Einundzwanzig

ONEMONTH.ONEMONTH.ONEMONTH.

One.


More.


Month.


YES.




Any suggestions for the first legal boisson alcoolique?

Project RunYAY

The premiere is less than ten hours away. I caved and watched the casting special last night and I. Am. PSYCHED.

And a premature boo on you, Off-the-grid Ohio Angela.

Fop Rave: Sia

I am utterly in love with Sia's music video for the song "Sunday". It's hilarious and heartbreaking and completely suspended in this crazy dreamworld. I've loved her as Zero 7's go-to chanteuse, and she seems to be getting a lot of play since she was featured on Six Feet Under. Her solo stuff sounds amazing too--definitely on my to-purchase list along with the new, and evidently rather upbeat, Zero 7 album.

Watch the video. Funniest/saddest part is around 00:40 when the guy unexpectedly slaps her. I can't help but make a "biff!"sound every time I see it. The impromptu waxing looks pretty ouch, too.

Sia's "Sunday" via YouTube.

Emmys Eh-dendum

You know, I was thinking about how I feel so outside the realm of popular television. There are so many trendy shows that I have absolutely no interest in watching no matter how popular they are in my age cohort. Grey's Anatomy, House, Prison Break, The Sopranos, 24, The West Wing, the list goes on and on and on.

My working theory is that there is a combination of my inherent disinterest in the shows and the non-presence of such programs in my friends' television repertoires. And who am I mostly friends with? Queers and queer-friendly hets. Gay people don't watch these shows. At least the people I'm familiar with don't. The programs of my people are reality shows like Project Runway and America's Next Top Model.

[Aside story: At the club this past Friday, I was pulled over by some Random Gay who was trying to settle some Top Model related dispute with his friends. He said, "Excuse me, do you by any chance watch America's Next Top Model?" I didn't even give a verbal response, instead choosing to give him a downward look of "Girl, please." To his credit, he apologized, saying "Oh I'm sorry. Of course." See? One should just assume that a fellow gay is familiar with such things.]

Sure, we also have our Desperate Housewives, Six Feet Under, Sex and the City, and popular shows that have that wink-wink of gay interest. I don't know, maybe I'm totally off and I'm just trying to justify my pickiness when it comes to teevee, but it seems at least partially true. When I read gay blogs like Queerty, there are no interviews or stories related to Prison Break, but I can be damn sure to get the latest in all things Tim Gunn. I like having my own television niche, albeit a stereotypically dandified one, and I wouldn't have it any other way.

The Eh-mmys: An Unfocused Rant

The 2006 Emmy Awards...

...oh who cares?

Serial. I don't really have a lot of investment in the awards, being the only person I know who was born between the years of 1981 and 1989 who has never seen an episode of Grey's Anatomy. Ditto 24, Entourage, and House. And are we really still handing nominations out to Will & Grace and Malcolm in the Middle? I don't even know anyone who still watches those shows. Why not show some more Arrested Development love? I am, however, happy about the Desperate Houswives snubbaroo and the inclusion of Kathy Griffin the reality show category. (And the subsequent exclusion of the sinking ship known as The Apprentice.) The tagline of the whole Emmy broadcast should just be, "Hey, at least it's not the Grammys!"

More important: (Emmy nominated) Project Runway starts on Wednesday. Wee!

You Can't Spell "Bum Wine" Without "Numb"

I hate when you have an awkward run-in with someone akin to something you would see in an indie movie or a multi-camera sitcom. That's how I felt the other day. Sitting in one of my favorite cafés, a (presumably) homeless man came and sat at my table, and you know, I don't even like it when a not-totally-distant acquaintance does that. So he starts talking to me and I feel the pangs of lower-middle-class collegiate guilt when I don't have anything more than $0.23 to give him. He mumbles a lot, and there is a lot of silence and staring at each other. Finally when I make a motion to leave he breaks the silence, saying something about my mom and me being a punk. Then he slurs that "[he's] never hurt anyone before" and reaches inside his coat pocket. My heart rate goes up thricefold at this point, not knowing what sharpened or possibly blunt objet trouvé he plans to beat my punky self with. I see a glimmer of light, and he pulls out...



Oh, Mad Dog. I wish this was the first time I was afraid of you. And to the guy's (non?)credit, he actually was in posession of the green colored variety of Mad Dog, whose actual flavor escapes me. (Kiwi? Wasabi?) The green colored MD is by far the worst tasting. The best would have to be Blue, which even has the "Bling Bling" design on the front of the bottle for added class.

