Category Archive

When my mother-in-law was up here (taking care of the kids while Sugar Daddy and I were on our vacation), she brought with her some People magazines.  I don’t often read People magazine because it is too stupid to pay money for and the doctors’ offices I frequent subscribe only to periodicals such as Parenting, Golf Digest and Sunset.  Seriously, who reads Golf Digest?  I can just barely get my head around someone wanting to play golf.  The entertainment value of watching golf thoroughly eludes me, and the allure of reading about golf–well, to be honest, it almost makes me angry to think about it.  It’s like they want me to commit suicide in their waiting room.  Whatever.

So I read People magazine only occasionally, but I do read it even though it’s stupid.  It’s a stupid magazine, and I’m stupid for reading it, and it’s especially stupid for me to read it these days, because I have no clue who most of these celebrities are anymore.  Do you realize that it was only a matter of weeks ago that I realized that Mylie Cyrus and Hannah Montana were the same person?  And I still don’t know why Jessica Simpson is famous.  It used to bother me that I couldn’t figure that out because she was just constantly staring at me from multiple angles in the checkout aisle, and who the freak was she? Anyway, it’s just funny because as a teenager, I was very wrapped up in popular culture, at least in the sense of being knowledgeable about it.  I’m sure it was a source of pride for me, though in retrospect I have no idea why, except that people are stupid, and I’m a person.  But I digress.

I think it’s largely because I don’t watch television anymore.  It’s not like I’m all high-minded and too good to watch television.  I’m not even too good to watch bad television.  And that’s the problem.  I realize there are quality programs on the television.  I enjoy the quality programs, but I prefer watching them on DVD because every time I watch television television, I’m reminded that television is the idiot box, and I am an idiot for watching it.  I don’t like commercials, but it isn’t the advertisements for merchandise and so forth that I mind so much; it’s the commercials for other television shows that just drive me up the wall.  I can’t explain it, but I am severely troubled by the knowledge that so many people tune in to watch Deal or No Deal.  Why does the existence of that show bother me so much, when I’ve never seen it?  I don’t know. It’s not like there aren’t probably hundreds of programs that are ten times more offensive.  (Moment of Truth springs to mind.  Is that thing still on?  You know, everyone involved in that show is going to hell.  I don’t take pleasure in other people’s damnation, but facts are facts.)

Another thing is that I don’t really listen to contemporary music on the radio anymore–because I am old and don’t understand the stuff kids listen to these days.  My only exposure to contemporary pop music is what my husband finds himself singing in the shower (against his better judgment).  It’s funny, you know–Princess Zurg was complaining to me the other day that they had a karaoke activity at school and she was embarrassed because she didn’t know any of the songs.  PZ has always preferred classical music, but she still managed to shift the blame to poor parenting:  “I don’t know any popular music because all my Dad listens to is heavy metal.”  (She is unfamiliar with his shower routine, if that didn’t go without saying.)  I said she couldn’t really blame me because I’m not allowed to listen to the music I like except when no one else is around.  (”It’s not my fault your taste in music is crap.”–SD) Her classmates were particularly dumbfounded that she’d never heard of Madonna.  I told her she was lucky, that most people only dream of not knowing who Madonna is, but she didn’t see it that way.  She’s still wondering how she can bone up on popular music without actually having to listen to it.

I have really digressed from my original point.  Which was…?  I was reading People magazine, and I think it was that 100 Most Beautiful People issue, which I enjoy because I don’t have to know who the people are to see whether or not they are beautiful.  The one section that gave me pause this time around was the one that had beautiful celebrities not wearing any make-up.  On the one hand, I’m totally in favor of showing celebrities without their make-up.  People need to understand that no one looks that awesome just rolling out of bed.  Except, of course, for these totally gorgeous women profiled in People magazine without their make-up on!  Well, they still had professional photographers and, uh, good lighting, so whatever.  Don’t hate them because they’re beautiful without their make-up on.  But anyway, I was reading the People magazine, and they had a short article on Jennifer Aniston’s new romance with John Mayer, who I understand is a singer of some sort.  Well, I know exactly what sort of singer he is, actually.  He’s the cat who sang that “Your Body Is a Wonderland” song, which I hate.  I get him confused sometimes with James Blunt, who sang that “You’re Beautiful” song, which I only know about because Nicole Parker did a parody of that music video on the Mad TV, and that was too disturbing to be forgotten.  Why do I get these two singers confused?  Maybe because they both suck.  Who knows?

Anyway, John Mayer is dating Jennifer Aniston, and according to some nameless person representing one or both of them, it’s been going on for several weeks and “it’s very real.”  Did you get that?  “It’s very real.”  As opposed to all those other six-week-long relationships that are just made-up and phony.  I’m sorry.  “It’s very real”?  What the hell does that even mean, when you’re talking about a matter of weeks?  Sure, I was engaged to SD after a mere eight weeks of dating, but even at that stage I don’t think it would have occurred to me to describe our relationship as “very real.”  Because what does that even mean?  I know I already asked that, but seriously–what does it mean???  I guess it’s supposed to mean that they’re serious.  Probably they’ve been seen “canoodling” in public, which I hear is what you do when you’re famous and your love is “very real.”  Not that I begrudge Jennifer Aniston any happiness–or John Mayer, for that matter; you don’t have to be a decent songwriter to be a good person–but apparently I am deeply troubled by the idea of people actually giving a rat’s patootie whether Jennifer Aniston and John Mayer’s relationship is “very real,” or something different.

Speaking of “very real” and “not very real,” I was going to mention, yet again, that I don’t go to movies much, and that is another reason why I am clueless about popular culture.  I go to the movies so rarely anymore that I have hardly any awareness of what movies are even out there.  There again, it’s the television, or lack thereof.  I only know about movies that I read about in the “summer blockbuster preview” or “Oscar season preview” section of the newspaper.  I used to know about movies that got reviewed in Newsweek, but I don’t read Newsweek anymore, so whatever.  Anyway, I don’t get excited about movie openings, in general.  I like movies, and I like watching movies–I really do–but I don’t get all excited about seeing the big movies as soon as they come out.  My mother-in-law is very into the movie openings.  She dresses up in costume to see movie openings.  Which is fine, you know, I think people don’t get dressed up enough these days, so if she wants to put on a pirate outfit to go to the Pirates of the Caribbean show, that’s totally cool, as far as I’m concerned.  You know, if I went with her, I might put on an eye patch myself, just to be festive.  I’m not entirely devoid of whimsy.  I’m just saying, it’s not my usual thing.  I just don’t have that much emotional investment in box-office openings.  Ordinarily.

Which is why it’s so disconcerting to realize that I am just chomping at the bit (figuratively, as I don’t have a literal bit handy for chomping) to see the new X-Files movie that comes out July 25.  You can tell I’m excited because I actually know the date, and I am planning to get a babysitter so I can see it that very same freaking day because I cannot wait, no, I cannot wait any longer than that.  I’ve in the middle of (re)-watching Season 5 (courtesy Netflix), and I can’t believe I forgot how much I freaking love this show.  I missed so much of it after I moved out of my parents’ house and didn’t have a TV anymore.  I used to go over to my parents’ house just to watch it, but then my mother died, and my dad doesn’t like the X-Files (whatever, old man), and I got married and still didn’t have a TV, but fortunately my MIL was an X-Files fan and would tape the shows for us, but then we moved to Oregon and it wasn’t feasible to have her send us tapes in the mail–well, it may have been feasible, but I was a grown-up and it would have been ridiculous–and I didn’t see the last two seasons at all, which didn’t seem like a big deal at the time because David Duchovny was gone by then, and I thought it might suck, but now I’m rambling.  It’s just that I’m really, totally excited to see the new movie because I had given up hope that it was ever going to be made, but now it has been made, and I will be seeing it in just a matter of weeks!  It’s like Christmas!  Only better, because I don’t have to bake cookies or send any greeting cards!

I might bake cookies, though, just for the joy of it.

I’ve watched the trailer for X-Files:  I Want To Believe several times now.  You know what I want to believe?  I want to believe that it is not the stupidest title for a movie that Chris Carter could ever come up with.  I want to believe that it’s going to be awesome.  I want to believe that I’m not going to become so obsessed in my anticipation that I break protocol and start reading plot spoilers on the internet.  I want to believe that David Duchovny is as hot as he was ten years ago, but from the looks of the trailer, I’m wise not to put all my eggs in that basket.  (No offense to Mr. Duchovny, who, in all fairness, is pushing 50–still a good-looking man, but apparently going more the Robert Redford aging route than the Paul Newman.  That’s okay, Duke.  You enjoy your life.  We’re both happily married, anyway.)  Gillian Anderson is still smokin’, though.  Hot-cha! Maybe in honor of the premiere, I will dye my hair red.  Except that I’ve already dyed it red.  Maybe I’ll dye it redder.  And start carrying a revolver.

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Seriously, dude, shave and a haircut–would it kill you?

I didn’t think so.

I don’t take the daily paper anymore, so I’m not up on the comic page controversies.  Apparently there was a mild kerfuffle when Scott Adams introduced a new character named Jesus (pronounced “Hay-Soos) in his Dilbert strip the week before the Holy Week.  I say “mild kerfuffle” because it was apparently a genuine controversy among a certain segment of the population, but I would never have known about it if I hadn’t followed a link on a sidebar of a Mormon blog that told me that the Daily Universe, BYU’s student newspaper, had opted not to run the strips.  Apparently some students were horrified that the Daily Universe would censor a comic strip.  Personally, I was horrified at some of the grammar in the DU’s editorial explaining its position, but that’s neither here nor there.  All of this reminds me of a story.

I didn’t get my higher education at BYU.  I went to a small Baptist college in southern Virginia that no one has ever heard of unless they live in that town and/or attended that school themselves.  (Don’t bother guessing which school it is, because you’ll only guess some school somebody’s heard of, and you’ll be wrong.)  It’s a good little school, and I enjoyed my four years there.  It was not Baptist school in the same sense that BYU is a Mormon school.  It was affiliated with the Virginia Baptist General Board, which I believe gave it some of its funding, or at least provided scholarships, or something–really, I didn’t and don’t know the particulars, but it sufficeth me to say that the affiliation was mostly a historical one.  Baptists being what Baptists are, the school enjoyed much more sovereignty than BYU ever has. 

