Miraculously, I have found TWO new network tv shows that I like...
Awake - When last I raved about sexy, brooding, Brit actor Jason Isaacs, I was watching the BBC mystery show Case Histories, and marveling that he was the same actor who played the evil Lucius Malfoy. Well now he's on NBC's Awake, and he's equally sexy and brooding, only now he's rocking an excellent American accent. I'm really enjoying the show so far, it's of the Lost/what-the-hell's-going-on-here vein. Too complicated for me to try to explain here. So you should watch it yourselves because it's fun. You can catch up on the first episodes at the NBC website here.
Missing - Ashley Judd as a middle-aged woman who KICKS SOME BUTT! I am loving this show because a) She's a middle-aged woman who actually looks like a middle-aged woman. and b) She kicks some butt, and looks good doing it. She's a widowed ex-CIA agent whose son is kidnapped. She's searching the world to find her boy so she can serve up a big load of whoop-ass on whoever took him. I'd do the same, wouldn't you? If you missed the first episode you can catch it on the ABC website here. ALL MIDDLE-AGED WOMEN MUST WATCH THIS SHOW OUT OF SOLIDARITY. Plus, Ashley Judd has the same haircut that I do!
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Well now, this is simply brilliant, and an excellent idea for a party...According to this article, the wine director of Auberge du Soleil Hotel in Napa, CA has put together a list of Girl Scout Cookie wine pairings. I know it's a question you've all been worrying about, and now we have the answers! What to serve with a box of Do-Si-Dos? They suggest a 2009 Schloss Gobelsburg Gobelsburger Zweigelt. "The light-bodied and fruity Zweigelt paired with the Do-Si-Dos brings home the flavors of peanut butter & jelly." Bought one too many boxes of Savannah Smiles? Try serving it with a 2010 Dr. Loosen “Bernkasteler Lay” Riesling-Kabinett. “The lemon notes and powdered sugar create an amazing match with this off-dry, high- acid white wine.” And of course, both of the chocolaty faves, Thin Mints and Samoas, are best paired with a nice Tawny Port.
Don't say I've never taught you anything.
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Oh dear God, it was tasty! Yesterday morning I took the leftover St. Patrick's Day Corned Beef and Potatoes, fried it up, and poached an egg on top. I should have taken a picture because it was so GORGEOUS, but I gobbled it up before the thought occurred to me. And I should give you a recipe, but I just stuck it all in a skillet and fried it up so... no recipe. You'll just have to trust me that it was outrageously good. Mmmmm. Next year, I must remember to make more corned beef just for the LEFTOVERS!
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So stinking cute...
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I fear that this is true...
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The other day on the radio I heard a study that said that 51% of men say they are the primary grocery shoppers in their families. PRIMARY. Could that be true?!! Do 51% of y'all let your men do the majority of the shopping?! Really?! I mean, can 51% of people's husbands actually cook? Jimmy's abilities are limited to what I describe as "weird eggs". Or is it that 51% of you trust your husband to actually buy the right stuff? Because I'd say that Jimmy shops for about 1% of our groceries, and out of that I'd say he gets about 10% of the purchased items right. So...well you can do the math yourself, but it's pretty damned pathetic. Please, PLEASE tell me that I am not the only one whose husband is this useless in this area.
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Okay that's it. Pretty please visit Stacy and read the other Ransom Thinkers.
The phrase "no guts, no glory" comes to mind, because I have absolutely no guts. I'm such a wienie. Not a risktaker. I never take a bet unless I know I'm gonna win. After 20 years, Jimmy still doesn't remember this. If I say "I bet you a dollar." DO NOT take the bet, because I won't be making it unless I know I am absolutely, positively right.
When I go to a casino, I always allow myself a tiny amount of money - $20 or $40 - and then just play the slots until I've lost it all. And I pretty much always do. Roulette scares me to death. Craps baffles me. I like blackjack, but I'm so terrible at math I spend all my time counting on my fingers under the table, and my fellow players get fed up. I spend most of my Vegas time drinking Mai Tais in the pool and enjoying all-you-can-eat buffets.
My friend Lynn fascinates me with her skills as a gambler. You'd never suspect it when you meet her, but that woman is a poker playing fool! She has made serious $$ in poker tournaments. She's suggested several times that we take a little trip to Vegas, and I should take her up on it. I'd be happy to babysit the kids in the pool and let her gamble, if she's willing to pay for the room with her winnings.
When I first moved to LA, I didn't know a soul except for my friend DeeDee. DeeDee is now known to many of you as Fiddledeedee, mommy blogger extraordinaire.
DeeDee and me in the day.
DeeDee invited me to join a group of friends who had a weekly poker game. It was such a fun group, I never missed a Wednesday, despite the fact that I seldom did better than break even. We just played quarter ante, but we were pretty serious about our poker. We were mostly expatriate Texans, with a few notable others mixed in. When I look back on us, we really were a pretty fantastic group of young people.
We started out playing at Lou Diamond Phillips' house in Laurel Canyon.
At the time, Lou had just made La Bamba, and when his career took off and he was traveling a lot, we started moving it around to other houses.
Brandon Lee was one of our most stalwart members.
Brandon hosted the game at his house in Echo Park pretty often, and was a damned good poker player. He always said he had "the lucky of a Chinaman". He was also a deeply kind man, and a good friend. His accidental death was a huge growing up experience for us all.
Brad Pitt played with us a few times, as did Joely Fisher, who hosted the game at her mom Connie Stevens' house once. And John Lee Hancock, who recently wrote and directed The Blind Side, played with us, and even wrote a play for us to all act in together. I played Brandon's girlfriend.
