Category: utter nonsense

The other day, I was on some Hollywood site doing vital research on the upcoming movie, Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter. (Think what you must of me.)

While there, I saw the ad below in the sidebar of the page and I am still flummoxed.

So, I was wondering, ad, if I could I ask you some questions? Would that be all right with you?

I’ll take your silence as tacit agreement.

All right. You claim I can “triple my sexiness in 7 days,” but I’m curious how you came to these figures. How is this measured? Do you weigh me? Put a cuff around my arm? Draw blood? I’m sorry, ad, but wouldn’t you need to know my baseline sexiness before you can claim to triple that amount? How can you triple X if you don’t know what X is? And, yes, you heard me, ad, I said triple X. But what if I don’t want to triple it? What if I only want to double it? How can I make sure I stop or slow the effects of your product so I don’t get, you know, toooo sexy? On the other hand, what if triple isn’t enough? What if I want to quadruple it or more? Would I need to purchase more of your product in order to achieve those results? And why is it precisely 7 days? God rested on the 7th day, as you may or may not know, so what if I’m tired from all this tripling of my sexiness and need to rest on that 7th day? Does that then negate all the results of the previous 6 days? Do I lose “sexy” ground?

What’s even more perplexing, you claim you can help “boost my sex appeal NOW!” — so which is it? Is it “NOW!” or in 7 days? “NOW!” is NOW. 7 days is 7 days.

Honestly, ad, if you’re not clear on those two things, then I’m pretty sure you can’t help increase my “sexiness” NOW! … or in 7 days ….. or ever.

Doing some medical editing these days.

So let’s imagine you come to me, your caring doctor, with these problems:

~ Depression

~ Cirrhosis

~ Low back pain

~ Heart disease

All right. You’ve got a few issues, peaches. But that’s okay. Lots of people do. Again, I’m your caring doctor. I’m here to help.

Here are a few of my thoughts about you:

“Patient does sweat the small stuff. He has a lot on his mind. He feels like he is on a roller coaster. He is interested in writing, although he did not graduate from high school. The patient states that he has a gift for prose. He believes in a “Higher Power,” but does not believe in organized church.”

Wow. Yes, I am your caring doctor, but yamahama, am I condescending. Also, nosy in a decidedly non-medical way.

But I do want to help you. I do. Let’s face it, though. As a caring condescending doctor, it’s less about me helping you and more about feeling godlike about my healing powers.

So, are you ready? Here’s the plan I have for you:

“1. Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff video was recommended.

2. The patient was given a book by N.V. Peale and a forgiveness handout.

3. Should watch Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff video next time.

4. Follow up in 3 months.”

There you go!

Good luck with your back pain and cirrhosis and heart disease!

I mean, come ON. Don’t sweat the small stuff, peaches.

See you next time!

XOXO,

Your caring condescending doctor.

P.S.: Forgiveness cures cirrhosis, you know.

Oh, thank you, blessed baby Jesus!

MB is working tonight and, lucky me, I just stumbled across the movie “Frogs” on some obscure channel called “ThisTV.”

Anyhoo. The movie is circa 1972 starring Ray Milland, Joan Van Ark, and — the best part — a young hunky delicious Sam Elliott. Now I’ve always found him hunky and delicious, but I don’t think I’ve ever even seen him before he turned into the silver-haired fox he is today.

So I am now watching “Frogs” — which looks like a totally awesome and cheesy B movie where amphibians “strike back” — strictly to gander at and swoon over Sam Elliott. And I’m going to live blog this puppy because it just seems like one of those things I would end up doing when I’m by myself, now doesn’t it?

Oh, pippa. I need to go make popcorn. Wait. After this shot of a topless Sam Elliott. Oooh. Those tan biceps. Hold me, 1972 Sam Elliott.