However, the trappings of its religious affiliation were still present.  They held (non-compulsory) chapel services and six credits of religion classes (including one on the Old or New Testament–quelle horreur!) were required for graduation.  All dorms were single-sex, and no one of the opposite sex was allowed in the dorm after 11:30 p.m. (2 a.m. on weekends).  It was also a dry campus (absolutely no alcohol allowed on the premises).  Lots of students, unfamiliar with the meaning of the term ”private school,” complained about the religion requirement and the draconian visiting hours (hey, they never said you couldn’t have sex in your dorm room, just not after 11:30 p.m., 2 a.m. on weekends).  But mostly they complained about the no-alcohol policy.  Ostensibly there was this Puritan vibe emanating from the trustees’ office or something, but in practice, aside from the alcohol thing, the students had the freedom to engage in a fair amount of debauchery, so long as the old ladies from the alumni association didn’t find out about it.  And there was academic freedom on a scale that BYU professors can only dream of.  But more on that later.

I think it was my sophomore year that Residence Life began sponsoring Movie Night on Fridays (maybe to make up for the fact that there was nothing to do in town and also no alcohol to drink).  Among the first movies they decided to show was Henry & June, which you might recall was a NC-17-rated romp for people who wanted to pretend they’d read Anais Nin (or Henry Miller, for that matter).  Anyway, they had posters for it up all over campus and the dorms, until one student, who happened to be majoring in religion so she could go on to study at a seminary, complained that this film didn’t strike her as consistent with the school’s Christian mission.   Bottom line:  Henry & June was summarily cancelled.  I think they replaced it with The Lion King.  I don’t really recall.

This was a disappointing turn of events.  (Damn straight my friends and I were planning on going–what did you think?)  But oh well, what are you going to do, right?  Wrong.  A bunch of students rose up and swore they were not going to take it.  They put up posters about free speech and censorship and blah blah de blah, and there was a story in the student newspaper, which quoted some English professors saying it was really so silly, as they discussed things in classes that were much more shocking and revolutionary than Henry & June and that this whole incident made the school look like a Mickey Mouse organization–or something.  One professor–the History department chair, actually–was so distressed by the school’s Gestapo tactics that he walked into class with a TV and VCR and showed the offending movie to his Western Civ class, just to “prove a point.”

When I heard about this, I thought a couple things.  First, it wasn’t really fair to those students who paid their tuition on the assumption that they would be learning about Western Civ in their Western Civ class.  Sure, a bunch of them probably thought, “Excellent!  No Greeks and Romans today!”  But others may not have been pleased that they hauled themselves down to the lecture hall just to get an eyeful of Anais Nin’s goodies.  (And not even the real Anais Nin, but someone pretending to be Anais Nin.  And who was Anais Nin, anyway?)  The second thing I thought was, if we regularly discussed shocking and revolutionary things in class, why was it such a big deal that we show Henry & June, which was, after all, so much less consequential than the shocking and revolutionary things we ordinarily preoccupied ourselves with?  It wasn’t as though Henry Miller or Anais Nin appeared anywhere on any of our professors’ syllabi, so how important could it have been for us to know them intimately? 

In other words, I thought it was a whole bunch of silly.  And the silliest part was that these kids were crying “censorship!” when they had no idea how easy they had it.  I confess I waxed a little Grumpy Old Man and told them that this was nothing compared to the oppression my people suffered at BYU, where watching Henry & June in the privacy of your own apartment (which must be university-approved) would probably get you called up on an Honor Code violation–and I never even got to the part where BYU students weren’t allowed to drink ANYWHERE, EVER.  Their heads might have exploded. 

See, I think censorship sucks and all, but what frosts my cupcakes is when people waste moral outrage on issues that are essentially trivial.  If you wanted to go to a college where Residence Life would sponsor screenings of arty sex flicks, maybe you should have gone to a non-religious school.  That you are entitled to watch a particular movie–any movie–as part of your educational experience makes about as much sense as being entitled to play ice hockey in P.E.  Nothing against ice hockey, but did your college have ice hockey and if not, did you protest?  Even if you went to school in Florida?

Moreover, it was not possible to escape the irony of the fact that cancelling Henry & June–which, I reiterate, was a movie sponsored by Residence Life as a recreational activity–at the request of a student (on the basis of it being an inappropriate event for a nice Baptist college to sponsor) resulted in this huge uproar, but when the college incurred the wrath of the VBGB for sponsoring a female minister’s lecture on God and gender, there were crickets chirping.  Probably because she didn’t use any pictures in her presentation.  But also because academic freedom doesn’t inspire the same passion as recreational license. 

Now, probably the BYU students who were upset about missing their Dilbert that week also get upset about some other, consequential stuff that goes on at BYU–stuff actually related to the quality of their educations.  At the same time, lots of people go to BYU so they can live and learn in a Mormon environment and not be bombarded with stuff that offends their religious sensibilities.  These students have a hard enough time with Nietzche and Faulkner.  How crucial is it that they pick up a paper to relax with the news of the day and have their eyeballs seared by a Dilbert Jesus cartoon? 

Perhaps I’m just sympathetic to the editors of the Daily Universe, as I used to work for a newspaper, where my job description entailed fielding calls from readers irate about something they’d read in the funnies.  Those calls were unpleasant and frustrating.  People have strong feelings about the comics.  Also crossword puzzles.  And don’t you dare take away their bridge column.  Oh, no–but I digress.  My point is that I understand why the DU folks decided to just pre-empt the whole controversy, even if they did follow up with a self-serving editorial justifying their decision.  (Hey, I do self-serving stuff myself all the time, so who am I to throw stones?) 

On the other hand, talking about my newspaper experience reminds me that we had a janitor there named Jesus.  Yes, it was pronounced “Hay-Soos,” but let’s be honest–who doesn’t see the name Jesus and read it as “Jesus (not Hay-Soos)”?  Not me.  Which is why it used to amuse me to no end when we’d get messages on the network computers telling us that Jesus would be cleaning the bathrooms between 4 and 5 p.m.  Because that was comedy gold.  I like to think Jesus himself would have appreciated it.  (Either of them.)  But then, I look at these Dilbert comics and I don’t see what the big deal is.  I imagine if Jesus were to pick up the Daily Universe and see these comics, he wouldn’t just stand there somberly with a tear rolling down his face.  He might chuckle at a couple of them, even–in a “heh heh, very well, Scott Adams, touche” kind of way.  But no outright guffawing because eh, they’re just not that funny.  Definitely not worth protesting over, in any respect.

I heard this morning that Jennifer Lopez hired a masseuse and a color therapist for her newborn twins.  I thought that was wild.  A masseuse–okay.  I guess.  Color therapist?  Not sure what that’s about.  I mean, obviously, I know what it’s about.  I just can’t relate.  That’s what I mean.  So I was intrigued and wanted to learn more about the lifestyles of rich and famous babies.  From ShowbizSpy:

The ‘Jenny From The Block’ star, whose twins Max and Emme were born last month, have also reportedly ordered 600-count Egyptian cotton cot linen, designer Babygros, diamond-engraved rattles and, two small Shetland ponies for the youngsters.

So 600-count Egyptian cotton–that’s good, right?  I have nothing against buying quality cotton linens, even for babies who are going to urinate and spit up all over them.  I mean, good cotton feels so nice.  Lucky babies.  I don’t think I’ve ever slept on 600-count anything.  I don’t know what a Babygro is.  I suppose I have to Google it.  Okay, I guess it’s clothes?  Designer clothes for babies.  Fine.  I mean, you want them to look good and be comfortable.  I dig it.

I wouldn’t even say she lost me at the diamond-engraved rattles.  They’re collectors’ items, eh?  I assume she doesn’t intend for the babies to play with them.  They’re just to look at–fondly, when they’re much older, and they can think to themselves, “Damn, Mom sure had a lot of money, didn’t she?”  That’s cool.  And I bet they could even sell them to support their drug and/or gambling habits later on in life, should the need arise.  (Not saying it will.  Just saying “if.”) 

No, where she lost me was the Shetland ponies.  Seriously, what the heck?  THEY’RE BABIES.  Why do they need Shetland ponies right now?  Couldn’t that wait until they’re, I don’t know, able to sit up on their own?  It’s not like they can even watch the ponies and get enjoyment from them that way because THEY’RE BABIES.  They don’t even know where they are or what’s going on yet.  They’re still learning how to tell the difference between the masseuse and the baby burper.  They have no time to pay attention to other mammals.  What is she thinking???  Says a source close to the celebrity:

“It may sound excessive but she’s only got her kids’ best interests at heart and wants to give them the start in life she never had.”

Ordinarily I don’t take issue with how rich people choose to spend their money.  Being a good Republican and all, I’m sure that this diamond-engraved rattle and color therapist business helps the economy and makes the rest of us feel good about how thrifty we are in comparison.  And I can totally get behind her spending $600K on extra security.  Keep the babies safe, it’s all good.  But I must confess, it’s stories like this that make me think that some people might have too much money.  Not that there should ever be such a thing as too much money, but seriously–Shetland ponies for newborns?  Not to get all social-gospel on your a**, Jenny-from-the-Block, but you couldn’t think of somewhere else to put that money?  Something to help less-fortunate newborns get the start in life you never had?  If you really felt like spending money on ponies, maybe you could have thrown a pony party for some starving children–that would have offered them a much-needed diversion from their dreary lives, and afterwards they could have eaten the ponies, assuming they were still hungry.  I don’t know.  I don’t know.

But enough picking on Jennifer Lopez.  Let us examine the beams in our own eyes.  What is the most frivolous thing you spend money on?  And what is the most frivolous thing you can imagine spending money on?

Me first.  Let’s see–frivolity, frivolity…It’s probably food.  I’m willing to spend a lot of money on food, if it’s good.  Well, let’s face it.  I’m willing to spend a lot of money on any food, if I feel that I must have it.  I spend $2.00 twice a week to buy my younger children a small bag of Ruffles potato chips and a package of Starbursts, just so they won’t hassle me while their older siblings are in swim class.  That’s like a $16-a-month habit.  $16 could feed a family of eight in some remote village of Africa for a week, or something.  It’s a total waste of money, when I could very well just tolerate the hassle of two small children with a killer sense of entitlement and nothing to do.  That would be character-building and more nutritionally sound.  Everyone would win.  But do I have any intention of mending my ways?  Nope.  Negative, Rampart.  And our anniversary dinner last year that cost, like, $200 or something almost as wrong (or slightly wronger)?  Worth. Every. Penny.  I’d do it again.  In a heartbeat. 

Mmmm.  Steak.

