Who Should Play Casey Anthony?

Let’s not kid ourselves, troops — there WILL be a TV movie about Casey Anthony and it will probably be on Lifetime.  Now, there are rumors that Kristen Stewart, the hair-pushing little sprite of Twilight “fame”* is in the running. 

This is WRONG.  I mean, sure, she has the dead-behind-the-eyes 1000-yard stare of someone who could murder a baby.  And if the allegations of sexual assault are correct on Casey’s part, then Kristen has plenty of practice from being man-handled by her sparkly boyfriend.  But she really doesn’t have that je ne sais quois…

There is only one person equipped with the looks and talent to play Casey Anthony, consumate liar, alleged victim of sexual assault and unemployed native Floridian.  That, my friends, is the actress who portrayed “B” in The Human Centipede.  Just LOOK at them!

Now, I am not suggesting that Casey Anthony be sentenced to be a part of a Human Centipede if convicted, though she is being tried in Florida where anything is possible.  I would be more inclined to see the media asswaffles who have turned this goddamn thing into a circus turned into one giant Human ‘Pede since they’re already so good at shitting out of their mouths. 

Of course, I’d also like to see Christopher Walken play her dad, so I doubt anyone in Hollywood is listening to me. 

*Here, “fame” = “notoriety for being a singularly terrible actress in a teeny-bopper movie that encourages young girls to like boys who stalk them and withold sex”

The Tudors: Showtime’s attempt at “history”

First up, I think HBO did a kick-ass job of portraying history accurately (I fucking hope it was accurate) in their show Deadwood, which is probably the greatest cowboy dialogue of our generation.  They also delight in throwing the word “cunt” around and you know how I love that kind of reckless offensiveness.  Private message to Ian McShane:  I would do filthy shit to you, cocksucker.

But meanwhile, in Showtime land, it seems the good writers and peons of the network have issued a hearty Fuck-you to any kind of historical accuracy regarding Henry VIII besides his number of wives, their hair color and number of offspring.  Also, it IS set in England, so they did technically get that right.  Well done, scripters. 

Because I am a huge British Renaissance nerd, I probably go into each show armed to the teeth with way too much fucking information.  So I’m not going to start listing the nit-picky things they fucked up like battle dates, seasonal continuity or what have you.  Seriously, it’s the HUGE, GLARING details that are way more fun to mock.  Here’s a little list I like to call: Top 3 Ways The Tudors are Fucking Up History!

3.  Everyone’s Teeth.  While it’s an over-stated and under-proved concept that everyone in Britain until, well, now, has had fucked up ideas of dentistry, there were actually a smattering of anti-tooth decay remedies available.  Of course, some of these involved alum, some involved retardedness (i.e. eating sugar to help combat mouth rot), and most people ignored them entirely.  Yet Showtime would have us believe that despite our modern concept of British teeth looking like this:

Instead, actually, Renaissance ladies looked like this:

Maybe she's really Canadian?

Suuuure, Showtime.  Thanks for playing. 

2.  Her Royal Hotness.  I do realize that beauty is a relative concept and changes over time, and of course female beauty is constantly subjected to current social conventions and concepts.  Nonetheless, Showtime has made some pretty creative casting moves, if any art from the actual time period is to be believed.

Exhibit A:

Catherine of Aragon: Sex Machine

Exhibit B:

It becomes more clear why Catholicism was disbanded...

Exhibit C:

 

There's something different here...

1.  The Royal Codpiece.  Since we’re going into the new season featuring Katherine Howard (the one who actually totally foreal cheated on him and LIKED it), I feel I should point out that there is a VAST difference in the way an audience will perceive a young woman who cheated on THIS guy:

Who wouldn't hit this?!

Vs. maybe understanding why the hell she might cheat on THIS guy:

You used to be cool, Hank.

Do we see the distinction?  One of these things is not like the others.  Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think it’s necessary to portray Henry as a slothful, turkey-leg devouring sociopath… And yet.  At 6’4″ and 350 lbs, his BMI rating would have been “42″ — you’re considered merely obese at a slim “30″ so brother was 12 full points over that.  I’m just saying that rippling pecs were probably not part of the equation. 

Also, most modern doctors assume that he was impotent by age 45 due to the weight and ulcers on his leg.  By age 54, he had to be carried everywhere on a chair, and he died a year later “amidst the horrendous stench of his bursting leg ulcers.”  Might some of these details not contribute to our understanding of a 19-year-old young woman not wanting to bone her husband?! 

Regardless, I’m still all set to watch the new season.  I can’t lie.  I’m just so pleased that they’ve turned my MA thesis topic into a fucking soap opera.  WIN!