But despite all this poker playing, I never got any better. And I have to admit that my biggest problem with poker is an almost complete inability to bluff. I'm actually a good liar. Sad, but true. But bluffing just never occurs to me. And after years of playing with the same group of people, they finally realized that if I was betting heavily on a hand, and raising the pot every time it came around to me, you'd better not be bluffing against me, because I was bound to have a great hand.
Eventually, we drifted apart and stopped the weekly game. Careers took off, relationships broke up (Lou's wife leaving him for Melissa Etheridge was a nice scandal). And Brandon's death pretty much ended it completely. But I remember the time and the group of friends fondly. It was an important time of growth for me.
Nowadays, the only gambling I do is when my choir goes in together to buy lottery tickets. Right now, the Mega Millions pot is at $200,000,000, and the drawing is today! Let's do the math. If we win the big pot, my cut would be...$10,000,000. Which I could live with. I'll let y'all know if I'm a new millionaire.
I just can't stop myself from continuing to toss in $5 every week. Because I know perfectly well that the one week I finally stop doing it...they'd win the Mega Millions.
Which would be just my luck.
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Don't push your luck! Drop in and visit all of this week's Lucky Spinners!
Most of the country is gearing up for Spring Break, and I'm sure many of you are heading out for a little vacay. So how about we all talk about that great American activity, the car trip.
My family were car trippers! Two weeks every summer plus mini-trips every long weekend. Jimmy's family - not so much. There are so many crazies in the family that they couldn't handle being enclosed in a small metal box with each other for too long. They considered the 40 minute drive from Long Island into Brooklyn a lengthy journey.
Hmmm...which story shall I share with you? The time I moved to Los Angeles, driving from Texas in my 1984 Toyota Tercel with all my earthly possessions and THREE cats? The time Jimmy and I drove a Ryder truck filled with Mama's stuff to LA from Austin and the truck's air conditioning went out in the middle of the 116 degree Mojave Desert? Or maybe something from my childhood?
You'll have to come back next Friday to find out.
In the meantime, write your spin on "Car Trip", add the link below, leave a comment here letting me know you've posted your spin, and I'll link you up.
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I was born a curly-haired girl in a land of high humidity.
And thus began the long and windy odyssey of...my hair. Short, long, curly, straightened, au natural, or tamed with product. My hair has always been a constantly evolving work-in-progress. Unlike most women (like Mommy) who have had the same hairdo for most of their lives, I've never had the same haircut twice. I believe that this is partly due to the creativity of my hairdresser for the last 15 years, Jesse, but also to the fact that can never decide what I want to look like. And I'm never satisfied. Sigh...
Here, thanks do the diligent use of my scanner, is a pictorial essay I will call...
The Hair of Me
In the beginning, there was blonde...
And bangs.
Cute, but short-lived.
Followed by the bangless awkward period...
Eventually, I convinced Mama to take me to an actual hairdresser, instead of cutting it herself, and the Farrah-inspired-hot-roller period evolved...
Notice that, despite the AquaNet and hot rollers, the humidity-induced frizz still abounds.
In college, my style devolved into a hippie-dippie-drama-girl-disco-be-damned look...
SOOOO dramatic. And stylefree.
It's at this point that you might start noticing the other hair on my head that has a mind of it's own...the eyebrows - crazy, man.
When I left college and started acting/modelling professionally, I made an attempt to do a little something with the hair, but unfortunately, there was still the frizz...
...and the eyebrows. Jimmy calls this my Vampire Look.
[NOTE ABOUT THE HEADSHOT - The one big perk for parents of actors is that they regularly get attractive, professional photographs taken. My mother had all of my headshots framed and arranged on a bookshelf. I called it The Shrine. Creepy. For actors, the headshot is a nightmarish experience, neatly drawing together all of the actors greatest insecurities - looks, talent, marketability - and defining them in one single 8 X 10 glossy. It's ridiculously important to get a great headshot, and a tremendous amount of cash is invested. A good headshot is supposed to look like you, but not too much like you. Like you at your very best. An uber you. In theory.
Some of the following pictures were quite good. Others were MOST unfortunate. You can be the judge.]
Finally, in the mid-eighties, my life was saved by the invention of...PRODUCT! Thus spawning a lifelong obsession - mousse, gel, hairspray, straightening gel, curling gel, styling cream - I have drawers filled to the brim with a variety of tubes and jars. I've spent years blending and tweaking to achieve the perfect product cocktail.
Here was a combination of mousse and a diffuser and some ridiculous '80s attitude...
Alas, still frizz. And thankfully, the Ray Bans cover the eyebrows.
At long last, I moved to Los Angeles and removed my hair from the grip of the dreaded humidity. It was at this point that the hair began...to grow.
Big...
Bigger...
Biggest...
This is what I think of as my Seinfeld Hair Period.
Oh dear God, was that a lot of hair.
And then, of course, the hair began to shrink, both on top of my head and my eyebrows...
Until I went too far...
Boy Short. It seemed like such a bold and sassy move. I HATED IT! For one thing, I had to get it cut CONSTANTLY. Drove me nuts. Also, you have to remember that my hair is curly, so in order for it to look cute, I had to blow it straight. So forget the idea of an easy short style. This was majorly labor intensive. And if I didn't blow it out, it did this doofy poofy thing. Sad. And just as soon as I got the new headshots...I grew it out.
Next stop? The Rachel. Naturally.