Commence live and totally random blogging:

~ Okay. The Sam Elliott character is named “Pickett Smith.” Whatevs. But the funny thing is that Joan Van Ark, that bag of bones, keeps running around like a spaz repeating his name to everyone. “Hi, Grandpa! Have you met Pickett Smith? Well, this is Pickett Smith. Say hi to Pickett Smith, Grandpa. Yes, his name is Pickett Smith. Clint, I want to introduce you to Pickett Smith. He’s visiting us, is Pickett Smith. That’s what Pickett Smith is doing.” Pickett Smith Pickett Smith Pickett Smith I just met him but I’m in love with Pickett Smith which you can tell by how I can’t stop saying his name, Pickett Smith. Calm down, Joan Van Ark.

~ Oh, also: Joan Van Ark is wearing what can only be described as a giant onesie. We’ve discussed the skater onesie here before and we all know what a baby onesie is, and, well, Joan Van Ark (hereafter JVA) is wearing an adult version of a baby onesie. In butter yellow. There is really no way to overstate the oog factor of her skinniness sheathed in a giant baby butter-colored onesie. You know, JVA. Most men don’t go for women in baby onesies and the ones who do, you don’t really wanna know.

~ Oh, dear. Oh, no. Lots of close-ups of huge fat frogs. What does it all MEAN??? They look pretty tasty to me, frankly. This a problem how?

~ Uh-oh. It’s dinnertime at the estate here. They’re lounging around discussing at length how they’re “the ugly rich.” So poor Pickett Smith is the outsider here with his sexy denim shirt and sexy jeans and sexiness. The frogs heard the dinner bell, apparently, and are hoppin’ in hungry droves towards the house. So what we have here is The Great Gatsby Meets The Plagues of Egypt, peaches.

~ Oh, earlier, Pickett Smith Pickett Smith! found a dead body on the estate. He’s also a photographer, it turns out. Although, really, those two things have nothing to do with each other. He found the dead body not in his professional role of photographer but in his strictly amateur role as the only person worth a tiny rat’s bottom in this entire movie.

~ Hahahahaha. The fat little frogs are pawing — clawing? webbing? what? — at the windows of the estate. Like li’l kitties trying to get in. It would almost be cute if it weren’t for the imminent amphibian mayhem and death.

~ Oh! Ray Milland — Grandpa in a wheelchair — just shot a snake dangling from the chandelier. This snake was menacing poor Mabel, the black housekeeper for the Crockett family, so naturally, one must shoot it with a bunch of other people standing around the table.

~ The closeted gay grandson brought a black woman to dinner. Her white dress is slit to her navel. She’s braless. The ugly rich openly comment on her slutty outfit. Closeted Gay Son says he LIKES it. Sure you do, precious.

~ JVA is wasting Picket Smith’s — and my — time by trying to converse with him. JVA, don’t you get that he’s the strong silent type? Toddle off in your onesie, babydoll.

~ You know, I’ve never liked JVA and that’s putting it mildly. I hope she gets frogged but good. Eat her up, onesie and all, okay, Mr. Toad? And her Trisha Nixon ponytail.

~ Uh-oh. Some little whippersnappers just set off some firecrackers in the bayou. It’s the Fourth of July, but do the frogs care about that? No, no, they do not. Rather, they now seem ENRAGED.

~ Photographer Pickett Smith is also an environmental expert apparently: “You’ve overdone it with the pesticides, Ray Milland.” Swoon. Is there no END to this man’s sexiness and knowledge??

~ Here’s Blonde Weekend Guest Dude. Shooting things in the bayou. No, wait. Shooting himself. Accidentally, in the leg. Oops. Here we go. He’s now being eaten by moss and, ew, tarantulas. (Which are basically harmless and blind, but whatevs.) They be scary, I won’t lie. But what are they doing in this movie? It’s called “Frogs” not “Frogs and Snakes and Spiders.” What UP, movie? He’s now covered in a giant spider web. Oh, those frogs!

~ I don’t think he’s still alive. I’m sorry, pippa.

~ I feel it only fair to warn you all: The lizards are on the move.

~ Gammie is wandering in the bayou with a butterfly net and a dress with a fluttery collar.

