A stitch in time

Because I am usually the last to get clued in on any internet-based trend, I’ve only been obsessed with Pinterest for just the last few months. I have got all sorts of boards going, where I am collecting recipes, planning garden projects, culling home décor ideas and getting motivated to craft my little heart out. I recently pinned this project:

Cute, right?

It’s a sewing project…that involves ordering a pattern…and figuring out how to plug in and thread the sewing machine that my mother bought me about 14 years ago. How cute would Snakebite be in these tops this summer? Then it hit me. Oh, crap! Maybe I should also order the needlepoint canvas for this pillow:

Was I seriously considering sewing clothes for my daughter? After the trauma of enduring my mother’s homespun get-ups that I was forced into wearing, did I really think that this would be a good idea?

The year was 1976 and a store called Stretch and Sew opened its doors about a mile and a half from our house. My mother welcomed them with open arms and really went for it. She took classes and learned to cut patterns with gusto. For everything.

Hot Damn trivia: Did you know that as a kid I used to figure skate? From about ages 5-11 I took weekly lessons at Ice Land and practiced about 2 to 3 days a week. I felt like I had mad skills with “toe-jumps”, “lutz jumps”, “axels”, “figure 8s” and “shooting the duck”. But skill can only get you so far. I needed style. Every time I went to the rink I would end up in the pro-shop ogling the sherbet colored polyester dresses bedazzled with twinkling plastic crystals. Did I ever get one? Hells no! My mother just knew that she could use her sewing prowess to make me one that was, “just as good, if not better” than the overpriced pro-shop offerings. Noooo! Instead of a glittery dress, I got matte polyester skirts, one in solid black and one in solid red. Even though they were a bit on the long side, Mom also crafted some matching panties that looked like custom diaper covers.

The sewing bug had bitten my mother hard by 1979. That summer her design and seamstress confidence grew and she made me a couture swimsuit. This was the year that Christy Brinkley was on the cover of the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit cover for the first time. I swooned for the bathing suit that was basically a waterproof version of an Ice Capades dress.

Wouldn’t I have looked hot, at age 9, in this?

Mom made me her own version in non-lycra infused polyester red that harkened to my skating skirt. It did not have any beading, but it did have a v-cut. That worked out really well what with the non-stretch fabric and my blossoming buds. I wore a lot of t-shirts over my suit that year to allegedly “keep from getting sunburned”. We didn’t really have sun-block lotion yet.

But the real coup d’état came when I started 6^th grade at our local public middle school where I stuck out like a huge, festering sore thumb already. To make matters worse, we had to dress out for P.E. class. After the first gym class, it was clear that I was way behind in not just physical ability and coordination, but also in dress-out attire coolness. I was not going to be comfortable in the tiny Dolphin shorts and OP t-shirts favored by the hot, popular 6^th grade goddesses, but I could certainly rock the 2^nd tier-cool Gap sweat pants, pushed up with maybe a Panama Jack t-shirt. But guess who could make me something more “stylish”. Gawd! Did she hate me and want to see me fail socially? That woman made me a tracksuit of maroon terry cloth…with bootleg pants…and a v-neck long sleeved top that featured elasticized cuffs, with some added flair. On the top, where perhaps an Izod logo would have rested, was an embroidered bouquet of wild flowers in high contrast white thread. While she was at it, she made a “track suit” for my 16 year-old brother. It was powder blue velour. Meow. Lucky for him, he could drive to the mall and buy whatever he wanted. I don’t think his get-up ever saw the outside of his car’s trunk. But me? What could I do? Wearing that maroon mess would have meant adolescent suicide.

I never allowed a capture of me in the sweat suit.

As luck would have it, there was one out: orchestra. As long as you played in the school orchestra you were not required to take P.E. I eventually became the first string violinist in 7th grade, not because I was so talented and dedicated. It was because I knew that if I didn’t excel with that fiddle, I’d be failing at the chin-up bar while wearing Mom’s sweat-suit. Today, my violin lives with me still. However, the only song that I can remember how to play is the one that goes, “There’s a place in France where the ladies wear no pants, there’s a hole in the wall and the men can see it all.” Classy, as always.

Tags: Figure Skating Dress, Home made clothes, Home made swimsuit, Ice Land, Pinterest, Sewing, Sewing project, Stretch and Sew

A Rowse by any other name

For two years my mother and her sister were called This One and That One.  The family story was that my mother and her identical twin sister were not legally named until they were about two years old.  I don’t know if my grandparents didn’t already have names prepared because twins coming out threw them for a loop, or in olden times you just didn’t even think about names until there was an actual live birth or if maybe it was because it had been ten years since their first born and by the time this duo appeared my grandparents were just in a “been there, done that” haze, figuring that they’d get around to it eventually.  My mother said it was because one of her older sisters, Vesta, not Billie Sue, would instantly bastardize any prospective names into grating nicknames that drove their mother batty.  I have no idea if this is true, but Carolyn and Charlotte eventually made it into the county records.

Recently there have been several stories in the news about parents experiencing “Baby Name Regret Syndrome”.  Really?  Can this be a shock?  Is it because people are now naming their children impulsively, without thinking about the long-term effect of having a “cool” or an “ironic” name?  You need to save those sorts of monikers for your pets.  The research cited in articles has been mainly concerned with pointing to the myriad of kooky names that celebrities adore festooning their children with.  And there are many, like: Bronx Mowgli (Ashlee Simpson & Pete Wentz), Blue Ivy (Beyonce & Jay Z), Moxie Crimefighter (Penn Jillette), Pilot Inspektor (Jason Lee) Bear Blu (Alicia Silverstone), Antonio Kamakanaaolhamaikalani Harvey Sabato III (Antonia Sabato, Jr.), Moroccan and Monroe (Nick Cannon & Mariah Carey), Fifi Trixibelle, Peaches Honeyblossom and Little Pixie (Bob Geldolf & Paula Yates) Heavenly Hiraani Tiger Lily (Paula Yates & Michael Hutchence), Moon Unit, Dweezil, Ahmet Emuukha Rodan and Diva Thin Muffin Pigeen (Frank Zappa), Zuma Nesta Rock (Gwen Stefani & Gavin Rossdale) … the list could do on for pages.

I agree that those are all truly awful, but I doubt that any of those parents have the slightest regret over their unique choices.  But those poor kids!  Mon Dieu.  And I thought that being named after my Aunt, Charlotte, was a cross to bear what with it being long and difficult to spell.  Can you imagine Jason Lee’s kid having to ever do anything at the Social Security office?  “Yes, Pilot Inspektor…no, Inspektor is with a ‘k’, my parents thought it would be more custom than Inspector with a ‘c’…Yes, that is why I am here; I was just granted the court’s permission to legally change my name to Pete Jones.”

My favorite celebrity name goes to the son of Jermaine Jackson.  I think he was trying to send a message to his little brother, Michael, whose children’s names are Prince, Paris and Prince II (the name so nice, he used it twice!).  The message is that Jermaine’s child is also Jackson family royalty…hence the boy’s name: Jermajesty.  Take that, Blanket.

Sometime’s parents take their naming inspiration from iconic brands or products that they feel convey certain panache: Mercedes, Tiffany, Remington, Porsche, Brandy, Diamond, Bentley and so on.  Couples who thought a destination wedding was a good idea might be partial to destination names such as Brooklyn, Dakota, London, Sierra or Phoenix. If you catch an episode of Toddlers and Tiara’s, on accident…of course, you can hear a lot of names that are certain to catapult a prostitot to future success.  Can’t you see your future self, handing over control of your portfolio to a broker named Paisley, Sparkyl, or Kragen?  Perusing the Social Security site, it is clear that many parents will go to great lengths to make sure the letters “j”, “k”, “y” or “z” find their way onto the family tree: Kaylynn, Jayden, Jazlyn, Xzander, Kloe.

Living in the South, I am used to people having some eccentric “family names” or having a last name for a first or middle name.  Heritage names are popular with everyone.  And there is no shortage of names that hearken to a family of French origin, like La Quon, or nod to a family’s obvious Greek heritage with something like Shantavious.  But the names that totally throw me into fits are the ones that are just made up words, blends of other names or common names that have a custom spelling, so that the child will grow up feeling special.  By and large, I’ll bet they grow up realizing that their momma is illiterate and didn’t know how to spell.

A couple of summers back, I was being checked out at a Wal-Mart in Florida by a woman whose nametag was a cluster of letters…”Sh’airaleete”.  Yes, there was the telltale apostrophe of high-class in there.  I couldn’t resist commenting on what an unusual name she had.  I then asked, “How do you pronounce it?” I was almost knocked over when she said, “It Charlotte.”  Um, no.

Tags: Ahmet Emuukha Rodan, Alicia Silverstone, Antonia Sabato Jr., Antonio Kamakanaaolhamaikalani Harvey Sabato III, Ashlee Simpson & Pete Wentz, Baby Name Regret Syndrome, Bear Blu, Beyonce & Jay Z, Blue Ivy, Bob Geldolf & Paula Yates, Bronx Mowgli, Custom spelling, Diva Thin Muffin Pigeen, Dweezil, Fifi Trixibelle, Frank Zappa, Gwen Stefani & Gavin Rossdale, Heavenly Hiraani Tiger Lily, Heritage names, Jason Lee, Little Pixie, Monroe, Moon Unit, Moroccan, Moxie Crimefighter, Name Remorse, Nick Cannon & Mariah Carey, Paula Yates & Michael Hutchence, Peaches Honeyblossom, Penn Jillette, Pilot Inspektor, unique names, Zuma Nesta Rock

Livin’ la vida Lotto

Let it be known that I got my Lotto cherry popped today.  Well, it’s not technically popped until 11pm tonight, when I find out that I’ve been screwed out of $5.  Right now I’ve only got Lotto’s tip in my grasp.  And it’s soooo big!

It’s true; until today I have never bought a lottery ticket.  But the siren call of $640 million dollars got me a bit hot and bothered.  No lie.  And it’s been kinda nice.  All day I have surrendered to the fantasy of “What if…” But we both know the truth is that anything over $100 million is just being a blow-hard.  And if I am totally honest, I could make do with just $15 million.  I would happily donate the lion’s share and I would get Georgia’s labor market back in full swing by sub-contracting out a myriad of jobs beginning with digging me a pool in the backyard.

Hot Tub got in on the action, too.  He gave me money to buy a lottery ticket for everyone in the family…his gift of Hope for the people he loves.  Aaw.  He was so thrilled to hold the sheet and when Snakebite got home from lacrosse, he could barely contain his thrill as he revealed the ticket and told her what he’d done for her.  The response had all of the sadistic enthusiasm of the fellow inmate who beat Jeffery Dahmer to death with a broom handle in prison.  There was yelling, belittling, gnashing of teeth, crossed arms of disapproval and full on steam shooting from her ears.

From the beginning, Big Daddy and I have always scoffed at the unfortunate, uneducated proletariat who spend their rent money on playing “their numbers”.  Snakebite has especially bought into our message that lottery tickets=life’s losers.  

Once, about four years ago, a ten-year old Snakebite spent the night with a friend from school.  The next morning when I went to pick her up I hung around for the usual Saturday morning debriefing of “how things went”.  The host mother got a big grin on her face and told me to settle in, because I was going to love what she had to tell me.  Apparently, after school they made a pit stop at the grocery store to get some sleepover fortification.  After passing through checkout, the mother went to the customer service desk to buy $25 dollars worth of lottery tickets.  At about the time she was up, she noticed that Margaret was looking distressed and on the verge of a making a puking scene.  With great concern, the mother asked, “Sweetie, are you okay?  Are you going to be sick?” as she was feeling Snakebite’s forehead.  Young Snakebite blurted out, “Don’t do it Mrs. Elliot!  Don’t you know that the lottery is a scam?  You have a better chance of being struck by lightning than ever winning!!!  You need to save your money for important things like life insurance and college.”  The mother was stunned; having expected to hear something more along the lines of how bad lunch had been at school that day.

Mrs. Elliot assured Margaret that the groceries had already been paid for, they were current with their mortgage and school tuition had been taken care of; clearly, there was no need to worry.  Snakebite’s response?  “Well, you’ll always have your property taxes to pay for!”

So, that very practical ten-year old, who is now fourteen, is thoroughly disgusted that her mother and brother have been revealed to be losers, who are going to end up living in a trailer park if they are lucky.  I have long wondered what it would be that I would do that would truly offend and embarrass my child.  Turns out it’s lottery tickets…unless I win.  Then I bet 10 to 1 she’ll be kissing up to me and Hot Tub, big time.

painting by Brian Stewart

Tags: Jeffrey Dahmer, Lottery, Lottery ticket, Lotto, Mega Millions

Old and Crotchety…Moi?

I know.  I know.  I’ve been absent a bit lately.  Okay, a lot.  Sorry, if by chance you have been counting on me.  Here’s the deal:  I left my full-time-part time job helping pageant queens, prom organizers and bridezillas get their whole-sale sparkle on a few months back.  This was a good thing.  Everybody wins and I had the opportunity to really pursue writing as a full-time gig.

What happened instead was holiday bullshit and an opportunity to get to know Kelly Ripa better….damn minx.  How much do we LOVE Kelly?   I wrapped packages, made merry and took care of stuff.   And then God never sent me winter.  I had to take advantage of nice days while thought I could….and here it is almost April and not a full-length fur made it out of this house in 2012.  Some mink car coats maybe made it out twice. But not any more than that?  Sads.

Imagine this over and over plus, 2+ acres. Sometimes I hate my yard.

So, I have thrown myself in to full-on Stepford.  For instance, today?  I gave my front loading clothes washing  robot a mechanical colonic with white vinegar, then bleach, then a hot rinse, finished by a diluted bleach wipe-down, coupled with a dry cloth buffing.   My hands now smell  like a tidy rest-stop.  Yesterday, I painted my kids’ bathroom ceiling sea-glass green.  ’Cause why?  I dunno.  Seemed cool.  And the day before that?  I  divided and transplanted perennials, wrote sympathy cards  and re-heated left-overs.  Are you as satisfied as I am?  Doubtful.