Anyway, the most frivolous thing I can imagine spending money on is…gosh, this is hard because I’m still thinking about food…okay, I’ve got it.  I would hire a professional organizer to do my whole house, including garage–maybe even my car–and I would buy everything she told me to.  Everything.  Because if there’s any weakness that can rival my weakness for food, it’s organizational merchandise.  My husband won’t let me set foot inside a Storables without supervision because he knows it’s like sending an alcoholic into a liquor store.  I can’t visit the web site because it’s like porn for me.  I could ruin our family with my storage-box addiction, if I didn’t suppress my yetzer hara.  I would buy storage boxes just to house my kids’ potato chip bags.  It is that bad.

Now it’s your turn to talk Shetland ponies. 

Dear Brothers and Sisters Who Come into the Church Library at 8:30 and Ask Me To Make 100 Copies of Something on Our Prehistoric Copier When the Library Closes at 9,

Is that what Jesus would do?

With (semi-)Christian Love,

Madhousewife

P.S.  I’m sorry, but I may have been rather frazzled last night, due to the fact that I had all four of my kids with me because my husband was out of town and my babysitter was working at her other job, and I nevertheless felt obligated to take my midweek shift anyway because it was one of only a handful of Wednesday evenings during the year when I am not tap dancing, and I feel like a slacker if I ask people to cover me when I don’t even have my class, even though they would probably have preferred that to me letting the baby rearrange the Bible shelf and Elvis practicing his cutting skills on the church programs and Princess Zurg and Mister Bubby calling each other “dumb butt” all night and me shouting false curse words at the paper feeder.  Nevertheless, I survived, and really, you should bring your copying in by 8:00.  The Holy Spirit leaves the library at about 8:45 (earlier if there are children present).

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So last night at the church library with four kids wasn’t as horrible as it might have been if I had not been able to distract Elvis with a special screening of Barney’s Great Adventure on one of the church’s VCR’s.  (Never let it be said that I come to these events fully unprepared.)  Yes, a couple weekends ago Sugar Daddy and the kids came home from the Goodwill with a VHS copy of Barney’s first full-length feature film, which I heretofore did not even realize existed.  Well.  Now I know.  And contrary to what you’re thinking right now, which is probably along the lines of what I was thinking when I realized that there was such a thing as a full-length feature film starring Barney, it is not a steaming pile of dinosaur crap.  No, wait!  Come back!  I have more to tell you!

The surprising thing about Barney’s Great Adventure is, as Sugar Daddy put it, “it’s kind of…[uncomfortable pause]… good.”  Not Oscar-worthy good.  Not Star Wars good.  Just sort of…wow, really not annoying.  It makes no pretense of appealing to anyone other than your average pre-schooler.  It borders on self-parody, but never quite crosses the line.  It’s just a nice, simple, 100-percent earnest story about Barney and some kids using their imaginations and saving a giant, color-striped egg.  No, really, it’s good!  Barney’s appearance is greatly improved on celluloid, the child actors aren’t terrible and Baby Bop’s total screen time is five minutes on the outside.  Solid two-and-a-half stars, baby.  I myself laughed out loud at least a couple times.

I’m losing it, aren’t I?  Shut up!

Speaking of Barney’s Great Adventure and the VCR, there are some ads for Barney toys on this tape, along with some previews for The Borrowers (John Goodman’s career highlight, to be sure), Franklin (the turtle) and…Cats.  Yes, the Tony-award-winning musical by Andrew Lloyd Weber.  Does that seem odd to you?  I’m not sure which consumer demographic they’re targeting. 

I’ve never seen Cats, nor have I ever had any interest in seeing Cats.  No offense to Broadway musicals, which I enjoy, but I was just never particularly interested in Cats, maybe because I’m just not that interested in cats generally.  I was also never interested in reading the “immortal poems by T.S. Eliot” on which the musical is based.  I mean, I think I like cats.  My family owned several cats while I was growing up.  They’re very attractive animals.  I’ve been known to pet cats when they climb on my lap.  I’m not opposed to getting a cat someday, after the children are all toilet-trained and I start missing the odor of mammalian fecal matter.  I’ve just never been that interested in what cats think.  I understand they have more going on up there than dogs (at least that’s what I hear from the cat people), but still…they’re cats.  What do they do all day–eat, sleep, scratch stuff, lick themselves?  They just seem kind of shallow to me. 

But because it’s such a big-time Broadway musical that so many seem to enjoy, I have been somewhat curious about its appeal.  So now I’ve seen the trailer-length commercial for Cats on my kids’ Barney video and all I can say is…wow, that is a really creepy-looking show.  Seriously, I look at those human-size cats dancing around on their hind legs and I feel very uncomfortable.  There’s something about it that just isn’t…right.  In point of fact there’s something about it that is definitely…wrong.  Tell me, my friends, is this just normal mammal rivalry, or are those cats and that Cats messed-up and not a little bit scary?

And when that one cat starts singing “Memory” with such unmitigated earnestness, I’m sorry, but I just can’t get behind all that. 

One last word on entertainment, though:  Last weekend Princess Zurg and I went to see Enchanted and really enjoyed it.  I have heretofore had no feelings about Patrick Dempsey (never watched Grey’s Anatomy, always remembered him as that doofus from Can’t Buy Me Love), but he was pretty good in this.  (And yes, I see now that he is reasonably good-looking.)  However, Amy Adams = De.Light.Ful.  I adored her.  (I thought I must have seen her in something else, but when I looked her up on imdb.com I realized that the only reason she was familiar was that she played the Hot Girl on the first season of The Office.)  The movie itself is very charming, and not in some weird Barney way, but a solid three-stars-on-a-four-scale/three-and-a-half-stars-on-a-five-scale good. 

Upon reflection, it would probably take very little effort on my part to shred the movie from a feminist perspective, but when was the last time feminists made a good princess movie (with singing! and cute animals!)?  Never.  So I won’t go there.  (Fine, list me your feminist princess movies complete-with-singing-and-cute-animals in the comments section.  I can be taught.)  Anyway, my Inner Romantic (woah, we’ve never heard from her before!) thought it was sweet and thoroughly entertaining.  Not for dudes, though.  Except…I did make the mistake of looking at the ScreenIt.com review beforehand, so I was hyper-aware of all the cleavage in the movie.  Maybe you dudes would enjoy that part (or those parts).  You straight dudes, I mean.  (Gay dudes may have reasons to enjoy the movie on other levels, but I wouldn’t want to speak for you.) 

Well, our “real” house is finally inhabitable again, so I’m off to “enjoy” the weekend, packing-and-cleaning style.  Happy Winter Solstice, My Pagan Readers!

So it has been very difficult for me to let go of Veronica Mars.  I am pretty much in denial that she is gone forever.  I was okay when Alias ended, though I was pissed //THREE-YEAR-OLD SPOILER THAT NO ONE CARES ABOUT ALERT// that they killed Jack.  (And I don’t say “pissed” anymore unless I really mean it, so you know how upset I was.)  But that show was probably at least half a season too long anyway, and at least there was closure.  With Veronica Mars, there was not only no closure, there was also this cruel set-up for what could have been a wicked-cool fourth season (and I’m not talking about the lame-o FBI pilot they pitched to the CW in a last-ditch attempt to be renewed–that was suckitude redefined–just all the cool places they could have gone with Jake Kane being back in town and in cahoots with that Russian mafia baby…oh, come on, that would have been awesome).  So where am I going to get my cool-girl-kicks-bad-guy-butt-and-makes-out-with-hot-emo-guys fix now?  I’m asking!

Anyway, so I’ve treated my VM withdrawal the same way I treated my X-Files withdrawal–which came long before the series (mercifully) ended because we didn’t have television and we moved far away from my MIL, who was taping the show for us, okay, me–and that prescription is “immerse thyself in fan web sites until you are so bloated with television-show trivia, episode-regurgitation and speculation about the future-for-fictional-characters unknown that you feel sick and long to read a book instead.”

I never said it was healthy, now did I?  No.  And back to the story:

You know that you’re desperate for closure when you’re willing to read fan fiction.  I read more X-Files fan fiction than I care to confess, and I only scraped the tip of the iceberg, but I read enough to learn two things:

1.  While most fan fiction is crap (shocking!), every so often you run into a gem that isn’t any worse than the franchised novels put out by publishers hoping to cash in on a popular series.

2.  TV shows with cool girls and hot emo guys inspire a lot of porn.

In much the same way that romance novels are porn for women, shipper fan fic is porn for women who don’t watch enough TV.  I’m not exactly sure what that last sentence means, except that I’ve read enough sex scenes in my day to know that there are only so many words for what goes on there, and they are oft repeated.  As are some other things that don’t happen much in real life.  So where was I?  Oh yes, the porn.  So in my experience, you’ve read one porn story, you’ve read them all, but when I was page-downing through the Veronica Mars Fan Fiction Archive, I did chance upon two stories whose plot summaries intrigued me.  The first was a crack!fic that promised to weave a tale wherein ”Veronica and Logan wake up one day with super powers.”  I’m sorry, but how do you say no?  Well, fine, maybe you can say no, but I cannot, and that is how I know that the best line in that story is when Veronica asks, “Did you just set the sheets on fire?”  (Trust me, it is better appreciated out of context than in.)

As to the second story, I’m afraid the only thing that will do it justice is cutting and pasting: 

Summary: Veronica and Logan are secret agents, but Logan’s pants interfere with what she wants most.  

Because I’m twelve, that’s why!

And no, I didn’t actually read it because, much as the case was with that “my last night with the ferrets” story, I somehow knew that it couldn’t possibly get better than that.  And that’s when I thought that if I looked long enough, I could probably find a story where Veronica and Logan spend the night with ferrets, and you all know where I’m going with this, don’t you?  Never mind.

It was at that point that I thought, “Dude, too bad there’s no money in this crap because I could write it in my sleep.”  Also, “I would have to be asleep because it would hurt my eyes to watch myself write so badly.”  (No commentary on that point, please.)

As you all should know by now, I’m not proud, and that is why I can admit things like this, and yes, that is my warning that unless you’re married to me, you must mock me gently.  I bare my soul for your entertainment.  Just remember that.

So I just finished watching Season 3 of Veronica Mars.  Two words:

SUCKITUDE.  DEFINED.

Honestly?  My heart hurts.  You hear that awful RRRRIIIIP followed by the squish! squish! squish!–?  That is my heart being torn out and stomped on by Veronica Mars. 

You suck, Veronica Mars.  I will never love another TV show again.

On the plus side, I will get a lot more sleep. 

---

Several years ago my father had tickets to see Man of La Mancha starring Robert Goulet.  As his wife (my step-mother) was out of town, he invited me to go with him, and of course I was PSYCHED because come on–Robert Goulet, Man of La Mancha?  Does it get better than that? 

