I Got Carded at a Rave: A Cautionary Tale on Growing Old Gracefully

I had kind of an amazing weekend so I thought I would share it with you all.

I went to a rave.

This is the first rave I've been to in many, many years. I attended a couple (back in the day when the venue had to be secret) when I was a belly dancer. I remember one in particular that we performed at. I was dancing on top of a platform behind the DJ and at one point I looked down to see a couple having sex behind the stage.  At least they were behind the stage, right? As I was looking at all the young people this weekend it occurred to me that one of them might be the offspring of that coupling. It could happen.

The rave I was at this weekend was called Beyond Wonderland. There were similarities and differences from the raves of my youth. Similar: Everyone is on their drug of choice and tripping HARD. Difference: This rave had a full bar (glorious). And lots of vending. I don't remember either of those back in my day. Also, I don't remember them having names, but that could be because it was 1000 years ago and I'm old.

I went because my dear friend (and frequent Blogguest) Lisa really wanted to go for her birthday. Never one to deny a friend a birthday wish or turn down an adventure, I packed some old belly dance costuming and my weight in glitter and flew down to San Bernardino. I will admit, in hindsight, that I was a bit unprepared for what I found.

When all was said and done, Lisa and I ended up naming our adventure Beyond Shackleton. We felt as if we'd ventured into unchartered (for us) territory and came back the richer for it. I researched Ernest Shackleton and found this quote that I believe is pretty apt: "For scientific leadership, give me Scott; for swift and efficient travel, Amundsen; but when you are in a hopeless situation, when there seems to be no way out, get down on your knees and pray for Shackleton." True dat.  

Here is some insight into our own personal frozen ship.

• Aren't old people cute?
• I arrived Friday night, costumed up and headed to the event to meet Lisa.  At the entrance there were signs about presenting tickets and ID. Seriously? But I didn't want to be the asshole who has to rummage in her bag because I thought they wouldn't check. These people have jobs to do and I didn't want to get in their way. So I get up to the front and take one look at the infant who's taking my ticket. I lift my ticket and ID with a big grin and she looks at me, grins back and says "I'm gonna check your ID!" so I responded "And I'm gonna give you a hug!"  (I also got carded at the bar. The excuse was that my license could be expired. Quick thinking, Puppy!) While this "look at the old person at the rave" is charming the first time, it lost its luster almost immediately. And trust me, we got a lot of it. Girls touching our faces - I'm sure it's amazing to feel wrinkles - and boys hugging us. They were just so happy to see people our age out and about (and they were tripping their asses off). One youngster said "Oh! I love seeing old ravers." We knew she meant it from the heart, but honestly. Lisa and I started joking about how they must be thinking "I wonder who took them out of the convalescent home and brought them here? Where did they store their walkers? So sweet!!"
• Um, what are you wearing?
• While I saw the requisite animal costumes and shiny Betabrand stuff, what really surprised me was what a majority of the young girls were wearing. Or were NOT wearing. I have never seen so many bare ass cheeks in my life since I was at that hamam in Istanbul. They were all essentially wearing thong underwear with some strips of fabric wrapped around their legs (I'm not sure if these were attached to anything, actually). I admit to saying some very Mom-like things about this along the lines of "Those aren't clothes!!"  And while everyone wasn't dressing to enhance their actual body type, I applaud the self confidence of all the girls who were running around in bras, thong panties and glitter. Honestly, Lisa and I looked like nuns in comparison because we were wearing *actual* clothes.

"Actual clothes" include hats!

• Adventures in transportation
• I took Lyft primarily from my arrival in San Bernardino to my departure. Unlike San Francisco, the Lyft drivers seemed much less interested in picking up late night partiers. Additionally, Uber had some sort of monopoly on the event; there was an Uber pick up area that no other cars could enter. I call foul on that. On Saturday night, Lisa and I left the venue around 12:30am. The venue had closed off most of the nearby streets so we decided to walk away from the melee and call our Lyft. We stopped on the steps of a suspect looking community center to connect. And I couldn't. My app wouldn't work. Neither would Uber - I kept getting a "weak signal" notification but really NOTHING was happening - and a cab would have been at least 45 minutes. The whole neighborhood was deserted and creepy as fuck, so we decided to walk back to the venue and get a ride at the Uber monopoly. As we walked we saw a Lyft driver just sitting in his car. We ran up to him (well, I hobbled actually.  My feet were killing me) and he said he could take us. As soon as we got in his car (my app still wasn't working so I couldn't book him) he got a call and had to take it or it looks bad on his Lyft rating. So, after a LOT of back and forth to find the herd of children he was picking up, we ended up being escorted 30 minutes out of our way to their destination and then back to our hotel. We were safe, but halfway there we were SO ready to be home, comforting each other by muttering "jammies and pie, jammies and pie!" (we had wisely purchased the pie earlier). When it was actually our turn, our driver turned into an absolute chatterbox. As we were nearing our exit he said "okay, I'll take Tennessee St." then marveled at how "all the streets have state names!". He marveled so hard about it he passed our exit. For. Fucks. Sake. 
• Thwarted by technology
• After dancing for hours over the course of two days, my feet were trashed (I went for form over function, which was my fatal flaw) and we were both exhausted so all we wanted to do was eat that damn pie and watch some TV. After the debacle with the Lyft app, we got back to the hotel and the TV showed a screen saying "Weak signal". This was Lisa's final straw. She started yelling at the TV, asking if we were suddenly in a war or a major technological meltdown. It was EPIC. Thankfully, the TV did eventually work and we were able to get our fill of Law and Order: SVU.

