Tuesday, May 29, 2007

Sunday Top Ten: Not the Same as Other Kinds of Clubs

In September 1986, in Stoneybrook, Connecticut, Kristy Thomas developed what is now known as "Kristy's Great Idea." And, behold: Ann M. Martin [who, as Carly recently informed me, is a totes lesbian], began the chronicles of The Baby-Sitters Club--a story which resonated so deeply with its readers that now, even though it's 2007 and many of the series' original readers, myself included, are allegedly grown-ups who ought to be hiring their own baby-sitters [First I need to learn how to take care of myself, then I can handle a little squirt who cries even more than I do], are still curiously obsessed, as indicated by last post's comment thread.

But first: because MY attention drops into Deficit when writers make esoteric references to masterpieces they assume I've read, e.g., The Brothers Karwhathaveyoukov1, Madame Bovary2, or Ulysses3, without explanation--let me give you the secret sauce, lest you stray from this post: "I got the idea on the first Tuesday afternoon of seventh grade. It was a very hot day. It was so hot that in my unair-conditioned school, Stoneybrook Middle School, the teachers had opened every single window and door and turned off all the lights." (K.Thomas, 1986.)

WOC4, right? I've been talking about air conditioning a lot lately? Right?

OMG, about 75% of you are totally eyeing right-hand scroll bar right now: I didn't get baby sat by no club. God, I wish I'd learned how to read great books. Where's that nice lady who always helps me with my dentures? SHIRLENE!!! Where's my Jell-O? I'm gonna scroll down here, find myself a topic I understand ....or girls making out with other girls? ... I wonder if when Riese has babies, she's just gonna be like, "My babies are so cute, I'm gonna get someone from that hands-down-totes awesome club to sit on them." Boring.
Onwards and Upwards....[P.S. I mention masturbation twice in this post, and neither of those times include Kristy Thomas.]
"Please accept my resignation. I don't care to belong to any club that would have me as a member."
-Groucho Marx

Just in case there's not enough misappropriated quotation of this famous line, I'm doing it again, applying it to myself, and then spurring a Sunday Top Fifteen [to be written in two installments, because I've got so much material!] from the fine silk of its robust loins.

Here's a club I was in. It was called "the soccer team." I liked to distance myself from the other girls by dressing less preppy and wearing my sunglasses, even though the photographer'd told me 100 times not to. I slipped them on at the very last moment, like swift-armed Neo:


Michigan, 1996.



SUNDAY TOP FIFTEEN, INSTALLMENT ONE, 15-8:
CLUBS WHICH I DO CARE TO BELONG TO


15. The O Club:
Back before the Internet was invented and before Western Culture went to hell in a synthetic handbasket, it was possible to make it to the age of 12 without knowing about orgasms. Or maybe that was just me, 'cause most of my present female friends, I've learned, knew all about 'em: they were totally rubbing one out before bed while I was reading Anastasia Krupnik for the thirtieth time. So perhaps my O-Club co-members were a bit more enlightened than me. Which'd explain why they thought it was funny to create a club called "The O Club" in 8th grade, and record our first (and only) club meeting, which took place in the nook under my loft bed. Initiation included a relatively dramatic series of high-pitched moans and yells, which I thought represented the entire action referenced in our club title. But actually that would've been "The Fake O Club." We even had a membership card. See photo, left. That's our motto on the card: "Let's rock." Write that down, boys.

*

14. Fight Club:
I'd clearly get my ass kicked if I was in the Actual Fight Club, though I took Self Defense when I was a Girl Scout, and I've got some lean/muscular legs that can put up a good fight. Mostly I just like saying "The first rule of ..." Apparently, I like it SO MUCH that I employ this phrase in my textual communications with complete abandon! A quick search of my Gmail archives has revealed extreme overuse. Some examples [and this's just the tip of the misappropriation iceberg]:

To [Gretel]: "Rule Number one of Marie Club: Everything she does that seems malicious or perhaps of negative intent is, in fact, almost always simply a result of her being: 1. a space-case, 2. out of it, 3. flustered, 4. on the verge of an anxiety attack, 5. drunk, 6. all of the above, as well as on tylenol cold and flu."

