Making it Happen

Since my father died I’ve pretty much had my head in the ground as far as comedy goes. Doing a random spot here and there, half heartedly “pursuing” my dream but really only doing enough to get the performance fix when I needed it. Then came the baby leg years, yes I said years, having that operation was THE single worst idea ever and threw me back light years in my weight loss.

In July at Camp Wells I made a silent promise to myself to get back on track. Well things are picking up, I’m booking shows, writing material, watching footage of people who inspired me in the first place to do this crazy thing called stand-up. I’m not letting my inner critic fill me with fear. I’m just keeping my head down and my heart open to be brave and just be me; be the funny girl I have always been and if I bomb who cares we chuck it in the bin and move forward NOT back.

Plus, people keep telling me I look like I’ve lost weight. Which doesn’t suck either…..

New British Obsession

I've always been partial to the BBC. In fact I prefer it, the writing is always smarter, wittier, dryer, and frankly NOT censored which is a HUGE plus. In the end America usually ends up nicking off the best stuff and repackaging it for mass consumption. Thank god there is the BBC-America channel, while censored to a degree you still get the flavor and intent of the original version before it's been sterilized by the puritanical FCC. If you worry about thick accents, never fear they use subtitles to decipher the worst of my newest obsessions broken English.

My find is called Skins. This show makes Gossip Girl look like Little House on the Prairie. These kids are AMAZING. The subject matter and frankness make me blush.

I think we discover shows when we need to. Fumbling across the dial I started with the first season of the second generation of the show. Apparently, save a few characters after the second season of the first generation they completely recast. I look forward to going back and watching the first 2 seasons but for right now I am enthralled with this bunch from Bristol.

I find myself reliving high school through the eyes of Emily & Naomi. Their story line is deliciously tortuous, it rings completely true of how it feels to be an adolescent and gay, only they get to express it or not express it or get drunk and make out and then freak out!! Genius!!! If I could go back now with the knowledge I have things would have been infinitely easier and I could have saved so much money on therapy. As they say hind sight is 20/20, to bad I has a stigmatism growing up.

Effy, Freddie & Cook make Romeo and Juliet look like a successful relationship. Panda is adorable in her naiveté with conflicted love for both Cook & Thomas who couldn't be different lads. JJ is the over medicated introvert that just wants his two best mates Cook & Freddie to just leave Effy alone, but secretly loves her too. Then there's Katie who is Emily's twin sister (how Shakespearean to throw that little bit in) who after being hit in the head by Effy who is tripping on s'rooms on a over night camping trip tightens her grip on Freddie pulling him father away from his one true love Effy. Effy is one of the hold overs from the first generation and I can see why. This little tart would eat Blake Lively for lunch. She looks about 23 but acts like Glenn Close in Dangerous Liaisons. I love her and hate her all at the same time.

Part of me wants to move to England and start writing in a environment that isn't shackled by convention and the need to regurgitate the same old story lines over and over. But for now this will do...

SKINS

Lease Renewal 1 - Brandy 0

The Magic Tree House is still mine!

In August after receiving my lease renewal agreement, I thought my rent was going up to $1802 for an additional 2years commitment. I thought I had read all through the lease. I figured if I had gotten to the child guard window and lead paint rider that was it.

Nope, lurking behind that unnecessary document was the amendment offering me my apt. at the current price $1450 for another two years. Clearly a wave of stupidity ran over me. It was right there the whole time and for a month and a half I agonized over having to leave my magic tree house. “Always read the fine print,” my Dad used to say. How about read every page you silly cow. Ugh.

So I am safe and sound until 10/31/11. I did think about asking them to extend my lease until December 21, 2012 which is the end of the Mayan calendar and supposedly the “end of the world”. Because it would totally suck to have to move all the stuff for less than two months just to watch it all go up in flames anyway. Here’s hoping the Mayan’s and the History Channel are wrong!

Farming in the Big City!

While walking Kayla on our usual root. We passed Jubilee, a tiny French influenced American Bistro like cubby hole of a restaurant. I looked down and spied the unbelivable....a tomato plant!!!

Amongst the poppies!! Looky there Kayla tomatoes like they grow down on the farm. I took another photo just to make sure it wasn't all a dream!!!