So, being the intrepid explorers we are, we journeyed into parts unknown, metaphorically froze our asses off in a sea of infants and came out the other end realizing that one can be cool and have a great time no matter what number is attached to your age.  In other words, "Fuck 'em if they can't take a joke."

My takeaways:

#1 - When one walks 30,000 steps (15-ish miles) in a 24 hour period, one should not be surprised that pie at 2am doesn't blow your diet.

#2 - Electronic music isn't my favorite, it's a bit repetitive for my taste but considering probably 99.9% of the people there were tripping on something, it's the perfect music for this kind of event. The venue was decorated beautifully (again, perfect for tripping) and both nights were lovely and temperate. I had a great time.

#3 - Corn nuts smell like ass. On an airplane, they smell like ass at 45,000 ft.

xoxo...hashtagSueslife

Trippy trees!

Stage light shenanigans

Jellyfish!  No one got stung!  

Lions and Tigers and Bears? Not so much.

For the past couple weeks, I've gotten sucked into watching Emerald City, which is a new (possibly short lived) series on NBC. I mention that it's on NBC because it's all sorts of dark and gritty, which is refreshing for network TV. I've come to expect that kind of original content from Netflix or Amazon so I'm glad the networks are getting back in the game. It's only 10 episodes and as far as I can tell it hasn't been renewed, so I'm thinking maybe I'm the "Series Kiss of Death". Same thing happened with Travelers, a Netflix series I really liked. Not a peep if it's coming back either. (footnote: just saw that is IS renewed! I'm not the Kiss of Death after all!!)

Emerald City is basically a loose retelling of The Wizard of Oz. But super Game of Thrones-y. In fact, I read one review that called it The Wizard of Westeroz. Heh. Sometimes I love people. Not always, but sometimes.  I enjoyed it all the way through but it did become a bit muddied of story and vague of character, so they need to up their game a bit if they are coming back.

the cast

Dorothy - via tornado - gets stranded in a bleak, washed out landscape. Not the merry old land of Oz that Judy Garland ended up in. She is transported in a police car (with a K9 officer in back) and hits the East Witch with the car. She ends up in some kind of fucked up Munchkin Land which is more like a Mad Max Land (costume and attitude). No one is nice, there is no charmingly scruffy Lollipop Guild welcoming Dorothy. No Glinda coming to help. Instead, she gets tortured by these Mad Max-y looking folks and run out of town. WTF? They do manage to name the dog - Toto - which means Dog in their language. Clearly they aren't an animal loving bunch. Nor are they creative.

She doesn't kill the East Witch immediately but eventually shoots her and gains a pair of beautiful ruby and gold gloves which meld with her skin and come out when she needs some big-guns-magic. I was kind of hoping she would just have had to clap her hands three times to get home, but again - not the movie we know. It's MUCH more involved. In fact, this Dorothy decidedly does NOT have the power to get home all along. FU Glinda.

On the yellow brick road, which is only yellow because this land has a huge problem with poppy pollen, she sees a dude crucified on a pole. Well. Hello Scarecrow!  They are attracted to each other, which is truly the adult version of the original. We all know that, if she was old enough and had a choice, Dorothy would have hooked up with the Scarecrow. And this one is definitely shag-worthy.

They travel together and peripherally meet a kid who later becomes the TinMan in an interesting, steampunk way. He ends up in the Kingdom of Ev with more steampunky, robotic folk. The Princess of Ev (who in the books is a niece of the king) constantly wears a mask for reasons that come out later and they are some truly beautiful pieces of costume art. 

amirite?

He also initially hangs out with a young boy...who is actually a girl but had some powerful magic put on her when she was young. She is Ozma, who is in later books. This is actually a really interesting element of the show. Ozma identifies as a boy because that is how she grew up. So, discovering that she is actually a girl when she's a teenager is a huge mind fuck for her. I'm enjoying how the show is having her deal with this incongruity. Additionally, in episode 9 of 10 we finally see who the Lion is. I had guessed who he would be and I'm not sure I like that he doesn't show up until late. An interesting element to him is why he identifies as cowardly. He is a soldier for the Wizard who has made some suspect decisions in the past, which influences how he now sees the world.

