Every Day is Christmas Day Top Ten Holiday Specials Spectacular

(My brother) Lewis & I had a team meeting today and decided next year we're gonna do this thing on a nice spring weekend. Mom said okay if we can go on outings. I said let's go to the Henry Ford Museum, Lewis said okay. I said let's go when Greenfield Village is in season, Lewis said "that's pushing it." That's fine, I'll churn my own butter, I don't need a historical recreation village to work my wood for me.

Anyhow speaking of the good parts of Christmas, as a young Jew in Amerika, I grew up la-la-loving Christmas Specials. They warmed me from my navel to my gut (short path physically, but long path emotionally) and made me yearn to be like everyone else, as I so often did as a child. In retrospect, perhaps this elementary burning desire to fit in was a kind of overcompensating -- feeling intrinsically abnormal (queer), I wanted even MORE to constantly appear normal (Christian). In further retrospect, I think it's 'cause Christmas Specials rock, I love the endings with the HANDEL! and the CAROLS! And the pan out! Everyone smiling & doing that squeeze-hug thing!

I've been writing this in bits and pieces. As much as this is a Sunday Top Ten obstensibly about Christmas specials, this is just a scrapbook of my slapshot brain in ten-minute intervals over the last three days.

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Also:
www.justgive.org.
The perfect present for anyone on your list. If they don't like it, then they're a bad person. Srsly. So it's a win win.
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Every Day is Sunday for Jesus Top Ten Autowin Christmas Special

10. Cross-Country Reunions: People from far-away places all come together for the joy of Christmas, yeah? Jonathan Franzen's novel The Corrections is not actually a Christmas special, it's a book (one of my top ten favorites actually), but anyhow it takes about 500 pages to unravel the events resulting from the mother's determination that the family MUST have a "real family Christmas" that year. It's a popular plot for family-reunion centric films and television cast reunions. In the Autowin X-Mas special, Haviland would come all the way from L.A. (or Savannah, where she currently is) to someplace we all wanted to be like Belize.

Actually, my day-to-day functional "family" -- my friends, that is -- we're never more spread out than we are during the holidays. It's weird, that urban life does that to you, and then going home you end up feeling more disjointed and out of sorts than you do the rest of the year, which I think is the opposite of what Charles Dickens intended. Or G-d.

It might surprise you that for two girls who spend most of our Christmas vaycays texting each other in all caps about various neurotic inabilities to exist outside our prescribed comfort zones, Haviland & I share a deep burning love for The Christmas Special. Especially A Very Brady Christmas. We made a whole vlog about it but there was no sound. These things happen. Not in X-Mas specials, in X-Mas specials there'd be a miracle, and the miracle would be Sound. 9 times out of 10, "a computer disaster being fixed" would be my kind of miracle.

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9. Angels: It's dangerous to confuse people with angels. (Magnolia: "it's dangerous to confuse children with angels.") I do it all the time, I'll never stop. I wouldn't mind a Juliana Hatfield angel, like Angela got in My So-Called Life's Christmas episode, Angels. Hatfield's voice is probs how angels really do sing. Soft, but weathered. Santa wasn't a huge surprise for me, it was always hard to believe one dude could buy and carry around all that shit. But angels? Why not? Why the hell not?

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Jordan : My old man used to knock me around, too ... he hasn't done in a couple of years, though. He's too scared. 'Cause the last time -- I-I threw a chair at him.
Rickie : Well, I'm going to light a candle for you on Christmas Eve.
Jordan : Oh, yeah, you think that changes anything?
Rickie : Yes.

[At the end, Jordan lights a candle. 'Cause he feels the spirit of hope & togetherness, just like the whole Chase family as they all go to church together with Rickie because his Dad beats him but they're all together in church and singing and the angel died from freezing but that's okay.]
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8. Pageantry!: I used to love this book The Best Christmas Pageant Ever -- the Herdmans are this white trash family that everyone else hates. The kids fully smoke & swear & drink and eschew church but by some YA novel-esque twist of imagination and ridiculous fate, they're all cast as leads in the annual pageant. As expected, Hijinks ensue. I can't remember exactly, but I feel like it was awesome and everyone got the true meaning of Christmas in the end, which is good will & brotherhood to all mankind. There's nothing I love like a poorly put-on community theater-style play, and I put on many in my day.

Though I did execute an admirable production of The Grinch Who Stole Christmas (I was Cindy Loo-Hoo) in 1991, I haven't had another chance to exercise my video making skills with any of the classic stories of Christmas. Maybe next year. Haviland can be Dasher and Vixen. I'll be Cindy Loo-Hoo again, obvs. I epically failed the first time around 'cause my cousin Glen made me laugh so hard I almost wet my pants for real -- when it was announced that it was Christmas-time he popped out of bed like a jack-in-the-box with big wild eyes and went "IT IS?" and then you can see my little Bam-Bam ponytail just bobble on my head as I attempt to contain myself.

When you're a kid and you say "I almost wet my pants" you're usually actually kinda serious. Now it's just a figure of speech I guess. Obviously everything's under control in that area now and also was at the time. I've been writing this in stages as I have a series of small, self-centered meltdowns, and I think that comes through in the writing. I wonder how many people really read the random middle bits, I bet you mostly skim through. Get the start, get the end, comment, go read AfterEllen. For all of you in the middle, don't be surprised if you get a miracle in your stocking.

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7. Sing-a-Longs: Say what you want about Jesus, that kid wrote some smokin' hot tracks. Mom used to hate it when I'd try to turn Christmas songs into Hannukah songs just so I could sing them, but I WAS DREAMING OF A WHITE CHRISTMAS. Boyz II Men's "Let It Snow" didn't necessarily imply Jesus. Driedel Driedel Hoo-ha is a bad song. I'm a big fan of David Bowie & Bing Crosby singing "Little Drummer Boy." My heart melts for "Do They Know It's Christmas," and all other charity-centric Christmas musical ventures. War is Over? Possibly one of my favorite songs of all time.

In the secret Christmas Special of my life, we'd all gather together and do "Hark Herald the Angels" like at the end of A Charlie Brown Christmas, and I'll turn out to secretly be an amazing singer. I love it when that happens. OMG! I just remembered that I've gone all X-mas season without listening to my favorite Christmas song of all time, "All I Want For Christmas (Is You)" by Mariah Carey. I gotta crank that shit up tomorrow on the drive to Ohio!
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6. OMG SUSAN POWTER CUT OFF ALL OF HER HAIR FOR CHRISTMAS !

Sorry, I went to youtube to look for a video, and I saw her (I only subscribe to Susan Powter, FourFour and Sara Benicasa, I'm very picky obvs) and her new video titled "the best holiday gift ever." This is my gift to you. No it's not the gift of wellness and fat-burning. It's the magic of transcribing anything Susan Powter says onto paper. It's one thing to hear it and quite another to read it. I'm not skipping anything here, that's not what the dashes or ellipses mean.

"This is the finale because i'm keeping my hair like this for as long as I like 'cause the stuff i'm gonna do with black roots and blonde tips -- the freedom of it! The feeling of it on my head -- don't even ask -- I'm gonna be doing a lot of big sweaty stuff -- and I just -- need like -- cute that you can -- POSH SPICE-E it up -- because it's time you see what's going on, I haven't been able to show you -- it's time you understand -- should I tell you? That I just did a yoga class, but not just yoga, not even just -- when I talk about exercise, don't even think that you know what I'm talking about, because you don't. I'm talking about wahtever I do which sometimes involves exercise and whatever I do which sometimes involves and weaves in and I take pieces from sprint energy and burning fat and yoga and step and I do whatever the hell I want whenever the hell I do it and by the way it's FREEZING."