Diet Pill Horror Redux

So, good news: I have a new fan with a hilarious site, making fun of some shit I hate the most — terrible fucking ads.  In honor of his shout-out, I’m reposting this little ditty from my old blog, a tragic little livespace on MSN that just clicking on is like going to visit grandma at the home…  As soon as you’re there, you’re just depressed at all the old things lying around, the slow speed of the place, the overpowering scent of urine. 

Anyway.  This is as true now as it was then:  Diet Pills are bad news, children.  Everyone say it with me. 

“Go take yourself, diet pills!”

I deeply hate the Lipozene commercials.  They make me physically growl at the tv when they come on.  They feature a condescending-as-fuck woman who warmly assures the audience that it’s not their fault if they’re fat — they just need to take a pill which makes you lose pounds and pounds of body fat.  Her hand gestures indicate that she may be related by blood or semen to Sarah Palin. 

 

Nevermind the subtext that this country’s obesity is tied to our bizarre lack of personal accountability for anything we do.  Nevermind that the woman is a complete cunt.  And thin.  Nevermind the obnoxious timer in the corner which gives the audience 20 minutes to call in to take advantage of the $29.95 “special” pricing.  Hell, nevermind, even, the exploitive fact-manipulation, small print and other pre-requisite bullshit one finds on most diet pill commercials.  I mean, that’s all just par for the course in modern American advertising.  Where are you, Don Draper?!  WHERE?!

 

What annoys me the MOST, that makes me just grind my teeth until my husband asks me if I’m gnawing on bamboo shoots, is this:  The fucking animated graphic they show of a pill capsule opening, then spraying it’s dietic goodness onto the obese belly of some animated hog of a human being, then the belly dissappearing as the pill spray hits it, reducing said animated belly into a perfect size six.  It’s not just patronizing, it’s laughably insane.  What horrifies me is that someone in advertising likely got PAID to do the stupid thing on powerpoint.  And it’s just such a perfect little allegory for America’s conception of pill power.  Tired and sad?  Take a pill.  It’s delicious.  Fat and ugly?  Take two!  Impotent?  Hell yes we have a pill for you!  And look — the little capsule just opens and takes all your cares away… WHEEE!!! 

 

Ugh.  As the Husband said last night (while I ground my teeth into powder), “Why don’t they just say, ‘Look!  God gave us Magic! ‘? “ 

 

Which is why I married him. 

 

Magic Pills!*

 

Appendix:

I actually took diet pills once.  I’d just frantically lost my Freshman Fifte…er, THIRTY, with good old diet and exercise, and I was going on a 20-Day road trip with then-fiance, now Husband.  Where we’d have to eat at diners and from our box of food (read:  gallons of peanut butter, cheese doodles and jars of reconstituted butter… greatest. box. ever.).  Where I knew I was gonna put on the poundage again.  So, like a fool, I ordered Phentermine from Canada.  I had to fudge the details on the order form a bit…  To make myself morbidly obese, I put that I was 4″1′ and weighed 345 lbs.  I was actually 5″5′ and weighed 110.  Yeah.  I am just one big ol’ pack of lies.  Sooo, I get the phentermine (which is now illegal, as it causes one’s heart to explode), and I don’t want to tell my man I’m taking the shit, so I tell him that I ordered vitamins, that I’m taking an “Energy Boost 3000″ (because my creativity wanes, clearly, the thinner I get) every 8 hours.  Mind you, the dosage they sent me was calculated for a hefty dwarf.  Think Danny Devito’s prom date.  So I am literally and physically bouncing off the walls.  In a confined space — his truck.  For 20 days.  On the road.  No escape for either of us. 

 

On the plus side, I don’t need much sleep.  Actually I CANNOT sleep, so I do a lot of the night driving.  The culmination of the trip was my 21st birthday in Las Vegas.  We were up for 24 hours.  As I desperately tried to drown the high of the diet pills in alcohol so that I could sleep for the first time in 16 days. 

 

Then it was time to drive all the way from California to Orlando in 3 days. 

 

He nearly killed me. 

 

Lesson Learned:  Diet pills are bad.  Yes, I gained not one pound of the weight back (I think I actually lost a few more pounds), but I sent my heart rate sky-rocketing and my blood pressure has been sketchy since then.  And to this day, driving at night brings some seriously wacky flashbacks from being high as shit on phentermine and tooling across the country in a stick shift truck that I had just learned how to drive.

*  This site does not endorse magic.  Well.  Not in pill form, anyway.

Madly, Truly, Deeply

ZOMG, ya’ll, I can’t even talk about how happy I am that MadMen is back on the air.  I have been irritating my husband for months, begging him to talk to me about possible plot points, which he refuses to do on principle.  But now, after long last, I can get back to the important business of plunking my ass down every Sunday night to religiously pour myself a martini and watch an hour of blessedly badass television. 

