Salon.com > Julene Snyder

Hard luck, red wine and loneliness

Tue, 01 Apr 2003 20:00:00 +0000

It's not surprising to learn that as a child, Lisa Germano delighted in self-inflicted pain. In some ways, she's never stopped picking her open wounds.

What's unexpected is that she doesn't mean it literally. "I used to lock myself in a closet and torture myself," she recalls. "Not cut myself or anything, but I'd have these childhood fantasies where everything was awful. I'd make myself cry, and then it would end when I was crying so hard that the prince would have to come and save me."

Now in her mid-40s, she's long since stopped waiting to be rescued. "I don't believe there's a prince coming anymore," she laughs. "I'm just sick of the whole thing." On the phone from her Los Angeles home, Germano sounds incongruously upbeat for a self-described "fairly dark person," but she blames her perkiness on morning coffee. Her demons tend to come out at night.

Boy, do they. Germano's latest effort, "Lullaby for a Liquid Pig," delves into those bleak hours before the sun comes up with raw emotion that's calculated to disturb. Stark, gorgeous songs weave a spell of deep-seated loneliness coupled with unceasing introspection; the album is a gut punch from the first hanging, ethereal note. "These are your secrets, hidden inside," she murmurs on the opening track, then lays them out, one by one, like canapés at a suicide's farewell party.

“Jesus Christ Superstar”

Tue, 19 Mar 2002 21:00:00 +0000

I arrived late and had to stumble in darkness past the sprawled legs of a few other midweek moviegoers. At last I got popcorn-situated and settled into my seat, just as the music began to swell. On the screen, a cluster of bodies stepped back and the camera froze. My heart stood still. It was His face, unmistakable, huge, looking right at me.

"Oh. My God." My whisper echoed through the theater, prompting shushes from disapproving adults around me. I didn't care. All I knew was that Jesus Christ Our Lord was a total fox. I snuggled down for the next two hours, an instant convert, mesmerized by the story, moved by the music, nursing a crush the size of Montana for the Lamb of God. I felt a not unfamiliar twinge, down there. I was most certainly going to burn in hell.

It was 1973. I was 12. While those two facts would seem enough to explain my initial fascination with Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice's rock opera, my love for it has only grown through the years. It's not hyperbole to state that "Jesus Christ Superstar" has had far greater impact on my own religious beliefs than any other single event in my life. Certainly it's affected me more profoundly than my sporadic Sundays in church ever did. I can assure you I've thought a great deal more about the deeper meaning of "Everything's Alright" than I ever did about a single one of those Bible stories for children.

Media Circus: Two Timing

Thu, 19 Dec 1996 20:00:00 +0000

casual television viewers might be forgiven for thinking that Tom Cruise has two movies out now. In fact, he's only got one. But, like those old Certs commercials promising "two mints in one," the ubiquitous ads for the movie "Jerry Maguire" try to have it both ways: It's a chick flick! It's a sports extravaganza! It's a love story -- with touchdowns!

The movie's plot involves a top sports agent (bearing a strong resemblance to the smug kid from "Risky Business" all grown up) who suffers an attack of conscience, writes a manifesto about honorable sports agentry and gets himself fired. But it strikes me that the advertising campaign behind this faintly charming film is at least as cynical as the high-powered agent amorality that Tom Cruise's Jerry Maguire rails so vehemently against.

You see, before the theatrical release of the film, two distinctly different sets of Jerry Maguire ads were all over television. During viewings of girly-fare like "Beverly Hills 90210," we cut from Brandon Walsh and his girlfriend of the week (Tracy), to clips representing the film as a gauzy love story. Radiant romantic interest Renee Zellweger sighs, "I thought that I was in love enough for both of us." Cruise, looking sweatily intense, coos back, "You complete me."

Fat as Hell and Not Taking it Anymore

Thu, 31 Oct 1996 13:45:00 +0000

In cyberspace no one can hear your scale scream. This can be liberating,
because fat chicks get no respect. In real life, complete strangers yell
things like, "Hey! Want some butter to go with those rolls?" Even worse are
the idjits who ask when the baby's due and try to slink away when you
snarl, "Not pregnant asshole, just fat." Everybody wants to tell you their
diet secret, as if you asked. Aerobicized babes slyly examine your grocery
cart in the supermarket and look smug if you dare to have anything not
labeled "Lean Cuisine." When a peal of laughter wafts through the gym, you
just know whose butt was the butt of that joke.

But just because everybody can be skinny (or young, or
blond, or a different sex) on the Web simply by making stuff up, doesn't
mean everybody wants to. Fat chicks are sick of feeling sick about their
bodies — and they're as plugged in as anybody. To prove it, I
conducted the following utterly unscientific quest for fat chicks online: