Disney Will Always Have My Heart

Last time I was in Disneyland – and probably because I was on my way out of the country – I was looking around, suddenly hit by how this place, the feeling is such a part of what defines the privilege of being American. I was watching a group of tourists (one of a zillion) and thinking, we expect this – we’re taught to.  The attention to detail, the way the confetti is perfectly prepared little Mickey Mouse outlines. The fireworks show that is a nightly, perfectly choreographed and synchronized extravaganza. (By the way, if you feel the need to leave a comment about how you hate Disneyland, a. you’re obnoxious and b. you missed the point.)

There are millions of people – myself included – who you will never be able to convince that Disneyland is primarily about making money. There are easier ways than paying attention to every nook and cranny, to having unbreakable ambiance, to literally having figured out how to make someone in a crowd of people feel “love”.  People don’t come from China and Russia and Western Europe and Africa for nothing. They want that experience. Even other western countries, I’ve sadly confirmed, don’t know a thing about customer service, let alone celebrating their customer! But while you’re there, no matter where you’re from, you get to sense what American kids are raised on – you’re special. There’s nothing you can’t do. You’re unique.

So, while I could get caught up in the irritation of what year it was before it happened (2009 is just a little embarrassing for “firsts”) or the cynicism of the “enlightened” American young adult culture in which we downplay or deny or destroy the way we used to be loving, lovable people – I’m going to be honest. There is nothing but right about finally dressing up as yourself. Was it “hard”, necessarily, to dress up like a princess whose skin color didn’t match? Nope. Will it be a completion of Disney’s “we love you” brand when you realize you look just right? Yep. Will it be all the more post-racializing (don’t even say anything about that word or concept) to see other American girls dressed up as this new princess? Yep. Will I still dress up like Mulan? …..Yep.

…I love you, Disneyland. I have to confess that when I heard there’d ever been a concept of a Disneyland in Montreal, my first reaction was of support. And then as an act of contrition, I looked at the unsavory pictures from the lackluster EuroDisney and remembered. It must be done at home so that nothing is sacrificed. Everyone must understand this. For you, I will gladly visit California to return to the source.

 

Good Morning, Baltimore!!!!

No, I haven’t seen Good Hair and I probably never will, out of sheer disinterest. Despite Nia Long being in it and being absolutely gorgeous (is it just me or did I just notice she’s beyond beautiful? Never wanted to look like someone else until I saw a picture of her and a recent picture of Kerry Washington. Dang. …Sorry. Back to the topic at hand.) I have heard primarily critical reviews/half-formed remarks from Black female viewers who seem to feel that it gives white girls the confirmation that we want to look like them and are envious and only feel pretty when we achieve that. A few paraphrases: “If something’s acceptable, you wouldn’t feel the need to alter it.” and “I can’t wait until Black women learn to value themselves.”

Um.

Having to make a statement about my self-worth with my hair?! Seriously? Everybody already realizes how much fake hair and processing goes into white girls’ hair (if they deign to even try), so why so defensive? You do you. If you stop reducing your appearance down to a statement, perhaps you’ll stop feeling minoritized? *shrug* All I know is I don’t have to prove to you that I love me, ya heard? *fingers tresses*

Love the Noisettes cover of "When You Were Young"

Love.

Saw her in a GAP ad, I think. Love her style.

*GASP*

Equality: The right to versatility.