Only to have Kayla get tangled in the plant with her leash which snapped off one of the baby tomatoes!! Nooooooo!!! I screamed as it rolled into the street. I checked to see if anyone saw us commit the vegetarian drive by. The coast was clear; I apologized to the little mater as I threw it into the poppy bed. Sorry little fellow you'll have to settle for a life as fertilizer instead of salad garnish.

From one basterd to another....

I'm cheap. Maybe it's come with age, but I who once was a matinee regular have waned against going out to the movies since the price of a ticket on the island of Manhattan has escalated to $12.50.

However there are always exceptions.

My first exposure to Quentin Tarantino came late. Reservoir Dogs premiered in 1992 and I didn't see it till the summer of 1994. In a communal hall of a dormitory on the campus of Vassar College I received an education of where American film was going and at the wheel was its newest revolutionary Quentin Tarantino. Like a babe in the woods my doors got blown off as I watched his freshman debut which was dubbed, "The Greatest Independent Film of all Time" by Empire Magazine. He broke all the rules and yet everything about it seemed familiar. Albeit covered in blood, it was like seeing all the best of the “heist” genre melted together into a perfect opus of “if there is honor among thieves then what went wrong?” with “I smell a rat?”

Over the years I have become a true fan of his films. There’s something special about a director who is in love with movies and tips his hat whenever he can to pay homage to those who inspired him to pursue his current folly. The writer/director sits before a clean white page and creates it all from nothing, instead of shopping around for whatever might be lying around Hollywood, only to churn out another ho-hum I’m going tell you the whole story in the trailer piece of drivel. Only QT doesn’t role like that….hell no.

People say Pulp Fiction is his masterpiece but I say nay. Maybe it’s because I haven’t visited that motley crew in awhile, but I believe Quentin’s Inglorious Basterds is clearly an elevation up from his current canon. He has created another unexplored genre by scooping out part war mission film, with a side of western tendencies, topping it all off with a revenge cherry. He has created the ultimate decadent eye candy, the Jewish Fantasy Revenge Porn. Something that I don’t think we have ever seen the likes of before now.

Porn might be a throw away just to keep your attention on my blog. Because really there isn’t much gratuitous sex in the movie itself aside from Joseph Goebbels getting his rocks off with his French translator in a brief cut away and Brad Pitt sticking his finger into a bloody bullet hole that’s pierced the leg of the beautiful & talented actress Diane Kruger (aka Bridget von Hammersmark). I give Tarantino huge props for not even considering a dalliance between Pitt and Krugar which could have happened but didn’t because Jane Champion didn’t direct this movie Quentin Tarantino did so ladies scurry off to Bright Stars if you favor swooning over scalping Apache style.

As I think about continuing this blog I am overwhelmed by everything spinning in my mind. There are so many tiny nuances that just made me so happy and moments that made me shout out Scheiße!!! The performances by Christoph Waltz (aka Col. Hans Landa-“The Jew Hunter”-SS) which won him the best actor award at this year's Cannes Film Festival will surely receive an Oscar nod as well. His career as a regular German TV star is now over and he must look forward to his bright future as a contending film star - his next project The Green Hornet. An amazing performance that on so many levels makes you think about how sinister and complicated one person can be. He kept me guessing at very turn with random bits & outbursts uncommon to our usual Nazi fare, ultimately getting the best satisfactory “end” befitting someone of his stature in the SS.

Brad Pitt (aka Lt/ Aldo Raine) a former moon shiner from the hills of Tennessee with a rope burn around his neck that never gets explained away. Tarantino said he does those kinds of things on purpose. Details that he lets the movie goer fill in with their back story. Another example is the brief case in Pulp Fiction you don't know what's in there but you know it must be good! That way he says the audience member makes it their movie. They actively participate by writing their version of whatever detail he has shown us. I LOVE THAT!!!

As you previously read I appall being told everything little thing about the plot, the characters, I'm not stupid, I know what something means, and can use my imagination to fill in the rest. Mr. Pitt makes his lines that if flung off any other persons tongue would seem corny or unbelievable I bought every twang and colloquialism, Audie Murphy would be proud.

All of the Basterds had many excellent character moments too many to review, I’ll only say “Italian Hands” & “The Jewish Bear” along with “The Little Man” were my favorites.

Let's not forget the lovely ladies of the film, Mélanie Laurent (aka Shosanna Dreyfus) she IS the face of Jewish vengeance! Her performance is practically all in the silences, heart wrenching, powerful non-speaking moments that take your breath away.

