Oh, reality TV....

I've said it before and I'm saying it again: I'd rather hang out with Honey Boo Boo's family than those awful Kardashians or, actually, pretty much any other reality TV families, except maybe the Torres family on Pitbulls and Parolees. Well, mostly I want to hang out with all those dogs at Villalobos.

Why is everybody all up in their grill? So they're rednecks with a pageant habit and a pregnant teenager. Big whoop. At least they're having a good time, instead of staging nasty weave-snatching girlfights like those awful people on "Big Rich Assholes" and all the "Housewives" shows. Here's my theory: people can't stand them because they are fat and happy and have deep redneck accents that they are not ashamed of. They could not give a good goddamn whether you approve of anything about them. The Judgy McJudgersons of America cannot tolerate a bunch of people who do not appear to be filled with self-loathing. They are not spending a ton of money on looking "better" or monetizing their reality show fame. They seem to be enjoying their time in front of the camera while knowing full well it's a fluke and it won't last forever.

 Now, I admit to not being able to stomach "Toddlers and Tiaras" because child pageants are so much pornified pedophilic nastiness... but the Thompson/Shannon family (yeah, I totally had to wikipedia that one), well their show doesn't involve a lot of pageant stuff.

 I'm not sitting down religiously watching it, but I'll sooner watch five minutes of that than just about any other reality show that doesn't involve pit bull rescues.

 And let us not pretend like anybody but maybe Sugar Bear really needs those subtitles. He doesn't need them because of his accent, anybody with a mouth full of chew would be hard as hell to understand, even an Oxford don with a perfect British accent. Anyhow, if you can't understand a Southern accent, it's not the Southerner's fault. You're just not trying very hard because you think you're better than anybody with a drawl. I tell you what: you ain't.

the pollen

I have a cold, I've got my period, and the entire town of Buttcrack is covered in a layer of yellow pollen. Oak? Pine? Who the hell knows? All I know is that it's trying to kill me. I've missed 4 of the 7 classes I teach this week and slept approximately 16 hours per day. Today, Friday, I have spent the afternoon in my bed watching TV on my laptop. Caught up with Project Runway All-Stars (I'm sorry, but Jerrell's tacky India costume should've sent him home before Mila last week). And I hate to admit it, but Kenley should've won the technology/lights challenge. I think the pink wig made it too Nicki Minaj but the outfit was better than Austin's, at least from what I could see.

Caught up with Downton Abbey - really, the noble English family is going to go testify for a valet at his murder trial? Doubtful. And give them Christmas presents AND a servants' ball? It's all too much. Yes, of course, Matthew and Mary, ever after, blah de blah... but Mary's been such an asshole, I'm not sure she deserves to be happy ever after. I suppose that's a bit harsh, but all of the Crawleys and Granthams were assholes over the last few episodes, especially the one where everybody has the flu. Which is not to say I won't be eagerly watching Season Three just as soon as it comes back.

Last but not least, I am watching Once Upon a Time, which has this feminist subtext in addition to ALL of the interesting and complex characters being female. The male characters are eye-candy or two-dimensional, except for Rumplestiltskin, I suppose, but he's still pretty pathetic all in all.

And now, it being past 7 pm, I believe I will take a shot of Nyquil and go to bed.

home with a nasty cold....

AND SO SICK OF BEING SICK I TELL YOU WHUT!

Anyhoo, have spent the last few days indulging in: a day of watching reruns of America's Next Top Model; the next day I watched all seven episodes of Grimm on Hulu - which I loved; then an all-day marathon of Mythbusters(because who doesn't love explosions?); and then today, every episode of Once Upon a Time aired to date. The dude who plays Prince Charming was the top student of a fella I did some museum bidness with last summer. His name - Josh Dallas - which sounds fake, is for real. It's like his parents KNEW he needed an actor name.