To [redacted female friend]: "Rules of masturbating when you live with your boyfriend: There are no rules to Fight club."

*
13. Sam's Club

When our [our=my family] life fell apart in the early-to-mid-nineties, so did my Mom's hippie-organic-healthy rules about food [e.g., no yellow #5, no corn syrup]. For many months, I relished in this lax policy, subsisting on fried mozzarella patties and fried popcorn shrimp, purchased frozen in 40 lb. bags at our local Sam's Club. Mom was a member [she needed bulk foods for PTA-related events], obvs, as was everyone's Mom. That 48-pack of Pepsi helped soothe my teenage soul. And decay my teenaged bones. They didn't have a lot of healthy stuff there. If you wanted a barrel of apples, you'd just like, start an apple farm, right?

Also, they sometimes sold like, Trampolines? They'd always have something random hanging from the ceiling that cost around a bazillion dollars. If I had a trampoline right now, I'd put it in the street and jump on it. Actually I wouldn't, it's so hot out there, I was sweating like a whore in West Harlem-who happens-to-be-wearing-pants instead of a whore-outfit because her calves are covered in bruises from running into walls.
*

12. The Special People's Club:
Welcome to the Dollhouse, in which the bitingly ostracized 11 year-old Dawn Weiner (Heather Matarazzo) creates "The Special People's Club" with her only friend, Ralphie, was one of my favorite films ever. When I made Ryan-C5 watch it in 1998 [we were doing that "trading-favorite-movies" thing you do with your best friend to "understand them fully"], at film's end, he announced: "Marie, that movie was really fucked up. I think you're mentally disturbed," and then pretended to be really scared of me all night. He meant it affectionately of course. [His favorites include Time Bandits, Fanny and Alexander, The Opposite of Sex, The Lost Boys, Buffalo '66, Brazil, Run Lola Run and Witches of Eastwick.] I watched it 500 times and decided it was my life's goal to make it a little bit easier to be thirteen, female, and alive. That's why I invented "The O Club" and got a college degree in Education. Just kidding about that last part. I have an English degree, it's really useful. I mean, they didn't even make me read Ulysses.

DAWN: I was wondering if . . . Well, I've been thinking seriously of building another clubhouse, and I wanted to know, would you be interested in being my first honorary member?
STEVE: What are you talking about?
DAWN: The "special people" club.
STEVE: Special people?
DAWN: What's the matter?
STEVE: Do you know what "special people" means?
DAWN: What?
STEVE: Special people equals retarded. Your club is for retards.

This movie, though considered controversial [Apparently the raw truth about seventh grade is harder to handle than blood/guts/violence], developed a strong passionate following, and jump-started the careers of [lesbian!] Matarrazo [Saved! The L Word], Eric Mabius [The L Word, Ugly Betty] and Brendon Sexton, III [later Oscar-snubbed for his supporting role as Warren in Empire Records, then going on to star with Oscar-winner Hillary Swank in Boys Don't Cry.]

*

11. The No-Girls Allowed Club, all variations on the He-Man Woman Hater's Club

First of all, I'm a feminist. Second of all, most female-friendly clubs involve things I don't understand. For some reason which I cannot recall as I am no longer retarded, I actually went to Sorority Rush at University of Michigan in 2000. I was placed in a group with about 30 other rush-ees, most of whom'd been fake-baking all day and enjoyed bragging about how they'd only consumed 1200 calories a day since 1986 and now survived on pure air. Enthusiastic elder robots shuffled us from "house" to "house" for presentations of re-dubbed pop songs [changing Mandy Moore lyrics to Alpha-Chi-Omega lyrics, whatever they were, I dunno, I was too busy trying to kill myself with an index card] followed by five-minute "interviews" with random sorority members. It was unbearable. I was like, Wow that totes sucked, and went back to the dorms, eager to commiserate my misery and disgust with my friends. But they were like, What did you like better? A-E-Phi or Chi O? [To any "Greek" readers: I'm not talking about you, you're awesome. I'm talking about sorority girls who don't read this blog. Also, I'm not talking about you: my friends, because all my friends in school were Greek, except Natalie. See: I like to be the out-girl in the in-crowd, get it?]