...which involved wrapping my hair around ginormous Velcro rollers, and massive amounts of products. I used so much Kiehl's Creme with Silk Groom that I think I may have put the Kiehl's children through college.
I went through a brief retro/Elizabeth Taylor thing...
Until the eventual invention of the flat iron. Which I NEVER got the hang of. Evidenced by this horror...
That's me with Jude and Cousin Steve, and looking slightly insane. What the hell was that look? It looks...dirty and...flat and...my only defense is that I must have been extremely sleep deprived with the new baby and all, and I guess I misjudged the amount of product I needed and just wielded that flat iron like a mad woman.
The flat iron didn't last long (duh!) but that evolved into the blow out...
I blew my damned hair out EVERY DAY for years. Until finally, I wised up (or should I say...gave up) and just went curly...
So there you have it. The evolution from short and curly to...short and curly. Sigh.
So much work, so little progress.
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You MUST visit our other spinners this week! There is a wealth of AMAZING and often gravity-defying hair pictures out there. NOT to be missed.
St. Patty's Day is almost upon us, good people. So it seems like the perfect time to think about Luck. The luck of the Irish. Actually, I don't think the Irish are really that particularly lucky - between the Vikings and the Tudors and the whole potato famine thing. So perhaps 'tis all a bit a blarney.
Are you lucky? Do you believe in luck? Is there a time when you were particularly lucky?
Spin it up, link it up! If you have any questions about how this works, click on the Spin Cycle tab up there! It's EASY!
LET ME KNOW IF YOU WANT ME TO ADD YOU TO THE WEEKLY SPIN SUBJECT EMAIL!
So what are ye waiting for? Don't be a gobshite. Up the yard!
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For years, Jimmy and I have been trying to get Jude to sit and watch the Academy Awards with us. We always make a big deal of it (this year they requested an encore of our Valentine's fondue feast) and we loved the idea of Jude joining in. Well. Be careful what you ask for. This year, he sat and watched the whole thing and the kid WOULDN'T SHUT UP! He had seen both Hugo and The Artist, so he was feeling pretty "in the know" and suddenly had opinions. He was very upset that Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part Two didn't win anything, "It's the best movie I've ever seen!" And the endless questions! "What's a Documentary Short?" "What is Cinematography?". "Why was that funny?" "Why is that lady crying?" "Who is he?" "Who is she?" "Who is he?" "Who is she?". On and on and on. I fear that we have created a monster.
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Does anybody else think the Oscars were painfully boring this year?
I've always loved Billy Crystal, but he was pretty dull Sunday night - classy, charming...dull. But I'm afraid it's because he just didn't have the material. His trademark opening song had to include NINE Best Picture nominees, one of which (The Tree of Life) I'd never even heard of. I mean, I'm an ACTOR who lives in LOS ANGELES, and I had never heard of it! I bet that most people who live in the middle of the country hadn't heard of half of them!
In 2009, they changed the rules so that up to 10 movies could be nominated for Best Picture. Apparently, one of the main reasons for this change was an attempt to combat declining television viewership of the awards show. The theory was that including more films in the Best Picture category, the Academy could include more popular films, and that might encourage more people to tune in. THIS IS NOT WORKING PEOPLE.
Because the real problem is that the studios make a bunch of crappy movies, and don't promote the well-made films AT ALL. Hence my having never HEARD of one of the nominees. There's just nothing worth going to see any more. There are films that are fun and escapist. Or of the block bustery/adventure type. But big budget, well-made films just don't exist. Pretty much everything I deem worth watching lately, is on television. True.
Look at the Oscar nominees from the last half of the '70s:
1975 - One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Barry Lyndon, Dog Day Afternoon, Jaws, Nashville
1976 - Rocky, All the President's Men, Bound for Glory, Network, Taxi Driver
1977 - Annie Hall, The Goodbye Girl, Julia, Star Wars, The Turning Point
1978 - The Deerhunter, Coming Home, Heaven Can Wait, Midnight Express, An Unmarried Woman
1979 - Kramer Vs. Kramer, All That Jazz, Apocalypse Now, Breaking Away, Norma Rae
Damn, those were MOVIES! Every single one of these movies is a brilliant classic! How can you compare even one of the NINE nominees this year with ANY of these movies?! Sad.
Okay, I hearby step off my soap box.
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Angelina, Angelina, Angelina. For those of you who missed the controversy...
Angelina Jolie showed up wearing a truly stunning black Versace gown. The problem was that every time she stood still she arranged herself in this bizarre, ridiculously awkward pose, with her right leg thrust out to the side to show off the dresses slit, and her left arm stuck uncomfortably on her hip. She did this over and over on the red carpet...
Which is really all fine, because the red carpet is all about the fashion and posing for the still cameras. But then, when she walked out on stage during the show to present the Best Adapted Screenplay award, she stopped in front of the microphone, and carefully arranged herself yet again in this awkward pose, popping her right leg out and then strangely arranging her left arm on her hip again. It looked downright uncomfortable...
...then started talking. I actually said out loud "What the hell is that about?" I mean, who does that? Then, when The Descendants screenwriter Jim Rash came on stage to accept his award, he rather snarkily arranged himself in the same silly pose...
And people kind of got mad at him for making fun of her, but really...she was absolutely fair game. Just silly. I hope she's fired the bone-headed stylist who no doubt convinced her that she needed to do this. She is so gorgeous (albeit freakishly, painfully thin), and the dress was so gorgeous, that she absolutely didn't need to do this silliness at ALL.
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The other big controversy? J Lo's nipple. Look veeeeeeerry carefully on her left boob...
