WHAT DO WINONA RYDER AND ROBERT KRAFT HAVE IN COMMON?
by Terrence Shulman
Most have by now heard the news that Billionaire Robert Kraft, owner of the New England Patriots (who just won the Super Bowl on February 3rd) was arrested over a week ago on suspected solicitation of a sexual act in a sting at a Palm Beach, Florida massage parlor. In addition, to the bad press about these primary charges, there’s been some information that the massage parlor workers were either underaged, victims or human trafficking, or both. Whether Mr. Kraft knew this or not has yet to be determined.
So… while it’s hard to be too shocked anymore about virtually anything anyone does these days (e.g. Donald Trump, Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, R. Kelly, Justin Smollett, et all), I imagine there are still a lot of people out there wondering: why would a billionaire go to a cheap massage parlor? Aside from the fact that he may have cheated on his wife, why couldn’t he just hire a high-end escort? Well, people are strange and complex, aren’t we? Remember 25 years ago when actor Hugh Grant was engaged to actress model Elizabeth Hurley and he was caught in the backseat of a car having sex with a transvestite prostitute who (assumedly) wasn’t as beautiful as Ms. Hurley? Jay Leno–The Tonight Show host–had one, awkward first question for Mr. Grant who appeared on the show shortly after his well-publicized arrest; “What were you thinking?!” Of course, he couldn’t really articulate much of an answer to that.
Which brings us to Winona Ryder. It’s been almost 18 years since her December 2001 shoplifting arrest at a Beverly Hills Saks Fifth Avenue store. As with Mr. Kraft, Mr. Grant, and countless others, people understandably asked: “What was Winona thinking?” For many, they wondered why she would steal clothes when she (assumedly) could afford to buy the entire store? And, like Mr, Kraft, Winona denied she did the crime and, in her case, she even took it to a jury trial about a year later. She hired high-end, hot-shot attorney Mark Garagos who argued several defenses, including that she was under the influence of medications that inhibited her clear thinking/feeling/behavior and that she was doing research/rehearsing for a movie role as a woman who shoplifted. Well, Winona was found guilty pretty quickly by a Los Angeles jury, avoided jail time, was put on probation, and ordered to pay a fine, do community service, and get psychological help. I can’t say for sure but it’s possible Winona (who was rumored to have shoplifted prior
AND after her 2001 arrest) has or had a shoplifting addiction.
I imagine that–if Mr. Kraft fights his charges–something similar will happen to him as Winona. Maybe he’ll claim he has a sexual addiction (which, on first glance, may actually be the case–why else would one risk so much for so little? Maybe he has a fetish for massage parlors? Underaged women? Maybe it’s a power trip? Maybe his wife has a headache all the time? Maybe he wanted to be caught? Who knows if we’ll ever know the truth. For most, who really cares? But one thing’s certain: people are strange and complex.
HAPPY 80th BIRTHDAY MOM!
by Terrence Shulman
I want to acknowledge my mother, Madeline (Nisenbaum, then Shulman) Jacobs who turns 80 years old on St. Patrick’s Day (Sunday March, 17, 2019). My Mom has always been my biggest supporter and I like to think I’ve always been one of hers as well. She has persevered quite a few challenged in her eight decades of life. The most recent one being an Alzheimer’s diagnosis about five years ago. She (and our family) are fortunate that she has a wonderful partner–my 89-year old stepdad Jim–over the last 42 years. Jim is in decent health and, mentally, remains sharp as a tack!
While my Mom had a hard time initially coming to terms 29 years ago when I “came out” about my 10-year shoplifting addiction, I’ve been blessed that she, Jim, and my entire family didn’t judge me, stood by my side, and have been supportive of my personal and professional journey to be out and open and determined to maintain my recovery and to help many others as well.
So, when a group of family and friends celebrate my Mom in about two weeks, I know it’s going to be bittersweet: bitter as we’ve been seeing the sad and scary symptoms of Alzheimer’s progress; sweet because we’re glad she’s upbeat, has had a beautiful life, is well-taken care of, and is still “the life of the party.”
IS MARIE KONDO’S ‘TIDYING UP’ ON NETFLIX MORE THAN JUST GOOD TV? PSYCHOLOGY AND DESIGN PROS WEIGH IN
by
Hannah LaFond (March 3, 2019 Deseret News)
SALT LAKE CITY – Marie Kondo is an author and organizing consultant and now, thanks to her Netflix show “Tidying Up with Marie Kondo,” she’s also a TV and pop culture star. It seems like everyone, including major media outlets like The Atlantic and The New York Times, have been talking about what NPR called “an organizational renaissance” sparked by Kondo’s decluttering approach, the KonMari method.
