Rupert

Oh Babette, Have a Beautiful Day...

Aw honey, if it were only a few years ago, I can't imagine ever posting on a blog a happy birthday to Sally Struthers. I mean, out of all the cast members on All in the Family, she was probably my fourth favorite. But that all changed when I started watching the Gilmore Girls. Now I just think of her as Babette and I love her. I swear to God she's channeling Ruth Gordon. So have a great day, hun, over in Stars Hollow and hopefully Morey will play a little Hogey Carmichael for ya if the spirit moves him.

Samantha Stevens, advocate

Okay, this week Nicole Kidman takes over the lead role in the Bewitched movie, and while I'll reserve judgement until I see the movie (which may be when Netflix has it), I'm a little nervous about it (and I like Nicole a lot -- I just don't know about the conceit of the whole TV show-within-a-movie thing, or the Will Ferrell idea). But the one good thing the movie is bringing is Elizabeth Montgomery - the first season of the TV show comes to DVD tomorrow - featuring Alice Pearce, the real Gladys Kravitz, and Dick York, the real Darren, and Paul Lynde but not yet as Uncle Arthur - he plays a nervous driving instructor. Plus appearances by not-yet-famous Raquel Welch, Peggy Lipton and Adam West. Plus the genius of Agnes Moorehead and Marion Lorne (someone needs to make a flashback series of Endora and Clara as sisters growing up)...

And Samantha. So anyway, besides starring in the one "grown-up" TV show I loved as a kid because I was a kid and still think is cool as an adult, I want to point out that Elizabeth Montgomery during her TV movie years ended up doing time as an AIDS activist, and also, rather bravely, donating her voice to two documentaries that her people may have tried talking her out of, CoverUp: Behind the Iran-Contra Affair and also, The Panama Deception - the latter won an Oscar for best documentary while basically pointing out to the world that Bush Sr. pushed to instigate an attack on US troops in Panama by having the military harrass citizens until someone "struck first" so that he could remove Noreiga from power after his usefulness to the CIA had ended. Both films were directed by Barbara Trent who continues to make a wonderfully patriotic nuisance of herself through The Empowerment Project.

And when Dick Sargent (the fake Darren) came out, Liz rode with him as co-grandmaster of the San Francisco gay pride parade and it was really sweet. So anyway, as all of the current Bewitched hullabaloo is going on, the same people who put the Ralph Kramden statue at the Port Authority bus terminal are lobbying to put a Samantha statue in Salem. Residents are pissy about the idea since celebrating witchcraft equals mass paranoia celebrating murder in the name of religion, really. But believe me, I went to a magician's convention there during the 80s and one more statue of a witch won't change the balance. Plus she's a good witch in many ways. If Massachusetts is as liberal as George Bush claims, they should embrace the Samantha statue.

The most general post ever: welcome back to Rupert

Okay - no post for twelve days is a really sad statistic.

I was going write a brilliantly funny post last week asking the question of why a big jet-setter like Russell Crowe didn't have a cell phone he could use in New York. Personally I think he just gave in to the urge to throw a phone at a concierge's head that most of us have from time to time. The fact that he will throw the phone and that most of us understand the moral and ethical consequences is what seperates most of the population (i.e. sane people) from Russell Crowe and the guy on American Idol who threw the phone at his girlfriend (i.e. scary people).

But anyway, I didn't feel like posting about that.

At least not at a time where I've just become an uncle to the cutest baby ever. And yes the pictures in her album are cuter by the day, but they're sorta hidden because I'm skittish about showing pictures of loved ones online without permission. Meanwhile this page which is public gets one or two hits a day and my niece's page now has something like 3800 hits, which means it's gotten more traffic than the site ever has. Which makes sense when we collectively post stuff a couple times a month.

