Profoundly Shallow

Missing My Religion...

2011-11-12T19:41:00.000-08:00

I'm an Atheist.

I was raised by a Catholic Grandma and a Protestant Grandpa. I went to a small-town non-denominational church where I excelled at memorizing Bible verses. My favorite song was "Jesus Loves the Little Children" because it mentioned brown people and I was the only brown person for miles and miles.

I went to Bible school and Sunday School and church camps. In my early teens I listened to Christian music from bands like DC Talk, Michael W. Smith and Sandi Patti (which sounds like the name of a SpongeBob character now).

Then when I was fifteen or so, I started asking questions. Things didn't make sense to me. I read the Bible several times over and no one could explain the inconsistencies, the racism, the sexism. I didn't understand anyone who hated gays (long before I ever met one) and I didn't think abortions were an unforgivable sin. I started reading more and learning more and decided that I wasn't a Christian. I dabbled in being Pagan and Wiccan for many years but it always felt false. There was all this worship of STUFF, Athames and alters and whatnot. So I tried Buddhism, then Deism and finally I slid into the wishy-washy nether realm of "spiritual agnostic".

If I started thinking too hard about religion or god, I'd simply wrap the cloak of "we can't know for sure" around me. But like a spinter just under the surface of my skin driving me crazy was the thought, "There is no god." I'd tamp it down. The thought scared me to death. What did it mean if there was no god? I couldn't survive if I believed that. So for eight years I tamped it down and I pretended I still believed because I was scared. Then one day I just couldn't tamp it down any more.

I admitted to myself that I am an Atheist. I don't believe in god, or heaven or angels or hell. I don't believe that a guy with a beard is cataloging our rights and wrongs.

So tonight I was watching the episode of Glee where Kurt's father was in the hospital and everyone was all "Hey lets pray about it" and Kurt's all, "I'm a gay heathen and proud!" Then everyone argues and Kurt goes to church where everyone prays for his dad and sings and it's all blah blah blah pathos-cakes.

And yet I started crying. I cried all over my husband and I cried while typing this post.

See right now my grandmother, my adopted mother, is on hospice and she's on her last lap around the pool. And it's really hard. She's been "dying" for two almost unbearable years. She's in pain and she's suffering and there's nothing anyone can do. This past summer (for probably the last time), she looked at me with her big green eyes and said, "Hi mi niña!" Now she's just writhes in pain and whispers partial words. And it breaks my heart and you know what it makes me miss more than anything? My religion.

I miss the warm comfortable shroud, that soft blanket that dampened hurt and pain. The one that would tell me that after she's gone, she'll still be around, looking down at me with those green eyes, smiling benevolently and loving me. I don't have that and I wish I did. Having religion made life easier and though I think most Atheists won't admit it, life felt safer when we thought someone was watching over us.

I don't like big arguments over religion. I skim past comments sections on any blog posts about Atheism or religion. I get especially upset when people try to convert others through Bible quotes. For me, I've read the Bible cover to cover several times. You can't use the Bible to convince me because I've already tried do that to convince myself. Much like being gay, I don't think I have much of a choice over whether I'm religious or not. I held onto it years after it didn't make sense to me. But I simply DO NOT BELIEVE. I cannot make myself believe something I don't, as much as I wish I could.

When people are yelling about the smug asshole Atheists who REJECT god, I wonder, do they really believe that anyone would choose to be an Atheist? That we are really religious deep down but just won't admit it? Why would anyone choose to feel so alienated from the majority of people on the planet and why would anyone choose to feel so very alone, so small in the universe? Do you think it's an easy point to reach? It isn't. I don't think it is for most Atheists.I didn't choose to be an Atheist. For me, it's simply what I feel deep in my soul and no Bible quotes can make that feeling go away.

But I miss being religious so much. I miss the songs and the community. It hurts to feel so alone and so lost and to have no answers at all, even made up ones. There is comfort in thinking you know the whys and whyfores of everything. Life is easier when you believe that no matter how bad it gets, there's a paradise waiting for you. But I don't believe that and you can't convince me that I do anymore than you can convince me that the sky is really orange or that cars run on love. I know what I know. Even if it hurts.

I wish I believed that someone is up in the clouds keeping an eye on me. I wish that someone would stop making my grandmother suffer. I wish I didn't feel so very small and so very sad.

Tales of a Medical Receptionist: Herp Derp

2011-09-19T07:34:00.000-07:00

I have to give our young patients a financial responsiblity form to fill out. It is only half a page in length and it's written in the simplest language you can use for insurance information. The bottom has three sections to fill out. I go through it every time and show them the three sections saying, "Please sign, here, here and here," while they nod their heads and vigorously ignore me. Then I get it back with only one section signed and I say, "Please sign all THREE sections and I point to the remaining two. Then they sign one and hand it back and I have to do it all over again. Over and over, every day, as my patients are functionally incapapble to listening to anyone talk unless that person is also twenty years old and is serving them a shot of booze.

But my favorite part is when they glance at the form and you can see their brain going, "I have to read like half a page? Why are they giving me homework?" So they quickly sign it without reading it and then look at me and ask, "Now what is this form about?"

I'd like to say, "Well, moron, as it states at the top, it's about your financial responsiblity. Would you like me to read it to you while you drink from a sippy cup? Just FUCKING read it. It explains itself very well. If you can GD VOTE, you can read this form!"

But I'm not allowed to say things like that.

But rest assured I'm thinking it.

Every day. Over and over again.

Of Frozen Coke and Nazis...

2011-09-14T13:40:00.000-07:00

On Sunday, I looked terrible. Truly awful. I was wearing a bulky black t-shirt with the neckline cut out. The shirt says, "What happens under the mistletoe, stays under the mistletoe". I had on blue leggings which never leave the house as I don't believe in sharing that much of my cellulite with the world. My hair was a frizzy afro disaster pulled back in a pony nub and I hadn't brushed my teeth.

Mr. Moppet decided that we needed frozen cokes (or as we call it in the Moppet household, "froke"). Needless to say, there was much whining, tussling, thumb wrestling and various threats to both of our tenderest bits as we tried to foist the task of driving to the store onto the other person. In good time, we resolved it like the grown ups we are by playing Rock Paper Scissors. Which I lost.

Halfway to the gas station, I realized that I was almost out of gas. Fan-fucking-tastic. Now I had to actually stand outside for five minutes looking like fat, frizzy death with morning breath (at three in the afternoon). Now I'm the living, breathing stereotype of trashy, fat America. This led me to think about the judgmeents that I make about fat people. When I see someone overweight who doesn't take care of themselves or who looks skunky or unkempt I get disgusted. Perhaps this is becuase I'm fat myself and I see them as "bringin' us all down" or something. I'm not sure. So there I was, living the dream in my mismatched, ill fitting clothes with bad hair and greasy skin buying junk food at the Speedway like every person I've ever judged. It made me wonder if some of those people I've judged were also just running out to get frozen beverages because their spouses are lazy fucks and because they suck at Rock Paper Scissors too?

While I was thinking these deep thoughts, a roar of motorcycles filled the air and the gas station filled with craggy, tattooed bikers. Now my mother is a biker and I've been around them for years. Bikers don't scare me becuase at the end of the day, they are pretty much like everyone else, except that they drink and drink AND DRINK AND DRINKDRINKDRINK. But other than that...

So I felt a sense of superiority, despite my dishelved state, when I saw people giving the bikers side eyes and muttering to themselves, acting frightened and nervous. Pshaw, thought I. Greasy old bikers won't hurt you unless you owe them money, or you're are part of a rival club, or if you suggest they put down the Jim Beam and go to rehab, or you tell them you're a vegetarian, or if you use big words they don't understand. They don't like THAT stuff but everything else, they are cool about. So I wandered into the Speedway and some bikers opened the door for me without even looking back at me. Awww, nice folks.I got my frokes and some Krispy Kremes too, because hell, I was already through the fat, trashy looking glass. In line, I saw a biker turn and noticed his tattoo which had a rather alarming swastika on it. Still, I thought, pshaw. Bikers have all kinds of offensive tats and they've always been nice to me with my butterscotch skin and splendiferous afro. Then, staring dimly at the biker "colors", my bleary eyes finally focused on the atual name of the motorcycle club. My thought process went like this:

Fourth Reich of Detroit.
Huh, Reich.
Reich like Hitler.
Hitler had the third Reich though.
Oh fourth Reich. They're nazis.
HOLY FUCK I'M STANDING BY G*D* NAZIS!!!!

At which point, I nearly pissed myself with fear of the two bikers who were buying snickers and cheetos and joking with the cashier. I paid as quickly as I could and then ran to my car and locked all the doors. I turned the car on and checked my mirror, sipped my drink as though nothing were wrong. I didn't want to draw attention to myself in case they felt like making an example outta someone with bad breath and an afro. Also, I realized that as a representative of my race, I was now obligated not to become another reason for them to hate people who are different. Man, being brown is hard work. So I backed out of my spot slowly and safely and drove away, shaking and suddenly desiring Taco Bell. Because there is nothing like a run in with affable nazis to make you crave bad food.

So what started as a moment to reflect on my own prejudices turned into running for my life from nazis who seemed pleasant and weren't actually chasing me.

Is there a moral to this tale? As it turns out, yes there is. Don't leave the house looking like crap because you never know when nazis might murder you, thereby ensuring that your leggings-clad, cellulite-enriched ass will be splashed on the front page of newspapers and blogs for everyone to stare at.

So really this whole thing is less about nazis and more of an indictment against leggings and comfy novelty t-shirts. Damn you for being so comfortable! Damn you tooooo heeeeellllll!

Raise your hand if you've been bullied

2011-08-19T12:47:00.000-07:00

I read a blog p ost today, written by a Pennsylvania photographer, Jen Mcken regarding cyber bullying. She discovered some of her clients were bullying others on Facebook and she canceled their senior photo appointments, sent them emails explaining why and also sent emails to their parents with screen captures of the little angels being vicious. Jen Mcken refused to take money and refused to spend time with people who are ugly on the inside. She is awesome.

I was going to thank her on her Facebook page but there are already hundreds and hundreds of people doing that very thing. So many that she'll probably never read it all. Instead I decided to do something more constructive. I want to actually talk about bullying. I don't want to talk to Jen Mcken, who doesn’t want to be a hero and really just made a principled decision for her business. No, I really want to talk to a larger audience about bullying and not in the pearl clutching, "won't someone think of the children" way that frequently happens either.

I was a victim of bullying.

Not simple name calling (which can be vicious all by itself) or eye rolling or dirty notes, but a campaign of hatred and cruelty that tainted my entire childhood and left my self-esteem in tatters. I was the only person of color in a very small community. I graduated in a class of less than eighty students. In this little town, being different was tantamount to being a murderer. How DARE I be so different with my wee little afro, my butterscotch skin and my penchant for big words?

