Wealth, power, fame and success have their many upsides but clearly they DO NOT make you significantly happier. 

If they did we would not have so many aggrieved and psychologically damaged members of those perceived upper classes currently having hissy fits and generally acting out in front of the rest of us.

No, I’m not talking about the orange obvious.  That’s a given.

Exhibit A is Martha-Ann Alito, wife of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito.  A lady so foaming at the mouth angry about the sight of a gay pride flag “across the lagoon” at her New Jersey summer house that last year she hung her own Appeal to Heaven flag – a symbol of both the Stop The Steal Campaign and the right’s effort to remake the U.S. government in Christian terms.

Secretly caught on what is now an infamous viral audio tape recorded by Lauren Windsor, a left wing political activist posing as a conservative supporter at a Supreme Court Historical Society black-tie event, Martha-Ann blustered she’s dreaming up new ways to get them, as well as all the rest of the media this summer.

You know what I want – I want a sacred heart of Jesus flag.  Because I have to look across the lagoon at the Pride Flag for the next month… I’m putting it up and I’m gonna send them a message every day, maybe every week I’ll be changing the flags.  I made a flag in my head, this is how I satisfy myself. I made a flag, it’s white and it has yellow and orange flames around it.  And in the middle is the word vergogna.  Vergogna in Italian means SHAME.  Vergogna. V-E-R-G-0-G-N-A. …Vergogna.  Shame, shame, shame on you…

Yeah.  Well, Martha-Ann….f-k off.

Let me explain something.

The striped, multi-colored Gay Pride Flag – or Rainbow Flag –  was created by a small group of artists and activists in the seventies.  Its six different colors reflect the diversity within the LGBTQ community and over the years it has become a widely used international symbol of not only identity but also support from the millions of allies, aka family, friends, co-workers and acquaintances, of LGBTQ people.

Artist Gilbert Baker was the first designer to tackle the flag design.   And it was the famed gay rights leader Harvey Milk, who Baker first met in 1974, that challenged him to come up with a symbol of pride for the community.  

Eventually, Baker created a design of eight color stripes, which a team of artists and volunteers produced using a new hand-dyeing process.  They then hand-stitched the material together to create the first two flags, which made their joyous debut at the San Francisco Gay Pride Parade on June 25, 1978.

Five months later, on the morning of Nov. 27, 1978, Harvey Milk, was famously assassinated in City Hall, along with San Francisco Mayor George Moscone.  As a result, demand for this new symbol of pride was off the charts and over the years and decades it has grown in stature to become a broader symbol for inclusivity.  (Note: Though its eight color stripes had to be reduced to six due to the demands of mass production and the difficulty of producing – yes – the color of hot pink).

This story is particularly worth repeating in light of Martha-Ann’s bile-filed invectives against a flag designed to lovingly unite, rather than to divide, her fellow human beings.  And to illustrate her use of religion as a fiery cudgel of flames to presumably incinerate those not adhering to the rules of her particular sect, insults so many millions of people of faith who have become our public and private allies in a rainbow movement of acceptance.  

To actually hear the six minute recording of Martha-Ann’s gleefully venomous pronouncements against the Pride Flag, as well as so many members of the “media”  (Note:  You can do so here and see that I’m not exaggerating ) would feel like a throwback to another era were it not for this current iteration of the MAGA movement.  

With its daily attempts to turn us into a dictatorial theocracy through whichever branches of government it can reign supreme over or destroy – judicial, legislative and/or executive branch checks and balances be damned – it has long ceased being a group much interested in substantial, good faith compromise, i.e. democracy.  

This is best personified by the words of Martha-Ann’s husband, aka Justice Alito. Several weeks ago he was caught on another viral audio clip at that very same event agreeing with what he perceived to be a conservative Ms. Conrad when she stated to him that they (conservatives) had to keep pushing the country to return to a place of godliness against the opposition.  Said Alito:

One side or the other is going to win. I don’t know. I mean, there can be a way of working, a way of living together peacefully, but it’s difficult, you know, because there are differences on fundamental things that really can’t be compromised. They really can’t be compromised. So, it’s not like you are going to split the difference.

Yup. That’s Martha-Ann’s husband.  One of nine people who have the final say on what the rule of law is in a country where the other 333+million of us reside.  The same guy who wrote the majority U.S. Supreme Court opinion  exactly two years ago that overturned Roe vs. Wade, leaving millions of woman unable to legally control their reproductive choices in their home states.

And the ruling was no accident.  It was part of a 30-year judicial effort (Note: Some would say crusade) led behind-the-scenes by Justice Alito.  