Answer:  Maybe.  I’ll never know because the show ended up being cancelled because Mr. Goulet was ill.  Since my father was in the mood to go out, we went to a movie instead.  I don’t want to tell you which one.  Okay, it was Bowfinger.

Goulet would have been better.  Le sigh.

The husband and I do not get out to the cinema much.  The last movie we saw in an actual theatre was a charity screening of Serenity, benefiting Equality Now, back in June.  Before that, I don’t know…I think it was X-Men.  Just kidding.  Golly, I honestly don’t remember.  Point being, we see most of our movies on DVD, but lately–what with The Simpsons being on DVD and all–we haven’t even been renting any movies lately.  But Friday night we felt like watching a movie, so Sugar Daddy went to the Blockbuster and came home with two rentals.  You will never guess which two.  No, don’t even bother because it is impossible that either of these titles would ever cross your mind in a million years.  Are you ready?  Battlestar Gallactica and Church Ball.

For the blissfully ignorant, Church Ball is one of many films produced by Halestorm Entertainment, the premier B-movie studio of Mormon cinema.  Technically, all Mormon cinema is B-movies, so Halestorm is really the premier C- or D-movie studio of Mormon cinema, but I digress.  Halestorm specializes in self-consciously Mormon comedies of low budget and marginal quality.  Some of these films have flashes of brilliance, or at least really funny parts, but most of them are just unadulterated crap.  Like you look at the box and think, “There is no way this could possibly not suck.”  And none of their films could possibly appeal to anyone outside the Mormon community.  They are designed to make money off of those Mormons with disposable income who will laugh at anything.   Halestorm’s best contribution to the genre thusfar is Sons of Provo, a mockumentary about an aspiring Mormon boy band called Everclean.  It’s no Some Like It Hot, but it is consistently entertaining.  If you like that sort of thing.  We got enough laughs out of the trailer to gamble that it would be worth a look-see, and ’twas. 

Anyway, perhaps it was the success of Sons of Provo which led us to have elevated expectations for Church Ball.  That and the fact that Gary Coleman has a supporting role.  Yes, Gary Coleman and Fred Willard.  How could it not be at least a little bit good?  Oh, come on!  Somehow, though, Halestorm managed to screw it up.  As SD said, it was like they had a brainstorming session about what would make a funny movie and then filmed the brainstorming session.  Only it was one of those brainstorming sessions where you realize afterwards that the ideas only sounded good because you were drunk at the time.  Except that the Halestorm guys are Mormons and thus probably were not drunk, but maybe goofed-up on Mountain Dew.  Who knows?

It started promisingly enough, what with an elderly sister being escorted past the church gymnasium and getting beaned in the head with a stray basketball, but it was all downhill from there. 

Here’s the story.  Once upon a time the Church embraced basketball as a fun and wholesome way to build community and promote fellowship (as opposed to the usual, unwholesome fellowship people had been subjected to in the past).  As a side note, this is actually how my uncle–my mother’s brother–was introduced to the LDS church, through a church ball league.  Unable to play basketball for his school team, he accepted a Mormon friend’s invitation to play for his church team, the only catch being that he had to go to church with him (at least as long as the basketball season was going on).  My uncle really did want to play basketball that much, and eventually decided he wanted to be a Mormon, too, so he got baptized, and shortly thereafter so did my grandparents and my mother.  So in short, if it hadn’t been for church basketball, my mother would never have become a Mormon and thus probably wouldn’t have married my Mormon dad, and I would never have been born.  So if you enjoy reading this blog, thank a Mormon basketball player.  Or something.

Anyway, the joke is that basketball is the official church sport and that the men take it way too seriously and are so competitive and crazy when it comes to actual games that all Christian sensibilities and decorum fall by the wayside–a situation fraught with opportunity for humor, both wholesome and otherwise.  (Actually, when some Mormon friends of our heard there was going to be a movie about church basketball, they asked, “How are they going to keep it PG?”)  So we have our hero of Church Ball, a guy named Dennis, who plays for the Mud Flats team, a ragtag bunch of lovable losers who love the game but can’t play it worth a darn and whose uniforms don’t match.  The Mud Flats team is in a deep-seated rivalry with the Crystal Springs (I think–Crystal Something) team, who are their polar opposite:  they have awesome uniforms, play like professionals and in short are “winners”–not the good kind of winners, though, but the kind of winners that are jerks and need to be taken down a peg or two.  Crystal Springs has been the church league champion for like, twenty years, and they are just soooo freaking obnoxious about it.  Why are these two teams rivals when there’s no real competition between them?  Well, Virginia, it seems that it’s personal.  The two brothers who dominate the Crystal Springs team, Brad and Brent–or Buck and Bradley, I don’t remember–have been bullying Dennis ever since they were all kids, and that really irritates him.  But what can he do?

So the Mud Flats bishop (Fred Willard) is a former church ball player who also nurses an unhealthy obsession with the sport.  You can tell he is something of a “character,” because he insults the referees from the sidelines and works on a playbook that he hides behind his scriptures during church meetings.  Also, he wears an eyepatch.  This is possibly the funniest thing about the movie.  But I digress.  The bishop tells Dennis that the Higher-Ups have decided that the church won’t sponsor the basketball league anymore and that this is their last chance to win that championship trophy and he wants Dennis to lead Mud Flats to victory, once and for all.  Dennis protests that he’s no coach and besides, their team is terrible, so how could they ever win?  The bishop appeals to his sense of religious duty, so Dennis accepts the challenge.  Then he breaks his tailbone in the first game and has to scramble to find a replacement so they won’t have to forfeit the rest of the season.  The rest of the movie is a journey toward self-awareness and redemption, wherein Dennis and his teammates fellowship a disaffected (but athletic) church member, recruit Gary Coleman (it’s a long story), eat fewer doughnuts, and meet a Magical Black Man, whose sole purpose is to teach the clueless white guys that everyone is a winner, you just have to look inside for their special talent. 

This would all be well and good if it worked, but it doesn’t, for the following reasons (in no particular order):

1.  The actor who plays Dennis is miscast, at best.  He is what you would call “low-key.”  He conveys absolutely no energy or enthusiasm or emotion of any kind that would indicate that he is invested in the outcome of this story.  In any given scene, games included, he looks like he would actually rather be taking a nap.  I wished he would take a nap, too, and maybe he would wake up and be interesting, but that never happened.

2.  The film is narrated by Dennis’s wife, a peripheral character who has nothing to do with ninety percent of what transpires onscreen.  So why is she narrating the story?  So she can tell us that Dennis loves basketball.  Because we would never know if it was up to Dennis to show us how much he cares about basketball.  The film relies a lot on Dennis’s wife to tell us how Dennis feels about what is going on around him.  And also to point out how silly all of this male posturing is.  My goodness, boys, it’s just a game.  Why don’t you get that???

3.  Like most Halestorm pictures, the editing is slightly off.  Key characters are introduced far too late.  Everyone’s timing is half a beat too slow.  You know where all of this is going and you don’t understand why they don’t just get there already.  What’s taking so long?  Mormon Standard Time?

4.  The film relies on stereotypes but they’re really poorly-drawn stereotypes.  Most of what we know about them is what Dennis’s wife tells us. 

5.  Like 99% of Halestorm pictures, the tone is uneven.  It can’t decide what kind of movie it wants to be.  The good thing is that there’s no distracting conversion/coming-to-Jesus subplot, but there are all these other distracting subplots that I think are supposed to be funny and/or heartwarming (like the Mud Flats janitor with the bad heart who’s in love with the overweight church organist), but are actually just mildly irritating.

6.  Fred Willard is utterly wasted.  And I don’t mean that he appears to have been stoned during filming.  That would have resulted in a more entertaining movie.  No, he is far too restrained here.  Fellows, you don’t hire Fred Willard so you can rein him in.  He needs to be let loose and free to say whatever insane thing comes to his brain.  His character habitually makes fleeting references to wild times in his past–like the time he almost lost his spleen–but keeps cutting himself off with, “But that’s a story I’ll save for another time,” and you just want to scream, “No, Fred!  Don’t save the story for another time!  Tell the story now!  Any story would be better than the one we’re watching!”  Don’t put Fred Willard in a corner, people.  That’s all I gotta say.

And lastly, but definitely not leastly,

7.  Mormonism has been neutered out of the picture.  There are no explicit references to anything specifically Mormon, no one ever says the word “Mormon,” and this may very well have been a self-preservation strategy, because if I were the Church and somebody made this crap movie about me, I would have to excommunicate some people.  Just kidding!  But seriously, in a misguided attempt to give the story a more generic framework–and theoretically have a wider appeal, as unlikely as that seems?–they lost the opportunity to make a story about something real.  These folks are all certainly Mormon (except for Gary Coleman–it’s a long story), but it’s a secret–shh.  The result is that it feels phony–neither hot nor cold and therefore to be spewn out of the mouth, if you will.  Mormon stories don’t have to be a niche market, if you invest them with some authenticity.  People enjoy well-told stories about real people and situations; they don’t want to have to fill in the blanks themselves–that’s the storyteller’s job.  You need to let your freak flag fly, Halestorm.  That’s my advice.

I’d promise you a review of Battlestar Gallactica and an essay on the Mormon obsession with it, but I’m afraid I’d have no intention of keeping that promise.  Happy Monday to all!

I recently participated in a discussion on Feminist Mormon Housewives about Hillary Clinton and Mitt Romney and the bias each of them has to overcome because of people’s preconceived notions blah blah, and I realized that we must all be eager for a new administration because it is way, way too early to be having these conversations.  Maybe we’d just rather be thinking about anything but the war. 

I remembered that one of my two friends I willingly discuss politics with was in town last month and I completely forgot to ask her who she liked in the Democratic primary.  (She’s a Democrat.  Not only is she a Democrat, but she’s a Democrat who remembers when I was a Democrat.  My other political-discussion friend is a Republican, but a Republican who also remembers when I was a Democrat.  I wonder if that has anything to do with my relative comfort in discussing uncomfortable issues with them.)  We must have been too busy talking about stuff that matters.  But I’m still curious, especially since she is probably more enthusiastic about this primary race than primary races of yore.  She used to live in Oregon, too, and always ended any discussion of who she liked in the primary with “But it doesn’t matter, because Oregon is a politically insignificant state, so who cares?”  But she has since moved to a state with a February primary, so she actually gets to choose among multiple candidates.  I can’t imagine how exciting that must be.

