Shoulder pads and big hair

There's a new cable channel showing older 70s-90s comedy shows, so I've been watching some Murphy Brown, Designing Women, Golden Girls, and Mary Tyler Moore. They all pass the Bechdel Test--two women who have conversations with each other, about topics other than men. And they were popular shows. It's fun to watch. (They're not showing any black-character shows right now except The Fresh Prince. It would be nice to see The Jeffersons again.)

Being yourself, even in the nabe

One of the only sitcoms I've enjoyed is The Fresh Prince, and it's still funny in reruns. It's not just Will Smith who's so entertaining (and I hope gets back to doing comedies again one day) but also Alfonso Ribeiro who played his cousin. Ribeiro is hi-LAR-ious.

Right now they're playing my favourite episode, where Carlton is tired of Will accusing him of not being black, so he spends two days in a rough neighborhood. He brings along flash cards with *hood* expressions on them, ends up giving everyone business advice, and calls it "the nabe."

And it ends with a nice moral by Uncle Phil--don't let someone else shame you out of being yourself. Even if your self likes Tom Jones and Barry Manilow.

Don't it make you wanna dance? - Freedom Edition

When George Michael was in Wham! I liked the occasional song, but in general I was scornful of the band. When he went into his father-figure-want-your-sex phase, I DETESTED him. And when he released "Freedom 90" and blew up his leather jacket, I forgave.


I think there's something you should know
I think it's time I stopped the show
There's something deep inside of me
There's someone I forgot to be

Wedded to normality

One of my dad's favourite blogs is written by a woman pilot called Cockpit Conversation, and he forwarded to me a post she wrote about her six-toed cat. I love the pilot-ee way in which it's written:

The standard specification for a cat includes eighteen toes: five on each front paw and four on each rear paw. But this cat is different, and has six toes on each foot. It's different, but fully operational.

Further down she notes that a previous person didn't take this cat because they thought it would be too expensive to remove the extra toes. ??!!

I can't imagine being so wedded to normality that you would consider cosmetic surgery for a perfectly functional cat.

I've always wanted to make my own Silly Facebook Quiz. Maybe I could make: How wedded to normality are you? I wonder what the questions should be...

[And if you're interested in flying, I recommend this blog!]

Andy Warhol: In 15 minutes everybody will be famous!

I was watching a documentary on Andy Warhol a couple nights ago, and liked this quote.

At one point early in his career he wanted to be part of a clique of artists whom he admired, and who were gaining in fame; but they were closeted gays and thought him "too swishy." Here's what he thought about it:

"There was nothing I could say to that. It was all too true. So I decided I just wasn't going to care, because those were all the things that I didn't want to change anyway, that I didn't think I 'should' want to change."

After watching the show with me, Fernando has finally expressed an interest in seeing New York one day. He wants to see the Campbell soup cans at the Museum of Modern Art.


Some more Warhol quotes:

My prediction from the sixties finally came true: "In the future everyone will be famous for fifteen minutes." I'm bored with that line. I never use it anymore. My new line is, "In fifteen minutes everybody will be famous."

What’s great about this country is that America started the tradition where the richest consumers buy essentially the same things as the poorest. You can be watching TV and see Coca-Cola, and you know that the President drinks Coke, Liz Taylor drinks Coke, and just think, you can drink Coke, too. A Coke is a Coke and no amount of money can get you a better Coke than the one the bum on the corner is drinking. All the Cokes are the same and all the Cokes are good. Liz Taylor knows it, the President knows it, the bum knows it, and you know it.

wig me!

Wigs are expensive and would give me headaches, but it would be fun to own a huge collection! Wear different hair every day!

Don't it make you wanna dance? - Listen to The Lauper now

You probably already know Cyndi Lauper's "True Colors". How about this instead? She's gonna wail at you 'til you shine. And she would know something about it.

"Shine" - Cyndi Lauper

Gonna call down to this diamond
buried underground
Gonna pull you up
by your love, by your love

in search of beauty

MuchMusic is playing Jessica Simpson's The Price of Beauty, so I finally got to see it for myself (the Japan episode). It's a good idea, but I think where she went wrong was in bringing along two friends.

When the three of them are trying out something (a spa treatment, learning how to be a geisha), and something is odd/difficult, it degenerates into giggly-gang-laughing. It's exactly what would happen if you tried these things out with your buddies. Making jokes with each other, falling into each other, etc.

But for a documentary, it feels a bit disrespectful. Alan Alda has the same kinds of reactions when he tries a new experience, but he's always interacting with the person teaching him, and the camera. So it feels more interactive with the culture you're trying to understand--it comes off as a shared experience, with the country in question and with the viewer. Rather than watching someone else's vacation videos.

Her narration isn't bad, though. Gonna watch the Rio episode now.

Could you pass the butherface test?

I was watching the make-fun-of-videos show and they called Fergie of the Black Eyed Peas a "butterface" or "butherface" --> meaning, her body is hot but her face isn't. When you google butherface, Sarah Jessica Parker is another common celeb who comes up. I googled buthisface and almost all the photos that came up were of Michael Phelps--I suspect people don't apply this term very often for men.

