Heartache Sweeps the Grammys

We are knee deep in awards season. In addition to it being Presidents’ Day Weekend,(Anti)-Valentine’s Day weekend and the close out of Lunar New Year celebrations, it is also time for the Grammys!

If you have a pulse, you know how important music is to everyday life. It pumps us up, calms us down, makes us fall in love, makes us embarrass ourselves when we think no one can see us dancing in the car, and perhaps most importantly, helps us get through horrible breakups. Here’s a free idea for you marketing people and business executives: sell a breakup bundle containing a pint of ice cream, a box of tissues and an Adele album. As everyone knows, only time and Adele can heal all wounds.

It’s not just us regular people that know heartbreak songs are integral to life; the people handing out awards have taken note as well. Heartache and yearning win big at the Grammys. There have been a ton of stomped, smashed, broken hearts collecting golden gramophones for Record of the Year. Let’s take a look at some of them!

*Quick music industry lesson: Song of the Year honors the songwriting; Record of the Year honors the performance and recording. And with that knowledge you’re basically Clive Davis, so go take over any record label you want.

Sam Smith – Stay With Me
Sam gets it. He knows what it’s like to wonder “what if” as dawn breaks during a one night stand. He knows this isn’t meant to last. He knows this is just a one time thing. The person next to him is a relative stranger, but still, what if? What if he stayed? What if they got breakfast? Just some orange juice and all butter croissants at that cafe down the road. On the walk, a single ray of sun breaks through the clouds on that cold January morning and makes the golden streaks in the stranger’s hair glisten. And in the daylight Sam notices his eyes are really more aqua than green. And he falls in love and everything is fine forever. But it isn’t!!! Because it was all just a thought as the stranger gathered up his stuff and scooted out the door while Sam was lost in a daydream. A very, very lucrative daydream that made Sam Smith a household name.

Gotye – Somebody That I Used to Know
It’s summer 2012. You’re excited for the Olympics and nervous about the election. You haven’t yet noticed the fine lines that have begun to form around your eyes. You are young and dumb and it is great. Somewhere around the opening ceremonies you get dumped and the only person who can understand your pain is a Belgian-Australian who you could have sworn was Sting from the sound of his voice. His name? Gotye. His song? “Somebody That I Used to Know.” You haven’t heard from Gotye since, and possibly never will.

Adele – Rolling in the Deep
Queen of heartbreak. Princess of pain. Duchess of the dumped. When she’s not making us cry or being totally hilarious, Adele is writing Grammy winning songs in one afternoon after a breakup. I was barely able to pick up groceries and my dry cleaning last Sunday, but apparently Adele only needs three to four hours to change the musical landscape with a catchy, giant eff-off anthem.

Lady Antebellum – Need You Now
Lady A, as they’re called in the biz, have seen you at your weakest. They were peering into your window at a quarter after one in the morning, silently watching as you kept picking up and putting down your phone. They know exactly what you were doing. You were feeling lonely, and your will power was nowhere to be found. You needed someone now.

Kings of Leon – Use Somebody
Poor Caleb Followill was feeling empty. Maybe it was life on the road that got him down. Maybe he felt his celebrity status was keeping him from meeting genuine people. Did they like him for him, or because he was Caleb from Kings of Leon? He’ll never know, and we’ll never know. But he channeled that longing into “Use Somebody” and won himself a Grammy, and now he’s married to a model so I guess it all worked out.

Celine Dion – My Heart Will Go On
This gem needs no introduction for it was burned forever into our brains as the theme song to the greatest love story ever told on water. James Cameron had a dream and that dream was to make seventh grade girls cry in movie theaters around the world. He succeeded. The audience fell in love with Jack/Leo then he went and died and all we were left with was a Canadian chanteuse’s promise that our hearts would go on. The song lives on in dentists’ offices and Chinese restaurants around the globe.

Norah Jones – Don’t Know Why
I don’t think I’ve ever been in a restaurant within one hundred yards of a palm tree that wasn’t playing this song. And while it brings back great memories of many a rum-based drink served in a pineapple, it’s actually quite a morose song. Don’t let Norah’s relaxed, whisper of a voice trick you, she is full of regret and isn’t entertaining the option of forgiving herself. Fun fact – this is a cover, so it wasn’t even Norah’s heartbreak that got her a Grammy.