In elementary and middle school I experienced:

- being punched repeatedly in the face
- being held down screaming by brothers who dared each other to “kiss her nigger lips"

- was called a nigger, a coon, a spic by classmates daily
- was called nigger lips by my elementary school gym teacher
- had snowballs scrubbed into my face until my lips split
- had dead animals repeatedly placed in my mailbox

- had feces placed in my purse more than once
- was repeatedly thrown off the bus for refusing to share seating with my abusers
- had people hock loogies in my hair on a daily basis
- was told that I should never have been born because it was an "abomination"

My backwards school was unsure how to handle this. When my grandmother repeatedly complained, they responded by sending me to therapy to "deal with it". Yes instead of talking to the kids who abused me, I was sent to a tiny room to talk about it. I haven’t forgotten the tall white woman with bright green eyes named Mrs. K. She had no clue what to do with a depressed 8 year old. So she told me to tell anyone who called me a nigger that I wasn't a nigger, I was Caucasian. She said it meant "of mixed race". Then she started “fixing” my hair. Because it was the real problem. She’d meet me in front of the high school, take me inside and wet my hair. Then she’d try to comb it with a tiny plastic comb that wasn’t going to go through my hair without a bucket of axel grease and even, then, it wasn’t likely. The morning combing resulted mostly in me crying and her getting snarky with me because my hair was so difficult. After a week or two of this drama, she stumbled on a better idea. Without my grandmother’s permission, she held me after school, took me to a hair salon and paid to have my hair straightened. Hurray! Now all my problems were resolved! Right! Right? Does anyone else hear crickets chirping?

So, needless to say (but I’m saying it anyway), I’ve spent most of my adult years trying to undo the damage that that woman and that town did to me. For a long time, I blamed people of color for my misfortune. I denied my likely African-American heritage and became hostile if people called me black. I spent lots of money hiding my afro with braids and weaves, trying to look “normal” or what seemed normal to me.

Eventually I read some self-help books and in trying to love myself more, I started wearing an afro and writing a lot about what happened to me. I wrote essays and non-fiction pieces about how I was over it and how I was glad it happened as it made me a stronger, better person. Wasn’t I lucky to have those people teach me about the ugliness of the world and about hatred and how to be tough? Man I’m sure glad people spit on me and called my friends nigger-lovers all the time. That made me soooo tough. Whoohoo I am victim, hear me roar!

It took a long time to see that this kind of thinking was a lie. A filthy lie, too. People need to quit convincing themselves that bullying builds character. It doesn’t. It tears character apart. Being bullied didn’t make me a better, stronger person. I was already a good, strong person. It was the strength I already had that helped me make it through those bad years without hurting myself or others. I think it’s a form of Stockholm Syndrome to credit your abusers as having made you better. They gave me a life lesson in ugliness that I did not need and a lifetime of self-hatred I could have done without.

The truth is that bullies bully for many reasons and 99% of them have little to do with their victims. They don’t bully because they are jealous of their victims specialness. They don’t pick on someone specifically because they are fat, or ugly or dumb or smart. They bully because they found a weakness or because they found an easy target to vent their rage or to solidify their camaraderie with their friends. That’s all. In a way, this is scarier than having it be all about you. Instead it’s a bit like having cancer. It’s completely unfair, it could have been anyone and every day hurts worse than the last.

Bullying sucks and no amount of talking in an office would have helped me, when what I really needed, was for someone to step up and educate the people who were abusing me that their behavior would not be tolerated and is not acceptable. We don’t need more support groups for victims; we need more education for the victimizers.

So I appreciate what Ms. Mcken did, whether she intended to do it or not. She called the bullies on their crap. This may change their behavior, it might not, but she made sure that they had consequences for what they did, however small the consequences might be.

I’m certainly not the voice for all the bullied. I can’t speak for others. But as a bullied girl who bears scars, I thank Jen Mcken and wish her all the best in her photography business. May every client be beautiful where it matters most.

Tales of a Medical Receptionist

2011-08-18T06:37:00.000-07:00

*I'm going back in time and culling some of my favorite moments as a medical receptionist.

A darling twenty year old college student comes into University Physician's Office where I work. She bypasses sign #1 that says, "Please sign in on the clipboard in the waiting room and have a seat. A receptionist will be with you shortly." There is an arrow pointing to the room. She stands directly in front of sign #2 that is located on my desk and also has an arrow and the same statement. Peeking around the sign, without reading it, she sighs heavily at me as I work on a referral for another patient. I smile and say, "Hello! Please sign-in on the clipboard in the waiting room and have a seat. We'll check you in shortly." I point to the waiting room like a living breathing arrow. So Darling Girl goes into the room and sits down, without signing in. Which I didn't notice.

For twenty minutes, Darling Girl sits in a room watching while bunches of other people sign in and subsequently get their names called to check in. Fuming, she comes to my desk and states, "My appointment was fifteen minutes ago and no one ever called me. Everyone else got called."

I look up and say, "Oh I'm sorry about that." I go and pull the check-in sheet to see what time she signed in. I stare at it. "Oh, I don't see your name on here."

Darling Girl raises an imperious eyebrow at me and says, "I didn't know I was supposed to sign in. No one told me that."

I give her my fake, I completely understand smile, that secretly means, I hate you, moron. Then I say, "Well I'm sorry about the miscommunication, but we'll have to reschedule your appointment. The doctor is in with her next patient now."

She huffs and puffs and states that "I'm really sick, I need to be seen right now. It's not my fault that no one told me to sign in."

I should not argue with her. It doesn't do any good but I do it anyway. "Ma'am, we have signs all over that ask you to sign in." I point to the two signs she bypassed, which includes the one she's currently standing in front of. By the way, don't know if you know this, but if someone in customer service says, Ma'am what they really mean is Bitch. Because knowledge is power.

So Darling Girl, the future of our country, stands up straight, puts her hands on her slim hips, curls her upper lip and says, "Well, no one told me to read the signs."

I often wonder about Darling Girl. What does she do when no one is around to tell her to do things? Does she only wipe her bum when told to do so? How about chewing and swallowing? How does she drive? Poor Darling Girl. Her life must be so difficult without minute to minute instructions.

Martin Luther King Deconstructed

2011-01-17T09:23:00.000-08:00

Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.

Today on Martin Luther King Day, I cannot reflect on the hardships people have faced in the faded, dim recollection of the past. I cannot recall the images of hoses and dogs and hatred. Instead, with everything I have read of Dr. King, I am forced to reflect on the urgency of the battles humanity still has to fight.

Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power.
We have guided missiles and misguided men.

As soldiers die and old people die, as everyone who is fighting for their freedom to be "right" dies, as we are all in the perpetual, human motion of dying, I must ask myself, if Dr. King were here, would even he be able to make change? He was a brilliant speaker and a man of integrity, but honestly, he was also a man who happened to be at the right place, at the right time. There were many wonderful speakers, many men who were standing up and fighting, but Dr. Kings passionate, "I have a dream" speech was positioned just right, toward the end of a long day of speeches, to to caress the collective dreams and desires of an entire generation of people. There were speeches before that one and speeches after that one. Yet his remains the most revered and celebrated. It was not a good speech in the sense of studying "good" speech-making. You'll find that it was repetitive and zealous, filled with religious minutiae that doesn't make sense unless you were Baptist and black in that particular place and time. Yet, what he did worked because his audience was mostly the same religion, mostly the same color and mostly heard and appreciated his kind of sermon before. Now I am not saying that it wasn't a powerful speech, because that is its greatest legacy. It was a powerful speech, a speech that spoke of the hunger and need of a people to be thought of as fellow human beings. It was a speech that cried out to be acknowledged, embraced and replayed for generations, because it was a speech that reminded us of what passion can be, what desire for freedom tastes like, and how hard people are willing to fight for that desire.

Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.

How would today's world (a world Dr. King helped create) react to such a speech? When we are split down so many lines; political, gender, racial and sexual, just to name a few. We are as divided as ever, severed off into categories and subcategories and feeling less and less connected to our fellow human beings. We are now mistrustful of people who have bumper stickers that exclaim beliefs we disagree with. I myself react with almost violent dislike, to Jesus Fish on the backs of SUVs filled with (in my mind) squawking children and religious bigotry. I believe the person with the Jesus Fish decal on their car would hate me for being an outspokenly pro-choice liberal. For being an atheist. For being a Feminist. so I respond by simply hating them from before they get the chance to hate me. What kind of speech would rally the Jesus Fish driver and myself, as human beings? What would make me stand next to someone pro-life and hold their hand and exclaim that we both agree on something? On what fundamental level would we quit viewing each other as enemies, on what is essentially a single issue, and be united in order to make real sweeping social change?

In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies,
but the silence of our friends.

There is a war going on both in our heads and in foreign lands. People are being maimed. People are dying. People are cutting the heads off reporters and posting the video on the internet. People are burning sacred religious texts on the doorsteps of Mosques. There can be no worse ugliness than what is happening in this moment. And yet, I am a loss. I have no fancy speeches. I don't know how to rally people behind the banner of "Hey, neither of us is right, and we should all shut up and go home to our families and quit killing people for political gain!" That banner weighs too much and I don't know enough people who would have the energy to carry it.

Nonviolence is the answer to the crucial political and moral questions of our time; the need for mankind to overcome oppression and violence without resorting to oppression and violence. Mankind must evolve for all human conflict a method which rejects revenge, aggression, and retaliation. The foundation of such a method is love.

How do we make this world a place filled with love? How do we end the violence of a war that we don't feel we started? How do we stand united as a people and say that WE HAVE A DREAM, THAT ONE DAY, CHRISTIANS AND MUSLIMS WILL SIT TOGETHER AT THE TABLE OF BROTHERHOOD? How do we let go of the petty, innocuous differences between us and fight for what matters most; a world in which we don't have to fight?

From every mountainside, let freedom ring.

If Dr King were alive today, what could he do, or say that help end these wars? These hatreds? Every drop of blood spilled is staining our hands, no matter who you voted for or who you support now. Every death, brutally televised, serves to do no more than remind us that our own lives are fragile and should therefore, be held gently in the hands of those with power. We are all guilty of not doing more, not saying more, not fighting harder to see this nation, live out the true meaning of its creed, "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal." This truth does not end at our guarded borders. It does not extend only to people of a certain color, class or gender. It bleeds over the oceans and across the seas. It spills into the hills and valleys and deserts and cleanses us of our pettiness and our self-righteousness. ALL MEN ARE CREATED EQUAL does not just apply to this country or that country or to people with money, or oil, or power. It is a universal truth that cannot be scrubbed or propagandized away.

Hatred paralyzes life; love releases it. Hatred confuses life;
love harmonizes it. Hatred darkens life; love illuminates it.