Yep. That's some areola. Pretty sure. I mean, that's a lot of gown there, and no amount of double-face tape is gonna assure you that there's no slippage.
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I do love me those women from The Help! Didn't Octavia Spencer look fabulous?
Every plus-size woman in Hollywood should rush to Tadashi Shoji, the designer of her gown. He completely used her curves to her advantage, and made her look fabulous. Somebody PLEASE give Melissa McCarthy his number!
I LOVED that Viola Davis chose NOT to wear a wig! I hope every little black girl in America saw her and thought "I have pretty hair just like her!" Though I think she should have left it it's natural color too. She looked amazing.
Jessica Chastain, who is as cute as a bug, literally...actually, she's probably cuter than most bugs...had one of the best dresses of the evening...
And Emma Stone somehow made a dress with the biggest bow on the planet look chic...
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Enough of my ranting. Head over to Stacy's for more Random Tuesday Thoughts!
To my husband, Jimmy, movies work like a balm to his soul. He may be in a dark, miserable mood, but turning on a favorite movie will completely shift his view of the world. He reacts to a beloved movie in a passionate, visceral way.
The films on this list are not necessarily Jimmy's picks for the best movies ever made (though some of them certainly qualify). They are the movies that he most loves and connects with on a deep, personal level. These are the movies that, though he's seen them each a hundred times, if he's channel surfing and happens upon them, he can’t turn them off, and he ends up sitting and watching the whole thing. They are all extremely personal for him, and served as seminal moments in his life.
I tried to make this a top 10 list, but he had such a hard time wheedling the list down, that I let him go with 11, or 12 if you count the Godfathers separately. And the quotes are pure Jimmy. Here they are in alphabetical order...
Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948 - Directed by Charles Barton, Starring Bud Abbott, Lou Costello, Bela Lugosi, Lon Chaney, Jr.)
A favorite of Jimmy's since childhood. Part comedy, part classic horror movie, Jimmy says this movie still always manages to make him laugh and scare him to death. For him, it's serves as a movie version of comfort food. Sweetly, the thing that Jimmy says has always touched him most about this movie is Abbott and Costello's friendship, that "amongst all the monsters, they always tried to help and take care of each other." When he was a kid, the part when Abbott goes back to save Costello always made him cry - "they were best friends even in the face of death".
Casablanca (1942 - Directed by Michael Curtiz, Starring Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman)
Aside from simply being great film, Jimmy loves that it's hopelessly romantic. Romantic with a capital R. Not just the romantic love story, but also Victor Laszlo's heroic conviction to his cause, and Bogie's sacrifice for the greater good. This movie also happens to be Pop's favorite movie of all time.
The Godfather, Parts 1 & 2 (1972, 1974 - Directed by Francis Ford Coppola, Starring Marlon Brando, Al Pacino, Robert De Niro)
Both movies sweep you up and into the world of the Corleones. Coppola created a combination of sounds, smells and images that bombard you every moment. The thing that gets Jimmy is the beautiful paradox at the core of the films, that the story is really about a family like any family, they eat together and laugh together, but they're murderous gangsters, which sets them apart from the rest of the world. The tragedy of Michael Corleone was that his life could have gone another way, but it didn’t. His father meant to do well, he tried to do everything for Michael, but in the end, he made him someone just like himself. Vito Corleone wasn’t a vicious man, and yet he was a murderer. We knew what he was doing was wrong, and yet here was a gentle man who loved and cared for his family. The beauty about Brando was that he had so much pathos about him, and that made the viewer confused. Brando brought that to it. "Any other actor wouldn’t have brought that to it, but that cat? Come on."
GoodFellas (1990, Directed by Martin Scorcese, Starring Robert De Niro, Ray Liotta, Joe Pesci)
Jimmy's first reaction when thinking about this movie was a deep exhalation. "Edgy. GoodFellas is edgy, it’s sharp, scary, sexy." It has a similar family element like The Godfather, they all stuck together and took care of each other. But in GoodFellas,"these people weren’t family, they behaved like a family because of their business, because of money. And when you realize that at the end of the movie, when they all start to rat on each other, as an audience member it destroyed me. Because you thought that their life was just grand. But they were vicious, vicious people." Unlike the poetic Don Corleone, these people had no pathos, they were cold-blooded killers and didn’t pretend otherwise. And yet, "Scorcese did it again. He made such a great film, that you can’t stop watching it."
In the Heat of the Night (1967 - Directed by Norman Jewison, Starring Sidney Poitier, Rod Steiger)
"Explosive. Great acting. Great story." Poitier and Steiger's performances are "an acting lesson", they were both at the peak of their talents.
La Dolce Vita - (1960, Directed by Federico Fellini, Starring Marcello Mastroianni, Anita Ekberg)
A brilliant Fantasy. "Marcello Mastroianni is poetry in motion." The dream sequence is "one of the most brilliant and frightening scenes I’ve ever seen on film". Watching Fellini’s film "was like going to Coney Island."
Last Tango in Paris (1972 - Directed by Bernardo Bertolucci, Starring Marlon Brando, Maria Schneider)
"Tragic. Romantically tragic. Sexually tragic. Psychologically tragic." And yet, there was a beauty underneath the whole film. "The score really lit up the beauty, and heightened the emotional life of the characters." Beautiful and sad and raw. A journey into the human conditions. It's always fascinated me that when Jimmy was 16, Pop and Mommy took Jimmy and his friend Scott to see this movie, which was, at the time, notoriously rated X. After the first scene, when Brando and Schneider meet and have sex, Pop leaned over to Jimmy and told him "You and Scott. Other side of the theater." Apparently, Pop didn't mind him watching the movie, just not watching the movie while sitting with his mother!
