Sarah the Quitter

(VIA)

Fangirl says, "OH YEAH!"

Like many of my contemporaries, I was absolutely hooked on "Dark Shadows" back in the day. I would race up the driveway as soon as I got off the bus and turn on the TV the minute I got inside to get my daily fix! The first two or three seasons were really the best - it kind of started to go stale after that - but Barnabas Collins was always my absolute *favorite* character!

Got totally twitterpated when I read about Johnny Depp as Barnabas Collins! Directed by Tim Burton?!? I AM SO THERE.

" Before Lestat, Angel, and Edward Cullen, there was Barnabas Collins, a 175-year-old vampire who stalked the town of Collinsport, Maine pining for his lost love. Originally, the character of Barnabas, played by Jonathan Frid, was only intended for a 13-week story arc on "Dark Shadows," but he caused such a sensation with viewers he became the lead character for the next four years. The show spawned two movies in the early '70s, a revived series in 1991, and a pilot that was not picked up for series in 2004.

Depp would play Barnabas, a role he told Collider.com has been "a lifelong dream for me."

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

" But when I asked him about “Dark Shadows”, I could see the enthusiasm in his eyes as he said, “‘Dark Shadows’ is happening. Tim is working on ‘Alice in Wonderland’ which is obviously quite a large piece of work there. So when Tim is done with ‘Alice’ and we get the script, which is very, very close, in order we’ll probably attack it next year. It’s exciting, very exciting. It’s like a lifelong dream for me. I loved the show when I was a kid. I was obsessed with Barnabas Collins. I have photographs of me holding Barnabas Collins posters when I was five or six. I'm very excited to do it."

I’ve heard this is happening next year, and after seeing Johnny light up when talking about it, I believe it. "

Oh my. YAY!!

Nostalgia and Prejudice

Oftentimes Sweetie and me, we get into weird conversations that take strange tangents. Oftentimes we are the only ones who understand what the eff we are talking about! Today was no different. Sweetie asked me if there was a Bob's Big Boy in town. I immediately thought of and mentioned Carl's Jr., and while he laughed his head off at me I asked if he remembered the Little Black Sambo restaurants. It should not have surprised me - and yet it did! - that he knew waaaaay more about the subject than I expected!

The chain was called "Sambo's," the original (built in 1957) and last remaining restaurant survives to this day in Santa Barbara, CA. The Sambo's I remember eating at, back East where I grew up, had the whole story displayed all over the restaurant in the form of massive murals. It is a cute little story about a fairly resourceful little boy who manages to trick a group of theiving tigers into giving him back his stolen belongings and then turning themselves into butter for his dinner. Unfortunately, the title and character names are very antiquated (keep in mind that the story was originally published in 1899, written by a Scotswoman who lived for 30 years in southern India) and therefore the story is now reviled by most people who know it. I recall that the food was good - but even then my 7-year-old brain somehow understood that the characterization was awfully racist.

Sweetie looked up the restaurant for me and found a visualization of the original storybook. Wow, talk about taking a person back to childhood. We talked about how it's kind of sad that this story gets repressed due to modern perceptions, when people really should look at this story in the proper perspective of 'it is what it is.'

Speaking of racism, been following with interest the stories of Mr. Henry Louis Gates, the cop and the Prez (Obama spoke too soon, IMO!) and Miss Jessica Simpson and her "Indian giver" statement. Sheesh.

The King of Pop was a friend of mine. Sir, you are no King of Pop!

Man, I HATE this guy.

Huffington Post

I should read HuffPo more often.

Double standards

Once again the Repugnicans can't seem to focus on real issues when there's a woman to bash.



If you ask me, it seems this woman is eminently qualified for the position of Surgeon General. As Rich Galen put it in this Mullings blog post:

I am willing to accept the notion that the Surgeon General can be the poster-woman for a national effort to lose weight. That would be swell. But, if we accept that theory, then Obama should appoint:

- a junkie as Drug Czar,

- a person whose license has been suspended as Secretary of Transportation,

- a deserter as Secretary of Defense,

- a slum lord heading HUD and,

- Bernie Madoff as chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Right on.

Funnies!!!

Life is so short

Years ago, when Darling Daughter was a mere slip of a girl, I took her and her best friend Alex on a 13th birthday celebration trip to Chicago. We stayed downtown, near the Miracle Mile, in a quaint hotel right off the El. The main objective was to see the American Girl Store because we had all bonded over their books and activities - Molly was DD's favorite of the bunch - but we discovered that all the other stuff we did was a lot more fun. We froze while walking Michigan Avenue, we shopped our butts off, saw Oprah's studio, visited the planetarium & natural history museum, walked at the lake, cruised the Navy Pier. We went to a restaurant that the guidebook said had good seafood, only to discover that we were woefully underdressed, and it was just by the grace of the ghods that I had enough cash in my pocket to pay for our meal. We laughed about that for a long time afterward; DD & I still laugh about Nick's Fishmarket. All in all it was a wonderful little vacation with two precious little girls.