On the show, Kondo takes people through the method, which helps them declutter their lives by only keeping items which “spark joy.”
The KonMari method has been around much longer than the Netflix series, and it may seem odd for the show to create this much buzz. But according to some experts who spoke to the Deseret News, aspects of the KonMari method may be exactly what people need today.
The helped becomes the helper
Dr. Jessica Louie is a certified KonMari consultant. She was experiencing burnout in her career as a critical care pharmacist. She’d also been dealing with a death in her family, and coped with the stress by shopping. Then she discovered Kondo’s bestseller, “The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up.”
Louie said the KonMari method was transformative in her life. It affected her home, relationships and personal finances. It also helped her recognize what was making her happy and what she could do without.
After experiencing the KonMari method, Louie became one of many certified KonMari consultants and started her own business, Clarify Simplify Align. KonMari consultants work personally with clients to help them through their tidying process. Louie said she offers support and facilitation to her clients to help them finish the method in the timeline they want. Louie has seen her clients experience transformations in their own lives, just as she did.
“Some have ended relationships after going through the process,” Louie explained. “They realized that they were just not happy in them and that they were holding on to the past instead of thinking about the present moment and the future.”
The psychology of tidying
Christopher Davids, Ph.D., an assistant professor of psychology at Westminster College in Salt Lake City, said the KonMari method could affect relationships just as Louie found in her clients.
“When we slow down and we’re more present to things like the relationships that we have, that naturally gives us more opportunity for moments of connection, which helps us experience emotional intimacy,” Davids said. “It also helps us slow down and have gratitude for the people who are around us.
Davids agreed with Louie on many of the benefits of the KonMari method, but gave the caveats that there is no psychological research specific to tidying, and the method would not work the same for everybody.
“Even in the show,” Davids said, referring to Kondo’s Netflix series, “there are certain principles that she follows. But then the people that use them, when they engage in the practice, they’re creating their own rituals. They’re finding their own ways of modifying those strategies to meet their needs and to work within their life’s context.”
Davids said there is scholarly research, however, about expressing gratitude as a daily practice for maintaining a positive outlook, and research on how mindfulness practices reduce anxiety and depression. A mindfulness practice can be anything that allows you to be in the present moment with a mindset of non- judgment, he said. The KonMari method has many aspects of mindful gratitude, including thanking your home and even thanking items you decide to throw out.
“I don’t think the psychological benefit of that is literally the practice of folding something in a certain way or meticulously trying to organize a drawer in a certain way.”
An article published by The Atlantic, “”Tidying Up With Marie Kondo’ Isn’t Really a Makeover Show,” addressed this mindset of non-judgment. Author Sarah Archer says that although the Netflix series is outwardly about tidying up, it’s really about empathy instead of judgment an empathy for the things around us that naturally blossoms into appreciation for the people surrounding us.
Archer writes, “There’s no sense of competition, and the ostensible makeover at the heart of every episode simply involves regular people becoming happier and more at ease in their own home. Kondo doesn’t scold, shame or criticize. Things spark joy or they don’t, and it’s fine either way.”
According to Davids, the motives behind the method are probably more important than the specific process. “I don’t think the psychological benefit of that is literally the practice of folding something in a certain way or meticulously trying to organize a drawer in a certain way,” he said.
It just looks better
Beyond the mental and social benefits, tidying also has the obvious aesthetic appeal. In the past five years, designs have moved toward minimalism, according to LaMar Lisman, an interior designer and founder of Lisman Studios Interior Design in Midvale. Lisman said that in Utah specifically, he has seen more requests for clean interiors and less excess.
“We really have stepped away from all the clutter, and froufrou and overdone rooms,” Lisman said. In “How to Choose Happiness,” an opinion piece for The New York Times, Kondo attempts to explain this more minimal trend.
LaMar Lisman is an interior designer and founder of Lisman Studio Interior Design in Midvale.
“We live in a disorganized and chaotic world, much of it outside our control,” Kondo wrote. “As people’s buying habits shift and technology moves most everything to the cloud, people have been valuing experiences over material things. Some have even pointed out that we may have reached a critical point in terms of mass consumption – we’ve reached peak stuff.”
Lisman has seen this critical point and need for change in his clients.
“We’re seeing our clients coming to us now and saying ‘I need to change, I need simplicity, I need uniformity. I need function, but I still want it to be beautiful,” Lisman said.