*
10. The Breakfast Club:

I've seen this movie about 100 times. I've almost got it memorized: I can even tell you which dirty words have been ignorantly extracted from the televised version [it drives me insane]. I own it. And not until just this very moment, when I was about to type out a club-related quote from The Breakfast Club, did I realize that there might be a connection between this reference to clubs in the film and the film's title. Which, BTW, is never really explained. I think they just liked the way it sounded. I sure do. OMG, this IS the explanation. Seriously, I've been watching and quoting this film since 1994 and I just now realized this. I feel like I just had a really private and special moment on this blog. You guys? I love you. JK. Don't throw that word around. I don't love ALL of you.

Claire: You know why guys like you knock everything?
Bender: Oh, this should be stunning.
Claire: 'Cause you're afraid.
Bender: Oh God, you richies are so smart, that's exactly why I'm not heavy in activities.
Claire: You're a big coward.
Brian: I'm in the math club.
Claire: You're afraid that they won't take you. You don't belong so you just have to dump all over it.
Bender: Well, it wouldn't have anything to do with you activities people being assholes, now, would it?
Claire: You wouldn't know. You don't know any of us.
Bender: Well, I don't know any lepers either but I'm not gonna run out and join one of their fuckin' clubs.
Andrew: Lets watch the mouth, huh?
Brian: I'm in the physics club.
Bender: Excuse me a sec. What are you babbling about?
Brian: Well, what I said was that I'm in the math club, the latin club and the physics club.
Bender: Hey, cherry, do you belong to the physics club?
Claire: Thats an academic club.
Bender: So?
Claire: So, academic clubs aren't the same as other kinds of clubs.
Bender: But to dorks like him, they are. What do you guys do in your club?
Brian: In physics, well, we talk about physics ... properties of physics.
Bender: So it's sort of social. Demented and sad, but social, right?
I quote that last line a lot. It applies often.

*
9. Country Club

At smart-kids school, many of my classmates belonged to country clubs, and they'd take me, like I was their Little Match Girl. Like, Tennis, what's that? Why's everyone wearing white? "Tan" is a verb? Also, the summer of my fifteenth year, I visited a friend in St. Simon's Island, GA, and every day we went to the country club and laid in chairs and looked at the sun for hours, it was so weird. In St. Simon's Island, even the fifteen-year-olds were drunk, and they drove cars that looked like tanks for children. Though I imagine these clubs're probably a cesspool of vanity and sin, it's nice for a day to get all the lemonade you can drink. Also I think tennis clothes are hot, aren't they? Maybe I'm just thinking about Dana Fairbanks.
Really, though, I love "country club" as a metaphor. At Interlochen, Delp harped: "This's a country club, kiddos. Just wait til you get to the real world, it'll eat you alive." You know what, though? It totally did.

Every day we'd be made to repeat:
Delp: What do you know?
Class: Nothing.
Delp: What is this place?
Class: A Country Club.

We knew it though. We were like: More lemonade, thanks. Let's just sit on the beach and listen to poetry, fall in love with each other and then, fully in the throlls of crescendoing adolescent love, also fall in love with Raymond Carver, Mark Strand, Stephen Dunn, Jim Harrison, Pam Houston, Robert Bly, Kathleen Ann Porter, Anne Sexton, Bruce Weigl, Charles Baxter, Adrienne Rich, Gary Snyder, Stuart Dybeck...


In this photo, we almost look like we're at an actual country club, instead of about to get on school-buses to be transported to "Morp."
[That's "prom" spelled backwards, for those of you who are retarded. JK you're all smart. Smarter than me, even. 99th percentile. Go y'all. You all get in to Julliard, early decision. Congrats.]
Actually, just thinking about that now: we used to have no purpose in life besides reading books, talking about them, and then, in exchange, learning a little biology and having some awkward achy bones. That totes rules.

At Interlochen, the question was: "Does the ocean need to be listened to?"
The answer was: "Yes. Listen up: trees are falling."