Plus we're in a world where leaders can dance around smoking gun memoes and Newsweek reports that were only mostly true and yet celebs get the front pages - in fact I can't remember being so hyperaware of the collective cult of celebrity as much as now. I remember when Katie Holmes was in one of the two really lovely little movies Patricia Clarkson made in about a year's time. Now she's Tom Cruise's new pretend wife and a Scientologist. Tom Cruise is also classified as scary. Yesterday, a coworker said "you had me at hello" as part of a joke, and I told her to watch when she says that because she'll end up being a Scientologist. I was in Kim's Video the other day and someone was saying how there was something about Tom Cruise he just didn't like - just an annoying arrogance. I thought to myself that he's always like that, but then eventually the cute psychologist or his plucky secretary/girlfriend or his autistic adult brother will show him the way and he'll redeem himself. I've kinda strayed off the point. Which is I'm not even going to say anything about Michael Jackson.

So, I don't really pay attention to gossip. And I didn't want to write about Russell Crowe or anyone because the focus is a little too skewed in their direction anyway.

Anyway here are the things, beside having the cutest niece in the world, that have made me happy lately:

-- seeing Maria McKee for the first time in my life, with Sydney, who needs to write a post about the show

-- getting a free pass to Miyazaki's new animated feature Howl's Moving Castle which is breathtaking

-- the new Sleater-Kinney album "The Woods"

-- "The Fearless Freaks" about the Flaming Lips, now on DVD and fun and inspiring in a way the Ramones' movie sorta wasn't. Wayne Coyne moves up to the Michael Stipe level of lead singers I love

-- wathcing my dvd of Maya Deren movies

-- seeing El Vez with Kenny and my friend Anissa

Personal frustrations: The fact that Carolyn Marks' new album isn't showing up anywhere in this part of the country. Not being able to fly means being in NY while my niece isn't.

It also means that I'm not in London for the big Meltdown festival curated by Patti Smith that's like Pattifest 2005. Especially since Carla Bozulich is also performing, as is Cat Power, Antony, Richard Hell, John Cale... and there's going to be a performance of the album Horses, a night of Weill and Gumby cartoons.

Looking forward to: seeing Patti for free in Central Park in August, the pre-code film festival at Film Forum, Jim White's movie, Miranda July's movie, the Mermaid Parade, and continuing to melt throughout this really brutally hot summer.

But I'm also looking forward to reading Kenny's trip report, Franny's future posts... you know, the blog we have here.

And I'd like to apologize a bit because by actually posting, I'm knocking the post with the Langston Hughes and Patti Smith poems off the front page.

Happy almost summer everyone. Post and comment freely!!!

Cult of Madonna

Take yr love and run from me...

long before there was a geraldine fibber's shrine. on my wall in my apartment in nyc i had a madonna shrine. i collected tabloid articles, stills from desparately seeking susan and like a prayer...that and her early years were the most interesting. then my roommate wrote an article stealing all my obsessions and shrine subjects and poked merciless fun at them and yahoo i got to be te bubblehead...well in my reconstruction of humpty dumpty fell down i'm taking back my madonna shrine...i might do something more ambitions. i was thinking of taking the chan marshal video removing the soundtrack and seeing if it fit with lucky star...but anyway...my life was never the same after she did that. and she rationalized it by saying "truman capote stole all the time" as if she were truman capote! but i feel like i'm tilting at windmills and everything is happening sooo slowly except my thesis deadline and my unemployment running out and my mother going i gues you won't be able to afford therapy or the medications any more as if she wants me fall flat on my face(again)...quicky poll if you had a family member who was just put in the equivalent of auschwitz in america would you not attempt to help? but no she has to hold on to a house that i too big for her and she can't afford to keep up. i'm scared cuz next week i truly don't know what i'm going to do...it ain't like unemployment gives you enough to save. and i am so fragile from this whole loss of rights thing for now fucking reason other than a moron on the phone and an ER pyschiatrist didn't like my lifestyle--so i went into anaphyltic shock and was treated like an animal...i had an idea to go around the country interviewing those forced into horrible hospitals against their will and let them tell their stories...dunno maybe you guys can tell if this film has been made or not.

anwyay, at least finding the lp version of the first madonna release was a boon...i didn't realize gwen guthrie sang back up on the lp. no wonder madonna sounds decent in a why she didn't on material girl.