It is entirely possible that I am either having a midlife crisis or an existential crisis.  Either way.

Tags: as old as, bleach, Bridezilla. Mart, existential, front loading washer, Gardening, Kelly Ripa, old

And the ring goes to…

I would be remiss if I did not mention that last night’s episode of The Bachelor was brought to you by Fairy Tale Fantasy Capes for Villainesses and Good Girls Alike. Both Bachelorettes arrived via chopper to a staged Swiss vista, complete with added bits of snow and a single remaining rose, wearing long capes clasped at the neck.

So, on last night’s The Bachelor finale it was no surprise that there was lots of talk about “seeing a future” which continued between Bachelor Ben and Bachelorette Courtney, Bachelor Ben and Bachelorette Lindzi, and also Bachelor Mom Barbara and both Bachelorettes, Bachelor Sister Julia and both Bachelorettes. But none of that mattered as much as whom Bachelor Weiner was seeing a future with, using his one good eye. It was a hard decision for Bachelor Ben, but it didn’t take a rocket scientist to know it was going to be with often naked Courtney. And thank heavens for that, because Bachelor Ben is certainly no rocket scientist.

Separated at birth: Francine from Arthur and Bachelor Ben

Knowing that squeaky-voiced Courtney was going to be winning, it made the rejection of Bachelorette Lindzi excruciating. It was like listening to the lamb going to slaughter as Bachelorette Lindzi’s voice was heard saying, “I want Ben to be my husband. I’ve never felt this kind of love for someone. I can’t believe we’re here at the end of this journey, but it’s sort of a beginning…the beginning of a lifetime of bliss. I’m confident that I could spend the rest of my life with him and be really happy. I hope I live happily ever after with Ben. I love Ben. I love Ben. It feels really good to say that. I love everything about him…just being with him, and how he makes me feel. That’s love. This is the moment that girls dream of their whole life. To see him down on one knee and to just finally know how he really feels is going to be special…I hope that I am engaged after today. I’d like to throw it in.” Then Bachelor Ben hits Bachelorette Lindzi upside the head with a verbal frying pan when he tells her that she’s what he’s been looking for his entire life, and how he had a big moment at her hometown visit in Ocala when he could see himself with her and with kids in their future and that he has fallen in love with her. Then once she is good and stunned, he goes for the jugular when he tells her that he, “needs those moments to last a lifetime and, uh, I’ve found that with someone else…I’m in love with someone else”.

Bachelor Ben gave a gigantic Neil Lane sparkler, final rose and his manhood to Bachelorette Courtney. She exhaled a little girl giggly “of course I will” and was awash in the look of self-congratulation. Then they played kissy-face, exchanged “I love yous” a lot then gloated about happiness and forever.

The truth

Now, if you believe the tabloids…and I do, Bachelor Ben has been hooking up with chicks left and right between the final rose ceremony taping and it’s public reveal. It’s only unbelievable because he’s still working his Peking Man hair-do. Bachelorette Courtney was seen making out with someone, too. I guess what I want to say is, Congratulations Lindzi. Girl, you just dodged a bullet. You win!

Tags: Bachelor Ben, Bachelorette Courtney, Bachelorette Lindzi, Ben Flajnik, Final rose, Francine, Neil Lane, Peking Man, Season Finale, The Bachelor, The Bachelor Season 16 finale

Planet of the Bachelor

My shame is great, as it should be.  In the last week or two, I somehow fell into watching The Bachelor.  Sure, I’m a little late to the party, but let’s be honest…it’s only the last few weeks that really count any way.  Right?

I do have to respect that the franchise isn’t afraid to admit to what it is.  Back in December, when ABC was trying to get audiences amped up for the then-coming season, the preparatory commercials just showed a close up of a chick bawling her eyes out, with mascara juice flowing out of her eye-holes, bemoaning, “Whyyyyy?”  I knew that’s pretty much how the first few episodes would go and that’s why I’ve only just recently checked in.  You know, my time is precious.

This is the face that has launched a thousand cat fights?

Let’s just talk about Bachelor Ben for a minute.  The chicks vying for him are all acting like he’s the second coming of Elvis.  I hate to be snarky, that’s not my style at all (go on and insert your eye roll here…I just did).  But, can I be the only woman alive that recognizes that he could also be called “Link”?  As in, he is the missing one… 

I swear that now going forward, any Monkey Shines nightmares that I have will have Bachelor Brad’s face superimposed in them.  The thought that simian singleton, Bachelor Ben, could be coming for any of my single girl friends now haunts me in my sleep.

The need of all of the contestants to sound profound and how they go about it is simply baffling to me. I don’t know how many times I’ve heard any Bachelor say, in their going-in-deep interviews, how he can, like,  “See my life with (insert hometown date bachelorette’s name here)”.  Gag.  That’s not, like, special powers, Bachelor Ben.  I can picture my life with all sorts of people.  Call me imaginative, but don’t call me in love, pensive or smart.  Can I see my life with Adolf Hitler?  Sure!  I could see me dumping him because he is a total ass, plus I’d never be able to abide that dumb toothbrush mustache.  Could I picture a future with Kobe Bryant?  Yes, it involves me looking the other way while he cheats on me and then I get kick-ass jewelry and shop away my sads.  Just because you can picture something doesn’t necessarily mean you do any of it!  Or even want to. Picturing an alternative future doesn’t mean that can can bend spoons with your mind.

Like a Tom-cat in a patch of kittens...dumb kittens.

And then the women.  Oy vey!  Let me just pause here to note that out of 25 women, 44% have names that end with the long “e” sound and 32% have names ending in ‘”a” and 24% have names ending in a consonant.  There were 2 Ambers, 1 Casey and another Kacie, 1 Lindzi and another Lyndsie.  I believe there was one Biblical name represented.  I don’t know what it means, but it must mean something.  “I mean, I am really in love with Ben now!  I know it.”  ”I knew I was falling for Ben that first time we were in the jacuzzi.”  What is wrong with them???  This week, the girls all had special dates and overnights with Ben in Switzerland.  They are all in love with Ben, and then knew that he could see a future with all of them, too.  Because that’s what he told them all, right before he forked over the invitation to forgo their single rooms and spend some “alone time” in the “Fantasy Suite”.  And btw, you know that “alone time” is Bachelor code for boot knockin’, right?

Bachelor Ben was on a “I just did it with three girls high” when last week’s discard, Kacie B., made a surprise! trip to the land of neutrality to tell Bachelor Ben that she only wants for him to be happy.  Because she loves him.  From the beginning, all she cared about was his happiness.  Because she is selfless and self-sacrificing when faced with the love of Bachelor Ben.  Oh, and she also wanted to know “Whyyyyy?  What did I do wrong?”  Why can’t they all just move to Utah and become polygamist, since none of them seems to be too bothered that they are all nailing Bachelor Ben?   Well, except that the other girls might see to it that Bachelorette Courtney has an accident that leaves her horribly maimed and unable to speak.  Back to that impromptu visit by Bachelorette Kacie…Hell, I can barely pull it together to get to appointments five miles from my house on time.  How did love-lorn Bachelorette Kacie manage to have her passport ready, alongside a bank account that could afford a less than 14-day advance ticket purchase fare to Switzerland, where she just happened to know where she could find Bachelor Ben, alone in his hotel room, in between all of his international wooing, looking camera-ready in a tie and a head full of dried dippity-do gel?

The episode ended with Bachelorette Nicki leaving sans rose.  Next week is the big season 16 “Women Tell All” reunion show, so it’ll be two nail-biting weeks before we white-knuckle through Bachelor Ben’s mother and sister meeting their possible future skank-in-law to find out if Bachelor Ben will choose Bachelorette Courtney or Bachelorette Lindzi (yes, that is how her name is spelled).  I will NOT be watching the tell-all show.  After watching a Flavor of Love reunion, there is no way that this could ever stack up to my expectations of what a reunion show should be.

Flav knows how do do right be his Baby Mama

Tags: Bachelor Ben, Bachelor Brad is the Missing Link, Bachelorette Courtney, Ben Flajnik, Kacie B., Lindzi, Link, Missing Link, Monkey Shines, The Bachelor, The Bachelor Season 16, The Flavor of Love, Women Tell All, Women Tell All reunion show

I’ve given up

Everyone is acting like they are all a bunch of crazy Cajuns with the Mardi Gras stuff.  The beads are flying, bars are having “parties” and my grocery store bakery is overflowing with those grody looking King cakes.  For my family, about as Mardi Gras as we get is eating pancakes on Shrove Tuesday.  The idea behind that isn’t just another one of my “breakfast for dinner” whims.  No.  Lent season has begun and in practice, a household uses up all of their decadent ingredients before beginning their penitential preparation during the forty days preceding Easter.  The pancake supper is sort of like a distant cousin to making what I call Snowstorm French Toast.  That is when all stores sell out of milk, eggs and bread at the announcement of “snow forecast” in Georgia. 

Lent is a time when people try to repent, give alms, pray and to do without by giving up something that is indulgent.  The eschewing of chocolate, gossip and alcohol seems to be popular with my people.  I myself have given up these things, and other vices or luxuries as well.  Sometimes I make it all forty days, and other years I have broken down and admitted that I am an imperfect child of God.   One year I gave up putting French Fries in my mouth.  It sounded daring at the outset, but was super easy.  It turns out that I really don’t eat them that often, so it kinda worked out for me.  The most difficult Lent season was the year I decided to deny myself from allowing something else that starts with an “F” from coming OUT of my mouth.  I vowed self-denial by eliminating using the word “fuck”.   It was the most difficult forty days.  Ever.

Hot Damn comes from a long and colorful line of serial potty-mouths on her mother’s side.  I have one cousin, we’ll call her Melissa, who is the most prolific and cunning cuss-wordsmith that I have ever met.  She works at her craft in the way a tennis champ might work at her serve.  It is dazzling how she can work a “bleep” word in to the most somber of occasions.  I sat next to her during my Grandfather’s funeral and about wet myself from her commentary.  Then there was the six-week  college Thanksgiving-thru-Christmas break when I worked part-time in her office.  One morning when I came in, I must not have been accompanied by my usual rays of sunshine, prancing fawns and chirping bluebirds, because  said cousin looked up from her desk at me and said, and I quote, “Well, God-damn-shit Charlotte Ann; who the fuck pissed all over your cornflakes this morning?”  That one question pretty much had everything!  So, you now know from whence I come and the struggle that I faced by denying myself the best profanity of all time.  Busting out the f-word is just part of my fabric.

Spending that forty days biting my tongue and rethinking my word choice not only prepared me for Easter that year (I know that Jesus was way appreciative of MY sacrifice), but it gave me the foundation to listen and sing-a-long with music in the car with my kids.  For instance, before Cee-Lo released his sanitized “Forget You”, I was blasting the original song, but loudly substituting the line as “Well, fudge for you-oooo-ooo0!”  I turned it into a song about baking for someone who’s done you wrong.  Isn’t there something in the Bible about loving your enemy?  Again, I was making Jesus proud by passing along His teaching.

Yesterday I conducted an informal Facebook poll to find out what my people were going to hit the pause button on for Lent this year or what they had disposed of in years past.  Some were true eliminations like Jackson quitting chocolate, John saying “no” to carbonated drinks, Tracy and Gabe not checking Facebook (won’t happen) or when Donald stopped making martinis (but not vodka tonics).  Others were more wishful, like Kim halting toilet scrubbing or Claire giving the finger to caring in any capacity.  Then my cousin Mary Sue replied that she would be giving up “cousins”.  Ouch.

Tags: "Forget You", Cee-Lo, Crazy Cajuns, Easter, Giving up something for Lent, King cake, Lent, Mardi Gras, Sacrifice, Shrove Tuesday

Wanna go for a ride?

So, I know it’s been a long year that you fine people have been waiting, no doubt with bated breath, to find out about how my whole car hunt thing turned out. I dithered on about it here , here and even here. It was about this same time last year that I was told my trusty Toyota, Suki (I name all of my cars), was knocking on death’s door and that she had only weeks to live. By the way, it was the dealership’s mechanic who broke the news to me while graciously offering to escort me to the dealership showroom to look at the “fantastic group of 2012” offerings, or sit tight while he replaced my rear axel for a couple thousand dollars, with more repairs to follow. It was my choice, he assured me. I opted for an automotive band-aid instead. Suspiciously, with only new front brakes, tires and an oil change, that SUV of mine managed to eek out another 13,000 miles of carpools, trips out of town and commutes to work.

To recap, my list of parameters was that I wanted a new SUV/Crossover/Wagon that has great fuel economy using cheap gas, optional third row seating, a black exterior with a tan interior, all the techy bells and whistles, free maintenance, oh, and I wanted it to come in under 40k, including my trade-in. I was giving myself a month or two to indulge in due-diligence. I tested just about everything: Subaru, Toyota, Honda, Audi, Cadillac, Buick, Acura, BMW, Volvo, Lexus…I couldn’t get all that excited. At a few dealerships, I drove several models. Some cars I drove several times. All told, I drove over twenty different makes/models. I made spreadsheets and charts. Took the family to visit certain cars. It boiled down to this: for the amount of money I was willing to barf up, if I were going to get the all of the fun stuff I wanted, I’d have to get a 5-seater. Given seat belt laws and our lifestyle, that just wasn’t going to work for us. I suffered from a debilitating case of analysis paralysis. The family was getting frustrated with my inability to make a move. I just couldn’t get comfortable enough to pull the trigger, but I came close twice. All the while, Suki’s health was in a downward spiral. Things quit working, the driver side air bag was bulging, the antennae just stopped, the rear hatch gave up, and finally she started grinding and refusing to go any higher than third gear. Even Snakebite and Hot Tub started seeing the white light when we were out on the road. It was time to send this car over the rainbow… or to a hard-up landscaping crew.