I am just as guilty as the next person of standing still when I should be marching. I don't know where to start, who to rally, how to help? I am floundering in a sea of confusion and wondering, just when will I have the time, to make sweeping social change? I think that may be why Dr. King is so celebrated. He did not hesitate. He did not question how change would come. He knew that change was not something he wished for, but something that was necessary to the evolution of mankind. Change will spring from the horizon as surely as the sun must do every morning; because without the sun and without change, we would freeze and our souls would be left hungry and barren. He knew that change must come, but he also knew that waiting would not help it to come any faster.

Human salvation lies in the hands of the creatively maladjusted.

Dr King has many legacies. He was bold, articulate and powerful. But in our desire to place the mantle of saint-hood upon his shoulders, we have forgotten that he was simply a brave man, who rallied a people who were ready to be rallied. Without the people who stood up and stood for the things he was saying, Dr King would have been no more than a mouthpiece, no more than one man, raising his voice alone in the darkness. He did not stand alone in defiance.

It may be true that the law cannot make a man love me, but it can stop him from lynching me, and I think that's pretty important.

When President Obama took his oath of office, I understood the joy, the crying, the adulation laid at his feet. We have been waiting here, waiting for another Dr King, waiting for someone to help raise us out of this apathy and xenophobic isolation, because we think that someone else will do the hard work of saying the things we are afraid to say. We are waiting for the miraculous, once in a millennium intervention of someone powerful, noble and brave. We are sheepishly waiting to be saved rather than taking up the fight to save ourselves, which I think, is the greatest sin of all. My lack of religion notwithstanding, I think Dr. King would agree.

Ten thousand fools proclaim themselves into obscurity, while one wise man forgets himself into immortality.

*Reposted Yearly on Martin Luther King Jr Day.

Huzzah!

2010-11-30T20:58:00.000-08:00

Wrote 10,000 words in 24 hours.
Talk about a comeback from the abyss.
So exhausted.
Bedtime.

I don't think I want to be a novelist. Perhaps being a farmer would be a better career path. I certainly slung enough manure to keep my plot going.

I think therfore I Google

2010-11-12T13:36:00.000-08:00

I in the midst of my NaNoWriMo novel and for once I'm branching out into ACTION SEQUENCES,which has lead to a pile of nerdy questions regarding weaponry, ballistics, injuries and police. For instance, who is in charge of the Witness Protection Program? I would have guessed the FBI but I would have been wrong. It's the US Marshals Service. Who knew-besides the Marshals?

Because of this, my google search list has gotten... a little weird. So today I looked at what I'd searched for the last week and I realized if I didn't know that I was writing a novel I'd think I was a violent sociopath who was planning the murder of Sandra Lee and planning a wedding with Sam Winchester of Supernatural. Perhaps I shouldn't have googled all this at work.

Here is a list of what I've googled in the last week:

barbies redheaded friend

best classic rock songs

bullet grazing

bullet wounds

can civilians buy bulletproof vests?

eye twitching

hanging mason jars from trees

how does it feel to be grazed by a bullet?

injuries from an ammonia bomb

Jensen Ackles height

Kind of gun used by US Marshal

killing someone in self defense

mens boxers

sam and dean winchester

sam winchester bitchface

sam winchester shirtless (don't you judge me)

sam winchester sexy (oh like you haven't searched worse)

sandra lee kwanzaa cake

sandra lee crazy

sandra lee thanksgiving

shooting someone from a distance

shoot to wound or shoot to kill?

single bomb explosion

stained glass paint

such thing as temporary witness protection?

the jokers real name?

what it feels like to be shot with bullet proof vest on

what does a chola look like?

what does an autopsy report look like?

what does it feel like to be punched?

when to use elipses or hyphens

where to shoot to wound?

whimsical outdoor wedding inspiration boards

What does your search list say about you, hmmmmmmm?

Wow New Layout!

2010-11-10T06:51:00.001-08:00

Hello solitary fan of my blog! How have you been? I've been well thanks!

I took a long sabattical from blogging because... well I'm lazy and no one really reads this and now I'm probably only posting to waste time because I don't want to work on my novel for NaNoWriMo. But that doesn't mean I don't love you. I do.

Anyhow, as an added feature I'm debating putting a weekly piece in called, "Tales of a Medical Receptionist" where I post some of the funniest things my patients do or say. What's the point of having to deal with these people if I'm not using them as writing fodder? The question is, do I create a whole new blog dedicated to that or just roll it into the nothing I post here? Either way, got any ideas for a catchier title for that feature?

Come on, help a sistah out.

Gaming, Color and Gender... Oh My

2010-05-28T12:31:00.000-07:00

I recently read a fabulous article in Bitch Magazine about being a Female Trekker (Trekkie is passe and insulting). In an interesting historical note, it was women that saved the show from being cancelled. Women wrote and produced the original Star Trek fanzines in 1967, and women who created and implemented the first Star Trek convention in 1972. Shows such as Quantum Leap, Farscape, Stargate SG1 and many others have been saved from the chopping block by the female fans of science fiction.

Fanfiction is largely treated with disdain, even though the women who created it lead the way for the Star Trek and Star Wars novels which are written (mostly by men) today. Female geeks, nerds, dweebs, techs, trekkers, fanfic-ers and the like, deserve better.

I'm amazed by all the creative, intelligent women who shaped the history of science fiction, gaming, fandoms and nerd-dom in general. Yet I have to ask, what is our role?

I am a gamer, a woman and a person of color. What does this mean in terms of gaming? Let's start with my general perspectives on women in gaming. I have role-played since 1999 when I moved to Lansing. I was a goth-y gamer chick who wore lingerie in the daylight and I wanted to make friends so I joined a group playing Vampire The Masquerade because I wanted friends. I never wanted to be a gamer, I wanted to have a place to belong. It was a safe haven for my smeared mascara and metallic spikes. Everyone was weirder and smellier than myself, so I was free to be.... whatever I was.

Over the years I've seen my share of female gamers come and go. What I've seen is that looks matter. Of course they always matter, but in this regard, if you want to get ahead, if you want to be popular and liked, f you want to get ahead in gaming, shorten the skirt, lower the neckline, play the nymphet and you might just get somewhere. The irony is you are being sexy for zitty guys who jerk off to Anime. Its okay for them to be unappealing, but only If they can sexualize you, can you have a taste of power within games.

I'm not knocking gaming women. Your sexuality is one part of who you are and you use what you have to get ahead and frankly, gaming guys are easily manipulated because they are driven with their teenage libidos (even when they are in their thirties). Its also not to say that I haven't encountered really good female gamers who earned their power, because I have. But its a lot easier to win the games when the boys are falling all over themselves to show you how to play.

In gaming, tough women are simply not taken seriously, Feminism is a four letter word and any attempts to discuss sexism are treated with rolled eyes and disdain. Gamers believe they are the only victims. Groups of fragile ego-ed, white beta males who have been victimized by bullies have retreated to vast fantasy lands where they are sexy and strong and smart and always get the girl in the spandex jump suit. They cannot fully let women in as equals because real gamer girls threaten their carefully constructed fantasies of what women are.

In the game Werewolf The Apocalypse (my favorite game), there is an all female tribe of werewolves. They are strong and feminist. They don't let men push them around and they can back up their feminism with fists and claws. Just about every girl who has ever played the game wants to be a member of this tribe the first time they play. Those girls are ALWAYS treated with contempt and derision by the male gamers who think its so typical that they'd pick that. Never mind that the other tribes are stereotypical male wet dreams based on a comic book version of masculinity. Women want to be heard and have the ability to back up their opinions with a little violence? It shrivels their balls right into their body cavity to think of it. How ridiculous. Gaming is about fantasy of what we wish for ourselves. For these men, women are supposed to be the bit players, the mothers, the caretakers of their swollen egos and not anyone who could compete with them or be in charge.

Now as a female gamer, I am simply not sexy enough or IQ laden enough to be a threat or an interest. I do not have the right combination of traits to be considered truly feminine and in fact, they often act as though I am a male and say whatever horrifyingly sexist thing they want because they know I will simply laugh with the boys. I always have. It was safer than losing my gamer identity, which was the only identity I really had for many years.

I am simply unsexy in gamer terms. I'm fat and my hair isn't long and doesn't sway in the breeze. I'm neither an amazon nor a pixie. I require mature men who are willing to take second and third looks to find my beauty, be it my eyes or my dimples or the way my hair is wild and rebellious and sexy, I require more than a teenage mentality can process in order to find my sex appeal. In this regard male gamers are able to push me outside of the narrow standards with which they view women because I don't really register as female. This frees me from some of the difficulties of female gamerhood, but plunges me head long into the waters of tokenism.

In our college town, I know that if a white girl or white guy is crossing the street and heading right toward me, they expect that I will move out of their way. I call this Sidewalk politics. As a woman of color, I will step aside and let them pass without banging into them. You'd be amazed how often this occurs in a day. They know they don't have to change their behavior because I will back off and give them their entitled right to the sidewalk. When I have stayed on my path and not swayed, they simply bang into me and keep walking. If I am walking and a person of color is walking toward me, most of the time we both step aside. I tell you this to tell you that for most of my gamer friends I am the only gamer of color they know. I have spent years putting up with racist jokes, drunken slips of the words "nigger" and "spic" and I've been expected to smile and say it's okay, or laugh it off or simply ignore it. I'm not supposed to cause a scene because it will spoil the gaming for everyone else. If I do say something, I am a bitch. Sidewalk politics.

The minute I walk into the room, I am immediately made aware of my oddness, my otherness, my colored-ness. It is usually regarding my hair. Being that many gamers are of the Caucasian Persuasion, they treat afros or braids the way cavemen first treated fire. They are baffled and want to put their hands in it. But unlike flames, it offers no practical purpose. They can neither envision their hands running through it sexily, nor will my hair cook the mastodon they brought home for dinner. So I am instead treated as an oddity, a pet, maybe even a mascot. See! We have black friends! Hahaha, hey what up "Poof"
?"
I have spent too much time laughing along and I'm tired of these reindeer games. I want to be able to have real conversations with people who value my thoughts and opinions and aren't just looking for ways to out-smart me conversationally. I want more gamers of color, more gamer women more gamer trannies and more gamers who have actually put down the D&D books and picked up something substantive about race and sexuality.

I'm not sensitive about my hair, my color or my gender. I can take jokes, and I do, but it would be nice to be treated as if these things weren't liabilities in the gaming world. I've grown tired of overgrown boys who hide behind their D&D books. I still love gaming. I would love to do more of it, but I have stepped off the sidewalk for now. I'm mad at myself for that, but I can't be bothered. My job is not to convert every man-child over to my way of thinking. They can have their narrow, crooked walkways to nowhere. I'm going to have to find another way to get where I'm going.

The Wiener of the Opera is there, inside my mind...