Tina Turner – What’s Love Got To Do With It
This song was originally offered to Cliff Richard. This Cliff Richard. Imagine! I think this one’s about giving into lust and throwing love out the window because,“Who needs a heart/ When a heart can be broken?” Take a second. Imagine Cliff Richard singing it. Oh wait hang on, you don’t have to imagine it.

You’re welcome.

Carole King – It’s Too Late
A fun game to play is “Did You Know Carole King Wrote That” because Carole King has written one million perfect songs. “It’s Too Late” is no exception. It tells the story of a crumbling relationship that has fallen apart despite both parties really trying to make it work. Yes, it is about James Taylor in case you were wondering.

Whitney Houston – I Will Always Love You
This is of course a cover of the Dolly Parton classic. It sounds awfully romantic, but Dolly wrote it for Porter Wagoner, her songwriting and singing partner, when they decided to split ways professionally. Dolly’s version is sweet and country tinged. Whitney’s is a stadium-sized belter filled with emotion and longing, and it blew the other nominees out of the water.

What do you think will win Record of the Year this year? Probably “Uptown Funk” right? Let me know in the comments or on any of our social channels: Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.

As for your playlist -- Enjoy!

Respectfully,

James J. Sexton

9 Classic Holidays Movies to Express Your Dysfunctional Family

If the feverish pace of the holiday season has you feeling like you’re stuck in a thunderdome with your family as opposed to soaking up quality time with your family, you might just be nearing the end of your rope by now. Maybe I’m wrong and you’re in one of those Leave It To Beaver families, all cuddled up together on the couch, in front of a fire, taking turns reading aloud from Dickens. Maybe Aunt Shirley’s making her famous peppermint hot chocolate and your younger brother Ricky is upstairs changing into a Santa costume to delight all the children. Even Patrick, your regal golden retriever is in on the fun, wearing a set of reindeer antlers on his head and a big red satiny bow around his neck, prancing around majestically like he’s one of those fancy Instagram dogs. If this sounds like your family, this post is not for you.

If alternatively, your Aunt Peg has had too much sherry and is confessing her one true love was her college roommate Denise and that your Uncle Henry never “touches her as a woman should be touched anymore;” or if your mom brought her new boyfriend to dinner and you finally place his familiar face as the little boy you used to babysit in the early 90s; or if your family is nowhere in sight and you’re really bonding with the whiskey bottle you’ve nicknamed dad while you anxiously await your Seamless delivery, then you’ve come to the right place.

To all the damaged products of dysfunctional families, this post is for you. You don’t know what caroling around the neighborhood as a family feels like, but you sure as heck know the solace a dark closet can provide when your older brother and dad are going at it again over dropping out of college. The weirdos, the freaks, the goths, the misunderstood, gather ye round, for it’s time to indulge in some holiday films made for us, the broken ones.

Leave Rudolf the Red-Nosed Reindeer to the normals and instead, enjoy these holiday movies starring your brethren, the dysfunctional family, described below as they should be, by jumping on the #ExplainAFilmPlotBadly train.

Home Alone
A young boy’s negligent parents were pressured by society and the Catholic Church to have more children than they can keep track of, and forget one of those children at home when leaving for a family vacation. The child left at home must protect the family’s honor and worldly possessions from burglars in this examination of the seedy underbelly of Chicago’s suburbs in the early 90s.

A Christmas Story
As the specter of nuclear war with the USSR looms, a young boy schemes to arm himself with a gun by any means necessary, including desperately trying to persuade an aging deity of western consumerism.

Elf
After being lied to his whole life, a middle aged man is exiled from his isolated village and the only family he has ever known. We follow the immigrant’s journey to New York as he faces severe hardships and fails to assimilate into American culture.

The Family Stone
Cultures collide as Republicans and Democrats clash over a Christmas holiday in this sobering commentary on the political divide in modern America.

 

Home Alone 2: Lost in New York
Promises of change and declarations of love prove to be lies when a family loses track of their child again, this time in pre-Giuliani New York City.

National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation
Though it is never discussed, over the course of two decades, a midwestern family’s children don’t age yet their appearances change drastically. One Christmas the patriarch of the family goes to unusual extremes to collect his holiday bonus, as he remains convinced money can buy happiness.

Christmas With The Kranks
Evil befalls a family that dares to turn its back on Christmas, thus proving Santa is more powerful than god himself. The Kranks are bullied, guilted and manipulated back into celebrating, because autonomy is outlawed, and they live in fear forever.

The Ref
A cat burglar is the real victim of a Connecticut couple’s crumbling marriage.