*
8. The Baby-Sitters Club, Obvs

I was a good babysitter. Except once I locked the kids out of the house. Luckily I lived across the street. So after Emily stopped crying, like waaa waaa I'm five and my baby-sitter just locked me out of the house, we chilled at my place. They loved me anyhow, 'cause I never figured out how to talk to adults and children and people my own age differently, so I was pretty straight with them. About boys, and crack, and SARS.

"...and for me at age eight, just before I started at Emerson and started liking boys, the queen of Girl-Land was Stacey McGill of the Ann. M Martin YA series The Baby-sitters Club. Mom scorned the Sweet Valley Twins but admired Kristy and the girls on account of their implicit entrepreneurial spirit and hence, she forgave their whitewashed fluffy mass-marketed package.

Stacey worked summers as a lifeguard, and on the painted covers of those pastel-bright paperbacks, her long tanned legs dug into the sand like they'd crept up on her from underground, like maybe she was part mermaid. The cover art for Book #8, titled Boy-Crazy Stacey, pictures our heroine, adorned in a conservative yellow sweatshirt and her trademark red lifeguard jacket, cradling a freshly rescued young girl in her arms as a hunky lifeguard, tanned and as cut as a Ken doll, bandages the girl's injured foot. His shirt is unbuttoned to the waist. That was the kind of man I wanted: the kind that'd save a little girl's life with his shirt unbuttoned. And I also wanted to be a Mermaid. I wanted to be close to women who knew how to do whatever it was that Stacey did so well to bring all the boys to the yard, which I would be doing soon, too, because I was almost eight. Who Needs Baby-Sitting when there are BOYS around?"

-[me], one of 500 bad drafts of my "book," which I'll never finish, because I'm doing this.
It'd be different now: with Outlook, AIM and a simple homepage, the girls coulda been entrepreneurs way faster, but whatevs. Their exploits formed the base for grown-up work of similar literary merit, e.g. Sex and the City. (Hello: Mary Anne/Charlotte, Stacey/Samantha, Claudia/Miranda, Kristy/Carrie) . Furthermore, they struck a special chord amongst lesbians, who like strong women that have jobs and money and obvs the stories had a homosexy feel to them. Carly shared with me an essay, written by her friend Jane, entitled "Why Mallory's Gay." [UPDATE: Jane is now recapping the BSC TV series on her blog. Check it. LOL.] Some of the evidence includes:

-When the “gang” head out in the storm with Lucca to rescue Kristy from drowning in the pouring rain, Mallory is seen wearing plastic yellow overalls, galoshes and matching hat.
-Mallory jumps at the opportunity to secure her house for a party being thrown in Kristy’s honor.
-While there is no proof to this statement, Mallory was surely uncomfortable having to be crammed in a small car with Lucca, a boy, considering she “hates boys” (this fact taken from the book Mallory Hates Boys (and Gym) in which she explains her disgust for the two aforementioned items).
-Mallory‘s clothing brings up certain questions. Consisting mainly of suspenders, shorts and button down shirts, her wardrobe is rather un-heterosexual. She is also seen to wear ties on occasion, an accessory associated with males and lesbians.
-When Kristy goes off to see her dad and the members watch her get into his car, one exclaims, “Kristy has a boyfriend?!?” Mallory’s reply is, “The world must be flat.” This is clearly a reference to the fact that Mallory is infatuated with Kristy and believes that there is a chance at a relationship...

I learned a lot about babysitting from the BSC. For example: I kept getting babysitting jobs and I never locked anyone out of the house again.

"I felt deliciously scared--and happy. We were friends again...The Baby-Sitters Club was a success. I, Kristen Amanda Thomas, had made it work, or helped to make it work. I hoped that Mary Anne, Claudia, Stacey, and I --the Baby-Sitters Club --would stay together for a long time."
-"Kristy's Great Idea," Kristy Thomas, 1986

Stay tuned til the rest of this top fifteen comes out later this week, I know you can't hardly wait.