My last ride before I jumped ship to Toyota was a huge, pimp-style Mercedes. We kept that car until it was fifteen years old. She was unreliable as hell and cost us thousands of dollars a year in maintenance plus untold hours of inconvenience and frustration. But I had inherited it from my mother and it looked great and was pretty dreamy when it was actually moving. Of course, by the end, it wouldn’t go in reverse. After we got rid of it, I brushed my hands together and said “never again”. I even chucked my goofy “Mercedes Only Parking” sign that someone had given me for our garage. I meant business.

On a lark, I found myself at RBM of Atlanta, just to see. Just to look. Just to assure myself that I would never go back there again. And there they were: glossy German SUVs with voice activated systems, burled wood inlays and sexy new car smell. A salesman quickly came over and started to give me the stats. I put on my best dour “I’m not impressed face” as he had me sitting in the third row and folding seats with the touch of a button. While my body language tried to remain stoic, I was falling in love with a $75k car. Shit. “My” salesman, Steve Szczupak, assured me the he was going to become my new best friend. Then my best friend asked the magic question that was going to lead to a speedy break-up: “So, how much are you looking to spend?” I came clean and he gently redirected me to a 5-seater. I drove it while Steve was imploring me to “drive it like ya stole it” and “stomp on it”. It did not suck; it was everything I had hoped it would be, with the exception of those much-needed extra seats. Damn.

And then we started talking about “previously enjoyed, certified” cars. Say whaaa? All of the warranty love with none of the depreciation? Okay. Free car washes anytime I want? Roadside assistance for life? Good coffee in the waiting room? I was open. And then there was a deal. And I was smitten. And you know how when you’re in love a lot of the ideas you had before suddenly seem a little silly and trite? Your heart takes over and your mind can’t help you. I felt like Pepe Le Pew when he first sees the French pussycat.

Here she is in all of her silver exterior, black interior, premium unleaded, never-again-a-Benz glory. I named her Augusta:

As an aside…I believe in signs. We made the deal on what was Big Daddy and my sixteenth wedding anniversary. Other than it being poetic to be getting a new ride on my sweet sixteen, I literally bumped into Joan, who was a bride’s maid in our wedding. And then when we got in the car, Kiss’ “Christine Sixteen” was on the radio. It was meant to be. The planets were in alignment. And then the next night? The couple that we went out with for Augusta’s inaugural night on the town bought their car from my new best friend, Steve, too. Go figure.

Tags: Car Shopping, Dealership, Mercedes Benz, RBM of Atlanta, Steve Szczupak, Sweet Sixteen, Toyota

Finally feeling the love

Stores have been festooned in pink and red since December 26th.  Hearts, balloons and kissy prints have been everywhere.  Yes, it’s Valentime again.  A younger Hot Damn had no love for Valentine’s Day.  Every year it seemed like a mocking reminder that I hadn’t peaked yet.

When I was in elementary school, administrators and teachers had yet to adopt the culture of participation trophies and the belief that all children are special snowflakes.  Thus, birthday party invitations were still subjective and no one was forced into making a Valentine for anyone they didn’t want to.  Well, you can see where I am going with this.  My tissue paper and sticker emblazoned shoebox was never the one that was overflowing with love notes and chalky heart candy by the last bell.  I’m sure it mostly had to do with the gawd-awful Sandy Duncan style pixie haircut that my mother insisted was “just daaahling”, and nothing to do with my winning charms.

By my middle school years, the ritual of exchanging cards and candies halted.  Then, as a high school freshman I discovered a whole new level Valenshame.  

Over-confident and sexually ambitious teens annually organized some sort of school-sanctioned fund-raiser that involved j.v. cheerleaders sitting at a table and  selling carnations for $1 to other students.  They came in three colors: red for smokin’-hot ninth grade romance, pink for crushes and white for “I don’t like you in that way”.  The flower would be delivered to the object of one’s affection during classes throughout the day on February 14.  You could attach a personal note.  Sounds harmless, right?  Ugh.  This was just a new, more obvious posture in the contest for popularity.  And the celebrated teens would schlep their growing bundle of dyed flowers around school with them, to every class, even to lunch, all day long.  For those of us who received a white carnation or two, sent by a friend as a gesture of solidarity, it was a dilemma.  Did you proudly tote what amounted to your boutonnière with you, so that you didn’t look totally unloved, or did you gingerly put your carnations in your locker because they looked like a pittance?  Oh, and there was always that one poor sad sack who would be exposed for boosting her numbers by sending several to herself anonymously.  Bad move. 

By college, I made a habit of dating the sort of really cool guys who conveniently liked to break up right around the second week of December, who then later wanted to come sniffing around again after February 15^th.

And in the work world?   The competition for the ultimate love trophy went off the chain.  There was no prouder receptionist than the one with the biggest delivered floral arrangement by clock punch time.  The secretary pool looked like a funeral parlor, but all the women were beaming from the outward display of love.  It was high school on steroids.  

Big Daddy and I had been dating about 2 months when faced with our first Valentine’s Day together.  A couple of days before the V-day, he told me to “wear something really nice” on the 14^th  because we were going out for a fancy date.  He was very mysterious about the whole thing.  I was giddy about finally participating in the Valentine’s Day of my dreams.  I knocked off work a little early, got my nails did and put on my best LBD, stockings, heels…the whole thing.   Big Daddy picked me up and took me to dinner at…drum-roll…my favorite Indian restaurant.  I had averaged eating there about once a week from the time I was thirteen.  I loved that place, but it wasn’t quite what I had in mind.  It wasn’t out of the box.  And it certainly wasn’t fancy.  It turns out that Big Daddy didn’t think he would need to call and get a dinner reservation more that two hours before our ETA at any upscale eatery on the most dined out night of the year.   Even the Waffle House near us takes reservations on Valentine’s Day.  Hand to God.  As it turns out, before he landed Hot Damn, Big Daddy was the kind of guy who didn’t do Valentine’s Day.  Oh, well.  The vindaloo was good.

So what sort of gifts were exchanged?  I had searched high and low and bought an antique set of poker chips.  Because I knew Big Daddy liked to play cards, I thought that it showed that 1.) I knew his interests 2.) I put thought into an atypical gift; I wasn’t just dialing it in and 3.) That there was a bit of work involved in expressing my luv.  Big Daddy, it seemed, was hoping to convey the same.  Instead of just picking up a heart-shaped Whitman sampler or a roadside dozen of long-stems, he picked up the phone and asked his sister for advice.  It was a smart move, except that she didn’t really know me.  Through her connections, she was able to hook Big Daddy up with really great seats to Grease: the musical.  Does anyone remember this post?  I put on my best excited face.  A musical?  Does he even know me?  But the truth is that it was the best Valentine’s Day despite the dinner not being over-the-top or that I got a gift that I was dreading having to cash in.  I was with someone who I knew loved me.  But then there was our second Valentine’s Day… 

Big Daddy and I were married on 17 February 1996.  I wanted to be married during the winter, but I am Episcopalian and no weddings are performed during Lent.  Big Daddy is a manly man and believed that no weddings should be performed during play-off season or March Madness.  Given the e.t.a of my dress, it was going to have to be shoehorned in with Valentine’s Day.  On the 14^th, I arose with brightness and cheer.  Because so much was happening in the next few days, I kept it simple with a CD, card and yummy meal.  Big Daddy kept it simple too.  He coughed up simply nothing.  W? T? F?  I kinda went bat-shit.  Nothing.  Seriously?  He reasoned that he was giving me himself in three days.  Yes, in three days I was going to be turning myself over to a man who thought that he was gift enough.  Does he even know me? I went Diary of a Mad Black Woman on him.  But don’t think it didn’t cross my mind to go in another direction and go Silence of the Lambs instead.  Ultimately, I would have looked stupid in a man suit.  I considered postponing the wedding to a less clashy date.  I might have done it if people weren’t flying in from all corners of the world.  It never occurred to me that by getting married I would have to forfeit the showiest day of romantic goo known in a calendar year.  Forever.  Oh, the disappointment!  The tears!  And maybe a slammed door.  Or two.  

This week we will celebrate our sixteenth wedding anniversary, which means it will also be our eighteenth Valentine’s Day together.  I am pleased to report that not a bare Valentine’s Day has passed again.  Sometimes there’s a grand gesture, like a shiny bauble or a sterling trinket box.  Or maybe it’s more practical, like speakers for my iPod.   There have been no more tickets to musicals, but there have been tickets to see Ben Folds.  We don’t even pretend about fancy dinners on actual Valentine’s Day anymore.   Tonight we will celebrate our love by going to Hot Tub’s basketball game at 7:45 and listening to Snakebite protest about having to go.  Tomorrow night we will go out to a yummy dinner with friends.

I think he finally knows me.

Tags: Carnation Sale, Love, Luv, Sandy Duncan haircut, Valentine's Day, Valentine's Gift

Pink ribbon…untied

I have long been uncomfortable with charities whose primary goal is to “raise awareness”.  What does that even mean?  To me it just sounds like a kinder, gentler way to say “ strategic marketing”.  There is one charity in particular that has long plagued me.  Sure, I have participated in some of their sponsored races, or bought the special edition Lily Pulitzer scarf in October.  But it’s about liking the print and wanting to run.  I’m not trying to establish my commitment to letting people know that I am “aware” of breast cancer.  If only it were that simple.  As the daughter of a mother who died from breast cancer, and a friend to a whole slew of women who have been through the ringer, I’d say that I had heard of breast cancer before Estee Lauder came out with that damn pink ribbon in the 90s.  I have felt as though if I said anything questionable about the You-Know-Who Foundation or others, it would be just like denouncing kittens and chubby, wittle-bittle babies while throwing a Heil Hitler salute.  Because, what kind of monster doesn’t want to support “awareness”?

Whew!  Last week, after The Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation for the Cure  made a political statement that they would no longer be providing grants to Planned Parenthood to aid funding of early breast cancer detection and screening for poor and uninsured women, the world went bonkers.  Facebook blew up, Twitter was freaking out…it was as big as Kim and Kris breaking up.  And now, I am finally free to express how grossed out I am and how I really feel about all of the pink crap that Komen has partnered in schlocking to the masses in the name of “awareness”.  The marketing practice, called “pink-washing”, targets consumers who think they are doing the right thing and making a difference by purchasing all sorts of items in the trademark soft “cancer-pink” color.  It’s so deceptive.  When I see pink I think feminine, fun, cheerful, upbeat, positive.  Pink is good.  Pink is sooo not cancer.  The breast cancer logo ribbon should be ashy and clammy, if possible.  It should convey feelings of nausea, anxiety and resentment.  It would be less misleading.

So the partnering companies come up with all manner of wares that they are looking to sell under Komen’s umbrella of warm and fuzzy good deeds.  Everything is billed as being “for the Cure”.  And you had better not mess with calling anything “for the Cure” without it having been cleared through Komen’s legal department first.  They have trademarked “for the Cure” as their intellectual property and Komen spends about $1,000,000.00 annually to preserve that “right”.  What could be better than convincing your consumer base that they are actually doing the world a favor every time they purchase a limited-edition pink nail polish, or that very special pair of pink rain boots?   The partnered company purports to donate a potion of proceeds toward “the Cure”, with an amount that usually caps at between $10,000-$30,000.  Remember Yoplait’s pink lids?  You saved the pink aluminum lids from your yogurt and mailed them back in to Yoplait and they would donate $0.10 per lid…up to $10,000.00.  I have to wonder if the U.S. Postal Service wasn’t in cahoots on that deal, too.  But a lot of these products are, well…let’s just say that some of the  ”for the Cure” partners and products seem like very odd bedfellows to me.  For instance:

Do not adjust your screen.  That IS a pink-washed bucket o’ Kentucky Fried Chicken pictured above.  What, you may ask, does the Colonels’ 11 secret herbs and spices have to do with breast cancer research or awareness?  Beats the hell outta me.  It’s weird, right?

Meet the “Handgun for Hope”, offered by Discount Gun Sales for $429.99.  No lie.  This is a  Walther P-22 limited production pistol with an “exclusive DuraCoat Pink slide”.  The pink part commemorates breast cancer.  Because nothing says “Save the Ta-tas” like a cap in some one.

Have you ever fretted that the language barrier between you and your domestic help has kept her from knowing how important breast cancer awareness is to you and your family?  This pink Swiffer will assure her that you are “good people”, and she may even do a better job and quit pocketing the loose change from the dryer now that she knows!

You know, one way that you could really celebrate a Cure is with a pink flat-iron.  Sure, all those women with breast cancer are loosing their hair from chemotherapy, but that doesn’t mean that your hair has to look all frizzy.  

Again with the hair products?  It seems a little insensitive, especially from a company called “Bed Head”.

If you really want to impress your house guests with your philanthropic spirit, you might consider stocking the powder room with Cashmere’s couture toilet paper.  Let everyone in your home tell breast cancer how they feel about it by wiping their ass with pink 2-ply.

This past October, lots of sports teams got in on the pink-washing.  Hot Tub wore pink sweat bands during football games that one of the moms got for all of the boys.  Some boys wore pink shoe laces.  It’s a nice gesture and all, but I am pretty sure that not one 10 year-old boy was dumbfounded when presented with the pink ribbon terry wrist bands only to ask, “Breast Cancer?  What is that?”   They all already knew.  I knew what it was when I was six.  We don’t need pink rubber bracelets, pink cordless drills or a pink George Foreman Lean Mean Grill to be aware of breast cancer.  Do we?

Oddly enough, despite all of the awareness and all of the funds that have been raised for more marketing of awareness and research, scientists are no closer to finding a cure for breast cancer, nor a definitive cause.  What we know now is what we knew thirty years ago…early detection through self exams is your best bet.  I’m not saying that you shouldn’t buy pink stuff.  If you like pink, then buy it. October will be your month!  I like pink and I even have a pink flat-iron, but not the official cancer one.  But maybe, just maybe consider stepping away from the pink ribbon engraved blender and instead send that money that you “think” “might” get donated to a charity to a local hospital, a hospice center or to a family who is getting further crushed by mounting medical bills.

