Sauced Silverscreen: Gypsy (1962) & the other half-bottle of Lulu B. Pinot Noir

I started watching Gypsy on Sunday evening a week ago and the first half hour just dragged. But I knew Natalie Wood made an appearance in this film and I was determined to tough it out and see her part. I told Buddy Holly if she showed up and it still dragged, we'd just drop it. So on we went through some more plot exposition and singing, and then Natalie Wood appeared and it was still boring and then, just when I was about to give up hope, she started singing to a lamb wearing a diaper.

Me: You know what's weird about this movie? All the songs are really specific. Rather than a song about love or a person, it's about what's happening right at that moment. It's like a Taylor Swift song.

Buddy Holly: You know what's weird about this movie? She's singing to a lamb wearing a diaper.
Me: ...Yeah...turn it off, I'm going to have to start it over and blog about it. This is too ridiculous to not have its own entry.

So, here we are. I knew I'd need alcohol to get through this one, so grab something to drink and come hear the tale of Gypsy Rose Lee.

Sauced Silverscreen: Girl Vs. Monster (2012) & Lulu B. Pinot Noir

Buddy Holly's youngest brother (he's 12) is spending the night with us and plead a desperate case to watch a movie he'd seen promos for all week. He was very excited about this movie and assured us that it was a "mature, Halloween film." Girl Vs. Monster, a Disney Channel Monstober special. Obviously, a mature film. But, being the loving siblings we are, Buddy Holly and I agreed to watch. And I immediately went out and bought an emergency bottle of wine.

A few of my favorite things II

Welcome to the second installment of my favorite things!

Okay, so it's no secret that I am in love with pretty much anything vintage, uhm, except vintage treatment of women. Ahem, anyway, make-up, hair, clothes, I love, love, love historical, vintage, and retro style. There are some especially great retro hairstyles. My hair is too fine and too short to ever pull off a Gibson-girl pompadour but a few styles I can pull off are:

• Italian Hair Taping: This lady has a fantastic youtube channel. All her hair treatments are natural and no heat, so good for your hair. She does a lot of historical and literature-based styles.

• Anne Boelyn: I love how elegant this looks, while still being super simple. P.S. isn't her accent the darlingest?!

• Headband Wrap: This is my go-to when I want my hair to curl. I have very fine, straight, unrelenting hair. I don't use heat on my hair and curlers just never seem to work, my hair falls flat. Somehow, this method seems to stick. I love wrapping my hair up like this in the morning when it's wet - it has a 1920's kind of vibe  (especially with a colored or beaded headband) - and I have great curls by lunch.

I love all things macabre. With Autumn coming on, my heart turns to Daphne Du Maurier, Alfred Hitchcock, and episodes of Suspense and The Whistler. I love a good chill, not out and out horror and certainly not gore-porn but the kind of suspense that makes you glad you're inside when night begins to fall. But I adore silly scary too. The Haunted Mansion has always been my favorite attraction at Disney (followed closely by The Tower of Terror). I can recite the entire monologue of the Ghost Host and it's a dream of mine to one day own this costume via NeverBugCreations on Etsy:

I adore the Addams Family and was known as Wednesday to a number of my childhood friends' parents because I looked so much like Christina Ricci's incarnation of her. And, in potentially the darkest expression of my morbid humor, Edward Gorey. I love Edward Gorey. He's so damn dark and it is hilarious. Any man that can create an entire alphabet of children's gruesome deaths is okay in my book.


The Lizzie Bennet Diaries! I only recently came upon this remarkable and totally brilliant modern adaptation of Pride & Prejudice. Told through a series of vlogs and twitter/tumblr/pinterest accounts, we're following the classic Austen tale told with new voices and some new twists. So wonderful!

I saw this today and loved it so:

Web comics! Egads, I love web comics. My daily feed includes:

Book of Biff
Girls With Slingshots
Hark! A Vagrant
Maximumble
Minimumble
Ozy & Millie (even though it's completed)
Survivng the World
XKCD


Remember that whole vintage thing we were talking about at the beginning of this post (wow, that was forever ago, huh?)? Well, I love old architecture too, especially art deco. I'm in the midst of a novel and, in my research, learned about the World Theatre in Kearney, Nebraska. This old theatre sat empty for a number of years, run down and apparently haunted. It has been completely renovated and returned to its former retro glory. Since opening at the beginning of the Summer, their showings have included Grease, The Goonies, and The Princess Bride. I've never wanted to be in Nebraska more.