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5. Surprise Guests: A new puppy! The Ghost of Christmas Past! Santa Claus! The soldier is home from war! Families Reunite! It's Rickie! The kitten is warm! It's Elijah! It's Jesus! It's Tickle Me Elmo! Daddy's dressed as Santa Claus! the Surprise Guest unites the cast of said Christmas special, is unexpected and delightful and often homeless. Often enters in large wintery trenchcoat, shakes off the snowflakes and is embraced by children. Is a breath of pine-green-fresh air. I'd like to request Ryan Clayburn or Uh Huh Her. Those would be my top two favorite unexpected guests who are alive. Tinkerbell wants me to mention Littlefoot but she'll see her soon enough.

Sometimes it's not a surprise guest so much as it is a surprise FROM a guest. Like in the Saved by the Bell Christmas special, which takes place in the mall (the mall is one of my many obsessions), where the girl Zach is crushing on turns out to be homeless. Luckily it's Christmas so everyone gets some turkey. I don't like turkey but if I was homeless I might change my tune.

Who will be the surprise guest at tomorrow's Bernard family Christmas? Wouldn't it be funny if I was like -- ALEX! No. The surprise guest will be Tinkerbell. At the Hannukah party, she was not well received. I do not have high expectations for X-mas recieving of Tinkerbell. Hopefully next year I'll be dating someone famous but secretly gay, like Ellen Page, 'cause then my family would be eased into the idea gently, via movie star.

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4. Muppets! The first X-mas special of all time, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, featured a cast of 100% wooden puppets. Why not muppets? 'Cause they hadn't been invented yet. Luckily times have changed. No offense to the wooden puppet movies, I loved those too.

Muppet movies combine all of my favorite aspects of visual entertainment: Muppets (I'm actually 1/2 muppet, true story), carefully coreographed singing & dancing numbers, witty inside jokes, and famous people dancing with muppets. This year's Muppets X-Mas Special features Jessie Martin, Mayor Bloomberg, Jane Krakowski, Uma Thurman, Whoopi Goldberg, etc. It doesn't hold a candle to A Muppet Christmas Carol or A Muppet Family Christmas. To be honest I only watched about 10 minutes of the new one. Where was I? I love muppets. What was the point of this Top Ten? The point is that somehow I've managed to spend the last three days entirely in my head, no matter where I've been.

Which is why I wish I was a whole muppet, not just a muppet in some pictures.

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3. Random Star Buffet: Instead of actually writing this, I've been watching the Pee-Wee's Playhouse Christmas Special with featured special guests Cher (iconic pop diva!), K.D. Lang (lesbian lounge singer!), Laurence Fishbourne (serious actor!), Frankie Avalon (cheesy 50's crooner!), Charro (lunatic with big boobs!), Whoopi Goldberg (versatile comic actress!), Magic Johnson (basketball star!), Little Richard (actual singer!), Grace Jones (wearing an incredible outfit and signing!) and Oprah Winfrey (talk show host!) This video of KD Lang (starts around the 2:00 mark) in a denim bedazzled DRESS singing "Rockin' around the Christmas Tree" will probs make your head explode. (See screenshot, left). Pee-Wee's special is really first-rate, you should watch it.

In my Christmas Special, I'd also like to assemble an all-star group of unrelated iconic figures. Obvs Haviland Stillwell and Tegan & Sara. I'd need some good dancers, maybe the cast of "In the Heights" or those little boys from Billy Elliot. Julie Goldman 'cause she's funny. Barack Obama -- good speaker, very popular right now. The Fab Five in their college form. The revival cast of "Sweet Charity" doing "Big Spender" or Audrey Hepburn doing the dance from Funny Face. RuPaul. Maybe if The Cure wanted to stop by. I'll think about this one I have some more. Who'd be in your variety show?

3. Even though we're adults and adults have problems our tragedies are overcome by the spirit of family and togetherness!

The best christmas special of all time, 1988's A Very Brady Christmas, is the perfect archetype of how adult Christmas should go. See -- Marcia's husband just lost his job, Peter's having an affair with his boss, Bobby dropped out of school to become a race-car driver, Jan's getting divorced and even Sam the Butcher has left poor Alice for another woman! Then Mike gets trapped inside his building! WHO WILL SAVE CHRISTMAS?

Well the kind recapper on IMDB explains: "In the end, Mike gets out of the trap after Carol (and the rest of the gang) sing O Come All Ye Faithful."

So there you go. No but really -- this never happens. Maybe if you're in Jesus's family, 'cause I thnk it happens sometimes for birthdays. But never has someone been like "man, we were all really down about Uncle Horace leaving Aunt Gertrude for a boy he met at the gas station, but then the spirit of Christmas overtook us, Grandma even learned to walk again! We just sang O Come All Ye Faithful!" In this sense, Christmas movies are the best kind of sci-fi fantasy films, and they fill you with a hope rarely replicated in life. If you've got the real thing though, then man -- you are lucky. I had it once. Honestly, I did. We did. I loved Christmas so fucking much, it was the best time of the year. Now we've got some grab bag of adult tragedies. Liars, tramps and theives. I'm the liar, Tinkerbell is the tramp. Just FYI.

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2. Travel Debacles Resolved by Magic Polka Bands!
Did you think I'd get away without relaying a moment-by-moment recap of my X-mas travel debacle? Of course not!

Christmas specials often involve a travel debacle. These are generally resolved in madcap hijinks and a scene in the airport where the bedraggled traveler will beg for a ticket to anywhere so they can see their family. I cannot imagine this kind of desperation but apparently it happens. JK Mom, it happened to me actually just this weekend.

Obvs I'll be writing Delta Airlines to share my feelings about their performance on Saturday. I arrived at the airport at 3 P.M. and arrived in Michigan at 6 A.M. the next day, meaning it officially would've been faster to drive. Also then I could've brought the kayak. I don't mind airplane delays -- I count on them, actually -- but I do mind an airline insisting that the flight is on time as we sit panicking in traffic, insisting the flight is on time when they tell me I won't even get ON IT 'cause after waiting in line for 10 minutes, I'm 3 minutes too late to check my bag -- I'm calling Alex telling her she's gonna have to come back and get me, I'm calling my Mom telling her I won't be coming home since they can't get me on another flight, and I'm actually upset about this, 'cause my Mom I know will be upset not to see me and I bought a kayak already -- I mind Delta insisting the flight is on time as I literally sprint to the gate, only to then sit through seven hours of them periodically switching the departure time to the present time about every 10 minutes when clearly that isn't gonna happen. It was just ... weird. I could've spent all that time at home, complaining to Alex & making animal noises with Natalie or perhaps exercising at the local gym. Or buying presents. I could've even felt safe wandering more than ten minutes away from the sign, which continued to tell us we were leaving in the next ten minutes.

It was kinda like I was having sex with Delta, and as soon as we started Delta said they were gonna come and i was like, oh, okay, that's unexpectedly quick for you, Delta, but still, that's cool, I'm on board, and then they were like, "no, it's too soon," and you know, we did other things unlikely to immediately incite orgasm or they closed their eyes and thought about my mother making cookies, and then went back to it and then Delta was like "omg, I'm almost there," and I was like ok and we were doing our thing, and then they keep saying they're almost there and then it's like hours and hours pass of me giving it my all and then it's the next morning and still no one has exploded all over the keyboard. Then we get on the plane and wait on the plane for another three hours, which I guess the analogy for that would be unnecessary cuddling when I want to go to bed. Or them being like "now you!" and me being like "I don't even give a shit anymore."

In Home Alone, Kevin's Mom ends up traveling home with a polka band headed by John Candy. I think? That would've been neat.

1. Happy Ending with Singing and Happiness and Togetherness where all is calm and all is bright.

I guess the thing is about Christmas Specials is you know it'll have a happy ending. Not just any happy ending, but the kind where everyone you love is gathered around a mutually loved place, having been through something tough, and the camera zooms out at the end to show everyone who's there, together, and there's music or maybe food, maybe a new dog or random homeless person.

