Embracing My Inner Grinch: Why I Removed The Bow Someone Tied To My Front Door

Last Thanksgiving, I awoke to find someone had tied a Christmas bow on my wrought-iron storm door. In the 10 years I'd lived in my condo on the east side of Columbus, Ohio, nothing like this had ever happened before.

Rather than putting me in the Christmas spirit, the gesture confused me. Who did this? A neighbor? Someone who considers him/herself one of "Santa's little helpers" and goes around tying bows on unsuspecting strangers' doors? Was this supposed to be some kind of prank?

The fact that someone tied something to my door without my permission also angered me. As a homeowner and a single person, I alone am responsible for paying my mortgage and I work hard to do so. If I choose to decorate for the holidays, I will. If I don't, that's my prerogative, to quote Bobby Brown.

However, figuring that it may have been a well-meaning neighbor who tied the bow to my door, I left the mysterious decoration up in the spirit of goodwill. After all, that's what the season is about, right? And would it kill me to tolerate a frilly bow hanging on my door for less than a month? No.

But then the same thing happened again this year. When I left my house to participate in a local Turkey Trot race on Thanksgiving Day last week, I discovered another bow tied to my storm door. This time, I took it down immediately.

Now, so that I'm not misunderstood as some kind of Ebeneezer Scrooge who hates the holidays, I should explain why I took the bow down. I consider myself a devout Christian and a practicing Catholic, so Christmas has a very significant meaning for me beyond the commercial, secular season that it has become.

I would have had no problem, for example, with a church slipping a flyer in my door inviting me to come to Christmas Eve services. But tying an object to my door feels like an invasion of property rights - albeit a harmless one.

I'm sure whoever tied the Christmas bow to my door had the best of intentions. But what if I was a Jehovah's Witness or someone who chooses not to celebrate holidays? Would this supposedly thoughtful gesture offend me?

What if I'd lost a loved one around this time of year and any reminder of the holidays sends me into a depression? Maybe "Santa's little helpers" should think twice before they go around tying stuff to other people's property.

This blog post is part of a weekly holiday series on "Embracing My Inner Grinch." In next week's installment, which I plan to publish on Friday, Dec. 12, I'll gripe about one of my biggest pet peeves when it comes to holiday parties.

'Tis the season to be grumpy...

Sounds Of The Season: Happy Musical Accidents

This is the season when many people listen only to Christmas music. While there are many holiday tunes that I love, I haven't quite gotten in the Christmas spirit just yet.

So yesterday, I was listening to music that's quite different from the sounds of the season: the top 10 countdown of the most popular current heavy metal songs on 99.7 FM "The Blitz," the local rock station in my hometown of Columbus, Ohio.

While some hard rocker was screeching out an aggressive, fist-pumping anthem, my hand accidentally grazed the radio dial on my MP3 player and the tuner landed on the local lite rock station. The eardrum-shattering death metal was hilariously replaced by the cheerful sounds of Alvin and the Chipmunks chirping out a Christmas carol. Talk about contrast!

In another musical coincidence earlier this week, I was listening to Prince. Although I've been a huge fan since Purple Rain, I haven't really been listening much to his music lately other than reviewing his new album, Art Official Age. But Tuesday while I was writing a piece for a local paper, I felt the urge to reconnect with The Purple One and pulled up his greatest hits on my MP3 player.

My connection with Prince must be pretty strong, because while I was attempting to type "city of Columbus" into Google to access my local government's website, "city of Minneapolis" popped up instead! Interesting coincidence...

Doc On Russian Homophobia Overshadowed By Filmmaker's Controversial Line Of Work

The state of human rights in Russia got a lot of coverage during the Winter Olympics in Sochi earlier this year. But after the elaborate closing festivities ended and the Olympic torch was extinguished, the issue seemed to get scant attention, given all the other things going on in the world.

There are few journalists or filmmakers who seem interested in spending a significant amount of time in Russia, to pull back the Iron Curtain and really expose what life is like there. Especially for oppressed minorities like the LGBT community.

Filmmaker Michael Lucas, who grew up in Russia before immigrating to the United States, has done just that with his documentary, Campaign of Hate: Russia and Gay Propaganda. The documentary screened Nov. 21 as part of the Columbus International Film and Video Festival's "Fighting Global Hate" event, which featured movies from around the world that focus on human rights abuses.

Campaign of Hate features interviews with several gay and lesbian Russians about the discrimination, harassment and even violence they suffer on an almost daily basis. It's too bad that the documentary is getting only limited distribution because of Lucas' controversial background: he's a self-proclaimed producer and star of pornography.

