For the Love of God! Take Wall Street, but Not Fashion

So I thought I would relax this evening with a glass of wine and take a gander at new fashions for spring. Do you know what I found? Sheer terror. I have not felt this shudder of my heart about fashion since the resurrection of leggings and tunic tops two years ago.

Granted, I started at the bottom of the barrel, ala the infamous cerulean blue quote from "Devil Wears Prada"--you know the place where fashion trickles to--Forever 21.

I was met with three different lines to chose from: Festival, Rebel Cry, Picnic Perfect, Sail Away and Electric Avenue.

The apocalypse is certainly at the door when "Picnic Perfect" and "Sail Away" sound the most likely to not wind you up looking like a the victim of a makeover inspired by rocking out to Billy Idol or Rick James imagined through the misguided musings of say, Rachel Zoe. I mean, those among us who lived through the '80s might remember when Express! first came onto the scene and invaded malls with neon and safe suburban "punk." Well, if you have missed it for the last 20+ years, don't worry, it's back:



Seriously. So, I immediately ran screaming into the arms of H&M, where I was met by something even more horrifying,something which in its atrocity upon the eyes of humanity cannot even be given a name. So, I will name it in, hopefully, a way to make it less powerful: Denim That Should Only Be Seen in a Rod Stewart Video In Which the Main Character of Said Video the theme of which being, "Girl Who Just Jumped Off a Greyhound Bus From Idaho to Los Angeles Where She Hopes to Pursue Her Dreams to be a Movie Star." Sure, H&M can call this "Festival Fun," but I would prefer to refer to it as the "Fourth Horseman of the Apocalypse." Take a gander at the "cool tomboy look" and tell me that a shudder does not move from the top of your head to the bottom of your feet. It makes Electric Avenue look like Balenciaga. For this look, I full-on blame Kate Moss, Samantha Ronson and DJ from "Full House." Apparently, the future is going to be about colored denim, pegged pants and bolero jackets. I guess I've just had my head in the sand lately between work and other life things, so I've been avoiding fashion, but HELLO???? Style.com is not much better. While I'm intrigued by "Geometry Lessons," there is no way in H-E-Double Hockey Sticks that I would ever be able to pull any of it off without just looking terrible. I have one strapless "sack dress" from last summer that is balled up in the back of my closet after I realized that without wearing 64" heels I just looked like some sort of sad avant garde dancer with no dance.

I really enjoyed the brief Mod thing that went on the last year, but now, this? I thought Boho Chic died a slow death, but now it's back and called "Festival." I hope this too shall pass.

Obama!

I am still processing the Inaugural Experience 2009. I cannot believe a) we actually made it, b) Obama is President and c)that I was a mere pixel in history. But all that aside, I'm sleepy, my toes have regained a feeling of normalcy, and I'm happy to be home. Since every other image, metaphor, interesting thought about the experience has already been taken, I will give you a smattering of what I experienced.

So, after a good two weeks of shocked stares and jaw-dropping "OhMyGodICan'tBelieveYouAreGoingToTheInaugurationYou'reNuts" looks, comments and frantic phone calls and fear factoids from my mother I had nearly convinced myself that maybe I was insane. But, the urgings of a sage Brit who wisely said, "It's not like there will be the second inauguration of the first black president," and the fact that we live only two hours away made me think otherwise.

So, with maps, sixteen layers of clothing, and pockets full of trail mix, we faced our fears. And, after experiencing a full-on escape from the apocalypse crowded Metro stop, we were spat out onto the National Mall at 7:45 a.m. Here is a jumble of what you too could have experienced as part of the hoi polloi:

-Men wearing fur coats.
-A man trolling the Port-a-Potties with a bucket and a bottle of disinfectant charging $1 to clean the potty before you went in.
-A woman carrying a patio table on her head.
-The loose mic feed to the Jumbotron which allowed 2 million of us to overhear banal banter as the important people took their seats at the Capitol.
-A CNN talking head zipping past the Port-a-Potties
-A t-shirt with an image of Obama slam dunking John McCain's head
-Obama faced dish towels
-$10 Obama "change" cards. By signing the back agreeing in your commitment to "change" it becomes a historic document.
-Obama mints
-A little boy in a spiderman mask screaming Obama's name at the top of his lungs.
-The man behind me who shouted out "Richard Nixon!" when Jimmy Carter appeared on the Jumbotron.
-Jumping around like maniacs in front of the MSNBC news "house."


The worse part was the Titanic-esque swarm of people trying to leave through one station and the lack of direction as to where to go to get out of the city. I do feel that my Irish pub/bar experience prepared me for the flesh press, but it was still pretty overwhelming. Let's just say if I never, ever, ever see L'Enfant Metro Station again in my lifetime, that will be fine by me. Unfortunately, we tried to exit through the mall entrance and ended up trapped between a Dress Barn Woman store and a Radio Shack for about 45 minutes until we got the sense to get the hell out of there and try to concentrate less on getting out and more on regaining a sense of normalcy. It was like a weird '80's movie where everyone is trapped in a mall.