Srsly, sick. of. being. sick. Nyquil doesn't even put me to sleep any more.

crap on the television

I am considering turning off any television show that features regular use of firearms. The militarization of the various crime-fighting units featured on some of my more favorite crime procedurals seems to me to be closely linked to the militarization of actual police in the world, the kind who respond to peaceful protests with SWAT-team aggression. I may have to make an exception for NCIS since they are, in fact, a military organization. And Mark Harmon is only getting hotter with age. How does that happen?

A while back I started turning off any television show as soon as I saw a hot dead chick, or a hot woman being assaulted in some way. I don't think I've watched an entire episode of Law & Order or CSI since. I don't miss them, to be honest.

The abundance of aspirational watch-people-shop TV shows is gross and boring. There are hundreds of hours of TV devoted to watching people buy real estate, wedding dresses, new wardrobes, the contents of storage units, and who knows what else. This kind of "watch people spend money" programming seems to me to be the modern depression analog to the wildly popular over-the-top musicals (Ziegfield follies et al) of the 1930s Depression. It's escapism for some, I guess, but I find it appalling. Also, watching people haggle at a pawn shop is incredibly boring. I kind of like the little historical interludes in Pawn Stars - sort of a low-rent Antiques Roadshow, really - but then the tedious and predictable haggling sequence follows, and, yawn.

Finally, as a thought experiment, I would love to see that awful Millionaire Matchmaker lady try to find a partner for an average-looking middle-aged woman who wants a hotty-boombalatty younger man to serve as arm-candy. Can you imagine a bunch of straight 30-ish dudes getting all tarted up to go stand in front of a panel and be judged and questioned as to whether he might possibly worthy of dating said average-looking middle-aged woman? Ha. Not gonna happen.

Memo to the Criminal Minds writing staff

Dear Writers:

I kind of love Criminal Minds. Derek Morgan is adorbs, Dr. Reed annoyingly/lovably nerdy, and Penelope Garcia is funny, brilliant, and nobody comments on the fact that she's not a size two. Love. Her.

However: could we please STOP blaming mothers for the actions of serial killers? Because, really, LOTS of kids are abused - by fathers AND mothers, alas - and the vast, overwhelming majority of them do NOT become serial killers. So, really, lay off the Mean Mommy Made Him a Bad Man story line, please.

Thank you.

don't blame the victim, TRASH the victim

So, I don't usually pay attention to celebrity gossip media, with the exception of fashion-oriented blogs like Manolo, Go Fug Yourself, and Tom and Lorenzo. It's about the clothes and the snark, though, not about the celebrities themselves. I try to avoid the gossip stuff because it's frankly a cesspool of blah-blah about people who aren't really that interesting as human beings.

That said, the recent revelations that Mel Gibson isn't just in the habit of verbally abusing police officers, but is also an abusive husband, have come to my attention. It's kind of hard to miss, you know? That guy is seriously one temper tantrum away from homicide. I kind of thought, once the tapes were out, that we could all be in agreement that this is a reprehensible human being in need of incarceration and re-programming. But LO! NO! What should I discover but I was actually completely wrong about this.

I turned on my TV yesterday to see what was on, and I accidentally watched a few minutes of Entertainment Tonight (Tonite? Wev.) And there, sitting in the dark, wearing sunglasses, with his voice changed, was some douchebag opining that Mel Gibson's wife was a "gold digger", that she was obsessed with flirting with celebrities, that all she ever wanted was a celebrity husband and a bunch of money. I mean, who is this guy? Some random douchebag who, for all we know, could be Mel Gibson, or one of his PR flunkies, or some out-of-work actor Mel Gibson's PR flunkies paid to trash Oksana Grigorieva. So after this CHARMING little "interview", the announcer says, "Tomorrow, Oksana's plastic surgery REVEALED!" And there's a clip of some guy pointing at her face, smirking, and saying "Oh, that's a telltale sign of plastic surgery!" Like every single on-camera member of the ET staff hasn't had plastic surgery. Puh-lease.