1A famous book by Dostoevsky. Often quoted by smart people.
2 This is a book by Gustave Flaubert. I quoted him and talked about him in that blog entry that got erased by zoho writer.
3 There was this list of the best novels ever and this book was number one. By James Joyce. Luckily, before I could feel too bad about myself, I saw that number two was The Great Gatsby, which I have read. Also obvs read Lolita. That's two in the Top Ten alone! I'm a genius.
4
WOC: Weird/Of Course. Maviland (Marie+Haviland) term, created to indicate strange coincidences of massive import.
5 Best friend/life-saver/life-changer, we met at boarding school in 1997, and later went to Sarah Lawrence and then to Manhattan together. Since then, he's been all over the world, and I've mostly been here.

31 comments:

frank said...

i'm a little saddened by the fact you didn't tie Dollhouse into Warren from Empire Records.

i look forward to Club Sandwich and Vodka With Club Soda in the next installment.

Jane Doe said...

Oh Marie, I just love your writing. You make me want to start blogging for real (as opposed to my current blogging (for fake?) which mostly consists of guy complaints. I love reading your stuff, and my love only increased today with your detailed references to the Babysitters' Club (And I'm a good friend of Chelain's, which is how I know your blog - I'm surprised we haven't met actually - I 've met Tara and Haviland both.) At any rate. Love the blog.

DH said...

I love The Baby-sitters Club, I never really outgrew the whole YA category.

A few years ago I tried to start a club called “The I wish I wrote The Baby-sitters Club Club” with my long-suffering, YA-writing mentor. He declined membership and then made me write a 1500 word essay on "Why Kristy Thomas is not the Ellie Linton of Tomorrow".

The only club I’m a member of is the Swords Club (fencing); instant un-coolness.

Anonymous said...

Madame Bovary - SO Overrated
Babysitters Club - SO not overrated, a shining beacon, in fact.
Some Evidence Re:Mallory
I specifically remember Stacy having a fight with a girl and Mallory telling her not to worry that the girl just thought she was better than everyone else because she was more developed. Ahh hindsight is 20/20...

Jaime said...

1. OMG Babysitters Club yes. I remember going back and rereading the first book the night before I started Middle School - studying up before the big test. (Dork.) I think I've read the one about the anorexic ballerina about 80 times. Also the Super-Special when they go to California and Mallory dyes her hair blonde - I think about that every time I think about dying my hair back to its natural color, the girls running up and down the aisles looking for red hair dye, each coming back with a different color. And Claudia and her date at the French restaurant. Sometimes I still feel like those girls are more grown-up than I am.

2. Because I am a heathen totally unversed (ACK! Pun NOT intended!) in poetry, when you say, "Does the ocean need to be listened to?" I think of this.

3. It felt silly to make a list with only two items.

riese said...

lozo: the morning-after edit should more accurately meed your needs. I love Warren. I hesitated initially to mention him because I talked a lot about Rex Manning Day a few months back, but I like to think that my repetition is perhaps indearing.

Note taken re: club sandwich/vodka/etc.

confidential lady: yes, what's going on with ourchart that I've yet to meet you (regardless of your heterosexuality, ourchart oughta permiate), perhaps it is because you are confidential? thank you for the kind words, i look forward to checking out your fake blog.

crystal: you should read Gossip Girl, highly recommended. I started writing a YA novel last year that maybe I should finish, as it moved along much more swiftly than this other book i claim to be writing. Hmm. Your essay sounds fantastic. And fencing clubs are totes cool. Gay, but cool.

kate: Nice citation of evidence, and that one wasn't even in the essay (there were many in the essay which I disregarded).

I should have mentioned that all the members of The O Club are now either lebsians or bisexual. Maybe I'll go back and do that right now. I thought that just now because, like Mallory apparently, I noticed such things.

jamie: I too loved the anorexic ballerina one. Probably my love of books about anorexics in general is problematic, or something. I loved the first vacation special--is that the one where they go to CA? I seem to recall a ship being involved. it was a really thick book, it was like, serious reading.

Aw, Dar Williams. It's okay, Jack Spicer is super not-famous-at-all. And maybe you're just super smart because I think I referenced DW and Interlochen re: winter/and he said that's a flower and i said what's a flower and he said i still love you or whathaveyou. Or maybe that was in an email to Natalie. Hm.