2010-05-25T23:33:00.000-07:00

I bought my friend tickets to see Phantom at the Wharton Center in East Lansing. We started out the night with a fantastic dinner at The State Room where we ate far too much and felt bloated and a wee bit sick. But nothing would stop us from seeing and enjoying the show. As it turns out, nothing stopped us from seeing it. Enjoying is a different beast altogether.

There were a lot of understudies performing which is always fifty-fifty. Sometimes the understudy blows you away and the rest of the time, they just blow.

The actor playing The Phantom of the Opera had absolutely no charisma. He was shorter than Christine, which gave him a sort of hobgoblin appearance (especially in his Masquerade costume with the giant skull mask.) On top of that his voice was just not deep enough for the role. The Phantom is supposed to exude a sort of lazy sensuality that belies his grody appearance. This guys voice was too high and had too much vibrato. You would think he'd make up for that with some decent acting, but you'd be wrong. He was the most melodramatic Phantom I've ever seen. He played him as a creature so pathetic, I mostly felt discomfort. Instead of being angry and self righteous he sang most of the songs as though he would burst into tears at any moment and several times during the show, he actually played the Phantom sobbing. He was the Wiener of the Opera. My absolutely favorite moment was when walked up to Christine singing, "Turn your face away from the garish light of day" which generally accompanies a moment where the phantom touches Christine's face or physically turns her body. He smacked her in the side of the face with his palm (I heard it) and then shoved her face to one side. It was so abrupt and so ridiculously over the top that I started laughing and didn't stop for ten minutes. The rest of the song was a complete wash for me. Toward the end, he was being so over the top with his hand gestures and his general behavior that the audience was actually giggling. By the way, the tickets are about eighty dollars apiece. At that price, I didn't want to giggle at the Phantom, I wanted to be swept up in sexy seductive operatic singing. Alas I was not.

On the bright, the girl who played Christine has an absolutely stunning voice and it was the first time I ever liked Christine. I think she did a better job than Sarah Brightman (Who I find over the top and a bit shrill). Her voice was clear and perfect. Also she played Christine as the passionate young woman I always envisioned her to be. Toward the end of the play, she gets ANGRY at the Phantom. Not whiny. Not self-pitying, but indignant and she threw her veil on the floor in a fit of pique and I loved it.

The guys who played the Managers were a stitch. They were both excellent. There was also an understudy for Raoul and he did a bang up job as well (matter of fact, his voice sounded much better suited to play the Phantom to my ears).

Overall there were several stand out performances but the Phantom was a joke and also the set direction was lousy. For some reason, instead of centering things on the stage (which would have been logical) the whole set was done to one side. We were on the far right of the theater. When Joseph Bouquet got hung, it was staged at the far right side of the stage and behind the edges of the curtains. We couldn't see it at all. The stairway for Masquerade was also set to the far right so we couldn't see the Phantom's menacing descent down the steps. We heard him but couldn't see him until he actually hit the stage. Whose bright idea was it to point the stage only to the left side of the theater? I saw Phantom at the Wharton years ago and sat in almost the exact same seats with no problem at all.

The second half was better than the first which looked a hot mess (as though the director thought the whole show should be done like the hodgepodge and laughably busy production of Hannibal that takes place in the actual show). The Chandelier moment was jerky and hardly awe inspiring or frightening as it slowly descended toward the stage like an old mans scrotum jiggling as he climbs out of a hot bath.

When the Phantom is supposed to be shooting fireballs toward Raoul, instead of frightening and aweing us with the pyrotechnics the Phantom was shooting tiny flames as though he were throwing lit matches at them. I handled more frightening stuff during the fourth of July when I was seven. It was pathetic.

Overall it felt as though several very talented singers stumbled onto a high school production of Phantom and decided to help out. It felt amateur and I feel cheated because I paid a shit ton of money (that's a real amount) to be frightened and awed and moved. I ended up mostly bored, mocking and gassy (I had filet mignon, don't judge me).

Book Review: This Book Will Save Your Life

2010-01-19T21:22:00.000-08:00

I really wanted to like this book. I liked the blurb on the back. I liked the funny description on the inside of the dust jacket. I nearly purchased it several times. The plot had so much potential. A disconnected and distracted man wakes one day to realize the silliness and discomfort of his too-comfortable life. Oh and it's set in the backdrop of an apocalyptic Los Angeles. What's not to love about emotional awakening AND an apocalypse?

It turns out there is plenty to hate in this tedious and disconnected book. Richard Novak is isolated, self-centered and wealthy. He lives in a sad little prison of his own making, claiming to need no one and nothing beyond his trainer, nutritionist and housekeeper. Then a trip to the local emergency room, paired with a series of increasingly bizarre events lead him to become a local celebrity, befriend an immigrant doughnut maker, get laid, indulge in some new age hooey, and finally heal the chasm between himself and his angry, bitter son. All while California crumbles around him.

I didn't so much read this book as slog through it like a dogged explorer searching for treasure in a swamp. Richard is utterly unlikeable. The other characters match Richard in wealth and attitude. His kid is a prick. His ex-wife a ball busting, bag of douche. Even his maid is a charmless jerk. However, the wealth of assholes in this book isn't the real issue. The real problem is AM Holmes's relentless preaching and abusive use of metaphor. Richard has a small crater in his yard that keeps getting bigger and bigger until it's a vast chasm that destroys his home and acts as a catalyst for his realization that his life is not what it should be. I am black and blue from all the beating I took upside the head with that particular metaphor.

My other problem with the book is that the main character isn't proactive. He doesn't make changes with any kind of purpose. Instead change is thrust upon him but he doesn't actually do as much with changes as the dust jacket would have you believe. The momentum of the book is not in the arc of the main character but in a series of random, bizarre things that happen when he is around.

This Book Will Save Your Life is touted as satire and if it is, it isn't good satire. It's mostly just dreary and dismal. The initial feeling of disconnection and stagnation, was a great way to start the story, but the feeling never left the book. It was so spare that all the bizarre circumstances, which I think were intended to be wacky, felt forced and desperate. The ending is bland and unsatisfying. This book isn't nearly as clever or useful as the writer believes it to be. It did not save my life, but it did waste several hours of it.

Dr King, Deconstructed

2010-01-18T06:48:00.000-08:00

Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.

Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power.
We have guided missiles and misguided men.

Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.

How would today's world (a world Dr. King helped create) react to such a speech? When we are split down so many lines; political, gender, racial and sexual, just to name a few. We are as divided as ever, severed off into categories and subcategories and feeling less and less connected to our fellow human beings. We are now mistrustful of people who have bumper stickers that exclaim beliefs we disagree with. I myself react with almost violent dislike, to Jesus Fish on the backs of SUVs filled with (in my mind) squawking children and religious bigotry. I believe the person with the Jesus Fish decal on their car would hate me for being outspoken, pro-choice, liberal and agnostic, so I respond by simply hating them from before they get the chance to hate me. What kind of speech would rally the Jesus Fish driver and myself, as human beings? What would make me stand next to someone pro-life and hold their hand and exclaim that we both agree on something? On what fundamental level would we quit viewing each other as enemies, on what is essentially a single issue, and be united in order to make real sweeping social change?

In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies,
but the silence of our friends.

There is a war going on. People are being maimed. People are dying. People are cutting the heads off reporters and posting the video on the internet. There can be no worse ugliness than what is happening in this moment. And yet, I am a loss. I have no fancy speeches. I don't know how to rally people behind the banner of "Hey, neither of us is right, and we should all shut up and go home to our families and quit killing people for political gain!" That banner weighs too much and I don't know enough people who would have the energy to carry it.

From every mountainside, let freedom ring.

If Dr King were alive today, what could he do, or say that help end this war? Every drop of blood spilled is staining our hands, no matter who you voted for or who you support now. Every death, brutally televised, serves to do no more than remind us that our own lives are fragile and should therefore, be held gently in the hands of those with power. We are all guilty of not doing more, not saying more, not fighting harder to see this nation, live out the true meaning of its creed, "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal." This truth does not end at our guarded borders. It does not extend only to people of a certain color, class or gender. It bleeds over the oceans and across the seas. It spills into the hills and valleys and deserts and cleanses us of our pettiness and our self-righteousness. ALL MEN ARE CREATED EQUAL does not just apply to this country or that country or to people with money, or oil, or power. It is a universal truth that cannot be scrubbed or propagandized away.

Hatred paralyzes life; love releases it. Hatred confuses life;
love harmonizes it. Hatred darkens life; love illuminates it.

Human salvation lies in the hands of the creatively maladjusted.

It may be true that the law cannot make a man love me, but it can stop him from lynching me, and I think that's pretty important.

When President Obama took his oath of office, I understood the joy, the crying, the adulation laid at his feet. We have been waiting here, waiting for another Dr King, waiting for someone to help raise us out of this apathy and xenophobic isolation, because we think that someone else will do the hard work of saying the things we are afraid to say. We are waiting for the miraculous, once in a millennium intervention of someone powerful, noble and brave.We are sheepishly waiting to be saved rather than taking up the fight to save ourselves, which I think, is the greatest sin of all. My religion notwithstanding, I think Dr. King would agree.

Ten thousand fools proclaim themselves into obscurity, while one wise man forgets himself into immortality.

NaNo What Mo?

2009-11-13T20:39:00.000-08:00

So I'm doing NaNoWriMo and my story is just ... sucking. The first time was so exciting and interesting. This time I just feel stressed and uninspired. I hated my execution of my first idea so after four days I scrapped it and started over. Now I'm not in love with this one either. So I'm just adding absurd things and hoping something starts to amuse me. Booooooo. It's not serious enough to be serious and not funny enough to be funny.

Where did my funny go? Have you seen it? Please check the bottom of your shoes. Thanks.

Roger Ebert's Review of the new Transformers Movie

2009-10-19T09:07:00.000-07:00

I have not even seen this movie yet, but this review was too hysterical not to share. I used to religiously watch Siskel and Ebert and dreamed of doing my own reviews someday. If I can become half as good at writing reviews as Mr. Ebert, I will count myself talented indeed.

"Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen" is a horrible experience of unbearable length, briefly punctuated by three or four amusing moments. One of these involves a dog-like robot humping the leg of the heroine. Such are the meager joys. If you want to save yourself the ticket price, go into the kitchen, cue up a male choir singing the music of hell, and get a kid to start banging pots and pans together. Then close your eyes and use your imagination.

The plot is incomprehensible. The dialog of the Autobots®, Decepticons® and Otherbots® is meaningless word flap. Their accents are Brooklyese, British and hip-hop, as befits a race from the distant stars. Their appearance looks like junkyard throw-up. They are dumb as a rock. They share the film with human characters who are much more interesting, and that is very faint praise indeed.

The movie has been signed by Michael Bay. This is the same man who directed "The Rock" in 1996. Now he has made "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen." Faust made a better deal. This isn't a film so much as a toy tie-in. Children holding a Transformer toy in their hand can invest it with wonder and magic, imagining it doing brave deeds and remaining always their friend. I knew a little boy once who lost his blue toy truck at the movies, and cried as if his heart would break. Such a child might regard "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen" with fear and dismay.