Moving on to Things That Seem Not To Make Sense That Actually Do: I despise community predicated by color or “culture” (if you must). I don’t know that I’d ever join a group with Blackness as its unifying descriptor. And yet, if you look at my list of people with whom I’d want to be in a club, they have something in common. They’re intellectuals. Oh and they’re Black. Toni Morrison (should I have put her name somewhere in the middle to save face?), Henry Louis Gates Jr, Percival Everett…when I list the writers who have overwhelmingly overtaken my bookcase Wright and Baldwin and … okay I won’t write her name again. FINE. They not only hold a place, they hold a place that could not be held by someone without their experience, their wisdom, that could not come by way of having been born into cultural luxury (wherein you can be whatever you choose and remain independent knowing that nothing you say or do will be held against anyone else and vice versa, that you will not have to explain why you are not by nature someone else). So they had to be Black. But being Black was not enough. This seems simple and complicated at once. Their thoughts and work resonate with me not because I’m Black, but because of the other similarities that are experientially unique to having them and being Black. Blackness on its own tells me nothing, promises no solidarity or commonality – which the defiantly ignorant will misunderstand because it takes actual respect and consideration to acknowledge that finding out my “race” tells you nothing else about me. But if you share the same cultural heritage/experience AND a love of books and sociology and the same discerning for racial quagmires? Then I’m pretty sure we’re soul mates.

 

A Big Bag Of Whatthedoodle.

Right, so that needs no explanation. But, you know what does? An ABC Family Movie called “Legally Blondes” in which the train wreck that began as a campy, tolerable movie with that Moon character from old-school McDonalds commercials culminates in a movie with TWO bottle blonds holding tiny chihuahuas going straight to TV (after a stint on BROADWAY with such timeless songs as “Blood In The Water” and … Legally Blonde ON STAGE, as if that’s not enough). Explain that. If you’re still here and have understood the previous sentence. In the immortal words of Matheson: “Getcho hands off me!”

Just tears.

There may be more later. Right now, I need to soak my brain.

 

Too Smart For Strangers

Until day before yesterday, my son was absolutely not. Do understand that, though my son is only four, this came as a huge and alarming shock to both his father and I. For you see, our son is logic/rule-driven and is quite intelligent. I know this is where I’m meant to concede, “though I am his mother”, but I offer no such disclaimer. His brilliance is his own.

I can’t even remember how we got on the subject – other than the fact that my son “works” at Natural Bridges on many-a Saturday and has introduced plenty of strangers to the taxidermied animals as well as the live ones in the tank.  He therefore is quick with the introductions and generally walking around a room with strangers. So. Somehow we get into a convo about it and I ask him a series of questions after telling him he’s gotta dial back the intros, particularly when Mommy and Daddy are further than an arm’s distance away. He thought all “bad guys” were obvious and apparently slow-witted. Deception just had not occured to him and he was entirely unapologetic about this. O_O

Me: So…would you go with a stranger to their house?

Ezra: Um…(tapping chin) No?

Daddy: What if we were at the park and a stranger said he had a puppy in his truck?

Ezra: Well. I do like puppies.

I KID YOU NOT. THAT IS LITERALLY HIS RESPONSE.

Me: (expletive) Okay, what if the stranger offered you candy?

Ezra: I love candy! (Daddy and I stare wide-eyed at him. Seriously.)

Me: But Ezra, the stranger is trying to trick you.

Ezra: Well. I’ll eat all the candy and not leave any for him since he tricked me.

Me: THERE’S NO CANDY! IT’S A TRICK!

Ezra: (taps chin)

Yeah, at that point, I jumped on YouTube because, you see, there used to be an inexpensively made video that warned children of stranger danger. It worked so well I still know the songs. It worked so well…I trusted no one. And that’s as it should be, people. And the glory of this digital age is that all I had to do was log onto YouTube and type in the title to get the whole video.

We didn’t watch it until today but after that disturbing conversation, Josh and I basically scared the life out of Ezra by telling him what some bad strangers have done to kids. And if you think that’s harsh, you’ve never felt the fear of God come over you as your child basically tells you he’s going to run away with the first person who claims to have a pet. By the end of the night, he was wide-eyed and swearing he would never leave our sides. Well played, Morrows. Well played. After watching it, he  told me how he’d “fight with all his might” if a stranger got to close. Word. Elders beware. My son will likely do you bodily harm. And I’m proud. Proud, I say.

In short. Scare the life out of your kids to save their lives. ‘Cause the more you know.

