I'm Esta-tic!

Last week marked the brief--very brief, as it would turn out--return of actress Esta TerBlanche to the role of Gillian Andrassy (aka "Princess Gillian") on All My Children. Reasons #61 (Esta) and #62 (Gillian) to keep on living.

The resurrection of this fan-favorite character was extremely short but very moving, a blink-of-an-eye-moment moment that was part of a much larger, quite bizarre storyline. Essentially it goes like so: The not-so-good David Hayward, M.D. (played by the fine Rioja that is Vincent Irizarry, my pick for Emmy for Best-Looking 50-Something Pin-Up on TV, daytime or nighttime) has been bringing the late, lamented citizens of Pine Valley, Pennsylvania, back from the dead.

No, really.

You see, All My Children, just like One Life to Live, has been canceled, due to what reason exactly I could not say. Excuses--I've heard them all. A decline in ratings? Allegedly. A decrease in storyline quality over the last decade? Perhaps. A rabid desire for ABC and Disney to maximum profit and minimize creativity by replacing all the soaps with cheap, shrill talk shows? That's the one I'm betting on.

Personally, for cancelling my two favorite, remaining soaps, I hope the mouse chokes on a bar of Ivory. I'm not going to share with you in which orifice I hope they find a bottle of Downy inserted.

Although the cancellation of both shows was announced in the early spring, AMC has had an even shorter shelf-life, scheduled to depart network television on September 23 of this year. (One Life to Live won't conclude until January 2012.) So All My Children is trying to wrap up a lot of history--and, in my opinion, correct a lot of past stupid mistakes while giving as many long-term fans as possible a very happy ending--in a limited amount of time.

One approach to this has been the at-any-other-time well-beyond-belief-even-for-an-American-soap plot twist that finds ne'er-do-well David resurrecting from the dead some of Pine Valley's favorite and prematurely past-it denizens. First, it was Tad Martin's great love, Dixie Cooney, brought back to life after supposedly dying a couple of years ago from eating poisoned peanut butter pancakes. (See what I mean by stupid mistakes in the past?) Then it was Zach Slater, Kendall Hart's husband and father of some of her children (and some children of others), an all-around robust Spätburgunder, who was resurrected from the dead and now walks among Pine Valleyites, albeit in a testier, hairier form.

David has also hinted that his late brother Leo DuPres might also be alive--Leo being the great love of Greenlee Smythe's life. (I know, lots of details, but I'm going somewhere with all of this. Just hang on a sec.) By extension, David also has hinted that Ryan Lavery's late wife, the aforementioned Gillian Andrassy, might also be alive. As writer's luck would have it, Greenlee and Ryan are more or less happily in love, David and Ryan detest each other, and Greenlee at one point spurned David for Ryan. Thus, the situation is ripe for the perfect soap opera conundrum: Ryan yearns to be with Gillian but feels committed to Greenlee; Greenlee longs to return to Leo but can't because of her love and obligation to Ryan. Everybody is miserable. Except, of course, David, whose biggest thrills are healing the sick and making other people unhappy.

Not that this romantic impasse would have upset that many fans of the show. The Ryan and Greenlee pairing seems to have never been much of a fan favorite--even though various writing and production teams have rubbed the audience's collective nose in the story for almost a decade. Check out some of the soap sites, blogs, and message boards, and it becomes pretty clear that few are invested in the Ryan-Greenlee romance. Heck, I'm not even sure there's one of those cute, combined names for the couple. (GreenRee? RyLee maybe?) My perception is that the general consensus among the show's fans is that the actors, writers, characters, whatever, seem to bring out the worst in each other--completely opposite the perception of Ryan's pairing with Gillian and Greenlee's pairing with Leo during what was probably AMC's last great, golden era, the mid-1990s to early 2000s.

But the permanent recoupling of Leo and Greenlee, alas, is probably not to be, at least not in any happily-ever-after way. Leo is played by actor Josh Duhamel, he of the dazzling smile and bigger (but not necessarily better) roles on TV and in movies. Josh/Leo did make a one-day guest appearance early in August, a visitation that perfectly illustrated how, despite being absent from the show for a decade, he and his co-star, Rebecca Budig (Greenlee), still had amazing chemistry together and could pick up where they left off, no matter how ridiculous the plot twists. Nevertheless, chances are that Josh Duhamel won't be returning for an extended run to wrap up this story the way that anyone might want, in a nice, pretty package with a happily-ever-after bow tied around it.

And if the Leo-Greenlee part of the calculation can't happen, then probably the Ryan-Gillian equation won't happen either

When the Ryan-Gillian meeting did finally take place on August 24, it was a beautiful moment, a decade in the making. We got to see some wonderful flashbacks of the four or so years that the two were one of Pine Valley's most attractive and engaging pairings. And then we got to see a glimpse of Gillian as a ghost (we can only assume), with the characters acknowledging their love for one another and saying their goodbyes (again, we assume). During this scene, the tears were streaming down Esta TerBlanche's face and Cameron Mathison (Ryan) managed to do more than look stern (but, nevertheless, amazing) and clench his jaw muscles.