Unlike every other state in the Union, Oregon has decided not to move its primary to February 5.  And good for us.  Moving your primary up just to get attention is really so sad and pathetic.  And it’s not like anyone cares about Oregon anyway.  We’ve got, like, seven whole electoral votes.  Which I guess is nothing to be ashamed of, except when you’re standing next to states with twelve, fifteen, twenty-four, or thirty-three electoral votes.  Then you resemble the flat-chested Spring Break reveler flashing the “Girls Gone Wild” camera crew only to end up on the cutting-room floor.  Why did you even bother signing that waiver?  You weren’t even that drunk.  Where is your dignity?  Anyway, I’m not really sure when Oregon’s presidential primary is, but I do know it’s long after everyone else has been there, done that and started their Christmas shopping.  By the time the 2008 campaign train rolls into town on its creaky wheels, there will only be one candidate aboard, and hopefully he doesn’t ask me to sign any waivers.

In lieu of talking to my Democrat friend about the Democratic primary, I have to make do with speculating about who my 1992 self would vote for.  It would either be Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton.  I’m sure I would be torn.  I would console myself by saying that it doesn’t matter since my 1992 self lives in California and California holds its primary in the late spring also, but then someone would have to remind me that this is 2008, hello, and California now has a February 5 primary, so I need to make up my mind already.  My 1992 self can’t handle the pressure.  She defers to my 1996 self, who initially favors Chris Dodd but ultimately sides with Hillary, only to regret it a year and a half later.  Hindsight is 20/20, as they say.

What did any of that mean?  I don’t know.

I had a dream the other night that I was holding a fundraising party for Rudy Giuliani.  People kept saying, “I can’t believe you’re not supporting Mitt Romney,” and I kept saying, “I like Rudy.”  During my waking hours I am not currently for any particular candidate, though my subconscious obviously leans toward Rudy.  I do like Rudy.  I’m a sucker for that rock-star quality, you know.  I’m not particularly against any candidate either (in the Republican primary, at least), though I am not as enthusiastic about Romney.  The conversation on FMH reminded me that I do harbor a bias against Mormon men, whom I tend to think of as old-fashioned, patronizing and chauvanistic.  It’s really not a fair assumption.  For every patronizing and chauvanistic Mormon man I’ve met, I know ten who are not that way.  (If only I could have married one of those.  Just kidding!) 

Still, the stereotype persists, even in my extraordinarily fair-minded psyche.  Also, there’s the fact that the beautiful Mitt Romney and his beautiful wife and beautiful family come across as Sickeningly Perfect Mormon types.  If people voted for W because they thought he seemed like a nice guy to have a beer with, I don’t think Romney stands much of a chance of connecting with the Common Man.  Not just because he doesn’t drink beer, but because he seems so well-scrubbed and polished that he must be Not One Of Us.  I have to keep reminding myself of the many cookie-cutter Mormons I’ve known who turned out, in fact, to be Real People–individuals with their own thoughts and opinions and struggles.  (They just have better dental plans.)  As my husband has said of many a Perfect Mormon Family, “They’re not as innocent as they look.”  And he means it in a good way. 

I don’t have any sort of opinion on Fred Thompson, as I can’t even tell whether the cat is running or not.  Put on an apron, Fred, or step away from the grill.  Speaking of which, I need to decide what we’re eating for dinner.  My 1992 self doesn’t eat meat.  My 1996 self says she ate chicken the other day and it made her sick.  My 2007 dream self throws parties for presidential candidates and has them catered.  None of this is helping.  Have I mentioned that it’s 100 degrees outside?  If I served popsicles for supper, would that make me a bad person?

THIS JUST IN:  Springfield, Vermont has been named The Simpsons’ official hometown for The Simpsons Movie premiere (”hometown premiere,” that is).  Once again, Oregon has been dissed!  And Matt Groening is from Oregon.  Where’s the love? 

Oh, well, I’m planning to boycott the Simpsons movie anyway because I do not wish to see Bart’s full monty.  Really, who are these people drawing for?  So I’m not bitter or anything.

But still…Vermont?  Vermont?  Psh.

When Bridge to Terabithia came out a few months ago, Sugar Daddy wanted to take Princess Zurg and Mister Bubby to go see it.  (The Onion must have given it a thumbs up.)  I asked him if he’d ever read the book.  He hadn’t.  I hadn’t either, but I knew it had a major plot point that was usually described as “tragic.”  I didn’t think it was a good idea to take the kids until we knew what we were getting them into–especially Princess Zurg, who has a low tolerance for tragedy.  SD didn’t really share my view, but he humored me for about a week and then we compromised:  he and Mister Bubby went alone.  (Mister Bubby, after all, had already seen Revenge of the Sith–minus the parts he covered his eyes for–so what harm was a little tragedy going to do him?)  They both enjoyed the movie very much, and MB was not at all traumatized by the tragic parts.

Meanwhile, I read the book–which is beautiful, by the way.  (I’m from the school of thought that says you should read the book before you watch the movie.  My father is from the school of thought that says, “The book is always better than the movie, so why not see the movie first and save the best for last?”  SD is from the school of thought that says, “What difference does it make?”  Which is the main reason why our children almost always see the movie first.  The good news is that my children are usually still interested in reading the book, too.  They must get that from their grandfather.)  It’s a wonderful story, but after reading it I was really, really glad I talked SD out of taking PZ.  For those of you unfamiliar with the plot, let’s just say that an hour with a thesaurus could not yield a more appropriate term than “tragic.”  I  was traumatized, and I saw it coming a mile away.  I’m perversely fond of sad stories, but PZ, as I’ve already said, has no such perversion.  She is not only not fond of sad stories, but she hates, hates, hates sad stories.  She’s from the school of thought that says real life is sad enough–why would you need your entertainment to depress you further?

We’ve been through this before.  She knows that we dislike Disney’s version of The Little Mermaid because, frankly, they ruined it.  Three hours with a thesaurus could probably not provide me with enough words to convey how egregiously Disney bastardized that fairy tale.  Someone is going to hell for that one, if there’s any literary justice in the universe.  Anyway, I misspoke earlier when I said she knows we dislike it.  She knows that we hate it and that we refuse to buy it because it has that insipid happy ending instead of the original (and perfect-the-way-it-was) sad one.  No offense to us, but she thinks that’s screwy, and she doesn’t mind telling us.  (And telling us.  And telling us.)  Why would we like a sad story better than a happy story?  It makes no sense.  We’ve tried to explain it by telling her that the moral of a story is as important as the plot.  The original “Little Mermaid” teaches you that true love requires great sacrifice, that there’s nobility in such sacrifices, and that it is more important to do right than to be happy.  The Disney movie teaches you that if you disobey your father and run away from home, all your dreams will eventually come true.  (And what dubious excuses for dreams are these–having your body mutilated by black magic in order to please some man?  Hmph!  I digress.) 

So we’d been through it with The Little Mermaid.  We went through it with “The Little Tin Soldier.”  For a while we thought we’d gotten through with “The Little Tin Soldier.”  She was intrigued by the sad version of that story (as opposed to the triumphant swill on display in Fantasia 2000), and she seemed to enjoy reading the book well enough.  She didn’t freak out at Charlotte’s Web.  She certainly took the opening of Finding Nemo in stride.  Well, anyway, SD thought that, viewed in the right environment, under the right circumstances, with us there to talk to her about it afterwards, PZ could appreciate Bridge to Terabithia.  I figured he was probably right.  After all, she’s matured a lot in the last couple of years.  And it would be great if she learned to appreciate stories with sad elements and even sad endings, because otherwise she’d be missing out on a lot of great literature.  And as every English major knows, that would be the real tragedy.  (Of course, every English major knows you also don’t get children to appreciate literature by showing them the movie before you’ve made them read the book.  But why don’t you get off my back already?)

So last night we all watched Bridge to Terabithia (”we all” meaning SD, PZ, MB and I).  SD had informed PZ that there was a very sad part, but that the ending was happy.  We watched the movie.  PZ was enjoying it.  The tragic plot point happened.  PZ seemed okay.  //SPOILER ALERT:  If you haven’t read the book and don’t wish to have the tragedy revealed, you should not read the rest of this blog.  Maybe you should just go and read the book and come back later.//  Then the rest of the movie played out.  And the credits rolled.

And that’s when PZ burst into tears and was inconsolable for the next half hour or so. 

“You call THAT a happy ending???” she wailed. 

Yes, it was very, very sad, we told her.  We understood.  But as sad as that was, look at all the good things that came out of it.  You see how Jess took all of that sadness inside him and used it to create something beautiful?  Do you see how Leslie helped to make him a better friend, a better artist, a better brother, all those things?

“Yes, I know, I know, but–SO WHAT?!”

Ah, indeed.  So what?  She has a point.  Tragedy really does suck.

I must say, it was hard not to feel guilty with my nine-year-old bawling her eyes out and saying things like, “Why?  She was so young!  It’s so unfair!  I’m afraid I’ll never be happy again!  Go away!  I want to be by myself!” 

The good news is that SD was able to cheer her up with an encore screening of Bumbo Two on YouTube.

But all those things aside, SD still thinks it was a good idea to expand PZ’s appreciation of the arts.  After all, what is Bridge to Terabithia without the tragedy?  A book not worth making into a movie.  (Not that that would stop anyone, of course.)  As distressed as I was upon learning character-in-question’s fate, as much as I didn’t want it to happen, I knew that was what made the story significant and meaningful, as opposed to a series of mildly entertaining vignettes.  Not that there’s anything wrong with mildly entertaining vignettes (although I prefer enormously entertaining, personally).  PZ would have thought the story was perfectly lovely without the tragedy.  She really just doesn’t require superfluous conflict in her life, even of the fictional variety.  Perhaps it’s a question of maturity, but I don’t know.  Plenty of adults don’t like stories with sad endings and have no desire to immerse themselves in a fantasy world only to have their hearts ripped out and stomped on, regardless of how nice the moral is.  I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been on Amazon.com reading customer reviews, and in the middle all these four- and five-star reviews, there’s always a handful of one-star reviews that take the author to task for writing such a depressing book.  “It was a good story, but TOO SAD.”  “My husband recommended this book to me and when I finished reading it, I had to throw it at him.”  “DO NOT READ THIS BOOK UNLESS YOU WANT TO BE DEPRESSED.”  That kind of thing.  The uncharitable take on those reviews is that anyone who would give a book one star solely because she (sorry, but it’s almost never a he) felt sad after reading it is not much more mature than my nine-year-old.  But charitably speaking, it takes all kinds to make a world, and if you prefer happy endings to sad ones, so what?  Life’s too short not to read what you like (provided you’ve graduated from high school, of course).