Tags: Breast Cancer, Breast Cancer Awareness, Buckets for the Cure, Charity, Couture Toilet Paper, Donation, for the Cure, Handgun for Hope, KFC Pink Fried Chicken Bucket, Pink-washing, Susan G. Komen, Susan G. Komen Foundation for the Cure, Swiffer, Yoplait lids

Choking on chunked and formed movie scraps

I have long been popping a gasket about how there just seems to be next to no original ideas left for Hollywood and television executives to make do with.  TV shows get made into movies; movies become TV shows.  Why?  I will spare you the full, unedited, throbbing forehead vein version of my disgust and just toss out some examples and then some.

Last year had me contemplating building an ark in which to save myself from the flood of reprocessed films of yore that squirted out of 2011 and 2010 like commercial chicken nugget paste.  And I am not even going to count sequels (there are a ridiculous amount!), prequels, installations, novel-to-screen or adaptations of foreign language films in this.  So, let’s see what that left us: 2011 coughed back up Footloose, Arthur, Rise of the Planet of the Apes, Conan the Barbarian, The Three Musketeers, and The Muppets to name a few.  Then 2010 reintroduced us to Nightmare on Elm Street, Robin Hood, The Karate Kid, Avatar in 3-D, Grease Sings-A-Long (actually the same flick, but re-released as a sing-a-long…shoot me now!), The Last Exorcism (it’s the same as The Exorcism, but new), I Spit on Your Grave, The Tempest, True Grit, The Crazies (featuring ex-pat fellow blogger and mother of Hot Tub’s BF, Kathryn), and Clash of the Titans.  And upcoming for 2012?  Get excited to re-rendez-vous with modern versions of: Total Recall, Halloween, Spiderman, The Great Gatsby, A Star is Born (The first R movie Hot Damn saw in a theater.  It was 1976.), Les Miserables, Logan’s Run, Dirty Dancing, Anna Karenina, The Crow, King Lear, Mad Max, Frankenweenie…and blah, blah, blah.  This week Reese Witherspoon was asked about a remake of her 1996 movie Fear, starring Justin Bieber.  She responded, “Fine. Great. That would be cool. Would he be playing me or Mark Wahlberg?” reports The Huffington Post.  Love her.

 

But recycling old celluloid and “reimagining” past plot lines isn’t that new.  I accept that updating a black and white movie with people speaking in those stilted 1930s accents opens up an audience base for a great movie to be enjoyed by a younger audience.  But then, the big studios decided to recreate successful TV shows.  I’m sure we’ll all be camping out for the likes of The Three Stooges, Dark Shadows, and most certainly 21 Jump Street this year.  Again, why?  Those shows eventually got cancelled for a reason.  There is also going to be a Glee  movie.  Just yuck.  Then studios twisted Saturday cartoons into big-budget movies like: Yogi Bear, Alvin and the Chipmunks, The Smurfs.  And so many movies based on comic books!  Recently: Batman, The Avengers, Superman, The Green Hornet,  X-Men, Iron Man, Fantastic Four, The Incredible Hulk (what were you thinking Edward Norton?), Captain America and so on.

Last year’s success with 3-D reissues such as Jackass 3-D, Saw 3-D and The Lion King 3-D got studio moguls all kinds of worked up to dust off and tweak “old” money-makers and suck them drier than when they were licensed on Betamax, VHS, DVD, Blu-ray, cable, in-flight, on-demand and in some cases to network channels.  Moving into 2012, you can pay an up charge and re-see Titanic 3-D, Finding Nemo 3-D, Beauty and the Beast 3-D, Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace 3-D, The Hobbit 3-D, and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 3-D.  In discussion are 3-D re-releases of all of the Harry Potter flicks, all of the Lord of the Rings.  On a side note, how long until Vivid Entertainment penetrates this technology?  Ron Jeremy in the glory of 3-D, can you imagine??? 

But Hollywood hadn’t hit bottom yet.  This year will give audiences movies based on dolls, G.I. Joe 2, comes out in June.  Rights have been bought by Relativity Media to base a movie on Stretch Armstrong.  I suspect a story line will explore Stretch being pulled too tight and how the hard, red gel that bursts from his “skin” is contained.  My brothers used Band-Aids.  The sequel will introduce his pal, Stretch Monster, who also oozes red.  It will be a lesson about how we may be different on the outside, but on the inside, we are all made of the same goo.  But wait!  There’s more!  In “oh no, they di’int” news is the dearth of movies being released inspired by board games.  Not video games like ­Lara Croft: Tomb Raider or Tron and it’s update with a CGI Jeff Bridges (awful, both times!).  I’m talking about the likes of Ouija, based on the banned-at-Church-lock-ins game where a group of girls summon spirits from beyond to answer burning questions like, “When will I get my period?”,  “Has Sonya Adams done ‘it’ yet?”, or “Does Mark Hood like me back?”  No shit.  You’ll have to wait until November 9, 2012 to find out how it all goes down.  In boo-hoo news, Universal Studio has benched plans to make its movie about Clue.  But this is my inspiration for this blog:  Deep breath… 

Sony and Happy Madison have conspired, with the blessings and partnership of Hasbro, to bring to life on the silver screen…wait for it…Candy Land.  Plans have yet to be released referencing follow-ups with Hi Ho Cherry-O and Chutes and Ladders to complete the unholy trinity of the dumbest board games ever to be cinematized.  I am pretty sure that “Hungry, Hungry Hippos” or “Tic-Tac-Toe” would provide more riveting story lines. Worse still is that Adam Sandler intends to both co-write and star in the live-action/adventure-family film.  Mon dieu!  Of the forty four titles he’s acted in, thirty seven he’s produced and seventeen he’s written or co-written, I can vouch for only four…three of which he neither wrote, produced nor developed. 

I should probably consult an entertainment attorney or something first, but I am pumped to announce that I am soliciting to receive funding for a screen-play that I am going to write about sitting in a Cracker Barrel playing the triangle/golf tee game while drinking sweet tea out of a mason jar.  The working title is I Ai’nt no Eg-No-Ra-Moose, I’m Just Plain Dumb.  Cathchy, no?  I will also need to find out whether or not Jim Varney has been cryogenically frozen and if not, I need a contact number for Jesco White.

Tags: 2010, Adam Sandler, Candy Land, Cracker Barrel Triangle Game, Happy Madison, Hollywood, Jesco White, Jim Varney, Lack of originality, Movies, Reese Witherspoon, Remakes, Remakes 2011, Remakes 2012, Screen-play, Sony, Universal Studio

I’m not jerkin’, you can buy a merkin

Feeling fancy?

I thought about getting snarky about Paula Deen’s outing as a diabetic this week, but it’s kinda already been done to death by other bloggers and Anthony Bourdain. There isn’t much more to be said on the subject. Besides, I couldn’t let this jewel slide past y’all…

Apparently, the merkin business is making a come back. Seriously. Aren’t sure what a merkin is? Did you think I was talking about George W. Bush being proud to be a ‘Merican? No. It’s merkin. Sit down and take a deep one while I explain. Merkins are “pubic wigs” that are documented as being “worn” as far back back as the 1400s by hookers to either a) camouflage STD blisters and lesions on their money-maker or b) cover up a hoo-ha that was shaved to combat crabs and lice. Eew. Nowadays, merkins are occasionally worn by actors or actresses whose roles require a frontal nude scene and they need to either a) skirt around “technical” nudity issues or b) appear more faithful to the era they are portraying. For instance, Evan Rachel Wood smeared on some spirit gum and slapped on a bushy merkin for her role as Veda in the Golden Globe Award winning “Mildred Pierce”. Her 1930s era character, it seems, would not have sported a landing-strip styled coochie.

Flair for your fair

It should be no surprise that a “star” of the “Real Housewives of New York” franchise, Cindy Barshop, is championing today’s merkin revival. Is it ironic that a klassy reality “star” would be pedaling the wares of old, diseased and crusty prostitutes? Not in the least. Barshop owns a waxing salon where she is hawking two varieties of luxury wigs for confused clients. First, they get their downtown lady bits waxed bare and then replace their God-given nether-mane with either a plume of colored feathers, called the “Carnivale” or with a thatch of fox hair, which can be custom dyed. Think baby-doll pink or sky blue. It’s called the “Foxy Bikini”. Be prepared to spend upwards of $200 for this special look, which is touted to typically last about 3 days.

My head mind is swimming. It has just never occurred to me to get that kind of spiffy down there. Certainly, a lavender fox pelt is much less aggressive than some other recent trends in tootie grooming. The fetish community goes wild for piercings and tattoos down there. One of my favorite moments from “The Jerk” is when Steve Martin’s Navin R. Johnson is recounting Patty’s tattoos and pointing to his crotch says, “And she’s got one up here that says ‘slippery when wet’!” For the less committed, there are temporary tattoos that can be applied for some kinky flair.

Another trend that I find to be a real head scratcher is Vajazzling. This is the professional application of clear and colored Swarovski crystals in designs to accent the no-no place. Of course, if you are good with tweezers and a mirror, you could get one of the DIY kits. The results should last about 5 days. Looking at the company’s official website, it is noted that one may choose to Vajazzle because, “For some people, vajazzling is just about feeling good while others have significant reasons to go for the bling, which may include coping with a terrible break up or getting back the lost attention of your partner.” I can’t imagine that I would even want to regain the attention of a partner who is only lured in by shiny objects. Are these sad women sleeping with The Situation?

Apparently some men are also glamming their ham. Dudes could also sport a merkin, though I think that the “Carnivale” could be a bit tricky, looking more like a crazed mutant peacock and less like a festival. Vajazzing is not sexist.

Pucker up, Man!

Tags: Carnivale, Cindy Barshop, Evan Rachel Wood, Fetish, Foxy Bikini, Merkin, Mildred Pierce, Navin R. Johnson, Real Housewives of New York, Steve Martin, Swarovski Crystals, The Jerk, Vajazzle, Vajazzling

It’s Goop that lets you know you’re alive!

If you scanned my brain from a satellite in space while I am sitting in carpool or as I am handing my coupons over to the grocery cashier, you might pick up the refrain from The Talking Heads’ “Once in a Lifetime” swirling through my grey matter. Remember? The drone of , “Same as it ever was, same as it ever was, same as it ever was…Letting the days go by, letting the days go by, letting the days go by.” Sometimes I get too gelled into my family’s daily routine or hyper-focused in whatever I am working on at the moment and stuff just runs together and turns into mental white noise. I wouldn’t say that I move through the days numb, that would be Sad Housewife territory, but it can lean towards being a little flat Monday through Friday. This isn’t unique to me and different people have developed different strategies to keep them looking forward and from stalling out. A lot of type-A personalities lean toward high-risk leisure activities like sky-diving, snow boarding or day trading to feel invigorated. Middle-age men play World of Warcraft, Grand Theft Auto or Call of Duty for a healthy change of pace. Moody teenage girls listen to Nine Inch Nails and cut themselves on their thigh to find out if they still feel anything. Me? I subscribe to Gwyneth Paltrow’s blog, Goop. I’ve discussed it before, here. It comes right to my inbox once a week. I scroll through it and feel like sticking a screw-driver in my ear. My intelligence feels insulted, I’m outraged by how detached a person can be and yet so self-righteous about it, I am overcome with a smug every-man superiority and feel proud that I am able to function in a world that 99.9999% of my peers can understand.

Briefly, if you have no idea what I’m talking about, Goop is Gwyneth’s way of sharing her really amazing talents and resources with us common people, so that we can learn how to create and live a clean, holistic, green and fabulous life that is spilling over with wonder, nurture and growth. Just like Gwyneth does. (Insert smile, head tilt and chirping birds here) Gwyneth gives us great gift ideas, guides us in how to shop for ourselves, exposes us to the coolest of cool stuff that we wouldn’t otherwise know about and now won’t be able to live without. She teaches us craft projects and lets us in on some of her best travel secrets from all of the really amazing places that she gets to visit. Gwyneth knows where to shop, eat and stay practically everywhere!

One of Gwyneth's totally great suggestions

But, best of all, Gwyneth shows us the path to being better citizens of the planet and dispenses lots of directions in regards to mending medical ailments and proper nutrition.

Judging by my Goop-o-Meter, 2012 is going to be a banner year for feeling alive and the one where I come to discover that Gwyneth and I are like identical cousins. Last week, Gwyneth told us that the start of new year is a great time to give our digestive systems a break, reset our bodies and get an energetic boost by engaging in a 21-day cleanse program, proceeded by 3 days of preparation and 7 days of reintroduction. See, according to Gwyneth, our digestive tract gets clogged with toxic sludge and other debris is trapped in the folds of our intestine. It then leeches into our cells and blood. Yikes, y’all! It makes us irritable, have bad skin and we feel sluggish. We need to heal ourselves and poop out all of the bad mojo. For a mere $425 (includes free 2 day shipping! Can you say, “what a deal?”), we’ll get protein powder, supplements, a manual and access to an online community of other people who have or are currently cleansing, too! And the best part is that we get to have an actual lunch each day that we will make ourselves from ingredients we already have on hand at home like hemp milk, carob powder, wild game, blue-green algae, teff, nama shoy and plenty of sea vegetables. Done, done and done!

Yep.

Thank heavens I had a new Goop in my inbox yesterday, because I’ve really been thinking about how to get my kids turned on to eating these new, clean foods too. Because she is all-knowing, Gwyneth anticipated that a lot of us plebs would be needing some kid-friendly recipes. And boy-howdy, did she deliver! Snakebite and Hot Tub’s mouths are positively watering for “Baked Salmon, Cauli and Capers” because really, what kid isn’t crazy for capers? And I’m going to have to find out if I can freeze the “Nori Handrolls”. You can bet that sheets of seaweed filled with the likes of beetroot and mung are going to be in high demand at my house! Did I tell you that Gwyneth knows what she’s doing or what? She is the sage of my generation, my Ravi Shankar.