Now, here's the thing. This isn't fucking news. Trashing a victim of domestic violence with RIDICULOUS accusations of being a "gold digger" and (gasp!) getting cosmetic surgery, as literally tens of thousands of women and men do every single year, is fucking beyond the pale. I know ET is in the making-money-by-selling-ads business, and people will stop and watch if the announcer says "Mel Gibson", but why the fuckity fuck would they make this particular choice - the trashing/blaming the victim choice - if they weren't being pressured by someone with a financial interest in Mel Gibson's longevity as an actor? Or are they just making this choice because it is in the best interest of perpetuating the patriarchal myth that only bad women get beat up? Whatever reason, it's unacceptable. It's sickening.

Obviously they aren't saying *OUT LOUD* that she deserved to be abused, but it's an easy leap from a to be: "she's imperfect, therefore the bitch deserved it." Using anonymized sources is just the lowest of the low. It makes me sick to see a victim of abuse - and well-documented abuse - being trashed for no other reason than that she's... um... what? Female? Married to someone rich? What the fuck?

Screw you, celebrity entertainment complex! I hope you all die in a fire.

summer reading

I have mentioned before that I'm only reading women authors this year. Actually, my Year of Women Authors was supposed to start in January 09 (it was a rare New Years' Resolution), but at the time I was in the middle of a half-dozen books by dude authors. So I finished those up and commenced in June of last year. Just yesterday I was looking around the house for something to read, and found I was fresh out of new stuff by women, so I picked up one of my abandoned books by male authors. "The Art Thief" by Mansplainy Mansplainerson is what I picked up, and it's like reading an Art History 101 lecture, only without pictures. Criminy. Have I mentioned that I've been teaching Art History 101 since the mid-90s? Yeah, I don't need a lecture on van Eyck's Arnolfini portrait, which by the way is no longer called the Marriage Contract. Just, FYI. 30 pages in and I'm already skipping entire pages. Coincidentally, The Rejectionist, over at Tiger Beatdown, just posted about ManFiction and how tedious it is. For example:

"What’s a manfiction book, exactly? It is indeed, almost but not entirely exclusively, a book by a man; but it is a particular kind of book by a particular kind of man, a Real Man, a virile, manly man, who gallops around on horses in between penning great works."

Go, read the whole thing.

Now, just as I finished THAT, what appears in my google reader but this little gem:

Hot Summer Reads from 12 Literary Stars

Let's do a Guerrilla Girls style breakdown:

all 12 literary stars appear to be white, though one has a Hispanic name**
4 of them are female
10 recommended books by men
1 of the books by women was about getting your baby to sleep through the night
so! only ONE of the books recommended was a narrative work by a woman about something besides traditional lady-business*

In conclusion, well, you know: it's all about the white people. I note with interest that Mother Jones is supposed to be a progressive publication.



*I kind of want to give the one narrative book by a woman bonus points for being about teen Latinas, but then again it's a book by a nice white lady sociologist about teen Latinas, so, you know, that could go either way, right?

**Vendela Vida, whose wikipedia entry mentions her husband, a pretentious author whose name rhymes with Wave Weggers (whose first big deal famous bestseller book was so loathesomely self-absorbed I couldn't finish it) almost immediately, and then constantly, throughout her bio.

Open Letter to Male Musicians:

We get it. You have a penis, and you would like to put it in someone. This is not brand new information, and you can stop writing songs about it.

Thanking you in advance,
Jezebella

Report from Voodoo Fest

Ahem, the Voodoo Experience Music Festival.

The Pogues: alternately sublime and sad. Shane MacGowan is going to be dead soon. He is a terrible alcoholic, a bloated, pale, shambling, mess. The rest of the band is tight, fierce, and brilliant. Shane stumbles on stage every third song or so and slurs his way through a tune. He's got a handler who walks him on stage, gives him a lit cigarette and the microphone, and makes sure he doesn't fall down. Awful. Honestly, they're better without him. Obviously they put up with him because the drunk yobs in the audience are all about how hilarious the drunk is, but the yobs are young enough to have never seen a man drink himself to death. Overall, they were brilliant, and I love the band, but the other singer is, frankly, better. Also, he was in a temper, and it put a sharp edge on their performance that I kind of enjoyed. Also, they had a hot accordion player in velvet pants. I mean, smokin' hot bald guy with an accordion. Whoda thunk?

