I just read that The Cult, one of my top 20 favorite bands from the late 80’s/early 90’s is playing in NYC this summer. I was THISCLOSE to breaking open my Velcro wallet to buy a few tix when I noticed it went on to read “Playing the new album ‘Love’ in its entirety!” Ummm..no thank you. I can’t imagine one person on planet Earth that would want to sit through 90 minutes from just one album from a band no one has thought about since Dan Cortese was relevant, except maybe a clove smoking delusional groupie who wears Navajo jewelry and Doc Martens and still fantasizes about screwing the guy who kinda looks and sounds like Jim Morrison.

Stop it! I don’t even like clove cigarettes!!

Anyway. This reminded me of a bizarre incident from high school that I totally forgot about and never even told anyone about. When I was a junior, this girl in my art class asked me to help her write a poem to hand in for her English class in exchange for something I cant remember (most likely: weed/gossip/75 cents to buy Fritos from the vending machine/a ride home). So, I unbeknownst to her, I just borrowed the lyrics from 2 songs of The Cult’s “Sonic Temple” album and blended them together and she handed it in. And then her teacher thought it was so freakin awesome that she entered it in a contest and she won. And then she got invited to some English teacher’s writing workshop convention and read it in front of 3 billion cat loving old maids and they all wet their peasant skirts over it. Not even one person remotely was like, “this sort of reminds me of the musings of Ian Astbury.” I know, not one!!

PS. That girl went to a better college than me.

The lessons: The Cult’s lyrics are vaguely intriguing and superficially thought provoking enough for a 17 year old to get away with passing it off as their own pseudo-intellectual soul searching.

Cheaters never get win, but apparently they do get into Skidmore.

i returned yesterday from a holiday jaunt to new orleans.  ahhhh, new orleans, land of daytime drinking, above ground cemeteries, vampire legends (i actually overheard a bloated southern belle comment “becky wants me to take a picture of a vampire, she says she wants it to be eric from True Blood”),  and above all: effed up celebrities.

before we go too far, please know i don’t mean ALL of nola’s celeb residents are sideshow freaks.  ellen degeneres, harry connick jr and the relief wonders of brangelina are delightful.  hey celebs that pitched your support after katrina - way to breathe life back into a struggling, sinking city with a truly messed up culture!  (seriously, this place is like nothing i’ve ever experienced.  people there could actually care less if you puke up gumbo on burbon in the middle of the day while wearing the bottoms of a gorilla costume and a purple polka dot bikini halter.  they’ve seen it all before.)  yes, even the hasbeen past kings of mardi gras, including patrick duffy, val kilmer and steven segal gain reprieve from my daggers of cynical judgement…no these are reserved for just one man.  nicholas cage.  merely typing his name sends my body into convulsions once only reserved for any food containing mayonaise. 

my second day taking it the pace of the big easy, my travel companion and i decided nothing could be finer than grabbing a few huge ass beers and wandering the french quarter lead by a pluckish haunted ghost tour guide named adam.  side note about adam… he’s been doing this for 10 years, since he was 18 - yeah, he was THAT kid.  he wore jeans, a button down and a tweed blazer in the heat of the lousiana spring like he wanted to be the prof. dave jennings of lower decatur…he wasn’t.  however, he was captivating and fed my already fledgling hatred of Mr. Con Air himself.

about 3/4 of the way (and 1 and 1/4 huge ass beers) through the tour we came upon this house*.  nic cage purchased this beaut in the winter of ought-six and hasn’t spent many nights there since.  now, with cinematic choices like The Weatherman and Honeymoon in Vegas and martial picks like lisa marie presely** and patricia arquette, it should be no shocker the macabre monsieur Ghost Rider bought the famed lalaurie mansion, one of the most “haunted” haunts in all of nawlins.  although, this fact alone, the want of nicholas cage to be a scooby doo villian, is not what is as offensive to me.  no, rather, it’s the history of maison lalaurie itself and the “spirits that still roam it’s corridors” that shock me.  i will spare those of you with weak stomachs to the full spectrum of horrors (you can read them here, freakos) but i will say that tour guide adam’s accounts of the treatment of slaves found in the confines of this creepy castle made me shake in my boots (well…flip flops).  in short, the madame lalaurie and her hubby’s mutilation of their servants made waterboarding look like waterskiing on lake pontchartrain and men like josef mengele and john wayne gacy jr look like kittens playing with balls of pink chenille yarn.

what’s the point?  why do i despise cage so?  well, apart from his abysmal career***, who does this?  who buys this place?  who WANTS to live there?  and, nicky, if you purchased it to cool out your friends with your beetlejuice style dinner parties, might i remind you of the memories of the pool souls that “still inhabit the residence?”  you don’t see joshua jackson holding tupperware parties at chickamagua or jackee having a mad men themed cocktail mixers at alcatraz.  don’t raise your cool game with chloe sevigny profiteering on the last tortured moments of these poor men and women.  cage, you truly are a wolf without a foot.

i close with a quote from the man himself, which i think sums it all up.  said cage of the 1997 film Face/Off: “without tooting my own horn - i think it’s a masterpiece.”