~ Black chick is now dressed like an African princess. Massive head wrap, giant caftan. She’s playing croquet like this. Some dude comments on how he “likes her game.” She responds, “I don’t think so. I don’t think you can dig it.” I’m confused. Or more confused.

~ I have to admit I’m bothered by Pickett Smith’s lack of wardrobe changes. I am spending way too much time pondering the implications.

~ Oh, gay son is in the greenhouse, tuliping around and such. But the lizards, you see, they have other plans. They are, in cold premeditated fashion, knocking various clear bottles labeled “Poison” and “Worse Poison” and “Worst Poison Ever” onto the floor of the greenhouse. The fumes! Oh, no! Gay son walks towards them, as anyone would. He is overcome! The lizards LAUGH!

~ Pickett Smith and the African Princess just found dead Gay Son. They announce his death to everyone. But, ugly rich that they are, no one seems to care.

~ Ew. EW. A fat frog just jumped onto the abandoned Fourth of July Flag Cake! EWW. Get offa the symbol of my country in cake form, you damned filthy frog!

~ Gammie! Beware! The snakes are full of mischief! Gammie! Look out! She’s being stared down by a rattler. RUN, GAMMIE! Okay. Phew, she is. Obviously, she foresaw this horrible ordeal which is why she wore those pristine white tennis shoes with her fluttery party dress. But, oh no! Two feet of water take her down! She gets up and … hahaha …. she’s now wearing a totally different dress, one sleeve of which was somehow dissolved by her fall into the water. Never know with water, do you? Okay, finally, she’s bitten by a snake. She’s down and dead and instantaneously gray.

~ Another dude. I don’t even know who this dude IS. Random Guest, we’ll call him. Well, anyway, he’s battling a croc right now. I’m serious. They killed off Gammie, cut to a commercial, came back to Random Guest in a death match with a croc. Nearby frogs just watch, croaking. Random Guest also croaks but not in a way that means he’s still alive.

~ Sexy and smart photographer Pickett Smith says, “We gotta get off this damn island!” Everyone but Grandpa agrees. “I control these people!” he says. His household staff — all black, by the way, because this is the 1970s?? — protest. He tells them to go then, fine. His son or grandson — or whoever — is taking them home on the boat. Uh-oh.

~ Ray Milland says to JVA, “Uhm, excuse me, but even under these circumstances, can’t I have something to EAT???” Hahahaha. You’re a real gem, Gramps. JVA complies because she’s spineless. And I think I mean that literally.

~ Dude that took the household staff in the boat — well, guess what? He’s in trouble now, bit by some giant water moccasin or something. His hot blonde wife shrieks, runs into the water, but, oh, no, a — what?? a sea turtle?? — is swimming for her ….. very …… very slowly ….. obviously, there’s no TIME! She’s done for!

~ Grandpa CANNOT be reasoned with, all because it’s his birthday, you see, and all this death is just RUINING his party. JVA and PS try to use common sense on him, but he just says, “Okay. Get the hell out! Stand up and be counted! You’re either with me or against me!” (Uhm, what, Grandpa? You’re just throwing out cliches now, do you know that? This is more than just “my flag cake was ruined by frogs.” You’re somewhat mentally compromised.)

~ PS and JVA find themselves a canoe, taking the kids orphaned by the recent rampaging water moccasin and sea turtle. Those two were mom and dad, apparently. The movie makes basically zero attempt to define relationships here.

~ On another note: For a movie called “Frogs” have we yet seen anyone actually murdered by the frogs themselves? No, I don’t think we have. So the frogs are Charles Manson, I guess, having other more malleable critters do their homicidal bidding.

~ Oooh. Sam Elliott paddling a canoe. In one shot he’s wearing a shirt, very next shot, shirtless. More mistakes like this, please. Totally fine by me.

~ Oh, no! A snake jumped from a tree, molesting Pickett Smith! He fights it off as any photographer/environmental expert would do. JVA screams. I dislike her intensely.