The remaining witches, Glinda and West, have some absolutely gorgeous costumes.  They are also not what you remember from the old movie. Glinda is actually a calculating, hard woman (always dressed in white, to keep the illusion of goodness).  She is in a sort of cold war with the Wizard, who banned magic from the land when he arrived. West is a drug addicted madam of a brothel (always dressed in black) who is all sorts of crazy. They talk a lot about their mother, South. She has birthed all the witches, apparently, so I keep thinking of her as the mother in Alien plopping down a ton of eggs. Dorothy is trying to get one of the young witches out of Glinda's grasp and I want a reenactment of the Aliens scene: "Get away from her, you bitch!"

L - R:  East, Glinda of the North, West

Glinda is played by Joely Richardson and she is truly lovely. She's 52 years old and I appreciate that the show is not trying to make her look super young. She's gorgeous anyway and they aren't using soft focus or any other device to mask her age. Yay them.  Vincent D'Onofrio plays the Wizard. I usually love his absolute quirkiness and he's got it in spades in this show. Instead of hiding behind a curtain, he wears a big, ugly wig and lots of facial hair. He isn't fancy because nothing is as opulent as the movie version of the Emerald City, so he wears kind of drab robes and lives in a monotone castle. He is a tyrannical leader and is constantly on the verge of a war with the witches. D'Onofrio has affected this weird, flat accent, which sort of comes and goes. I haven't figured out if he means to do that or if he's just being lazy. Either way, this isn't my favorite of his roles (really, nothing surpasses Goren from Law and Order: Criminal Intent for me).

So I liked this series, but I fell that executive producer/writer Shaun Cassidy (yes, THE Sean Cassidy of Hardy Boy fame) and team bit off more than they could chew in 10 episodes. I have only read the first Oz book so I'm certainly no expert, but they introduced characters (like Ozma) and kingdoms (like Ev) that definitely need more fleshing out for folks like me who only know the one book. The acting is generally good but nothing note-worthy. For me, it's really about the production design. It's really, really cool. I read that they opted for very little cgi in the world (saving it for the magic) so they scouted some really amazing locations all around the world, including parks in Croatia and castles in Hungary.

Finally, the politics in this show are likely equal to that of the books. The books were never just a simple fairy tale; they were suffused with political undercurrents (I don't know why I didn't know this but L. Frank Baum's mother was a suffragette). And like Wicked, this show puts the politics of the land right up front. The unfit ruler (hmmm...who does that sound like?), witches (women) being oppressed, a world on the verge of war. Art imitates life, eh?

(Because I binged a series, I think this is less about drink pairing (because I don't want you all to think I'm a complete lush) and more about binge-y food. I discovered some delicious dark chocolate coconut "bites" at my local store that paired nicely with this series. Oh, and they are complimented by a glass of red wine, if you're so inclined.)

My takeaways (only one):

#1 - When I was in China many years ago at a work event, I met a group of Australian guys that I hung out with. By the end of my trip, I realized that we were exactly the cast of The Wizard of Oz. Obviously I was Dorothy. My favorite guy, who I connected with the most, was the Scarecrow and one goofy guy who had a huge issue with shark fin soup (for good reason, but still...when in Rome.) was the Cowardly Lion. I even had a TinMan who was just a nice, reliable guy.  I even had a Wizard replacement in a lovely older gentleman who ran an animation company. I am a total dork.

xoxo...hashtagSueslife

And the award goes to...

I'm not actually a person who is an avid fan of award season. I don't watch the Grammys, Golden Globes, whatever. Which is odd, because I grew up with a brother who produced an awards show, which I attended for many years. The Bay Area Music Awards (the Bammies!) were like a family holiday.

Normally I wouldn't have written anything about the Academy Awards, which is the only one I consistently watch, because I feel that their productions are a bit redundant, but this year! Wow! And if we're honest, nothing was really different than any other year up until the end. Let's explore anyway, wanna?

Dude is kind of creepy, right?

