May 2011
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A Weighty Issue...
As the President of the Ladies Auxilliary Where’s My Female Jonah Hill Guild, I submit to you, this is why I fight. SO. I’m at the beach, reading Vanity Fair because Katy Perry is in it making it a mission critical text, and this happens:
Eventually she’ll see that she doesn’t need all those hair extensions or the blue wig; she’s a great looking girl. But, for...
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Known But To...
Words will return tomorrow. Today is for thinking. Reflecting and remembering.
I spent my Memorial Day filming the ceremony at the Florence American Cemetery and Memorial, where 4,402 now rest. Most died in the fighting that followed the capture of Rome in June, 1944.
Now, we’re losing the generation that fought along side these fallen at the rate of 1,200 a day.
While you’re...
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Live...
The beach opened at our post this weekend and the European Softball Championships are here in full swing, Sultan of. And so, regional TV and radio have come to our “little slice of paradise,” to Sergeant Major a phrase.
It was without question the biggest day of the entire time I’ve been in. It was huge. And a huge lot of fun. I mean, an afternoon radio show from the beach,...
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“Win, or don’t come home.”
– Creating Adversity since 1978.
Update: 46/51/16:54. Push ups/Sit ups/2 mile. 264/300 points.
Nope. No joy in Mudville. I don’t even know what the bottom end of passing is. I think it’s 180. But there are 300 possible, see. And if you don’t collect them all? Dang. I...
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The Legend of Chelsea Storms...
Love has a number. Or rather, love accompanies you to the starting line, gives you a pep talk while you strap your timing chip to your shoe, and holds your stuff while you race. It also meets you at the finish line.
And invents you a nemesis.
In my wildly amateur running “career,” I’ve raced against colon cancer, for science, against a guy named Ryan’s brain tumor, for...
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I Will Fight No More "Forever"...
Strange things occur to one with one’s head between one’s knees. “Someone” who hasn’t eaten meat for half a decade was sent to shoot footage of the post pig roast. So “Someone” was editing said footage (And tailage. And snoutage.) And trying to match action between shots with the sawing knife while the skin peeled back and the piggy corpse undulated on the...
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On Top...
Cherries, Wild.
Cherries, Tamed.
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Now Serving...
He: No earthquakes and hellfire? I knew it was too good to be true.
Me: I don't think it happens til 6 p.m. East coast.
He: It's supposed to be 6 in every time zone. You know, 'cause Jesus follows time zones.
Me: Like Santa Claus?
He: Exactly.
Me: Oh. Well. Is there a waiting period? Or do you get sucked up right away? Because S is toward the back of the alphabet and it's been 9 minutes already...
He: I think it's instant. If he has to check a list, it's going to take him forever. He's probably still on China.
Me: Or... rapture is just like the DMV.
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Top 5 80s TV Themes...
Okay, not themes. Tropes, really. The framework upon which the narrative hung. This list is Based on a True Story of a recent Sunday Morning Conversation — and sadly, compiled purely based upon the contents of my internal brain-based wiki.
Want to make an 80s sitcom? You’re going to need one of these: Orphans & Adoption: Holy Sister Kate. Do we even have orphans anymore? I think...
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Five Words...
Bon Jovi and Eleanor Roosevelt walk into a bar. First, I need the address because it’s clearly my kind of joint. Jon orders and says, “These five words I swear to you, I’ll be there for you.” Eleanor signals for the same and replies, “No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.”
Into the empty stool between them, scoots Kenneth Burke.
Now then. Jon...
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Take a Penny, Leave a Penny...
There must be a word* for the kind of luck that evens out. That always comes out balanced in the end. Not rolling in a waterfall of quarters from a lucky slot machine, but winning exactly as much as you lose.
Say a few months ago, a hateful letter arrives from the IRS saying, “Hey, dummy. Your 2009 taxes? Yeah. You can’t add and we can. Do Not Pass Go, pay us $1,000.”
Boo.
But...
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"Destination is Never a Place..."
Getting lost on foot is eight trillion times better than getting lost driving. Blundering out into the wilds with no clue where you are, nor a destination in mind unsettles behind a wheel where the unexpected and spontaneous exist at a velocity and distance beyond the reach of appreciation. And there are fewer benches to light upon and flowers to double back for.
I will never understand...
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"Big store." "Huge."
Yes, once upon some time in the past six months I’ve said, “I love Italy, I don’t care if I never see another Target again.”
I KNOW. It felt blasphem-traitorial even though it’s sort of true. I could indeed live without the strip-mall, off exit 23, KFC/Taco Bell combo trappings here in Lee Greenwoodville.
Though.
Um. I went to Target every single day I was on...
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Funny Face...
Yep, I’ll be that person — the “everyone is talking about Bridesmaids, by ALL MEANS let me throw my pennies at it too.” But yes, funny, not condescending, gross funny without being gross out and the guy. THE GUY. Didn’t forgive her too easily. Good. And he’s adorable. And I snorted and cried, les boths.
So by all means, GO but here’s my real heckyes...
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I Guess That's Why They Call it...
Oh. Right. And then suddenly it makes so much sense. Like the seemingly incongruous baseball umpire signs for “safe” and “score” — because everyone knows the thumbs up means “yer good!” instead of the “yer out” they use it for. And “safe” — that’s an international no-dice wipe if there ever was one.
It’s because...
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“I wanted to be a ballerina. I changed my mind.”
– Beverly Cleary, children’s book author.
Me too, it seems. Though I’m wearing my pajamas under my clothes right now.
(The NYT ran a lovely profile of her last month, too.)
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"You're just a plain old boring dieresis..." →
An “Open Letter to Umlaut.”
God, you’re such a poseur, umlaut. You’re nothing but two measly dots. You’re a Eurotrash colon lying down.
Brilliant. From McSweeney’s.
Luckily, I just call mine Röck Döts, the Champagne of Punctuation.
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“The car is later seen with Whitford’s actual license plate ‘SO...”
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Bradley Whitford, who played Mike Todwell in the film, was actually 27 years old at the time of shooting in 1986. He was uncomfortable with the age difference, but director Chris Columbus put him at ease by allowing him to use his own Camaro in the movie.
Ooh. GOOD DETAIL. From when Josh...
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Save Our Spokesmodels?
What happened between 1988 and the present day to cause an entire career possibility to vanish? Once upon a Star Search, it was a talent, a path to pursue, a NEED in our culture. We needed Models to Spoke for us.
What happened? How did we lose the need for women to pump 3 lb. weights in evening gowns?
I haven’t seen any horrified campaigns, investigations, their extinction seems...
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It Was a Good Day...
You’d think if a glass bottle flung itself from a cabinet at your head at 3 in the morning, narrowly missing your head before smashing to a liquidy grave all over your floor, and then you had to blearily clean it up with a whole roll of toilet paper because you don’t own paper towels, YOU’D THINK this would be the start of a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day.
You’d...
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“Grown-ups are quirky creatures, full of quirks and secrets.”
– Roald Dahl. Danny, The Champion of the World
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Family Memes...
Language is creating meaning — and relationships exist in sharing it. On the internet, that shared meaning takes the form of a series of shorthand references, pictures and phrases that are generally understood. “I see what you did there,” “forever alone,” and etc.
The internet is a pretty big place, and the population who will get what you’re talking about...
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apocalypgloss asked: I got my first teen magazines in the summer of 1986 right before I went into junior high. Your experience describes mine, too. This was a scan I took out of a year's worth of 1987 Seventeen magazines I bought on ebay a couple years ago. I just sold them on ebay and went through them to scan anything I didn't want to lose. I'm glad it brought you as much nostalgic joy as it did...