~ Pickett Smith shoots a rapidly approaching croc. Sexxxy. Although I grieve over the number of purses and pairs of boots that just sank to the bottom of the bayou.

~ They make it across the murderous waters to the other shore. A lady offers them a ride. “We haven’t seen anybody on this road for three hours. Isn’t that strange for a holiday??” Her little son turns to the other boys in the back seat. “Hey, wanna see what I found?” AHHHH! It’s a big fat frog! Freeze frame.

~ Wait. Back to retarded Grandpa in the wheelchair. He’s all alone now, with only his creepy hunting trophies on the wall to keep him company. He wheels around his house, into another room. Frogs are everywhere. Duh, Gramps. There’s a close-up of his stuffed gazelle with a simultaneous bleating goat sound. He falls from his wheelchair, startled, one assumes, to hear his stuffed gazelle bleat like a goat, and is overcome by THE FROGS.

~ (Uhm, movie, you didn’t even show me what happened to hunky sexy Sam Elliott aka Pickett Smith Pickett Smith!. I mean, yes, it’s implied by the ghoulish frog freeze frame, but you give me a hunky hero and leave me with what? Just imagining his death at the — hands? legs? what? — of maniacal frogs? Lazy shiftless movie. Or stupid ran-out-of-money movie.)

~ Roll credits to the sound of …. not kidding ……. croaking frogs.

….. you just might find, as you start choking and spitting, that you’ve just tried to brush your teeth with Icy Hot. You may understandably fuh-reak out that your teeth will now — based on the name of the product — freeze and burn and then melt away in a white river of enamel. But, thankfully, once you’ve regained calm, you will discover that you remain whole and fully toothed. Your breath will likely smell like IcyHot for the next decade or so, but, on the upside, I believe you can realistically expect to have nipped any toothache pain in the bud forever.

All in all, good news.

And, just a thought, maybe store the Icy Hot elsewhere in the future.

You know how sometimes you find yourself trapped in a car with a grumpy Beloved and things are going downhill fast and you’re both secretly wondering “how much longer do we have to live” blahdie blah, etc.? You know how that happens sometimes?

And once you move past the preferable death scenarios dancing in your head, mesmerizing as they are, you actually start wondering how you could possibly cheer up your crabby Beloved. What to do? What to do??

Well, naturally, a caring wife will suddenly decide that the perfect plan to chase away the gathering storm clouds is to, uhm, cluck — not hum or sing, oh, no, CLUCK — her way through various well-known songs. Oh, like maybe “In the Hall of the Mountain King” by Edvard Grieg.

You know:

bawk bawk bawk bawk
bawk-bawk-baaawk
bawk-bawk-baaawk
bawk-bawk-baaawk
bawk bawk bawk bawk
bawk bawk bawk bawk
bawk bawk bawk bawk
baaaaawk

Oh, wait. How rude of me. Maybe you don’t recognize the tune from just the bawks. Okay. Here’s a MIDI of it, piano only version, which should have no impact whatsoever on your ability to cluck it out, pippa.

For this whole thing to really work in cheering up Your Beloved, you need two things:

1) The willingness to really sound like a chicken as much as possible.

and

2) Insanity.

You got those two things? You’re good to go, Peaches! Cluck it out with a vengeance!

Later, I moved on to the “Theme from Rocky,” pumping my arms in the air and clucking triumphantly like any good chicken-wife.

Naturally.

So.

Starting next week, I will be teaching a 12-week drama workshop at a private hoity-toity Jewish prep school here in town.

Yep. I mean, seems logical. The perfect fit for my evangelical shiksa self, don’t you think?

Oh, yes.

Bottom line: It was just too flat-out ridiculous to pass up.

Last week, I drove up to their school and had what turned out to be a TWO-HOUR interview where I met four different men. The first one was short, looked like Billy Bush, was not Jewish, and apart from acting nervous and tongue-tied, seemed utterly generic. He gave me a tour of their school but didn’t seem to know what to say about it. I had to keep asking questions to get him to say anything at all, like some horrible blind date. But without benefit of alcohol.