The human actors are in a witless sitcom part of the time, and lot of the rest of their time is spent running in slo-mo away from explosions, although--hello!--you can't outrun an explosion. They also make speeches like this one by John Turturro: "Oh, no! The machine is buried in the pyramid! If they turn it on, it will destroy the sun! Not on my watch!" The humans, including lots of U.S. troops, shoot at the Transformers a lot, although never in the history of science fiction has an alien been harmed by gunfire.

There are many great-looking babes in the film, who are made up to a flawless perfection and look just like real women, if you are a junior fanboy whose experience of the gender is limited to lad magazines. The two most inexplicable characters are Ron and Judy Witwicky (Kevin Dunn and Julie White), who are the parents of Shia LaBeouf, who Mephistopheles threw in to sweeten the deal. They take their son away to Princeton, apparently a party school, where Judy eats some pot and goes berserk. Later they swoop down out of the sky on Egypt, for reasons the movie doesn't make crystal clear, so they also can run in slo-mo from explosions.

The battle scenes are bewildering. A Bot makes no visual sense anyway, but two or three tangled up together create an incomprehensible confusion. I find it amusing that creatures that can unfold out of a Camaro and stand four stories high do most of their fighting with...fists. Like I say, dumber than a box of staples. They have tiny little heads, although Jetfire® must be made of older models, since he has an aluminum beard.

Aware that this movie opened in England seven hours before Chicago time and the morning papers would be on the streets, after writing the above I looked up the first reviews as a reality check. I was reassured: "Like watching paint dry while getting hit over the head with a frying pan!" (Bradshaw, Guardian); "Sums up everything that is most tedious, crass and despicable about modern Hollywood!" (Tookey, Daily Mail); "A giant, lumbering idiot of a movie!" (Edwards, Daily Mirror). The first American review, Todd Gilchrist of Cinematical, reported that Bay's "ambition runs a mile long and an inch deep," but, in a spirited defense, says "this must be the most movie I have ever experienced." He is bullish on the box office: it "feels destined to be the biggest movie of all time." It’s certainly the biggest something of all time.

Lohan, Lips and Leggings, Oh My

2009-10-15T22:33:00.000-07:00

I was going to post a long drawn out diatribe on Lindsey Lohan as a victim of her own ego which is perpetuated by her dreadful family. I was going to address the hackneyed Ungaro "fashion" show of hers that is causing so many giggles. I even planned to cleverly refer to her as being reduced to nothing but lips and leggings these days. Aren't I a stitch?

However, I'm not going to say much about Miss Lohan as it appears that no one reads this blog anyhow with the exeption of a few loyal friends and apparently, Mr. Michael Musto; who I imagine had to have relentlessly googled himself to find it (which seems like it would involve a lot of chafing both physically and emotionally). Instead I'm simply going to link to Lainey Gossip because they are feeling exactly the same amount of ennui over Lindsey that I am.

"You can argue that she deserves sympathy for being an addict. She may have crossed your sad smut line a long time ago. But this lack of accountability, this habit of not owning anything, of blaming everyone else, this is a symptom of celebrity. And this will still persist when and if she gets clean."

Click the blue words and read the gentle bitch slapping of Lindsey Lohan. Perfection.

NaNoWriMo

2009-10-11T17:45:00.001-07:00

So November starts National Novel Writing Month affectionately known as NaNoWriMo. It is a writers challenge to create a small novel (50,000 words) in thirty days with daily wordcount goals and games to help you reach them. Since it began in 1999, it's become a phenomenon and more people have written books inspired by NaNoWriMo than by any other force on earth (they had at least 25,000 participants last year alone).

My friend Recessionista Genie and I read the book by the founder of NaNoWriMo Chris Baty's very funny and helpful guide "No Plot? No Problem!" and loved it. We staged an ill advised and impetuous LaNoWriMo (Lansing Novel Writing Month) in March. We started a group on Facebook and posted weekly videos encouraging people and reading excerpts from Chris Baty's book. Sadly no one ended up participating but us. But we had a blast. In the end I wrote a shoddy but complete novel about true love and car theft in Detroit.

Now the official NaNoWriMo is coming up fast. I have two ideas, one funny and one serious. I am not allowed to prewrite but I can create an outline if I choose. These are my two options, Romantic entanglements between a metal rocker and a culture vulture collector with nudist family or a tender and emotional ghost story about love and betrayl and the pain that lingers long after a body cools.

What will you write?

National Coming Out Day

2009-10-11T16:39:00.001-07:00

I cannot do do justice to this occasion anywhere near as well as my good friend Recessionista Genie over at The Magic Nutshell, so I won't even try. Click on her beautiful words to read her entire post about National Coming Out Day:

To come out is to send out a shock wave of love and respect for yourself, and love and respect for your family and friends who deserve honesty. Coming out is like a prairie fire. It burns away the old, dead, dry, superficial elements of a relationship that were based on denial and conditional approval. There is always a risk of collateral damage, but only after the fire can the new seeds of colorful wildflowers germinate and make possible a rebirth, a new life more healthy, whole, and beautiful than before...

Whether you choose to stay inside or start a shock wave of love, Happy Coming Out Day!

Want to prod my moist chicken?

2009-10-07T19:47:00.000-07:00

I don't have television. Oh I own a giant eyesore of a TV but we get not a single channel because we live in a metal house and delicious television signals can't penetrate our walls. So my beloved bought me an indoor television antenna so I'd stop whinging about not being able to make fun of the new 90210. Sadly, the CW did not come in, so instead, I enjoyed a couple episodes of the show Numbers, one riveting and blurry half hour of a TV show about a rabbit toothed toddler turned superstar called “Hannah Montana” and then hours of infomercial entertainment. I watched one infomercial that looked like a CNN news show and I'm still not sure what they were selling. I watched hair product ads and ads for cookers and my personal favorite, a bushy browed man selling me on the benefits of an expensive juicer by telling me that other foods are dead but, “the juice is alive. It's life.”

So basically I watched a bunch of ads and worked myself into a froth of righteous indignation. The most offensive commercial was for a product called "Maxiglide". I know it sounds like a feminine hygiene product but it's really just a hair straightener. This poorly named press was treated like the second coming of Christ (or possibly the third coming, you know the one where Christ announces that he’s into “manscaping” and that everyone needs to chill out and quit taking the Bible literally). I have no problem with anyone who wants to flatten their curls, but I did have an issue with the rap and soul music blaring throughout the ad. Okay I get it. It's to shame black women into hating themselves. They would show some white girls with mildly coarse hair using it and then they'd show a black girl and say "This works for ESPECIALLY difficult hair". F*** you Maxiglide. My hair is not the problem. You are the m’effing problem.

After I ripped off all my eyelashes watching that, I changed the channel to an irritatingly perky infomercial for the Xpres which is supposed to change your life by cooking things in 8 minutes but it's really just a glorified sandwich maker. Actually it is simply a sandwich maker. No glory added. The worst part was the host screaming at me. Why do they do that? That is patriarchal bullying on a massive scale. In the infomercials for cooking products it is always a female "inventor" and a male host in an ugly sweater. The male host acts as though the equipment is going to give him hot sweaty monkey sex after the cameras are off and he Just. Can’t. Wait. So he proceeds to scream at the female host, getting more and more worked over tostadas and omelets, until it all climaxes with the holy grail of orgasmic infomercial claims: MOIST CHICKEN!

Female Inventor: See it's just that easy!

Ugly Sweatered Male Host: Wow! ALL MADE WITH THE MAGIC DELICIOUS CONVECTION GADGET 2000???

FI: Indeed it is.

USMH: THIS PRODUCT WILL CHANGE YOUR LIFE???

FI: Well my family loves it! The kids can't wait to see what I've made for dinner with it.

USMH: LOOK AT THE NATURAL JUICES!

FI: Yes, the food will come out better than a gourmet restaurant. This is over $900 worth of products for only $200.

USMH: BROWN AND CRISPY ON THE OUTSIDE!

FI: Uh... yeah it is.

USMH: THIS IS HEALTHIER THAN COOKING IN A FRYING PAN? *strokes the gadget lovingly and drools a little*

FI: yeah... Uh yes it is!

USMH: I CAN FINALLY GET RID OF THE BODIES IN MY BASEMENT BY COOKING THEM WITH YOUR PATENTED TRIPLE PROCESS AND THEN ENJOY A HEALTHY MEAL OF HUMAN FLESH AND AFTERWARD I CAN PLEASURE MYSELF BETWEEN THE GRILLS???

FI: What??? No! You CANNOT cook people in the Magic Delicious Convection Gadget 2000. Or do anything sexual with it!

USHM: DON'T YOU TELL ME WHAT TO DO, BITCH! *proceeds to stab the FI with a fork* BUY *stab* THIS AWESOME PRODUCT *stab stab stabby* TODAY! *greases the grill on both sides* Oh yessssssssss, ooooh GOD yeah the chicken gets SO MOISSSSST!

You know, I think the real problem with infomercials is too much subtext. If they went ahead and did what they were really thinking, I’d buy a Magic Delicious Convection Gadget 2000.

Not Gaga for the Lady

2009-09-29T09:49:00.000-07:00

I want to take a moment to share my feelings about Lady Gaga. I'm not going to pretend I even really care about her shitty house music. I don't. I have loved some very questionable music in my day and I'm not gonna crap on anyone's parade because of that. My issue is more visceral. For me, Lady Gaga is a dinosaur. A relic to an age that was neither golden nor romantic.

I think she feels that she is progressive and interesting and dare I say it- fabulous. But I just can't see it. Perhaps I'm a cranky and elderly thirty-year-old who doesn't relate to "kids these days" and what they like. This is possible. But I can't shake the feeling that La Gaga feels like a warmed over Club Kid act circa 1993.

She's far too young to have been a Club Kid, but the influence is there and don't really see where she took something old and made it new. She just... took something old and ran with it. When I see her I think of all the has-been celebutantes and it's a little sad. The club kid thing is dead. It's like Lady Gaga is still on the dance floor while the bartender is putting on his coat and staring at his watch in consternation. The party is over. You have overstayed your welcome. Micheal Alig is old and fat and remorseless, sitting in prison still trying to be wacky but coming off pathetic. James St. James is busy doing terrible interviews with his eyebrows waxed off; desperately trying to stay relevant. Michael Musto is mostly visible as a "pop culture commentator", which is just a fancy title for one of the schmoes from VH1s "Hey remember when this stuff mattered?"**

Time hasn't passed far enough away for this glam/goth/pantless shtick to be retro or ironic or even an homage. It's just stale. It's so last season. I think we are creative and evolved enough to take the ideas of "Club Kids/Andy Warhol-esque fame/abandoned building New York performance art and elevate it to something more original, more unique, hell, more offensive! Something that is more NOW. We are in the midst of great social change and upheaval. Money is tight, race and gender relations are being explored anew amidst the eye opening behavior of everyone involved in the 2008 elections. Governments are getting more invested in soft power and less interested in spending money on war. Many of our icons are dying. People are more and more connected and at the same time, less connected than they've ever been. Such an interesting time to be alive deserves more fascinating, original and offensive entertainers than Lady Gaga. At best she is Club Kid retread. At worst, she is Maureen from Rent, making performance art about moo cows and kitchen utensils and everyone cheers for something they didn't understand and they walk away confused because all their friends have HIV but they keep singing about unlit candles and moo cows and dead dogs named Evita.