And you watch the whole thing knowing this'll be the ending -- 'cause that's the only thing that's the same about all of these specials and movies -- which's more or less how we all want life to work out too, is knowing that all the delayed flights and fleeting angels and snowdrifts and yelling at strangers are just the little debacles you get through to reach the food and the music and the hugs. The kind where the camera turns and the angel is gone but someone winks, or smiles, knowing they were there, and everything's okay. Or something like that. The tree is all you ever wanted, the wagon makes your dreams come true, life really is that simple. And I'm pretty sure it is, actually, it's ME making it so fucking complicated.

And the grinch's heart grew six sizes that day
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Sunday Top Ten: In the Place Where There is No Darkness, There is Our Sitcom.

Sunday Night, 7.1.2007, circa 11:30 p.m.:
Me: "I need to think of an idea for my Sunday Top Ten."
Carly: "Oh, you mean your Thursday Top Eight? Your Tuesday Top Six?"

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This's a dispatch from Carly & Riese's Gay Sitcom Write-a-Thon 2K7, which's been, thus far, Extremely Successful. [Aside from a brief break on Saturday night to drink and another on Sunday night to watch the Big Gay Cruise Movie with Haviland, Heather, Lainy, Jen, Craig, Janet, Layla, etc., which was actually worth it for it warmed our hearts down to their very embers. Carly's not going on the cruise, but she was a sport.]

In order to conceptualize, develop and actually write an entire sitcom in about five days, I've had to commit my mind almost entirely to this task. Therefore, I'm unable to think of anything for the Sunday Top Ten that's not at least tangentially related to our sitcom. I could do "Top 10 Reasons We're The Awesomest Sitcom-Creators Of All Time," but I don't want anyone to feel intimidated, especially you, Ilene Chaiken. Because we're going to eat your breast cancer for breakfast, and wash it down with a long tall glass of ovulation, smear it in a warm bath of BETTY--and we're gonna do all that with all our clothes ON.

Also Ilene, if you were about to pick up the phone to call and hire me, don't let the above paragraph change your mind. I'd like to remind you that there's a thin line between love and hate, and that it helps to have writers on your team who don't just sit around and validate your retarded ideas all day. You've hired plenty of amazing writers, e.g., A.M. Homes and Angela Robinson, who probs also questioned some of your "choices," so why not hire me? I'm not even amazing, so you could boss me around if you want to. I like being bossed around sometimes. Except today, when I've dispatched a great deal of the research duties on this particular Top 10 to my unpaid intern. She just sent me an email that included bullet points! Go Carlytron!

But the First Rule of Best Lesbianish Sitcom Ever Club is "NO Opinions Allowed: Except from Marie and Carly." So I can't say what it is about, really, because we can't handle opinions right now. But the first thing we did was make a list of all the things that we were not going to have in our teevee show.

SUNDAY TOP 10:
IN WHICH TEAM AWESOME CREATES A GAY TEEVEE SHOW UNLIKE ALL OTHER GAY TEEVEE SHOWS

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10. No Death

See: Dana Fairbanks Obvs on The L Word, Tara on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Vic and the Random Gay-Bashed Boy on Queer as Folk, Doug on Workout, Sandy on ER, most lesbians in Law and Order/CSI/etc [after murdering someone clearly]. Also Jen died on Dawson's Creek and she wasn't gay but she was a total fag hag and when she had her final convo with Jack [gay!] ... Krista and I were crying like, a lot. Although we also cried all the way through Closer, and in the final musical performance at the school scene in Uptown Girls. And during our third, fourth and fifth viewings of that musical section I just mentioned from Uptown Girls.

We've got a notes sheet where we write down all of our tangential glimmers of brilliance. At the top, it reads: ALL OUR CHARACTERS HAVE BEEN GRANTED ETERNAL LIFE. Like Gilgamesh!

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9. Specifically, no Breast Cancer

See: Dana Fairbanks, obvs.

This rule's 'cause of Dana Fairbanks. Moreso, it's because of Ilene Chaiken, who lives in a deluded fantasy world of her own creation in which the only way to "tell the story" of breast cancer [She "needed" to tell this story, p.s., like maybe it came to her in a dream or something? Who knows whatevs, she's clearly completely out of her mind.] was to kill Dana. She's probably already stewing up how to sacrifice Alice to Al Queda or something. [Note to google spies: I know I've just used Al Queda and lesbian and AIDS in the same blog entry, but I swear I'm way too busy to be a terrorist. I'm writing a sitcom, obvs! That's like, the opposite of terrorism, because it lulls the people into robotic complacency. Especially a gay sitcom, because the gays are particularly pissed for obvious reasons.]

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8. No Pregnancy, Babies, or discussions of Fertility and/or Ovaries.

See: Carol & Susan on Friends, Mel & Lindsay in Queer as Folk, Bette & Tina in The L Word, Keith & David on Six Feet Under

Why? Because if I wanted to talk about my ovaries or about babies, I would have a baby. If I wanted to talk about building healthy and stable partnerships in order to best enrich the upbringing of another human person, I'd stop being a baby. But Angelica in The L Word: adorable ... though the lesbian-with-a-baby storyline is really lame, especially when partnered with a lesbian-bed-death storyline. What came first, though, the chicken or the egg? You know?

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7. No Ridiculous Bisexual Females

[Vacillating between women and men, partying like there's no tomorrow, killing people, being manipulative/insane, constantly tempted to return to heterosexuality for All the Wrong Reasons, just experimenting with a friend but really likes cock, etc.]

See: Jenny, Alice, Dylan and Tina in The L Word, Marissa on The O.C., Sarah on America's Next Top Model, Genesis, Bree, and Ruthie on The Real World, Paige on Degrassi: The Next Generation, Julia on Dirt, whatever's happening with that Aidan-Spashley love triangle on South of Nowhere, etc.

Where do I begin on this topic? Really, where? Do I begin with The Real World, L.A Law, Ally McBeal ... movies like Personal Best and Wild Things? Though homosexuals and queers of all variations've been notoriously underrepresented on television for centuries, the Sweeps Lesbian -- TV terminology for that girl who goes gay for ratings, then returns to the men America's wanted her to fuck all this time -- remains a popular staple. I've got this really revolutionary idea: what if bisexual women were just women who were sometimes attracted to women, and sometimes to men? Wouldn't that be weird?

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6. No Coming Out Stories

See: Jack on Dawson's Creek, Justin on Queer as Folk, Spencer on South of Nowhere, Dana & Jenny & Phyllis on The L Word, Ellen on Ellen, Marco on Degrassi: The Next Generation, Jessie on Once and Again, David on Six Feet Under, etc.

There's nothing wrong with coming out stories, they've just been done. And done. Much like real life, in which people come out, I guess. I don't really know because I've never "come out" to anyone. Why? Because I'm one of those annoying bisexuals mentioned in "7" who take the easy way out, and just write blogs about their primarily lesbian lifestyles and figure if anyone really wants to know, they can just read it. Or you can put it on your myspace profile or whathaveyou. For example on how well this works, see below:

"Mom also gave me an update about your life, but I found that my friend Nick gave me a way better update a week or two ago. Which is you know, funny, how a complete stranger yet loyal reader gets the dirt weeks before our Mom. Anyway I played along, Oh wow, she's in a relationship? With a girl? Wahhhht!"

-My brother Lewis, email to me, 4.11.2007

Like when Lewis came to visit in November and I was seeing/special-friending Steph and we all went out together and she consequently spent the night, it did occur to me I'd never "come out" to him but I was like, whatever, he reads my blog. Anyhow: I know what it's all about, coming out. My Mom came out to me once! So did a girl from high school when we were both on the elliptical trainers at the Upper West Side New York Sports Club. A girl from middle school, on her behalf and also another one of our best friends. And so on.