The whole reunion, hyped in the media for nearly a month ahead of time and hoped for for even longer than that (at least if some of the blog posts and soap boards can be taken as evidence), lasted for maybe five minutes, tops. So while a welcome and long-overdue return, it was also something of a disappointing one as well.

No disappointment as far as Esta TerBlanche is concerned, at least on my part. While she has matured since the early 2000s (haven't we all?), she still looks lovely, even as a ghost in her mid-30s with too much hair in her face. And despite apparently having retired from acting sometime in the mid-2000s, she can, even in under five minutes and in twenty words or less, convey a world of emotion. I don't know about you, but her appearance made the self-righteous, superhero-wannabe that Ryan has become appealing for the first time in ages, shirt on or off. I found myself wanting to see the two of them together again and again and again, the complex plot retcons required to do so be damned.

That's some pretty powerful acting, but Gillian was always a breakout character and Esta was always a very entertaining actress. Hopefully the clips below will show you some of her appeal. You'll see some scenes from her days on All My Children in the 1990s and 2000s, along with a guest appearance she made on the TV show Spin City during the same era. The comedy on AMC was pretty broad at the time, to put it mildly, but, nonetheless, you get a sense of the character and the actress's spirit, humor, and willingness to go the distance for a laugh.



Plus she has got to have the best eyebrows of anyone in the business.

Despite Gillian's Eurotrash wardrobe and lifestyle--the backstory: Gillian was a broke Hungarian princess who had embarrassed her family by having an affair with a married man and was, thus, exiled to her American relations in Pine Valley (hey, it could happen!)--it wasn't all fun and rain slickers on the show. The clip below offers a more serious, emotional side to Esta TerBlanche's work, part 1 of her grand goodbye to Ryan, circa late 2001. In the story, Gillian is now dead, having been accidentally shot and her heart having been donated to another, less-remembered (at least by me) character. For a couple of months, she has been haunting Ryan, unable to let go of him and her life. Finally, she has no choice.



You can watch part 2 of this scene here. It's a bit early 2000s-romance-on-the-soaps excess, replete with spare candles against a spartan background and Celine Dion (ferchrissakes) warbling on the soundtrack. But, despite the excess, it's like opening a time capsule to a lost era on soaps, way back when (but only a decade ago!), when they weren't plotted like professional football games and weren't afraid of big romantic gestures and lingering, emotional payoffs.

Apparently in real life, Esta TerBlanche decided to leave the show to return with her husband to her native South Africa--or perhaps the writers or producers decided to write her off the canvas in a big, point-of-no-return way, despite her being a popular actress playing a feisty, funny, beloved character. Who knows why the powers-that-be took such a drastic step? (Yet another stupid mistake, perchance?) At the time, it seemed that Ryan and Gillian had been written into a corner, both happily married to each other with little to do but dole out romantic advice to others. Maybe the writers needed to get the character of Ryan out of this rut, especially since the actor would be sticking around for a while. But you'd think they just might have had Gillian fall over a cliff, get sent back to Hungary, accidentally poison herself with her own goulash and fall into a deep coma. Something, anything to keep her in our thoughts and Ryan's heart.

Usually, in most soap storylines no one is ever truly dead, at least for long. But getting shot in the head, having your heart donated to another character, and making an appearance as a ghost in order to give an impassioned farewell to your beloved would certainly indicate that you must be dead in a very real and permanent way.

But never say never on a soap. Interestingly enough, Jesse, the character playing opposite Gillian in part 1, who is also playing a ghost, still managed to make a return from the dead a few years ago, even though he apparently was never really dead (although no explanation has ever been offered for his moonlighting as a ghost). Anything is possible in Pine Valley, with a little writing magic. If only there were more time, maybe we'd have a real Ryan and Gillian reunion and a long-deserved return to the spotlight for Esta TerBlanche.

Totsiens! Esta. Please let's not wait another ten years for your next resurrection.

* * *

A little extra "Esta-cy" for your viewing pleasure: Some scenes of Esta TerBlanche when she appeared on the South African TV serial, Egoli: Place of Gold, early to mid-1990s (and then again in 2004). In Afrikaans with English subtitles.



A religious cult, a beautiful ingenue, the Afrikaner version of Sasquatch menacing everyone, and an overloaded background soundtrack. In any language, in any culture, classic soap.

A hurricane is coming tonight, tomorrow, the day after tomorrow . . .

Because I couldn't be any gayer, that's why.



Whether rightly or wrongly, this is the song that has been stuck in my head ever since the Weather Channel and all the news programs, national and local, began whipping up their 24-hour frenzy of chronicling of every bump, gust, drop, and whistle of Hurricane Irene's advance toward the North Carolina coast, New York, and beyond. A trek that has been days in the making and promises to be many more in the unmaking.