• First things first. HUGE congratulations to Zootopia (and my friends who worked on it). It is not only beautiful animation but has a timely story. I was pretty sure Kubo was going to get the award because of how the Academy normally seem to do things, so I was extra pleased. If you haven't watched it, I highly recommend it. 
• It was really touching to see Jennifer Aniston tear up mentioning Bill Paxton at the head of the In Memoriam. It was lovely that she paid respect to his passing. This year the In Memoriam was a tough one anyway, so I get it. I even teared up. PLUS, apparently, they added someone who's alive? I'm sure that poor woman is channeling Monty Python and the Holy Grail right now. "I'm not dead yet!!"
• While I was pleasantly surprised by Jimmy Kimmel (I'm not a huge fan of his in general although I do love Mean Tweets), I thought he went too far with his Matt Damon thing. A couple times would have been plenty (playing the music over his presenting was funny). A comedian should know when to pull back on a joke, right? Or am I just being oversensitive on Matt's behalf?
• Two things I enjoy about watching the Oscars with my posse are 1) the whole Red Carpet extravaganza. Beth and I turn into brutal (but fair, I think) fashion critics. Some of the women and men on that red carpet seriously need to look in a mirror before they leave the house (I'm not naming names, Casey Affleck and Dakota Johnson).  And 2) Oscar Bingo. Beth always prints out Oscar Bingo where you have to "spy" certain things they call out like "Leonardo DeCaprio presents an award" for instance. Todd won this year, but if only ONE STINKIN' PERSON had thanked God directly (many skirted around it) and someone wore some fucking reading glasses I would have been IN! (Remind me some day to tell you all about the Paris Bingo we created when we were there. Naturally it included seeing someone walking with a baguette.)
• This year was also all about racial equality. It's nice to see the Academy recognizing and correcting their glaring oversights. Everyone can grow, right?
• So. The elephant in the room. The elephant that stampeded through the room. There we were, finally at the end of a typical award show. I thought I had actually correctly guessed another Oscar winner (Best Picture) when, lo and behold, everyone behind the La La Land producer, who was in the middle of his acceptance speech, started looking extremely uncomfortable and that one poor PA was running from person to person showing them the envelope. GAH. What a massive fuck up. The first thing I thought of was one of the Bay Area Music Awards when Faith No More were kind of being dicks, throwing things around the stage and being just generally stupid while accepting an award. My brother was pissed, but man, Faith No More has NOTHING on PriceWaterhouse. The La La Land group were gracious in the extreme and the poor Moonlight folks got absolutely robbed of their time in the spotlight. To add to the mayhem, Warren Beatty (who had kind of sold out Faye Dunaway by making her read the winner to begin with. He clearly knew something was wrong!) felt the need to redeem himself and explain. Sure, we all needed an explanation, but it felt a bit like "Not my fault! They did it!!" Without a doubt, someone is going to get fired for this. I guess Warren just wanted to make sure it wasn't him.
• **I was watching something just last night that pointed out that the above debacle is NOT unprecedented!  In 1964, Sammy Davis Jr was handed the wrong envelope for either Music Adaptation or Music Score (I'm not clear on which one). He handled it really well, actually, saying "Wait 'til the NAACP hears about this!"  Heh.

If there is any kind of silver lining on this, my thought would be that people will probably remember for a long time who won the Best Picture of 2016.

(My drink and snack pairing are as follows: a couple bottles of pink bubbly and these cookies (beware, you will eat more than just one because they are delicious but you probably shouldn't because they are rich!):  http://sallysbakingaddiction.com/2013/03/01/salted-caramel-dark-chocolate-cookies/)

My takeaways:

#1 - I can say from experience that award shows in general are much more fun if you are attending vs watching on TV.

#2 - I did like the opening of this year's Academy Awards - Justin Timberlake coming in singing. Beth and I noticed that many of the moves were steps we do in Zumba and were a bit miffed that no one called us to perform. Hmph.

#3 - Those cookies in the recipe above are even better the next day. Just sayin'.

xoxo...hashtagSueslife

Seriously. Creepy.

She really DID turn the world on with her smile

I was really hoping not to have to write any RIP blog posts this year, but I guess that's crazy talk, right? I'm "of an age" so naturally the celebrities I cherished when I was a young whippersnapper are getting to that point in their lives. But really. We didn't even have a month before we started this macabre journey again.

January:

RIP John Hurt. From Kane in Alien to the wand merchant Ollivander, he was a remarkable actor.

RIP Miguel Ferrer. Almost always the bad guy and real life cousin to George Clooney. At 61, WAY too young to die.

RIP Mary Tyler Moore.  Oh, Mare.

MTM's death hit me pretty hard. My parents loved The Dick Van Dyke Show and we all loved The Mary Tyler Moore Show. After reading so much about her these last few weeks, it got me thinking about how much that show influenced girls of my generation. So, I dusted off my Hulu and started at the beginning of the series.

The Mary Tyler Moore Show (1970 - 1977)

Mary Tyler Moore was an accidental feminist, I think. On the Dick Van Dyke Show (btw, as a play on his name they used to call him Penis Von Lesbian on set, heh) she insisted a young wife in the 60s wouldn't exclusively wear dresses, sometimes they'd throw in a pair of capri pants. So even though the network balked, Carl Reiner was like "Okay, cool. She would know what women want to wear."(clearly I'm paraphrasing) So she wore them sometimes. And it was ground breaking.

I read an article with Dick Van Dyke saying that he had an immediate and total crush on her and the biggest compliment he got about the show was that people thought they were really married. So sweet.

Her solo show started in 1970, after she had done a Dick Van Dyke special in 1969 and everyone remembered how wonderful she was. At this point she was on her second marriage - to Grant Tinker - and they started a company, MTM, to produce the show. From what I gather, the company name was less about being run by her and more like how you'd name your boat after your wife. Well. Okay.

So Mary plays a character that was single - not divorced just single. This was a specific decision because there was some worry that it would appear she was divorced from Dick Van Dyke and they wanted to make sure a) no stain on the immaculate Laura Petrie and b) the show was its own entity.