Good things sometimes stick around for a while

Sleater-Kinney. Sleater-Kinney. Sleater-Kinney!!

The new official website has launched, bringing with it American Apparel t-shirts that I probably won't fit into, and - yeah! - an advance MP3 from the new album.

Plus potential fun new things like a blog, a fun band history and a mix tape listing by Janet that includes Curtis's "If There's a Hell Below".

Also: a new photo gallery (Corin is blonde!) and an S-K trivia quiz. Life's worth living...

With Rosalie Totsie and Barbarino... Under the boardwalk at Coney Island

So this week, I found myself facing news items that made me anxious, and the whole point of having access to a site like this is to let the catharsis flow, but somehow sitting down at the computer, lethargy beat catharsis, so it's Saturday and I'm uncleansed, so how about a little recap...

Thing one - Thor Equities, a mall developer, has been buying up property in Coney Island on and around W. 12th Street, including the go-kart stand, "dunk the creep" and the gyro guy - these aren't exactly landmarks on the level of the Wonder Wheel or even Gregory and Paul's. Plus, okay, that's probably the lamest clown-dunking stand outside of the Westchester County Fair. But, according to a Daily News report this week, one of the properties being wooed by Thor is Ruby's. I repeat: Ruby's. RUBY'S! The businesses whose leases have been taken over have been given to the end of this season to move out or relocate. Part of my love for Coney Island is for the fantasy of what it was and part of it is for what it is now. I don't care much for clean, family amusement parks. When I see films like Harold Lloyd's Speedy and see Coney Island, I see it big and bustling, but also bizarrely creepy even then - it's been the home to more than one fire, and for amusement people used to throw themselves on rotating floors to be scattered to the wind, and jump from big towers. It seems fun and dreamlike and frightening. And it still is - it's scalding in the summer, and some vendors are really rude and I pulled a stomach muscle on the flume and will never risk my life on a bet on whether or not the bolts holding together the Cyclone will hold up after 76 years. But it's perfect in it's inperfection and beautiful when it's lit up at night. It's cheesy, and has cheese fries. And pistachio soft serve which I swear exists nowhere else. And it's April and I'm feeling the call, and I know it's been open for weeks and I hate having not been there yet. But the point is this might be the summer before a South Street Seaport type environment slowly turns dirty and exquistite into clean and merely pretty. I want to see it thrive, just not by losing it's soul. But one thing I've learned is that there's no way to stop these things from happening so everyone reading who can - appreciate Coney Island the summer before whatever happens ends up happening.

Thing two - Debralee Scott died this week at 52 of what's being called unnamed natural causes. There's a great Jeneane Garafolo line about there being fewer eating disorders in the 70s when Welcome Back Kotter was popular, because when Hotsie Totsie was the model of feminine perfection, everyone could feel they had a shot. To which I'd add I found Debralee really cute when I was at that age. She looked like every girl I knew and they were all really cute, too. Ah, the golden age of the media when all the teenagers were played by people who were 25-plus. She was Mary Hartman's teenage sister, Angie's (aka Donna Pescow's) teenage sister, and Rosalie Totsie who had to con the Sweathogs into thinking she was pregnant in order to scam them into having to admit none of them ever slept with her (causing Horshack to propose out of Horshackian chivalry)... and yet this all spanned about ten years and she was over 20 the whole time. And very real. Sadly enough, she had been engaged to a Port Authority cop who had died on 9/11/2001. And now she's gone - the opposite of Hillary Duff - taken too young like the rest of what was saner about the past. Rest in peace, Hotsy Totsie. Well see you on all the Match Game reruns.