Lisman has also seen a shift in why people buy furniture. In the past, he said, people bought furniture and housewares with the intention of passing them on to future generations. This mindset is going away as people focus more on what brings them joy in the present.
“It’s more about fulfilling our own needs, which I think is good, very healthy,” he added. “It’s OK to say, ‘That’s not for me. I don’t want these things. Thank you, I’m glad grandma loved it but I don’t want it.’… It all ties in with… getting rid of clutter in our lives, to just help us breathe and feel free and open to live in our space.”
Despite its simple premise, Kondo’s show and accompanying ethos have struck a chord. It seems many have reached a point of overload – and if simplifying their lives starts with their closets, then they’re willing to
try.
As Davids put it, “Whether it’s a physical clutter or mental clutter, those are things that can drag with us.”
NATIONAL SPRING CLEANING WEEK MARCH 26 – APRIL 1
Too much “stuff” and nowhere to put it? If you’re like most people, you’ve found it easier to “store it” than to “get rid of it.” Most families have accumulated an excess of clothing and shoes that are now crowding them out of their homes. Some families have even purchased larger homes just to have a place to put all their “stuff.”
National Cleaning Week is March 26-April 1 and it’s the perfect opportunity to clean out closets, basements and storage lockers. When kids outgrow clothes and there are no more children to pass them on to donate the clothes to our ministry partners. When clothes are outgrown, out of style and the colors are not in fashion – donate the clothes and shoes to our ministry partners. There is a saying that “if you haven’t worn it in three years get rid of it.” Some families pay hundreds of dollars just for mini-warehouse space to keep things they will never wear or use again.
A lot of families especially in this area use the “lean out” season as a time to get things together for a yard or garage sale. Keep in mind that we will pick up the “leftovers” after the sale is over, FOR FREE! Just set it up by phone or online.
National Cleaning Week is the perfect time for Spring Cleaning and to donate our many ministry partners. We will pick up the donations at your home FOR FREE. The items are sold at the America’s Thrift Stores and each of our partners benefits from every sale.
For FREE Home Pick Ups, click here or call (800) 964-4567 (Call 1-844-411-2462 if in the Marietta, GA area). See: http://www.americasthrift.com/news/national-cleaning-week/
TEMPTED BY THAT CUTE, LITTLE PEPPER GRINDER?
by
Please Don’t Steal It! Restaurateurs Plead1 Meredith Goad
The Portland (Maine) Press Herald, February 19, 2019
Colleen Kelley was pumping gas at the 7-Eleven across from Silly’s, her restaurant on Washington Avenue in Portland, when she noticed three people walking by carrying a Silly’s coffee mug, a sangria mug, and a lunch box with the Silly’s logo.
Kelley called the restaurant, and her staff confirmed the items had been stolen. After filling her tank, she drove up Cumberland Avenue and right onto the sidewalk in front of the culprits. Kelley rolled down her window and said “Hello, my name is Colleen Kelley and I own Silly’s. Please give me back the things you have stolen from me. Never step foot in my restaurant again or I will call the police, because you are terrible people.”
These Silly’s customers are far from the only diners looking for a five-fingered discount. Earlier this month, someone lifted a painting of Crater Lake off the wall at the Portland Hunt & Alpine Club. Bar owner Briana Volk pleaded with the thief to return the painting, which had great sentimental value, no questions asked. As of press time, there was no sign the thief was feeling any remorse.
Frustrated restaurateurs battle theft in a variety of ways, from buying cheaper tableware at a discount supplier in Boston to nailing or gluing items down. Just why ordinary diners who otherwise consider themselves good people steal from restaurants is a puzzle, especially when the items they’re pirating are often inexpensive knickknacks or huge and hard to carry out the door.
“Everything that isn’t nailed down is fair game,” observed Clark Frasier, co-owner of M.C. Perkins Cove in Ogunquit and former co-owner of Arrows, where waiters were trained to get the mother-of-pearl caviar spoons off the table quickly every night last they disappear into someone’s pocket or purse.
NO RELIEF FOR RESTROOMS
At DiMillo’s on the Water in Portland, customers steal steak knives, souffle cups, and nautical decorations from buffets. A chef who owns several Maine restaurants says pictures have been removed from their frames. And someone once stole a large ficus tree like Volk’s painting, a gift from a parent at one of his openings.
When Rhum, Portland’s first tiki bar, closed last year, the owners said one factor (a lesser one, but still a factor) was theft. Customers had stolen about $10,000 worth of the restaurant’s custom-made tiki mugs.