Mad Dog. I was introduced to MD last summer after previously sticking to the high road of bum wines known as Boone's Farm. The appeal of MD to me was in its doubled amount of alcohol and myriad of colors. The downside comes when one actually drinks the stuff. Whew. Yeech. But I could stomach the stuff for a good blitzing, especially when it involves putting on plastic jewelry or yelling expletives at Stacy London while having a What Not To Wear pre-party.

As of late, however, MD has been difficult to enjoy. One memorable experience came late last semester when I thought it would be fun to enjoy my Thursday night solitude by watching Food Network and sipping a styrofoam cup of red-flavored MD. Well, considering I only had eight-ounce cups, refills happened often. And then the drunk Facebooking started. And then I think I managed to roll under my futon. And then it was 9:45 A.M. and I was dry-heaving while washing my face and prepping for a fun, sober day of classes.

A few weeks ago I gave it another shot, foolishly picking up the green flavor. I was able to drink to, oh, where the neck of the bottle stops and traded it in for a vodka-and-Squirt.

The point of all this is...I don't know. I would like to see Mad Dog take a leap forward in our cultural zeitgeist. For all of the tears and joy and tears of joy it has brought me, I think more people should be aware of its magic. Thank you, Mad Dog 20/20. It's been a bumpy road, but I wouldn't trade it for the world.

(But I would trade you for another vodka-and-Squirt.)

Submitted For Your Approval

Typically when I'm flipping through teevee channels on a Sunday afternoon I don't expect any sort of exciting programs to grab my attention. However, I did get a little jolt of happiness this weekend when I noticed something in black-and-white being broadcast on Sci-Fi Network. Because that can only mean one thing, folks: The Twilight Zone. And not only that, but because of the 4th of July holiday it means it's time for the semi-annual TZ marathon. (The other being at New Year's. Seriously, I don' t remember a New Year's when I didn't pre-party by watching TZ until like 9:00 PM.)

ANYway, I get excited by this semi-annually because I? Loves me some Twilight Zone. I could watch them over and over again, and that includes the replayed-to-death episodes like Talking Tina and the one with Endora fighting off the little astronauts. And of course there's the best episode ever, namely the one with evil little psychic Will Robinson wishing his family into the cornfield. SO trippy. ("That was a good thing you did, wasn't it now.") And I totally have a dorky crush on Rod Serling, his Bert-inspiring unibrow notwithstanding.

Sure like half of the episodes are crap. I have a hard time watching a lot of the historical ones, especially if the Civil War is involved. Or any of the too preachy ones, or the ones that are too child-centric. And sometimes I wonder how they even dragged out the episode for a mere twenty-two minutes. "Stopover in a Quiet Town" comes to mind as combining don't-drink-and-drive preachiness with a concept that stretches for all of six minutes. ("Gee, I bet it's a dollhouse. Oh look, I'm right.")

But most of the time The Twilight Zone holds up, even after forty or fifty years. Yeah they're predictable most of the time, but this was the first time a lot of these stories were told. Plus, you have to give the show credit for being successful and culturally relevant despite no consistent cast of actors. The show serves its purpose of creating entertaining adaptations of short stories and screenplays. It's meant to be brief, suspenseful, and memorable. Hey, and if The Simpsons parodies something for no less than five episodes, it has to be something worthwhile.

Addendum: Hyped Just Right

In an effort to seem slightly more satisfied with the state of the world, here's a brief list of everything in the world that is actually worthy of its hype.

Deservingly Hyped
tulips
aluminum foil
Augusten Burroughs
video games
chai (iced, skim)
good music acts heavily promoted on mtvU and on college radio (see: Gnarls, The Go! Team, Lady Sovereign)
falafel
Adult Swim
community service
solid colored tees
grapefruit juice
spelling words the traditional English way (e.g. neighbour, cheque)
working
Amy Sedaris
crunk cups
Hugh Jackman's hotttnezz as Wolverine
panda bears
the campiness of Showgirls
sunglasses (not at night)
drinking games
nachos (while drinking)

This Week in Hype

Self-explanatory. Thanks to James for the contributions, as well as for the delightfully crappy Before and Afters.