Because I grew up in the region where the storm has made landfall--only 15 minutes from Bogue Inlet Pier in light traffic (i.e., not summer)--I am particularly sensitive to hurricanes and the havoc they can wreak. Carol Douglas, notwithstanding.

However, I have to admit, nothing--except maybe a bowl of chicken pastry (not dumplings, you ignorant Yankee narrator!)--makes me feel more nostalgic for childhood than a hurricane. Despite all the dire warnings and potential for harm and damage, the oncoming storm engenders a certain amount of excitement and energy. As the sky grows more menacing and the winds more dramatic, everyone's pace quickens, your senses are heightened, and life seems more vivid. What happens next? How will this play out? What destruction will nature cause? Will things ever be the same again?

In the sleepy coastal North Carolina of my childhood, I was always grateful for the natural thrill brought on by the approach of a hurricane.

Then again, I never lived through a really bad one. From what I recall, way back when, in the late 1960s and 1970s, we merely had a series of indifferent hurricanes and weak-willed tropical storms, most of them just grazing the coast, dumping a lot of rain, and washing away the beach. Only later in the '80s and '90s, after I had moved away and my parents had relocated inland to the Triangle, did the storms get bad. I remember leaving home one afternoon, heading back on a plane to Texas, lucky enough to escape a particularly severe hurricane that even affected area 125 miles inland. While I was home and dry in San Antonio, my parents endured 100+ mile-per-hour sustained winds for several hours. With all the downed trees, they didn't have electricity again for more than a week. They couldn't even get out of their neighborhood, until neighbors with chainsaws started cutting through the debris to create a path to the main road.

So indulge my nostalgia at your peril. Obviously, I don't know what I'm talking about in terms of health and safety. But snowstorms, tornadoes, and flash-flooding have got nothing over the mood of excitement, danger, and fascination created by a good, old-fashioned hurricane.

Sadly, "hurricane mystique" doesn't get you much of a break on homeowner's insurance.

Sigh. Why did I have to go mention something "adult-oriented" like insurance? I know! Maybe for fun we could start talking about our retirement plans or lawn care treatments! Sometimes it's just better to stick with the hazy childhood memories. Pass the chicken pastry, please.

Today's '80s flashback

I so loved Sparks in the late '70s/early '80s. Even though some of the stuff from this era sounds a little dated now, this one, "When I'm With You," from their 1980, Giorgio Moroder-produced album, Terminal Jive, seems rather timeless to me.

The story goes that this single did practically nothing on release (the album from which it was taken wasn't even released in the U.S., their home country), except in France. There it hit and stayed at number 1 for eleventy-billion weeks. Yet another reason to love the French.



Ron Mael's ventriloquist act has Jeff Dunham's beat all to pieces. And here's hoping that image comes to life some day . . .

We'll save discussion of my long-standing crush on Russell Mael (the "dummy" in this video) for another place and time. You're welcome.

Meanwhile, I'm going to dance around my living room while this one plays, much as I did at my parents' house in the early '80s when I first bought this record. (Or was it a cassette? Please god no, not an 8-track . . .).

My poor parents and neighbors indeed.

Muammar and Condoleezza, sittin' in a tree . . .

It takes all kinds. More kinds that you can possibly imagine, in fact.

Condoleezza. Rowrrrrrr.

Helpful

As part of my half-hearted approach to rein in my, shall we say, expressiveness in language (i.e., I cuss a lot), for the remainder of the summer I am going to smile at those who vex me and say, "Care for a slice of pie?"

If you saw (or perhaps read) The Help within the last little while, you should understand my meaning. Let's see how long I stick to this resolution.

* * *

Recently, I went with my friend The Music Lover to see The Help, the movie based on the novel by Kathryn Stockett. The premise is this: It's 1963 in Jackson, Mississippi; the doesn't-quite-fit-in-but-well-born Eugenia (or "Skeeter," as she is more commonly known--and only in the South would Skeeter be an acceptable nickname in polite society) returns from Ole Miss, determined to be a writer. When she is assigned a cleaning advice column, a topic she knows nothing about, she turns to a friend's maid (aka The Help), Aibileen, for expert knowledge. Within a short while, Skeeter begins to pay attention to more than how to get stains out of the rug: She begins to appreciate Aibileen's life's work and starts noting how the allegedly more refined talk to Aibileen and the other maids, how they talk about them, how they talk down to them, and how they treat them. She befriends Aibileen and another maid, Minny, and together they, along with many other African-American maids in the town, (spoiler alert!) write a book providing testimony to their work, lives, and the dying days of American Apartheid.