The ladies’ restroom at the Good Table in Cape Elizabeth is a pilferer’s paradise, filled with old books, hats and other items that owner Lisa Kostopoulos has discovered at antique stores. The thing is, if you admire one of these found treasures out loud, Kostopoulos is likely to tell you to keep it as long as you bring her a replacement.
But the plunder doesn’t stop there.
Other things that have disappeared from the Good Table: two beautiful hanging baskets from the front porch. A big valentine painting that Kostopoulos used to put on the front door every Valentine’s Day. A chicken doorstop. Metal flying pigs that lived in the hallway and on the porch. “We even found one (pig) tucked in a bag, waiting to be taken, under one of the church pews on the front porch,” Kostopoulos said.
When it comes to temptation, probably no place compares to Silly’s, which is decorated in bright colors, filled with amusements, and looks more like a funhouse than a restaurant. Oh sure, Kelley has lost her share of silverware, glasses and such thousands’ worth, she says.
Lisa Kostopoulos, owner of the Good Table Restaurant in Cape Elizabeth, decorates the ladies room with treasures like old books and hats discovered at antique stores and has found that they’re prone to being pinched. She’s also lost hanging baskets, a chicken doorstop and a painting. Staff photo by Gordon Chibroski
“Every single time USM starts, I run out of silverware and plates,” Kelley said. “Everyone comes and outfits their apartment.”
But the losses that are most painful are the ones that involve items she’s picked out herself for the restaurant, to give it character, or the ones that do big damage to her bottom line, like the water fountain that was stolen from the patio.
“Truthfully, when someone steals something that means something to you, that you have chosen carefully for others to enjoy, a little piece of your faith in humanity dies,” Kelley said, “You know they don’t need it, they just want it because they are selfish or think for some odd reason they deserve it.”
Kelly has watched the games she buys at yard sales disappear so often she’s no longer replacing them. Birdhouses have been taken from the restaurant’s bathroom.
“They’ll rip it out of the wall and just leave the ripped plaster,” she said.
Also among the disappeared: a large vintage corkscrew display, collages, a vintage red chair, and the sandwich board that sits in front of the restaurant and lists the day’s specials.
Silly’s customers take the restaurant’s bumper sticker on vacation and take pictures of it all over the world on all seven continents. They send the photos to Kelley, who posts them on the wall. Then the photos get stolen.
Kelley now puts items that she wants to protect out of reach, including beer signs she brought back from Germany and a tortilla with the image of Jesus on it that she inherited from the previous owners.
WHAT ARE THEY THINKING?
Why do ordinary people who normally pay attention to their moral compass suddenly turn into Bonnie and Clyde when they cross the threshold of a restaurant?
“Some people have no remorse and are plainly doing it for need or greed, and some people are emotionally or psychologically messed up and are doing it as a cry for help,” said Terry Shulman, director of The Shulman Center for Compulsive Theft, Spending & Hoarding in Franklin, Michigan, outside of Detroit.
We caught Shulman as he was flying home from an appearance on the Dr. Oz show in New York, where he talked about shoplifting. Shulman is an attorney, licensed social worker and addiction therapist who was once a shoplifter himself. (He and his friends lifted menus from restaurants, he said.) Shulman doesn’t make excuses for the behavior – stealing isn’t right, and there ought to be consequences, he says but when people are feeling out of control or overwhelmed, such as during times of stress or loss, “they can strike out and do these things.”
Restaurant thieves range from pranksters to thrill seekers, Shulman said.
“They may often feel that no one’s going to miss it,” he said. “They may feel entitled to it because they’re going to spend money at a restaurant, or they got bad service. They don’t think they’re hurting anybody, but often they are.”
Restaurateurs who have had things stolen speculate that customers take things because:
* They feel entitled because a waiter was rude to them, or they think the food costs too much.
*They want a souvenir of their evening.
*They think the restaurant can afford the loss.
STOLEN MOMENTS
Despite the seriousness of the situation, some restaurant owners and employees can’t help but laugh when they look back on some of the sticky-fingered scenarios that have happened right under their noses.
Robyn Violette, general manager at Fore Street, still chuckles when she recalls the great Valentine’s Day caper. The restaurant, she explains, used to decorate with roses everywhere on Valentine’s Day. One customer spied a $60 vase filled with roses in the restroom and brought them back to his table to give to his date. A staff member confronted him.
The man’s date got huffy, protesting that he would never do such a thing, and demanded the server leave the roses where they belonged. The staffer replied: “Well, they actually belong in the men’s room.” “He looked mortified,” Violette recalled. Frasier and his partner, Mark Gaier, also have a favorite story. The chefs used to display, on a table in the main dining room of Arrows, vegetables from their garden alongside items that meant something to them,
such as same carved fish that had been made by old family friends.