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5. No AIDS

See: Pedro in The Real World: San Francisco. Ben, Vic and Hunter in Queer as Folk, Doug on Workout.

The thing about AIDS is: it's really depressing. If you've ever befriended a forty or fifty-something gay male in NYC, you've likely heard a variation on this story: "I use to have a lover. He had AIDS. We had an apartment in the meatpacking district before it was trendy. Then my lover died of AIDS. I used to have all these friends. They died of AIDS. Now I live alone. I don't have AIDS but I have a rent-controlled apartment. Also, everyone I know is dead. From AIDS." That is heavy shit and this is a sitcom. We want people to laugh. I mean, everyone loves a good tearjerker. If you are one of those people, go rent Philadelphia. Actually, if you wanna cry like A LOT? Rent It's My Party.

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4. No Ridiculous Fashions

See: Everyone on The L Word, Samantha on Sex and the City [I'm including her moreso for her fagginess, and I mean that in the best possible way, than for her brief flirtation with lesbianism].

I just don't understand why you'd dress your characters in ugly clothes when you could dress them in cute clothes. I mean, you have a choice, and you choose incorrectly. Why?

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3. No meditation, or references to drum circles, serious relationships to yoga, chakras, sun gods/goddesses

See: We don't know if this's been anywhere but The L Word. But in real life, lesbians dig this shit.

Um, it's just boring. Also, people who aren't into it (like, clearly, us), are really skeptical and semi-caustic about their disbelief. Probs I'm just jealous that you have like, a goddess to bless your chakra and unify your holy spirit or whatevs, and I'm just like "What's up. My mind is racing right now and it won't stop. Try to quiet the waves of my overactive brain. I need a drink." Mostly, we're bothered that Bette's entire meditation-hoo-ha storyline was not only completely out of character ["Of course. it's a technique of self-help people like him. You spout enough pre-packaged wisdom, there's bound to be something for everybody. you know, i find something for me in the Vogue horoscope, too, that doesn't mean it's not bullshit." -Bette, to Kit, Re: TOE, Season Two] and boring, but was crafted specifically to hide Jennifer Beals' pregnancy and for no other reason. Isn't that dumb? Couldn't they just give her weird outfits like they did to SJP? Oh wait--they did.

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2. No Terrible Theme Songs, Specifically no BETTY.

See: "The Way That We Live," The L Word, "Spunk," Queer As Folk, "Things Just Keep Getting Better," Queer Eye for the Straight Guy.

I mean seriously. I may have mentioned this before, but I believe the following things could create a better theme song than 'The Way That We Live": the sound of iced tea being stirred, an angry kitten, your mom, my ass, Milli Vanilli, a 6th grade recorder student group, a beached whale, a non-beached whale, the sound of Shane banging her head against the wall, the sound of people fucking, the sound of people crying, Rock-a-Pella, that guy who sang Ricky Martin on The American Idol Show, me.

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1. Sex and Partial Nudity Whenever Possible
See: Nothin', Til Now.

Why? Because sex is hot. And also, kinda funny. Like, much much funnier than dying or chakras. People're naked and rolling around sticking their fingers and tongues in each other. That's really funny. And what's amazing about it is that we humans've managed to transform it into something that sucks genuine out of ridiculous and then wears it like happiness ... which's why it's fun to have on the teevee. Every now and then, e.g., when appropriate. Like don't cut away just when things get good. Pump up some Shiny Toy Guns and get it on. Or if you're just chillin' in your room, what's with all the clothing? Fashion show? Because we're not gonna have violence, you know? Just love. Because that's the L Word, weirdos. Like, for your friends, mostly [because I get by with a little help from my friends], but for your family too and for life itself, and then for the stories we tell about it. The End.

Ha. Obvs it's late and my brain has dissolved completely and is no longer responsible for it's contents.

Sunday Top 10: I Think You're Crazy, Just Like Me.

I am re-reading "Strunk & White: The Elements of Style." I purchased this for myself a year ago because I had a really strong feeling that I didn't know how to construct a sentence. I re-read it but apparently nothing sunk in. Today (Saturday, when I began this post, which I imagine I might finish next week some time, as soon as I can find a goddamn photo of Duncan Fuckin' Nutter), on my way to and from the Waldorf-Astoria to move gift bags from one room to another for the HRC, I re-engaged with my friends Strunk and White and I am paralyzed. This blog is a grammatical and stylistic nightmare.

It's a nightmare I can't seem to wake up from. But that's fine! I will plow forward with blind and misguided ambition, much like Rachael, the young "prophet" who declares, in the film "Jesus Camp": "Man's decision? WHATEVER. God's decision? SOMETHING." That's right, Ray-Ray. You tell 'em.

In honor of:
1. "Jesus Camp" and "Friends of God," two movies I saw this weekend about the evangelical Christian Crazies (lest any of you jump upon me with curses regarding what a bad friend I am for being too busy for you but not too busy for Jesus, I watched both of these movies while doing five other things)
2. Anna Nicole Smith, (who's show, "The Anna Nicole Show," should've been on Bravo! instead of E! because if it'd been on Bravo! people would have realized how secretly brilliant! it was and then watched it!), this month's Sunday Top Ten is devoted to my favorite crazy people EVER, those who were captured in documentaries or on documentary-style television programs. (That's not the same as Reality TV. Reality TV is when they have to create situations to make boring people more interesting.)

OH AND: When I looked up "The Anna Nicole Show" on imdb, this sentence was included in the plot summary: "The cameras also accompany her on dates and to Hollywood parties and charitable events." Charitable events? Hear that, Strunk? I'm like, Grammar Girl compared to that bullshit.

SUNDAY TOP 10: THE CRAZIEST OF THE CRAZIES, BOTH GOOD CRAZY AND BAD CRAZY

10. BAD CRAZY: ALL THE LOONIES TAKING BACK AMERICA FOR JESUS, AND ALSO FOR CRAZY PEOPLE, "JESUS CAMP": How many of these guys have to be outed as closeted homosexuals (seeking to repress their natural sexual desire by becoming assholes who preach about Jesus to dimwits) before their followers see the light of Actual Logic? I think this movement comes from two things: some sort of underlying revulsion with the very compulsions that make us human (aka all sex drives of all orientations, ambition, intellectual curiosity, intelligence, an occasional desire to transgress), groupthink/stupidity/inbreeding? I feel sorry for these kids. I don't like it when people accost me on the street to give me a free haircut or sign me up to vote, let alone to tell me that God has a special plan for me.

Don't get me wrong--people should believe what they want to believe. But these groups want to convert and conquer, and their moral absolutism is appalling. Have you seen "The Devil's Playground"? It's about Amish people. They actually have similar beliefs, the difference is that they keep it to themselves. Like, they don't even hang out with other people.

Compared to the Colorado Springs experience when a girl in a bowling alley gets confronted by an 8-year-old mini-lunatic who thinks God has a special plan for her, the Do-You-Have-a-Minute for Greenpeace guys don't seem half-bad.

9. GOOD CRAZY: PERKY and PUNCTUAL, AKA KATIE MORGAN, FROM "PORNUCOPIA": I can't say enough about the sage that is Katie Morgan. We watched this HBO documentary in November of 04. At that time, I had not seen very much porn in my life, ever. I still haven't, but I've seen a whole lot of documentaries about porn. Krista and I could not get enough of Perky N' Punctual. We gasped with delight when she shared her story of getting into porn (it's cuz she got caught with a lot of drugs and needed cash), and we erupted into girlish giggles of rapture when she told a casting director "I don't do up the butt!". Sometimes, I think some of my most compelling roommate experiences and memories are those lovely times my roommate and I were simultaneously sucked into some sort of non stop television marathon train-wreck, like Krista and I's Pornucopia-habit ("RIS! The gorilla! She's fucking a man in a gorilla suit!") and Monday night West-Wing-A-Thons or the weekend during the summer of 04 that Lindsay and I were accidentally sucked into the terrible world of...