OK, so no one calls it American Apartheid in the movie, but, really, how was it any different? Lots of laws, lots of regulations, lots of rigid social customs, all to justify fear, hatred, cruelty, and a separate-but-completely-unequal social order. Somedays you just gotta realize how crazy this country's relationship with race really is.

Now, truth be told, I was unsure about going to see The Help. I was curious about it, yes; it looked amusing in the previews; Bryce Dallas Howard looked as though she had totally nailed the classic Queen Wasp (or WASP)/"Poison Magnolia" character of Hilly; and the reviews were generally good.

But, lordy, Hollywood so rarely gets the South right on film or TV, or only gets one aspect of it and beats you to death with it (or, if you prefer, turns a fire hose on it, sics dogs on it . . .) over and over and over. Been there, done that, have tried to turn out the lights on that fateful night in Georgia myself. The last "Southern" movie I enjoyed was, I believe, Junebug, which was extraordinarily good. The last "Southern" movie I saw was Sweet Home Alabama. I'm still waiting for an apology from Reese Witherspoon. Little short of her early, permanent retirement from cinema will suffice.


I haven't read the book yet; it's on my list, I swear! Hollywood screws up films about books just as much as it does about the South, so there was more trepidation for my mind.

My list of reasons for not going goes on. The Help portrayed in the trailers looked like a period piece chick flick, sort of a Sex and the South scenario, all white, all girly, all ready to cotillion and meet Mister Rhett. I suspected the white Southern accents (just say no, y'all) would be horrible, and that whole effect is not unlike a chicken's feet raked across a chalkboard for this North Carolina refugee. Alternately, I figured the white Southerners would all be ignorant racists, the African-American Southerners all noble and long-suffering. Or, alternately again, the white people would end up feeling good about themselves, the black people showing them their better selves. That whole magical/numinous Negro thing going on that Spike Lee and others have pointed out and talked about.

In short, the whole mess looked too Oprah-approved for my tastes.

But all of this fussbudgetry over why I might not like the movie just avoids the issue: Not wanting to confront my problem with race. As a Southerner of a certain age and political bent, that's bound to be a topic I'm not going to be comfortable with and may, in fact, feel tremendous guilt and grief over. And as an American of any age, I'll do my best to avoid dealing with reality, racial or otherwise, for as long and as well as I can.

But I have to start somewhere . . .

* * *

So let's begin by reviewing the film itself, which, much to my surprise, I quite enjoyed. There were some chick-flick moments, if by "chick flick" we are referring to more emotional moments, ones that don't involve explosions, space aliens, kicking the butts of bad guys, and characters with names like "Maverick," "Iceman," or "Goose." But this wouldn't qualify as a chick flick if by that term we mean the plucky white heroine perseveres to see all her dreams (i.e., romance, family, and career, in probably that order) come true. Yes, the movie (spoiler alert!) ends on a positive note--but Skeeter's story is only part of the tale; there is significant focus on Aibileen and Minny's stories as well. In fact, I'd say that Viola Davis's Aibileen is really the main protagonist of the tale, even if Emma Stone's Skeeter gets top billing. Racism? Or just trying to sell the movie to a younger audience? Maybe some of both.

I think Viola Davis and Octavia Spencer (Minny), along with Bryce Dallas Howard, walk away with the picture. Emma Stone holds her own, and to her credit, doesn't go all NuRebel Commando Woman on us, mouth blazing, pen-is-mightier-than-the-sword hysterical. But I don't know that she takes the part and runs with it either. Whether that's down to direction, writing, acting, or the role itself, I could not say. I'm not a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, so, really, what do I know?

Don't be fooled by the trailers on TV: There's more depth to the movie than you might think. There are some very funny moments and some very poignant ones as well. I think some of the movie works, and some of it doesn't quite--and this may have as much to do with the source material as anything. Like I said, I haven't read it yet.

It was a little hard for me to imagine Minny saying and doing some of the things she did and living to tell about them in 1963 Mississippi, "insurance" against Hilly aside. It was also a challenge for me to imagine that (spoiler alert!) the published book itself would have been for sale in Jackson, Mississippi, in 1963 as well, and that Skeeter wouldn't have been called all sorts of vulgar names and run out of town--or worse, much worse--for, as is pointed out, going against Mississippi law and illegally aiding "the Negro."

I also wasn't quite sold on Skeeter's transition from go-getter Ole Miss co-ed to Sensitive New Southerner. It's not that it didn't happen--I just didn't see the transition carried out on screen as clearly or as evocatively as I might have liked. That didn't have to be done with some grandiose reveal; it could have happened in little ways over time. I think that was the point, but on first viewing, I can't say it came across that way.

To the film's credit, I did feel Skeeter's outsider-ness, her yearning to achieve more than what was expected of her (marriage and children). I felt Aibileen's pain and Minny's frustration and resignation as well. Aibileen and Minny have to find their ways to resist their outsiderness--from their families, friends, and employers--plus the onslaught of denigration and hatred.

