Sweet Jesus!

This totally made me hungry for Cheetoes. Thanks a lot, JESUS.

You take the good, you take the unbelievably bad...

I'd say that I'm a big fan of everything through Edna's Edibles. When it burned down and became Over Our Heads, the show started to lose me. It probably had a lot to do with the fact that I was no longer ten, but it suddenly seemed that there were too many tertiary characters appearing out of nowhere, and Mrs. Garrett's presence got more and more confounding, and the homoerotic tension between Blair and Jo went from charming to FREAKING DO IT ALREADY, and then, out of nowhere, Cloris Leachman. The whole premise of the show suffered major suspension-of-disbelief problems after the first two or three seasons anyway, since no 18-20 year-old women I know would voluntarily share a bedroom unless the circumstances were very, very not what you would base a 1980's network sitcom on.

Of course, The Facts of Life as most of us think of it--Blair and Jo trading barbs, Natalie and Tootie gosh-golly-gee-ing around in pigtails--didn't actually come about until season 2. The FIRST season was thirteen episodes of pure bliss, and it stands alone in its unintentionally Felliniesqueness. Don't get me wrong, the first couple of Jo seasons are great, but nothing--NOTHING--out-camps the the houseful of superfluous girls hilariously overacting some of the most appalling dialogue every written. Sue Ann smokes pot! Is Cindy a lesbian? Blair wants to do the headmaster! Natalie finds her birth mother! Nancy loves Roger! Mrs. Garrett's ex-husband teaches the girls how to gamble! Blair's mom is a slut! Tootie, the original Rollergirl! Natalie buys a bong from a record shop to put jelly beans in! Plus, you have the sleaziest, 1970's-jailbaitiest costuming imaginable(one false move and we would have been able to see Lisa Whelchel's virtue for ourselves), you have Molly Ringwald as an 11 year-old, you have the Drummonds constantly popping up for no apparent reason, and nothing makes any rational sense whatsoever. It's a hot mess made in heaven.

The clip below is what started my lifelong girl-crush on Lisa Whelchel. Not even her descent into blithering, fundy psychosis can shatter my love completely (although it has facilitated significant erosion), because freaky-for-Jesus or no, she took my breath away--especially when her character was still vaguely skanky and chilled and kept a joint in her lipstick tube. The uptight, overachieving heiress Blair Warner of post-season 2 still bewitched me, but I clearly remember thinking that, when I got to be a teenager, I wanted to run around in purple satin hot pants and have long, luxurious, golden hair. This was before I was old enough to understand the cruel genetic lottery, of course.

Bloody Pagans!

I walk through the St. Giles cemetary every morning, not because I'm like TOTALLY goth right down to the route I take to work, but because it's the most direct shortcut between the bus stop and my desk. In the summertime, all the homeless people set up their tents amongst the tombstones and trees; I don't know if the cops hassle them less or if it's just generally nicer or what, but you walk through there in early-morning July and it's like Glastonbury sometimes. Today I was talking to a guy called Kevin and he told me this:

At the end of one particularly intoxicated evening spent ambushing theater-goers with the standard "can you spare 50p so I can afford a cup of coffee" routine shouted at full auctioneer's tempo so as to get in a heartstring-tugging plea before the subjects managed to hurry out of earshot, Kevin crawled back to his tent in the cemetary to pass out. He had just about managed a full exit when he was suddenly jarred into confused, panicked consciousness by some loud chanting right outside his door... "Bloody Pagans, dancing round a tree and chanting at FOUR IN THE FUCKIN' MORNING!" he told me, completely appalled by utter the lack of decorum. "Well, I come runnin' out with my fist, an' I shouted 'You bloody Pagans! Can't you see that people are TRYING TO SLEEP!!" Despite his initial bravado, however, in the cold, hungover light of the next day, Kevin decided it was best to move on, because "Fuck that spooky shit."

Blasphemy can be hilarious.

Italians do it better...usually.

I've been a hatin', non-updatin', procrastinatin' gutter wench. Consider your forgiveness begged. And just to prove how much I still love you, please enjoy this...how do you say...hilarious monstrosity.



Also, please know that my 'draft' posts are too numerous to count. And, unlike Alberto Camerini after making this video, they will be coming soon and often.

Well HELLO!

I think tomorrow I'll go for the orange lipstick.

Post Vacation

And feeling every penny.

My first run in six days was apocalyptic. By the 25-minute mark, I felt like I was going to hurl any second, and I was gasping and moaning and sweating except in a very, very bad way. I had to walk for two minutes before my heart stopped feeling like it was going to leap out of my chest and splat against the mirrors. Then I blew out my knees. Thanks, genetics!

So now is the post-vacation sag. I mean. One day off of work so that I can spend 72 hours with my in-laws in North Wales ain't exactly two weeks in the Bahamas, right, but I think the key idea is extricating yourself from the sinkhole of the every day and changing scenery. And North Wales is nothing if not a drastic change of scenery. It really took the edge off.















To capture what I fear to be a most fleeting yet exquisite case of mellow, please join me in marvelling at the hazy, drug-fuelled landscape of stoned madness that was children’s programming in the 1970s. You'll never be able to take the Oscars seriously again (in the highly unlikely event that you did in the first place.)

Lookit Muy (for what else can the title be?)

I should peer out from under life’s gray straightjacket a little more often, because I almost always end up getting clocked across the jaw by a gun butt of pure, uncut sunshine.




That’s right! New series! Woot woot! *mixing it up*

To the other, non-Australian reader of this blog, I implore you…familiarize yourself with the bottomless well of asthma-attack gasp-laughter that is Kath & Kim . Post-haste. I haven't been so delighted from down under since I was eleven and Paul Hogan corrected my fellow countrymen’s typically-inferior knife-identification skills.

Plus, this little tidbit of information

“…the fourth season will introduce characters played by…Little Britain's Matt Lucas”

made me emit the involuntary, ecstatic moan of a rapture frenzy which is not always advisable in an open-plan office situation but I am JUST! THAT!! EXCITED!!!

Happy legal viewing, Australia! And to the rest of us…by any means necessary, okay?*

No-ice!

*I do not officially condone the viewing of ill-gotten torrents hint hint wink wink call me I'll love you forever.