And now, for extra credit, class:

What is the saddest book you’ve ever read?  The saddest good book?  The best sad book?  And most importantly, have you ever read a book that was so sad that you regretted reading it, or at least felt compelled to throw it at the person who told you to read it? 

Mister Bubby borrows his sister’s shampoo

“Mommy, this makes your hair twice as shiny.”

Elvis’s latest pet phrase

“Stop hitting me.”

Before you become alarmed, you should realize that this is not a request, but a prompt.  He wants me to say, “Stop hitting me.”  Because he’s hitting me.  Okay, now you can be alarmed.

While the men are away, the ladies will watch chick flicks:  Two Film Reviews

So I’ve been wanting to see Dreamgirls for months, but Sugar Daddy won’t watch any movie that’s been poorly reviewed by The Onion, and The Onion gave Dreamgirls an F or a D-, so it was incumbent upon me to watch it by myself.  Suffice it to say, I’ve been waiting on pins and needles for it to be out on DVD at the same time SD was out of town.  Okay, pins and needles is an overstatement.  I’ve just been waiting, patiently.  So I watched it last week, and while I think The Onion was overly harsh, I myself would only give the film two and a half stars.  That’s a C+.  Maybe a B-, if it was the end of the school year and I didn’t have time to watch the special features and award some extra credit points.  That metaphor was somewhat strained, but I’m working on not much sleep here.  Anyway, it had moments of greatness, balanced by moments of great cheese, but after a certain point in the story, it was strictly glance-at-your-watch-every-ten-minutes, how-much-longer-can-this-go-on entertainment.  The non-Onion reviews I read were more or less accurate.  Jennifer Hudson and Eddie Murphy are fantastic, Jamie Foxx phones it in, Beyonce is surprisingly good–and the whole thing is probably much more exciting on stage.  But now I’ve seen it, and it’s safe for SD to come home again.

Last weekend was our church’s Father-Son campout, so while SD and Mister Bubby were having adventures with the still-occasionally-puking Elvis, Princess Zurg and I watched Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement.  (The baby was asleep, or she would have joined us.)  It was okay.  Two stars, maybe.  Not nearly as good as the first Princess Diaries, but then, what could be?  The story was paint-by-numbers.  Not just predictable, but unconvincingly predictable.  I didn’t care for her love interest at all.  Number one, what was up with his hair?  Number two, he didn’t have much personality.  On paper I’m sure he had personality, but on the screen, eh, no charisma.  So that sort of killed the romance for me right there.  I confess I was rather rooting for the arranged marriage to work.  Because that would have been truly subversive modern-day storytelling.  But it’s Disney, what do I expect?

Summertime TV Blues

Last night I had no chick flicks to watch and the only shows on were Studio 60 and Shark, neither of which I’m into (why can’t NBC just show Office marathons all summer?), so I ended up watching Veronica Mars on DVD.  I miss that show.  Sigh.  I’m okay with it being cancelled, because at least it got three seasons, unlike the latest TV-show-on-DVD to steal my heart, Firefly.  That show freaking rocked, and there are only fifteen episodes of it, forever.  Except that they did make the movie, Serenity, which I will be watching soon.  I know I shall not be disappointed.  Well, maybe I’ll be disappointed a little bit, if Nathan Fillion doesn’t get a freaking haircut.  Seriously, dudes, what’s up with the hair that looks like a bad wig on a rejected Barbie boyfriend?  Get thee to a barber already.

I wasn’t going to weigh in on the political controversy that’s currently roiling the nation, but it’s become clear to me that my perspective on this issue is desperately needed.

As you may or may not know, the final contenders for Hillary’s Campaign Theme Song are these ten:

“Suddenly I See” by KT Tunstall

I’m unfamiliar with this song (a country song, I’m assuming? with a name like KT Tunstall?), so I looked up the lyrics, and…wow.  I think girlfriend might want to dial it down a notch, don’t you?

“Rock This Country!” by Shania Twain

“Gotta really go psycho, give it a whirl”?  Maybe this is more Howard Dean than she wants to go.

“Beautiful Day” by U2

Forget it.  No foreigners! 

“Get Ready” by The Temptations

Aside from the obvious fact that “Fee-fi-foe-fum” is not a good slogan for any politician, there’s that other troublesome line:  “I’m gonna try to make you love me too.”  Any way you interpret this, it just seems sad and desperate.  And “I hope I get to you before they do”?  Also a little unnerving.

“I’m a Believer” by Smash Mouth

“It seems the more I gave, the less I got” sounds like more of a Republican sentiment to me.  Anyway, she needs to give it up.  Everyone knows the Monkees own this song.  Them and maybe Shrek.  Does she want Shrek as her running mate?  (Hm, that’s not a bad idea.  Though I personally would go with Puss in Boots.)

“Are You Gonna Go My Way” by Lenny Kravitz

She should give serious consideration to  this one, if only for the opening lines:

I was born long ago
I am the chosen, I’m the one
I have come to save the day
And I won’t stop until I’m done

Well, if we’re lucky, she will stop (ba-dum-bum!), but another reason to reconsider are these problematic lines in the last verse:

We’ve got to hug and rub-a-dub
We’ve got to dance and be in love

In addition to sounding, well, stupid, it seems like hugging and rub-a-dubbing are not visual images we want to revisit with the Clintons.  I’m sure I speak for everyone, regardless of political affiliation.

“Ain’t No Stoppin’ Us Now” by McFadden & Whitehead

Speaking of not stopping, that seems to be a recurring theme in her selections.  I’m very fond of this song, but if it gets associated with any Democratic campaign, that “don’t wanna stop, please don’t make us stop” bit at the end is going to give me nightmares.  ::shudder::

“Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic” by The Police

Unlike my husband, I don’t think this is such a poor choice.  Remember,

It’s a big enough umbrella,
but it’s always me that ends up getting wet.

That pretty much sums up her health-care plan, doesn’t it?

But Sting is also a foreigner, so forget it.

“You and I” by Celine Dion

Celine.  Freaking.  Dion.

Sigh.  Very well, Hillary, if you must be so obtuse, I will spell it out for you:  the American people want a President, not a Lover-in-Chief.  (Well, not this time, anyway.)  I mean, we like you well enough, just not in That Way.  You want a song that conveys strength and resolve, not…I dunno…gayness.

“The Best” by Tina Turner

“Simply the best, better than all the rest.”  Huh.  I don’t get it.

All kidding aside, though, I’m glad Hillary is letting us have a voice in how she runs her campaign.  Especially since it takes a lot of guts to invite wise****s like my husband to write in their suggestions.  (He, unlike I, did not have her best interests in mind.)  I wish the other candidates would listen to our suggestions for campaign theme songs.  Here are some of my ideas:

John Edwards:  “He’s So Fine” by the Chiffons, or maybe the title song from Hair.

Barack Obama:  “The Politics of Dancing” by Re-Flex–“The politics of oooh feelin’ good!”  We got your audacity of hope right here, baby!  This would be funnier if anyone else remembered this song, but I suspect I’m the only one.

Rudy Giuliani:  “New York, New York” by Frank Sinatra (NOT Liza Minelli)–Because if he can make it there, he’ll make it anywhere–get it???

Mitt Romney:  “Hip To Be Square” by Huey Lewis and the News–Cashing in on the dork vote.

John McCain:  “Theme from Rocky“–Because no matter how old he gets or how many younger, faster cats are out there, at the end of the day he can still kick the crap out of anyone in this town. 

If you were running for president, what would your campaign song be?

Cleaning up after Elvis dumps the change jar in the master bedroom, Day 2

Madhousewife:  Are we still finding money in this stupid bed?

Sugar Daddy:  Are you complaining about finding money in the bed?  I’m going to write a blog about how you’re all jaded now. “Oh, I don’t know when I want my housekeeper to come.”  “I keep finding money in the bed.”

Madhousewife:  The stupid bed.  We need a new one.

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This morning’s bad news:  Elvis has discovered the garbage disposal.

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Guilty Pleasures, Part 52

Once a friend of mine sheepishly confessed that she enjoyed listening to Delilah.  I assured her that she had nothing to be ashamed of; sometimes I listened to Delilah, too (though I don’t think I enjoyed it as much as she did).  Well, no more.  It’s all about the John Tesh Radio Show now.  He doesn’t just sit around choosing sappy love songs for the lovelorn.  He is actively trying to make me smarter.  Seriously, I learn a lot from his show.  Just last night he was telling us how to avoid food poisoning at buffets.  Word to the wise:  Cold dishes should have ice around the sides of the bowl and not just on the bottom.  If the food isn’t cold to the touch, it is already growing bacteria.  The best part is that he said “growing bacteria” just as Chicago started singing, “You are my love in my life…You are my in-spi-ra-shun…”

I’m feeling a strange connection with John Tesh these days.  He’s like a real friend, telling me what I need to know, not just the things I want to hear.  I also sense that he’s sincere.  He really wants me to have this information.  I don’t know about the rest of you all, but sometimes I felt like Delilah was just phoning it in.  John Tesh is keeping it real.  Not just relationship advice, but safe buffet dining.  I mean, for Pete’s sake, people can’t be always be in love, they gotta eat sometime.  So I don’t care what anyone says.  I like that John Tesh.  Now if only he’d play some better music, we’d really be in business.

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Madhousechildren discover the Muppet MoviesMister Bubby: I wish I was Kermit.  Then I would never have to wear a shirt.Princess Zurg:  But what if you were going on a date with Miss Piggy?

Mister Bubby:  Then I would wear clothes.

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P.S.  The housekeeper’s coming over next Wednesday at 8:00 a.m.It was the darnedest thing.  I actually had the phone in my hand, the number in front of me, and I was contemplating what I would say when the phone rang and it was housekeeping service scheduler asking me if I’d made a decision yet.  It was like a sign from God.  Good thing, because I probably could have contemplated for the rest of the day.When they come, I will tell them that any change they find in the bed is theirs.

The Oscar nominations are out, kids, and did I call them, or did I totally call them?!!  Okay, I only totally called them for Best Picture and Best Director–but for not having seen any of the movies, I think I did a pretty spec-tac-ular job.  Who’s the Giraffe???  I AM THE GIRAFFE!

I did get 4/5 of the Best Actor nominations, but only 2/5 for Best Supporting Actor.  That’s only because the laws of physics were repealed and they didn’t nominate Jack Nicholson.  Without Jack Nicholson’s fat mug taking up space, the entire category is blown wide open!  I’ll know better for next year.