8. BAD CRAZY: DUNCAN NUTTER, "SHOWBIZ MOMS AND DADS:" There's a lot to say about the pageant Mom and the Wonder that is Debbie Klinginsmith and her tone-deaf son, but the real gemstone of this brilliant program was Duncan Nutter. First of all, he's the gayest straight guy ever, and he's married to a very homely Earth Science teacher, and he is completely off his rocker. He moves all his 10,000 kids to Queens to pursue their dreams, which are obviously really his dreams. I think he'd be better as a diet TV guy, like Richard Simmons. Or as a Children's Television host. He could sing Bananas in Pajamas.

7. GOOD CRAZY: The Trekkie dentists, "TREKKIES"
This documentary, which I think I first saw with Jake, is probably one of the best documentaries ever. I'm partial to it because I've you know, experienced this culture first-hand, but also I don't like to go to the dentist. And if my dentist decorated his office as though it was a Star Trek battleship, that would be fine, because to be honest with you, going to the Dentist does feel, to me, a bit like being attacked by light-sabers in a galaxy far far away or like, having sex with a Klingon who is scraping away at my teeth with his evil pointy fingernails. I have a Dentist appointment on Friday, P.S. As you can imagine, I'm already thinking about how to get out of it.

6. BAD CRAZY: MARK HARRIS, "GAY REPUBLICANS": This guy says that he supports G.W because, according to him, G.W is not saying that gay people can't get married. He's just saying gay people can't marry each other if they both happen to be men. Also he'd rather be in a room of Republicans than a room of gay people. I'm guessing he's a 3-incher.


5. GOOD CRAZY: JONATHAN CAOUETTE in "TARNATION:" This is one of the most brilliant films I've seen in my life. Partially because I also spent massive amounts of time as a young girl filming myself or filming my brother in various compromising situations (e.g. music videos of 'Heal the World' and daytime-talk-show parodies in which he wore a series of female wigs) and it's fascinating to see how the filmmaker put these all together to tell the story of his mentally ill mother and all this fucked up shit that happened to him as a kid. Seriously, just fucking see it.

4. BAD CRAZY: DIANE, "FAT CITY": I miss Trio. It was like more or less my dream channel, showing nothing but documentarial delights like "Fat City," which featured this 600-pound woman, Diane, who says, while flashing the camera a disarming photograph of herself wearing something alarming: "In this shot, I was wearing a one-piece catsuit which is stretch lace from shoulder down to ankle with nothing underneath it. I see in this photo someone who is very comfortable in her own skin, someone who accepts herself and makes no apologies to anybody and also accepts the fact that she can be sensual." Really, Diane?

3. GOOD CRAZY: Anna Nicole Smith, "The Anna Nicole Show"
Oh Anna. "The Eating Contest" episode of your show was so beautiful! When you and Howard had that fight about if you were cheating or not and you were all like "Howard, fuck you, you asshole, you're lying, I can't trust you if you don't trust me"? There are other parts of the show that are more obvious, glaring, shocking train wrecks: namely, the fact that you are totally doped up on Vicodin or one of 10,000 other medications for the majority of the program, including when you are supposed to be going to various publicity events and interviews. But it is the eating contest that made me fall in love with you, and, thus, when Lo and I were at a little bar in Gramercy last week and the woman next to us made a comment about ANS and I made a comment about how awesome her show was and the woman next to us laughed like I was obviously kidding, I wanted to challenge HER stupid ass to an eating contest, which I would have totally WON. Yeah, as Anna herself may have said---she bit my goat. RIP, Anna. You ruled a lot.

2. BAD CRAZY: George W. Bush, "Farenheit 9/11."
It's sad to me that Micheal Moore made those few kinda-sorta inaccurate claims in this film (e.g. the kite-flying kid in Iraq) which left him vulnerable for grander assaults, like people who think the whole movie was bunk, when, in fact, 90% of this movie was really good and really true and really important. I've loved M2 since I first saw "Roger & Me" and subsequently developed a semi-obsession with the city of Flint, Michigan [this happens to me with documentaries and non-fiction books, I've been moved to similar individual awareness campaigns in which I preach constantly to anyone who dares to speak to me on the message of the film/book I've just seen, e.g. Joan Ryan's "Little Girls in Pretty Boxes" (a book about gymnastics and figure skating), Jonathan Kozol's "Savage Inequalities" and of course Eric Schlossel's "Fast Food Nation."] I saw this with Jon and Steph in '04, which means I was probably stoned and eating gummy candy, but I still dug it. Really the scariest part is when G.W is at his golf course like "we should do everything we can to stop these terrorist killers. Now watch this drive." There's nothing I can say about this man that has not already been said by someone who actually reads the newspapers instead of watching left-wing radical documentaries all night when I should be sleeping.

1. GOOD CRAZY: Edie Beale, "Grey Gardens." If you haven't seen this movie, your life is probably filled with sadness and despair. Edie invented the term "costume of the day" and there is not enough room in this blog to contain every element of her genius. Furthermore, once I went out with this guy who looked really good on paper (Ivy League, made a living as an actual artist, lived in a rent controlled apartment downtown, cute) and when he told me he hated Grey Gardens, he may as well have said "I eat babies for breakfast," because I was like, 'I don't feel so good' (I didn't) and I got right on the subway and went home and never spoke to him again. The next day on AIM, Lainy suggested that perhaps I am a lesbian. No, I'm bi. I just don't like boys who don't like Grey Gardens---ok. No. I don't like boys who tell me that Grey Gardens is the worst movie they've EVER SEEN. That would be like how Rachel from "Jesus Camp" would feel if I told her I thought her whole religion was bullcrap. She probably wouldn't date me. But she also probably hates gay people, even just half-gays. Though lets be real here: chances that Rachel will turn out to be a gay are pretty f'in high. I'll be breaking that story right here.

Come on Ilene, I'm Begging You Please!

COME ON ILENE, I'M BEGGING YOU PLEASE!
or
"I wanted to name this post whatever the female equivalent of "blue balls" is, and then I realized that there wasn't one, except 'lesbian bed death,' which relates to emotion and to a couple and to a permanent situation involving metaphorical DEATH rather than a sexual state that needs immediate and obtainable relief, which pretty much sums up everything I want to say about this."
or
"Why it Matters So Much That No One is Fucking on 'The L Word'"

(I have posted this on both of my blogs, which means different comments are being posted on each blog, but maybe that's even more fun than having them all in one place? YEAH IT IS! Two conversations is better than one. Just like two sex scenes is better than zero, and like how twenty-two sex scenes would be way better than zero)

We are four episodes in to the fourth season of "The L Word" and we haven't seen anyone's breasts. Marina has not followed Jenni--the engaged Midwestern writer who spends most of the first season removing and re-dressing herself in ripped up tights and "dresses"/tablecloths--into the bathroom at The Planet and pushed her up against the wall and kissed the strai right out of her. Cherie Jaffe has not told Shane she was thinking about something more than a haircut and Shane has not laughed a little, betraying her trademark cool, and then, when Cherie puts her hands under Shane's shirt and climbs the length of her smooth scrawny torso and removes her shirt, Shane has not stripped Cherie to her Fredricks of Hollywood Skivvies and she has not leaned in like an insect sucking sex via her lover's lips, like Shane always does when she fucks people (and it's hot, that she does that, it's lovely). Shane hasn't fucked any people this season. Alice has not reached tentatively into all that space between her body and Dana's ass and then lay her palm on it and not let go, there has been no disco music as pants are tugged off, reams of necklaces discarded like so much extra ethical nonsense, blindfolds have not been tied on and whipped cream has not been fed and naked bodies have not curled up into each other in a loveseat , happy and oversexed and sated and beautiful. Bette has not gone to a gay bar in Manhattan and taken a girl to her hotel room and undressed her with the sad desire of a woman lost and lonely, she has not made love to a stranger for the pure release of it, anonymous, safe, special. None of those things have happened.