Everything i want

okay today in the bookstore i went to get a new german dictionary cuz i also have to take this german translation test but i found the weirdest cultural artifact....

everything i want no. 3: graduation summer mary-kate and ashley olsen

apparently this is a new series of books but there are other series and they are marketed as a semi-journal/teen romance and while clearly not written by mary-kate or ashley it doesn't list who the ghost writer is but the one i bought is fascinating --mary-kate is made out to be the sloppy/chaotic one --no wonder she has problems..and of course the olsen sisters have left nyu...i'm not sure what the story is but i'm fascinated by these books...

there is more info on www.mary-kateandashley.com

and they are marketed by warner books as "real books for real girls"! baaaahaaaa...

i don't have time for more gotta run but this needs to investigated and unlike the lindsay lohans and ashlee simpson's of the world i know who these teens are...and i love a good teen celebrity with "real girl" status gone awry.

Gia and Me

So I read the entire thing of beauty: the tragedy of supermodel gia because karen kilimnik in her celebrity drawings was very influenced by gia (why not they both came from philly) and lots and lots of the quotes that are scrawled under drawing which are usually id'ed as "magazine authoritrianism" are actually from gia, this dumb teenage book high cheekbones, models inc, dynasty, and tons of others things...again this my new thesis theme NO ONE GIVE KK CREDIT FOR ANYTHING! WHY DON'T PEOPLE READ THE ART--take the installation is paris burning/paris is burning--not one person got that is paris burning is a film made in the 196o's about the french underground finally rising up against the nazis cuz the allies were on the way...and they make it sound so wonderful with barricades in the street...and kk has like bomber with swastika and nazi ball gown...then in the middle of the floor she has placard reading "ball" then she has all this stuff from paris is burning like house xtravaganza--legendary child...so the ball is a battleground where two undergrounds try and fit into cultural "norm"--in france jews change their name in house balls they change their sex--eiither way they are donning the apparel of the oppressor and basically giving themselves over to genocide (i can't tell you how many people died before paris is burning was finished from bad hormones, bad implants, bad surgery, beat up by pimps--i said it before i'll say it again--she's brilliant--WHY DOES NO ONE NOTICE? i don't understand--anyway there's this great drawing she did called bubblegum habit which is a title in the gia book and then kk reproduces her day book but also reproduces the index then erases it like she's erasing her life...weird but i came across i quote i think most any could id with

"It's ironic, isn't it?" Nancy Adams recalled "Gia always wanted her mother's attention. And now she finally had it--and she paid for it with her life."

blood from a rock...

Jennifer Melfi, MD chooses Zoloft

"Even then I thought, 'What? My life is on the upswing!' I thought I'd exercise and yoga my way out of this -- I was going to beat it," she said. "But of course, we know now that that's impossible. Depression gets a hold on you, and the longer you wait, the harder it is to get out."

That type of denial and procrastination is typical of many depressed individuals, said psychiatrist Dr. Patrice Harris, who is working with Bracco and drugmaker Pfizer Inc. on a campaign and Web site (DepressionHelp.com) that urges people to spot depressive symptoms early and seek out care.

Lorraine Bracco struggles with depression.

i wanna be a desperate housewife oprah and 7 sister confidential

I don't know who marcia cross is but...how can she be desperate? i mean now there's this whole controversy about how she came out and then went back in and when she came out people were speculating that her girlfriend was lauren graham. i mean hell...what in this equation ='s desperate? if my girlfriend were the unfortunately named character lorelei (that is the one problem i have with that show--her name do those gilmore priviledged parentalesque figureheads seem the type to name their daughter lorelei? i think not...i don't think there is a single person in the state of ct named lorelei so that kept me from watching for a long time) but now for some unknown reason i am obsessed with lauren graham. and i dunno i've decided that i know i'm not ever going reach the deep dark levels of desperation that marcia cross has and be able to land lorelei but i mean does marcia really seem like someone who would be lauren graham's significant other? i think she looks too perky...and supposedly lauren graham was on oprah explaining she wasn't a lesbian...which right there you know she is cuz whenever anyone goes on oprah to deny something--they are guilty of it--the olsen sisters went on oprah right before the one that has the eating disorder (mary-kate?) got shipped away and both denied either one of them had a problem...just one example of many...no wonder oprah has to get in that bus and make dreams come true she feels guilty for running the national celebrity image buffer....