AK said...

The Breakfast Club! That does take me back. So far back that I broke my swivel chair trying to reach for my film diary to see just why that film stuck in my mind. (Dang now I have to lean way back all the time until I fix it.)

All films stuck in my mind from that time because I worked at a movie theatre and I lived, breathed and ate movies. (Still my coolest job of all time especially with the late night special viewings for just my friends.) I actually preferred Breaking Away even though it was all boys. But if the truth be known the most influential, much watched, most quoted movie of my coming of age was Cabaret though I fear it doth date me or makes me a drag queen. (I painted my nails green and cut that point into my hair.) It was the first movie I saw with a homo/bi character in it and a sex positive sensibility.

Welcome to the Dollhouse was indeed brilliant. But I'm not going to check out the Baby-sitters Club no matter how cool I think you are. I'll take your word for it and consider myself properly updated.

Jaime said...

I think it must've been in an email, not the blog post. But maybe I'm just that smart! I'd better be, to make up for the fact that the least-famous poet I know (whose work isn't in a subway ad) is e. e. cummings.

Anonymous said...

haha - hi karen! Great topic, Marie. I always thought of myself as little sister Karen. My favorite super special is where they went on the cruise to Disney World. so much fun. My sister and I used to play a game with it... I forget what the game was now....

frank said...

i came back to see if you had responded because you're my blog hyphen (i shortened it) and saw "Warren" as i was scrolling down.

i got worried that i just flat out read over the reference last night. you shouldn't edit. just let it all flow and let it be.

i would also like to suggest The Club, the auto theft prevention device from the 1990s.

Abster said...

"Welcome to the dollhouse . . . we've got it all set up for youuuuuuu". God that movie is amazing. Heather M. actually went to my school(sva) for part of a semester and lived in my friends dorm room and she was a totally f-ed up coke head, but she did sing really good karaoke. I mean, i've never been impressed like that before in my life. Wow.

Anonymous said...

I read this blog late last night while in bed. Your blog is hilarious. Rock on.

I, too, loved the BSC, bought each new volume the day it came out each month. My favorites were the vacation editions. I think I used to dream in BSC. I wonder if you ever got into the Saddle Club?

-kt

MeL said...

10. So 10. Did I mention that I totally lost my virginity with The Breakfast Club playing on the t.v. in the background? I guess I just did, huh? Yeah.

Rawkus.

Tara said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
riese said...

lozo: is that how you make like, a post every day? not editing? hm. I'm thinking demand-and-supply. I just had to edit it again. I had some really bad typos. I think people still use The Club, don't they? I dunno cuz I don't got no car.

ak: I've had two ex-boyfriends who worked in movie theaters. What's funny is how they've got all the movies from a particular season practically memorized, and then a sort of consistent knowledge of all films before or since the time of their employment. It's like Popular Film School.

Also one of those exes was the lead in Cabaret when they did it at Interlochen, and I remember distinctly him telling me about this "gay subtext" and I was like "hmmm...." So I admit that I actually not only have the entire score memorized, but also purchased it a scant three years ago, saw it on Broadway, and regularly cite it as one of the only Seriously Good musicals ever.

*

lainy every time you comment, my heart sings. your game sounds sexually suggestive.

*

kt: I did read some Saddle Club--most of my friends rode horses and were obsessed, as one might imagine--but I think my pony-envy prevented me from getting really involved in it.

*

mel: amazing. totes amazing! riding the hobby horse, etc.

*

abbie: she seems to be an oft-spotted star in this fine city of ours. i didn't know she was a coke-head though. aren't they all, it seems, alas, omg, dawn weiner woulda become a coke-head. at least she's a homo, and karaoke's really the only talent anyone needs, she got good practice in that bee singing club.

*

did anyone go to Sam's Club?

*

anyone?

*

carlytron said...

this is really great. did I start this whole BSC nonsense? that might've been my fault. And yeah, there should be some more Ally Sheedy in this post.

Anonymous said...

I went to Sam's club often when they first opened...and obvs still am in "buying in bulk" mentality (remember how i thought it was weird that you go to Duane Reade every day, when you could just make a list and buy enough for a few weeks?)