During the Q&A after the documentary screening, I told Lucas that the impression I got from watching the movie is that the vast majority of Russians are homophobic. He said he believes this to be the case, adding that the country's unwelcoming environment can't be attributed to religion, since the communist regime promoted atheism in the Soviet Union for decades. Intolerance, he said, is just part of the culture in Russia.

I also asked Lucas if he has trouble being taken seriously as a filmmaker since he produces porn. That may seem like a rude question, but I just figured that if he was going to participate in a public forum, he should be prepared to be questioned about his "day job."

Lucas was frank in his response, admitting there are pros and cons to being known as a porn star/producer. On the one hand, he's well-known in his native Russia because of his "success" in America and had no trouble securing interviews for the documentary or self-financing the project. On the other hand, he said it's unlikely that he'll ever recoup the more than $100,000 it cost him to produce Campaign of Hate because major outlets like HBO don't want to be associated with him.

Of course, there may be a variety of reasons that HBO didn't pick up the documentary that may have little or nothing to do with Lucas' dubious reputation: the production values may not be up to their standards, it doesn't have any famous interviewees, etc. And there are many well-produced, heartfelt, high-quality documentaries that never reach a wide audience or make any significant amount of money. The movie business is inherently subjective, arbitrary and unfair.

Lucas could have minimized the impact his reputation had on Campaign of Hate if he hadn't put his name on it as the producer/director. And although he's a good interviewer, listening intently as his subjects tell their stories, there was no reason he needed to appear on camera. He could have hired a journalist to conduct the interviews and a director to oversee the production, enabling Lucas to remain totally behind the scenes as an "angel investor."

Perhaps Lucas felt like honesty is the best policy, and that if he'd hidden his involvement, the secrecy could backfire if a distributor were to discover that the documentary was financed by porn profits. Or, perhaps Lucas saw Campaign of Hate as his chance to go legit' and achieve mainstream success.

Is Lucas the victim of Hollywood hypocrisy? After all, cable networks like HBO and movie studios make big bucks off "real" movies that are borderline pornographic, not to mention violent to the point of qualifying as "torture porn."

Imagine if notorious Hustler publisher Larry Flynt were to make a documentary about human trafficking. On the one hand, Flynt is a subject matter expert who has an insider perspective on the issue. On the other hand, his credibility is questionable because of how he makes his money.

"Don't shoot the messenger" is an age-old saying. In Lucas' case, it seems as if his important message about combating hatred around the world is being shot down because of the messenger.

Something New Every Day: What Is A Henley?

I learn something new every day. Today's lesson: what is a henley?

No, not the last name of a member of classic rock group The Eagles who went on to solo success in the '80s with such hits as "Boys of Summer" (one of my favorite songs and music videos of all time; and by the way, the first name of this person, if you hadn't figured it out already, is Don).

Don Henley

No, a henley, in the lowercase form, is a man's shirt that's like a long-sleeved T-shirt with buttons.

I had never heard this term before until I opened up the Dec. 5 issue of Entertainment Weekly and read a profile on producer/writer Greg Berlanti, who's responsible for such hit shows as the CW's Arrow and The Flash and NBC's The Mysteries of Laura with Debra Messing.

The name of the shirt came up in the description of what Berlanti was wearing while working in the writers' room of The Flash. Interesting profile of an interesting guy. I'd recommend checking it out.

Adventures In Social Media: Just Because No One 'Liked' Your Outfit Doesn't Mean You Should Go Around Naked

It recently occurred to me that getting comments and Likes on Facebook is as unpredictable as getting complimented on your clothes.

Sometimes when you go out of your way to dress up, no one says anything. It's almost as if you were invisible and all the extra effort you put into looking nice seems like it was all for nothing.

But other times when you throw something on from the back of your closet without much thought other than it's the only thing clean and not wrinkled, you get a slew of unanticipated compliments.

Similarly, a provocative Facebook post that you may think will get a lot of comments only gets a few tepid Likes and is generally met not only with crickets, but tumbleweeds.

At a social media conference I attended a couple of years ago, a communications manager at a large hospital in my hometown of Columbus, Ohio, described the unpredictability of Facebook. She said several of her most well-thought-out posts generated little to no response, but a random post about new carpeting being installed in a hallway drew a flurry of excited comments.

This example illustrates that Facebook and social media, in general, is hit and miss. You may have a few misses, but if you keep at it, eventually you'll get a hit - and often when you least expect it.

Going back to the clothing analogy, if you got all dressed up but everyone ignored you, you wouldn't start walking around naked, would you?