 

Retro Review Le Deux

So, here’s the other worst movie ever review. As you recall, I was quite taken with Catwoman. Which TCM is continuously playing because they hate Jesus?! I dunno but her little head-cock thing she does or squaring her shoulders and thrusting her head forward in a sideways frame while squatting like Encino Man and pretending she actually just did physical damage to someone…it makes me pretty sure that hell is real. WTF, PEOPLE?! Anyway, let me never forget to include THIS rancidity. Keira Knightly. Who was … nominated…for an Oscar…for a role that dozens of women have well-played before, followed up that “powerhouse performance” with Domino. Domino. …. Domino.

Subject: Worst. I mean it this time. WORST. Movie. Ever.
Posted Date: Tuesday, December 26, 2006 – 5:37 PM

For those of you who doubt the existence of Satan and his minions, I ask you: how else came the movie Domino to be? If ever I have expressed the sentiment: WORST. MOVIE. EVER. Tis now, my friends. Tis now. The director and editor are the first to be blamed, of course. The cinematography that is just the height of just-too-muchery is so over the top and so film-school-graduate meets gritty-means-cursing-jarring-movement-and-nudity that it actually made me and Ana gasp and laugh with bewilderment. The imagery involving the goldfish was so excruciating that my description as merely “heavy-handed” doesn’t suffice. I’ll instead explain that it became the monstrous fist of a radioactive ape, pounding away at our sensibilities. Treating us as though the depth of the recurring dead/dying goldfish was just too much for us, too complex, too existential.

I almost refuse to discuss the attempt at “fragmentation” that translated to “disjointed and irrelevant”. It was alllll over the place and largely unnecessary. Finally, I doubt even a semi-retarded ape would have needed all of the icons and visual aids.

It wasn’t that kind of deep.

It wasn’t any kind of deep that isn’t associated with a wading pool.

She was too badass, too badgirl, too…who-does-she-think-she-is and who are we suspected to be that such a stereotype would arouse us? Is this a serious attempt?? Are we supposed to buy that eyes eternally at half-mast as seductive or confident? And let’s not begin to talk about how putting one’s life on the line usually doesn’t end up translating to everyone’s life BUT one’s own.

The Venezualan bounty hunter who is entirely underdeveloped, not withstanding the liberal use of his silken curls and their liberation from a ponytail as a sign of aggression and preparation for some heinous act. He was also entirely sexy and I believe – aside from shooting people’s arms off simply because someone tells him to over the phone – we would make beautiful music together. As soon as he washes the Keira off of himself.

And in the end, she loves her mother. Because for someone who is bent on being so typically anti-Hollywood. (and being completely oblivious to just how trendy that really is, especially when it’s liberally applied….I mean, no grace in the illustration whatsoever)…it IS all about her. The sentiment… is worth everyone’s pain and suffering.

The moral of the movie: She’s a spoiled brat who didn’t get enough of Daddy’s attention. And she’s white. So several people had to die to right that wrong. HAH!

 

Cat-Tastrophe! (Another entry revisited)

This movie has replaced Glitter. I am watching it, of my own volition, right now. Josh and I could easily give you a scene by scene update on it, (for example: she wears the same layered dumpstore fare two days in a row without explanation, which is also true of her office girlfriend…who didn’t get paid for that retardation, I wonder…plus her name is Patience, she has the hair of Pollyanna and she can’t raise her voice to ask the neighbors to turn down the music at 3am – ALL this to cover the inability to get a decent script that includes actual characterization) BUT rather let’s revisit the initial response. (After I vomit fecal matter over the literal repeating of the line, “Seems like ya might be feeling better, Sal <giggle,giggle>” and the butt bouncing dribbling scene in front of a group of inner city kids OR the way the “director” thinks that shutter speed and fast cuts when coupled with horribly shabby CGI does an entire movie make!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1byobwtfomgrofvomiting)

