Undercover of the Rolling Stone

I was going to write, on this fine Saturday, autumnal Auckland morning, about covers. Magazine covers, to be precise. Inspired by the colourful spray of covers on our coffee table (RS, Time, NZ Listener, etc), especially the titillatingly tattooed arms of an almost-aging rock star on the cover of the latest Rolling Stone that reminded me of the graffiti-ed plaster-cast on my younger son's broken arm, I was going to write about how, with magazines today, more so than ever, it's all about the covers. All about the up-front, hard-sell titillation, provocation, inspiration and sensationalisation that goes into a cover to get it off the shop (or library) shelf and onto your coffee table...

No money changed hands in the promoting of these magazines - sadly

Then I opened up one of those magazines...

For some reason I had neglected to go beyond the cover of this magazine (Rolling Stone October 2012) when it arrived with Obama smiling his coolest-guy-on-the-planet smile on the front, and the promise of a "Day in the Life of Tom Hanks" interview alongside. What was I thinking? My two favourite famous 'beta guys' rolled into one Rolling Stone. I must have been having my hair done that day.

But this morning the cover had me. I wanted to go deeper... I wanted to go undercover, indeed. So I did.
My Saturday morning was stitched up for a good couple of hours - those RS interviews are thorough, plus it's Saturday morning: that means bagel interruptus every half hour at least..

The upshot of this Saturday morning undercover exercise was an idea for Mothers' day tomorrow that involves me making one request of each of my children to do something for me (sort of). For the 19 year-old, who refuses to get his news from any hard source, such as a book or magazine, sticking exclusively to the sinister-cynical Young Turks on-line site, at least I think that's what they call themselves: read the RS article on Obama, please.

For my slightly  manic, worryingly svelte, 17-year-old daughter: sleep in every morning for at least a week, please. Adjust your alarm by half an hour for one week, because sleep is food and you look tired, darling (Mothers cannot, under any circumstances, give direct dietary advice to their teenage daughters. Trust me on that one).

And for the 14-year-old boy: bed at nine on weeknights, plus half an hour of reading, preferably book reading, and nothing involving zombies, for at least one week, please. Thank you Obama (and RS).

In each case I reckon my chances of compliance are slightly higher than Obama's chances of fixing Wall Street's speculative corruption so that the money guys don't make 100 million in a bad year, when they gamble and lose. Who said motherhood was difficult?    

As to Tom Hanks - the Obama of Hollywood and the best of Hollywood, where the other Tom (Cruise), coincidentally, could be said to be the worst - after getting to know him a bit more intimately through the RS interview, I have decided that my very own beta guy husband (M) is rather like him, only one year younger.

I used to tell M he was a cross between Jon Bon Jovi and Woody Allen to look at, which is still roughly true (a little more Woody these days than JBJ, but then I look rather less like Elle Machperson than I used to, so...). Now I can add that his character is kind of like Tom Hanks', only what that character might be like if he was one year younger, and a university librarian, rather than the highest-grossing box-office actor of all time ($6.8 billion and counting).

Then, a second thought. As my Tom (as I'm thinking of calling M from now on) and I sat side by side on the couch this morning, me with last year's Rolling Stone, him with the iPad and plugs, listening to the recordings of last night's band session in which I was on vocals and my Tom was on lead guitar (yes, we are in a band), I got to the bit about Tom H being a "serious rock geek" who was at that point nervously preparing for a benefit gig in which he was going to accompany his wife on guitar - she would be singing (just like us!). "I'm gonna have the quietest guitar in history" says Tom Hanks coyly, clearly unsure of his abilities playing that particular instrument.

I start to think, perhaps my Tom is not so like the Tom after all, at least not if his ability with that particular instrument, as amply and loudly demonstrated last night, is anything to go by...

Credits:
Rolling Stone
Obama
Tom Hanks
My Tom (M)
Fluffy Dice (our band)
C, B, and C (our kids)