"When Annie Hall came out, it was ground-breaking in that nobody had ever seen a movie like that, and nobody expected Woody Allen to make a film like that . Then, with Manhattan, he took it to another level. It has a class to it, a maturity." He matured as a director and in the subject matter. Manhattan hit a deep spot in me about how we can take loved ones for granted in relationships and not realize what you might have. "The intellectuals on the Upper East Side with all their problems fascinated me." It was extremely funny, and very sad. "Mariel Hemingway was a gem. I met her right before they did the pizza scene but I didn’t know who she was. My cousin Aurelio was an actor in the scene, he played the pizza parlor guy and I went to visit him the day they shot it at John’s Pizza in the Village. I hung out there all day. And I’m sitting on the ground, talking to this girl and I thought 'Oh what a cool chick.' and then all of a sudden one of the grips came over and said 'Mariel, we’re back on the set now.' And she left. We rapped for about 20 minutes.'"
Raging Bull (1980 - Directed by Martin Scorcese, Starring Robert De Niro, Cathy Moriarty, Joe Pesci)
Scorcese brilliantly captured the violence of these people. Not just in Jake LaMotta and his brother, but in the whole culture. "Just really scary and upsetting , but it was beautiful violence. The violence itself wasn’t beautiful, of course, but the artistry of the film made it beautiful. The photography was exquisite. As was the editing and the acting. You can only watch Raging Bull maybe once or twice a year tops because it’s too disturbing."
Swept Away (By an Unusual Destiny in the Blue Sea of August) (1974 - Directed by Lina Wertmuller, Starring Giancarlo Giannini, Mariangela Melato
Life-changing. It was a "special era" in Jimmy's life. In the summer of 1975, HBO was just coming onto the scene, and Swept Away was one of the first movies they showed. "It blew everybody’s minds and I turned everybody on to it that summer – Swept Away summer was a golden summer. A lot of romance in the air. Like we were just waiting for it, and it was perfect timing." The film was voted the most controversial film of the seventies. People were talking about it around the dinner table. From Manhattan all the way to the suburbs of Long Island, where Jimmy was. "I fell in love with Giancarlo and Mariangela Melato. Everybody had a crush on her after this movie. You wanted to fuck her and slap her at the same time. It was sexy watching this movie. It was hot."
[Jimmy wants me to make it clear that he is NO WAY condoning the horrible Madonna remake of this film. "It was disgusting. She ruined a masterpiece. A fart must have got into her brain. I can’t even discuss it, it’s so horrible what she did!"]
The Third Man (1949 - Directed by Carol Reed, Starring Joseph Cotten, Orson Welles)
Sinister. Filled with "intrigue and style." Anton Karas' zither music was "darkly romantic and fit the movie like a glove – genius."
Okay, I expect you all to go immediately to Netflix and line up the ones you haven't seen in your queue!
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Please do the polite thing and visit all of this week's spins on the topic "The Movies"...
Our house is earning it's own mortgage again today. They're shooting a low budget movie in our front yard. Interestingly, it's directed by Jeff Probst, the Survivor host guy, who is, as it always is, much shorter in person. This time, our house is posing as the run-down Illinois home of an alcoholic. I swear, when we finally the much-needed paint job, the house will never work again. Anyway, I'm kind of trapped inside, unable to leave before they clear out. I have to say, the doorbell ringing at 6:45 am with an entire camera crew rolling up the street, isn't really too bad when they greet you with your check in hand!
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DOWNTON SPOILER WARNING!!!!!!!!!
Ah Lavinia! Ah Matthew! Ah Mary! Ah Bates! Ah Anna! Ah Sybil! Ah Sir Richard! Ah Ethel! And I even have an Ah O'Brien! and an Ah Thomas! Ah! Ah! Ah!
It just doesn't get much better than this.
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Okay, I think this is one incredibly excellent business idea. A real moneymaker. What young nerd man hasn't fantasize about having his way with a hot space babe? Maybe Jabba the Hutt's dancing slave girl Oola..
...or Captain Kirk's mechanical geisha girl, Andrea the Android...
...or one of Battlestar Galactica's sexy cylons...
Well, Nevada entrepreneur Dennis Hof thinks so too, and is opening a Sci-Fi Brothel outside of Vegas. The idea is that the hookers will all be dressed up as alien babes, so any geek willing to pay for it can truly go where no man has gone before.
Why don't I ever come up with these ideas?
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I am completely fascinated by this website, Ikea Hackers. It's an entire website devoted to showing you how to "hack, personalise, repurpose IKEA products into the very thing" you want. Really great out-of-the-box thinking. Sample: This is a cool bathroom vanity made out of a cheap dresser...
And this bathroom wall is made out of $2 vases!
You've got to check out the website, it will keep you clicking and clicking.
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New favorite cocktail -
Ginger Pear Sizzle
2 slices lime
Absolut Pear vodka
Sprig of mint
ginger ale
Fill highball glass with ice. Squeeze in lime slices over the ice. Toss in the mint. Add one part Absolut Pear. Top with ginger ale.
Soooo refreshing.
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Oh, I almost forgot...Happy Valentine's Day! We're going all fondue around here tonight - can't wait. I'll let you know how it goes.
So in honor of Valentine's Day, and of Adele's big Grammy wins, here's a Bob Dylan song I've always adored. She absolutely knocks it out of the park...
I'm kind of dying to get this book, "Gay Men Don't Get Fat" by Simon Doonan...