Subject: Holy S@%$bricks, Batman!!
Posted Date: Thursday, July 06, 2006 – 3:54 PM

Ever so often….we are given….a film….so …… repugnant…. that we literally … can’t….STOP…..WATCHING. That film… is CATWOMAN. Someone. Anyone. Take Halle Berry. And HOLD. HER. Stroke her hair. Tell her it’ll be okay. You’ll be lying. But, dammit, do it anyway. Because she has crossed a line… a line so pronounced that most people never come within a hundred yards of it. We all knew she was a modern day Dorothy Dandridge. Tormented. Confused. On neither team, longing to belong. But none of us suspected that she could read a script where dialogue like this:
Bad woman: Gameover!

Catwoman: Guess what? Overtime!!

…would sound – or read, rather – profound. You simply MUST watch it to believe it.

Let’s begin at the beginning. The concept of Catwoman makes sense. In Gotham City. Alongside Batman. And the Penguin. How. On God’s green earth. Did someone think it was a concept so exciting as to subsist on its own?? How can you even begin (and no worries, they don’t) to explain why a cat was able to bring a regular ass woman in a regular ass city back to life?!? HOW? How can you explain the Egyptian meets Christina Aguilera soundtrack? How can you justify the “b-ball scene”?? I won’t even try to explain that last one. Go. Go now. Run. You must witness it for yourself. The least we can do is pad her straitjacket pockets with a mere $3 in rental fees. Or watch it on HBO on Demand. Je-SUS. Corpus Christi! This movie had several scenes, several lines where – even having already sold and promised her services – Halle should’ve quoted Bernie Mac, “This shit is booty!” and saunted her ass home. Because that catwalk strut she does in the movie? The one where she squares her shoulders and thrusts her pelvis forward? It screams, “Hi. I should have more security than I do but I’m damaged and fragile and the least little criticism will send me off a ledge so please be gentle and don’t point out that my hair looks RIDICULOUS.” And don’t worry. I’ve not even beGUN to “ruin” the movie for you. So many treasures yet to be disclosed. How about the fact that you never actually SEE her fight anyone? As in, she didn’t spend months learning to fight. No, no. We rely on sharp editing skills for that one. And computer images. No lie, folks. Oh. OH. I’m sorry. Did I forget to mention that the movie deals with a police department outside a fictitious, comic book world and YET we are expected to believe that “all of the evidence points to Catwoman” when the fiendish devil who’s really to blame did nothing more than empty a gun into a man then slash his cheeks a few times and toss the gun to Catwoman (who is, btw, wearing gloves)?!? WHAT?!? Oh and the part where the Detective compares the lipstick from a wine glass to a picture of himself with lipstick smeared on his face (ALL THIS DONE IN A CRIME LAB) that he apparently had taken after Catwoman kissed him (WAIT, DIDN’T SHE LICK HIM??)?????? POURQUOI?
*dies…
Resurrects: Oh, watch Lovespring International. Funniest. Women. Ever.
*dies.

Wanna see my attempt at an intervention?

Subject: Bethany calls Halle Berry
Posted Date: Thursday, July 06, 2006 – 4:20 PM

Bethany: Hey, it’s me.

HB: Hey, girl!

B: Yeah, yeah, yeah, what-it-do…liiisten. Halle. Halle?

HB: Yeah?

B: Halle. I’ve been doing some thinking.

HB: Yeah.

B: About that new part you’re so excited about.

HB: Ooooh, girl! It is gonna be off the hook!

B: Yeeeah. I vote no.

HB: B, are you serious? Why??

B: I just -

HB: I mean I am looong overdue for a comedy AND I immediately fell in love with the script! It has depth, it has a fair amount of drama, I mean, I literally cried at parts.

B: Ok, but you cry in almost every part you’ve played. Whether called for or not. Remember that part in X-Men 2 when you got all glassy-eyed.

HB: I – don’t remember.