Needless to say, I think this expression is extraordinarily stupid. And since it's mostly used re. women, I'd say it's also sexist. We need raise our ugliness standards a little higher.

Or maybe I should just jump on the bandwagon. We could come up with even more exception-descriptions! Like "He's a classic buthisbrain if ever I met one. Gross!" Or instead of calling someone as asshole, I'll just call him a buthisinsecurity!

Pretty Pint Sized Power

The New York Times had a fun little article about the trend of ass-kicking-petite-women. The author doesn't mention Joss Whedon, but that's who I associate the trend with -- Buffy the California Girl with super strength...

little looney River Tam in Firefly (here's her Super Scene, though don't watch it if you ever intend to see the movie Serenity, which I recommend) ...

Echo and Sierra in Dollhouse.



The author mentions Lisbeth Salander, from the current popular Steig Larsson series.

Also Fiona of Burn Notice.

And Mindy from Kick Ass.

Sookie from True Blood.

If you're going to mention Sookie, then I think Rogue is similar--she's not a big ass-kicker, but I think her appeal is her smallness/vulnerability, with big scary power.

Knives Chau from Scott Pilgrim.

And one of the original feminine-small-waisted-but-will-F-you-up women, Major Houlihan from MASH.

And let's not forget, my girl Haley and her Evil Minion.



But the ultimate princesses of Pint Sized Power are the girls of St. Trinian's girls' school, who regularly blow up the school, run an illegal liquor business out of the science lab, terrorize the other schools on the hockey field, turn every school inspector crazy, bet on horses, and basically make their school the most feared school in England.

It's a man man man man world

Just so the ladies aren't alone in feeling bad--the Telegraph posted a picture of a "portly" Jack Nicholson in bathing suit. So I decided to google Jack Nicholson fat--there's a few hits, but most of them celebrate how Cool and Debauched he is, and how he can still score young chicks.

He’s fat! He’s 72! He dances! He smokes in the sea! Jack, CW salutes you. There is not a man alive today who can match your selfless dedication to growing old disgracefully, or indeed your impish ability to get away with it. (Sunday Times)

Certainly, he was carrying a few extra inches around the middle - OK, he is fat - but he was doing what Jack Nicholson does best: he was being his own man. He was being Jack the Lad. And, as befits a man of his charisma, he was growing old disgracefully. (Daily Mail)

Don't it make you wanna dance? - You don't need looks, you just need 'tude

I don't know what life would be like sans Rolling Stones. "Start Me Up" is like the grown up version of the Jonas Brother's "Burning Up." The lyrics are just too too funny. Gotta be careful not to sing them out loud at work when you've got the song in your head, though. "You make a dead man cooome..."

Ahhh Mick Jagger. Proof that you don't have to be good lookin' to be sexy.

Fashion Practicality

Shockingly, even a hide-bound fashionista* like Ashton Kutcher has a practical side. When asked to describe his style by In Style magazine:

"Comfortable and tactical. I dress for what I have to do that day. I always yell at my wife is we're in New York City and she's wearing heels. I say, 'You know we could end up walking. Don't wear heels.'"

A little less Carrie Bradshaw...

...a little more Sarah Jessica Parker.

* I say hidebound cause his fashion rules for men are yawnworthy.

Getting dressed in Cannes

I'm discovering that if you want to find the really cool dresses--which have disappeared from American red carpets--you need to go to Cannes. Like this great dress on Cate Blanchette.



And my new fave find is Israeli socialite Hofit Golan. When you're constantly making the fugly lists, you know you're on the right track.

Baby Quasar

The Baby Quasar "uses sequepulse technology with four wavelengths of red and infrared light" to make "softer, smoother skin."

I don't care whether it works or not. I just want to know... did Princess Leia have one?

Would a man really use something called "Sculpteeeees!" ?

Men’s “shapewear” is “the next big thing,” declared Michael Kleinmann, the president of Freshpair, which sells underwear to both sexes. ... Men’s torso-enhancing T-shirts are part of a revolution in men’s underwear that has been taking place over the last decade, he said. Another popular but hush-hush product is profile-enhancing underwear, which he called “the equivalent of a push-up bra” for men. ... “The biggest obstacle is to get a guy to understand it’s a new category, and it’s O.K. to wear it,” Mr. Kleinmann said. “It is still a little taboo.”

Stephen Viscusi, a career coach, couldn’t agree more. He thinks that all men over 40 should wear Spanx to job interviews. “When you feel good about the way you look, you interview well." ...He recently wore them to see executives from Bravo and VH1. “It gave me pecs, gave me definition, it gave me confidence,” he said. ... Still, undergarment trickery has its pitfalls, especially on dates. Men have been known to express surprise when a Spanx-compressed woman disrobes in the bedroom only to reveal a less svelte figure. Now women can complain, too. “Spanx for Men is all good, until you meet a chick,” one skeptic warned on Twitter. “You gain 45 lbs when you get naked.” (New York Times)