Of course, that means I have another 6 days, in between, to bite my fingernails and grumble about how the damn thing isn’t back on yet.  Which is another 6 days of calling my husband at work in a fretful panic, begging him to talk to me about how much we hate Pete this season.  To which he tells me to get myself a goddamn facebook group and leave him alone, woman.  Which is SOOOO Don Draper of him!  LOVE IT.

Anyway, in lieu of getting me a hobby, part-time job or a life, I instead found this to occupy myself with!

MadMen Yourself!

It’s awesome.  Hours of fun for the MadMen loving family.  See below for details of awesomeness.    

 

I love me as a cartoon!

Biz Markie and Inevitable Drunken Rape

Alright, folks.  Here’s the deal.  I just got back from the Big Apple, and I am going to presage this video by vaunting my newly found expertise:

I drink.  A lot.  And then sing.  And then need a cab.  And then sing some more. 

That being said, let’s look at the uh, more bizarre fucking message of the video:  Let a Stranger Take You Home.  WHATHEFUCK, Heineken?!  Clearly, brewing beer does not put you in the position to know what it’s like to be a young drunken girl, strange and counter-intuitive as that might seem.  I know, I know.  Drunk driving is kinda bad… But so is being tits-down tipsy at a bar and being haunted only by the thought, “Well, the beer men said I can just let a stranger take me home…. Ooh!  There’s one!” 

And no, I don’t believe they’re referring to these Strangers, Perfect though they might be… 

Back to Video #1, Exhibit C (for Clusterfuck).  That cabbie?  He’s about as ethnic as pledge day at Auburn University, kid.  Just sayin’.  Also, I have a hard time finding a cabbie that will let me smoke a cigarette in his precious, shit-reeking auto, much less one who is going to cheefully jam with me to ancient rap stylings.  Finally, who ARE those kids?!  18-year-old hipsters are now big fans of Biz Markie?!  Where the fuck all have I been?  Oh, nevermind.  I’ve been here.   

Anyway.  Trip to NYC was divine.  I made a spectacular fool of myself at Karaoke, but at least I did it with friends.  I also captured pictures of the sites: a naked man in a deli, an accordian player wearing a Boba Fett helmet, the menu from a German place honestly named “Lederhosen” that featured “Delicious German Pickle” as a real item.  And yes, while there was certainly drinking, at least I didn’t lay down in public this time.  I don’t think… 

But then, who knows?!

Inauguration AWAY!

Some idiot in the grocery store yesterday, starry-eyed and whispery, wearing the kind of plague-blanket clothing emblazoned with pot leaves that one expects at a head shop, not in the cracker aisle, was saying to her companion (a filthy hippy with white-boy dreads and some kind of ironic t-shirt): “I totally wish we were going to the inauguration tomorrow!”

Man, not me. 

Which is not to say that I’m not super fucking excited that tool-box extraordinaire GW Bitchcake is leaving office and that sexy motherfucker Barack “Delicious” Obama is getting ready to pimp out the White House (at long last… will someone please do something about that 1960s decor, like super fast?  Put Malia and Sasha in charge.  They dress cuter than the Bush girls ever did on their popper-induced benders).  I am thrilled.  I love that while GW Bitchface’s inauguration barely registered a blip on the publicity radar, Barack could be selling Super Bowl-esque commerical time for his.  And I got a lot teary this morning watching the huge crowds flood the Mall, hope shining in dewy eyes (though possibly from encroaching frostbite — it’s 30 degrees there this morning).

But would I want to be sleeping under a bridge, wrapped in an obligatory Rock Out with Your Barack Out sweater, teeth chattering hard enough to shake my Made in China American flag and fearing a gunman lurking around every grassy knoll?  Hell to the No, ya’ll.

It snowed last night, so me and the dog are gonna be rocking the inauguration old school — in our jammies, with plenty of warm beverages to match the warming cockles of my cold black heart, fingers crossed for a smooth transition of power, hoping for only good things to come in the months and years ahead for this country. 

Hope you all are enjoying this historic day in a similar good way!     

loooove youuuu

HBO Series = Crack

 

Why, oh why have I fallen in love with a show that HBO douchily didn’t finish?! 

My husband and I have been watching all episodes of Deadwood like it’s our job.  And soon it will end!  It’s like I want to save the episodes, drag them out forever but alas.  Some day in the near future there will be no Al Swearengen cussing a blue streak and having cathartic epiphanies during blowjobs.  

And then what will I do with myself?! 

Oh, on another, completely opposite note?  My ADD?  Comes completely from my mom. 

My Mom (8:51:57 AM): She mellowed as we grew up. Do you know what Brownies are? Not scouts or food.

Me (8:52:11 AM): what?

My Mom(9:02:54 AM): Stephen might enjoy seeing Clete’s craftsmanship in restoring the old house. Dad just reminded me that I have to get ready for church. And he just read that Lake Norman down 93 feet from its normal level due to drought.

Me (9:03:12 AM): That’s… a lot… of … information