I heard him on NPR the other day, and he was hysterical. He's the Creative Director at Barney's NY, and the epitome of fierce and fabulous. On the radio show, he suggested that all women should have a "signature accessory". You know, like Jackie O's oversized sunglasses, Bella Abzug's hats or Margaret Thatcher's twin pearls. I can't decide what my "signature accessory" should be. I do have a necklace that I wear pretty much all the time, but it's not very memorable or impactful. Since I'm tall, I'm thinking I could really rock a long scarf, like Isadora Duncan, or Bea Arthur on Maude. What do you think? Do you have a "signature accessory"?
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On Sunday, Jude walked up to me and said "Just so you know, Mom, 'foxy' is an adjective." I couldn't decide whether to be proud of his knowledge of grammar, or fearful of his knowledge of foxy.
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The other night, just before going to sleep, I walked into the kitchen and stepped on something slimy. I jumped back, slightly freaked out, and looked down. "What the hell is that?" I thought. I bravely reached down and picked the slimy thing up. It was a SLUG. A big, fat, slimy slug. ICK. I have no idea how this thing got in the middle of my kitchen floor, either Fancy brought it in with her when she went out to poo, or Jimmy tracked it in with him when he took out the garbage. Have you ever been slimed by a slug? It was CRAZY. Slug slime all over me, and it wouldn't come off. It was like glue. I scrubbed and scrubbed to get that slug slime off. Totally freaky.
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Last night, I made Chicken Piccata for dinner, and Jude ate it. Really. I'm still slightly giddy. I mean, he didn't eat any of the foreign parts, like lemon or capers or parsley, but he ate the chicken, which was an amazing landmark event around here. Here's the recipe. It's super quick and EASY...
Chicken Piccata
1/2 cup flour
1 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. freshly ground pepper
2 lbs. skinless, boneless chicken breasts
2 tbsp. butter
1 tbsp. olive oil
3 tbsp. dry white wine
3 tbsp. lemon juice
1 lemon, thinly sliced
3 tbsp. capers
3 tbsp. chopped fresh parsley
Combine flour, salt and pepper in a shallow dish. Dredge the chicken breasts in flour mixture; shake off excess. In a large frying pan, heat butter and oil over medium heat. Add chicken breasts. Cook about 3 minutes a side, until tender and opaque. Remove and keep warm. Add wine to pan juices. Cook 1 minute, scraping up the brown bits from the bottom of the pan. Add lemon juice and heat to boiling. Return chicken to pan, cover with lemon slices and capers and cook until sauce thickens slightly, about 3 minutes. Garnish with parsley.
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We went to the best funeral the other day. My dear, dear friend Craig's father passed away. I realize that "best funeral" seems to be an oxymoron, but I have to say, we've been to a few great Hollywood funerals. Bruno Kirby's comes to mind, but that's a whole other story. Anyway, Craig's dad, Dick Tufeld, has been a groundbreaking voiceover talent, best known as the voice of The Robot on Lost in Space, and the funeral was filled with many, MANY crazy Mr. Tufeld stories. He was also the voice of ABC television ("Today, on General Hospital...") and Disney ("Welcome to the Wonderful World of Disney"). Mr. T was always incredibly kind, charming and generous to me (I told the story here once of going to Lawry's for prime rib with their family), and he will be missed. So in honor of Mr. Tufeld, please check these out, a YouTube tribute...
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Okay, that's another Tuesday for you. Go see Stacy.
HELLO WORLD!! Are you listening? Is this mic on? (tap, tap, tap)
I could really use a good job! Really. And so, since we're spinning on the topic "The Perfect Job", I'm just gonna throw out some ideas to you, and if you like, maybe you could throw them back my way.
I should preface this by mentioning that my idea of the "perfect" job has changed drastically over the last...oh...8 years. Basically, since Jude was born. While at one time, I would have loved to be a movie star, travelling to exotic locations and working with exotic leading men, I now think that this would be really very difficult. Unless somebody drags their kids around with them back and forth across the world a la the Jolie-Pitt clan, your average movie star spends very little time with their kids. Leaving these kids pretty screwed up. I would never be able to leave Jude consistently for any extended time.
That said, I believe that the following jobs would be totally doable - great hours, and plenty of time for my life as mother/wife. So here's what I'd like to be...
1. An actress on a successful sitcom.
The biggest problem with being an actor, aside from the constant, daily judgments made against you, is the insecurity, the lack of steady employment. You never EVER know when the next paycheck is coming, or where it's coming from. It's all one big crapshoot.
The only really steady employment for an actor is to become a regular on a tv show. And while work on an hour-long drama would be a damned nice gig, the best gig hourwise is hands down, the sitcom.
Sitcom actors work a 5 day week. For 4 of these days you rehearse the show, working from 10:00 am to about 3:00 pm. Then on the 5th day, you shoot it in front of a live audience, like doing a little play. The hours on shoot day are a little longer, usually about 10:00 am to 8:00 pm. Every 3 weeks or so, you get a week off. You shoot for a total of 24 episodes a season, and have the entire summer off. These are hours I could live with! Oh, and the starting pay is about $25,000 a week.
2. A game show hostess.
Vanna White has the greatest job.
Wheel of Fortune tapes 5 to 6 episodes a day for a week, then takes THREE weeks off. At this rate, it takes about 8 months to tape a season, and then you get 4 more MONTHS off. That's a lot of OFF. Which is how Vanna has time to do all that crocheting and selling of weird stuff on HSN. And according to the trusty internet, she makes about $5000 an episode, so that's $125,000 to $150,000 a month for eight months = a buttload of cash. And all she does is turn letters and joke with Pat!