*the bluriness of this photo i blame solely on my shaky hand and lack of exposure, not “paranormal activity.”

**lisa marie presley, i think we can all safely now agree she’s a card carrying lesbian, right?  jacko and wacko…she’s just grasping at the last straws of freakshow testosterone here…right?

***when refering to cage’s career i, of course, am excepting Raising Arizona, Adaptation and Moonstruck (although you were pretty bad in that too…)

Other than amusing clips on The Soup, my exposure to “Jon & Kate Plus 8″ has been minimal.

The idea of a couple raising 8 kids (sextuplets and twins! her vagina must be the “hallway” to Jon’s “hot dog”!) under the age of 10 is not exactly my cup of tea. I prefer less wholesome reality/family exploits like “Keeping up with the Kardashians”. (I know Kate had the sextuplets via caesarean, but I still like to think she has a really loose va jay jay. Explains all the hate-o-rade she’s been guzzling.)

The other major conceit of the show is that the couple raising the kids are so “human”, i.e. miserable with one another. Hot. Sweet sassy molassey. Angst, bickering, eye rolling, short, terse conversations…again, makes me want to chug windex. 

Alas, Memorial Day morning found me hungover and couchbound and nothing was on the tube of interest. When lo, TLC HD had a “Jon & Kate plus 8″ marathon. I watched a few episodes as an experiment—the recent tabloid scandals regarding Jon have been unavoidable. (He was caught out at strip clubs with a female “friend” and said “friend” was also sunbathing topless at their compound when Kate was away, or something?)

Kate may be the biggest bitch in the history of reality tv.

Move over Puck/Coral/Rachel/Brooke from “The Real World” or even Omarosa from “The Apprentice”, Kate has you beat.

I have never seen someone be so openly bossy, mean and bitchy with her husband…The Soup lampoons it all the time and it’s horrifying.

Any woman this emasculating deserves to have her husband cheat. I’m sorry…you can’t correct your spouse and scold him like he’s an autistic 5 year old. The guy’s spirit is BROKEN. The only people nice to him on the show are his kids. And that’s just fucked up.

Kate, give your husband a hummer and stop writing books about “Multiple Blessings”…you have a show and a house and a career based on the fact that you responded well to fertility treatments. YOU ARE NOT A ROLE MODEL. You are a medical experiment, gone awry. You are a half step above the octo-mom. Get off your high horse and praise allah that TLC gave you wealth to feed and clothe your litter.

And that hummer? Needed for Jon. Pronto. BE KIND TO YOUR HUSBAND…HE’S BALDING AND GOOGLY-EYED BUT HE SEEMS NICE!

The end.

P.S. Your hair looks stupid, Kate. It’s like a reverse mullet.

What do ABBA, Celine Dion, and Lordi have in common (other than having some of the most terrifying fans in the history of music)?  They’ve all won Eurovision!  What, you say you have no idea what that is?

Eurovision, along with Tim Tams and ‘The IT Crowd,’ is one of the best things most Americans don’t know they’re missing.  That’s right, I take your American Idol/ America’s Got Talent and raise you a bunch of Eastern European drag queens in silver foil outfits encouraging the audience to “Let’s make Dance!” The basic premise is each competing country chooses an artist to represent them with an original composition.  Strangely, the person doesn’t have to be a native of the country, as long as they’ve lived there (hence Canadian Celine Dion winning for Switzerland).

I’m convinced the UK doesn’t care about winning anymore, since they’ve sent the crappest of crap to Eurovision since 1999.  Not even funny bad like most countries, just outright BAD. There are dozens of London bands I can think of off the top of my head who could win with a tune they hastily wrote on the flight over.  But no, why send Muse or The Klaxons for a great victory when we can get fricking Scooch and come in last place for the fifth year in a row?

This years competition was unfortunately not as outright silly as the last few Eurovisions, but still provided enough fuel for a great couch snarkfest with my friends.  Here are some of my favourite moments (click the photos for the video):

Oh, Czech Republic!  I absolutely loved this one, so of course it didn’t even make it to the finals.  It’s like the poor man’s version of Gogol Bordello, only less punk and more rapping superhero.  I’ve been looking everywhere for an MP3 of this, if anyone has it, please send it my way because I want this to play as my theme whenever I enter a room from now on.

