American Idol Snark Station: Movie Music Week

Paul: "Old Time Rock and Roll"
Remember when it was safe to have a movie star crush on Tom Cruise? I do, and it was all Risky Business's fault, too. But now that I know Cruise is at least half out of his mind, yew! I totally gross myself out, knowing I ever fanned myself for even one second over his tightie whitey Bob Seger dance. Ergo, I cannot listen to this song. And I really don't want to listen to it being re-sung by someone who is also bronc busting the front end of his own special short bus to Crazy Town. The suit is tres cool, though.

Lauren: "Hanna Montana Movie Song"
Sweet, sweet girl. Big, big voice. Totally, totally boring song. Although, how nifty was that, Will and Jimmy dissing Miley and Pia on national television? Best moment of the evening.

Stefano: "End of the Road"
"What separates the good ones from the great ones is the performance." So sayeth Stefano about his ability to toss pizza. Wait? What? Oh, sorry, he was talking about his singing. Meh. I guess the best thing I can say about this performance is that it didn't make me want to clamp both my hands over his mouth in a desperate attempt to stop him from breathing.

Scotty: "I Cross My Heart"
I would rather have heard "Everybody's Talkin'" However, this kid's going to get lots and lots of chicks, much in the same way I suspect Dwight Yoakam gets chicks.

Casey: "Moulin Rouge Song"
This kid will also eventually get lots and lots of chicks, much in the same way I suspect Lyle Lovett gets chicks.

Haily: "Call Me"
There was a period in my life when, had a genie popped out of a magic lantern in front of me and granted me three wishes, I would have taken only one: Turn me into Debbie Harry. To me, she was the epitome of rock chick cool, Blondie the epitome of rock band cool, and I utterly worshiped them both. I dyed my hair like Debbi, dressed like Debbie, and even for a while adopted her bizarre, hiccupy New Jersey accent as my preferential way of addressing my parents. Therefore. I will accept no imitations. Especially when they suck as badly as this sucks.

Jacob: "Bridge Over Troubled Water"
Zzzzzzzzzzzz.

James: "Heavy Metal"
I hate Sammy Hagar. I hate his stupid curls and sun burnt beer belly and faux danger boy attitude and crap tequila that makes your head feel like it's been caught in a high school shop class vice the next morning. And I can't begin to tell you how many midnight movie runs of Heavy Metal (okay, three) had to sit through when I wasn't in shop class, or any other class for that matter, because of some boy or another I had for some reason set my sights on, or that my best-friend-forever had set her sights on, because these were boys with cars that actually ran and older brothers who could buy us beer. But, I liked this version. Although, Randy, seriously, Durbin is nowhere near Oz Fest material.


So, that's that, Party People. Another of the most uninspiring and over-praised American Idos in the history of the universe. Now, excuse me while I go watch some real television. If you're not watching Justified, too, you're missing one of the best shows on television.

Movie Clip Wednesdays: Favorite Movie that Takes Place in Outer Space

Well, a portion of it anyway.

The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension. Hilariously spoofy fun, with an irresistibly catchy theme song and gloriously whacked out performances, including one by John Lithgow as the evil Dr. Emilio Lizardo, around whom most of the move revolves. What there is of a plot involves Lizardo breaking out of an insane asylum in order to lead a fellow band of marooned (in New Jersey) aliens back to their home of Planet 10. When? Real soon.

Hell bent on stopping them is physicist (and, also, rock musician) Buckaroo Banzai and his band of sidekicks (the Hong Kong Cavaliers), one of whom refuses to ever button his shirt, another is perpetually dressed as a cowboy (Cowboy Curtis anyone?), and another is an emotional mess of a young woman played by Ellen Barkin who nonetheless manages to squint her way into Buckaroo's heart.

The whole thing is very 1980s camp and chock-a-block full of the kinds of one-liners that immediately get folded into one's everyday vernacular. To this day, I still use the line, "Laugh while you can, monkey boy." but only occasionally remember why.







If you want to play today or every Wednesday, simply post a 3 or so minute clip of your favorite movie that meets the theme's criteria, head over to hostesses Boxer's blog, and post an I'm Up! in the comment's box. And let's see how many people jinxed with Alien.

Pussy, Liar, Fraud

I sure know why I hate you like I do.
You say you're for the people, but you just make us blue.
Stole our faith, replaced it with regret,
And we haven't seen the worst of it yet.

I wanna know
Won't you tell me
Are you here to stay?

Because I want to take you to the river.
Drop you in the water,
Drown your soul and shoot your heart,
Hang you upside down.
That would feel so good,
Watching you drown . . .

Haiku Monday: Observations of Nature

Sun beats, wind gusts.
Fur and flesh scoured to bone.
Desert's proof of life.

* * *

This week's Haiku Monday is being sponsored and judged by Troll, with prizes by Boxer. If you want to play, head over there and post your 5-7-5 on the theme of
OBSERVATIONS OF NATURE.

Drive By

If I had a Sioux Indian name it would be: She Who Works for Shoes.

Hola, Party People.

It is with extreme regret that I will not be able to man the Idol Snark Station this week, due to deadlines that I can't believe a client would actually saddle me with, except said client is paying me well and on time. Which rarely, if ever, happens, so yeah, I'm their bitch for now. Also, see above caption.

So if any of you want to take it over, please feel free and let me know. Otherwise, also feel free to come over here and leave snarky comments in this post. I won't mind. I'll break on occasion just so I know there is still a world out there not comprised of serial commas and arguments over whether or not it's The New York Times or the New York Times.

I should have been a plumber.

Ciao for now.

New Mexico Burning

A fire burns along Albuquerque's bosque in 2009, only a few miles from downtown.
Usually, it's some idiot who drops their cigarette.

Every couple years or so, we have a late winter and early spring so dry, the state literally goes up in flames. Eleven years ago in May, the entire town of Los Alamos, birthplace of The Bomb and currently home to more nerds per square inch than the lunchroom at MIT, burned right to the ground thanks to a blaze that started off as a simple controlled burn. Within days, 48,000 acres were scorched rotten, 400 homes were reduced to tinder, and the U.S. General Accounting Office ciphered up the damage at over one billion dollars. The fire was so consuming the smoke plume reached all the way into Oklahoma, as shown by a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration photo taken from the air.

Whether from dry lightening or human stupidity, doesn't matter, the end result is all the same. Fire sparks, flames fan, property is destroyed, lives devastated.

Those of us who live in rural places, at the edges of wilderness so overgrown one can hardly walk a forest floor anymore, live with sucked in breath in the months between the time the snows stop and the summer monsoons begin. We're told to make sure to craft a "defensible space" around our properties. To have hoses at the ready, brush cut, and all potential fuels removed from our gutters. To have a meeting spot in mind for our families, and places to go for our animals. Around here, that means more than a dog and cat or two. It means horses and chickens and goats and llamas, too.

And even though we live almost some portion of every year with this nightmare pushing at the edge of our brains, S.B. and I don't really have an evacuation plan. Get dressed, put the dogs and their food in the Jeep, a shotgun on the floor, the pistols in the glove compartment, and . . . what else? The photo albums? My father's paintings? My jewelry? The computers?

S.B. jokingly said to me last night, "If our house burns down, then can we move to Georgia? How about Tulsa?" For some reason, that pissed me off, and I told him not to bring that bad juju down on our heads. But then it got me thinking . . . if life as we knew it was about to go up in smoke, what would we do? In the technicolor quick fire flash of panic, when life is on the line and property threatened, what from my and our former life would I absolutely take with me to help navigate impending disaster? I have no idea.

What would YOU take?

April First