I also got 4/5 of the Best Actress nominations.  I knew I shouldn’t have bet against Meryl Streep.  Let this be a lesson to you all.

I can’t believe that none of you pointed out that I neglected to make predictions for an entire category, i.e. Best Supporting Actress.  Which is too bad because I totally would have called them!  (Well, okay, probably not–the supporting acting category is clearly not one of my gifts.)  I’m putting my money on Jennifer Hudson.  She seems the type destined for early greatness and subsequent obscurity.  No offense to her.  I’ve never even heard her sing.  It’s just my superior giraffe instinct that tells me so.

Alas, The Fountain was nominated for not one single thing.  Unless it got one of those technical, handed-out-the-day-before awards, like Best Catering, or Best Performance by a Gaffer.  Whatever it was, it was well-deserved. 

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So it’s too early to make predictions for the 2008 election, but there’s just no getting around talking about it.  It’s too exciting.Already in the race (for all intents and purposes) are possibly the first black president (Barack Obama), the first woman president (Hillary Rodham Clinton), the first Latino president (Bill Richardson), the first Mormon president (Mitt Romney), the first pretty president (John Edwards), and the first president with a wife who performed in a play with the word vagina in the title (Rudy Giuliani).  I don’t know about the rest of you, but I am on the edge of my seat (and not just because I’ve got a three-year-old climbing on my back)!

I know I said it was too early to make predictions, but I predict Sen. Obama will mop the floor with Sen. Clinton and John Edwards will be exposed as having bought his mop at Wal-Mart.Right-wing talk-show host Michael Medved noted that the top-tier Democratic candidates (Clinton, Obama and Edwards) are all big lefties, while the top-tier Republican candidates (John McCain, Giuliani and Romney) are more centrist.  That’s a right-wing assessment of the situation if I ever heard one, but he does have a point.  What kind of Democratic primary race is it going to be when your most conservative option is Hillary Clinton?  A pretty freaking good one, I’d say. 

 No disrespect intended to Sen. Clinton, whose announcement-of-exploratory-committee-forming I enjoyed, but if she doesn’t get elected, I don’t think it will be because she’s a woman or because she’s married to Bill Clinton or because she voted for the war before she voted against it.  I think it will be because America isn’t ready for a president who begins policy debates by saying, “Let’s chat.”  Not that there’s anything wrong with chatting–I love to chat.  But can’t you just hear the talk radio cats already?  “Is this a woman who can stare down North Korea?  What, she’s going to call Kim Jong-Il on the red phone and say, ‘Let’s chat!’?” 

I’m not as enthusiastic about Mitt Romney’s candidacy as I ought to be, for two reasons:  1) a Mormon presidential campaign will be bad for Mormons, and 2) should he actually be elected, I think the end of the world might very well be at hand.  You read it here first, giraffe-lovers:  stock your bomb shelters with food, water and (where appropriate) fuel–and if necessary, repent.  I don’t mean to alarm you.  Just sayin’.

I confess that prior to a few months ago, I knew very little about Mitt Romney, aside from the following:  he ran unsuccessfully for Ted Kennedy’s Senate seat while I was in college*; he had something to do with the Winter Olympics in Salt Lake; he made People magazine’s Most Beautiful People list in 2001 (or was it 2002?); and he was elected governor of Massachusetts.  (That was unexpected.)  So after people had been going on and on about him running for president (maybe), I made a point of watching his interview on the Charlie Rose Show. 

Though not conducted by Mr. Rose himself (rather, some lady newsperson whose name escapes me), it was a pretty good interview.  My initial response was, “This cat’s smooth.  I like the cut of his jib.”  My secondary response, other than to ponder what exactly a “jib” is and how one cut differs from another, was to wonder whether or not we could break into Mitt Romney’s house and find a painting of a hideous beast squirreled away in his attic.  It’s not that I’m cynical or anything–no, wait, it’s that I’m cynical.  But I’ve found that in politics it pays to be cynical.  That’s my cynical take, anyway.

Actually, what I was reminded of was Rich Lowry’s description of Mitt Romney in National Review a while back:

“He is good-looking, charming and articulate — so impressive that at times one has to wonder how he found himself tossed among all of us mere mortals.”

But how is his hair?  Is his hair better than John Edwards’ hair?  Ehhhhhh….

Some people shake their heads over Obama-mania, but I don’t.  I completely understand his appeal.  (Contrast this with my complete befuddlement over any enthusiasm about John Ker–snnnrrrgghh–oh, sorry, I fell asleep there.)  When Sen. Obama speaks, I almost want to vote for him.  Actually, I wish I could vote for him, just so we could have a president with a name like Obama.  Isn’t it about freaking time?  I don’t intend to vote for him, but I’m glad he’s there–if only because I want to see if Sen. Kennedy will accidentally call him Osama bin Laden again.

Who’s your favorite potential candidate thusfar?

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* The awesomest thing about that race was when Al Franken made a phony political ad for Ted Kennedy on Saturday Night Live.  (This was back when Al Franken was funny.)  The tag line was “Ted Kennedy:  One Wife at a Time.”  If only Sen. Kennedy’s real ads had been as charming.

I very rarely see Oscar-winning or Oscar-nominated movies.  First of all, I just don’t get out to the movies much.  Not in the last decade or so, anyway.  Also, the Academy and I don’t have the same tastes in film.  So it’s been a very long time since I’ve taken any interest in the Oscars.  But since the 2008 election is still, what, 22 months away, give or take a couple weeks? I have to amuse myself somehow.  So I am going to attempt to predict this year’s Oscar nominees without having seen any of the movies I’m about to discuss.

What movies did I see this year, anyway?  Let me think… hmmm… Okay, there was Pirates of the Carribean: Dead Man’s Chest (good enough flick, but not Oscar-worthy even by my own esoteric standards), End of the Spear and most recently, The Fountain.  I hope that The Fountain gets nominated for some kind of Oscar because it’s the most beautiful damn movie I’ve ever seen in my life.  Visually stunning, I mean.  And I’m not talking about Hugh Jackman (more my mother-in-law’s type than mine).  But I digress. 

Back to the matter at hand–ahem.  I confess that I will be using the recent Golden Globes as a cheat sheet because that’s what it’s there for.  But I had most of this worked out in my mind prior to that ceremony.  So here it is, Your Gentle Giraffe’s Guide to Oscar Predictions:

Best Picture

The nominees will be Babel, The Queen, The Departed, Letters from Iwo Jima, and Little Miss Sunshine.  Do you know that I don’t even know what Babel is supposed to be about?  I can’t even remember who’s in it.  I think any of these pictures has a good chance of winning.  However, I’m going to bet on Little Miss Sunshine.  Why?  Because I just think it’s that kind of year. 

Best Director

The nominees will be Martin Scorsese (The Departed), Clint Eastwood (Letters from Iwo Jima), Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu (Babel), Stephen Frears (The Queen), and Paul Greengrass (United 93).  I think it’s a toss-up between Martin Scorsese (because if they can give Susan Lucci an Emmy, anything’s possible) and Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu (because I like his name).  Maybe I lean toward Scorsese.  If I were a betting woman, I’d put my M&M’s on him.

Best Actor

The nominees will be Forest Whitaker (The Last King of Scotland), Will Smith (The Pursuit of Happyness), Peter O’Toole (Venus), Ken Watanabe (Letters from Iwo Jima), and Leonardo “Freaking” DiCaprio (The Departed).  Forest Whitaker will win.  Peter O’Toole will die a week later and all people will be able to talk about is how good he was in Venus.

 Best Actress

The nominees will be Helen Mirren (The Queen), Judi Dench (Notes on a Scandal), Kate Winslet (Little Children), Penelope Cruz (Volver), and Annette Bening (Running with Scissors).  Cate Blanchett will be shut out.  Helen Mirren will win.  A week later everyone will be talking about how hot Penelope Cruz is and how come hot women don’t get to play queens?

Best Supporting Actor

The nominees will be Jack Nicholson (The Departed), Eddie Murphy (Dreamgirls), Brad Pitt (Babel–oh yeah, that’s who’s in it), Jackie Earle Haley (Little Children), and Michael Sheen (The Queen).  I also wouldn’t rule out a nomination for Ben “Freaking” Affleck (Hollywoodland), which should please Scott no end.  I think Haley will win, but Eddie Murphy also has a good chance.  The only one I’d vote against is Jack Nicholson.  Because Jack Nicholson doesn’t need another Oscar and everyone knows it.  He doesn’t even need an Oscar nomination, but I don’t think he could be in a motion picture and not be nominated.  I think it’s scientifically impossible.

So there it is–or rather, there they are, my picks for the Big Six, based on nothing but pure instinct and hearsay.  Can any of you who’ve actually seen the movies and performances in question make better predictions?  I doubt it, but you are welcome to try.

My older sister had her kids before I had mine, and while she was the mother of preschoolers, I was the hip, swinging single gal.  Okay, I was neither hip nor swinging, but I was single and had no children, and when I visited her home and saw Barney for the first time, I was appalled.  What a horrifically inane piece of crap, I thought.  I would never let any child of mine watch this mind-numbing, insipid, offensively asinine program. 

Fast forward several years, and I have a couple young kids.  Our family is visiting one of Sugar Daddy’s co-workers, who recently lost her younger child, and she is getting rid of various young-child things, including her videos.  Including her Barney videos.  Either SD or I start a tactful attempt to decline the Barney portions of the video largesse, but the friend says, “Oh, yes, Barney’s idiotic, but kids love it.”  And that’s that.  We take Barney home, but we don’t intend to let the kids watch him.  Ever.

Except that eventually we did.  Well.  I didn’t.  SD did.  And in retrospect, I’m glad he did, because I’ve grown to appreciate Barney over the years.  Is it insipid?  Yes.  Did it drive me crazy for a while?  Yes.  Does Baby Bop still make me want to reach into the TV and throttle her every time she opens her whiny fat mouth?  Yes.  But my kids love Barney, and I’ve decided that I love that they love Barney–because it means that they’re not jaded yet. 

Even Princess Zurg still likes Barney, though at almost-nine she is smart enough not to admit it.  And if a fellow second-grader hadn’t educated her last year, she probably wouldn’t have realized that the show was for babies.  I mean, really–aside from the mind-numbing insipidness of it all, what’s not to like?  A bunch of kids and a big purple dinosaur running around singing songs and making believe and acting like ninnies–that’s entertainment, dude.  It used to pain me to say this, but I freely admit now that I appreciate Barney’s innocence and simplicity.  When I look at ads for the Wiggles and the Parachute Express and their busy-busy-hyperventilating-seizure-inducing videos, I am grateful for Barney’s minimalist, single-camera, low-budget approach.  It’s soothing, in a way.