I quite like this song, and shockingly it not only won, but received the highest score in Eurovision history.  The singer cracks me up, his face is the physical embodiment of the emoticon.  He’s a fiddle playing hobbit who just can’t stop grinning excitedly and singing about his “laaav like a faaairytaahhhhhhhl, eeee-phen doh et hurzzzzzzz!”  I would like the world a bit better if this became a Number 1 Hit in every country instead of Lady Gaga/Jonas Brothers/Miley Cyrus/Artists That Sound Like an Autotuned Walrus.

When this song first started, I thought, “Oh God, not disco accordion!” But then the man with a giant bleached fro and a mustard jacket ran out and starting singing in his uncharacteristically low voice and I couldn’t help but like it.  They even have backup dancers wearing elf shoes and a giant cartoon accordion on the screen behind them!  Performances like this are the reason I watch Eurovision.

I wanted this one to make it to the finals because I enjoy that Macedonia thinks 1985 stadium rock is relevant for a 2009 song contest.  They even went all out with the Aquanet, velvet military style jackets, fire cannons, lasers, and fog machine!  RAWK, JAH!

Seeing as I hang out with a bunch of rockabillies (seriously), my friends absolutely loved this one.  This Elvis impersonator decided to write a song about how some American also named Elvis is actually the one copying him.  A bit late for that, don’t you think?  I had no idea that Belgium was such a fan of The King.  Thanks Belgium, I’m a fan of your waffles.

It’s strange what competition will do to a girl. Regularly a mild-mannered PR professional, come every spring the heat of the moment runs through me. The office American Idol pool. Before you poo poo this idea too hastily, please know, I could give two squirrels rusty testicles about American Idol. I think that the “America’s vote” system is a load of b-o-l-o-g-n-a. The producers do all they can, short of rigging the voting to get their choices into the finale. Whether a killer arrangement or some extra special effects (did Adam Lambert give out b.j.s to the crew for that lighting?) it’s all about production value. Furthermore, I wouldn’t buy an idol’s album if you waterboarded me. No, the reason I love taking part in the office pool is all about trash talk. Pure, unadulterated smack flying across the company email system. Even some of the higher ranking, most respected professionals in my organization refer to themselves by alter-egos while throwing prejudicial slurs through the company’s IT lines. People who have never even met talk shit about each others family traditions, subpar intelligence and idols’ dead wives. So I watch, I talk a big game, and inevitably come in almost last every year…because, let’s face it, my idea of music is good and America’s is a crap cover on a cracker.

This year I noticed something (no, not that the tightness of Adam Lambert’s pants has a direct corallation to the pitch of his falsetto), I’ve seen these people before. Not in second rate karaoke bars (Megan Joy Corkey weren’t you drunkenly crooning Erasure’s “A Little Respect” at Lonnie’s in Nashville?) or in Hispanic grocery superstores, but in my childhood breakfast, all over crappy teen movies, and at the zoo. For your consideration, I present, American Idol, a photo comparison:

THE OBVIOUS:
 

THE SLUMDOG A-HOLE:

THE PLASTIC SURGERY BEFORE/AFTER:

THE GIMME A SMACK:

THE “I MISS JACK”:

THE LOOKS-LIKE-WHAT-HE-SOUNDS-LIKE:

I’ll watch Tuesday (and by watch I mean, fast forward through on my DVR), and like most of America I won’t care enough to vote, but I will have fond memories of phrases like “vindaloo-a-go-go”, impressions of blind men dancing and photo-shopped images of “I miss my dead wife” superimposed onto Danny Gokey’s outstretched hand for a lifetime.

When I go to the doctor, I usually prefer seeing women or men mds that exude no sexuality whatsoever. I need to be in a safe place. So it surprises me that Dr. Robert Rey is so popular among women considering he walks around like an extra from “Carlito’s Way” and has the bedside manner of a Club Med G.O. Quite frankly, every time I saw him handle a breast on his TV show, I’m pretty sure I could hear La Bouche playing in the background and see his nurse was wearing a shot glass bandolier. But whatever.
The other day I saw THIS picture of him showing off his abs in the middle of the street in the middle of the day. Not bad for a stripper…but DOCTOR?? That guy handles a surgical knife and cuts human tissue and cartilage and reshapes body parts apparently ALL with his free wheeling, hairless yam bag flapping in the wind. Personally, I like my physician’s ball sack safely contained in a pair of underwear to avoid any bizarrely uncomfortable moments.
True, being a plastic surgeon in Beverly Hills does make someone into somewhat of a rockstar. And Dr. Rey has turned many ugly ducklings into big boobed, tiny nosed swans. So, under the circumstances, I guess its ok for him to get his man bush waxed, his highlights done, and his operating room scrubs turned into a Cobra Kai dojo uniform.