Then her exact opposite is Diane Kruger (aka Bridget von Hammersmark) the double talking, double agent that you wish hadn’t pulled a Cinderella. See the movie you’ll know what I mean.

Underlying the entire film is a thin well place layer of comedy. Especially noted in the darker moments of the film. A scalping here, and head bashing there….I’m sorry it is human nature to follow such horrific scenes with a beat of humor. It does not make fun of the situation in the least, but lets the mind process the atrocity and move forward. It’s simply a coping mechanism. Quentin gets some heat for his humor, but I stand by every dark, black line he has written here.

I could go on and on the brilliant Mike Meyers as the foppish English Col. The voice overs (unaccredited by the way) of Samuel Jackson & Harvey Keitel, the music, the set design and the cinematography all working together to bring this world to life. The moment the movie ended I wanted to yell up to Marcel (aka -Shosanna’s gorgeous black projectionist) to run it again!! I can’t wait to take a second; a third and perhaps a fourth look into a fantasy that I wish could have been reality!!

Viva la Tarantino!! Long live the Basterds!!!

Whitney & Oprah!

Ok was it me or at the end of Oprah's interview with Whitney, at the famed Town Hall in NYC, were they about to make out? I mean Whitney did teach Oprah about the advantages of lacing your pot with cocaine and they both did pray on the impending interview before it actually took place. Sending I love you vibes out to each other between floors of some Manhattan high rise. Sounds like the makings of a Lesbo Lovefest to me!! Gayle must be seething!! I mean she did ride with Oprah all the way to the airport to make sure she got every little detail of the O/W encounter....whatever the case I was moved.

I didn't buy all of what Whitney was saying but I am glad she's out of "whatever" was straining her spirit. Whether it be Bobby or drugs, or the evil eyes I'm just glad she's back, the voice of a generation sounds a bit worse for wear but her new anthem just gets me where I live.

"I Didn't Know My Own Strength" makes me wonder if I have enough left to get me to where I need to go. Which at this moment in my life is uncertain. I have a lot of adult decisions to make in the coming weeks and frankly I'm not sure which will be the best for me. I've tried to open myself up, be quiet and listen to my angels but they seem to be on holiday. Maybe I'm really on my own now. I have to remember what I do is for me not anybody else.

I've been wearing my Mother's wedding ring and my Father's dog tags. Trying to glean any mojo or wisdom that might spark my mind in the right direction. Like Gloria Vanderbilt I feel like a little girl lost. Nothing seems clear however no matter what happens in light of the decisions I make, I will survive a'la Gloria Gaynor. I wasn't built to break and if I haven't broken by now chances are I'll hold it together.

VMA's - Circa 2009

The media has been in a whirl of controversy over all the inappropriate outbursts this week. The latest from the VMA’s, which I don’t think I have watched since the infamous Madonna/Britney/Christina triple kiss. I tuned in because Russell Brand made quite a showing on The View the Friday before and I couldn’t resist seeing what my saucy, tightly panted Brit might pull.

The show itself has evolved into a masturbatory platform for plugging projects. Including the premiere of the “New Moon” Trailer which is a feature film and while containing music is NOT a music video at all!! This massively overproduced circus is NOT about the awards themselves numbering 15. It takes an hour of pre-show and then nearly 3 hours of actual show to present just 7 little, silver moon men. The other 8 don’t make it to the tube because they revolve around silly things like, direction, choreography & special effects. Clearly not material worthy of presentation by some dirty, white kid staring on the WB 11’s time to stop, pick out an outfit and convey weak patter before another commercial break. Much ado about nothing waxes through my mind like a beacon from the bard.

Ultimately, the entire spectacle was over shadowed by Kanye West’s rude interruption of Taylor Swift's win. In light of this I would like to say that some of the performances should be noted. The Michael Jackson tribute that opened the show was off the chain. Now I love me some Madonna but if she had said “I” one more time “I” would have had to bitch slap my icon of choice. It did occur to me that MTV is the house that Michael and Madonna built. Sure there are other artists that can be included in the foundation of the Music Television Network but the infrastructure hangs off the decades of Michael & Madonna turning out videos that captured our imaginations and made us move to the beat. It’s sad they don’t play videos anymore.

Then Pink flying through the air singing Sober was a little Barnum for me but I couldn’t believe that she was turning it out high above the masses with their mouths agape.