Underhyped
American Apparel tees
tonic water
Canada
pears
Lifetime Original Movies
bizarre short stories
thinking of Before and Afters that don't really work (see: "Merkin Mindy")
wizards, geniuses
star wipes
pre-partying with Sparks Plus
Lily Tomlin
the hook of that new AFI song (I know. The song sucks. The band sucks. Sucky suck. But it's been in my head incessantly.)
Catherine O'Hara
the occasional cigarette
penny-farthings

Overhyped
sudoku
William Hurt
yogurt (but not the word yoghurt)
scarves in summer
music described as "power pop"
Michael Kors's snarkiness
punctuation! in band names
masculine things
those Matthew Barney films
martinis
taking up causes for "the children"
Anderson Cooper (Yeah, I said it.)
pseudo-ironic appreciation of Journey
hats

Grover, Brother

For the past week or so I've kind of been testing out a theory I've had for a long time. Well, I guess it's not exactly a theory per se. It's just something I've always assumed without even giving it much thought. And recently when the subject came up I was shocked that others disagreed with me since it has always made so much sense. So here it is:




Grover from Sesame Street is black.

Don't let the azure furriness deceive you, if you were to transplant the Muppets into the real world complete with corresponding ethnicities, Grover would no doubt in my mind be African-American. And I completely admit that I have no idea why this is true. I have been and will always be the whitest person to roam God's good Earth, but I have never thought of Grover as not being black. So imagine my surprise when my (typically) rational coworkers vehemently disagreed with me, calling Grover everything from "white" to "Mexican" to "Armenian". No, no, and no. As one of my few agreeing peers stated (and I paraphrase): "Grover being black is like Bert and Ernie being gay. It's not acknowledged, but you still accept it as true."

I suppose the overarching question here is, am I really crazy? Was there something wrong with my four-year-old brain that would make me transplant human ethnicities onto characters with seemingly nonexistent social identities? Or did Frank Oz have some sort of covert Muppet-racializing agenda? Is there really a monster at the end of the book? We may never know the answers, but I think we're heading in the right direction.

Reason #926 Why I Need To Put Down The Book Of Crossword Puzzles

I recently used the word ersatz in casual conversation. Shut up, me.

For reals, this has replaced serious reading in my life. Bright side: it's still not as shameful as Sudoku.

A Case of Bad Nostalgia

When I was younger, there were certain things in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s cultural milieu that were kind of awesome, like Tang and McRibs. And yet sometimes even the awesomest of things don’t really hold up over time, much like Tang and McRibs.

Recently, thanks to digital cable, I’ve discovered that the old Nickelodeon game show Finders Keepers can be filed under such a category. I seriously remember this game show being the shit. Contestants got to tear apart a huge fake house searching for wacky items while wacky things happened usually involving ping pong balls. After a few recent viewings, it turns out Finders Keepers is actually one of the suckiest game shows ever produced.

Okay, so the first round is pretty much a glorified round of Highlights hidden pictures but with Colorforms, which is about as interesting as your average issue of Highlights. And then when the kids get to search the house it’s just…painful. There is absolutely nothing interesting about watching clueless people search for shit. Most of the entertainment that can be obtained from the show is from to the host’s arrant contempt for children. Well that and the typical displays of kid stupidity. It’s all just kind of disappointing. And you know a show is bad when it makes Nick Arcade, a game show that is completely reliant on the viewer’s desire to watch other people play video games, look like a well-crafted and gripping competition.

Hakuna Matata

I have recently discovered the answer to the age-old question: is it possible to have a compelling reality show with no human characters? Yes, it turns out, and I have been shown the way by Animal Planet's Meerkat Manor.

Narrated by Sean "Peter Jackson be damned, he'll always be Rudy to me" Astin, the show is an ongoing documentary of the Whiskers, a family of wild meerkats watched incessantly by self-activating cameras. All of your typical characters are there: the overbearing mother, the passively protective father, the rebellious teenage daughter, and a gaggle of cute little ones. I went in to MM reasonably skeptical and unwilling, but then you just get sucked in by the cuteness. And there are actually plots and subplots! The courageous son Shakespeare was bitten by an adder and has been hanging in death's balance for a few suspenseful episodes now. Daughter Tosca gets knocked up against her mother's will. A rival family infringes on the Whiskers' territory. Those Lost writers could learn a thing or two from the meerkats about suspense and plot advancement.

The show airs on Animal Planet Fridays at 8, making it the perfect alternative to that What Not To Wear episode you've already seen eighty-three times.