I think it’s great that Gwyneth is starting the year off with a cleanse…because she is so full of shit.

Tags: Cleanse, Goop, Gwyneth, Gwyneth Paltrow, Nine Inch Nails, Numb, Ravi Shankar, The Talking Heads

File under “Special Interest”

There is a new Facebook fan page called “Beautiful and Bald Barbie!  Let’s see if we can get it made”.  A couple of mothers have started a “movement” to urge toy maker Mattel Inc. to manufacture a shiny pated Barbie to promote awareness of childhood cancer and acceptance among young girls who have been afflicted by the disease.  Social network activists Rebecca Sypin and Jane Bingham believe young girls grappling with hair loss due to cancer treatments, Alopecia or Trichotillomania will find comfort and inspiration by a late 1980s Sinead O’Connor styled Barbie.  I am pausing and taking a breath before I proceed.  Inhale.  Hold it.  Exhale.  Okay…go.

As a kid I played with Barbie and her friends, including “Growing up Skipper” whose breasts would magically “grow” when you wound her arm around like she was getting ready play fast-pitch softball.  I would braid my Barbie dolls’ hair, put it in a chignon and sometimes I would make Barbie a brunette with a chocolate scented Mr. Sketch marker.

"I'm mad at my parents" Barbie

I even made one Barbie punk with a spiked mohawk.  I used scissors to clean up the sides and Elmer’s Glue for the lift in the middle.  Ken wasn’t fooled.  He thought Barbie looked like a cross between a back-up dancer from Pat Benatar’s “Love is a Battlefield” video and a mall food-court poser.  Eventually, her mohawk got bent and I took my scissors out again, creating what was essentially the Ghost of Britney Spears’ Future.  I had myself a “Skinhead Barbie”.

Of course, Cancer Joe will likely lose his beard, too

Getting in on the esteem-building-bald-doll action is the spirit of the same people who made wuss boy doll “My Buddy” happen in 1985.  Suggestions that there should also be a bald G.I. Joe are now on the table so that young boys will have a cancer doll, too.  Inhale.  Hold it.  Exhale.  WTF?  Firstly, when I was a kid, G.I. Joe had a flocked Sergeant Carter buzz cut that was pretty darn close to bald.  Anything more and he would have been mistaken as a Kojak action figure.  Secondly, if G.I. Joe were suffering from chemotherapy induced hair loss, I would hope to hell that the military would excuse him from active duty and let him convalesce at his hometown V.A. hospital.  On a side note, would he come with a camo hospital gown?

Barbie wannabe Jenny Lee

Don’t get me wrong, because I do get it: the idea to give kids a doll that they can identify with, but…Barbie?  I thought that “modern and liberated” women hated Barbie exactly because she stands for everything that is physically unidentifiable or attainable for girls. “Real” women and little girls don’t grow up to look like Barbie and so what “she” exudes is a false sense of what is appropriate beauty, or something like that. Were Barbie to be sprinkled with magic toy dust and become a living girl, she’d be 6’0”, weigh in at 100 lbs and wear a size 4.  With measurements of 39″/19″/33″ she would have to come with a kick stand to keep from toppling over.  I don’t care if it’s “African-American Trial Attorney Barbie”, “Pan-Asian Scientist Barbie” or even “Old-School WASP Stewardess Barbie”, no little girl will ever attain Barbie’s solid rack or high check bones without being injected with Mattel Inc.’s plastic.  And forget a college fund; to identify with Barbie, she’ll need a weave fund. Once “Cancer Barbie” goes into remission, you can bet your sweet ass that her coif will be long, strong and goin’ on.  And you can snap that down in a Z.  Personally, I think that if I were a little girl with cancer, “Cancer Barbie” would hit a nerve.  “Mommy, why is bald “Cancer Barbie” smiling, looking great and playing tennis, but I feel like crap?”

Now, I know that this could evolve into a clever fund-raising idea, and maybe Mattel Inc. will eventually come out with a Chemo Barbie that will be packaged in a pink box and sold in October.  And if they do, I hope they would make her realistic, something that little girl cancer patients actually could relate to, with sores in her mouth, brittle bones, a port site, gaunt, and pissed off.  Oh, and then they could sell her with some accessories, like a freezer full of casseroles, that Barbie doesn’t have any appetite for, from Barbie’s well-meaning friends.  There could be a collection of turbans, a pulp kidney dish and a Snuggie for those “sofa days”.

Despite the grassroots excitement being generated on Facebook, Mattel Inc. issued a letter that they do not take suggestions from outside sources.  Hasbro Inc, the makers of G.I. Joe, has issued no comment.  The truth is that if either manufacturer gets invested in this, then every special interest group is going to want their own Barbie mascot.  First on the list would be a call out for a LGBT Barbie/Ken mash-up.  Can you imagine?  Barbie’s body and Ken’s hands and feet.

"Midtown Kandy"

Tags: Bald and Beautiful Barbie!, Barbie, Cancer Barbie, Cancer Joe, Chemo Barbie, Chemo-therapy, G.I. Joe, Growing Up Skipper, Hair loss, Hasboro Inc., Jane Bingham, Mattel Inc., Punk Barbie, Rebecca Sypin

I was lost in the woods, but now I am found or Go tell it on the mountain

I can easily go off on a tangent.  The legal term for it is a “frolicking detour”.  See, plans are not necessarily concrete for me.  They are more of a loose framework to fudge around with.  And that is how I managed to get myself into a pickle in the urban wilderness, yet again.

So here’s what happened this time.  I am a city mouse, who likes to pretend she’s all woodsy and good with outdoor stuff.  For Christmas, Big Daddy indulged me with new fanny pack that’s not a fanny pack to stuff all of my incidentals in for when I go walking off campus.  But yesterday I was in a big ol’ hurry to get out of the house to take the dog to have his ACL surgery (oy vey!) in Marietta, and I left my new non-fanny pack fanny pack in the mudroom.  So, after a morning of veterinary drama, and a trip through the Bo Jangles drive-thru, I finally parked at the base of Kennesaw Mountain for a little exercise al fresco.  I separated my key from the key ring and had no choice but to deposit it in what my mother taught me was nature’s pocket: my bra.

My storage compartment ain't what it used to be

My “plan” was to go for about 4 miles and be back to the car at 1 o’clock.  However, the weather was sooo nice and the trail was sooo easy that I thought I’d stretch it to 6 miles.  But I still felt good and thought that I was actually circling the base of the mountain and that I’d be back to my car at about the time I’d reach 8 miles.  Perfect.  At a bit over 8.75 miles I felt like I wasn’t really where I should be, because I wasn’t, and then I felt for my key and my bra was devoid of anything not God-made.  Uh-oh.  I was going to have to back track to find the key.  Panic.  I wasn’t nearly as worried about being stuck in the woods come nightfall as I was about having to make a certain phone call.  But time was on my side and I’d find the key and no one would be any the wiser.

So, if I worked backwards exactly (which I did not) I would be walking at least 18 miles.  That’s a lot of ground to cover both physically and mentally.  My mind kept drifting back to how over this past weekend we had “free” Showtime.  I caught about the last thirty minutes of 127 Hours.  That’s the movie with James Franco, where he plays a super laidback guy who goes rock climbing alone, without telling any one details of his specific plan.  Because he is so adaptive and has a good sense of direction and skills, he feels like he’s got the upper hand with being all loosey-goosey like that.  He eventually slips and gets stuck in a crevice because that upper hand of his gets wedged behind a rock.  That sucked for him.  After several days, his water bottle is running low, he starts becoming delusional and despite all of his efforts to wiggle free, use ropes and his body weight to shift the pinning stone and even attempting to use his pocketknife to cut his arm out, he remains stuck.  Finally he resorts to gnawing his own arm off to free himself.   Put that in your pipe and smoke it.  So, now here I am, sort of lost in the wilderness of Kennesaw Mountain, and thinking about this damn movie.  Even though I can occasionally hear the sound of cars, there’s swollen creeks-a-plenty and I am occasionally passing other hikers, I am getting a bit nerve wracked.  I don’t like to ask for help.  It’s a problem.  I am hoping that I don’t have to gnaw off anything in the process of getting back to my car with key in hand…I have TMJ; I doubt my jaw could handle any heavy chomping!

As carpool time was drawing closer, I ended up gnawing off my pride by calling Big Daddy to tell him I couldn’t pick up our treasures from school and then had to explain why.  It may have been as painful as chewing my own flesh.  While alarmed, he was perfectly calm and nice about the whole thing.  I, on the other hand, was full of self-inflicted loathing and humiliation because I ignored common sense and had to admit it out loud.  I was embarrassed that I was throwing a wrench into the family’s afternoon routine, angry that I needed saving, plus I was beginning to feel the effects of so much fast walking and running.

It might not be at all surprising to find out that I was one of those girls who was always reading into things and looking for “hidden meanings”.  As a grown up, I say that I am now watching out for “the signs”.  I love to dissect what I decide is double speak and pick out what I perceive as tension.  I cut my teeth on shows like Moon Lighting and Remington Steele in the 1980s to hone this particular skill set for looking between the lines.  For instance, on the last day of school in sixth grade, Robbie Brown said, “I really like your Trapper Keeper”, but then he looked away suddenly.  What did he mean by that???  What did he really want to tell me???  I knew what he truly was saying was, “I don’t have the nerve to ask you to ‘go with me’, but I think you are fascinating and I think about you all of the time.”  Naturally, at around mile 12, I began turning my inquisitive mind to wondering about why I was in the conundrum and what my lessons and take-aways were going to be.  After all, if I had to be humbled in this process, I had better find out why.  Maybe it was as simple as that God was telling me that if I was going to scarf down a Bo-Jangles chicken biscuit for breakfast, it was going to take a lot more than a lovely 4-mile jaunt to knock it off.

Once the kids were gotten, Big Daddy called my cell and said they would be waiting for me by my car.  Whew.  Just before I was spit out of the woods, I looked down and found a dollar bill.  I never found my key, but I found a dollar.  Then it started to rain.  Considering I was already soaked and nasty, it was not a chink in the program.  Rain was just another damn thing in this long day.  I had to cross the Kennesaw Battlefield to get to where the family was waiting in the parking lot.  I thought that it was a bit ironic that I had been wandering around an historic Civil War battle site for nearly 20 miles with spoiled good intentions.  All I wanted to was to be clean, with my people and going home.  I had gone to war with my stubborn independence; returning a sore soldier who was resolved to not be such a stickler for sole reliance and to accept accountability for that bad flaw of mine disrupting the day.

Where the battle was fought the first time

Epilogue

Everyone was sitting in the car, having snacks, reading and smiling.  I did not get the third degree tongue-lashing I so feared and deserved for not following Common Sense 101.  I had planned to return to the mountain the next day, if I could still stand, and find that key.  I didn’t have to.  It was sitting on the console of my car…right where I had put it, apparently.  Doh!

I wants it, I needs it, I must have my precious key

Snakebite rode home with me and pointed out that at least I had gotten some good exercise outside, found some money and had a new funny story that starred me as Gollum on the quest for my precious car key.  And as a bonus, I didn’t end up on the news as the subject of a helicopter search.  God, I love that kid.

I crossed my heart and hope to die, stick a needle in my eye and all of that, that going forward I will always text Big Daddy if I am going off road.

Once home, I sat in my deep tub for about 1 ½ hour soaking in Lush bath bombs and Epsom Salts.  I took two Tylenol and went to bed around 8 o’clock.  Today, I literally have a pain in my butt, but it’s okay.

Here is what I learned for sure:  Make a plan, share the plan and adhere to the plan.  Be prepared by having everything you need when you start a project or an adventure.  That could include something a simple as a closing pocket or be as seemingly outlandish and unnecessary as taking a buddy when you go some place that is unfamiliar, or a partner to hold the ladder when you clean the gutters.  I also found out that single people get real freaked out when you try to ask them questions like, “Have you seen a key on the trail?” when no one else is around.  Did they think I was going to invite them to my Arbonne home show?  Also, condom wrappers don’t decompose rapidly in the woods.   Eew.  Oh, and nice people hang hoses over their really tall fences for thirsty hikers and dogs.  And nothing looks better after a rough day, than a loved one who’s just happy they could rescue you from yourself…again.

Today I divulged my dumb-assedness on the phone to a friend.  After admonishing me for going into the woods alone, she asked if she could come the next time I go.  So, next week there will be a hiking day with girlfriend Caroline.  I didn’t know I had city friends that would even be interested in weekday trail-blazing.  This is great news; I won’t have to become one of those 9am mall walkers!  If anyone would like to join us in a Mommy Urban Hiking club, just let me know!  Turns out that when you divulge your plans, it all comes together.

Happy endings ahead

Tags: 127 Hours, Battlefield, Getting lost, Hiking, Kennesaw Mountain, Learning lessons, Moon Lighting, Reading between the lines, Remington Steele

University drops smoking

Atlanta’s own Emory University had an announcement to make this week:  No Smoking Allowed.  Anywhere.  Not in campus buildings, dorms, outside of the library, not in a box next to a fox, or even in your own car with all of the windows rolled up.  Huh.  All tobacco products are banned from any place on campus.  This means cigarettes, cigars, chewing tobacco, pipes, hookahs and bongs.  What is college without bongs???  I don’t know this world anymore.  Maybe this is why so many “online universities” are popping up.

I am presently not a smoker, but I used to be pretty hardcore.  I am seventeen years “clean”.  And that is a good thing now, but at the time I thought quitting was a power play and a hassle.  It’s like this: when Big Daddy and I started dating he would light my ciggies for me and was all gentlemanly about carrying a lighter in his pocket for my igniting needs.  Then things started getting serious and the hammer dropped: “I can’t marry a smoker.  You have to quit.”  Like a real woman, I recognized that if it’s a contest between always having a date who wants to give me jewelry and tagging a butt outside of a bar with a bunch of weirdoes, then I’ll take the former.  Done.