Four Christmases
Two spoiled city dwellers reckon with their pasts in this unflinching commentary on the divorce epidemic in America.

Have another favorite “complicated family” film to add? Let’s here it! Leave a Comment below, on Facebook, or catch us on Twitter!

All the Movies are Lying About Love

In the year of our lord two thousand fifteen, human adults got really excited about a new dating website for Disney enthusiasts. As someone who thinks it’s weird for grown ups to go to Disney theme parks without children, it’s safe to say I was very unsettled by the idea that such a dating market existed and needed to be catered to. I’m all for every pot having a lid, and fully support the old adage “as long as you’re not hurting anyone go for it,” but this feels different and is worthy of further discussion. Catering to the Disney-obsessed niche, I think, is indicative of a shift towards embracing the idea that chasing a fairy tale is now an acceptable and encouraged lifestyle.

The problem is of course, life isn’t a fairy tale. The love stories put together by Disney and the rest of Hollywood are all fun and games until people start holding their own love lives up to fairy tale or romantic comedy standards. The odds that you’re going to have some incredibly unique love story are very slim, and the fact is, you don’t need one to be happy. But the more a person focuses on getting a big Hollywood ending over focusing on the work that needs go into that relationship to make it work and last, the more people are going to end up in my office discussing their divorce options.

Are Sunday afternoon TBS movies ruining us along with climate change, the gun laws in this country and aspartame? Just maybe. Let’s explore some movies that are setting us up for romantic disappointment, and you be the judge.

While You Were Sleeping
Falling for a guy from afar, saving his life, pretending to be his wife while he’s comatose in the hospital and then falling for his brother does not, in real life, end in a happily ever after with the brother. In real life it ends in a psychiatric hospital after people find out you were lying about being married to a person you’ve never met. You can plead and try to explain while the lithium kicks in, but there’s not really a way out of this one.

Pretty Woman
This is not an accurate depiction of the sex industry, in case you didn’t realize. White knight saves prostitute with a heart of gold is not how this goes down in real life. In a dangerously unregulated industry full of exploitation and human trafficking, a bloated, bored father of three hires a woman who uses drugs to cope with the unimaginable abuse from her childhood and they never see each other again — that’s real life. Or this ends in Gilgo Beach. Either way – Not. Good.

10 Things I Hate About You
The dark and stormy bad boy will not orchestrate a large musical number to get your attention. In real life, the dark and stormy bad boy will continue to hide his dad issues behind a veil of ~edginess~ until he succumbs to alcoholism – just like his dad!

Titanic
Hey, YOU CAN BOTH FIT ON THE DOOR. In real life, you both fit on the floating door and Jack dumps you after you get saved because, what the hell you could both fit on there why did you act like it would be impossible? Selfish much?

Every Hallmark Movie Ever

• You will not fall in love with the dashingly handsome, newly widowed postal worker.
• Santa is not real, he will not bring you a wife for Christmas.
• You will not save the family bakery from foreclosure by winning a large cash prize in a pie competition and fall in love with the real estate agent caught in the middle.
• You will not fall in love with the guy who rear ended your car, who also, as it turns out, plays your daughter’s favorite TV show character.
• You will not have a triple wedding with your two sisters, thus throwing a wrench into your parents’ second honeymoon plans.
• Santa is not secretly a total hunk and he will not finally realize he is in love with you and kiss you as it starts to snow, on Christmas Eve.

Last Holiday
The odds of you being mistakenly diagnosed with a terminal illness are pretty slim, even in our crumbling medical system. So odds are you’re not going to go on one last big blowout vacation, snag your longtime crush and then find out you’re not dying. In real life, this ends in your unfortunate demise and your family being left with astronomical debt thanks to your last hurrah.

Bridget Jones’s Diary
The idea of being accepted “just as you are” is such a beautiful, if not delusional, sentiment. Yes you should accept people, warts and all, but there is also a limit. There is a limit to zaniness, excessive jealousy and hijinx and real life Mark Darcy would have gotten to that limit pretty early on.

Every Lifetime Movie Ever

• You will not rekindle the spark between you and your high school boyfriend when you lock eyes unexpectedly across a Christmas tree lot.
• You will not fall in love with a young surfing instructor on the 40th birthday weekend getaway your kids planned so you could “let loose for once.”
• You will not frantically plow through boyfriends because your dying mother told you the one will be your seventh boyfriend.
• You will not seal your love forever by murdering the one woman who threatens your relationship. I really, really hope you won’t.