I found believable, too, the interlocking of lives, both black and white, despite racial segregation and the overt racism of the time. It was unavoidable all along and segregation only delayed the inevitable and kept everybody miserable, both black and white (although obviously not equally), and trapped in unsatisfying roles. I enjoyed the relationship between Minny and Celia and totally bought the (spoiler alert!) reasons for Celia's ostracism. The only thing nearly as bad as being African American in the Old (?) South was being White Trash. Or a Yankee.

I found the menacing Hilly all-too-reminiscent of people I knew then and who we encounter now on the national stage. She's one of those people who foist their beliefs, bigotry, and fears upon everyone else in the most ruthless yet glib manner, using the battering ram of their religion and their political beliefs to bust through any resistance, considering anyone who disagrees with them morally weak or a mortal enemy. Skeeter's, Elizabeth's, and Celia's reactions all seemed quite real to me, too--sometimes when faced with someone that mean-spirited or something that hateful, you're just stunned and don't know what to do. It takes courage, a courage many of us find difficult to rally, to resist passively let alone actively.

On the other hand, there were no colors--if you'll pardon the expression--to Hilly. You don't have a clue why she is the way she is, other than because she can be. She doesn't have a redeeming quality to her--or as my friend The Gladman put it, "she was just a jar of mustache wax away from Simon Legree territory." (Which is quite brilliant and tells me I need to up my writing game if this blog is to survive for long.) Maybe you can't redeem a racist or a Junior Leaguer, but the movie might have explained her a bit better, her motivations, her fears, her failings. Only briefly at the end (spoiler alert!) do you see her vulnerable, and then, it's not really clear why.

Turning a multi-page book into a two-hour-or-less movie almost promises dissatisfaction. There is a jumble of events, characters, and ideas, not all of them fleshed out. Skeeter's romance with Stuart Whitworth, for example; what a perfectly good waste of all things male and holy in the form of Chris Lowell. The other male characters fare no better, are ineffectual, and make the whole film slide dangerously close to a David E. Kelley "women's drama" any given night on ABC during the last decade.

Maybe better editing or a different, longer medium would have helped. At times like these, I long for the days of the miniseries or, at the very least, the British model of TV production, where you have six or more hour-long episodes to tell the tale. Most books, in my insufferable opinion, would benefit from this approach, rather than the 120-minutes-or-less movie model.

Overall, though, I thought the movie good and the message strong. And that message is this (spoiler alert!): Holding onto your dignity in the most undignified of situations is about the best any of us can do. You may boss me around, beat me, scream at me, threaten me, menace me, hurt me, ignore me, reject me--but you don't damn well own me.

* * *

I could go on (and, oh look, I have!), but you get the idea. Not everyone agrees with me, as this article from Salon conveys. Have I read it in whole or in part? No, not really--much like the posters who, like me, dismissed The Help outright as being both racist and a chick flick, without having seen anything more than the trailers.

I believe the author's premise to be correct: Hollywood (and America) whitewashes a lot of history and reality, especially America's highly uncomfortable racial history. Ironically, though, for every Hollywood whitewash, there must be at least more than a wringing handful of guilty white liberals who feel the need to point this out, in the spirit of true Calvinism and Capitalistic competition: You must feel bad about everything, but believe me, you'll never feel worse (and thus more self-satisfied) than me.

Is it me, or can't we Americans just enjoy anything anymore without parsin' and bitchin' it to death?

I'll read the article eventually. But not now. I enjoyed the movie and want to stay in that mood for a bit longer. It's not that it was all rosy and pretty; it portrayed a very harsh reality (although it did not exactly portray it harshly, it should be noted) that many of us would like to forget, myself included. I was only two years old when the action of the film takes place and only six or so when the Civil Rights Movement, the Summer of Love, the assassinations of Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr., Vietnam, and so much more collided and exploded spectacularly in 1968, a year of revolution.

And, yet, I can still remember some of that tension, the hatred, the fear, and the prejudice from the time. My sibs getting sent home from school because of race riots. The black kids on the bus uncomfortable and scared. Too many of the white kids, mean and antagonistic, for no good reason. The TV news, always shocking in its clear-eyed view of American humanity at its worst. The never-ending war. The racism, alternately casual and caustic. The endemic inequality, not just racial but economic, too. The bitter stinginess of people who hurt others and, indirectly, themselves without really understanding or caring why.

No one seemed very happy then. Not all that different from nowadays actually.

So my takeaway from The Help might be a bit different than yours. Although I remember that era through the haze of childhood, The Help resonated with me. It was personal, emotional, sometimes uncomfortable, and a little fantastic, too, attempting to satisfy some historical wish fulfillment. Would Skeeter, Aibileen, or Minny really have been able to do what they did and be rewarded for it? Or was the system so crushing that it would have ground them into a bitter dust? Would any of us have been as brave as Aibileen, Minny, Skeeter, Celia, or Skeeter's mother, fighting against injustice and the rigid, established order in our own way, little or large? Or would we have been Hilly? Or Elizabeth?