The saying isn't "Cigarettes are a girl's best friend" now, is it?

It was in the early 1990s that the tobacco Gestapo rose through the ranks and started messing with me.  It started with no longer allowing smoking on airplanes.  Before a 27-hour flight to Korea, I found my self in the glass enclosed smoke pit it the airport power smoking with the best of them.  Next came to eliminating a restaurant hostess’ most important question: “Smoking or non-smoking section?”, to no smoking in restaurants period.  And that extended to mall food courts, too.  Never again would I smell a group of pale, Goth teens sucking on clove cigarettes while enjoying an Orange Julius.  The lovably cool Joe Camel was crucified and Marlboro points were moot.  Really, Big Daddy’s decree was rather timely, because the other Man was taking away all the freedom of smoking anyway.  I imagine this is how motorcycle enthusiasts felt when states began enforcing helmet laws.  Sure, the Man was looking out for the people’s “health”, but it was also draping a wet wool blanket on the joy.

So hard?

“They” say the quitting smoking is harder than weaning off of heroine.  Having never snorted, shot, smoked or anything else one can do with that stuff, I couldn’t say if this is true or not.  But it was my fear.  Thus, I had never before tried to quit, never wanted to and frankly didn’t see a reason.  My only experience with someone quitting smoking was with my step-dad, Tom.  And that was a doozy.

Let’s back up a bit.  I come from a long and rich line of smokers.  My parents smoked.  Their friends all smoked.  My aunts, uncles and cousins smoked.  In every public room of my house, there was a silver box or beautiful little julep cup full of Vantage 100s waiting to be smoked.  Every room had at least two fancy Waterford ashtrays.  This, by the way, isn’t a sign of growing up in a trailer park…this was classy, abundant and gracious living.  At the grocery store, buggies had clip-on aluminum ashtrays for housewives that liked to puff a cigarillo as they trolled the cereal aisle and thumped the produce.  Large canister ashtrays were in every department store.  And the “better” stores, like Neiman Marcus, would bring you a glass of wine and a beanbag ashtray for your Mom to the dressing room.  We had a huge basket at home of all of the different embellished matchbooks that we would collect from restaurants, banks, hotels…anywhere.  And lots of places also had their own logoed ashtrays.  We took a lot of those too.  It was a golden era.

See that ciggie wand. It's high-style!

Now, back to Tom.  At some point, maybe around 1986, Tom had a sketchy lung x-ray that turned out to be fine, but he was all shook up and he cold turkey quit smoking.  Never in the history of ex-smokers has there been a more smug and self-congratulatory ex-smoker.  Tom took every opportunity to wax on and on about his will power and discipline.  We just all rolled our eyes and closed our ears.  Fast-forward to the spring of 1989ish, when he travelled to Texas to see his middle son graduate from college.  Upon his return home, Tom was fidgety, restless and seemed to have developed a case of adult onset ADD.  The man had chronic ants in his pants and was using a stream of flimsy excuses to get the hell out of the house all of the time.  He kept every car’s gas tank topped off, bought every single size drill bit, one at a time, from Home Depot.  He picked up dry cleaning, ran nonsensical errands and was continually shaking the change in his pockets.  There was no doubt in my mother’s suspicious mind that Tom had rekindled love with his ex-wife while at their son’s graduation.  We assumed that he was really going out to call his former wife and whisper sweet nothings from the Gulf station’s pay phone…hence all the coin jiggling.  Mom hired a P.I. to tail him.  Tom wasn’t romancing his former yellow rose of Texas.  He was smooching on the filter of a cigarette.

Pretty little cancer sticks

 Because Tom had been such a pain in the ass and gloated so much about his dynamic power to just quit, he was unable to admit that he had begun not just smoking again, but making up for lost time.  When confronted, he denied, denied, denied.  “Catch Tom In The Act” became a fun family game.  When I uncovered two cartons of Vantages in the pool pump house, he blamed it on the next-door neighbor’s 12 year-old son.  If I was at the house and he would declare he was going to buy some wood screws, I would insist on going to Home Depot for some mythical need too, just for fun and to watch his squirm.  Because we worked together at a chemical plant, I would run up to the warehouse overlook window to spy him huddled behind a 20 ft. tall pallet tower of bleach boxes…smoking.  One time, unbeknownst to Tom, I was behind him on Powers Ferry Rd.  when he tossed a spent butt out of his car window and it landed on the hood of my car.  Swear.  In Hawaii, my oldest stepbrother, also named Tom, busted him smoking an Eve 120, snaked from Mother’s pack.  It was a new low.  Eve 120 cigarettes are super long, ultra-thin cigarettes decorated with flowers along the filter.  My macho, manly, retired Air Force fighter pilot Dad was hiding out with pretty, pretty lady cigarettes.  It turns out that the graduating stepbrother…hadn’t.  He hadn’t even gone to most of college.  Poor, disappointed Tom was too embarrassed to tell my Mom, who most certainly would have had lots to say about it.  Instead, he turned to his old pal, tobacco.  We were just relieved he wasn’t having an affair with the ex.  We thought it was kind of a hoot, but he remained ashamed of his smoking habit until he died years later.  While it was openly known he was smoking, he never did smoke again in public.  His pride just couldn’t have handled it.

My own bout with smoking cessation?  Well, my motivation was…motivating.  It took me about three days. As this post has already grown into a novella, I’ll save that funny story for another time.  However, I will say that if stopping is harder than kicking heroine, then I think all of those scabby, shaky, puking black-tar junkies are a bunch of lightweights.  I have no respect for them.  Losers.

I’ll wrap it up with this little thought nugget.  I have one friend who still smokes, but she’s cut waaay back.  I have one aunt and two cousins who are still smokers.  You can no longer smoke at work, at the grocery store, while pumping gas, at your favorite restaurant, anywhere in the airport and now, with Emory’s decree, there is a precedent to prevent smoking while enclosed in your own private property.  And the cost of a pack of cigarettes is out of hand.  Do I think it’s “good” that people aren’t smoking anymore?  Yep.  I feel much better, though I didn’t realize I even felt bad.  My kids are totally freaked and obnoxious when they see or smell someone smoking.  But, I have to wonder if some of our country’s employment shift and woes can’t be tied to the vigilante lynching of our tobacco industry.  What are all of those former tobacco farmers growing now?  Corn for corn syrup?  All of the matchbook factories, ashtray fabricators and rolling plants…what has become of them and their employees?  How about the person whose job it was to remove dead smokes from the big, commercial ashtray canisters and then refills them with fresh sand to imprint the hotel’s logo into it?  I just have to wonder if while the end of smoking is good for us, has it been bad for our economic health.  Someone get me an impact study, stat!

Maybe they can get jobs at the smokeless cigarette kiosk at the mall?

Tags: Ash Tray, Bong, Cigarettes, Emory University, Eve 120, Ex-smoker, Hookah, Joe Camel, Quitting Smoking, Smoker, Smoking, Tobacco, Unemployment, Vantage

You aren’t the special person this year

So here we are on the cusp of knotting up another year.  This means that people are in a shopping frenzy, a decorating tizzy and in a state of baking mania.  Parents with waaay too much time on their hands are doing precious, clever and generally creepy as hell things with their children’s elves.  Teenagers are taking exams and foaming at the mouth over what their Christmas get is going to be.  Working adults are wringing their hands over their “holiday bonuses”.  But news rags and publicity pimps have been busy compiling their lists of the most “Intriguing/Interesting/Fascinating” people of the year.  They got rolling en mass this week.  People Magazine and Time Magazine hit stands, Barbara Walters did her televised celebrity lap dance and again I was amazed just watching her frozen Joan Crawford eye.  And America’s aging sweetheart, Katie Couric, got in the game and did a wrap up of the big news of the year, too.  Isn’t that nice?  Honestly, Katie’s recap was a bit too legit for me.  I like to read or watch trash and then feel all highbrow and sanctimonious by blogging about it later.

 

Barbara Walters ran down her “10 Most Fascinating People of 2011” this week.  Of course, I have issues with it.  Didn’t catch it?  Not to worry, that’s what I’m here for.  Big Daddy and I made our own predictions last week.  We nailed six of them.  That is a big, fat D-.  I guess my expectations were a bit too lofty.  Since I blogged 2010′s list here and here, I figured you people would be expecting a recap again this year.  In keeping with her usual droll style, Barbara picked mostly jack-wagons.  And another thing?  Barbara needs to learn how to count.  There weren’t ten people; there were fourteen.  Well, except one has expired, so really it was thirteen.  It went down like this:

Katy Perry:  She is fascinating for being the human embodiment of an overly frosted and jimmied cupcake.  She dropped out of high school, kissed a girl…and she liked it, and married a former heroine addict.  Bravo!  She’s kinda cute and harmless, I guess.  But one of the most fascinating people to come across my radar in the last year?  Maybe if I lives in a paper sack or in an Occupy Anything tent city.

Simon Cowell is honest, generates a load of revenue and makes people’s dreams come true and yet, he’s still a tool.  He admitted that he wanted to get busy with Paula Abdul when they were on American Idol together.  The best I can say is that he would have been able to save the cost and liability of slipping Rohypnol in her drink.

Pippa Middleton is fascinating because she rocked a bridesmaid dress.  Really?  Baby is fascinating because she got back?  I am certain that had Sir-Mix-A-Lot been asked to weigh in on this topic he would have said, “Aw hell no!  Maybe if she’s 5’3″.”  God, help us.

Shucky-ducky, Herman Cain made the list!  I wonder if he would have made the cut if he hadn’t suspended his campaign amid lurid skirt chasing rumors.  Would Barbara have found him fascinating were he in a position to Obama bash while on top of the world?

Amanda Knox has actually held my attention for the past few years.  However, Barbara didn’t manage to score a sit-down with her.  Instead she just showed a newsreel mash up with Barbara’s own voice over.  That’s a fail.

Donald Trump allowed Barbara to tug on his coiffure to prove that it’s not a piece.  Who actually thought that follicular mess was fake?  No one would manufacture something like that.  I kinda half expected it to spring to life and bite her though.  I never thought it was a toupe.  I always assumed it was a yellow ferret draped across his pate.

Duo Eric Stonestreet and Jesse Tyler Ferguson, you know them as openly gay couple Cam and Mitchell from “Modern Family”, were featured.  Are Eric and Jesse fascinating, or is it their television characters that we clamor for?  Well, straight Eric plays the flamboyant Cam, while the more reserved Mitchell is played by for-real-duh-gay Jesse. That’s not fascinating.  It’s acting.  I guess I can be thankful that Babs didn’t try to shove the cast of “Glee” down my throat.  That would have bumped the 10 turned 14 even higher.

Derek Jeter, thankfully, refused to answer Barbara’s probing questions about his romantic dalliances.  She’s such a dirty old lady!

Now, much has been made about Barbara’s hard line tactics with the four main chick Kardashians.   That’s right, four train wrecks for the price of one.  Reuters reported of the segment, “Walters actually went there, telling Kim, ‘You don’t really act, you don’t sing, you don’t dance … you don’t have any — forgive me — any talent!’”  Wow.  She really went in deep.  That was such a risky line of questioning.  I wonder if anyone has ever pointed out that Barbara also neither acts, sings nor dances.

But the mostest fascinating of them all?  Steve Jobs.  Barbara said that he was intended to be her number one all along, but he crossed over the rainbow before she was able to score some face time.  I don’t want to put words in the man’s now silent mouth, but that is one way of having to avoid intrepid questions like, “If you were a tree, what kind do you think you would be?”  Too soon?

 

This week, Time Magazine released their annual proclamation of their “Person of the Year”.   I didn’t think they could get any lazier than that 2006 gimmick, when they named You as their top pick.  Remember?  The magazine cover had a shitty reflective panel on the front so that you could gaze at a distorted version of yourself on the special cover!  Aren’t you so important?  Aren’t you just the most special little snowflake?  Puhleese.  It was like a participation trophy for grownups.  No, this year Time proved once more that they could just dial it in when they crowned Protesters as their whatever in the hell it is that they are calling it now.  Protesters?  I doth protest!  They didn’t even whittle it down to a type of protestor.  I protest about crap all. the. damn. time.  Hot Tub protests by walking mad to his room and then slamming the door.  If he isn’t sure that the message was received, he’ll open the door and slam it again, extra hard, for good measure.  Store clerks at Toys-R-Us protest with a colossal eye-roll if you ask them anything other than where they get their crypto-gel done.  Don’t we all protest?  About work, other people, The Man, our health, the weather, school, our kids?  Without being specific about the type of protestor, we all just got Person of the Year again.  That means that everybody is special, which to those of us who don’t live in a jar of glitter know means that no one is special.  Congratulations, Time just made us all blah.  Again.  Awesome!

Really, this whole matter of an end of the year naming of people to lists of fascination is really just a roll call for the main players in the country’s own News of the Weird.    These aren’t necessarily people who are truly intriguing or have accomplished much of anything besides distracting the collective from the sputtering economy, expanding health problems, abductions, child murders, foreclosures, overweight kids, neighborhood meth labs, garden variety jihads, and personal responsibility.  To that end, I am aghast that, by far, the most fascinating rose of all was not plucked for the Top of the Everything list:

Sixteen-year-old child bride Courtney Stodden is like something created in the basement of Perez Hilton while tweaking out on a meth-mushroom bender with a side of speed-ball and Lindsay Lohan assisting.  She is so fantastically awful and over-done that I can not turn away!  And her fifty one-year-old geezer husband gives me some serious heebie-jeebies.  I have yet to dedicate a post to Mrs. Hutchison, because I just don’t think that I can summon the right words to capture all of my feelings.  You understand, don’t you?  I vow, though, to spend a chunk of 2012 bringing her story of courage and love to the people so that next year, Courtney will take her rightful spot in Barbara’s hot seat.