I have seen the future and I'm sorry to tell you La Gaga... but the future wears pants. Or at least a sexy pencil skirt or something.

**Ok so I hear Michael Musto is also an accomplished writer and journalist but who cares about that?

A little help?

2009-09-02T09:06:00.000-07:00

We have a big television. No, not a large flat screen television but an ENORMOUS 63" projection screen television. It's the same height as I am. It's a behemoth and it takes three people to move it. It's also ugly as hell. It's just a giant eye sore. I tried googling "decorating around a large screen television" but most of the results involved custom furniture or to quit being a cheap fuck and buy a flat screen like the rest of the country.

Well I'm a cheap fuck and I'm not doing either of these things. Do you lovely folks have any clue how to decorate around an ugly ass televsion? Right now I have a shrine dedicated to Lord of the Rings on top and I think I can do better. I would love a big plant that could grow and hang down the sides but we barely get any sunlight on that wall and when I tried putting plants on there before, they died from the heat of the television and lack of sunlight.

Help. Me.

A Schadenfreude Moment

2009-08-13T21:30:00.000-07:00

Celebutard Heidi Montag-Pratt was asked for her Playboy interview if there's a sex video hidden in the shadows of her life. She nitwitted** the following:

I’ve never watched porn in my life. I'm not going to start making it.

REALLY? Have you seen her music video for the song "Black Out"? It's three minutes and thirty seconds of wank material for thirteen year old boys. She writhes on the beach. She rubs her hands up and down a thick rope. She sings on all fours. She arches her back as the camera literally films her chest with her face out the shot. Her video is pretty comparable to those soft core Playboy movies that just have girls walking around a fancy house scantily clad and writhing next to the pool.

She's such a douche bag. She also claimed that Spencer gave her 20-30 orgasms in a day. That guy couldn't give a proper sandwich, let alone a bajillion orgasms. Perhaps she meant "aneurysms". That makes a lot more sense.

**Once you've married Spencer Pratt, the word nitwit can be used as a verb in conjunction with anything you say.

Seven Deadly Sins Series: Lust continued

2009-08-13T19:48:00.000-07:00

Because I'm a woeful sheep, I too will join Mrs. G in her objectification of men. Here is my top hottest hollywood men list(warning some of them may be fictional).

Oh and these are in no particular order because I can't be arsed to put that much energy into it.

Ryan Gosling

This man is so good looking that I'm sweating just looking at him. He also happens to be talented as hell. Since his best work is depressing (The Believer, Half-Nelson, The United States of Leland) I'm posting a cheesy montage video.

Ryan Reynolds

Well to be more accurate, I'm speaking about Ryan Reynold's abs. He has a nice face and all that but daaaang that body. I'm really looking forward to the Deadpool movie.

Jemaine Clement (Flight of the Conchords)

Now I could make a case for both talented and handsome fellows from Flight of the Conchords but I can't be bothered. Jemaine wins because he sings "Business Time" and also because his lips are made to be gnawed on. Add the hot accent, the nice singing voice, the comic timing and you've got one hot guy.

Jason Statham

I can't even pretend that I think he's talented. That body, that face, that accent. Gorgeous. Though I did love him in Snatch. Uhm... the movie I mean.

Seth Green

Seth is the anti-Statham. Jason made it onto the list because he works out seven days a week and lives on obscure muscle building vitamins from GNC. Seth is short, he's goofy, he's absolutely adorable. He had me at "monkey pants". I cannot resist a funny guy. I couldn't find a single video that fully captured the joy and hotness of Seth Green so I went with one that was just highly amusing.

Anthony Stewart Head

He was Giles on Buffy the Vampire Slayer. He was Nathan in Repo! The Genetic Opera. He sings like a dream. He is hot.

Cillian Murphy

Fragile. Baby faced. Menacing. A true recipe for tastiness.

Vash The Stampede

Vash The Stampede is the odd name of the main character from Trigun; a strange little Anime I used to watch on Adult Swim. It was a truly confused mish mosh of religious metaphor, violence and jokes about doughnuts. But Vash is a great character. An ace gunman who happens to be a pacifist in a world of lawless gunslingers. The show boasted moments of true beauty, grace, fear and tragedy.

Also, Vash is super hot! He wears kick ass sunglasses and a big ol' red trenchcoat. He looks like a bad boy but he's sensitive enough to take home to mama. That equals pure hotness. In anime form.

King Theoden(Lord of the Rings)

There's plenty of eye candy in the Lord of the Rings trilogy but King Theoden is one of my favorite characters. Unlike the pretty boy fellowship, King Theoden is an older man with the weary eyes who is making his last stand and knowing he won't survive it. There is nothing like a bit of nobility and heroism to crank my engine.

Chris Knight (Val Kilmer in Real Genius)

Val Kilmer is hot in general. I know this. But his seminal role as Chris Knight in Real Genius is a different kind of hot. Sarcastic? Check. Funny? Check. Hot as hell. Check AND check!

Sadly I couldn't find the video of Chris practicing for the day gravity reverses itself. These will have to do instead.

Keanu Reeves

First, he was in The Matrix. Forget the lame ass sequels. The original movie is one of my all time favorite action films. It's just bad ass.

Keanu gets a lot of flack for being a terrible actor but I don't think he's much worse than any other action star. The difference is Keanu was cursed with a terrible speaking voice which makes any emoting seem laughable. Lucky for him, he's a hot mofo who happens to be in possession of the prettiest eyes in Hollywood. I'd take him home. Shhh baby, don't talk, just feeeeel.

Oh yes. He is THE ONE.

Alan Rickman

The velvet voiced one himself. This is a man who can make the most benign lines sound so lascivious and bewtiching that you actually find yourself removing your pants in anticipation before you remember that you are in a theater and there are children running around with lightening bolts on their foreheads.

The Seven Deadly Sins Series One: Lust

2009-08-13T14:08:00.000-07:00

In the spirit of Profound Shallowness, my friend and Expert Recessionista Mrs. G is here to discuss the hottest men on the planet and why they are so effin' lickable. Oh and PS, Robert Pattinson is not here, because it's not that kind of list. Oh and also, Mrs. G likes MEN not boys.

1. Till Lindemann
There is plenty of evidence that Till is, in fact, the sexiest man who ever lived. A list of supporting statements can be found at UrbanDictionary.com. For example:

Till Lindemann can face fuck you with a simple stare and keep you coming back for more.

So true. Please observe.

You're welcome.

2. King Leonidas

Gerard Butler is OK, but this is my fantasy man list. He only gets to be on it with a beard, impossibly steroidal muscles, and a large amount of body grease. I don't care that he is Greek, shaven, and speaks with a Scottish accent. I really don't.

3. Achilles played by Brad Pitt

Self explanatory.

4. Serj Tankien, lead singer of System of a Down

I'm starting to notice a pattern here...

5. Geoffrey Rush AND Joaquin Phoenix in Quills

Only in Quills. Don't judge me. I just came to read your trousers.

6. Johnny Depp

Chocolat is one of my favorite movies, but he passes in everything.

7. Mr. G

In all his many phases. Why else would I have married him twice?

Anybody remember Fairuza Balk?

2009-08-12T08:15:00.000-07:00

I glanced at the waiting room television and they were playing American History X on some cable station.

American History X is a fun filled romp in the world of Neo-Nazis, hate crime and prison rehabilitation. I only watched a bit of it, but in that short time, I came to see the director's most glaring flaw. That movie needed Musical numbers! If The Producers has given me anything, it's an appreciation for songs about Hitler. And hate is more entertaining when it's lavishly choreographed.

Yeah, I pretty much tuned it out. I can't watch movies about Nazi's. Too intense.

So while I was tuning out, I realized Fairuza Balk is in this movie! Awesome! You remember her right? She did that kick ass movie in 1986 calledThe Worst Witch! Never heard of it? But it has Tim Curry as the King of the Wizards! He sings about losing his tambourine? Still nothing? Okay well, She was the crazy witch in The Craft (one of my favorite Halloween flicks). You vaguely remember that one? Okay, now we're in business! Lets see, what else was she in... she was also... uhm, a kitty cat in The Island of Dr Moreau. Doesn't ring a bell? Oh come on! It starred David Thewlis and Ron Pearlman AND Val Kilmer AAAANNND Marlon effin' Brando! No huh? Well I'm tapped out. A quick perusal of her IMDB profile shows she has since done a series of movies of which I've never seen a preview; some voice over work as a "screaming snail", a "monkey girl" and a charmingly ironic job of playing the voice of the most popular girl at Meg's school, Connie D'Amico, on Family Guy.

It's depressing to think that the pierced and lush-lipped young actress peaked her career by chucking Skeet Ulrich out a window while screaming "He's sorry, he's sorry, he's sorry!" over and over.

Cheers to Fairuza Balk. Don't pity her short but vibrant career as a bad girl. Don't feel sorry for her. No seriously, don't. She's bitchy looking and she looks like one of those girls who is wiry but strong (like Madonna before she went all crypt keeper on us). Instead lets revel in her glory. She lived out a fantasy most of us could only dream about. She got to throw Skeet Ulrich out a window. I've wanted to do that since the first time I heard his ridiculous name.

Lucky girl.

To Dream the Impractical Dream

2009-08-10T11:45:00.000-07:00

Since my Beloved and I became engaged, I have been planning our "budget wedding". Every step of the way with looking at dresses, looking at venues, looking at themes... I've been submerged in the idea that I must focus on cost. I think I'm making myself nuts. These are some of the choices we've discussed (based on money and practicality):

Summer Wedding (easier for getting time off of work, easier on The Boy taking time off of school)
Early Morning or Afternoon (cheaper than evening wedding, shorter, so less food)
Friend's back yard (free!)
Fake flowers (because I'm too cheap for real ones)
No alcohol (once again, I'm super cheap and also I don't want certain family members to act the fool)
Honeymoon on Lake Michigan (because it's cheap)

etc etc etc...