Every Lush Has His Day

OMG.

Two months until the 21st birthday. The blessed day draws nigh. The underage clouds will soon part and give way to the glorious liquid enlightenment. I will imbibe the sweet nectar that has been denied to me by my cruel government oppressors. I will cavort on that day and all others in serenely legal inebriation.

Get excited. And get me a drink while you're up.

The Freshmaker: Armed Forces, Adhesives, and A-List Crotch Fruit

Fresh: Navy
Fresh Last Week: Air Force
Stale: Army

Fresh: Surgical tape

FLW: Gaffers tape

Stale: Scotch tape

Fresh: Shiloh Jolie-Pitt
FLW: Suri Holmes-Cruise
Stale: What's-his-face-doesn't-even-stand-a-chance Weisz-Aronofsky

Everyone's A Little Bit Racist

Oh, Crash.

Just when I thought you were done being everything from a popcult buzzword to a topic of contention in just about all my classes this past semester, here you go resurfacing from your deserved semi-obscurity to adulterate my life once again. Part of the program I work with involves showing The Best Picture Of The Year in order to stimulate dialogue and yada yada. I get it. It's a good film for that sort of thing.

I just feel so...so conflicted about the whole thing. I saw The Best Picture Of The Year last summer with Kaite and liked it and cried appropriately and all that. Then I joined the backlash, and then the exacerbated backlash following its win for Best Picture Of The Year. And now that I have to watch it (though thankfully not the whole thing) repeatedly this summer, I just don't know how to feel.

It's a good movie, and it's plenty entertaining. It raises issues people may not think about all the time. And I even find myself tearing up watching short segments of the movie. But then there's all of the uber-drama and the universalizing of racism and the subsequent downplaying of white racism against people of color and bling blah blee. I mean, I guess I don't hate The Best Picture Of The Year as much as I did a few months ago, and certainly not as much as Annie Proulx, and I feel guilty for not hating so much. Is there a support group for people who can't make up their minds about The Best Picture Of The Year and feel an obligation to have a firm negative stance on the film?

I don't know. I'll just blame Loretta Devine because I will watch anything that she's in. Plus, she was the only actress who more-than-made-up for Michael Rapaport's presence on Boston Public.

Unicorns

Oh. Emgee. When will Threadless stop being awesome?

For cereal, the birthday's only two-ish months away. Maybe I'll impose a Threadless swag-or-alcohol-only rule on gifts.

Happy Playlist

Here is my can't-fail, happy mood, sunny mid-day June playlist. Give it a try before you judge it as too typical. (As I'm sure you've already scrolled down and thought, "Bloc Party? Really, Mike? Really?"). But this stuff gets me happy and dancing in the middle of the day and realizing that life is fun, especially when the sun is out. Yay, happy.

"Golden", Jill Scott
"Happy", Fischerspooner
"Something Good", Utah Saints
"Feel Good Hit of the Fall", !!!
"Bottle Rocket", The Go! Team
"Boom, Boom, Boom, Boom", Vengaboys
"The Greatest Hit", Annie
"Banquet", Bloc Party
"Ladyflash", The Go! Team
"Ticket to the Tropics", Cristina
"Easy", Morningwood
"Three or Four", The New Pornographers
"Cloud", Fischerspooner
"Chess King", Freezepop
"In My Arms", Mylo
"Vending Machine," Hyperbubble
"You Gotta Know", Fannypack

Last Loser Standing

Theo? Whaaa?

Is he funny or something? I don't get it.

Candy Review: Oh Henry!

This summer I have the fortune to live only mere paces away from a frequently-stocked vending machine, meaning that I can delight in candy confections all I want at all times of the day and night. My eye is always drawn to the bright yellow wrapper of the Oh Henry! bar but I never get it because...well because who ever really wants an Oh Henry! bar? I've never had one, but yesterday my curiosity got the better of me.

Okay. First offense: it's separated into two stout, rectangular bars. And truthfully, if you ain't Mounds, you can't pull that shit off. It's chocolate coated nougat and caramel, but the nougat is so thick that I had to chew it rather forcefully for more time than I would have cared. Also, it's just not that tasty. James referred to it as an "old people candy bar" and it totally is. Because it's totally not good. The chocolate and nougat taste cheap. But points for the annoyingly endearing name and wrapper.

Overall grade: C- (I would rank it slightly lower than a Bun)