Mary does all sorts of great things on the show. She wears pants. She has a good job and fights for equal pay (there is a whole episode where she finds out her predecessor made $50/week more than her because he was a man and confronts her boss about it. She gets equal pay by the end of the episode. Not bad for a half hour work.). She has relationships with men (although by today's standards it's like she's a nun) and is on the pill. Even though she's a bit wishy washy (which is 100% part of her charm) she stands up for what she believes in. These storylines and ideas were largely due to the fact that - another first for 1970 - 1/4 of their writers were women. These writers could tap into how women were actually feeling about the current issues which made the show resonate even more soundly.

Way to go, Mary!

While I was watching, I had to keep this in the context of the year it was made, because if this was a contemporary sitcom audiences would be like, "Seriously??" I wasn't even 10 years old when this first came out, so it's almost impossible for me to know how women felt about Mary Richards. While this show was a huge leap in the right direction in 1970, we have to understand that they still wanted to get good ratings, so, in actuality, they only put a toe into the swirling pool of women's issues. And they got great ratings.

When I was young, Mary Richards absolutely influenced me. She had an exciting job, held her own with a bunch of news room guys, had an awesome and quirky best friend and an adorable apartment. Now that I'm here in 2017, I see that although some things have changed and many have the appearance of change, we aren't quite as far as we thought we might be.

For instance:

• I'm proud of Mary for fighting to get equal pay (especially in the TV news business!!) but it's disheartening to think that so many years later I still have personally dealt with this issue.
• I'm happy that Mary loves her best friend Rhoda no matter what size she is, but they do talk about her weight all the time and it's disheartening to think that half the commercials on television right now are aimed at overweight women and ways they can lose weight. And do we even want to mention that Valerie Harper, who played Rhoda, was actually thin, just wearing billowy stuff and eating in every episode? So thanks for the additional body issues, TV.
• I have a love/hate relationship with Phyllis. She is divisive and competitive with other women (sadly, this still happens all the time). She constantly lords her marital status over Mary and Rhoda. That's the hate part. But Cloris Leachman plays her with an interesting depth and she does get a comeuppance later in the series. That's the love part.

I'm going to hand it to the show, too, for the thoughtful, relatable male characters they created. They keep Mary's position as the only woman in the news room as a respected and important part of the team (even though she does seem to get people coffee an awful lot).

• Lou Grant is a curmudgeon and has no issue saying that Mary is underpaid simply because she's a woman. He grows in each episode, though, as Mary points out the error of his ways. In fact, in the first episode he tells Mary she has a "great caboose" but as we all, including Mary, are about to have a big issue about this, he starts talking about how his wife's caboose is better. All right then. Ed Asner (I gather he was very progressive in his political and ethical beliefs, which is, in fact, not that unlike Lou at heart) plays him with adorable humor and deep nuances. He's really great.
• Murray Slaughter is Mary's best friend at the news room. Played by Gavin MacLeod (Captain Stubing!), we experience an excellent example of a platonic friendship. Murray's wife has one moment of worry about his relationship with Mary, but it's resolved quickly. I love their friendship.
• Ted Baxter. The ultimate buffoon. He's hilarious and pathetic. He wears the most colorful, ridiculous ties and blazers that always look amazing on him. He's the comic relief and the straight man. His character is so well written because by rights, no one should like such a pompous, dopey guy. But Ted Knight plays his vulnerability with a deft hand and eventually you just love him.

I know I have to think about this show as baby steps. For MTM in 1970, this probably felt like they were scaling Mt Everest and now it's more like a crack in the sidewalk.

Interestingly, MTM and Grant Tinker eventually divorced and it came out that he was actually extremely controlling. Whatever he was at home, he was smart enough to have his finger on the pulse of what TV viewers wanted to see. America's sweetheart, Mary Tyler Moore. Even when she has a message, she's cute as a damn button!

(Drink pairing ideas: if you want to be like Lou Grant, you can buy Scotch and water, which creates 3 different drinks! Scotch. Water. Scotch and water. Voila! Or if you want to be like Ted Baxter you can have a Creme de Menthe Frappe. Ha!)

My takeaways:

#1 - I went down the 70s TV rabbit hole and queued up a bunch of episodes of The Bob Newhart Show. Howard Borden (played by Bill Daily) = comic genius. I'm a sucker for the television of my youth.

#2 - MTM wears the BEST outfits, particularly in season 1. Her wardrobe was all done by Evan Picone (back then, really cool. Now sold at JC Penney) that year and they are stinkin' adorable.

#3 - I didn't know this but Mary was a fierce animal rights activist. <3

xoxo...hashtagSueslife

Unpresidented

Unsurprisingly and in a show of solidarity, Autocorrect is unhappy with the title of this blog.

In an unprecedented move (to un-president the current one), I became an activist - I attended the SF Women's March. I have been so inspired reading about all my family and friends who have attended the event in DC and in their own cities around the world. I'm really glad I did this. Not only did I feel part of a very important movement but it made me think on why I was marching.