So there is an online group on The Offbeat Bride Tribe called “Dreamers”. This is a space where you are supposed to post your "dream" wedding details. What is your "dream dress"; "dream venue"; "dream theme"? I tried to think of what I dream about wedding-wise. I sat and stared at my keyboard. And stared. I couldn't respond to any of those things. I have wrapped all my wedding ideas so tightly into money anxiety that I didn't know what I'd want even if I COULD have anything. I'm always practical. I'm sick of being practical. I don't want to plan a practical wedding (is there even such a thing?). I want to plan a fun wedding to speaks of who we are and what we love.

First, I don't really dream of a summer wedding. It's only been discussed because it's easier for The Boy to take a summer off of school than a fall semester so that we can honeymoon, but dang it all, October is my favorite month, Halloween is my favorite holiday and Fall is my favorite season. So my dream is a fall wedding.

This is a tough one to confide but I realized… I want to wear wings. Think Drew Barrymore in "Ever After" type wings. I'm such a freakin' Capricorn that I am actually mortified to admit I want something so silly and childish. But deep down, it's there. I’m not into a big formal hootenanny with matchy matchy vases and tablecloths. I dream of an earthy, mossy, classy, ethereal wedding in which I wear wings (and perhaps a smidgen of shimmer). It would be super excellent if my future husband would wear some wings too but I'm okay if he doesn't.

In my dreams I want a big dinner cooked on a grill with lots of shrimp and buttery baked potatoes and corn on the cob and lobster tails and steaks. I want really good quality champagne and yummy sangria and fancy mixed drinks with names like Venetian Sunrise and Pineapple Upside-Down Cake.

I want several cakes in various rich flavors like Double Chocolate Cake covered in Ganache, salty Carmel Butter Cream Cake, a rich and creamy carrot cake. I also want pumpkin mousse pie and other fall type desserts and maple cream truffles and petit fours.

I want real flowers. I want a big, impractical, overpriced bouquet of fall colored roses with dark burgundy and orange leaves and perhaps some feather bits that will tickle your nose when you lean down to sniff the bouquet.

I want sparkly shoes and a really gorgeous soft shrug or shawl to wear if I get cold as the night goes on.

I don't want to get married in someone's back yard. Sometimes I want to get married on a cliff overlooking Lake Michigan and other times, I want to get married at Uncle John's Cider Mill so we can take a hayride in our wedding finery to the actual ceremony and everyone can have delicious cider and doughnuts while they wait for us to get our pictures taken.

I want a late evening wedding so the sun will be starting to streak the sky with blues and pinks when we say our vows. I want an evening wedding also, so I can have tons of candles. Candles in jars hanging from trees like fireflies and carved pumpkins decorating our reception. I want twinkly lights all over the place, until it all looks like Lothl`orien from Fellowship of the Rings.

I want to honeymoon somewhere beautiful and different than Michigan but I don't have a particular spot. Maybe a posh resort in Fiji or Hawaii or perhaps a cruise to Alaska.

When I close my eyes, I see us with microphones, wailing away at Karaoke rather than dancing. Even though The Boy says no one will sing but us, I don't care. I want to sing and sing on my wedding day. I want to sing songs from the Buffy Musical and Dr Horrible and Les Miserables and Phantom of the Opera and Wicked and possibly even Flight of the Conchords. I also want to dance the Time Warp.

I could go on and on I suppose.

Facing all my ridiculous, impractical dreams, I find that some of these aren’t nearly as outlandish or impossible as they seemed when they were hiding in the cobwebby corridors of my head. Some of them would be easy to incorporate into my budget wedding. I guess sometimes we owe it to ourselves to actually suss out what we want, even if it seems illogical or impossible. You can cross things off your “dream list” when practicality raises its ugly head and demands a voice, but until then, It's perfectly lovely to dream.

Movie Review: Monsters Vs Aliens

2009-05-28T11:34:00.000-07:00

Monsters Vs Aliens has been shown in both 2-D and 3-D. I saw the 3D version with the new cool 3D glasses that let you see stuff in color instead of just red, yellow and blue.

This CGI/cartoon had so much potential. Monsters! Aliens! Campy Sci-Fi references! Girl Power! Jell-o! Instead it fizzled into space dust.

Disturbingly thin woman, Susan (voiced with dull cheeriness by Reese Witherspoon) is about to be married. Her cheesy weatherman fiancee smarms his way on the screen leading us to quickly understand that he is a bag of douche and that their marriage will not be idyllic. Susan gets hit by a meteor, glows green and grows to 49.9 feet tall while she is standing at the alter. Her wedding dress is made of some extremely forgiving stretch lycra so the kids and adults are spared some nudity that might have made the movie interesting. She is quickly wrangled by the government and sent to a facility to... uhm... to sit around with the other monsters captured by the government; Dr Cockroach (mad scientist), Insectasaurus (thinly veiled Mothra), The Missing Link (Creature from the Black Lagoon) and B.O.B (The Blob). Susan is renamed Ginormica and kept in a little cell for no good reason that I can understand. Then a crazed alien drops a giant robot in Modesto and I don't really understand why. The President trys to communicate with the aliens via some funky jams and dancing that are so weird and out of place that at first you laugh and then you go, "What the fu..." then you remember that there are supposed to be kids in the audience... then you re-remember that there is no one in this theater except for you and another couple making out in the top tier so you go ahead and say, "What the fuck?".

The goverment along with the amusing General W.R. Monger who is responsible for keeping the monsters locked up decide to unleash the monsters on the robot and then apparently, let them go free. Which... doesn't make any sense. They kept them locked up for 50 years (except for Susan) to save humanity from them and then let them go free after fighting one alien robot? I know this seems nitpicky. You want to say, 'But Miss Moppet, it's just a cartoon". Well I love cartoons and if the cartoon is amusing and witty or charming or lovable enough, those kind of plot holes can be surmountable. This movie was neither witty, nor charming so the thin plot and even thinner characterizations were tedious and left me plenty of time to nitpick it to death. How about the fact that the name of this movie is a misnomer? They are only fighting against one Alien and a particularly stupid one at that. Sure he makes clones of himself at the end to build an army but still... one alien.

The plot itself is supposed to be Grrrl Power but it's patronizing and lame. Susan has a finace who is narcissistic. She doesn't believe she can do stuff without him. Then she does stuff. Then he dumps her. Then she realizes he's a jerk and she can... you know, do stuff! Laaaaaaame. I appreciate that they used a female lead. It's very cool. She's kind of nifty and strong. But why does her personal growth (snerk) require a man? Susan is such a dishrag that even her self-actualization is boring and uninspiring.

My real problem is that they used the silliest "monsters" possible. Seriously, Dr Cockroach? I didn't care about anyone in the movie. My only real amusement came from B.O.B (voiced by Seth Rogen) and his dimwitted love affair with a fruit jello plate. That was pretty funny. Also the president and WR Monger were sort of funny and way over the top. The rest of the cast was lifeless and dull.

I will admit the CG is amazing. The scene where the monsters fight the robot over the Golden Gate Bride was very impressive and a little bit scary for the wee ones. But the 3D was pointless. It didn't add any visual interest. There is one scene with the Alien, Gallaxhar was making tea and the spoon seemed to come out from behind my head. I almost reached out to try and grab it. That was sort of neat. Ultimately, the movie was so weak that I wondered if they added the 3D as an afterthought to try and make it more interesting. The Boy's reaction was that without the 3D he would have been extremely bored.

All in all the movie had cool visuals but no heart. The thing I love about cartoons is the way they can make me feel for the characters. Bratty Lilo, Lost Boo, Lonely Wall-E, Frustrated Mr. Incredible. Those characters had heart and soul and you felt for them and their plight and it made their story worth watching more than once. Monsters Vs Aliens has cool visuals and the lamest story I've seen since the last dull Dreamworks cartoon I saw (I believe that was Madagascar). With the exception of Kung Fu Panda, Dreamworks still only grasp half the sucessful CGI formula. Their movies are stunning visually but their scripts are garbage. Dreamworks will never even be a contender to knock Disney Pixar out of the ring, if they keep creating frenetic movies filled with stunning graphics and shallow characters thrust into soulless scripts. Pointless pop culture references and confusing non-sequitors do not make for an engaging and entertaining story.

Monsters Vs Aliens was dull and lifeless and the 3D just made it look desperate. Booooo Dreamworks. Epic fail.

Wishing everyone a safe and happy Memorial Day

2009-05-25T13:03:00.000-07:00

This is not a review per se, though I do have a recommendation for you. I have to explain something to you, loyal readers. I have never celebrated Memorial Day. I always viewed it
(along with the 4th of July) as one of those sappy patriotic holidays that seeks to spread the propaganda that war and murder are heroic. I am a hippie dippy liberal and I don't believe that war is the answer.

In that same vein I refuse to watch movies about war or read books about war. I'm incapable of grasping even the most basic of military strategies which is why I'm worse than useless when role-playing battle scenes. Characters, I understand. Battle... not so much.

So this weekend for some unknown reason, I finally agreed to watch "Band of Brothers" with The Boy. It's his favorite DVD and I've put it off for two years. Band of Brothers is a ten part HBO miniseries about a group of men known as "Easy Company" from the 101 Airborne during WWII. The miniseries is based on the book by the same name by Stephen E Ambrose. Each episode started with real interviews from the men. The episodes are threaded together by the actual time line of the war but each episode is insular, focusing sometimes on the men of the company, sometimes on the "replacements" or the men who were sent to fill in the ranks for those who had died and one of my favorite episodes focused on the medics who were as close to guardian angels as anybody walking the earth.

It was a very intense mini-series and I didn't really understand all the military strategy and all that, but what I did get, was a sense of who the men were who so desperately wanted to stand up and fight for their country. The ways in which they were rewarded and they ways in which they were hideously used by their country were riveting. Friends watching as friends got their legs blown off and having to get up and keep fighting. Nervous soldiers accidentally firing on their own men. It was just stuff I had never really thought about. It wasn't loaded with propoganda that "War is Great" but rather sought to capture the spirit of people who fought. One of my favorite scenes was after the war was over and the Germans had surrendered, the show focused on a German general addressing his men and thanking them for all their hard work and their bravery in the face of so much. He tells them to go home and wishes them "long and happy lives of peace". I appreciated that the series sought very hard to show that people on both sides were human beings who were simply fighting for their countries.

I couldn't find a link to an interview with "Shifty" Powers who states that he thinks perhaps the Germans were not so different from him and that in better circumstances, they could have been friends. I can only imagine how difficult it is to say, these people that I was paid to kill, could have been my friends and could have been good men too. I think it would be understandable to keep an idea in your head that the men you killed (and who killed your friends) were animals or evil, because it would make it easier to sleep at night. The ability to look back and acknowledge the fact that you were humans fighting humans requires (in my mind) a kind of bravery that I have never had to have in my life.