B: Well do you remember a part in X-Men 2 worth crying about?

HB: N-not really.

B: Point proven. So, I just figure, you know… you’ve got a couple dollars. I can loan you some if you’re crunched… you don’t have to do every script they send you. Do you?

HB: This is the opportunity of a lifetime, girl. I don’t know…I just can’t see passing this up.

B: Halle.

HB: I mean, I’m hearing you but I am on a roll right now and -

B: WHAT?

HB: I’m not gonna keep getting handed these awesome roles if I start denying people!

B:(aside) Oh, this girl done lost her damn mind.

HB: I just – I think I’ve gotta go with my gut.

B: Yeah, girl, you do that.

HB: I mean.

B: Yeah, I hear you. And maybe I’m wrong, you know. Maybe reprising the role of Smurfette -

HB: Thank you.

B: Gonna change your career.

HB: Thank you, girl. That’s what I’m hoping. I mean. This character has meant so much in my life and I just think that women are going to be so empowered when they see

*click*

HB: B? … Bethany?

…It did not go well.

 

A Letter From Serrana

I don’t think she needs any help with this, but just to give background: this is an email I recently got from my bf since fifth grade. We’ve done the road trip, the mixed CDs, the home movies (commercials, talk shows, movie trailers, you name it), the graduations, the child birth, the maid of honor, the black book, the not-so-much-fake-as-our-sisters’-IDs at the nightclub. You name it. We’ve done it. She’s now on to the next great adventure in her military career – and this one I’m ubertastically envious of – and while we don’t see each other often, we don’t really notice because we talk, it’s all the same. (We haven’t gone to the same school since sixth grade or lived on the same side of town, for that matter.) It’s still all about Third Eye Blind’s debut album, Ben and Jerry’s Chocolate Fudge Brownie, $20 worth of candy from Texaco and, as evidenced below: “Ace Ventura”. (“The Five Heartbeats”, not forgotten.)

Soooo….  I was shopping in the commissary today and I had a flashback.  Let me paint a picture:  We are walking in the store in the late evening, I think then it was called “Lucky”, we enter the bread aisle and then it happens… (dum dum duuummm) After watching “Ace Ventura” for the millionth and one time, we decide to reenact the HDS guy scene.  You remember now, don’t you?  You grab the loaf of bread and say the unforgettable phrase,  “We’re going downtown…”  You then kick the loaf of bread engulfed in the thin plastic wrapping as if you were kicking a football for a fieldgoal, bread goes EVERYWHERE!  Hilarity as we sprint from the aisle and leave a huge mess for some poor store clerk to clean up.

Good times.

Good.

Times.

 

We Didn’t Start The Fire

Why are we the generation that has to suffer through all of our childhood favorites being reimagined whilst we’re still trying to enjoy our youth?! I’m only 26, for the love of Apollo. Give it a rest! It’s like nothing of ours is sacred and we have to let our crappy little siblings play with all of our best toys and they get their grubby little hands nice and filthy before picking them up and then when they give it back, everything’s all corroded. What the hell. (This was just something I jotted down as a draft and on which I intended to elaborate…*wanders off*)

And also, what the heck constitutes a generation? Is it only definitive when it comes to events? Like the “baby boomers”… the “mtv generation”… aside from that, how do we know where one ends and the other begins? Like, my dad’s generation doesn’t have a name, right? He was born in 1944 so… he’s the “Hitler’s still alive” generation? I don’t know. Okay, according to Wikipedia, “Generations are extended periods of time that are connected with pop cultures.” However, I should mention that the article from which I got that is multiple times disputed. … So.

