best Xmas present, ever!

Maiden voyage — and a marathon?

I am up with the chickens, getting ready to go down to Newport Beach to check out a new marathon/half marathon training program. I wanted to join a new program in the Fall, and my timing was just all off  – I started too late and missed the beginning of several programs, and then dropped it. I didn’t pay my $175 yet. I want to see how many people are there. (I did show up at the start of one program, but there were like 10 people in it, and that’s too small of a group, IMHO. If you all know each other, fine, but with so few people you are forced to get along with everyone cause you are in each other’s faces all the time, and they didn’t seem like the friendliest folk. But if was probably me  — a lot of them knew each other from prior stuff, so I was the newbie. And I am so socially awkward around new people — severe anxiety unless I have my reporter hat on!)

But the really cool thing is taking my new Garmin Forerunner on it’s maiden voyage. Thank you, Ron, for buying me such a terrific gift. xxoo.

Scared, a bit, because I can barely operate the remote control in the house but I somehow hope to work a GPS attached to my wrist.

 Wish me luck……

We have a new pet! Meet Charlotte

Our new pet!

This giant spider has moved in. I named her Charlotte. Seriously, she is a giant. Her body – her body, mind you, not including her long legs — is the size of a half dollar. She set up shop at the side of the house, spinning a web between the front fence and the garage roof. We decided to let her stay, and took this picture. But the following morning, we noticed she was….gone.

I looked again tonight, no sign of Charlotte. I hope she’s not hatching babies in my garage.

Ron, this is what sorry looks like!

This is what sorry looks like.

I would like to hereby apologize for mistakenly calling my husband an a**hole.

Now, don’t get the wrong impression. I’m not making up excuses. It was indeed a mistake. I came home after a long, grueling day at work, and was distractedly looking into the refrigerator for something to make for din din. Hubby was going through the mail on the table, and began making fun, as he does every day, of the magazines I get. (Example: Every month, when Oprah magazine arrives, he grabs it and yells: OH MY GOD, LOOK WHO’S ON THE COVER, IT’S OPRAH!!!!! )Tonight, he was making fun of my Guideposts magazines. And I, as I often do, said to Buster: “Very funny, your daddy is such a wise a**.” Only that’s not really what I said. I said “a**hole.” BY MISTAKE! REALLY! BY MISTAKE!!!! And if was not a Freudian slip, either. I have been paying for it all night. So I thought a public apology might get me out of the dog house.

Sorry sweetpea.

‘Madonna? This is Oprah. Want to come in for some girl talk?’

Christopher Ciccone, has written a tell-all about his sister Madonna. It’s called “Life with My Sister Madonna.” It should be called: “Like a Virgin? Yeah Right! How I Screwed Over My Sister for Money.”

I would never pay money to read this book, but I’ve read every article I could find about it. It sounds kinda weird-creepy to me. He talks about who she had sex with — who was her first ever – bleck. It’s a revenge book, which takes a lot of gall considering that she’s supported him and all his business ventures over the years.

I thought this was a pretty comprehensive article if you want to read many of the hightlights. Cup your ear for the sound of the p.r. machine whirring quietly in the background. This guy has clearly been trained: Maybe sure you take every opportunity to highlight your proximity to Madonna. (“We had our sourdough toast.”) Make sure you name drop and trash talk as much as possible. But don’t go too far, so it makes it all more believeable. (So he defends her in the A-Rod scandal.)

Still, there is some damming info. Such as that Madonna does very little to help her 97-year-old grandmother (but I’ll bet there’s another side to this story), and that her family hasn’t yet met the kid she bought in Malawi.  But, you have to give snark it’s due. Hence this priceless exchange with GMA:

Ciccone believes that the Madonna of today doesn’t resemble the girl he grew up with — either personally or physically.

“Not after the face-lift,” Ciccone said with a chuckle.

My favorite website has the full scoop on this.

If I were on Oprah’s staff, I’d be pitching this story hard. The O is too upscale to try to get both of them on set at the same time, or just interview him. But Madge would be a great Oprah “get.”

This photo gallery is also worth the spin-through.

Photo credit: ABC News / GMA / Book cover