One night a group of four “obviously quite wealthy” guests arrived in a Mercedes and enjoyed a fancy dinner, Frasier recalled. They were “laughing and carrying on,” then zoomed off in their luxury car. “Just as they were leaving, I realized ‘Oh the fish are gone,” Frasier said.
Frasier decided to call and confront them.
“Of course, they were like, ‘How dare you?’ We are the lords on high, and so on and so on. ‘We’ll never come back,” ” Frasier said. “And that night, the fish appeared on our stairs.”
Frasier and Gaier have developed a good sense of humor about theft, marveling at the things diners will lift. At M.C., diners regularly steal salt-and-pepper shakers, candleholders, and run-of-the-mill soap dispensers and tissue covers. “You ask yourself, ‘Who wants somebody’s Bed, Bath & Beyond soap dispensers?” ” Frasier said.
Frasier notes that, while the topic does have its comic aspect, “underlying it is a misunderstanding amongst the public. When you go into a small family or group restaurant, these are individual people you’re stealing from. This is not Marriott worldwide.”
Violette says Fore Street (which also loses soap dispensers) has “gotten very conservative” about the decor, mostly because of all the blue ramekins that went missing during the restaurant’s first 10 years. The ramekins were made for the restaurant by a local artist; the same person made the rose vases. They cost just $3 each, Violette said, “but when you’re losing 600 of them in a year, it’s a lot of money.”
About a year ago, a professional photographer gave the restaurant a photo of its then-pastry chef. He was
holding plums in his hands, and the photo focused in on his tattooed arms covered by the edge of his chef’s jacket. “It was just such an iconic picture,” Violette said. “It was beautiful.”
In two days, it was gone. The restaurant now glues all of its photographs and prints to the wall in the restrooms.
The most brazen theft at Fore Street is what Violette calls “the bench thing.” Someone stole a big, expensive handcrafted wooden bench from the waiting area. The host had gone for the night, and the bartender couldn’t see from his angle what happened. But apparently, just before closing, someone pulled up their car
or truck, loaded the bench, and dashed away. The bench cost $700 to replace.
Though stealing from restaurants is nothing new, Shulman thinks it’s worse than ever. He describes an “epidemic of thievery” in our society. “I think it’s becoming normalized,” he said, blaming the economic crash of 2008 in part, because, he said, most of the people responsible were never brought to justice. Now we have porch pirates who steal our Amazon packages, ever more students cheating on tests, and people in high positions taking from others with no consequences.
“We’re not thinking through how these things affect people,” he said. “We’re living in an age where we’re getting more and more disengaged from the harm.”
“SHOPLIFTERS”
Recent Japanese Award-Winning Film
Now Available on DVD!
The recent Japanese movie “Shoplifters” won the 2018 Palme d’Or (Grand Prize) last May at the Cannes Film Festival in France. “Shoplifters” was one of five films nominated for “Best Foreign Film” at 91st Academy Awards (Oscars) two weeks ago. While it didn’t win the award (Mexico’s “Roma” did), I highly recommend seeing it.
My wife Tina and I saw “Shoplifters” twice over two weekends two months ago when it had a limited screening in Detroit. We really liked the film which was written and directed by the well-known veteran director Hirokazu Koreeda. In my opinion, only a relatively small part of the film was about shoplifting which, I hear, is a growing epidemic in Japan among various demographics (impoverished, thrill seekers, and those who–like most of us–have engaged in the behavior in a more addictive-compulsive manner).
We both found the film to be well-acted, filled with interesting characters and a complex storyline which explored the idea of what makes a family, selfishness vs. selflessness, relative ethics, and love and loss.
I may have mentioned this to the group before (or at least I’ve mentioned it in my free monthly e-Newsletter) but I just got word that the Japanese translation of my book Something for Nothing: Shoplifting Addiction and Recovery (2003) is almost completed by a Japanese publisher. I hope they can do some promotional coverage linking my book with the “Shoplifters” film. I’m even hopeful that my wife and I can travel to Japan later this year as part of a brief promotional tour and to visit with my new friend and colleague Dr. Hiroshi Akuda who is a psychiatrist in northern Japan who works with alcoholism, gambling disorder, and “kleptomania” and who visited me here in Detroit last June and found the Japanese publisher for my book.
He’s coming back to Detroit for a visit in September. Maybe we can do some kind of promotional event here, too.
I highly recommend the film both for it’s rare look at shoplifting and for its film mastery itself.