By Fred Owens
Issa Rae created the HBO series known as Insecure. This link goes to a news story about Season 3, Episode 4, which is current.
Our
housemate tipped us off about this engaging show. Issa Rae plays the
main character, a 29-year-old single African-American woman living in
Los Angeles, working at a non-profit, liking her job and her pals, and
looking for love.
Issa is Insecure -- the title
of the show. We can all relate to that. Insecurity means being
self-conscious, keeping score on your wins and losses, worrying about
your hair, or the style of your shoes. "Maybe people don't like me. Or
they don't understand what I just said. Hell, I don't understand what I
just said. How am I supposed to feel? What am I supposed to think? I
guess I'll have a drink. I ain't that girl from Pretty in Pink."
Insecurity
strikes most people at age 15, and gives you that stuttering gaze where
you keep rubbing your head, and it lasts until age 35 when you realize
that nobody cares, and nobody is keeping score, and some people like you
and some people don't. Period. It's over.
A
lot of people get married and have children at age 35. That is a solid
cure for insecurity. You get a spouse and a squalling baby in diapers --
you are too tired and too busy to feel insecure. Insecurity is a small
luxury that most of us can afford, like a triple grande latte.
In
the first season of Insecure Issa lives with her boyfriend Lawrence.
Issa goes to work every day, but Lawrence sits around the house in his
sweat pants waiting for the phone to ring.
You
know the phone is never going to ring for Lawrence. Issa knows that too
because she's a realist. "You may have to take a job a notch lower than
you already had," she tells him.
Lawrence hears that. He goes Man Up and takes a small-wage sales job at Best Buy. That's doing the right thing, in my book.
You
see, the men in Issa's life are not losers and toxic abusers. Not
hopeless causes, but like men really are which is to say "in good
condition but needs work."
Then Issa goes
looking for what she already has, and she does something very stupid.
She has a one-night fling with her old ex-boyfriend and Lawrence finds
out and walks out of her life. Stupid. Major Stupid.
What
I like about Issa Rae as an actor is that she doesn't try to sell it.
She doesn't over-act. She's happy when it's fun, and angry when it's
bad, and she can be major stupid if that's what's going on. Not a Drama
Queen.
The young woman who told me about the
show said it was the story of her life. Reality can be painful, but
sometimes it's just funny.
We like this show.
All the characters and all the Los Angeles neighborhoods are
African-American, so you get an education in culture and language if,
like me, you're 72 and you live in Santa Barbara.
The
rap music in the background goes right over my head. I just don't get
it. Well, I get some of it. But I don't try to get it, because if you
try to get it, you won't get it. Better to just let it come to you as it
does.
Meanwhile
Meanwhile
Pope Francis is in a lot of trouble and the Supreme Court hearings are
underway in Congress. The news is full of breakdowns and tragedies. The
old saying is "Heads will roll." But we have progressed as a society
because in centuries past courtiers who fell from favor were executed --
heads actually did roll -- now the losers get a book deal and a spot
on MSNBC or Fox.
I wish, more than anything,
that Donald Trump was not in the White House. I can put some substance
behind that vacuous statement, but I am through writing for today.
The
days are getting shorter. Here in Santa Barbara we see a lot of dried
leaves on the ground, more from dry weather than from the approach of
autumn. We are harvesting apples from the tree in the backyard and
making apple sauce.
Nice talking to you,
Fred