Overall, the whole experience restored my faith in humanity. Despite about 1 million people exiting at the same time, only a couple of people got shovey. There was an interesting calm to the day, something I've never experienced in a crowd before. People saying "Excuse me," or "I'm sorry" when they accidentally stomped on my foot. It was like everyone was on their best behavior for Obama. Or, because it was so early we were all completely exhausted, excited and frozen like popsicles. Either way, we came, we saw and wow.

My Favorite Things

Remember when "seeing the world" seemed like something you had infinity to do? I do. I remember when two years seemed like ten and now the opposite is happening all over the place. Needless to say, I need to travel. I feel like for the last few years, I've been wearing down the same trail. RIC to Detroit. RIC to NYC. Okay, so I did go to Portland for a nano-second last year, but I'm missing the real sense of "Oh wow, this is somewhere new."

This weekend was the Grand Illumination in the RIC. It is a night when they light up all of the buildings downtown so they are outlined with lights. I think "grand" might be a bit of an overstatement, but it's a big deal of sorts. And then, there was a Christmas parade to celebrate the Grand Illumination. It's times like these, as I drive pass all of the quaintly huddled residents with children, with parade illuminated faces and the father's struggling with Christmas trees to strap on to the roofs of cars that I think: "How did I get in THIS movie?" So it is kind of odd that I think of life like a movie, but after being inundated with images my whole life, I guess it's appropriate. Which brought me to the thought, well, if I was to live forever in the movies, which ones would I choose?

1. I would like to live in any of apartments/houses featured in "Hannah and Her Sisters," followed by "Vicky, Christina, Barcelona." But only if I could hang out with Michael Caine in the former and Javier Bardem in the latter. I would like to live the other half of the year in the London apartment and the epononymous home in "Howard's End."

2. I'd like to vacation on the set of "The Red Shoes," but only the happy parts in Paris and Monte Carlo.

3. I would also like to be outfitted like any of the women in a Hitchcock film and I would definitely want their luggage.

5. I could do a couple years in "The Talented Mr. Ripley," but only if the creepy and pasty Matt Damon character is never present.

6. I require the banter of Woody Allen, the zaniness of Wes Anderson and the Coen Brothers and the look of Godard. (I cannot even imagine how any of these things could co-exist).

7. I want Anne Hathaway's wardrobe in "Devil Wears Prada."

8. The party scene from "Breakfast at Tiffany's" on repeat. And, as much of "Breathless" as possible. I'll even throw "Amelie" in there for good measure.

But until then, I will continue to live in my Rom-Com which should star Sandra Bullock. Sigh.

A Very English Christmas

So, we're thinking about going to England for Christmas to spend time with DG's family. I am very excited about the prospect. One of my favorite Christmases ever occurred in jolly old England back in 1985 when my entire family went for a visit. It was that magical time in my life when I read all of Noel Streatfield's famous "shoe" books (I know, shocking, right?) and believed that all of England was forever trapped in WWII. I also secretly hoped to dance so well that I would be discovered and asked to be in the London Ballet. While none of that happened, that trip is still probably my absolute favorite memory of my mom's side of the family at their best--loud and crazy but lovable all the same, and there is no better place to be zany Americans than against the backdrop of English manor homes and fox hunts in the 1980s. Sigh. It was also the first time I got to hang out with English boys, and well, the rest is history. What's really strange is that we visited the very same area that DG is actually from. Life is weird.

Soooo, that is a very long way round to expressing my excitement at spending Christmas in the "Black Country" as the Midlands is called by the locals. And, at the Black Country Museum where people dress in period costumes (see above) and you can re-live Victorian England during the coal years, visit a coalmine, watch the chainmaker flaunt his skills and gorge yourself at the 1930s Fried Fish Shop. If that's not right up my alley, I don't know what is.

Christmas in the UK, woo-hoo! I'm trying to get select members of my family to join us, but they are dragging their feet. I just know my grandfather would love spending Christmas at The Laurels (the club that Daryl's sister manages), knocking back a few with real honest to god English. He is the consummate traveller and loves experiencing everything and anything that is unique about a culture. I guess he and my mother are the primary sources for my wanderlust.

Even better, Mr. and Mrs. W are going to be in England and France over the holidays, so we think we may be able to organize a Very Special Holiday Episode: Friends Abroad or something like that. Life seems so much more glamorous when you just talk about it and don't look at your bank statement.

Anyway, fingers crossed that the economy doesn't crash completely before the holidays. Maybe we'll just hide out over there until all of this blows over.