Maybe it's as my friend The Gladman put it: He liked the film, but with reservations. Perhaps the movie is kind of a muddle of too many points, parts, plots, and personalities. Perhaps the movie is a little too uplifting for its own good, a Disney lesson in surviving racism. For all its wish fulfillment, it at times still relies on stereotypes--racist Hilly, sassy Minny. I just don't know.

But at this moment in time, I can say that I liked it all the same, that The Help has much to commend it and little to quibble over. And, surprise surprise, the Southern accents didn't irritate me nearly as much as I feared they would.

Lordy, less complaining from me. There's your moment of uplift right there, y'all!

Shake, rattle, and roll

Well, wouldn't you know? The first time I'm in the vicinity of an earthquake, I miss the dang thing! Damn my Death Star fortress of an office building. Takes all the fun out of living dangerously.

Actually, truth be told, nearly everyone around me felt some jolt, rumble, bump, or something due to yesterday's 5.9-er in Central Virginia. Once again, I was too busy trying to be entertaining to notice.

So no earthquake for me. But how dare nature try to steal my moment!

Because no one we know seems to have been hurt--although more than a few were startled by the fact that nature does indeed happen in the elitist section of the country--I put together this little tacky homage to shakin', rattlin', and rollin', East Coast Stylee.

Enjoy. And duck and cover as necessary.



Little Boots, "Earthquake"



Jesse McCartney, "Shake"; OK, I'm sorry for this. He looks like Alfalfa from the Lil Rascals trying to get down, doesn't he? (I thought he was blond. And older. But maybe that's Aaron Carter. They all run together after a while.) Plus, lyrically, this is so juvenile and offensive, not to mention implausible. I mean, has he even reached puberty yet in this video? Is he even attracted to women? Pitiful. But, pop slut that I am, I love the sound of it, especially that little "shake-shake-shake-shake-shake" at the bottom of the chorus. I'm so ashamed, but then I didn't write or perform the thing. So, what, me worry?



Kelis, "Milkshake"; god, I hate the mix of this song.



Metro Station, "Shake It"; equally shameful in its own way--you just don't see it because the band's so emo-looking.



The Cars, "Shake It Up"



Peaches & Herb, "Shake Your Groove Thing"



KC & the Sunshine Band, "Shake Your Booty"



Carole King, "I Feel the Earth Move"; can't take credit for this one--my friend The Music Lover came up with this one.



Bill Haley & The Comets, "Shake, Rattle, and Roll"

That's all I got! Sorry, not doing Lil Wayne's "Earthquake" or Tori Amos's "Little Earthquakes." Things weren't that bad.


* * *

Favorite quote from the earthquake news coverage (from CNN):

"Shortly after the quake struck, traders in the New York Stock Exchange also felt the quake and shouted to each other, 'Keep trading!' CNN's business correspondent Alison Kosik reported from the floor at 2:20 p.m. E.T."

Heaven forbid anyone or anything should interrupt capitalism's long march toward the future.

Kim possible!

Amanda Setton as Kimberly Andrews

For those of you who watch the soon-to-disappear-from-our-airwaves (boo! hiss! boo!) One Life to Live, a U.S. serial (or soap opera, if you must), let's all take a moment to acknowledge and celebrate the return of Clint Buchanan's gold-digger paramour, Kimberly Andrews.

. . . Who now, after being run out of town by Clint's nephew, David Vickers Buchanan, is working the pole at the Spotted Pony gentleman's club in Anchorage, Kentucky.

Too much detail? Don't care for soaps? Ah, well, forget you. You don't know what fun you're missing. You'll just have to trust me that the return of Gossip Girl actress Amanda Setton as our own little Showgirl is cause for celebration indeed. In her short run on OLTL the last time, she saved a boring story (enabling crazy, whiny Stacy to go after her sister's boyfriend, Rex) with great acting, bitchery, a strong emotional connection to her character, and cleavage. Lots and lots of cleavage.

I don't think I've ever been this excited to see a woman that wasn't a family member or a good friend.

One Life to Live may be fading to black on ABC come January 2012, but they are going out with a bang . . . and a badda boom boom . . . and not to mention a boom chicka boom chicka boom chicka boom.

Fashion forward with Muammar al-Gadhafi

I can't say this is the first blog posting dedicated to the fashion forward sensibilities of His Serene Epicfailness, Muammar al-Gadhafi, Libyan-Leader-at-Large.

Nor can I claim it is the best.

Nevertheless, I hope you enjoy it as much as I enjoyed pulling it together.

My only regret (other than not knowing how to Photoshop) is that I couldn't find a photo of ol' Mo in a safari-styled leisure suit, which I seem to remember him wearing a lot of in the late '70s.