Two nights ago I saw the movie "This Film is Not Yet Rated," Kirby Dick's documentary expose about the MPAA, which addressed, among other things "whether sexual content in gay-themed movies is given harsher ratings penalties than their heterosexual counterparts" and "whether keeping the raters and the rating process secret leaves the MPAA entirely unaccountable for its decisions." He also discussed the unease by the MPAA over female pleasure, in and of itself, noting that films which show women orgasming and focus on female pleasure are far more likely to be slapped with an NC-17. You can hardly imagine a woman sticking an eclair up her vagina with the same comic glee we gifted Jason Biggs in "American Pie."

And so, as Carrie Bradshaw (who, along with her three gal-pals, had so much on-screen sex there was hardly time for dialogue), might say...'I got to thinking about relationships..." And by "relationships" I mean my relationship to "The L Word," and why it pisses me off so much that the show has been violently zapped of all it's libido this season. Come on, Ilene. For those of us who are not dating EZ Girl, sex is still something we enjoy having.

---

There is probably a Debra at every middle school, and maybe more than one in schools with graduating classes exceeding 36 students (like mine, a private school for "gifted" students, most of whom would have spent public school stuffed in a locker reading X-Men comics with the flashlight from their swiss army knives). At our first 6th grade party at Mirella's cottage on the lake, we waited til past eleven to tentatively slide open the glass door and leave our carpet of sleeping bags and our Doritos and half-drunk Clearly Canadians to dash across the wet porch to the hot tub even though her yard and our world was coated in heavy snow. Even though it was December and our parents would have never let us out of the house without at least seven layers, one of which usually had a name that sounded just like a comic book hero: Gore-Tex. Moisture-Wicking Spandex. It was just bathing suits, cold air, and the promising gurgling hot tub.

I would never even remember this party if Debra hadn't done what she did. It was a Prelude to her Personality--that she would always be just naive and awkward enough to make us queasy by pushing boundaries we all respected with far greater reverence. Basically: we were having a normal conversation about boys and Debra took off her bathing suit. She told us "I just feel better naked. It feels really good in the water." I could see her white skin,gelatinous in the pale blue water--a color that someone with Debra's nearly albino-white skin would never intentionally wear, let alone dip her nude body inside. But she did, and she had. We were horrified, but because we were 12, we dealt with this by ignoring her at the time, and then later telling everyone (yes, all 30 of our classmates) and making fun of her. At the time, we just tried not to look. Everyone called Debra a lesbo but the funny thing is that of all the girls in that hot tub, Debra is one of only two who did not turn out to be bisexual or homosexual. Maybe that's why she was comfortable being naked in front of us and we felt like we were witnessing something private and when you are 12, private is the same thing as gross. As school went on, some of us would participate in risky games of strip poker with boys but no one was ever chastised like Debra was for her transgression. Being naked made sense if there were men around.

In 8th grade Debra had her own birthday party at a hotel out by the highway which is the first time I saw two women have sex on television. Debra's Crazy Single Mom was sleeping. Debra's father, rumor had it, was just a sperm donor. Debra's Crazy Mom had once made us all dig through the garbage cans at Mongolian Barbecue because Debra had accidentally left her necklace on the table and it had been thrown out. She yelled at all these Mexican guys who didn't speak English and I felt like I was watching a movie where Mothers acted in public how mine sometimes did in private.

It was late when Debra suggested we check out the hotel's adult offerings. "I've seen lots of these," she said, and the way she said it made me think that perhaps porn was one of those delicious and naughty things that I needed to taste before I went to high school. Maybe it would give me clues about how things worked out there. Also I thought it seemed private and I was very strict about those things then, so when two naked girls with plastic skin poured pancake batter down each other's chests, rubbing it on their nipples, totally abandoning the pretense of making breakfast for their hunky boyfriends, who were poolside wearing, oddly enough, tuxedos, I felt nauseous and had to go outside. Later, when considering my sexuality, I would use this story as evidence that I could not possibly like women. I would tell people that I threw up. Much like a person might throw up if they ate raw pancake batter off someones nipples because that's basically asking for salmonella poisoning, not to mention herpes. I mean, there was probably leftover cum on her skin from the facial she'd likely received earlier that day. Not the cucumber kind, the sperm kind.

So this is what I knew about two women together, naked and kissing: it was gross, it was private, it was shameful, almost, and maybe I thought that because it was Debra who was so comfortable with it, just as she had been about undressing in the hot tub and making us all squirm so early in the game. It was part of a world that was not delicious. A world where the only reason a woman would need to put her mouth on another woman would be to clean up a mess they had made while cooking for their boyfriends at the pool.

Debra had dared to watch a sexy movie when there were no men around, she had dared to undress when there were no men around, and this was perverted because we thought the female body was like a body falling in the proverbial woods and did not exist unless there were men around to hear it remove it's clothing and eventually, it's chastity.

---

I didn't see two women having sex again for probably a decade, with a few exceptions, like "Wild Things" (Neve Cambell and Denise Richards), which featured some surprising threesomes, but the women were manipulative psycho homicidal bitches and it was clear their relationship to each other was fraught with difficulty and largely for the entertainment of their male friend.

But I saw plenty of heterosexual sex. So much, in fact, that I barely remember any of it, besides "The Basketball Diaries" because I was in love with Leonardo DiCaprio, "Disclosure" because I was with my Dad and "Georgia" because I was with my Mom. In these films, it was the combination of man and woman that set the banal on fire.

I've always been a girl far too influenced by what she saw on TV, and in high school, after my parents' divorce and my father's unexpected death, I sought refuge in hours and hours of "Beverly Hills 90210" and "The Real World." I was captivated by Brenda and Dylan's turbulent romance and Andrea's crush on Brendan--"90210" showed me what my life was supposed to be like, once I grew up and became better looking and got better clothing and grew breasts. I envied Valerie the vixen, dating wholesome blonde Steve and secretly sleeping with the then-troubled David Silver. I envied Kelly, even when she was coked up and dating the sexy painter Colin. I never realized that 90210 was categorized as a nighttime soap-opera for teenagers. I honestly believed that was what life was really like, just not for me--yet. That's what sex and dating was all about.

I am bisexual--I know this now. But for most of my life, the side of me that lusted for women was completely muted by the world around me. If I had been a 100% lesbian, maybe I would have paid more attention to that, maybe I would have had to come out and overcome the stigma and the dogma that told me my stories were unworthy and my heroes were unsexy and I was condemning myself to a gross world of bitchy masculine women who threatened the status quo simply by existing. But I'm not, and so I didn't.

The concept of desiring women was difficult for me because so much of my concept of desire itself was based on what I saw on TV, to a damaging degree. And even moreso than television, it was my culture and my friends that dictated my desires.


There were six girls in that hot tub. Elisa came out as a lesbian at the age of 21, Mirella as a bisexual at 20, Katy as a lesbian at 25, and me sort of dodging the question since I was 16. I didn't actually tell my Mom until about five weeks ago. This is remarkably late for girls who were raised by University professors, listening to Ani DiFranco in our mini-vans in one of the most liberal towns in the country, surrounded by feminists and always accepting of homosexuality. We had gay friends. We were down. We believed in gay rights.