Lady Gaga working her tranny ass with outfits that I appreciate but do not understand. She is walking art people. Period. She removed the red lace blotter from her face after winning her first Moon Man and exclaimed, "This is for the gays!" Made me reminisce over Camryn Manheim’s "This is for all the fat girls!" Love it when celebrities give props to the people that got them there!!

And last but not least Beyoncé….girl. I was a mediocre fan before, but I am a true believer now. Not just because you managed to “fix” Kanye’s misstep by being the classiest VMA winner ever, but because your live performance made me believe that some people have talent. Actual physical talent, not just canned lip-sync’d lazy-ography (insert my review of Britney’s performance at MSG). I still can’t believe anyone dances like that and doesn’t break a hip or an ankle or snaps a knee. Girl you turned my eye and I have nothing but love for you now even though you made Obsessed.

Americas sex drive and where it went?

In 1996, the average American had sex 138 times a year. Compare that to 2007, when people reported having sex just 85 times a year. That's a staggering 38 percent decrease in a little more than a decade. Furthermore, psychologists estimate that as many as 1 in 5 couples are in a sexless marriage, which means sex less than 10 times a year. In other words, our sex drive is in a deep dive. -MSN

So a sexless marriage means that you do have sex at least 10 times a year. Wow, ten whole times = sexless? Hmmmmm, I wonder what the gay equivalent is? I mean there is lesbian bed death and some gay men go through dry periods. But if straight people are poo-pooing 10 whole times a year then what in the world would be normal? What's the other end of the bell jar look like? Where's that study about the people getting too much sex? I guess that's possible. Sex addicts anonymous and all, but that has to be a tiny percentage of people who clearly have no regular employment. I guess I just have to add that to the list of things I'll never contract: sex addiction, food allergies & anorexia.

As long as straight people do it enough to keep having gay people I really don't care. I mean technically we don't need them, but the best gay kids come from those Republican bible thumping states so ya'll stop praying & opposing a public option and get busy. Except for the Duggars PLEASE STOP having babies. You're embarrassing the Christians.

I suddenly feel like I have blogged about this before....can you Déjà blog? Or maybe it's been so long all I can think about is, "sex is that fun thing I used to do all the time before the baby leg?" Hmmmmm, can you have lesbian bed death by yourself?

The Enneagram: 2-6-8

Self discovery is the journey that never ends. So I continue to take "tests" to see what exactly I'm made of and because a few of my friends are on the "crunchy" side I have been confronted with The Enneagram. Which is a rich and practical study of personal growth based on ancient teachings of mysterious origins. Today, this study has a modern overlay of psychological typing rooted in these ancient teachings.

The Enneagram of personality describes nine distinct types. Each personality type is defined by a chief mental and emotional concern which underlies the development of the personality and highly influences the life experiences of the person who falls under that particular Enneagram type.

Apparently I am a 2-6-8....a rowdy combo of those listed below...feel free to let me know where you think I fall....my personl growth depends on it. LOL!

Type Two: The Helper
The Caring, Interpersonal Type: Demonstrative, Generous, People-Pleasing, and Possessive

Twos are empathetic, sincere, and warm-hearted. They are friendly, generous, and self-sacrificing, but can also be sentimental, flattering, and people-pleasing. They are well-meaning and driven to be close to others, but can slip into doing things for others in order to be needed. They typically have problems with possessiveness and with acknowledging their own needs. At their Best: unselfish and altruistic, they have unconditional love for others.

Type Six: The Loyalist
The Committed, Security-Oriented Type: Engaging, Responsible, Anxious, and Suspicious

Sixes are reliable, hard-working, responsible, and trustworthy. Excellent "troubleshooters," they foresee problems and foster cooperation, but can also become defensive, evasive, and anxious-running on stress while complaining about it. They can be cautious and indecisive, but also reactive, defiant and rebellious. They typically have problems with self-doubt and suspicion. At their Best: internally stable and self-reliant, courageously championing themselves and others.

Type Eight: The Challenger
The Powerful, Dominating Type: Self-Confident, Decisive, Willful, and Confrontational

Eights are self-confident, strong, and assertive. Protective, resourceful, straight-talking, and decisive, but can also be ego-centric and domineering. Eights feel they must control their environment, especially people, sometimes becoming confrontational and intimidating. Eights typically have problems with their tempers and with allowing themselves to be vulnerable. At their Best: self-mastering, they use their strength to improve others' lives, becoming heroic, magnanimous, and inspiring