I love the Infinity wrap or the Octopus dress. Lots of people make/sell these but I found mine at CoralieBeatrix on Etsy. I love having one piece of clothing that can do the work of a hundred plus. So many pretty things can be done with this dress.

I love celebrities that aren't too famous for you. This seems to happen a lot in the nerd/fringe genres...or maybe that's just where my attention lies. I keep tabs on the likes of Nathan Fillion (who's big thing is making sure kids read) and Wil Wheaton (who, with his wife, is very active in animal rescue). And, my most recent fangirl moment, Mike Nelson, of Mystery Science Theater 3000 fame, wished me a happy birthday!

I love unique perfumes. I'm not a fan of brand-anything really. I had the pleasure of creating my own perfume at the Molinard perfumery in Grasse, France and they keep the recipes on file, so you can have more made at any time. I am hoping to add these two to my collection in the future:

• Burning Leaves
• Paper Passion

Classic/Folk female vocalists. I like classical music well enough. I don't listen to it regularly but I enjoy some Philip Glass and Eric Copeland when they come around. But there is something about Celtic, folky, classical female vocalists that fill me up with happy. Maybe part of it is that some little dream inside me wants to be doing what they are. Enya's great, Celtic Woman is powerful, and Sarah Brightman has got some pipes but my heart belongs to Sissel Kyrkjebo and Hayley Westenra. For serious, these ladies can sing. Sissel is Norwegian and so my love for her is two-fold (I'm a fourth generation Norge) and Hayley is a BAMF kiwi, she gets props.

I feel like my list of favorite things is pretty girly. I'm going to attempt to make my next installment more manly. It will probably include brownies.

I Hate My Job

I work for a church and, for the most part, it's pretty great. I work with and for wonderful people. I can listen to Pandora or old time radio all day. I can check my facebook, email, twitter, and news feeds anytime I want. But I hate my job when:

Top Ten "I can't believe I'm listening to this drivel"

There are some terrible songs out there. Insipid songs, boring songs, songs with no musicality. But there are some songs that are terrible on principle, whose lyrics suggest some pretty awful things. And I hate myself when I sing along because, damnit, they're catchy too.

10. S&M (Rhianna):
Sticks and stones may break my bones
but chains and whips excite me
For someone with domestic abuse in their past, I feel like this was a bad choice. I mean, it's a bad choice no matter what, songs about fetishes rank high on the TMI scale, but, particularly if you've suffered physical abuse, it seems to be in bad taste.

9. Tonight (Enrique Inglesias):
I'm not even going to put the lyrics for this one. If you haven't heard the song, you can find it. Essentially, it goes something like "I'm [profanity for intercourse]-ing you tonight." Buddy Holly and I have a theory that as we lose all modesty or skill for innuendo, music will eventually just describe the sex act in scientific detail. To be fair, it won't just be in music. There is a distinct regression in the sexual innuendo used in James Bond films. In the twenty-two Broccoli franchise films we've gone from such delightfully clever repartee as "That's a nice little bit of nothing your almost wearing" or "I won't be needing these" (said of oysters on the half-shell) to "I don't like cock fights." *facepalm*

8. Don't Trust Me (3oh3):
Shush girl, shut your lips,
do the Helen Keller and talk with your hips
I think this one is pretty self-explanatory. Not only a slander at Helen Keller but pretty much all women. This is right up there with Dr. Pepper 10's great 'not for women' advertising campaign.

7. Peacock (Katy Perry):
Katy Perry took a lot of flack for I Kissed a Girl, another catchy tune that many find questionable, but that song has never bothered me overly much. She isn't my favorite artist but I also wouldn't call her the worst, I enjoyed Friday Night and Hot N Cold. But this song was inexcusable. A terribly flimsy innuendo without a hint of wit. I'm also not really sure what the song is supposed to achieve, except for the wild panting of fanboys everywhere, of course.

6. California Girls (Katy Perry):
We'll melt your Popsicle
Yeah, I know, two strikes against her. I also dislike Fireworks but only because it's trite and overplayed. This one is not to be confused with the California Girls of the Beach Boys. The lyrics here are not the worst though the tone of the song seems to suggest the loose ways of the feminine population in California. It's really the music video that is so offensive - the disturbing fantasies of a Candy Land fetishist.