Squirrel Nut Zippers: Listened from outside the tent while chatting with a friend I hadn't seen in way too long. They sounded excellent, but I can't say I paid a ton of attention.

Flaming Lips: Holy frijoles, what a freakin' spectacle! Psychedelic from the get-go, lights, screens, people dancing in furry animal costumes, confetti, Wayne Coyne in an inflatable ball, smoke machines, bullhorns, yes, and yes, and yes. I could've taken hours more of it. They played Yoshimi, and Do You Realize, and the Yeah Yeah Yeah song, and some new stuff, and they were terrific.

Meat Puppets: ROCK! SHOW! They played in the Bingo tent, so it felt like a rock show in a club. They were amazing. They were loud. Curt Yearwood is one of the best guitarists I have ever heard. Sometimes I forget how much brilliant noise a three-piece band can make. They fucking rocked it. SO good. It helped that the douchebags were all at the Lenny Kravitz stage. Not that Lenny's so bad, but you know, his audience? Not so much. It was intimate, and punk rock, and just so fucking good.

I caught a few minutes of Widespread Panic because they were on the opposite stage while the Flaming Lips were setting up, and man o man are they some boring stinky hippies. Jeebus. So boring. Allow me to share with you my Widespread Panic story. About, oh, a decade ago, the Squidophile and his friend K wanted to go to Jazz Fest and see Widespread. I tagged along, thinking, well, I'm just going for the food, really. Widespread had TWO lots at Jazz Fest, which is really unusual, and totally undeserved if you ask me. So we're watching Widespread and I'm eating this great veggie pita from the African food stand, and when my food is gone I am booooooooooored. I mean, yawn, right? So I ask K and the Squidophile: is this more interesting if you're high? And they're like, well, let's find out! So they spark it up (I do not indulge. Jez no like the weed). I wait ten or fifteen minutes and say, so? Is it better if you're high? And they're all, "No, we're just too stoned to want to get up and go away." Aha! I see it now: the entire appeal of Widespread Panic is that their audience is too high to leave.

Stupidest thing ever

Y'all, there's a lot of stupid shit on the internet. Sport corsets. Fetish shoes. BDSM fans. But I swear, this shit is the stupidest ever: makeup. for your boobs. The "My Beautiful Breasts Kit" includes seven shades of powdery stuff, "primer", "setting spray", two brushes, and, get this: semi-permanent "bust stain". So you can have makeup on your boobs even when you're sweaty. For fuck's sake. I'm sure someone rad-femmier than me could produce a highly nuanced review of this fucking ridiculous product, but I am clearly reduced to swearing and sputtering.



How might a cranky old ranty-pants run across something so pink, so artificial, so patriarchally endorsed, so stupid? Well you might ask. I found a review of said product on a website called "Vital Juice", which purports to be a website about health and wellness. What the fuckity fuck does boob make-up have to do with health and wellness, I ask you?

Pop Culture Guilty Pleasure

People, do not count me as a member of the Yay! Musicals! Club. I am missing the musical gene. I think they are silly and stupid and boring and highly synthetic and on the whole I loathe "musical theater" music. There are two exceptions: I thoroughly enjoyed Rent and Spring Awakening, but both have music written by people who came out of pop/rock and not out of Musical Theatah. Furthermore, I cannot carry a tune in a bucket nor do I know my f-string from my minor chord. Jezebella? She plays *the stereo*.