I have created a surrogate family at my job.

It is made up of young men and women in my age range (24-30) who make me laugh and boost my Facebook numbers.

We have shared good times (alcohol binges, vacations and Birthday parties) and bad (layoffs, office hook-ups, hangovers), we have worked in a bull market and have suffered the slings and arrows of misfortune (fuck you, AIG).

When I think about it, the family simile makes sense. I spend more time with co-workers (50+ hours a week) than with any member of my family or other close friends. The major stressors in my day to day existence are work related and bore others to tears; who else is going to understand my woes better than someone who works with me? Who is going to compliment my impeccable impressions and/or scathing commentary on some bitch’s haircut?

I have had several “office husbands” with whom all the good gossip is dished and all the overpriced lunches are bought: these are/were comprised of a violinst, a basketball player, a bike enthusiast, and a kvetching Seinfeld/Larry David type with IBS.

The office girlfriends have been varied as well…A French jet setter obsessed with R. Kelly and how to hold one’s pen properly, a Jersey girl who called me “Ma” and sported oversized hoops, volleyed movie quotes, rapped Biggie Smalls and applied MAC cosmetics, and a hipster chick from Utah who inserted “yo” into every sentence and wore feathers and asymetrical creations in the land of Brooks Brothers and Hermes. (The only “individual” who ever toiled in lower Manhattan.)

The day becomes like something out of Jerry/George/Elaine/Kramer land…we fight about where to get a salad (”No, I hate that place. I don’t like their balsamic vinagrette…I want the BIG salad”),  where to get coffee (”No, Starbucks is better! Financier’s coffee tastes like pure gasoline. I’m not drinking that shit. Illy gives me the squirts”), and we speculate who in the office we would marry/fuck/or kill over Jager bombs and PBR. (”I would marry “Brendan” because his Dad is a venture capitalist, I would fuck “Paul” because it would only last 5 minutes and it would not be too traumatizing, and I would kill ”Craig” because he has a lisp and farts at his desk.”)

So take a minute and praise Allah for your surrogate families. Without them, we could all go a little Bernie Goetz on the Subway.

Once upon a time in a land full of baked beans and clams on Thursday nights prior to “must see TV” there was a place where everybody knew our names.  Norm, beer in hand, mocked Cliff Claven’s endless font of knowledge (“Due to the shape of the North American elk’s esophagus, even if it could speak, it could not pronounce the word lasagna”).  Country bumpkin, Woody, warmed our hearts.  Sam Malone was the coolest person in Boston – he owned a bar.  One day a beautiful brunette walked down the steps, through the door and past the Indian Chief.  Rebecca Howell was sure to be the soothing balm on Sam’s open wounds from Dianne (ugh, Dianne).  Rebecca Howell:  Sexy.  Smart.  Funny.  She breathed new life into the Beantown dive and gave all the men in the bar boners… Carla too. 

As Cheers ended, so did Kirstie Alley’s career.  Maybe it was the lack of solid work*(Look Who’s Talking Too.  Seriously? Look Who’s Talking Now!  The dogs…). Maybe it was her burgeoning friendship with John Travolta (who also enjoys his peanut butter).  Perhaps, (and this is what I believe) it’s that she was the only Cheers cast member not asked to guest star on Fraiser.  All I know is, when her career flatlined her waistline ballooned.  K. A. probably packed on about 20 lbs of butter to that butt every year between ’93 and ’03.  Kirstie went Shamu all over America’s ass.    

However, in early Ought-Five the clouds parted.  Deus ex Machina (a.k.a. Jenny Craig) descended from the clouds and picked up our Alley Cat and said, “You shall be thin again.”  At this point I am sure Kirstie replied, “But, I have a show.  It’s almost as funny as Cheers.  It’s called FAT Actress.”  Jenny’s reserve was strong, “Your show wouldn’t even make sweet dirty love to you if it saw that cellulite.” Kirstie gave into the temptation of prepackaged burritos that taste like cardboard and chocolate cakes that taste like pig feces.  Lo and behold, she got thin again.  