I could do that!! I know the alphabet!! I'd look good in the gowns! Really.
3) A published/produced writer with my own writer's shed.
It doesn't really matter if I'm a successfully published novelist or a successfully produced screenwriter. What really matters is the shed.
A while back, my friend Elizabeth of a moon, worn as if it had been a shell wrote a piece about writer's sheds, and I've been fairly obsessed with the notion ever since.
A writer's shed, or hut if you like, is a tiny building where a writer retires to write. A little space just for me. All alone. No interruptions. No distractions. Just thinking about it makes me slightly weak and tingly.
Here is Virginia Woolf's shed, the original "room of one's own"...
Aaaahhh.
Roald Dahl had one too...
Isn't that just the sweetest thing?
Now, of course, I don't live in Wales. So my shed wouldn't be quite so quaint. But I could at least come up with something as spare and simple as good old George Bernard Shaw...
Here's the inside...
I even looked at little buildings once at the Home Depot. They sell them ready made for about a grand...
Stick that baby in the backyard, wire it with electricity and a little WiFi and I'd be living pretty.
Just imagine. A little refrigerator. An electric kettle to make tea. A comfy chair. My laptop. No one asking me stupid questions. No one making me listen to them talk about their stupid day. No one talking to me on and on about some stupid video game...
Sigh.
So there you go World. Get to work on that, will you? I'd really appreciate it.
But before I leave, I can't resist sharing with you my Fantasy Dream Job of all time, for which I was born about 15 years too late.
If I could turn back time, I would want to be...
A backup singer on Joe Cocker's Mad Dogs and Englishmen tour.
Yep, a member of the original Space Choir, who toured with Joe Cocker and Leon Russell on their legendary 1970 Mad Dogs and Englishmen tour which spawned the great live album of the same name. It was a crazy hippie commune road show, no doubt enhanced with a tremendous amount of recreational drug usage.
Here's With a Little Help From My Friends, which I do believe is a) the best cover song ever recorded. and b) the best backup part ever written. These women are WAILING. And notice that the beautiful brunette is Rita Coolidge, the original Delta Lady.
I know this is a long clip, but PLEASE watch the whole thing - the end is like a musical mutual orgasm!
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Please click around and visit all of this weeks Spin Cycle participants!
Okay, remember how I told you the story of the nightmare that I had about Jen giving the Spin Cycle to a blogger who only wanted us to post recipes and craft ideas? Well, just to spite myself, this week...
Every Recipe Tells a Story
A while back, I saw some ladies on one of the morning talk shows who wrote this cookbook...
"Sugar, Sugar: Every Recipe Tells a Story" by Kimberly "Momma" Reiner and Jenna Sanz-Agero. That picture's an Amazon linky if you're interested. While I have not read this cookbook, and therefore can't endorse it, I really love the concept - that "a recipe is like a family snapshot, capturing memories of a time and place, and the people that made it special".
So...this week, share a recipe and the story that goes with it. While these ladies only include desserts, feel free to dish up any kind of recipe you want, as long as you also share the story behind it or around it. The first thing you ever cooked for your spouse? Grandma's pot roast that your family came together around every Sunday? That comfort food you cook for yourself when you're feeling down and out? We want to hear all about it!
Let's all serve it up and dish about it!
Share your spin! Highlight the code. Copy to your HTML. Et voila! Linked!
"My mother had a great deal of trouble with me, but I think she enjoyed it." - Mark Twain
This perfectly defines my experience thus far as a mother. I almost feel like it should replace my Agatha Christie quote on my header. Or maybe I'll find some other perfect thing to do with it. Any ideas?
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I had all these ideas about Jude and my MLK Day activities. Last year, we dedicated it to a "Day of Service" and walked around our neighborhood with Jude's little red wagon, asking everybody for food donations. We then drove all the food over to the Social Services Dept. at my church, which feeds thousands of homeless people every week.
Our idea for this year was to walk around asking for donations of coats and blankets. But...it was kind of cold and rainy. Well okay, not exactly rainy, more...overcast. But it was daunting. So we ended up staying home and having an amazingly fun day hanging out, just the two of us (Jimmy had to teach all day). We cooked and baked cookies and fulfilled a bunch of his Cub Scout achievements. And then we played The Adventures of Tintin together on the Wii - SO fun.
Then, when Jimmy got home, he was really exhausted, and we served him a plate of homemade cookies and milk and decided that was enough "service" for the day.
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Did y'all watch the Golden Globes? I know that I usually do an entire "RTT: Golden Globes Edition", but there just wasn't enough to talk about this year. Ricky Gervais was funny, but not too offensive. There were no huge gaffes or surprise winners. Here are my thoughts in a pictorial essay...
Somebody in Hollywood needs to hold a Botox/plastic surgery intersession! Witness...
...all beautiful women. All looking like freaks. It really must stop.
It's official. Everybody hates Madonna except for the Hollywood Foreign Press.
What a bitch. It's just true. In her acceptance speech for Best Original Song win, she managed to use the words "I", "me" or "my" 23 times. Couldn't PAY me to see what she kept referring to as "my movie" just for that reason. Yuk. And what's up with the dress that cuts off all circulation to her boobs? Though I must admit that her crack at Ricky Gervais was pretty funny.
While I LOVE Connie Britton, and LOVE the idea of her wearing a dress that she bought at an LA thrift store to the Globes...THIS should not have been the dress...
