TV Out the Window, Teeth in the Glass

I will never attempt politics because I am a scandal waiting to happen. Regardless how presentable I am NOW, there are years of fabulously bad behavior that will keep me out of office no matter how many officials get bribed.


I can sometimes still live up to expectations when required. But as a regular civilian non celebrity I have had the luxury of being allowed to put down the JD and grow the hell up. Thousands of people the world over are not suicidaly disappointed if I decide to quietly sit in and knit.


I appreciate not being obligated to live up to my reputation. I will never wear mom jeans but I can safely put my hot pants days behind me. My presence is not expected at 3am after parties. 


I get mocked when I bail on parties to have a bubble bath and a nap, but whats it like when you have thirty plus years of boozing od's spandex pants and fornication to live up to? How do you slow down without selling out? 


Everyone roots for the flamboyantly damaged rock star to clean up their acts, but only just enough to be able to perform live. We like our bad boys permanently bad. Teetering on an edge, flirting, nay, fucking with danger. Young studs trashing hotel rooms full of naked stoned groupies. 


Its pretty sad now to see Steven Tyler without his shirt on but it would be sadder still to see him shuffling around a golf course with a mint green polo shirt tucked into high waisted Dockers.


No one wants to imagine what Keith Richards & Mich Jagger's balls look like NOW. (My guess is two tangerines in a mesh grocery bag) But we still want to hear them sing about getting high and busting a nut. 


What is it like for these bad old boys? Going from hot oil massages from hot jail bait before a show to ointment rub downs from their nurse after. Male actors can age gracefully into old guy roles, even knock out a few somewhat believable action movies into their 60s & 70s if they have the right kind of firm jaw line to eye wrinkle ratio.


The fact that they keep at it, in comeback after comeback, shows how much their persona have become necessary parts of their personalities. What they hell would they do if they just up and retired? I saw the Who perform My Generation in about 1989 ish. It was weird then and it would be weirder still to see it now. Rod Stewart singing Do Ya Think I'm Sexy, um, ew no I do not.  If Motley Crue were Smokin in a Boys Room now they would end up as registered sex offenders. As for Van Halen Hot For Teacher, how un-hot is that picture when its a young hot teacher and this?


At this point Geriat-Rock songs that were anthems of a generation and tributes to debauchery and  are now, when performed live, ironic. But we would not have it any other way. Rock on Old Dude, rock on.

A Tad Overweight But With Violet Eyes to Die For

I am so saddened by the passing of that beautiful little girl from National Velvet.

Elizabeth Taylor belonged to an elite group of women. Iconic, beautiful, talented, famous and difficult. Born in England to American parents her birth year, 1932, alone saw the arrivals of Johnny Cash, John Updike, Sylvia Plath, Halston, Jacques Chirac, Ellen Burstyn, Oscar de la Renta, Patsy Cline and Ted Kennedy to name but a few. With violet eyes to die for and a natural glamour even as a child she stood out among a huge pool of talent. 

Elizabeth Taylor was one of the Good People. Her friendship with the wonderful Rock Hudson spawned hundreds of millions for AIDS research and charities. I love her for that. I love her for being a friend to a Gay man "back then" and when he died of AIDS in 1985 she made it her life's work to try and stop AIDS from taking other peoples' friends.

As late as 2006 well into her 70s she was on the ball and making huge donations to AIDS patients in the wake of hurricane Katrina. I think she was there before the president or FEMA but that's another post.

She was a mother of four, a wife of seven (married actually 8 times twice to Richard Burton, can you blame her? DREAMY) and lover of ummm quite a few. I adore that she married the men she loved most. She believed in love, that this one is forever. She never gave up hope. 

I love Elizabeth Taylor because right after brain surgery she had her dog brought into her. I would so do that.

I love that her surviving friends keep saying they remember how giving she was, how beautiful, and how funny.

No matter how you remember her, as a young girl in Lassie Come Home, as a full grown and very beautiful woman in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, or as the Queen of the Nile herself Cleopatra, Elizabeth Taylor was one of the greats.

Elizabeth Taylor 1932-2011 Friend, Humanitarian, Mother, Oscar Winner, Wife

"A tad overweight but with violet eyes to die for"  Doonesbury, January 1979 by Gary Trudeau

Who Would You Rather? Canadian Edition

Canadian "Entertainment". I love it. All of it. The sad sad game shows. The French children's shows that scare the crap out of children. The boring dramas. The ugly fashion.The Hinterland Who's Who. I love to be embarrassed by it. I love to hate it. I love to see it live. I love to touch it and hear it. I love to hate the CBC and the National Film Board and the National Gallery. I love to support it and I love to trash it.

I can't help myself. There is just so much to make fun of. The Canadian arts and entertainment industry is such a mish mash of weirdness and meat dresses and some truly great stuff that I actually don't even know where to start or go or end with the topic now that I've started.