Have never read Babysitters Club...people really read that stuff?

cute posting, kiddo...
xox

Abster said...

Well she USED to be a coke head, she would come home all hours of the night and never go to class and she was reallllly skinny. I also heard that she started smoking during that movie, so she must have been like 11, thats sad :( I went to sam's club a few times in Mich, and they have costco or whatever here. I never get how you get to be a member though, and then all the sudden you are buying like 12 tubes of toothpaste and 50 rolls of paper towel, and that just doesn't work in apts here. I too go to the DR 8 times a week and get pissed off about 98% of the time, ahh well.

Anonymous said...

awesome blog topic.

weiner dog is gay? for real? why's everything guesting on the l word gotta be gay? ...oh yeah.

we didn't have sam's club where i grew up but we did have costco, which frightened me and i would pretty much stay in the car rather than walk in there with my dad and see those gigantic containers of ranch dressing lurking on those gigantic shelves... if you wanted blueberries you had better want them by the gallon. it was terrifying. my dad buys everything there, from muffins to dvds to an actual armchair with an ottoman and YES OF COURSE IT'S HUGE. this is EVERYTHING wrong with america.

oh and the o club is hilarious... the membership card is amazing. maybe if the costco membership card said "let's rock" on it i would have actually shopped there.

and there is no freakin way claudia is miranda.. miranda would never put up with those spelling mistakes OR those earrings. although naming her kid brady and then marrying steve brady, making her kid's legal name brady brady DEFINITELY should qualify her for some kind of learning disability.

and i am srsly reading this blog instead of the brothers kazamarov. which i have read approximately 15 pages of and will never finish.

Anonymous said...

KARAMAZOV. WHATEVER. it's not to be.

Unknown said...

I let out an involuntary squeal in the silent library just now, when I read your post and saw the photo of you and me and Benny and Ryan. And just reading all the names of those writers together gave me the sublime highschool-"pay attention"-smoking while standing on the toilet seat-wearing white tshirts against the uniform rules-thinking about sex constantly-slightly drunk groping-cottage fries with tabasco and ranch dressing-"the beautiful feeling after writing a poem is on the whole better even than after sex, and that's saying a lot"- bubbling emotions.
And The Wingnuts is a club to which I shall ALWAYS belong.

Bourbon said...

Loving the last minute sunnies prank in the photo. I seriously wish I had that much skill, the best I could come up with was cross eyes. I remember attempting to read the babysitters club coz it was all the rage but I couldn't get past the first chapter, Goosebumps was more my style.

I have that Simple Minds song stuck in my head now.

riese said...

Ing: your comment inspired me to let out an involuntary squeal and then scan wing-nut photos for the next installment, which will be entertaining for exactly two people: 1.you, 2.me, which is enough because if i squeal loud enough, all of Harlem will be like HOLLA! and you can certainly do the same in your library at that school of yours in that city Chicago or what-have-you.

Anyhow, thanks for that.

*
re: Ally Sheedy.

I have "I'm kinda hot. That's kinda serious." on my desktop stickies. Right below a Holly GoLightly quote, cause I'm cool like that.

High Art: Formative lesbian film.

Furthermore, the following exchange always hit home for me, after Claire removes Allison's eye makeup and she's like "i like my eye makeup!":

Andrew: What happened to you?
Allison: Why? Claire did it...What's wrong?
Andrew: Nothing's wrong...it's just so different, you know? I can see your face.
Allison: Is that good or bad?
Andrew: It's good.

*

carlytron, yes, obvs you started it. kinda funny that haviland and tb haven't read up, though I'm surprised that you haven't Hav, it's totes right up your alley. Fo'serious.

*

Hav I still remember the moment that I saw your big box of cookies on your fridge, and I was like, wow. Amazing. Also, the smallest size possible is part of my economic theory which is "save money today, because one should love for the moment." Or something.

*

I think you had to pay for a Sam's Club membership. It was like the Housewives Club sort of because all the housewives belonged. There was a Costco too but I think that was farther out of town, or maybe hadn't been built yet when I was a wee kid.

And yeah: totally the demise of civilization, that place.