During his screen test for James Bond: The Caliph Who Loved Me.

During the "Dress Like Winnie Mandela Day" festivities, Tripoli, 1993.

During his award-winning performance of Mame, 1999.

During his brief marriage to Vladimir Putin, Moscow 2007.

Purple is such a healing color--unless you're a dictator.

Off the wall! At Michael Jackson Karoake Night, Dimensionz Nightclub, Benghazi 2006.

Jungle print madness. Fierce!

 

The reason he's no longer married to Vladimir Putin, aka "The Night the Lights Went Out in the Republic of Georgia."

Rowr. Sex-ay.

Smokin'

Who knew that cigars were approved for a vegan diet?

The vote's not in yet for excessive consumption of pork.

Air apparent

The acoustic version of "Breathe" by Kylie Minogue, performed backstage (and "impromptu"? ha bloody ha) during the Aphrodite tour 2011.

'Struth! Kyles, this is a real bewt, right up there with the original from 1997's underappreciated Impossible Princess.

And, no, I don't necessarily mean the single remix, found here. All well and good, an honest effort to make a challenging song more palatable for the masses. But totally unnecessary in my insufferable opinion.

This acoustic gig begs the question I've asked (to myself, to the world around us) since you signed with Parlophone and released that song with the gold hotpants in 2000: Is there a reason you still can't make music like "Breathe"?

I know it didn't sell as well as you and your affiliates might have liked, but it was all so very good and, alas, much more interesting (if not as commercially successfully) as anything you've done during the Parlophone years. Dull soulless dance music, indeed.

Sorry to bitch, ma chère Kylie, but we miss the real you. Assuming that's what we got with "Breathe," you ever-confusing Gemini minx you.

Lolita go home shopping

Wow. And the French think we have no sense of style. Who dresses this chick--Humbert Humbert?

Say bon jour to Karine Arsene, the woman I most often see reporting the international weather on TV5Monde, the 24-hour French TV channel for which I pay Verizon FIOS $10 extra a month to keep me entertained.

So far, so very good.

This bad take on the "baby alone in Babylon" look is no fluke--our dear Karine often dresses to cause me to digress. Recently--and dang it all, me without a camera phone at the time!--she wore what looked like a floral-patterned sarong, showing off her tanned, bare shoulders, with her hair wavier and less hot-combed than usual (or whatever it is that women do to give their hair that ironed-straight-and-shiny look).

The effect made her look like Her Royal Highness, the Princess of Papeete, France's own Tahitian Treat. I half-expect her at any moment to show up in a grass skirt with a coconut bikini top, the only way forward to tell us that it's hot as a Tottenham TV in the Middle East or as cold as a job creator's heart in North America. Or maybe go really tribal with a bone through her hair and a sabre-toothed tiger print dress, à la Ann-Margrock in The Flintstones.

It's possible that Karine does indeed have South Pacific Islander heritage; France does still have a few territories Outre-Mer, after all. So my apologies if I'm being a slightly racist jerk. (Editor's note: Sometimes I will say anything for a laugh.)

Nevertheless, despite my snickering, I have to give props to Karine and French TV for going non-traditional in the wardrobe and looks department. In the U.S., so many reporters and news anchors look like the waxed fruit of Ken and Barbie's loins, with the plastic personalities to match. Their style and grooming, though, is strictly Barbie-and-Ken-get-MBAs-and-open-a-marketing-firm. Oddly very '80s Inside-the-Beltway but going just a tad lighter on the crude oil-based haircare products and rabbit-tested makeup. Still, given my nightmares of seven years of Washington fashion and fraternization, my guess is that, behind the desk, the women are all wearing sensible running shoes, and the men, well, the men "accidentally" forgot to wear pants. Again.

I do think in the U.S., despite our rugged individualist mantra, we are at times afraid to see anyone look too different than anyone else. It scares us, perhaps, or in our resolutely Calvinist, no-nonsense mindset, looking different ticks us off. Who are you to think you're so special, getting to dress and live anyway you want? You need to be just as miserable as the rest of us in order for everyone to be truly happy!

The difference pops out, nonetheless, but with fits and starts and always oddly. Thus, you can't go to a trendy restaurant in a big city without being served by a generation that shops at The Gap and Old Navy but still has time for full body tattoos and ear plugs.

Bon appétit.

My new boyfriend

Mesdames et messieurs, je voudrais à vous présenter mon nouveau copain, Laurent Debesse.



A man who no matter how tired or bitter the news on TV5 Monde always manages to look, how you say? Ah, yes, frais et savoureux . . .

I say "I would like to present"--well, I think I said I would like to; who knows?--because, hélas, il n'est pas . . .

At least for now.

Anderson Cooper, you just got served.

It's hard to imagine living in a country where someone this lovely reports the news to you every evening. How would you ever hear anything he ever said? "Le Président, Nicholas Sarkozy, aujourd'hui a annoncé que la France a entrée guerre contre les immigrés et la Belgique." (Editor's note: Or something like that.)