And I wonder if there wasn't something we swallowed about how to desire, how to be sexy, what to want--and then imposed upon each other--that made us take so long to reconcile that it is okay, and even hot, to be with another woman. That politics wasn't enough to make us comfortable with Debra's naked form in the hot tub. That a woman can want and that a woman can deserve pleasure. That sex is still relevant even when there is not a man in the room. That we should desire and not just desire to be desired by a man with testosterone and a tempest of a sex drive succumbing to his biological urge to fuck and be fucked, to touch and be touched. Men make sex acceptable and forgivable and therefore we see it all the time. But women? Make your pancakes! Put on your clothes! No one wants to see you cum. No one wants to see you leak and bleed and cry and cum and love and spill and want. Shut up, open your legs, prepare for the only kind of sex that the MPAA deems acceptable, which is the kind where a man enters you or desires you and you try your very best to give him what he needs.

The sex drive of men is something we are all comfortable with in this country. It's funny and hormonal and slapstick (American Pie), it's potentially uncontrollable, maniacal/homicidal (American Psycho), it is adulterous and it insatiable (American Beauty), it is fun and social (American Graffiti) and it is entrepreneurial (American Gigolo). But women? No. NC-17. XXXX. Stop it with the moaning.

---

I've always been an outsider. I've always been queer. I've always felt out of the mainstream but somehow always been in the popular crowd at school, like the funny sidekick girl. That means there has never been anything automatic about how I delegated sex and love because I was always pretty sure whatever I was doing was probably wrong, like all of my other feelings were.

So I looked to television, and movies, and my friends, and books, and managed to be simultaneously intelligent, inquisitive, independent and clever and completely at the mercy of pop culture.

What did I see about women alone with other women? Absolutely almost nothing. What I knew of lesbians were the butch soccer coaches and the overweight girls with shaved heads who held hands in the hallway of my alternative high school. I knew my Mother, who came out when I was 15. As an adolescent, clearly I saw my mother as the least sexual creature on earth. So were her girlfriends and her friends who wore (in my cruel teenaged opinion) bad jeans and belts and had hair that was simply short though not in any particular style and they didn't wear makeup and never rocked menswear quite like Shane or Ivan or even Moria/Max--three women who are, in my opinion, all beautiful and masculine and butch and hot.

I saw, eventually, Dr. Weaver on "E.R." She is--at least to me--not hot. At 15, I saw 'All Over Me' (my mother and her crew of lesbian friends were in the back row, I was with my friends near the front, which was more or less an encapsulation of my worst nightmare ever), and I fantasized about that one scene so consistently that when the movie came out on DVD last year and I re-watched it, I was surprised to see that that scene I remembered was actually not a sex scene. They just kissed! But it meant so much more to me than that. I saw "But I'm a Cheerleader." About a hundred times. But this was a campy teen movie, a plot that took place and ended, and it didn't have the engagement that we develop with our television characters.

This is why 'The L Word" changed my life. Here were women who owned their desire. There was no shame. There were no bad haircuts (arguably, there were nothing but bad haircuts, but please go to a dyke bar in Idaho and come back and tell me who has better hair: Shane, Season-Two-Jenny, or the girls from Idaho). There was even a girl--Shane--who fucked with abandon, who disregarded feelings and relationships in the pure pursuit of unadulterated pleasure. These women were rocking their desire.

Sex scenes, it turned out, didn't need men to be worth 30 seconds of screen time. There was enough happening--and enough women and men in the world who wanted to watch--that women could have sex that related to storylines on screen on premium cable and it wasn't porn. It was a story about the lives of women, and these women slept with each other, and that mattered, and that was enough.


Watching it changed everything for me, and that's why I didn't even care that the writing was pretty bad. I just loved seeing these pretty girls on screen who got naked and wanted each other and that it had good ratings and a big fan base and it was like for me the whole world was splitting open.

And now, we are at episode four, and although it's been fun and funny and had some good moments, I can't imagine how we will survive the remaining paltry portions of this show without feeling quite substantially that our desires have been rejected, deemed not worth the time or the film or the commercial dollar.

Just talk, ladies, they are saying. Talk and have friends and fights and emotions. That is what you do best, isn't it?

---

It is nothing short of tragic that somehow, this year, Ilene and the girls have decided that women once again do not deserve 3 minutes of air time to pant and paw and kiss.

The opening song, which makes us all want to kill ourselves, proclaims that these women are "fucking" and that this is "the way that we live." Where, Ilene, are these allegedly fucking girls? I haven't seen any. Is it 1993? The dykes should make jokes and then get off screen? Sure, they have stories to tell, but why is it suddenly that sex takes place once the camera turns off? You know this is what we want and you are denying us this request. You've already denied us SO MUCH--good dialogue, characters we loved, logical plot-lines, developing characters--and now we don't even get to see the girls FUCKING?!! ILENE?!!!

In her book Appetites, Caroline Knapp writes: "This is, of course a profoundly human stage—the clash between the desire to satisfy appetites and the fear that they may overwhelm us, control us, lead us astray is as old as the story of Adam and Eve—but the female journey across it can be experienced and expressed in particularly painful and confounding ways, women being the gender born and raised on the notion that the female appetite is limited and curtailed to begin with, that female hungers should be reined in, permitted satisfaction in only the most circumscribed, socially sanctioned ways."

We love "The L Word" for embracing the female hungers that are not socially sanctioned--and for increasing the possibility that these female hungers will be socially sanctioned in our lifetime.

So Ilene, please. In the first episode of your show, Bette asks Alice "why are you so convinced that everybody is fucking everybody else?" and Alice answers: "Because they are."

Here's the thing: they aren't anymore.

Give the girlies what they want. Get 'em naked, throw them in a hot tub, and see what comes. You may be, if only in retrospect, surprised by how good it all feels.

The One Where I Try to Watch Television, Hate It, Miss Old School MTV

I don't think I've fully watched a television program since like, 1998 (because I have to always be doing at least three things at once, and TV is so passive it's basically only half a thing anyhow, like eating), but I'm still fairly selective about my background entertainment. Since we just got cable (and I've been without cable since like, January), I've been trying to develop my new Top 8. This is me watching TV. You can't see my computer, crossword puzzle, magazine or dinner, but um, you can see visual evidence of me wasting time by taking photos of myself and making them into a comic strip starring myself.

Sometimes I pick a Top 8 for a certain show: (e.g., 50% of TNT's programming blows, but the other 50% is Law and Order) or just a general faith in that channel's programming (e.g., Bravo, The N, Oh! (yeah really, seriously, I'm endorsing that channel and I'm not embarrassed about that, except I'm a little embarrassed about the exclamation point)). MTV used to be my #1--unless it was claymation wrestling, the chances were pretty high that they'd be showing something relatively awesome. But apparently I'm like, either a hundred years old, or MTV is dumb.

OK, so, um, I just did a blog search and discovered it's MTV's 25th anniversary. I can't believe that actually even matters. Who Cares? Guess who else is having a 25th anniversary this year and doesn't have any relationship to Ashley Parker Angel, whoever that is? Yeah, that's right: ME. The 25th anniversary of my birth. HOLLA!

Wasn't it their 25th anniversary last year or like, the year before that? MTV is an Anniversary Whore. They're that lame couple that "celebrates" every freakin' anniversary on earth: "It's our one-month!", "It's the anniversary of our first kiss!" "It's our two-point-five month anniversary!" "It's the anniversary of when I met his parents!" "It's the anniversary of the first time he busted a nut in my eye!" bla bla bla bla ...

So anyways, as I look back at the last 25 years of my life (cause my b-day's in one month, exactly!), this is what I miss the most:

Beavis and Butthead: Putting your t-shirt over your head and saying "I am Cornholio, I need TP for my Bunghole" is STILL FUNNY.


Loveline: This is where I gained 75% of my early sexual education (the remaining 25% was provided by Seventeen and Our Bodies, Ourselves). I also learned that most sexual hangups or bizarre fetishes are a result of childhood trauma. Like having a Super Sweet 16.

