Not even for Christopher Eccleston

The Top 5 Things I would rather do than see G.I. Joe the movie this weekend:

1. Host a Wiggles themed birthday party for 23 sugared up 4-year olds. By myself. With a bounce house.
2. Eat beet salad and pickled okra washed down with Orange Crush, sitting in the middle of a medical waste dump, while listening to a super group album by Michael Bolton, Yanni, John Tesh and Kenny G. Whoa – I just hit my own gag reflex there. Gimme a second.
3. Read the Twilight series in its entirety.
4. Make a porn movie featuring a three-way between me, Rush Limbaugh and Angelina Jolie that would be reviewed real time by Perez Hilton and Manohla Dargis. (I'd have to see Limbaugh naked, look like a man compared to Angelina Jolie and have to hear about it – welcome to the Inferno).
5. Go see Julie & Julia. Don't mind if I do.

Try A Little Tenderness

With the passing of John Hughes, it's a sad day for GenXers. I think some of the best times I had in high school were at the movies. Any way that I could buy or beg my way into a theater, I was there. And if you were a teenager in the 80s, John Hughes movies were definitive. The Breakfast Club, Ferris Bueller, 16 Candles. Molly Ringwald could show up at any class reunion for any class of 80-something anywhere in this country and be treated like an old classmate.

I've always wondered how John Hughes felt about Pretty in Pink. I've heard that originally Andie was supposed to end up with Ducky. But the studios made him change the movie so that she ends up with Blane. That was the big win for her. Her happily ever after. Like that didn't mess up a whole generation of women. Walking off into the sunset with the preppy douche bag who doesn't have the balls to stand up for you. Instead of the new wave guy with the awesome shoes and a penchant for Otis Redding who, not incidentally, loves you. Bad move, Andie. Bad move.

But how much did that have to screw with John Hughes's head? He wrote Pretty in Pink as well as directed. And I would bet a box of Krispy Kremes that he was Ducky. Then some studio guy comes in and says that you aren't good enough to be the big screen happily ever after for the heroine, and you're going to have to hand her over to the weak little pretty boy who broke her heart. That is damn cold blooded. And heartbreaking. I'd have wanted to say "Fuck you" and walk out. He didn't. What he did was write the story again, flip the gender roles, and Ducky wins in the end. Of course, he had to get a sex change to do it, but he could do worse than end up as Mary Stuart Masterson in Some Kind of Wonderful. (Yeah, like it's a coincidence that Eric Stoltz is a redhead.) He was ballsy enough to stick it out, and make it right. Good for him.

Putin on the Ritz - it's cheesetastic!

I'm too sexy for my horse

Too sexy for my horse

So sexy, of course.

Hmmm. This is good. Fishing is very sexy. It worked for Brad Pittski in A River Runs Through It. Chicks dig a guy with a big rod. But it's missing something. I don't know. Heft?

Swords. Perfect. No wait. Still too subtle? Get the Rough Guide. Maybe there's a missile silo I could visit around here.

Signs

I’m really watching the story of the mom in New York who crashed her van and killed herself and 7 other people, including her daughter and 3 nieces, with a sick feeling in my stomach. All of her family and friends swear that she never drank, and would never put her kids in danger. And some are even saying the cops made a mistake, she couldn’t possibly have done something so irresponsible. Cops do make mistakes. But her blood alcohol was twice the legal limit (with alcohol still left in her stomach), she had marijuana in her system and there was a broken vodka bottle in the car. That’s a lot of evidence.

And two of those things really lead me to believe this wasn’t her first time. First, the vodka bottle was 1.75 liters. That’s the big bottle. Usually the one with the milk jug handle. Non-drinkers don’t go for the big bottle. Second, the marijuana. For a non-smoker, marijuana isn’t an impulse buy. It’s not sitting on the rack at the check-out counter. Sure, it’s not impossible to get. It’s not even hard. But you do need to know who to call.

I think her family and friends will find that there was a lot they didn’t know about her. And they’ll be combing over every memory they have looking their life with her from a completely different angle. They may find that she ended up so sick because she was so good at hiding her problems. The functioning alcoholic can be incredibly devious and secretive. Or they may find that the signs were there and they couldn’t, or worse wouldn’t, see them. First, you have to admit that there’s a problem. And it’s not always only the alcoholic that denies the obvious. But I have a feeling that family will find themselves at five graves, deeply mourning the loss of 4 children, and one complete stranger.

Diamond may not be a girl's best friend

Oh, my, god. I can’t get Coming to America out of my head. I was reading the Time report on the Stasi file on Michael Jackson (how could I not?), and for only the most tenuous of reasons, I started singing along in my head. Checkpoint Charlie, Berlin Walls, Ronald Regan, Gorbi, Germans love David Hasselhoff, and suddenly, I’m Coming to America.

Which is fine. I love the Diamond. Even the sparkly shirt era. I don’t object on musical grounds.

I just find it nearly impossible to mentally sing C2A without the big arm gestures. There are songs that you can do a full production number in your head. Just put that peeing in the ocean look on your face and sing out, Louise. Nobody’s the wiser. But with C2A, I get to the To-DAY! Part and I find myself having to hold my arms down, in case somebody’s looking and thinks, “what is wrong with that insane woman?”

To-DAY!