5. Just a Toy (Tommy Sands & Annette Funicello):
In this movie, Mary Quite Contrary and Tom Thumb make a visit to Toyland (amongst other things). Whilst helping the Toymaker make toys for Christmas. As they clean up the toyshop for the evening, Mary begins to sing about a doll and what her life must be like, waiting for the joy of being found on Christmas morning and finally belonging. Then Tom begins singing:
I love to see 'neath my Christmas tree
one special doll meant for me.
Smiling eyes, silken hair
you'll need such loving care,
you're just a toy.
You were planned and designed
with one person in mind,
to hold you and keep you forever,
and you'll live for the love
and the happiness of
this lonely boy
and each night he will say
in a whimsical way,
you're just a toy.
Yes, you, my beloved, are an inanimate, immobile object that can neither think nor speak. You will "live for the love and the happiness of" your predetermined mate. Each evening he will whimsically mock your static circumstance.

4. Bobby's Girl (Marcie Blane):
When people ask of me
what would you like to be
now that you're not a kid anymore
I know just what to say,
I answer right away,
there's just one thing
I've been wishing for...


I want to be Bobby's girl,
I want to be Bobby's girl
that's the most important thing to me
and if I was Bobby's girl,
if I was Bobby's girl,
what a faithful, thankful girl I'd be.
Aspiring, from a young age, to be the girl of a particular guy seems like aiming low. No other aspirations? No desire to see the world? Or make the perfect souffle? No bucket list? Just Bobby's girl, huh? Mk, then.

3. Baby It's Cold Outside (various artists):
Widely recognized as the Christmas date-rape song, owing much to a single line, "Say what's in this drink?", though "The answer is 'no'" is a nice follow up too. But, despite it's questionable lyrics, it remains one of the most popular Christmas duets in existence. The most upsetting of these is the She & Him version with a role reversal.

2. Wishin' & Hopin' (Dusty Springfield):
You gotta show him that you care just for him,
do the things he likes to do,
wear your hair just for me,
'cause you won't get him,
thinkin' and a prayin',
wishin' and a hopin'
I love this song, I do. It's so much fun, especially as the credits for My Best Friend's Wedding. But it is a truth universally acknowledged that the only way to get your man is to change everything about yourself for him. Hide your personality, forget everything that you enjoy, mold yourself to your love.

1. Standing on the Corner (Dean Martin):
This hurts the most because I love Dean Martin so very much. I sing along to this every time I listen to my Dino album, it can't be helped. But it is so creepifying and awful:
Standing on a corner watching all the girls go by,
standing on a corner watching all the girls go by.
Brother, you don't know a nicer occupation,
matter of fact, neither do I,
than standing on a corner watching all the girls,
watching all the girls, watching all the girls go by.


I'm the cat that got the cream.
Haven't got a girl but I can dream.
Haven't got a girl but I can wish,
so I'll take me down to Main Street
and that's where I select my imaginary dish.


Standing on a corner watching all the girls go by,
standing on a corner giving all the girls the eye.
Brother, if you've got a rich imagination,
give it a whirl, give it a try,
try standing on a corner watching all the girls,
watching all the girls, watching all the girls go by.


Brother, you can't go to jail for what you're thinking
or for that woo look in your eye,
standing on the corner watching all the girls
watching all the girls, watching all the girls go by.


Okay, folks, what songs have I missed. What awful song can you not help singing along to?

Spidey-senses tingling

So, Spiderman 3 came out during my college years and, despite it being finals week, a group of my friends decided to go to the midnight premiere. We had a thing for midnight showings then. For some asinine reason, that I can't remember but was probably lamely responsible, I decided not to go. I regretted it, all that night, all the next day and on through the years following. In fact, until last night, I had never seen Spiderman 3. It was like this elusive treasure that I could never quite reach. But I finally did and it turned out to be made of pyrite.

Seriously, I have no more regrets. That movie was freaking ridiculous and I'm so glad I didn't pay eight dollars to see it in the theatre. I probably got a better grade on whatever final was the next day because I missed that movie. If not that, I at least saved myself excessive eye rolling for two hours. What the hell? Have you seen that movie? Terrible, just terrible.

First off, these movies are made infinitely more difficult by this man and his stupid face.

Then there's the obvious, the very obvious, emo-Peter Parker scenes. The hair and the clothes and the finger pistols, good God. That entire scene in the jazz club, where he's dancing and spazzing, I couldn't help but be reminded of Ron Burgundy playing jazz flute in Anchorman.

 But it doesn't stop there because this happens:

And dear Mary Jane, who always ends up dangling from someone's sticky web emission by the end of the movie, nearly falls about ten times and is nearly crushed to death another twenty times after that. Only one other person seems to have this many recurring mishaps.

And maybe I missed Tobey McGuire gaining a few pounds but where did the double chin come from? It's just embarrassing, really.

So, in conclusion, Spiderman 3...