*

weiner dog is totes gay. ally sheedy is not gay, unfortunately.

*

Lets Rock=new costco motto=GO AMERICA!

*

And you're right about Claudia, Stef. I needed a refresher course...I remembered her being smarter?

That's amazing that you're actually supposed to be reading the Brothers K right now (that's like, an official abbreviation, so I'm not even cheating by using it.)

*

Anonymous said...

BSC club game with my sister: not sexually suggestive. promise.

Anonymous said...

... I can think of some games that are suggestive, however... if you like. ;)

MoonKiller said...

This is just about the only thing keeping me from jumping head first out of my window due to Big Brother.

My friend and I have a fight club but it's pretty much us hitting each other when we get annoyed. Fight Club is THE bet film ever to be quite honest. The Breakfast Club's up there too.

Bridget said...

welcome to the dollhouse starred (ok not so much starred as showcased) Scott Coogan (he played troy) of my home town. His mom was my substitute teacher in HFS for like EONS and she always, always rocked.

which if you think about it makes me like 3 degrees away from alice on tlw. Scott (as troy), Vagina Wig (as Heather Matarazzo), and finally Alice (as Leshia Hayley).

and if you think about this any further - this makes you like 5 (or 6 including internet ties) degrees away from TLW (not to be confused with the one hit wonders Three Little Women - a diddy girl group pre-name change and pre-making the band but post-j lo (er is it pre j lo, post jennifer lopez) i don't know where i'm going with this rant) (and i'm not sure how to get out of these parenthesis).

or my math (from HFS) could be way wrong. cause u're like official and such as an established writer for the l word online - so isn't that like 2 degrees away from TLW? i'm gonna stop myself before i over heat.

regardless, Mrs. Coogan's day time games were the coolest ever. Especially "Silent Ball."

Bridget said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Bridget said...

word. i realize now how utterly random that comment is as it has like zero to do with a) clubs of any sort b) your post in anyway or c)coherent thoughts.

i would delete it but, then i'd be that girl who deleted her own comment which is just a tad pathetico. Almost as pathetico as name dropping an extra from a indie cult classic movie.

(UPDATE: i had to delete this post b/c i spelled things wrong) (feel free to block my from commenting as i am clearly abusing this privilege and should be kicked out of the Comment Club)

riese said...

Lainy, you're the cutest ever. Chelain Chelain CHELAIN.

*

Bridget: No one ever gets kicked out of Comment Club, except for the sketchy dude who kept offering to fuck me like the little slut I am, which was: 1. inappopriate, 2. not entirely accurate, as I'm not a little slut and therefore don't deserve to be "fucked" like one, but also I don't believe in the word "slut" and think it's a label employed by the man to degrade women.

Also it's really fun that I get them emailed to me, so I can observe the evolution of your comment even as you erase it. Ha-HA! I auto-win! I get to read it anyhow! Yay me!

Anyhow, yeah... I think I have numerous paths of two-degree steps from TLW ... although I guess writing for OurChart might be a direct connection? Although I've totes slacked on that lately, as they don't pay and I'm too poor to do free things all day. JK I do free things all day anyway, I just have more free things to do than I can handle...

Which's not to say I'm cool (cuz I ain't), but ... I think their cast is too large ... I should play that six degrees game. Lo and I used to do that for fun. And by "for fun" I mean we'd try to see how many degrees I was from Jeremy Sisto so that they could meet and fall in love.

Troy was her brother, right? That was the funniest character. i loved when he was like "DUH, i want to get into a good college." HAR.

That's an awesome band name, p.s.
*

Moonkiller: Ten points for Big Brother reference.

Also, one must not jump out one window's because:

"We're all worried, we're all in pain. That just comes with having eyes and having ears. But just remember one thing - it can't get any worse, it can only get better. High school is the bottom, being a teenager sucks, but that's the point, surviving it is the whole point. Quitting is not going to make you stronger, living will. So just hang on and hang in there."

Name that teen angst film.

MoonKiller said...

Pump Up The Volume. And ok I shall not resort to suicide.

ps. I did NOT google that quote. *shifty eyes* ha