And for anyone thinks he’s not coming for the Rainbow Flag, contraception or Martha-Ann’s favorite target – the media – google some of those phrases, along with a few of his speeches to conservative groups, and see what you come up with.

The judge’s refusal to split the difference with those who differ from the very fundamental beliefs of his self-imposed, very strict brand of Roman Catholicism, is perfectly simpatico with the beliefs of Martha-Ann, who even angrily quotes scripture in her audio tape.  

Though even more unhinged, at least to this Jewish writer, is when she boasts of her German lineage when asked about how she will continue to fight back against her growing number of critics.

My heritage is German. You come after me, I’m going to give it back to you.  It doesn’t have to be now.  But there will be a way.  They will know….

Okay, but that’s like………bad movie dialogue no screenwriter would ever write.  

And should be of no concern to anyone except the psychiatrist she likely doesn’t go to.

Three really quick things before we begin building the Alito video dartboard for next week. 

#1 – You’d think Martha-Ann would be happy.  She’s got two houses, two healthy adult children and a lifetime’s worth of friends and connections to lean on in case anything should go seriously wrong.  (Note:  Not to mention, great lifetime health insurance).

 But she’s not.  No one who talks that way is truly happy.

#2 – Some of her media rage is so petty, it’s almost not to be believed.  Click on this link to an article from The Cut that will tell you in juicy detail every Real Housewives tidbit you ever wanted to know. But here’s the gist —

During her husband’s confirmation hearings to the U.S. Supreme Court 18 YEARS AGO, the Washington Post’s then fashion editor, Robin Givhan, who was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in criticism for work done the previous year its committee called “witty, closely observed essays that transform fashion criticism into cultural criticism,” dared to criticize several outfits Martha-Ann wore and, to this day, she hasn’t forgotten.

Okay, yes, it was a little – actually a lot – bitchy.  But I’ve been called much worse to my face for many a fashion faux pas over the years and, trust me, so have you – even if you didn’t hear them.  The Martha-Ann standouts were for a “charmingly awkward” baby blue cable knit cardigan that was akin to bringing your own “binky” to the Senate, and a gold tweed suit that looked like it was once upholstery from a La-Z-Boy.  

Yawn.  And have either of them ever met any gay people?

Nevertheless, and very true to form, a couple of weeks ago Martha-Ann was caught on that tape still seeking revenge as she recounted each written insult in great, discombobulated detail;  practically recited the transcript of the snide phone call she made back in 2007 to faux “congratulate” her writer nemesis on the Pulitzer win; and once again restated her everlasting life commitment to eventually get even with them all (Note: See video.  Again.).

#3 –For at least an hour a day all week these three words were popping into my mind: Aunt Lydia Alito.  For those who don’t know, Aunt Lydia is the nasty, unhappy past middle aged lady in the world of The Handmaid’s Tale.  What this means is that in the dystopian theocratic nation of Gilead, Aunt Lydia cattle prods young women of child bearing age into: religious obedience against their will; sexual submission to their male commanders against their will; and demands their eternal acceptance of the fact that their highest and most precious duty under Gilead law is to become a baby incubator for an unlimited array of children they would not choose to have in order to serve God.

Suffice it to say that the dialogue in the five season Hulu series (adapted from Margaret Atwood’s all too prescient book and returning for one final season in summer 2025) is a hell of a lot better than anything either of the Alitos has ever said on their own.

Let’s end with this:

A few days ago I watched the feature documentary about eighties Brat Pack actors, Brats.  Its director, Andrew McCarthy, a brat pack “member” from such seminal youth films as Pretty In Pink and St. Elmo’s Fire, confesses that after all these years he still runs away from those times and those films, too often torturing himself over the unfairness of being referred to as a brat when he and his colleagues were anything but.

A mashup of period footage of him and his cohorts when they were in their 20s, the film intercuts commentary from McCarthy along with new interviews and observations he elicits from such fellow actors, bratters and bratter adjacents as Emilio Estevez, Rob Lowe, Demi Moore, Jon Cryer, Lea Thompson, as well as a host of others, including the New York Magazine writer who made the phrase up in the first place.  

It’s A LOT to watch of McCarthy try to talk therapy his way out of it the psychological sand trap he has dug himself into for all these years via the camera and on audio.

Still, rather than seething with rage about all the people he is going to get for coming after him all those years ago, he actually seems to at least be trying to figure out why all that access, success, money, and privilege couldn’t wipe away the sting of being called an unkind name.  Or two or three.  Almost forty years ago.  

Which is more than you can say for some people.  Or anything else that came out of the eighties.

And for some reason, that gave me hope.  

John Parr – “St. Elmo’s Fire”