Love Actually
The lie here is that this is allegedly a feel good movie that’s supposed to fill you with cheer and romantic hope. The plot lines are actually not too far from real life as they’re all tragic. Dead wife, cheating husband, severely ill relative getting in the way of having a social life — take your pick. Though in real life the videographer ends up in jail because he is a c-r-e-e-p.

Never Been Kissed
It is possible Josie and Mr Coulson end up together but not until after Josie goes to jail for forging a driver’s license and Mr Coulson maybe loses his job for having an inappropriate relationship with a student. While she was actually a grown up, I can’t imagine there’s no repercussions for him.

Any Movie Starring Kate Hudson or Sarah Jessica Parker
Playing weird games does not lead to healthy relationships, it leads to threadbare relationships built like houses of cards. In real life, if the house of cards actually gets a wedding, it gets a nasty divorce too.

To sum up, the meet cute is not king. The wedding is not the end. No means “no,” not “keep trying to impress a person until you wear them down into loving you.” Do not let movies and the first three Taylor Swift albums brainwash you into thinking the one is Prince or Princess Charming. And for goodness sake go out and see the real world for as long as you can because soon enough you’ll be forced to take your kids to the sanitized Disney version.

Respectfully,
James J. Sexton

Laugh Your A** Off During the New York Comedy Fest with These Tragic Clowns

If there’s anything I learned during my brief middle school jaunt as an ac-TOR, it’s that one must balance drama with comedy to delight an audience. That’s what those happy/sad masks meant right? Let’s say yes. Divorces can certainly be drama filled, so it’s a great idea to balance out all that turmoil with some chuckles. And seeing as it’s the New York Comedy Festival this week, this is a great time to highlight some of my favorite comics and their takes on divorce and breakups. Some language in the clips below is NSFW! You’ve been warned!

Up first is of course Louis CK. He has frequently declared his very positive take on divorce, even going so far as to claim that divorce was the greatest part of his life. In the clip below, hear him explain,“Marriage is just a larva stage for true happiness — which is divorce.”

Kathy Griffin went through a really rotten divorce not too long ago, full of awful accusations and sad details. But Kathy chose to see the brighter, or at least funnier side to it all. Watch the clip below to hear about how she had to break the news to her parents, after People did.

You might not be familiar with British comic Simon Amstell, but you should be. His sardonic take on all of life’s bleak events is as hilarious as it is depressing. In the clip below he discusses his new life alone, which is not going great.

If you’re not watching Please Like Me what are you doing with your life? Getting yard work done and spending time with your kids? Fair enough. Below is PLM’s creator and star Josh Thomas talking about his parents’ recent divorce. He’s taking it pretty well, though he is annoyed there’s no custody battle over him.

my Schumer, current queen of everything, has got a ton of funny bits about relationships. My favorite though is the “My Dream Breakup” sketch, a take on all those WE and TLC party planning shows.

ylan Moran, best known as the curmudgeon from Black Books has a lot of complaints about the world and he explores a lot of them in his stand up. In the clip below he reinvents the old “it’s not you, it’s me” trope.

Josie Long’s new show Cara Josephine is all about heartbreak. This isn’t the best clip from that stand up, but we are bound by what the elders of the internet upload, and this is all they’ve given us. Watch Josie contemplate love at the wrong airport.

Remember, no matter how rough your divorce or break up is, it is but a season of your life, and it will pass. In fact, let’s end this piece with Mr. Chuck Esterly from Cincinnati who proves no matter what life throws your way, it’s never too late to try new things and keep laughing.

Got a great divorce joke? Leave it for me in the comments below or share it with me or Facebook or Twitter!

Respectfully,
James J. Sexton

An Open Letter to Lindsey Bluth Funke

Dear Lindsay,

I’m not really sure where to start with your marriage to Tobias so I guess I’ll go with: what? I mean seriously, Lindsay, what? And why? Also how? And finally, him?

I know you didn’t exactly have a great family life what with having a mother that was as critical as she was drunk and a father that was always absent. But there are a lot of people out there that had a rough start in life, yet they didn’t end up marrying a failed doctor turned aspiring Blue Man Group cast member, who was also a Never Nude. And probably gay.

I know George and Lucille weren’t the best parents, but marrying Tobias as an act of rebellion was punishing you more than it was punishing them. I suppose at one point Tobias had qualities that were attractive to you. He was successful once; let us not forget he was the world’s first analrapist (that’s analyst AND therapist) before he lost his license after giving CPR to a man not actually having a heart attack.