I think this may well be the funniest acceptance speech I've ever seen. That Sofia Vergara is really everything that Charo ever wished she was...
I fear that George Clooney has finally taken the middle-aged bachelor bit one step too far when he has started dating a former professional wrestler and Dancing With the Stars also-ran...
While I was rooting for Viola Davis for Best Actress...
...it's hard to argue any time they decide to give an award to Ms. Streep. But Meryl, honey, what was up with the Temple Grandin costume?...
But in the end...my man Idris Elba WON!...
...and so all is right with the world.
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I just got the coolest iPhone app! Star Walk.
You just aim your iPhone up at the night sky, and it will tell you what constellations you're seeing! It's unstinkingbelievable. I can't wait to pull this thing out on the next Cub Scout camp out!
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Have y'all seen these?
They're personalized M & Ms! You can go to THIS WEBSITE and order them with your own phrases and pictures on them. I keep thinking that they would be really cute for birthday favors for Jude's birthday in May. But on the other hand, they might just be a rip off. What do you think?
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Okay, run over and visit Stacy who's still Uncorked, and still carrying on as the random thoughts rebel.
Welcome to yet another installment of Random Tuesday Thoughts!
First of all...
DOWNTON ABBEY SEASON TWO!!!!
Be still my heart! SOOOOOOO good. That's all I need to say.
Thanks to Aimee for reminding me via Facebook that it was starting up again on Sunday, or I would have MISSED it, which would certainly have thrown me into a deep depression.
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Do y'all want to hear a crazy story? Good, because I've got one.
My friend Russ is one of my oldest friends in LA. I always say he's like a little brother. Well, a couple of weeks ago, he went to the doctor for a physical, and had a routine blood test. You know how when you get blood drawn, the place where they stuck the needle usually hurts for about a day, then feels fine? Well, the place where they stuck him kept hurting - for a couple of weeks. So he went back to the doctor to get it checked out. She took one look at it, and told him she thought he had a blood clot, and needed to go to the emergency room.
He went immediately to Cedars-Sinai Hospital, but the ER was really busy, so he split (he's notoriously impatient!) and went to a smaller hospital near his home. There, they told him his did in fact have a blood clot, and stuck him in the hospital for 4 days, putting him on blood thinners. While there, they ran a bunch of other tests on him, including some kind of chest scan. On the fourth day, the doctor announced to him that they had determined that he had Stage 4 lung cancer!
Stunned, he spoke briefly to his lovely wife Deena. Funny, he had no symptoms of lung cancer. He checked himself out of this hospital, drove himself to Cedars-Sinai again and checked himself in. There, they ran a battery of further tests.
First, they told him that his blood clot was superficial, and they were shocked that this other hospital had hospitalized him at all, let alone for FOUR days. They then checked his lungs, and told him that though there was definitely something wrong, they needed further tests to determine what it was. After a biopsy, they assured him that he did NOT have lung cancer.
Soon, he was visited by a fleet of doctors. It was like an episode of House. The infectious disease team checked him out. Apparently, his lungs were riddled with some kind of infection, but no one could figure out what it was. Finally, someone mentioned to him that his symptoms fit a weird and strangely specific disease known as "Ohio River Valley Disease". "But that's crazy" they said "Because it's only contracted through contact with bird or bat feces in the Ohio River Valley."
Hmmm. Turns out, Russ and his wife and two kids just bought a 100 year old farm house in the OHIO RIVER VALLEY, and he spent the last month cleaning out the attic! Crazy, right? I kept picturing Chase and Taub rooting around in Russ's attic.
His prognosis is excellent, btw.
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I have been working very hard to hide the truth from Jude, but I fear he may soon figure it out. The truth? I am terrible at math. Sad but true. I always made pretty good grades, but I had to study REALLY hard, nothing came easy. And after all these years, I have retained next to nothing. This 3rd Grade multiplication thing is nearing the extent of my abilities. Every night, I have to help Jude do 10 minutes of multiplication drills. I was fine with the 2X through the 5X, but then things started getting a little tricky. When he finally hit the 9X, I actually had to write out a crib sheet, so I knew if he was right or not! "9 times 6?" I'd ask. "54" he'd answer. (I surreptitiously check my notes) "Correct!". It's sad. What the hell am I going to do when he gets to algebra?!
I pretty much NEVER get political here, but my old friend Gary has started writing a socio-political blog - Gary Has Issues. He's basically a good solid Democrat, but he's fair-minded and clear-thinking and pretty moderate, and you should check him out whether you agree with him or not. I usually describe myself as "just right of bleeding-heart liberal", so I generally agree with him, but I think that though most conservatives would disagree with many of his opinions, nobody would find him offensive. Plus, he's really smart and a great writer. Gary used to be an actor and comic, but is now the creative director at an ad agency in Iowa. And oh look, here we are together in what is possibly the worst movie ever made...
Wasn't I limber? Please don't hold this against him.
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And speaking of old friends...
My old friend Kim Wayans has a new movie out - Pariah...
It's an amazing film and she gives an startling performance. She's always thought of as a comedic actress because of all those Wayans brothers of hers, but she's a wonderful dramatic actress. Who knew? Well, I knew, because we studied with the same acting teacher. Anyway, it's an indie film, in a small release, and they really need the support. So y'all should check out this link to a page on Facebook that lists where it's showing across the nation. Austin, Houston, Atlanta, DC, NYC, LA, Seattle - you're all good to go.
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Hmmm, yes. I think I have now emptied out all of my random thoughts for this week. Drop by Stacy's place for more random thinking.