This blog entry is part of my "Adventures in Social Media" series. In the next installment, which I plan to publish on Monday, Dec. 8, I'll highlight some cutting-edge features that could help you draw more attention to your social media endeavors - and have a little fun while you're at it.

Happy Black Friday: My 'Mixed Chicks' Product Review

In celebration of Black Friday and good old-fashioned American consumerism, I decided to write a product review for today's blog post. The product I'm reviewing is the Mixed Chicks Leave-In Conditioner.

This post may qualify as the most superficial one I've ever written, but here goes:

A few months ago, I decided it was finally time to replace the bottle of Infusium 23 Color Defender Leave-In Conditioner that has been sitting on my bathroom sink since 2011.  I use it every time I wash my hair, but because I have such short hair, the 16-ounce bottle lasts forever - longer than it should. I don't know if hair products have an expiration date, but I thought three years was long enough.

For some reason, Infusium 23 Color Defender is very hard to find on store shelves. I like it because it doesn't have sulfates, which can dry out your hair if you're of African descent like me or another ancestry in which coarse, curly hair is a common trait.

During my futile search of several drug stores for this inexplicably rare brand of Infusium 23, I stumbled upon the Mixed Chicks Leave-In Conditioner.  The description on the bottle hooked me in:

Finally, a curl defining formula designed for "us." Whether you're black, white, Asian, Latin, Mediterranean, or any glorious combination of the above, you'll love the way this alcohol-free, non-sticky, lightweight product leaves your hair inviting to touch as it defines and locks moisture into every curl. Be a proud part of our multi-racial movement, show your curls and radiantly roll with "Mixed Chicks."

Since my hair is a sometimes stubborn mixture of straight, curly, kinky, wavy and frizzy, I thought Mixed Chicks would be the brand for me. However, at first I had sticker shock and was a little taken aback by the $19 price for a 10-ounce bottle of Mixed Chicks, since a 16-ounce bottle of Infusium 23 Color Defender runs about $8 or less.

I reasoned that Mixed Chicks must be a salon-quality product, and quality is worth paying a little more. Plus, by buying Mixed Chicks, I would be supporting a movement I very much believe in: celebrating and being inclusive of people of different backgrounds. 

In my bathroom, applying Mixed Chicks.

But in all honesty, I have to say that after a couple of tries with Mixed Chicks, I was unimpressed. The product fell flat, along with my hair. Mixed Chicks made my hair feel limp and weighted down.

While I applaud the company's mission of a product specifically designed for people of color and multi-racial individuals, it simply didn't work for me. Maybe my hair is too short and thin and the product works better for people with fuller, longer hair? Or maybe it's specifically designed for women?

So I ended up going back to my trusty old Infusium 23 Color Defender, which I finally found online at Amazon. And that nearly $20 bottle of Mixed Chicks? It's been sitting on my bathroom counter, where it may end up staying for the next three years.   

Reliable ol' Infusium 23 Color Defender 
is hard to find but worth the search.

What I'm Thankful For: My Interracial Family And All It's Taught Me About Diversity

I had planned to write a blog entry about my family at some point this week, which happens to be National Family Week, an observance designed to celebrate family and community connections.

This blog post about my family has taken on a special significance, given the Ferguson grand jury's decision not to indict white police officer Darren Wilson in the fatal shooting of African-American teen Michael Brown. This case has drawn a renewed focus to the simmering racial tensions in this country.

The fact that so many of us are divided along racial lines gives me a greater appreciation of my family's rich diversity. It truly is a gift, as overly sentimental as that may sound.

Me and my brother Doug in the late '70s

Both my parents are African American, and after their relationship ended, they both married white people. I have a white stepfather and two white stepmothers. I also have a brother and three sisters who are biracial.

Here's what growing up in an interracial family taught me:

To deal with people as individuals. Whenever I had a disagreement with my stepfather, race never entered my mind. That's not to say that I don't ever encounter racism, but my diverse background has enabled me to see beyond people's skin color and look at their individual personality traits.

To appreciate other cultures. I like all different kinds of music, from R&B to hard rock, and have a natural curiosity about other cultures. I've always been drawn to Latin American music and culture and am learning to speak Spanish.

To have friends of different races. I have friends of many different backgrounds, from politically conservative white males to liberal black females and almost everything in between.

To incorporate diversity into my writing. In my journalism, I'm naturally drawn to diversity issues. In my creative writing, coming up with characters of different races is totally natural to me.

I know it's corny and trite to say what you're thankful for on Thanksgiving, but I feel it's nonetheless fitting to do so.