As Jennifer listens to “Singing in the Rain”, I’m reminded how my love for Gene Kelly was soiled by the knowledge that the “dancer” who partners with Gremio (…which I could have sworn was Bob Fosse’s character, but is credited as my Bobby Van by imdb) probably got the job because she was engaged to Kelly. She ruined SEVERAL numbers in the movie and generally pissed me off, since Bobby was my pick. (In a household with three girls, every man who met our fancy was assigned to one of us… and it really mattered to us… we’d shriek, “Got ‘im!”, to cement our ownership and whoever said it first got… well, him. Also, there were occasions upon which we had someone in a specific role, like Mel Gibson in “Tim” versus Mel Gibson in “Lethal Weapon”, however he was the same character in the whole Weapon franchise and therefore belonged solely to whomever called him for all four movies. Oh, and there were trades. Tom Selleck and Christopher Reeves were hot ticket items. And Dwayne Wayne… I’m just tellin’ all the family secrets.)

More later? I’m Ron Burgundy?

 

The Impossible Dream

Okay, I guess it wasn’t that impossible. Just don’t take naps late in the afternoon with semi-wet hair?

So I was in the movie theater in a mall, waiting for showtime (or to buy tickets tho I wasn’t in the line, I was walking around some partitioned off, badly placed area…which is to say, right in front of the concession stand, after about four people deep in the line, there was a large, rectangular space – maybe for art, for cut-outs? – that was surrounded by this waist-high plexiglass barrier). So I wasn’t waiting for tickets, I was waiting for showtime to get closer so that we could buy our goodies and go inside, which makes sense since Josh and I used to do that a lot when we went to the theater on Pacific Av in Santa Cruz before we had Ezzie. I have no idea which theater this was and at the time it seemed like a stand-alone.

ANYWAY! I’m with my boyfriend (?) whose British (?). Then suddenly – on like our third lap around the plexiglass – maybe there’s a noise from outside, I realize something is coming. The Green Goblin, to be exact. I motion for all the people in the concession line to follow me deeper into the theater, remaining calm myself. This is explained when I tell someone (whomever is now running alongside me is not my boyfriend and is female) I knew it was only a matter of time because I was dating Spiderman and Batman within the last two years and that always draws drama. (?!?!)

When we get inside a theater, choosing what we hope is a random one that he won’t enter – I see my childhood play-cousin, Quaylan and his friends to whom I rush over – they’ve all rushed to the front of the theater, crouched in front of the first few rows of seats. We hug and act like we’re about to get reacquainted until it becomes obvious that this theater is the one he’s going to enter. At this point, a click sound is heard and then something rolling/bouncing down one of the side aisles (btw this place looks more like an unlit church sanctuary without a podium than a regular theater). I’m about to run from where I’m suddenly at (on the other side of the columns separating the side aisle from the main seating area) to t he main area to hide between seats but then I realize the bomb is meant to cattle everyone in that direction so I and the woman who’s now constantly around me run to the lower part of the same section. I know the blast radius (remember because I dated Spiderman, so apparently I’m familiar with all nemesis autillary) so I know we’ll be safe. I lay flat in the shadow of a pillar (or something) instead of crouching behind things like the woman who finds herself hiding directly next to me – worried that one’s bowed back will be visible.

I should probably say at this point that the Goblin is now a woman. A huge woman whose identity is a mystery. This is dreamland, people, roll with the punches. Anyway, she walks down the aisle – people are running and screaming. No idea what she’s doing. Until she passes me and the other woman, sees the woman’s bowed back, rips her from her hiding place, slams her on the floor, turns her over and does what sounds like a knife going straight down through clothes and flesh. Why I know what that sounds like, I have no idea. At this point, I feel like I’m gonna go into cardiac arrest, my heart is beating so fast. I think, if she grabs me, I’ll have to wake myself up… which is the first time I’ve “known” I was dreaming. (Usually comes up when I’m in danger, though.) Anyway, this was not like split second fast – this killing – but rather as though the huge woman had all the time in the world and was just strolling around to exterminate things. The woman who was killed didn’t gasp though or scream, which was scary to me for some reason…