Tags: Amanda Knox, Barbara Walters, Courtney Stodden, Derek Jeter, Donald Trump, Dough Hutchison, Eric Stonestreet, Herman Cain, Jesse Tyler Ferguson, Kardashians, Katie Couric, Katy Parry, Modern Family, Most Fascinating People of 2012, People Magazine, Pippa Middleton, Protesters, Rohypnol, Simon Cowell, Sir-Mix-A-Lot, Steve Jobs, Time Magazine, You

Awkward sexual moment

I was two-and-twenty the summer I experienced what I ticked off would certainly be the single most awkward moment in my life.  Not embarrassing, not humiliating…I keep hitting the refresh button on those two.  No, what I am talking about is that moment of being inescapably uncomfortable in a situation, where the only possible resolution is to just wait it out, keep quite and avoid any eye contact until you can pretend that you were never there.  Every seemingly maladroit instance since that time has been a walk in the park.  After all, what else could possibly ever rattle me more than sitting in a dark room on the sofa next to my mother while watching Laura Dern and Nic Cage “go at it” in the David Lynch directed Wild at Heart on cable?  If you haven’t seen it, I will attest that it is awful on just about every level.  The dialog, the accents (Cage was clearly working on what he would later use in Con Air, which I have already blathered on about here), and the whole story line in general is just garden variety bad.  And the sex scenes?  It was more like characters acting out and having tantrums while partially and entirely naked.  If I were sitting around with friends guzzling alcohol and watching it, it would be hilarious.  Like when me and Big Daddy got a case of beer and watched Showgirls.  But in a dark room, with my mother…both of us sober and alert, it was punishing.  The sounds alone of the characters were bad enough, but the sights just pushed it to my limit.  The remote control had been set down too far away on the coffee table for either one of us to have gotten to it without a reach over and possibly a grunt.  Neither one of us was mature enough to just throw out a nervous laugh and make the move to end it.  I still cringe thinking about it.  My personal discomfort could never be topped…or so I thought.

 

In fact, there is something far, far worse than watching an eager “up for anything” sex scene in a dark room with your mom.  It’s me being the mom watching an eager, glamorized teenage vampire-mortal sex scene with my own daughter in a dark theater.  Yes, it’s true.

In an unprecedented move, Snakebite wanted to go see Breaking Dawn, which had me breaking down.  But right now, she is the middle school Queen Bee in our house and I just want to earn her approval and am thrilled when she wants to do anything with me.  I complied, mainly because I thought it’d be laughably bad and then I could blog about it later.  Know this: we aren’t up on the franchise.  We both read the first book and saw the movie when my niece came to stay with us one summer.  I thought it was some of the dumbest fodder I’d seen since my friends and I made a slasher movie one bored Sunday afternoon in high school.  This was 1988 and my mom’s huge VHS camera that we used was not equipped with steady cam.  That movie had a richer plot line than Twilight.  If I recall correctly, about 30 minutes into watching that first one, Snakebite said it was weird and lame; she was bored and was going to go to bed.

 

I have a scant understanding of what goes on in the Twilight series because the world is populated with people who call themselves “Twihards”.  Ugh.  I can’t plead that I was ignorant that the girl character, Bella, was going to marry her glittering and frosty vampire beau, Edward.  And I knew from the trailer that they would be starting a family.  It just never occurred to me that they would have rocker Tommy Lee filming the honeymoon.  While nothing as out there as Ron Jeremy showing up in a nurse’s outfit happened, there were ripped feather pillows, broken furniture, tilted light fixtures, body bruises and a lot of position changes.  And they were both allegedly virgins.  There was no, “Ouch, wait, that hurts”, not a single, “You’re on my hair!” nor, “The school nurse said to always use birth-control, Edward.  I am not on the pill.  Did you remember to bring condoms?”  Nope, none of that real life deflowering dialog.   Instead it was Bella glowing and begging for more the next morning and me trying to neutralize the acid reflux in my throat with a fist full of popcorn.  I can’t even discuss the birthing scene that has, like the Pokémon movie, spawned epileptic seizures in movie houses across the world.  The silver lining, I guess, is that Bella didn’t end up with Jacob, the werewolf boy.  That could have been a far worse sex scene to have had to white knuckle through.

What have I learned from this?  Well, for starters, nothing is absolute.  All the things that I thought were awful about being a disgruntled and misunderstood teen daughter myself are now amplified now that I am the mother of a disgruntled and misunderstood teen daughter.  I will never be smug again in thinking that by getting through adolescence and young adulthood I have passed some imaginary finish line where I am now always mature and insightful in the face of awkward moments.  I have not been properly inoculated against personal horror and am therefore not immune to it, as previously thought.  I did exactly what my mom did when Wild at Heart’s credits rolled.  Nothing.  I didn’t mention anything about Bella and Edward’s sexy time and Snakebite announced that she was tired.  And so the cycle is complete…I hope.

Tags: Awkward parenting, Bella, Breaking Dawn, Con Air, David Lynch, Edward, Jacob, Laura Dern, Nic Cage, Showgirls, Teenage vampire-mortal sex, Twilight, Vampires, Wild at Heart

My inner music snob was murdered today

Have you heard of Zumba? If you haven’t been sleepless at 2am and seen the infomercials about the latest “fitness craze” that is sweeping the nation, well, it’s a fitness craze that’s sweeping the nation. In fact, you don’t even have to buy a Zumba instruction system to do at home, you can assuredly find a class somewhere in your neighborhood. I did. The Zumba people tout it as “an exhilarating, effective, easy-to-follow, Latin-inspired, calorie-burning dance fitness-party™” A party? At 8:30 in the morning? I am so totally in.

There was no sangria nor ceviche and chips at this party. What there was in high supply was old white women in Lycra pants and reinforced sports bras that were all ready to shake it. And shake it they did. The class was taught by a young black fella, whom I am guessing is sassy as hell. That, btw, is code for gay. He’s a hoot, and he’s kind and patient, but he is still a fitness instructor and that means he is secretly trying to break me so he can talk about it later. I would absolutely love to hear his recap to his friends at Blake’s this weekend about all of the crazy white housewives with no choreography.

A little background is that I have no rhythm and no coordination. None. I tried to get in on the aerobics craze in the 1980s. It seemed so fun in movies like Perfect, starring a pre-Scientology John Travolta and Jamie Lee Curtis. Or what about Olivia Newton John’s “Physical” video? How great did she look with that headband and spandex get-up? I started by getting Jane Fonda’s Workout, which I did in the basement during a summer. My dad came home for lunch one day and came downstairs to let me know he was there. He took a quizzical look at me all sweaty and red, then glanced at what I was looking at on the TV. Then he completely popped a gasket, lost any couth he had and started yelling about “that GD-Hanoi Jane-Communist-bleep-bleep-NOT IN MY HOUSE-bleep-bleep-Damnit to Hell!” Tom had been in Vietnam. He wasn’t fonda Jane. And that was that. The next time I tried aerobics was five years later in a class at a health club. During the warm up, I fell and sprained my ankle. I quit. Why bother?

But this Zumba thing is a fitness p-a-r-t-y and I do like parties. In my head, I was picturing Jazzercise for the 21^st Century, but while listening to Stan Getz, Joao Gilberto and Sergio Mendes. There would be confetti cannons and a lot of spontaneous trilling of tongues. Those Latin countries are known for bringing the fun! Um, no. This was NOT my mother’s Brazil. What happened in place of a little slice of Carnivale? My inner music snob was murdered today and replaced with an out of shape middle-aged mom who doesn’t have it goin’ on half as much as I thought I did. I was put to shame by “mature women”, some twice my age, who could hip flick, shimmy, bootie-shake, plus do arm movements all while jumping up and down to Gloria Estefan, Rihanna, and Maroon 5. The final blow to my self-esteem came when I was limply shaking my flacid groove thang to the Backstreet Boys. This was happening in public. Heck, I couldn’t have tongue trilled if I wanted to…I could hardly breathe! I drank all of my water bottle and smelled like the boy’s middle school locker room when it was all over.

But, I think that I’ll go back…at least I didn’t break anything! That, and I just can’t bear the thought of going to Curves yet.

Tags: Aerobics, Fitness Craze, Jane Fonda Workout, Olivia Newton John, Perfect, Physical, Zumba

My porn got diddled away

I fancy myself as something of an inventor, maybe even an innovator.  The trouble is that I am a lot of lofty ideas and talk, but not so much action.  The sort of marketable genius that I am capable of is documented here, in my first ever blog post.  As you know, I invented the Obama Chia Pet years ago, but never did anything but sit on the sofa and talk about how great a Chia head with an Afro would be.  I lost out on all of that sweet moolah.

Well, this past spring I “invented” something else that I was pretty sure would be a hit.  Allow me to first disclaim that just because you come up with something, or uncover a need does not necessarily mean that it is rooted in a long time obsession.  Sometimes you just get an idea from the corner of your eye.  Having been burned too many times from past ideas and products that have been scooped up by the early birds of the world, I had actually begun trying to figure out how to give this new worm some legs.  It was going to be a cable television show that would hybridize retro-porn movies, Mystery Science Theater 3000 and Beavis and Butthead and an excuse to drink with friends.  I floated it to some entertainment people-in-the-know and got enthusiastic responses.  And then, I was listening to The Regular Guys morning show almost two weeks ago and the guest was Dave Attell, who was promoting his new show:  Dave’s Old Porn.  That.  Was.  Mine.  Damnit.  What he described was almost exactly my concept.  Curse you, Mr. Attell.

I think I was in my early twenties the first time that I ever saw a real porn movie.  “Showtime After Hours”, “Skinimax” or HBO’s late night showing of Lady Chatterley’s Lover do not count.  The first “adult film” I saw was tears-streaming-down-face-hilarious.  It was shot in someone’s groove-ass vaulted den and there was a pizza delivery guy, who looked nothing like my Domino’s dude.  I believe this particular art piece was called F*cking Brunettes.  Guess what the common thread was.  Yep, it was all raven-haired “actresses” getting frisky with everyone from boyfriends, plumbers to pool guys.  Except that some of the “ladies” were peroxide blondes, so they had to wear wigs.  That sometimes slipped.  Better still was that the “talent” really believed that they were there to act and so there was a script that was adhered to…no matter what.  Since this was edited in a time before Mac Book Pro and you actually had to purchase film, editing was more labor intensive and re-takes were costly.  Let’s just agree that the transitions were not smooth.  And because there is no record of this movie on imdb, I am unable to find out any information about the make-up and wardrobe professionals who worked on set.  My guess is that the “talent” was instructed to just wear something made from synthetic fibers and bring their fluffiest, most all-encompassing merkin to the set.

Then in the late 1990s, we had a malfunctioning cable box that for some crazy reason allowed us access to ultimate fighting and the Spice channel.  The Spice channel was not the precursor to the Food Network.  I know, you’d think so, right?  It showed nekid movies.  Even though they were just the soft-core variety, we should have demanded to have that devil’s box replaced, but getting an appointment with the cable company was just such a hassle, so we kept it.  During this time I would watch the Spice flicks, but only the credits…the names of the “actors” were the priceless work of thirteen-year-old boys.  Names like Peter North, Anna Malle, Ben Dover, Jack Hammer, Chesty Morgan, Seymour Butts were subtle, yet oh, so sexy and to the point.  For those of us living in the mainstream, there are several formulas to creating your own porn name, such as combining your middle name with the name of your first pet, or a street name where you spent your innocent childhood.  I could work under the monikers Ann Beechwood or Ann Ranger.  One makes use of the word “wood” and the other sounds like I’d be good at finding things in the wild.  Score!

Occasionally, I would have to actually see some of the movie to get to the credits.  These later 20th century movies showed significant advancements in breast augmentation, laser hair removal, handheld video recorders, and camera effects.  Someone was clearly investing in these movies, too.  The backdrops were often classy “mansions” with lots of white carpet and Levolor blinds, or fancy poolsides with scads of statuary and no shortage of chaise-lounges.  Also different were some pretty weird group scenarios that were never explained by way of any bulky dialog.  In fact, the talking was reduced to lip-lick sounds, grunts and a random, “Oh, yeah!”  Thanks to the elimination of the once important story line, I still have no idea why no woman ever removed her shoes during a scene.  Me?  I always wear flip-flops in the bathhouse at the pool, or in the gym locker room because I don’t want other people’s sweaty foot cooties crawling under my toes.  But these women, while guarding against toenail fungus and potential harmful liver related side effects from Lamisil, are letting all manner of other things penetrate through their exposed skin.  Does that make any kind of sense to you?

And now with the Internets, and sites like youporn.com, there is no shortage of porn for the masses and their mass interests.  And it’s not funny, or culturally amusing.  It’s aggressive and psychologically damaging to watch.  Too many things are going in wrong places, it all looks manmade, and the pretense of even trying to parlay this into an acting career has been dismissed.  Kim Kardashian’s entertainment empire may have been the last successful springboard from nasty porn.  When I first went on line in 1997, I mistyped a search engine name and was directed to something so icky and depraved that I can only say “donkey”.  Shudder.  I couldn’t get out of its page and I finally broke down in tears and called Big Daddy at work.  I was hysterical.  No body needs to see that kind of stuff.  Ever.

And that’s why I had the idea for MY show.  It would be Big Daddy, me and our most funny friends drinking beers and critiquing movies from the Golden Age of porn.  You’d totally watch it, I know you would.  And now Dave Attell is already shooting season 2 of his show for Showtime.  He was on Chelsea this week talking about it.  He did an episode of it with Adam Carolla.  Why did I drag my feet on this?  Could it have something to do with no longer owning a VCR and having to hunt one down to even get started?  I’m pretty sure that Turner Classics has yet to go in and digitize The Rings Around Uranus or Taboo II yet.