Alex was a good friend; a sweet, beautiful, charming little girl with wonderful parents who were of the same mindset as myself. Unfortunately they moved a long way away when Alex's grandfather became ill and her family purchased a home they could all live in together. DD & Alex stayed in touch, with that contact becoming more and more sparse due to distance. The girls grew up and Alex got a lot more goth, surprising even me by getting a chestpiece tattoo with skulls and everything. Their lives diverged and contact became almost non-existent.

Alex called DD today. Her dad, Bill - chef, restauranteur, father, husband, son and all-around nice guy - died in a motorcycle accident last week. DD is going to his funeral tomorrow.

I don't know why but the news has hit me hard; I am floored. I hardly knew the man but we did have occasion to hang out when our girls got together, especially when we took that Chicago trip. I guess what has me thrown is (1) how many friends & acquaintances I have lost to motorcycle accidents; and (2) how quickly we can be gone from our family's lives. Bill was fairly young, maybe 45 years old. He had tons of years left in him, a wife and 3 gorgeous children, a good business and a fierce work ethic. I can only imagine the pain his family is suffering from at this moment. Wow.

Rest in peace, Bill.


And be careful on your motorcycles, people!! Damn things are freaking dangerous. Damn those things!

Extreme sheepherding

Clever!

Good night, Uncle Walter

Walter Cronkite 1916 - 2009

Hooray for Sunday funnies

Too soon?

Sorry but this made me laugh out loud. (Via ModBlog)

New depths of whoring

Poverty makes people do amazing things. Most sex workers, for example, get into the business due to a desperate need to eat and have shelter. That is certainly understandable (from my perspective, at least).

Your beloved hostess, however, is going in a slightly different direction. I've had the Alibris link in the sidebar for some time now - not that it's earned me one single penny - and I have now added an AllPosters.com search box as well. In addition, I've succumbed to Google and added their advertisements to the blog (although not in the way they recommended; infinitessimal acts of defiance against the universe is a specialty of mine). All of this is in an effort to make some fucking money. I'm so goddamn sick of hand-to-mouth living that it's come to this.

No, there's no chance that I'll get into the sex trade. I'm too damn old and I doubt that there are any johns out there desperate enough to want me. Plus I just don't think I could even fake interest well enough. So while I wait for the next semester to begin at the local community college (so I can hone the old skills and get a frigging job), I'll whore myself to the Google AdSense ghods and hope for the best.

Feel free to click through once in a while. Please don't abuse it though, the Googlies get mad when you do that.

Savage gets it right again

From this week's Savage Love column:

A new euphemism: When someone cheats on a spouse, that should be known as "hiking the Appalachian Trail" in honor of South Carolina governor Mark Sanford.

But I have to say that Adultery Confessional Theater is getting tired. Can our culture start to deflate the drama on extramarital affairs a little? Bill Clinton, Eliot Spitzer, Larry Craig, Jon and Kate, John Ensign, Mark Sanford: Yes, it sucks if kids are involved and it often leads to divorce. But I wonder if setting the panic bar a bit lower wouldn't save more marriages. Maybe we should embrace the fact that few of us will remain monogamous over the long life of a marriage.

Anne In NJ

I'm with you, AINJ: At the bottom of all these sex scandals—Sanford, Ensign, Spitzer, et al.—is our unnatural fixation on monogamy. Human beings, male or female, aren't wired to be sexually monogamous, and the feigned shock with which we're required to greet each new revelation of infidelity on the part of an elected official, a reality-show star, or a sports figure would be comical if the costs weren't so great. Elevating monogamy over all else—insisting that it, and it alone, is the sole measure of love and devotion—destroys countless marriages, families, and careers.

Which is not to say that people shouldn't honor their commitments or that there aren't folks out there capable of remaining monogamous over the five-decade course of a marriage or that the hypocrisy of assholes like Sanford—who called on President Clinton to resign during Monicagate—isn't worthy of censure. But think of all the people who've cheated and gotten caught. Now think about all the people who've cheated and gotten away with it. Our idealized notions about sex—within marriage and without—are at war with who and what we are. Sex is powerful; relationships are fragile. Why on earth do we insist on pitting them against each other?

[CAVEAT: Unless, of course, you're Chilly & Sweetie, who've 'been there, done that' and have passed through the test of fire. Discovery of life-long love at an advanced age can lead to a much more interesting and satisfying long-term relationship.]

Happy Independence Day!

YAY! FIREWORKS!!!