I'm not happy with the state of our government right now and I continue to get more agitated and scared as each page on the white house website gets deleted and each time we are presented with our new, bizarre-o gas-lighting reality (alternate facts, anyone?). So that's one reason I marched.

I also marched for all the wonderful women in my life. From my littlest grand-niece (and the two on the way!!) to my mother's sister, I march for and with them. I couldn't help but think about my aunt, who I have written about before. She never married; she worked in a man's world. She didn't let any bullshit stop her, even though the bullshit was strong in her time. She had great jobs, lived in Greece for many years and lived her life on her own terms. I chatted with her the Sunday after the march and, interestingly, she doesn't really see herself as any kind of pioneer. She just thinks she lived her life the way she wanted. I understand that she made her way within the confines of her era and I love her spirit; I always strive to emulate it.

So I walked. Thankfully, it was truly a peaceful demonstration. I was worried about this. Not about the marchers, mind you, but about anyone who might not agree with why we were marching. When I was in college, my dormitory got teargassed (it was a prank) and honestly, I think I have a little teargas PTSD. It was a horrible experience; one I would never want to live through again. So I thought about exit strategies and my group all kept eyes on each other the whole time. We were a good team.

Even though the bullshit continues, I was honored to march in the pouring rain with so many likeminded people. And, sure the rain was cold and uncomfortable, but being an activist shouldn't be comfortable, should it?

All the President's Men - released in 1976

This movie has been rattling around in my brain from the moment the Cheeto started braying about "fake news" and keeping certain news agencies out of press conferences, etc.

I was probably 11 or 12 years old when I read this book. I remember the Watergate scandal

occurred when I was about 9 and I was (oddly for me, honestly) fascinated by it. I probably just thought of it as a weird conspiracy, but having a president resign because he was a minute away from being impeached was a big deal even for a non-political kid. And considering it was barely a decade after Kennedy was assassinated, I can't even imagine how uneasy the political climate must have been. 

Woodward and Bernstein were like heroes to me. The movie came out when I was about 13 and that year my friend Sharon and I dressed as the reporters for Halloween (she is blonde so she got to be Woodward, I was Bernstein). We just wore jeans and maybe button down shirts and carried notepads and pencils around with us. We also made press badges out of our junior high school ID cards. I wish I had some photos of those costumes. We were clearly a little obsessed.

The film is directed by Alan J Pakula (Sophie's Choice) and the screenplay is written by the amazing William Goldman (who wrote the actual Princess Bride book!). It's SO 70s in it's style but a few things stood out to me. One of the first things we see in the film are full screen letters being typed onto a page (the date, June 1, 1972) and the sound of the typewriter is extremely loud. Definitely setting the expectation of what is important to this story. The film ends with the television showing Nixon being sworn in for his second term in office and Woodward and Bernstein in the background typing the story that will bring him down. It's beautifully filmed. 

The premise of the book and this film - that the press, at risk of their own safety, will do whatever it takes to ferret out a story like this amidst everyone from the top down trying to stop them - is as timely as it is riveting. There is an amazing line delivered by Jason Robards playing Washington Post executive editor, Ben Bradlee. The boys are just about to go to press with the nail in Halderman's coffin (which is the start of the house of cards crumbling - and yes, that will be my last metaphor for this sentence). He says, "Nothing's riding on this but the first amendment of the constitution - freedom of the press - and maybe the future of the country". No shit, Ben. No shit.

(My drink pairing for this film is a Manhattan. Big in the 70s, plus we are gonna need good stiff drinks for the next four years.)

My takeaways:

#1 - Sometimes I surprise myself with what I read as a kid.

#2 - I've been re-reading the Potter books the last few weeks and am horrified/fascinated at the similarities of the politics in the books and in our reality. I'm currently reading Order of the Phoenix and Hermione reminds Harry and Ron that Dumbledore told them "we are as strong as we are united and as weak as we are divided. Voldemort's gift for spreading discord and enmity is very great. We can fight it only by showing an equally strong bond of friendship and trust."

#3 - Maybe I'm like the Benjamin Button of reading. All the President's Men when I was 9 and the Potter series in my 40s!

Here's to you, my friends! Fight the good fight.

xoxo...hashtagSueslife

Shit I binge-watched in December

So I'm back to working for a living. Which is simultaneously great and a drag. Not surprisingly, my kitten is having some issues with this (Cosmo is used to my comings and goings but in Finn's short life he's had me around for a significant chunk). Adorable: in the middle of the night he carries his toys onto my bed so we can play. Not adorable: a couple nights ago I found a poop in the doorway to my bedroom. I think he was trying to trap me in.