You thought motherhood would bring you happiness but the road there was not an easy one. Sure you were pregnant dozens of times before, but having your daughter Maeby ended up costing over a hundred thousand dollars and put a real strain on your marriage.  Then it turned out, like your own mother, parenthood wasn’t for you and you felt adrift in life. Sure the Teamocil helped numb all feelings and shut down your sex drive for a while, but it didn’t fix things. You hated motherhood, you were in a sexless, and seemingly loveless marriage, and then you all moved in with your insane family. Yet for some reason, you still didn’t hightail it the heck out of there.

Why? I suppose there was the whole job thing, in that you didn’t have one and it’s difficult to pay rent and buy diamond cream with no paycheck. But it’s not like Tobias was supporting you either, as a failed actor doesn’t bring in the big bucks.

We keep dancing around the big issue here, and it’s not helping anyone. So here’s the thing. Tobias? Tobias is maybe gay. He’s a man’s man. He wants a banger in the mouth. He said so himself dozens of times and in varyingly crude euphemisms. You tried an open relationship with disastrous and often humiliating results. Yet still you stayed. And when Tobias left you and escaped to Reno, you followed him, inexplicably. 

Later you briefly Eat Pray, Love-d your way out of the relationship, but it didn’t stick. And after a lot more dating blunders and briefly (unknowingly) becoming a call girl, here you are, still married to Tobias.

You made a huge mistake, Lindsay.  It’s time to accept that and get out of dodge. Tobias can’t financially support you as he has still not gotten his hands on any meaty man parts, so it’s not like you need his money. Maeby is an adult now and it’s not like you ever cared about her wellbeing in the first place.

There is nothing forcing you to stay, and you are master of your own destiny. I think if you remind Tobias he too controls his future, you won’t even have to litigate the divorce. Because I think when you get down to it, both of you agree this marriage fell apart a long time ago, and there’s not a lot to fight over.

Find a good mediator and get the ball rolling. You have no real assets to speak of and I think alimony is off the table as long as you get this settled quickly, in case you end up winning that Congressional bid. Custody isn’t an issue as Maeby’s a grown up. You live separate lives anyway, so make it official. Cut ties, move away (maybe DC!) and start fresh.

So what do you say Lindsay? Should I have the “Lindsay Love Independence” banner made for your divorce party? I can get the celebratory hot ham water going on the stove if you want.

Don’t be nervous, Lindsay. Your whole life lies ahead of you. Remember, somewhere over the rainbow, there’s another rainbow. It’s time Lindsay, it’s time.

Respectfully,

James J. Sexton

Don't Miss This Netflix Divorce Documentary

There’s no shortage of stuff to watch right now. We might as well have all our mail forwarded to Shondaland, right? With dozens of new shows plus the old ones starting again, keeping up is beginning to feel like a part-time job. I don’t want to add to your already full list, but I’d be remiss if I didn’t bring your attention to an interesting documentary streaming on Netflix right now.

It’s called Divorce Corp and it explores the state of the American divorce process and family court system, questioning who’s really profiting and why. It’s by no means a perfect documentary, but it asks some thought-provoking questions. It ponders whether hiring a higher priced (thereby theoretically “better”) lawyer ups a client’s chances of getting what they want out of a divorce. It delves into why divorces can end up costing so much and take so long (hint: it might be so lawyers can make it rain and send their kids to fancy summer camp). It explores the financial incentive to fight over custody, as custody isn’t only about kids, it’s also about money. It looks at the prevalence of cases in which the legal fees end up being higher than the amount of money the couple is fighting over. In a nutshell, it’s out to prove all those divorce lawyer stereotypes might be true.

For contrast, the filmmakers go to Scandinavia where of course everything is better. In the land of ABBA divorces cost nothing — literally nothing, except for maybe the cost of one stamp. Assets are split evenly, but the future is separate, meaning there is no alimony/maintenance. Child support is a fixed monthly amount. There are no lengthy battles, no long drawn out fights over the future and no divorce lawyers, thus proving everything is better in Scandinavia. Except maybe the food. Have you heard of fudge cheese? It’s horrifying.

Whether you’re muddling through a divorce right now or interested in all the wacky ways the American court system is failing us, I say give it a stream. Here’s the trailer:

Let me know what you think! I think it asks some interesting questions, highlights how some lawyers and judges abuse the system and may help people hire more ethical lawyers. Do you agree?

Respectfully,
James J. Sexton