The Tom Green Show: Um, before that awful movie, this guy was really funny and also he tought me some really important comic skills, e.g. poking your friends in the face while they're trying to talk.

Undressed: When you're 16 and you have insomnia and it's summertime and you live in Michigan, there is no better way to spend every single night between midnight and 5AM than watching an Undressed marathon. It needs to be on DVD ASAP. Plus it's super duper gay. It was gay before the Gays Took Over America (ha!).


I guess people are really into that Laguna Beach nonsense, but the kind of convos they have on that show are the exact convos I hear from 17-year-old biznatches in skinny jeans at the Bloomingdales Train Station (aka 59th street) that I turn up my ipod to block out.


Singled Out:Before every dumb bitch on TV started acting like Jenny McCarthy, there was Jenny McCarthy.

-True Life: Before They Ran Out of Topics and started doing "True Life: I Have a House on the Jersey Shore"
How many times did you see that one with the two dumb blonde girls who kept getting plastic surgery and always ate a lot of Chinese food the night before they went to the surgeon? That was awesome.

Why is Cribs still on? Who cares what kind of palm trees Beverly Mitchell has at her tropical pool? I'll tell you who: morons.

We all know "The Real World: Gammorah," which replaced the original TRW in like, 1999 (the original which involved seven people living in a house and having Coversations about Issues and Personality Conflicts), is mostly just about Sucking Face. I can't even handle watching it. For the first 10 years or so, the people weren't that dumb, but now they are almost all dumb.

Speaking of the real real world....STEPHEN IS THE NUMBER ONE HOTTIE IN PUBLISHING! Thanks for your votes, kiddos.

Sunday Top Ten: People I Really Wanna Ziggah Zig AH

Because my whole life is in a state of utter disarray, I can't think of anything "witty" to write today. So, in the spirit of the "In the Flesh" reading on Wednesday that everyone who is reading this right now should be at if they have a soul:

TOP TEN PEOPLE I REALLY WANNA ZIGGAH ZIG AH*
(as in "So tell me what you want, what you really really want, I wanna (huh) I wanna (huh) I really really really wanna zigazig ah," from a poem by the Spice Girls)

10. The entire cast of Dawson's Creek

The N, my favorite network (that's where I learn to talk like a 13-year-old), is presently (seriously, right the fuck now) rocking my socks with their "Degrassi Every Episode Marathon" for the next 5 weekends, but they are going to start showing re-runs of "Dawson's Creek" starting tomorrow, y'all! I took this quiz on "The N" called "What Dawson's Creek character are you?" and I'm Jack: "Even when you're in one of your quiet, anti-social moods, your friends know they can always turn to you for sensible, straightforward advice." They left some stuff out though, like "Jack is a homosexual." If I was 12 and "chatting" on The N and I took this quiz and it said I was like Jack, I think I'd pretty much know what that meant. But that's why I don't work for The N. I work for Jesus.

9. But More Specifically, Pacey.
I'm still really sad that Tom Cruise is screwing up Joey so bad. Joey should still be with Pacey!

8. Brian Kinney

I've been watching "Queer as Folk" which makes me want to be a gay man (this is not a new thought). I remember reading that Shane's character was modeled after Brian Kinney. But, unlike scrawny ol' Shane (who I love, of course, despite her lack of assalicious action), Brian Kinney is more or less physically my ideal man. Tall, brawny, sexy, hair to grab, cute ass, and my heartstrings feel super-tugged-upon when he's cute with Justin. I wanna be a gay man and have a one-night stand with BK and he never ever ever has to call me again ever.

7.Christina Aguilera in her new music video, "Ain't No Other Man"

Seriously, hottest thing ever. Everyone vote for it in That MTV Music Video Awards Show that basically launches a full scale advertising assault on NYC every goddamn summer.

6. Beh-Beh?

I don't know what I want more from this particular advertising campaign from bebe: to be Mischa Barton, to have Mischa Barton's shoes, or to do Mischa Barton. Whatever it is, I probably can't afford it, but it sure is nice to think about.

5+4. Chandler Bing + Josh Lyman = DOUBLE TROUBLE!!

Last night, Hav and I enjoyed the fruits of my Netflix subscription in the form of a DVD containing the pilot of what is officially our (our=all cool people) New Show of The Year, Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip. So, Bradley Whitford and Matthew Perry, who are like, the Gods of SuperMale Friendship on Television (Josh+Toby, Chandler+Joey), are playing a writer-director team in charge of a sketch comedy show, the SNL of L.A. It's gonna be fan-fucking-tastic. They even use "West Wing" font! This is the best casting decision ever (runner up: Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes in that long music video thing based on "Romeo and Juliet" by Shakespeare).

3. Elvira Kurt

She was on the Rosie Cruise and she was on our bus from the Seattle airport, and me and Hav concurred that she looked/dressed like an older Shane. She was with her partner and their cute baby who will be funny too because they got sperm from a gay guy comedian (also the baby will probably, I'm guessing, also be gay. Gay is OK!), even pulling off an amazing set on the night everyone was puking on each other because of the tsunami. She was interviewed on afterellen.com this week. Sorry, I just wanted to talk about the cruise again. It was so much fun!

2. Paris Hilton
Jeremiah texted me and said I reminded him of a "smart Paris Hilton." What the hell is that supposed to mean? "Open Minded Dater"?
(J, if you've figured out how to use computers I want you to know that I love you even though I make fun of you. And you remind me of a smart Flava Flave.)

1. People Who Did My Survey
The results are as follows:
Skinny jeans are pretty slammin' on the right person so I should probably get some since I am the right person,
only one-third of you go tanning as much as I do which means I'm gonna die,
everyone is crazy and most of them are in therapy,
a little more than half of you are livin' large like me (aka in debt)
everyone reads books which means you are all going to heaven with Jesus,
only 22% of you have Never gone homo,
Boy Crazy Stacey is Our American Idol but most of you never read the book anyhow,
29-30 is too old to shop at delias and I should stop eating the cookies,
and you're all wiped, wired, unhappy but having fun and guarded.

In other words: I am not alone, just like Michael Jackson always told me.

Dionne Warwick is Love: In Good Times, In Bad Times, I'll Be On Your Side Forever-More

I don't like American Idol. Well, I watched it the summer Ruben won, but I did a lot of things during the Summer of 2003 that were bad/awesome for me -- I watched reality television, ate nothing but peanut butter and melted cheese, bought a shiny white used Lexus (Awesome!) and drank vodka while waitressing. [I mixed it with Vitamin Water and drank from the Vitamin Water bottle. I totally still do this, because I'm Forever Young.] But I was living with girls who said things like "I used to want to be a dentist! I totally wanted to go to dentistry school, but I don't know why! Isn't that weird?" after watching dental reconstruction on Extreme Makeover, and thus, Idol was often on.

I get embarrassed for the really bad singers ... and I think Paula Abdul has lost her mind and that's similarly painful to witness.

But boy was I glad that I saw it last week! [Haviland had what the people call "McPheever."] 'Cause it completed the WOC* circle of Dionne Warwick! To refresh:

1. Dionne Warwick Incident One: Haviland and I discuss the music of Ms. Warwick during an initial AIM conversation.

2. DW Incident Two: as mentioned in an earlier blog post, we're strolling along the street, checking out some funny scattered trash when we notice that a Dionne Warwick album is inexplicably also literally sitting on the street, at which point we both wet our pants (in spirit).


3. DW Incident Three: After witnessing several performances starring "Soul Patrol," McPheever and various lite-rock-radio favorites, like Meatloaf and a [creepy looking] Clay Aiken, we joked that DW had to be next!

Lo and behold....
she totally was.


*Weird/Of Course: Adjective describing the myriad of ways in which the universe collides, narrows, and kicks ass--a coincidence on a massive and clearly cosmic scale.