Also, I’ve come to the conclusion that most children’s TV these days is crap.  My children don’t watch broadcast television, and we don’t have cable or DishNetwork, or whatever, so the only kids’ shows they watch are what we have on video or DVD or what they see when they visit their other children’s homes which do have Noggin or NickJr. or whatever.  I watched a whole episode of Blues Clues once.  That guy in the stripey shirt was cute, but good heavens, what a tedious show that is.  Yes, I know it’s for three-year-olds.  So’s Barney, and it has way more plot than that.

The show that really gets on my nerves is Dora the Explorer.  I honestly can’t tell you why.  I mean, she’s an adorable little cartoon character, and she speaks Spanish and she’s got a monkey, but for some reason it all just drives me nuts.  When I was at my sister’s last month, I caught part of an episode where she and the monkey were “going on a berry hunt.”  It was a take-off on that “Going on a Bearhunt” song:

We’re going on a berry hunt
Gonna pick some juicy ones
We’re not scared
What a byooooootiful day!

Okay, first of all, I don’t understand why they can’t just go on a bear hunt.  Some damn Explorer she is.  Why should she be scared if all she’s going to do is pick juicy berries?  What, she’s going to prick her finger on a blackberry bush?  Oooooooh, creepy! 

Then they come to a lake, and Dora says, “Hey, a lake!  We can’t go over it…we can’t go through it…” and I think, “Of course you can go through it, Dora!  That’s what you do!  Well, it’s supposed to be a river, I think, because you can’t go over it and you can’t go around it, but you can go through it!  Splish-splash splish-splash splish-splash!  That’s how it goes!”

Well, I don’t know what she did next.  I had to go change the baby’s diaper or something.  But I do know this:  Barney would have gone through the river.  Barney would have gone on a bear hunt, for that matter.  He probably would have even learned some Spanish words if he took Tina with him.  Plus, there would have been dancing.  Dora’s a wuss.

Maybe I’m pre-disposed to dislike Dora the Explorer because of the Newsweek article a couple years ago that tried to convince us that watching TV was good for children.  Now you know me, gentle readers–I love me some electronic babysitting, but I don’t kid myself that it’s particularly edifying for the children.  At one point the article describes a test screening that the Dora producers have for some toddlers, and they take note when one of the kids looks away and starts playing with a toy instead of watching the screen because that means the show needs to be tweaked for maximum kiddie-viewing pleasure.  I’m thinking, “I don’t want experts figuring out how they can get babies to stay glued to the TV set instead of playing with toys.  Somebody stop these people!”  But that’s just me.

I read that they released a DVD set of the first Sesame Street episodes and they put a parental warning on it because they were filmed back when Cookie Monster still ate cookies and kids played in junkyards and nobody believed Snuffleupagus was real.  And Nister Hooper spent entire episodes in blackface.  Oh wait, that was another program.  Anyway, the Sesame Street of old is apparently not suitable for today’s youngsters, at least not without parental supervision.  Fortunately, I don’t mind watching Sesame Street with my children.  I do mind watching Dora the Explorer.  Probably because I’m jaded.

My kids aren’t jaded.  When they’ve watched Dora the Explorer, they’ve enjoyed it.  But my kids enjoy a lot of things I don’t understand.  Like eating ketchup by the spoonful.  And those chalky marshmallows you find in pre-sweetened cereals.  And TV shows where it takes a half-hour to find your pet alligator.

Have you heard (or read) about this?

GreenStone Media Launches Talk Programming for Women

Susan Ness, GreenStone’s President and CEO, says, “This is radio that is designed to help women navigate all aspects of their lives – from current events to balancing work and family, to healthcare and education – we’re providing an inviting place to relax and enjoy insightful and engaging discussion without turning people off.”

Does anybody else remember the old Phil Donahue show?  For most of the years he was on TV, he did shows about complex and controversial political and social issues.  He did a lot of “hard news” topics, such as global politics and the like .  His audience was almost entirely women.  He was buried, of course, by Oprah.  But I remember when Oprah won the Emmy for best daytime talk show, or whatever, she thanked Donahue for his pioneer work, for believing that women really were interested in more than just fashion and the usual fluffy entertainments usually peddled to women.

Since I haven’t watched her show in about fifteen years, I consulted the web site to see what Oprah is talking about these days.  A sampling:

“Tell us about YOUR FAVORITE PIZZA place!”

“Are you a WEIGHT LOSS SUCCESS story?”

“Do You Want To Meet a Hot Celebrity?”

“Stuck in the Middle of a Decorating Project?”

“Have You Let Yourself Go?”

To be fair, Oprah is also doing shows about bullying, divorce and getting older.  But still, I’m not seeing anything about Iraq, national security, or Medicare reform–I’m just picking topics out of the air here, stuff I imagine old Phil would be talking about if Oprah had never moved to Chicago and gone into broadcasting.  Of course, Oprah is Oprah and not Donahue; she has her own style.  Her program appeals to millions of women.  Most of the men I know would rather stick themselves in the eye with hot pokers than watch Oprah.

I find Oprah’s show more appealing than a hot poker in the eye.  I mean, don’t get me wrong–I’m a girl, and I appreciate a good makeover show as much as the next person (provided the next person’s also a girl).  But in general shows like Oprah’s don’t interest me.  I’m more interested in the so-called “women’s topics” than men are, but I don’t want to meet a hot celebrity or talk about decorating or how people lose weight.  That just doesn’t engage me. 

I listen to talk radio because they talk about serious stuff that’s going on in the world.  (They talk about fringe leftist movements sometimes, too, but you know, we all need a little ear candy from time to time.)  I rather enjoy the debate aspect.  I feel that my talk radio needs are already being served fairly well.  I’m not sure what a “talk network for women” would offer, unless it’s anything like Oxygen and Lifetime’s “television for women.”  Not to be overly cynical, but usually when they try to make stuff more “appealing to women,” they end up making it much less substantive and a lot more–well, a lot dumber, frankly.

So there’s this new study that Dan the Theologian alluded to yesterday (too far back in the archives for me to dig up, sorry) that concludes that men are, on average, more intelligent than women.  Michael Medved also discussed this study on his talk show yesterday.  Several women called in to take issue with the study’s conclusions.  Shocking, I know.  On a side note, here’s a little tip if you want to come off as an intelligent woman:  don’t cite the fact that you and your daughter or sister or whoever are really good at math and science, so this study must be baloney.  You and all the women you know aren’t a scientific sample.  But back to the topic at hand–I don’t know if this study is right or wrong, and I actually think that I don’t care.  It really makes no nevermind to me how the average or mean intelligence of women stacks up to the average or mean intelligence of men.  Men and women are still individuals.  If females do in fact have less innate intelligence when it comes to math, that isn’t an excuse for not teaching females math.  For one thing, some females certainly are good at math.  More importantly, though, even a person who does not have a talent for math can learn to do math competently.  That person will never become a mathematician or make great contributions in the world of math, but she (or he) can become smarter by working harder at things that don’t come easily to them. 

I’m not a brilliant mathematics student myself.  I did enjoy math while I was in school.  When I was a senior in college, my calculus professor introduced me to his wife by saying, “This is Mad.  She’s one of my best students.  She could have been a math major.”  Well, he flattered me.  I’m not sure he was right, but if he had told me as much when I was, say, a sophomore, I would definitely have pursued math with greater vigor than I did.  Still, I would venture to say that I’m better at math than most of the men I know–provided those men aren’t engineers.  Which would exclude most of the men I know, so never mind.  Let’s say I would venture to say that I’m better at math than the average man, if only because I’ve worked harder at it. 

What does this have to do with Oprah or talk radio?  Even I wouldn’t listen to a radio program about math (though it might be more interesting than a show about women who’ve let themselves go).  But Michael Medved’s assertion was that, given that the topics for “women’s programming” are generally much less substantive than those for general (or “male-centric”) programming, women who are interested in substantive topics–and hard stuff, like math–must be the exception rather than the rule.  He acknowledged that he himself was married to such an exceptional woman (who unfortunately was not around to offer her take on the subject).  I know my husband also considers me an exceptional woman in many aspects, which I haven’t always found necessarily flattering.  When women in general are belittled, it’s hard for an individual woman not to feel belittled herself.  On the other hand, I can’t stand most of what passes for “women’s programming.”  It’s just so…dumb.  Are most women really not interested in moving out of the “women’s news” ghetto?

Watch this space for a snide remark from my husband about GFCI.

1.  Making film/video versions of classic picture books.

Why do we need The Very Hungry Caterpillar on video?  It’s a delightful, gorgeous book that children love.  It does not need to be animated.  There is nothing that can be added to it artistically.  One cannot give his own “interpretation” of The Very Hungry Caterpillar.  Its unique charm is in its illustrations and paper engineering.  Plot-wise, it’s a tad thin.  Its symbolic value is iffy.  The only reason to have a video version of The Very Hungry Caterpillar is to avoid reading it to young children.  And that’s just wrong. 

My mother-in-law is the largest supplier of children’s books for our household, and she has excellent taste–and strangely she cannot resist books on video.  I don’t understand it.  She gave us a video of One fish Two fish Red fish Blue fish, and in the corner of the box is the Cat in the Hat logo with the paraphrased slogan “I Can Watch It All By Myself.”  One moment, please.

AAAAAAAAAAUUUUUUUUGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!

[Panting]

Okay.

Okay.

[Sigh]  I’m okay.  That Dr. Seuss video (oh, the shame of it!) is in a box in our garage.  I would have given it away ages ago, but I didn’t want to contribute to the downfall of Western Civilization.  And what if someone found it in the landfill and decided to take it home?  ::Shudder::  No.  Best to keep it hidden.  But now MIL has sent us a video of Harold and the Purple Crayon.  My children love it.  I haven’t watched it.  I just…cant.

2.  Skanky dolls marketed at little girls.

Say what you want about Barbie and how she hurts grown women’s body images.  This new generation of doll makes Barbie look like Gloria Freaking Steinem.  Forget for now that most of the children who play with these dolls are about seven years away from puberty.  What possible good can come of a child of either sex at any age playing with a doll that dresses in skimpy halter tops and hot pants?  It’s bad enough that these dolls have a whole multi-media arsenal devoted to the principle that the most important thing in life is shopping.  That’s offensive, but if they must be whores for the consumer culture, can’t they do it in more tasteful clothes?  Something slightly more conservative than, say, this?  It’s like Mattel used all its fabric making Barbie’s Cinderella ball gown, and all that