So after I watched it, I felt like I had a bit of a new understanding about war. Then I went La La La on my merry way. Then today on NPR they were interviewing authors who had written about soldiers coming home and how they cope and I found myself paying attention. I paid attention to the fact that today was Memorial Day and I paid attention to the stories I was being told. I know it is utterly cliche and terribly shallow that it required a movie to make me start thinking about soldiers in a new light, but there it is.

Today I find myself thinking about my granddad, Irving, who was a CMoMM in the Navy in WWII and and I am also thinking of The Boy's grandfathers, Billy who served in the Army in WWII and Danny who was in the Navy as well in WWII. I think about the purple hearts that were encased in glass in my home growing up and how I looked at them all the time, but I never asked what they meant.

My own granddad Irving was a mean old SOB with a foul temper and more than once in a fit of anger, swiped everything off the kitchen table because my grandmother forgot to put the salt shaker out. I wonder now, what nightmares he brought back with him from the war and whether he was always like that, or whether the angry man I had known was a victim, a casualty of a war that many people thought was over. I think maybe for the soldiers, the war goes on forever and no one else can ever really understand that. Here is the end interviews with the real soldiers that were featured in the movie talking about war:

If you have time, I highly suggest Band of Brothers. It was enlightening. I usually waste my time reading about celebrities and writing about things that don't matter at all, so I find myself humbled to learn so much about people who gave up much of themselves to try to make the world a better place.

Happy Memorial Day. Don't just eat hot dogs and go to 40% off sales today. Hug a Veteran. Visit a vetrans grave. Take a moment and think of all you have and how many people have fought so hard for you to keep it.

Rental Review: Iron Man

2009-05-15T09:50:00.001-07:00

Movie Rental Review: Iron Man

A caveat: We rent at lot of DVDs at Casa De Moppet. We don't even get the most basic of TV channels since we live in an aluminum house. Plus we are too lazy to go to the theater and see new releases. For these reason, many of my movie reviews will be a big "duh" because they aren't timely. I'm reviewing rentals that you've probably already seen and so consequently, you don't give a crap about my uninformed opinion. Oh well. I never miss a chance to spout my uninformed opinion, whether you give a crap or not, so deal.

Anyhow, on with the review!

We rented Iron Man. Now I have a love/hate relationship with superhero movies. I think they have to be done JUST SO. So my initial reaction to this movie was one of eye rolls and snorts of disbelief.

I think my problem with this movie was that the early parts are frighteningly relatable considering our ongoing "war on terror". I was engaged in that part of the story. Tony Stark's charismatic and slick attitude was really intriguing. He was both charming and a bit repugnant. So when Tony gets kidnapped by terrorists, I was on the edge of my seat. Terrorism and war and people killing for power are current issues that resonate. So imagine my disgust when a genius with all the tools and smarts to build some easy to handle weapons and escape from the terrorists, decides to build a very cumbersome suit that shoots fire instead.

Yeah.

The first half of the movie couldn't get me to suspend my disbelief. The director and the writers just didn't do a very good job of making the transition from real life issues to costumed superhero. X-Men has always been a great example of using real life politics and history to stunning effect. There is a good balance between the fantastical elements of superheroes and the complicated political elements of racism and genocide. The very real feeling of war in the desert made the superhero element feel jarring.

I will say that this movie is pretty funny. Sadly it also dragged ass through scenes that needed to be cut for length, and then it rushed through other scenes where it was funny and tender and I wanted it to linger a big longer. By the time they got around to softening Tony up and trying to make him feel like a real person with real feelings, I was disengaged.

Now all these complaints aside, Robert Downey Jr was GREAT. He made the movie worth watching. My issue was With the director and the writer. As a matter of fact I thought all the acting was exceptionnal. I was even amused by Gwyneth "Goop" Paltrow, who I usually find to be totally insufferable.

My favorite part of the moview as Iron Man's take-off pose. I cracked up every time he landed or took off. The way he bends his hands out like a lady about to curtsy is the fruitiest thing I've ever seen an action hero do. I laughed and laughed.

So the acting made it great, the plodding direction and silliness made it suck and it comes out somewhere in the middle of nowhere for me. If I had cable and was up late eating a bowl of Cap'n Crunch and avoiding sleep, and Iron Man was on television I'd probably watch it again. You know, if X-Men wasn't on another channel.

Thumbs up!

2009-05-15T08:44:00.000-07:00

What do you think is the most brilliant recent invention? Some might say teh interweb. Some might say hybrid cars. I say, it's french fry coated hot dogs. Who is right? You be the judge.

Yuuuum, click this link and salivate

I want these in the U.S. ... STAT. It's a matter of national security.

Book Review: Bitter is the New Black

2009-05-14T19:19:00.000-07:00

Book review

Bitter is the New Black : Confessions of a Condescending, Egomaniacal, Self-Centered Smartass, Or, Why You Should Never Carry A Prada Bag to the Unemployment Office by Jen Lancaster

What I learned from this book? Hype won't make you talented but it will sell your novel. I had wanted to read this book for ages. The title is hilarious. The back cover blurb was promising as was the opening chapter. What I ultimately found was a mildly sarcastic, deplorable exercise in self-congratulatory narcissism.

Jen Lancaster had to give up her snooty life of privileged luxury when she lost her job in the dot com crash of the late nineties. Soon her boyfriend lost his job and together they lost their sweet loft and high end lifestyle.

Jen wants to be our modern day Scarlett O' Hara, whom we can hate and love equally because of her pluckiness and strong spirit. The difference is of course, that Scarlett somehow managed to be both bratty and charming. Also Scarlett never pretended to herself that she'd learned a damn thing, which is part of what made her so endearing. Jen wants us to like her bitchy, mean- spirited self and also buy that she has become a better, more understanding person who finally understands what it is like to be poor. The problem is she learned nothing and she is just as awful and mean-spirited as she ever was, only she wants to desperately believe she's changed in some fundamental way.

The book is written as though it were taken direct from Jen's blog to the page with nary an ounce of revision. The first aggravation is the use of footnotes. Often the footnotes could have easily been part of the narrative. Instead they were jarring and didn't bring anything new or interesting to the book. Author Paul Feig used footnotes in his autobiographical book Superstud to very funny effect by using them along with his teen journal entries. So I think they can work, but they didn't work here because they just weren't very funny. Which was my second problem with this book. Overall, it was poorly executed and the writing just wasn't very good.

I will grant that there WERE some very funny moments. I loved the scene where Jen is explaining to a room full of her colleagues, how she tricked a homeless man into giving her a designer bag in exchange for wasabi peas. It was horrible but pretty damn funny.

Unfortunately from there, the book suffers from Jen-itis. She is short sighted and often thinks her snobbishness is endearing. It might have been in small doses. In one big meal, it gave me indigestion. She is hateful and a wee bit racist. Also most of her misfortune was her own doing. I wasn't rooting for her, and I am someone who will root for a serial killer, if the story is told right.

I very much wanted to like this book, but Jen didn't change or grow as much as she thinks she did. No amount of snappy wit made me like her.

When I originally wrote this review, someone yelled at me because in this last paragraph I called Jen "Hitler in Prada" and referenced that fact that although Hitler did terrible things, he also had a good sense of humor and was a notorious practical joker but that didn't make him less of an jerk and that Jen shared this fate. Somone took offense to my insinuation that Jen Lancaster was as bad as Hitler and I have to take it back. I was trying to take the long way around my main issue with the book but ulimately I took that criticism and will end the review with my real opinion. Here it is:

I did not enjoy this book because it's about Jen Lancaster and as it turns out, Jen Lancaster is an asshole.

Book Review: Claiming the Courtesan

2009-05-14T18:53:00.001-07:00

Book Review

Claiming the Courtesan by Anna Campbell
Genre: Romance

This book was disturbing. It is about darkness, control and insanity and it handles those topics sort of well. Sad that the ending fell completely flat.

Beautiful Soraya is a courtesan and The Duke of Kylemore, Justin Kinmurrie has been obsessed with her for years. After finally possessing her for one year, he asks her to marry him and is shocked to be turned down. She disappears and he spends months searching high and low for her, ruining himself socially in the process. When he finds her, she has gone back to her real name, Verity and is living a life he views as banal and beneath the glorious and sensual Soraya. For her part Verity wants to leave behind her sordid past and make a life for herself and her siblings. He kidnaps her, keeping her in an isolated and frightening castle while he rapes her, first to break her as he felt broken when she left and later to try and bring their relationship back to where it was before she left London.

This book started off fascinating and disturbing and ended up cliche and silly. It felt to me that the writer had intended a dark and sensuous erotic novel but was forced to shove in a romantic story into it, that never quite fit. I buy that these two people could love each other. Verity has been a life long victim and self-martyr. Justin's insanity and obsession are frightening and beautifully rendered early on in the book.

The initial sex act between the two characters after her abduction has been argued about incessantly on boards and in blogs. Is it rape? This makes me crazy. I read the book and I say, did she say no? Yes she did. Did he have sex with her despite her protests? Yes? Then it's rape my dears. You can couch it in whatever way makes you comfortable but it is indeed rape. Whether a woman orgasms is not an indicator of whether or not a violation occurred. An orgasm is a biological byproduct of friction. Many rape victims in real life orgasm and they are ashamed of this reaction. I find it very tiresome to read books that make it seem as if the ORGASM indicates love. It does not. It indicates friction building to sensation that peaks. Whether you want the sex is a separate issue. Rape is a violation of choice.

The author did an admirable job early on building the tension and isolation. The concept of control and who has it was explored but ultimately the Duke has SO MUCH more control than Verity that I couldn't really feel anything for him. His insanity was built up for a big reveal that ended up cliche and emotionally flat. I felt no sympathy for him and instead read the book feverishly panicked and afraid for Verity.

While I got nothing out of the "romance" I was mesmerized by most of the writing. The author has amazing potential and paints a sweeping and vivid portrait. I'm curious as to what she will write in the future and I would definitely read future writings. I do feel as though the themes she explored were not typical of romance and indeed did not feel romantic to me. Love and romance are two different things and these two people were way too damaged for me to truly believe that they were destined for a frolicking ponies and glitter dust happy ending.

Speaking of endings, the last 76 pages turn this disturbing and emotional work into silly parody of the worst cheesy romances from the eighties. One peripheral character becomes a caricature of evil and is there only as a plot device to finally bring the main characters together. These last pages are so out of sync with the rest of the novel I really believe the writer hadn't intended to write a "romance" in a true sense of the word, but that a publisher didn't know how to market this dark and dreary tale of lust and violence so they said, "make it a romance and tack on a happy ending!"

This book had potential but it reminded me of a table I once owned. It was a gorgeous and heavy glass top table with the wimpiest, most spindly legs I've ever seen. It wobbled when you looked at it. This book had some gorgeous and moving prose but ultimately the weight of the hefty emotional drama couldn't be sustained by the barely-there eroticism and puny love story underneath. Eventually the heavy weight of its emotions crushed everything beneath it and left a book that was more rubble than romance.