Tags: Adam Carolla Podcast, Anna Malle, Ben Dover, Chelsea, Chesty Morgan, Dave Attell, Dave's Old Porn, Golden Age of Porn, Jack Hammer, Peter North, Porn, Porn names, Seymour Butts, Showtime After Hours, Skinimax, The Regular Guys

Chaz wasn’t the first to waltz across my screen

I recently had occasion to meet a woman who is “on strike”.  This past month, I’ve seen a lot of people on strike in the news, be it in protest of Georgia’s death penalty, Wall Street bonuses or hotel labor practices.  However, this lady was my first in-the-flesh striker.  Her cause?  “Get that Chaz Bono offa my Dancing with the Stars!”  Whoa.  Really?  “I never thought I’d see something like that in my lifetime…”  It turns out that the perversity that is Chaz Bono, twirling and dipping on live TV, pretty much sums up everything that is wrong, wrong, wrong with the world today.  She must be awash in relief in the wake of Chaz’ booting from DWTS last night.  I’m relieved too since this was all we have had to worry about.  Silly me; I have been fretting over dwindling job opportunities and escalating foreclosures, but it turns out that those sorts of things aren’t really root problems at all.  It’s Chaz, and the gays and the “ I don’t know whats” on public parade.  Personally, I did find watching Chaz waltzing across my screen uncomfortable, but not for THOSE reasons.  They kept putting him in those tight, stretchy outfits and I was afraid he was going to burst out of them like a bit of ruptured haggis.  I was afraid for my eyes, not my morality.

 

But as far as I can remember there have always been plenty of gay, lesbian and transgendered characters on television.  People talk about how amazing it is that there is Ellen.  People magazine loves to slobber all over Glee for giving us a gay character.  Really?  This isn’t new.  It’s just that no one really had much to say about it.  Why?  I don’t know; I don’t care.  Any given episode of Hollywood Squares, which began airing in 1965, was likely to feature Rip Taylor, Charles Nelson Reilly, Paul Lynde or all three at once!  Back in the day, attention wasn’t so much focused on a character or actor’s preference or sexual identity, but you’d have to have been a moron to miss it.  Maybe we were all just a little more polite and didn’t need to exploit that kind of thing in the media so much.

Wildly popular early 1980s show Too Close for Comfort was premised on the two Rush daughters moving in to their parents’ deceased transvestite neighbor’s apartment.  The cross-dresser never makes it on screen, but loveable Monroe Ficus, played by Jim J. Bullock, sashayed through 118 episodes of the show.

And what about the ex-con turned sassy decorator, Anthony Bouvier, on Designing Women?  Oh, those southern women were too polite to ever state the obvious, but…am I right?

 

It is generally accepted that Jo Polniaczek on The Facts of Life was playing on her own team, if you know what I mean.  Nudge, nudge.  Wink, wink.  Even though in the past year the actress, Geri Jewell, who played Blair’s cousin, Geri, ‘fessed up, it was tomboy Jo, who set off the gaydar.  To “butch up” actress Nancy McKeon, the wardrobe department gave her a ponytail and a leather jacket.  In her spare time, Jo liked to work on her motorcycle.  Any questions?

There were so many other gay characters on the shows I watched as a kid.  Both goofy Alice and Sam: the Butcher on The Brady Bunch were most certainly bearding for one another.  Don’t you think?  And one being neat and one being sloppy wasn’t the only thing odd about The Odd Couple.  Come to think of it, Skipper and Gilligan were always happy to let Thurston Howell III, clutching his teddy, bunk with them on Gilligan’s Island.  Bewitched had stereo-typical clotheshorse Uncle Arthur, M.A.S.H. featured Corporal Max Klinger, who was begging to be called out for cross-dressing.  Janet from Three’s Company.  Hello?…oh, there are just too many to get into them all.  But the characters weren’t just limited to live action television.

Sensible Velma from Scooby Doo?  There wasn’t enough weed in the Mystery Van to convince Shaggy that she’d ever be receptive to hanging out and having a Scooby Snack with him.   I certainly didn’t need Charles Schultz to pen a memoir to tell me that Peppermint Patty and Marcy from Peanuts would one day become life partners.  And Sesame Street’s Bert and Ernie.  That was a given.

Am I off course here?

Tags: Alice, Chaz Bono, Dancing with the Stars, DWTS Strike, Facts of Life, Gay television, Hollywood Squares, Monroe Ficus, Peppermint Patty, Too Close for Comfort, Velma

Ding-dong! The Doctor will see you now

I swear that I am not picking on the fine people of Florida…it’s just that they make it so easy.  Here is a real headline from 2006: “Man Offers Free Breast Exams, Finds Some Takers”.  Here is a real headline from today: “Fake doc busted for offering door-to-door breast exams reaches deal”.  This all went down in Fort Lauderdale.  Of course it did.

The back story is that a 76 year-old-man, Phillip Winikoff, went knocking door to door in an apartment complex, offering to give women free breast exams.   Most certainly he either got this idea from a gas station t-shirt or from watching back episodes of Beavis and Butthead on Hulu.  Did they have Hulu in 2006?  He carried a little black medical bag to lend himself an air of legitimacy, which worked at least twice.  There has been no mention made as to whether or not he completed his look with the prerequisite stethoscope around the neck or a beeper affixed to the waistband of his sansabelt trousers.

Two women came forward who had been “examined” in the comfort of their own homes.  One patient, a thirty-six year-old female, decided something might be sketchy when her free breast exam included a bonus cervix check.  That was the tip-off.  Really?  It wasn’t that he wasn’t wearing one of those reflector head mirrors, or carrying a clipboard?  Jeesh.  Some people are sooo gullible.  Anyway, patient #1 called the police and the faux doctor split.  He was picked up by authorities while he was in mid-exam with another patient in the same complex.

Had the now 81 year-old Dr. Mr. Winikoff not reached a deal with the court, he could have received 45 years in prison for sexual battery and another 10 years for practicing medicine without a license.  The details of his “deal” have not been made public, but he seems to have avoided going to the big house, where he could have been on the receiving end of a lifetime supply of free proctology exams.

Tags: Florida, Free door-to-door breast exam, Phillip Winikoff

Vampires in Florida…What’s up, Doc?

Boo!

Anyone else remember when parents groups got all bunched up about the harmful societal effects that the Bugs Bunny cartoons were having on children?  This was probably around the late 1970s or early 1980s, when media rags like Psychology Today ramped up distribution and talk show host Phil Donahue was jaw-jacking through the miracle of television to Moms while they folded and ironed the laundry.  The gist was that violence in cartoons was causing aggressive behavior in pre-school tots that would later blossom into full-fledged criminal activity.  From then until now I don’t recall any news story of a teen attacking anyone with a cast-iron skillet, a moody adolescent trying to capture the object of his desire by placing an open lasso on the ground with some snacks within the circle or anything about luring children into cauldrons of boiling water to make Hasenpfeffer stew.  I have yet to receive delivery of a bomb making kit from Acme.  Of course, cats do continue trying to catch birds and chicken hawks are still breaking into hen houses.  What do I know?

Insert laugh track

However, I’ve had an unsettled feeling since that first Twilight movie, that trouble was afoot.  I was a bit off-put by how many grown women were going into full swoon over a young Robert Pattinson as misunderstood vampire, Edward Cullen.  Then another faction of women went weak in the knees for the taut Taylor Lautner as loveable werewolf, Jacob Black.  A t-shirt empire was built on whether you were on “Team Edward” or “Team Jacob”.  Ugh.  Ladies, puhlease.

Even Jacob, err Taylor, agrees with me

But it didn’t stop with housewives and their t-shirt messages.  Why not celebrate your love of all things vampire or werewolf with something less likely to shrink in the wash…though more likely to discolor and sag with time.  Enter the Twilight tattoo trend:

Someone is bringing the sexy back

 

Future turtleneck affecianado

If the Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote inspired groups to boycott Warner Brothers cartoons, then surely the hint of pedophilia and body mutilation would have parent groups gabbing about the dangers of books and live action movies that romanticize bloodsuckers and body changers by coating them is glitter sparkles and soft fur over six pack abs.  Nope.

Unsexy undead Nosferatu...the way it should be

Maybe if the parent watchdog groups hadn’t been slacking we would have our vampire problem under control in this country.  Anyone else see this story in the news last week?  I must warn you, it’s out of Florida, so it is going to be full-frontal weird.  Panama City, Fl teen Stephanie Pistey, age 18, and four of her friends lured a 16 year-old boy to a house where he was beaten to death then dumped in a storm drain.  Oh, and the house?  It was where Stephanie was babysitting two children.  Stephanie’s explanation of why she was involved in this scene had her telling police, “Since I was like, 12 … I know this is going to be crazy, but I believe that I’m a vampire. Part of a vampire and part of a werewolf.”

Liger's cousin

Really?  A vampire in the sunshine state?  How can this be?  Then I looked at her Facebook page.  Stephanie likes blood, doesn’t read much, hates God and has atrocious spelling and grammar habits.  Her music pages included the likes of Soulja Boy, Hannah Montana, but the most revealing clue of all into her sinister psyche is an endearment to Miley Cyrus.  That. Explains. Everything.

Miley preparing to suck

Tags: Bugs Bunny, Edward Cullen, Florida, Jacob Black, Miley Cyrus, Stephanie Pistey, Twilight, Twilight tattoo, Vampire, Vampire defense, Warner Brothers cartoons, Werewolf

Rolling old school

So, you think that you roll old-school because you don’t have a smart phone or rely on the internets?  You think that you live a simpler kind of life because you have an herb garden on your deck, take public transportation when you can and have a recycling bin?  I am here to tell you that you a’int nuthin’ compared to the bass-ass luddites in Kentucky.

Meet eight members of the gangsta Swartzentruber Amish sect out of Graves County, Kentucky.

They were booked into the big house for keeping it real, by refusing to bow down to the Man.  Were they going to affix orange reflective triangle flair to their buggies?  Hell no.  Were they gonna pay the fines for not jazzing up their buggies with what they considered to be religiously offensive flair?  Oh, hell-to-the-no!

Trump that, homies!

 

Tags: Amish, Kentucky, Old school, orange reflective triangle, Swartzentruber Amish sect

Car flair can stick it

More observations from the road

If Snakebite were allowed to cuss, which she is not, this is what she would have said to me on a recent road trip, “Mom, what in the hell is with all of the shit people put on their cars?”  Because I am raising her to be a lady (uh-huh) she instead asked, “What’s with all the car flair?”  Living in an area where private schools are numerous, country clubs are abundant and people like to throw money at whoever is running for office, we are used to seeing a lot of bumper stickers.  Now, I have always thought that this cleverly served a three prong purpose: first, all of the school annual fund support stickers keep meddling mothers off your back in the carpool line.  That sticker lets people know you’ve done your part and so you can move on to chatting about something more important than the school’s scholarship kitty or the endowment fund, like who’s gotten bad lip injections or where to download DSW coupons.  Secondly, “The Club” membership sticker lets potential car-jackers know that you have a mean backhand, a nine iron under the front seat and are damn near close to broke after paying tuition at aforementioned school on top of monthly dues.  That Club sticker says, “I got nothing to lose, so bring it!”  And lastly, the political campaign sticker tells state troopers that you are connected and you will likely weasel out of paying off any speeding ticket; that even pulling you over for a finger wagging is an exercise in futility.

But Snakebite pointed out all this other stuff and before I knew what was happening it seemed like every car we saw had some sort of gratuitous crap on it beyond the 1980’s “Baby on Board“ hold over, that smug “Coexist” one or bragging rights for a seven-year old honor student.  If your seven-year old isn’t an honor student, I will pray for you.  You know when I’ll be impressed?  When that sticker says “My child graduated magna cum laude from Princeton and I didn’t have to pay a dime.”

Just gag

We were particularly struck by the silliness of the giant rear window monograms.  I admit to loving having my stuff engraved or embroidered.  My brother, Chris, thinks that this is total bourgeois behavior, but I have to disagree.  It’s practical…it’s the time-tested upper-crust version of masking tape with your name written in Sharpie.  When babies all look alike and have the same smocked outfit on in the Church nursery, it is a much more genteel way to keep up with which one is yours.  And how many times have I left a cake server somewhere and had it returned because my scrolly letters were on the handle?  Well, actually never, but it would be true if I were forgetful enough to leave it some place.  But on a car?  Why?  Doesn’t it beep when you press your key?  Isn’t your license plate really just a Government Issue personalization…and it’s metal and one of a kind, not like that die-cut plastic peel-and-stick thing.  We give this two thumbs down and a frowny face.

Aww...just precious

And then there are the stick figures…we’d seen those before, but this was a new twist.  They have been flaired further by having team logos on their tiny t-shirts.  Puh-leeease!  Dork squared.

If only my car had a lapel...

‘Member when Hollywood slobbered all over AIDS awareness and introduced us to the red lapel ribbon?  Then breast cancer awareness took it on in pink and it snowballed from there.  I really couldn’t say which color is for what group, until now.  Thanks to magnetic car ribbons with the cause written on it, I can keep up.

However, not all car flair is on the body of the car.  A lot of people like cutesy antennae ornaments like this…

Punk rock car

Then there are people who have considered the body of their car, hog or truck an actual body and have made it anatomically correct.  That’s nucking futs!  May I present the best of the best?

Hot Tub made this truck writhe in pain by administering a swift kick

They are sold under many names, but Truck Nutz is the original.  They come in array of colors, including brass and chrome.  Some brands have kinky chains attached.  Despite my kids thinking they were hilarious, they are fairly controversial.  A case is going forward to trial in South Carolina sometime this month to neuter this novelty accessory.  States like Tennessee, Florida, Virginia and Maryland have tried to have them banned in the past on the grounds of indecency.  That’s especially ironic for Florida.  Letting your truck’s sack hang is you First Amendment right for the freedom of expression.  But just to be on the safe side, I’m ordering mine in camo.

Undercover ballz

Tags: Awareness ribbon magnets, Bumper stickers, Car flair, Car monogram, Truck Nutz