DFW

So, here's what I wrote last week and then forgot to post:

I feel like I throw the word "absurd" around a lot. Because that's exactly how most of life feels. Especially this past decade where so many things have happened that have no other word that fits. Or, the word that fits sometimes makes things less palatable. There are a few contemporary writers that have made this process of engaging in the absurd without feeling utterly depressed by the cynical nature of what is behind most of what makes life absurd--like, Kurt Vonnegut, or Milan Kundera, or Salman Rushdie, David Sedaris, Chuck Klosterman and right at the top of the heap was David Foster Wallace. And I found out this morning, along with the rest of the world that he is dead--an apparent suicide. It made me really, really sad. In the same way I felt when I heard about so many other people I have been fans of who just up and did themselves in. My friend Liz put it best when I talked to her today: "He just seemed like someone we could be friends with." Which is probably why it made me feel so sad. Like someone who I really enjoyed and someone who was able to put crazy and mundane things into perspective and make me laugh was gone. Granted, you can't be friends with an essay exactly, but it can make you feel a lot less alone. Though I do think that DFW would appreciate my father's bizarre comment on the subject: "Do you think it was, you know, like a weird sex thing?" Not only did I feel completely uncomfortable with my father automatically jumping to that conclusion the fact that we now live in an era of the acceptance of lewd actions as just normal. Not that there's anything normal about how my dad's brain works.

Everything You Wanted to Know About the VMA's (But You Were Too Afraid to Ask)

I don’t know if anyone else got a chance to see the VMA’s last night, but I did and have come to one of two or three conclusions:

1. I am starting to agree with Perez Hilton on far too many points when it comes to entertainment. In other words, my musical taste and criteria for how I enjoy being entertained is now verging on Las Vegas style.
2. This entire political hullabaloo (which, by the way is giving me high blood pressure) has actually affected my blood flow so that proper oxygen to my brain has been cut off to the point that I am actually impressed by something MTV has produced.
3. “The Hills” is laced with secret MTV rhetoric which has made me softened to anything it produces (see: The Manchurian Candidate)
4. The rapidly tanking economy has actually caused the music industry to amp up what they are delivering to audiences for fear we are entering into an era when people will not be able to afford the price of a concert ticket, so they may as well bring it to television.

So, this was the 25th anniversary of the VMAs. Which means I have been drinking this kool-aid since I was nine. I saw Madonna do the whole “Like a Virgin” dance that made her famous—yes, my parents were lax in their parenting. Anyway, that means I’ve watched this show for a very loooong time. It’s like people who watch “The Wizard of Oz” every year because of nostalgia. Some years have been good, some years not so much. Such as, last year. Just a quick re-cap—Britney’s performance, Kid Rock getting in a fight with Tommy Lee and Kanye West storming out because he didn’t get an award. I can’t even recall any performances. I think everyone was either drunk, or maybe didn’t make any music last year and just decided to be jackasses full-time or something.

So, I settled in this year with arched eyebrow and armed with Time magazine so that my brain did not go completely molested. The opening was funny—Jonah Hill pretending Britney Spears was stalking him or something. That was about as interesting as Britney was all night--she seems all cleaned up and back on track to being part of the real world, but does that mean she should receive 3 VMA awards? Nay.

Let's move on to the host—Russell Brand. RB is crazy and English, and nearly stole the show with his performance in “Forgetting Sarah Marshall” (it’s funny. Go see it. actually, the more I think about this, the more I realize the Judd Apatow machine was in full force as guest presenters). Anyway, RB is known for being nuts and once dating Kate Moss and being a druggie and a Don Juan and an MTV vee-jay all at once and now he does stand-up. Well, I think it’s safe to say he pretty much bit it as a presenter. It was like watching "Pulp Fiction" edited and with every f-bomb deleted. So, he was left to the “safe” topics-- jokes about he Jonas Brothers virginity* and promise rings. It was a little bit vulgar (this is MTV right??) and hearing only twitters from the crowd (except for LL Cool J who the cameraman frantically panned for every time, who seemed to be amused) I foresaw the trainwreck that lay before him so, I picked up Time and caught up on Alaskan politics**.

Poor RB. Doesn’t MTV have a culture FAQ they hand out? He did say many funny things, but it was all slightly off-key for this crowd. After reading the British tabloids, I blush. I mean it is no-holds barred talk. Like if “Deadwood” existed in tabloid form. One thing I know about the American public as a whole is that you can never be too directly mean or overtly sexual. Does he not know about the abstinence-only plans in most schools? If we can't admit openly that teenagers have sex, then there is no way we can joke about it. It's like living in an alternate universe. Sure, we like to prop up our former sweethearts, let them wear spandex and spin them out onto a stage so they perform like a drugged deer—that’s cool. But let’s not be too vulgar. Do we all need reminding of SuperBowl XXX? So, please don’t talk about wearing a promise ring as a cock ring. It makes hearts and minds explode.