Fast forward - today.  Kirstie is back to maximum poundage and America is shocked.  You know who’s not?  Me.  Dudes, of course she put the weight back on and furthermore SHE DID IT ON PURPOSE.  How else do you explain someone who has just lost 80+lbs not working out or weighing themselves for 18 months?  That’s not a slight backslide.  That’s the mudslide from Romancing the Stone. Scientologist or not, I refuse to believe even Kirstie freaking Alley is nutballs enough to “accidentally” put back on 85 lbs.   Here’s how I think it went down: 

• Kirstie receives the Cheers’ DVD box set as a “congratulations” present from Mary Steenburgen with a note that says “Way to go heifer, stay away from Ted.  Kisses, Mary.”
• Kirstie sits down and watches Cheers feeling really good about herself because she’s closer to the weight she was when she won her Emmy and any day now that phone will ring and on the other end will be Rob Reiner begging for her to do his new rom-com.
• A month later Rob had not called.
• A week later Kirstie passes Pink’s Hot Dog stand on her way to the Celebrity Scientology Center to meet the Smith’s and the Travolta’s for a colon cleansing with spiritual alien jelly.
• Approximately 1000 Ozzy’s Spicy dogs later…Kirstie gets a gift in the mail from Jenny Craig – it’s the Fat Actress DVD box set with a motivational note reading, “your ass looks like the back of a cab.” 
• Kirstie sits down with 2 pints of Chubby Hubby and Cherry Garcia, a case of Totino’s pizza rolls and tub Yodor’s French onion dip to marathon the series.
• Kirstie realizes that show was good (as did I after this scene…hilarious).
• Kirstie continues food fest 2009 to get back into Fat Actress form…Showtime’s gotta take her back, right?  The Tudors sucks, Dexter is falling flat and True Blood over at HBO is a HIT! HIT! HIT!  Besides, there’s always another round of celebtastic interviews with Oprah and Dave when she takes it back off.
• Today: Fat Fat Kirstie.  I rest my case.

 To be honest, I love it.  I prefer my Kirstie like I prefer my cats – super waddling fat.  The way I see it (and Kirstie probably did too), this cracker comedienne’s funny relies on her being self deprecating and when Kirstie’s looking fly she has nothing to deprecate herself over**.  So eat it up Kirstie.  Have your alfredo and your bacon too, but for the love of Buddha and other portly deities, please don’t say that you are disgusted with yourself or that this weight crept back up, admit you meant to do it – it’d make a killer plot for the renewal of Fat Actress. 

*I will not even comment on that utter turd Veronica’s Closet.

**Other actresses I prefer fat Kathy Bates, Nell Carter and the cast of Babes.

Tied with Discovery, the Game Show Network is my favourite TV channel (currently living in a country with only five stations, I obviously miss them dearly).  There’s nothing like watching useless trivia be utilized to win a lifetime supply of peanut brittle.  So when I heard the news IBM is putting a computer on Jeopardy, I became very angry.

Not to be prejudice towards robot-kind, but dammit, game shows are for humans!  What would a super computer do if it won thousands of dollars or a Winnebago?  Take a road trip to Bill Gates’ house with KITT and that car Jackie Chan drives in ‘Cannonball Run’?  NO. It would probably mock the brain power of us pathetic mammals then fire lasers into the audience.  And you thought Sean Connery made Alex Trebeck’s life miserable.

The article states that the computer won’t be linked up to the Internet, but if we want to beat this thing, I’d say being online would actually disadvantage the bolty bastard.  Especially considering how useless search engines can be for research.  Yeah, I’m talking about you, Google.  The other day I was looking for pictures of Danny Tamberelli in ‘The Adventures of Pete and Pete’ and you showed me nude photos of Pete Wentz. That was not the Little Pete I meant, you jerk.  All the inaccuracies on Wikipedia alone are sure to bring Hal McSmugpants crashing down.

I hate to say it, but without the faults of the Internet as a secret weapon, only Ken Jennings can save us from our impending robot overlords.  If there’s a machine uprising in the distant future (the year 2000) it’s all your fault, IBM.

The only robot I trust.

Like every suburban girl born between, say 1978 and 1985, I loved My Little Pony growing up.

I had those fucked up water ponies… you could take them in the bath and squeeze water out of their joints. Rapture.

I fiended over owning the different Ponies with such putrid color combos… (Yellow body! White Mane with pink streaks!)

I watched the Saturday morning cartoon and sang the theme song. The lead human girl on the show was named “Megan.” Represent.

I urge you to watch this hilarious spoof. It’s a great “what-if” scenario. Right up there with:

“What if the South had won the Civil War?”

“What if you could go back in time to Munich ‘36 and stand up to Adolf?”

“What if I had one less Zima and/or Tequiza at my friend Anna’s high school party in 1997? Would I still have thrown up all night?”