Never mind all that. My new favorite show is Glee. I luff it. It is campy, stylized, extremely silly, sweet, and I can't get enough. Jane Lynch as sociopathic cheer coach? Check. Socially "flawed" but musically talented student cast? Check. VICTOR GARBER AS TEACHER'S BOWTIED DAD??!! CHECK and CHECK.

You know what won me over? The full-on perky show-choir treatment, with costumes and choreography, of Amy Winehouse's "Rehab". I mean, only an evil genius could come up with that.

Godwinned by the radio: Shouty White Men edition

So I'm tootling to work this morning and turn on NPR. I hear part eleventy-billion in a series called "Why Miss'ssippi So Fat, Y'all"? The discourse here has yet to be embiggened regardless of how much they talk about it on the radio. It's like everybody in the fucking state thinks it's all about french fries. I have yet to hear anybody mention the high cost of nutritious food, the link between poverty and poor nutrition, the genetic component, or the fact that we should be treating diabetes, high blood pressure, and actual diseases, rather than hassling fat people who may or may not be unhealthy. I actually heard the state health czar say that it was high time being fat was considered socially unacceptable in Mississippi. Because, you know, 'round here, fat people get all the love.

But I digress. Because what I really want to yak about is the snippet of Shouty White Man Radio I heard after I got disgusted with NPR. I flipped through a coupla stations and find a Shouty White Man talking about eugenics. Eugenics! Who knew Shouty White Men cared about such things, right? He mentions early eugenics, which were bad before the Nazis commenced to genocide, and I'm thinking - huh - is there now a Shouty White Man who isn't a total tool? [For those who like to skip to the end of the novel and read it first, the answer is no. I know you're shocked.] And then he says there are people making eugenics-type statements here and now! In the 1970s! In the 1990s! YES! [I will pass over in silence that it's no longer the 1990s.] They are comparing the value of babies and teenagers, old people and middle aged people! [And I'm thinking: is he talking about trial lawyers? Because that doesn't sound like eugenics to me. That sounds like those formulas that help juries decide how much to award survivors in the case of wrongful death.] I'm wondering if these new eugenicists are rising in Germany, or what? Where are they!? I'm on the edge of my seat. Y'all, you are gonna be shocked. I was.

They are advising President Obama on health care reform.

Yeah. THAT'S where Shouty White Man was going with this. And I roll my eyes, and slump in my seat, because it's true: all Shouty White Men on the radio are idiots. Sigh. He totally Godwinned the conversation from the git-go and I missed it. He's comparing health care reform advisors to the architects of the Nazi genocide. For fuck's sake, do the Shouty White Men have no integrity whatsoever? I can't take any more. I change the channel. And then, I need to know - who is the Shouty White Man - and I go back and find it's Glenn Beck. He's the one I hear is less of an asshole than the other guys, the one who's kind of "middle of the road." The one with compassion, because he cries a lot. No. He's a fucking moron, yo.

Pardon my absence

I have been reading Sookie Stackhouse novels in all of my available waking hours.

My year of no gueros.

Inspired by a post by my friend Joy (her blog is linked over there on the right), I decided I've given enough headspace to guero writers.* Who needs more fresh! manly! wisdom! from white dudes, I ask you? I'd been reading the latest Thomas Pynchon and was moseying my way through a pretty annoying T.C. Boyle book when I thought: fuck it. I will put these books down and indulge in some women writers. As it happens, I've been out of town a lot this month, so my year of no gueros, which was to begin June 1, has started off slowly.

I started by re-reading Toni Morrison's Beloved, which I had read in college in a giant hurry, and was completely bewildered by at the time. The book drifts, jumps, and skitters back and forth in time, space, and imagination without warning or clarity, but this time around I was able to make sense of it. I don't know if I was less aware of the sexual violence built into slavery when I read the book as an undergrad, and therefore missed it, or what, but somehow I had forgotten that aspect of the book. It was perhaps the least fleshed-out, most casual references to the horrific sexual violence experienced by minor characters that most took my breath away. The woman who spent her adolescence "shared by father and son" ("the lowest yet", she called it). The guards abusing prisoners on a prison farm. I could go on, but it's more than I can repeat. It is a powerful book, and a difficult read, and I'm glad I picked it up again, twenty years on, with a more finely honed feminist consciousness and the time to move through the book slowly, deliberately, taking breaks when I needed to catch my breath.