My three months off were fantastic (duh). Weirdly, each month ended up having a bit of a theme. October was all about deep-dive cleaning/organizing. November was consumed by travel. December devolved into one big, long television binge-fest. Honestly I couldn't have been happier with how my December turned out. I barely saw any humans with the exception of the folks at my local grocery store (they probably know me pretty well, actually) and the woman who taught the Pilates Circuit class I attended all month. This class was interesting, actually. It's at a ridiculous time for anyone who works a normal job and it started the first week of December (oddly, I had been thinking "oh, in December I want to get back to taking Pilates" and then I got an email around Thanksgiving that this class was starting a block from my house. The gym offered a 10 class discounted pass for the holidays and I had exactly 10 classes I could take before I started work. Serendipity, baby.). For the first several classes I was literally the only person in the class - I was getting private lessons from the teacher at an insanely discounted price. She was a trooper about it (I would have been bitter) and by the end of my stay there were at least 2 or 3 students per class.

I guarded my December time jealously, knowing that in only a few short weeks I'd need to be social and "on". Here's the thing about me. I think I totally read as an extrovert because I can talk to anyone but I can go days without making actual contact with any humans and feel good about it (social media and email help, but still). I think that makes me an ambivert. Or maybe I'm an extrovert with my moon in introvert. I don't know.

So similar to my Shit I Watch on the Plane posts, here is my offering of what I binge-watched while I was home in December.

Department Q films -

The Keeper of Lost Causes - released in 2013

The Absent One - released in 2014

Conspiracy of Faith - released in 2016

This was a really random Netflix find. I love a gritty mystery movie. I don't always love subtitles (these films are Danish - they call them the Nordic noir series) but I had some time on my hands so I was willing to suffer through them. I'm really glad I did. 

Basically these films follow Detective Carl Mork who is a great cop with a bad attitude. He really is crusty as fuck. He gets shuffled into a cold case department because of said attitude, Department Q, with a Muslim partner, Assad. There is some tension around their differing religious outlooks early on, but Mork realizes that Assad is also a great cop, just with a better attitude and a prayer rug.

They solve some truly bizarre cases and always just in the nick of time. I love that kind of film. I'm not sure if there are plans in the works to make more films, but I hope so and I highly recommend these.

Thumbs up!

(I should be suggesting glögg as the drink pairing here, since I watched these in December. But it's January now, so enjoy a nice refreshing Carlsberg or Tuborg! Skål!)

Paranoid - released in 2016

This is a British/German TV series (funded by ITV and Netflix), again a crime drama (you will notice a bit of a trend here) that is touted as a conspiracy thriller. I read one article that says it's how NOT to do a conspiracy thriller, which I have to agree with. Honestly, until I looked again at this article I had kind of forgotten what happened in this series. It jogged my memory that they did such uninspired things as having anonymous notes sent to the police with messages like "Look into Angela's past". 

While I was watching it I quite enjoyed it...because of the performances, maybe? Or I was a bit bored and had all the time in the world to watch TV? It stars Indira Varma (Ellaria in GoT) who I always enjoy and the rest of the cast was good as well. But it can't be a good sign that less than a month after I watched all 8 episodes I couldn't even give you a  general synopsis without looking it up. Sigh.

Thumbs middle, leaning a bit downward.

(My drink pairing for this series is a Guinness and a slice of German Chocolate cake. Let's combine cultures and carb load.)

Travelers - released in 2016

This is a Netflix (partnered with Canadian TV) original series that is about time travel. I think you all know how much I love the time travel trope (I write about it all the time!), so this series was right up my alley. The conceit of this show is that folks from the future can inhabit bodies in the past at the moment of their deaths. This creates some interesting issues if the intel on the bodies is a bit faulty (drug addicts, mentally challenged folks, etc) so the storylines become a bit more nuanced and meaty. 

The travelers come to "now" to fix things for their future world. Eric McCormack (Will & Grace) is the main time traveler. I really want him to succeed because I feel like the last series he starred in (Perception) should have done better but didn't achieve the notoriety of W&G. Maybe he needs to play a gay guy again? 

This series KILLED me because there was a huge cliffhanger at the end of the last episode and as of now I can't find any confirmation that they may make another season. Gah.

Thumbs up!

(I'm gonna stick with beer for my drink pairing since I love a good theme. I'm giving you #3 on the Top Rated Beers in Canada list because I like the name: La Fin du Monde. A bit alarmist, perhaps, but it rolls off the tongue.)

Law & Order - 1990 - present day

Original

Criminal Intent

SVU

Between the three versions of this highly successful, long running franchise I had the option to be in the world of the NYPD pretty much all day, every day. And some days I was. I spent many, many hours with Briscoe, Green, Gorem, Eames, Benson and Stabler - not to mention the constant parade of ADAs (predominantly husky voiced women). 

It's incredible to me that I could watch these shows for hours on end and rarely see a repeat. What kind of magic IS this??

I'm pretty sure I have enough hours logged to be a full fledged detective. Now I just need to decide if I want to specialize in deep psychological stuff or special victims. It's a tough decision to be sure. I'd go for ADA but I'm pretty sure my voice is too high.

Thumbs up!

(Let's stick with the beer theme and make the drink pairing a Boilermaker. Shot of whisky in a beer. Quick and easy, just like investigating and trying a case in an hour episode.)