Oh la la. I'd miss the whole declaration of war because I'd be too busy watching Laurent's lips move and wondering what's French for "He's so dreamy!"

It's France, so already the aesthetics are off the charts, number 1 with an impeccably designed bullet. But Msr. Debesse seems extraordinarily handsome, which, in my limited imagination, can only mean a couple of cruel things--

• He is too pretty to be taken seriously, and, thus, he must just be a mere TV talking head.
• He is too pretty to be real, ergo, he's a very well done CGI simulation.

Try as I might, I couldn't find a cache of Glamourshots or shirtless snaps of cher Laurent. Which could indeed mean he is a computer simulation but might also possibly mean a couple more, less cruel things--

• He's real but considered so normal-looking by French standards that Paris Match has let him enjoy his nude romps on the beach in private.
• He's real and real serious, a reporter who just happens to look like a supermodel but is extraordinarily talented at his job. So his more enlightened countrypersons don't dare defame him by putting up posters of him in their bedrooms, culled from the pages of the French equivalent of Tiger Beat. 

Incroyable!

Je suis désolé, Laurent. I hope to fly to Paris later this year to offer my apology in person.

Drinks maybe? Dinner? You pick the spot.

You are what you wear

When payday comes around, I am so buying this t-shirt.

Sparks

Scenes from Santa Fe, July 2011: Where I found the mental space to write again.

If you're looking for a more spiritual take on writing and thinking, I hate to disappoint you . . . but even I need nature, beauty, the outdoors, and the wider world to write about pop culture, funny shit, and politics.

Start me up

Change is not always good, not always bad. Sometimes it's just change. My ever-so-slightly chameleon-like nature requires me to change something, anything, about my life at least every three years. Once again, it is impelling me to shake things up and dust things off.

New job? Check. Accomplished in the spring.

New home? Working on it and hope to have it accomplished in the next couple of months.

New city? Someday, someday. Not today, not tomorrow, but not right now.

New outlook on life? Well, funny you should ask . . .

Thus, today we are saying a fond farewell to my old blog, a writing forum that has served me well for a number of years but that has since fallen out of favor with me (and pretty much with everyone, lo is the unpopularity of blogging in this fast-morphing digiscape).

What happened exactly? Was it a bitter divorce or a gradual estrangement? Did Blogtucky cheat on me or did I cheat on it? And did anyone notice? Or care?

Tick the box next to "gradual estrangement." But a few people did care that I stopped writing, which was very flattering indeed.

Just not flattering enough to make me start up again.

I think life happened exactly. When I had less going on in my life (all work, very little play), ye olde literary wanking forum was an enjoyable escape, a satisfying way to share my alleged thoughts and alleged humor with friends far and wide. I had fun writing with regularity and getting feedback from people I knew and even some I didn't, adding a couple of new friends along the way who share my interests and tolerate my half-witticisms.

When I, ahem, changed jobs again in mid-2007 (a very long time ago, it seems), moved to a larger city, and began traveling more for work, I found I had less time for writing and, so it seems now, less time for myself. And, by extension, everyone else around me.

My bad.

It wasn't all travel, although a hell of a lot of it was--and I have 185,000 Visa Points to prove it. There was a French course in Montreal, repeated trips to Montreal, love in Montreal, and, ultimately, not love in Montreal. There was a near-total economic meltdown, political stagnation, and hate speech. There was Facebook, and there was Twitter. Sometimes all together, all at once.

I could still see the humor in some things, but only 140 characters at a time. Other things, other times, I couldn't see the humor at all. And, thus, if I couldn't say anything nice, it was just better to stay at home and scream at the TV.

I didn't figure this all out until I changed jobs again this past spring. Suddenly, I was no longer getting ready to go on a trip/just coming back from a trip/recovering from a trip. Slowly, I became less tired, less braindead. Eventually, a few months later--this week, in fact--I realized that, wow, I might just feel like having a life again.

And writing for me is a part of life. I can't say I do it well or that I even do it often enough. I can't say I've made much of myself as a writer, having only a small portfolio of professional articles, one book chapter, some reviews, a journal (on an obsolete software platform, no less), a handful of half-assed stories, and this blog to my credit. Maybe that will change. Maybe that won't.

I'd like to be known and appreciated for my writing, as I think at times it's as good as anyone else's out there who makes a decent living at humor and opinion. But there is a lot of writing, humor, and opinion out there already. I'm not sure I can make myself heard over that din. It's like trying to ask someone to help you find your keys at a Brazilian soccer match.

And at times I'm not sure I want to. I like my privacy, I want to protect my thin skin, and people who send me messages signed "From a Northern Idaho Patriot" worry me.

But that's a tale for another place and time.

Perhaps on my new blog starting . . . now.