Having no time to go out and buy something new just yet, I picked Mansfield Park off the shelf. I also, clearly, needed something a little more lightweight. I keep hoping that I will find a character in MP that I like, but I just don't like anyone in it. Never have. The character study, the plotting, the witticism, all are what I love about Jane Austen, but there's just nobody to grab ahold of. Fanny's nearly spineless, and when she does have a spine, it's because of some overly correct moral compunction. I'm not into religious people. Edmund's boring, Tom's an ass, Henry Crawford an insufferable egotist, etc., etc. The women are mostly dull or vain, except for the abusive Mrs. Norris, who I want to whack with a stick. I think perhaps this is Jane's pointiest book. I won't go so far as to say it's actually *mean*, but it's definitely got an edge.

I'm nearing the end and in need of more fiction, and so I went trolling through Joy's blog for some contemporary women writers to track down. I'm pleased to report that I have books by Alisa Valdes-Rodriguez, Tayari Jones, and Kathryn Harrison headed my way. I've got some Kate Atkinson queued up but haven't ordered it yet. Book reports to follow, yo.

*I can't find the post I'm thinking of, but you should just go read her whole blog anyway.

Who's Buddy Holly?

Yeah, so, I had a relapse and watched a lot of Celebrity Rehab this weekend, because I had a lot of ironing to do and it seemed like a good idea to watch something brainless while I did the ironing.

I was in error, my friends, ERROR. Let me assure you, it's never a good idea to watch Celebrity Rehab or Sober House. Learn from my mistakes, I beg you. I will tell you the single most shocking thing I heard said on Celebrity Rehab (which for some reason I keep wanting to call Celebrity Apprentice):

"Who's Buddy Holly?"

Sean Stewart, son of Rod Stewart, asks this question of Gary Busey. You should've seen Busey's head whip around and say, "WHAT?" "Who's Buddy Holly?" was the repeat. I just, I can't imagine how someone who grew up in the music business doesn't know who fucking Buddy Holly is. Addict behavior, abuse, tantrums, lies, overdoses, yeah, that's to be expected, but "Who's Buddy Holly?" just ripped a hole in the fabric of the universe for me.

OMG SHOES

Neil Patrick Harris has shoes for you.

now see what happens?

You fart around on the internet long enough, refreshing your google reader long enough, and you run across this video:



cheered up. stat.

Idle Curiosity

I accidentally listened to commercial radio this morning.

And I'm wondering.

When did Linkin Park turn into Cure wannabes?



Here's the thing: if you watch it, it seems all butch and contemporary, but if you just *listen* to it, it's all moody vocals and banks of synthesizers. All of those shouty explodey noises are NOT on the radio track.

House 05.19.08

Yeah, so watching House made me cry last night, but it also irritated the ever-living shit out of me. Why? Because Wilson is NOT Amber's "family." He's her boyfriend. Does she not have a next of kin? Shouldn't someone have *called* her next of kin to make the big life-or-death decisions? Man, that's aggravating. House is usually better-written than that.

Lots of people curious about what Gaeta is singing

...on the last episode of Battlestar Galactica ("Guess What's Coming to Dinner?" is the ep title). The song is called "Gaeta's Lament".

Commentary and video can be found here: Battlestar Galactica's Latest Song is full of Clues.

However, I would have to agree with the commenter on that site that the blog post title is misleading. The blogger, Meredith Woerner, doesn't exactly untangle the lyrics and give us a new interpretation. (Also, Meredith breaks up with Gaeta in this blog post. Which if fine. Gaeta can be MY boyfriend if she doesn't want him.)

It's a start, anyway.

Good hunting.