My takeaways:

#1 - I watched a couple of other series, but not in their entirety. I watched season 10 of Supernatural (they are now on 12, so I'm still way behind) and season 2 of iZombie. Love them both.

#2 - Upcoming series to watch: Luke Cage, OA (maybe), A Series of Unfortunate Events, The Magicians.  Any other suggestions?

#3 - I'm not really a beer fan, so I apologize in advance if my choices are shitty.

xoxo....hashtagSueslife

Good riddance, 2016.

2016 has just been a heaping pile of steaming shit.  

We lost so many amazing people this year it felt like an avalanche. And we gained...well, everyone has their own opinion on who we gained so I'll let you fill in your favorite descriptor (insert raised eyebrow here).

Last year in February I wrote a post entitled "January sucked" about the passing of Alan Rickman and David Bowie. Then so many more in the ensuing months (Gene Wilder, George Michael gah!!). It was like sand slipping through our collective fingers. There was really no way to get a handle on it. But to end the year with Carrie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds - only one day apart? What the fuck??

These two really did me in. If I was asked to do a top 10 favorite movies list, you all know that Singin' In The Rain and Star Wars would top that list. I've written around these two movies so many times in this blog (I doubt I'd ever "revue" either film because I unabashedly love them both so much.  It would be like a one word post: Love.); they both have been a part of my life for so long.

I feel terrible for the two remaining family members. I can't imagine what Carrie's daughter Billie is going through, losing her mom and grandmother within a day of each other. Carrie's brother Todd, though, seems the most tragic. I saw him interviewed and read some things he's posted. He talks about Debbie telling him she wanted to be with Carrie after Carrie died. What does that do to you, when your mother says that about your sibling?  Is he feeling like "Why am I not enough to keep you here"? He talks about their beautiful love story but does he think "Didn't you love me as much, didn't we also have a love story"? 

I have been mourning the loss of these two women and it's obviously not because I knew them but because they both represent portions of my life. Debbie = watching musicals with my mother and Carrie = my adolescence. I guess when celebrities that you feel a connection with pass away a bit of your youthful idealism goes with them.

A little over a year ago, when The Force Awakens came out, I wrote this about Carrie Fisher:

Princess Leia Organa

I really, really loved Carrie Fisher in Star Wars.  She just seemed like the most amazing woman.  I knew she was fairly young, her mother was in one of my all time favorite films (Singin' in the Rain...in the early days of Star Wars I remember that the talk shows, etc, kept talking about how Carrie's breakout role had her playing off of two men, just like Debbie's.  I felt pretty mature because I knew what they were talking about), and she was so clever and witty in interviews.  I wore gold hoop earrings for like a year because I saw Carrie Fisher wear them.

Star Wars isn't the only iconic film Carrie has been in (When Harry Met Sally..."I want you to know, I'll never want that wagon wheel coffee table."  Classic!).  She works a ton.  She's been in movies and TV shows, has done some voice work, is a great writer and created an amazing one-woman show called Wishful Drinking which I was lucky enough to see in Berkeley when it came around.  And her dog's name is Gary.  Gary Fisher.  So good.

I've always (and still do) wanted to be friends with Carrie Fisher.  When I was young I wanted to be just like her.  In retrospect, I'm sure my family is pretty glad I'm NOT just like her.  I don't think I have enough in savings to go to a really good rehab.

Because I couldn't let go quickly, I watched a couple Carrie vehicles (I just couldn't do Singin' in the Rain or Star Wars...too much sad!).

Wishful Drinking - HBO released in 2010
As I stated above, I had seen it years ago live. Watching it again, though, was almost like a balm to soothe my aching heart. She's so engaging, witty and brutally honest. We know she's a strong woman but the beautiful thing is how she also let's us see her immense vulnerability. And the flow chart of Hollywood inbreeding is nothing short of brilliant.

Postcards From The Edge - released in 1990
I saw it back in the day (I read the book when it came out as well) and I really wanted a dose of Mother and Daughter together. I know what it's like to have a mom as a best friend. It's wonderful and difficult. Having that mother be a movie star...I can't even imagine. Anyway, the film was great largely due to the terrific screenplay written by Fisher. She so accurately captures their immense love coupled with absolute exasperation. It's her truth. Meryl Streep played the Carrie Fisher character. Obviously her acting is always flawless but goddammit I'm tired of her singing (This might be the first film she actually sang in, though. Oh wait, I have the Internet to tell me if this is true. Nope, not even close. She sang in like 3 movies prior to this.). Shirley MacLaine plays the Debbie Reynolds character. I tend to forget, because one has to sift through ALL her crazy, what a fantastic actress MacLaine is. Wowee.

(My drink pairing for any of the above is a nice glass of ice tea. Carrie struggled with addiction so let's honor her hard work.)

And really, the hits didn't stop coming up until the last minute. RIP William Christopher who played Father Mulcahy on MASH. 2016, you can fuck right off.

Here's hoping 2017 treats us all much more kindly. Wishing you all health and happiness in the New Year!





xoxo...hashtagSueslife