The next feller was the high shool principal of the hoity-toity Jewish school. He was also short, wore a yarmulke, stared lasers at my boobs, and isn’t that nice, baruch atah adonai. The entire time he cross-examined me, he played absently with the small green clock on his desk, spinning it round and round. I could tell he thought very highly of me as a person.

The next gentleman was the grade school principal. He was not short. He handed me his card, said, “Call me” and walked away. That was all. “Call you” for what, Peaches??

The last man was The Head of The Arts “Collective” they are starting at the school. The “main guy” I needed to talk to in order to get my shiksa self into The Fyvush Finkle Arts Collective. (Not the real name. I’m not making fun here; there is a famous Jewish name in there, just not that one.) He was the art teacher and sported a grey turtleneck, khaki vest, and matching khaki pants. He, too, was short. Also balding, with little round glasses and tiny brown eyes. All that was missing to complete the cliche was the beret. I swear, if he’d been an actor playing an art teacher in a movie and had come out of wardrobe in that, the director would have said, “Please find something else; no one really dresses that way.” He was like a living cartoon and I struggled to look him in the eye. Allegedly, his class was in session, it was the first day of school, but he took me to the back of the class and talked to me for AN HOUR while his kids did Yahweh knows what. They were not creating art, I know that, but they did spend a very long time with their heads bowed over a single piece of paper. Vest Boy, meanwhile, asked me questions and answered them himself, so of course, I found out later he was very impressed with me.

When class was nearly over, he excused himself to go set the captives free. I watched the tight smiles and furrowed brows flicker across the kids’ faces as Vest Boy droned on and on, past the class bell, past all reason, past the end of time. Once the kids bolted from the room, he came back to me and said, “You know, some of these kids have me for several years in row. Sometimes, after a while, they actually think I’m boring.” Said without the slightest sliver of irony. I smiled a tight smile, as I remember. After another monologue where he blabbed about his “partner” Rachel, about “filling the artistic well,” about the personal lives of his students (ahem) and after I purposely, blatantly took my cell phone out of my purse to look at the time, he finally said: “Well, the job is yours if you want it.”

Oh, boy!

Want it?

Want it??

For reals?

Wow!

It’s just like Christmas!

Or I mean Chanukkah!

After all, the four of you have kept me here for TWO AGONIZINGLY MONOTONOUS HOURS. I don’t like any of you. I don’t like that you’re a private Jewish school and it doesn’t matter to you that I’m not Jewish. I don’t like that this is a private school without a dress code. I don’t like your outfit. I don’t like your beady eyes. I don’t like the word “collective.” I don’t like that you have a “partner” and that you talk seriously about “filling the welllll.” I don’t like that I had an instant violent dislike of Principal Laser Eyes even before he proved himself to be Principal Laser Eyes. I don’t like that you’re all making me promises of “bigger and better things to come,” dangling your artsy little carrots.

After a steady five-year diet of major disappointments and broken promises, I don’t believe any of you for one teeny-tiny split second.

I mean, what’s more like Christmas and/or Chanukkah than that?

So, of course, I emailed Vest Boy two days later and said yes. Five seconds before I wrote that email, I was sure I was going to say no. Violently and unequivocally.

But … quite honestly …. and I am so very lame as we all know …. I thought it might make for some good blogging.

Seriously.

An irresistibly bad idea is irresistible for a reason, you know.

So instead, I compromised. They wanted an entire year commitment to this “after school collective,” but the job is too far away and far too part time right now, so I committed to the first session only and told them I would need more for it to work for me long-term. The conceptual arsty carrots being dangled would need to become actual artsy carrots. (And somehow you would all have to become tolerable and non-pervy and taller if you could manage that, mkay?)

Basically, I said yes with room for no later on.

Vest Boy emailed back almost immediately, so excited.

Oh, I too, Vest Boy, am positively brimming over.

You have no idea.

Local shiksa teaches drama to a bunch of rich Jewish girls and boys.

Nothing more irresistibly bad than that.