So the killer woman walks up the aisle and out of the theater room. And we all rush back to the “bottom” of the room, thinking about what we should do. Only one young woman looks at us like we’re stupid and says, “I’m going out this exit.” Everyone’s about to follow her until I suddenly stop and realize if it were that easy, we woulda done it before (not that I previously realized there would of course be an exit in here). And. That’s my whole rationale for not following her. I rush over to the far end of that back wall and yank the shutters off of a high window like one you’d find in a bathroom, for ventilation but very narrow in depth. Why is it here? Who knows. The woman behind me asks another girl if she can squeeze through the window. I answer, “I’m going, lady. I have a child. We can all go.” Like, this isn’t a search mission, dork. But also….I suddenly have a child, even tho at the beginning of the dream I was with a nonexistent British boyfriend? Sure. So I punch the screen out of this ridiculous window, pull myself up until my butt is about to come through (if it could fit), then turn around and sit down on the window, pulling myself up from that point and lowering my legs down to the sidewalk.

Now it’s like we’re at the Capitola Mall, despite it not having a theater. But the sidewalk along the building and the Sears that’s right there are obviously from that mall. So, the woman who went through the door is sitting on the sidewalk right outside of it, apparently incapacitated though the reason is unknown, and now she’s wearing a houndstooth shell top with a black pencil skirt and looks like she’s a secretary from a couple generations ago. ?!?! ANYWAY. We take off into the parking lot, where it becomes obvious that agents of the killer woman are looking for escapers. Somehow, they know what we will look like and our names. Like we took roll before seeing movies. (Which reminds me, when I climbed out, the people who were still in the theater room told me to leave some ID, which made total sense but I forgot to do it. And I have no idea what the logic was…maybe at this point, they suddenly knew that we were being held prisoner. ) So I’m literally looking for my car but it turns out that the other women are pretending to, knowing their cars aren’t in this direction. Again, logic lost. Why get the agents to figure out who you are and use the couple minutes when they rush inside (’cause they don’t have walkie-talkies in this scenario?!) to tell our identities to run to your car…. Anyway, so I’ve been freakin’ out because I don’t know where my keys are anyway. Well, one of the agents decides to just made a run at us (seeing as they’re all men and we’re all women) and we rush into the Sears that was next door to the theater. We’re running first through the auto repair garage, then inside in the tools section, which is where they somehow head us off. At this point, my brain goes, “duh!” and I realize I can just seduce them. So I come out of hiding and start being comic book seductive which is where I wake up.

*bows to thunderous applause*

 

UPDATED: Things That Make You Go “Dang!”

Wow. I, too, was like…. sometimes you gotta know when to leave something alone. Covers for the sake of covers or because people want to believe that every generation has an Etta James is ridiculous and infuriating. But, um, … I’m not sure how to feel about Etta’s tirade against Beyonce. I have often thought the girl overrated and irritating. And maybe it’s just because I remember the night she sang all of the selections at the Oscars beautifully or that I just fell in love with her after hearing her sing “America, The Beautiful” to close the We Are One Inaugural Concert thingy. Because when Cadillac Records came out, I probably rattled off some anger at her daring to play Etta James, let alone releasing a single covering “At Last”. There is only one “At Last”. There will only ever be one “At Last”. … So why did I first smirk and then feel weird about Etta’s words? I have no idea. I guess I thought I thought she’d be too classy to bother commenting on Beyonce Knowles. (shrug)

INSERTED AS EXHIBIT A)

And if you don’t know who James Whitmore is… you’re horrible. Or if you think he’s the old guy in Shawshank Redemption. If you said he’s the thug (named Slug) from Kiss Me Kate?! You’re fabulous. And right. He was wonderful, even though I routinely fastforward through “Brush Up Your Shakespeare”… only because, come on, with the songs you have to choose from in that movie (Howard Keel, Katherine Grayson, Anne Miller, Tommy Rall and Bob Fosse and Bobby Van), I’m not gonna watch two thugs purposely screw up the dance sequence. Le sigh. I know what I’m watching tonight.