In sum, RB, having lost his footing, struggled through the rest of the show with much chagrin and very snide faux happiness. He even got a ridiculously heavy-handed smack down (ala Sean Penn giving Chris Rock grief for making fun of Jude Law at the Oscars a couple years back) from Jordin Sparks who said something like “I just want to say about promise rings that not all of us, guys or girls, want to be sluts.” Huh? I managed to not wear a promise ring and made it through life without being a slut, but perhaps the rules have changed? The best part of her high-falutin’ speech came immediately after, when they cut to a T.I. performance involving a girl wearing a dress/slip so short one accidental bend too many and all would be on display. Awesome.

But enough about that. So, the whole show was at the Paramount lot. Which means they had access to a million stage sets, so the whole show came off like a very schizophrenic Christmas Special. The first performance was Rihanna who was wheeled in on top of some sort of goth-looking Aztec temple surrounded by zombie dancers. Awesome. Seriously, she is great. Like, Michael Jackson 1985 great. You could play “Umbrella” six thousand times and I would not be sick of it. Perhaps that is just my illness. As far as I’m concerned, she has thrown down the gauntlet for pop music. Which is awesome, because if you have someone who rolls on a Sunday night with their own personal Aztec temple stage and choreographed zombie dancers, then you know the fall-out has to be good. She can dance, she can sing, she wears insane clothes and does not look like a fool. Those are my only criteria for pop singers. Just please, please, don’t look like a fool (see: Christina Aguilera dipped in pancake batter in 2002).

Not sure what happened after that—I think it may have been Jonas Brothers on the back lot in which they pretended to be just three guys sitting on a NYC stoop ala Janet Jackson’s “Alright” video. Except this did not feature Cab Calloway-instead the entire brownstone split open to reveal a stage and a chaotic street scene where hundreds of Jonas Brothers fans swarmed like maniacs to groove to their virginal sounds.

Okay, so now I’m just going to cut to my favorite things:

1. I didn’t realize that Li’l Wayne was actually, well, li’l. And muscular, and just as crazy performing as his stream-of-thought-consciousness songs would make you think. I have become a big fan—some of his stuff is like when funk met techno.

2. Christina Aguilera —decidedly not dipped in pancake batter and not doing the 1940s thing anymore. Instead, she appears to be doing Rihanna meets Madonna and wears a wig by Donatella Versace. However, her performance of a re-mixed and nearly unrecognizable “Genie in a Bottle” and the fantastic Janet Jackson-esque (yep, that’s twice in one entry) style choreography in “Keeps Getting Better” was tight. That's right, I said tight. Somehow, that word fit, so I'm just going to go with it.

3. LL Cool J has his own fashion line at Sears. For kids. Let that sink in.

4. McLovin from SuperBad on the stage with Slip Knot. Anything that makes those weirdos funny is a good thing.

5. Tokio Hotel. Have you seen these kids? They are German and dress like some crazy Japanimation characters. It was like an SNL skit. But maybe I just find the German accent particularly hilarious on man-boys who wear lots of make—up. I am hoping the rise of Tokio Hotel means the fall of Fall Out Boy (no pun intended). Pete Wentz just seems like the biggest pansy to me. Almost as annoying as the reality that there is not just a Joel Madden, but a Benji too. Ugh. We can only have so many eye-linered boyes running around. This, despite what other ominous signs have pointed to do, is not the ‘80s people.

6. Kanye West’s show closing performance of “Love Lockdown.” It was like old Motown crossed with the most stripped down drumming. Very loud-quiet. Seriously, moving and really surprising (but in a good way. Like when U2 put out “Achtung Baby”). I could have done without the E.T. heart light that he wore on his lapel. However, the song itself was powerful—lyrics and music—not many people accurately describe the stakes of love, they either want to sing about getting it, wanting it, or getting over it. This was like all three. It was a very mournful song which is odd for the VMAs. I didn’t think they did mournful. I also didn’t think Kanye West did mournful, but wow. I even watched it twice.

So I made DG watch some of this with me, and, I admitted that I was really into nearly all of the music. Thinking I was on to something I said, “It just feels like I’ve gone full circle in my musical tastes. I started out loving R & B and hip-hop and pop and now all those things have come together.”

DG’s response was sobering: “Well, it just means you’re getting older. You’ve witnessed one whole cycle now. Everything is coming back in.”

I would like to believe it’s because I’m so cutting edge—but who are we kidding? I have to be honest with myself and admit that it’s okay to like pop. That’s why it’s called pop.

*Since when do popstars have to declare their virginitude? I think it’s an uneccesary trend and weirdly ancient-feeling, as in medieval.

**Perhaps I am most angry about the fact that now I need to educate myself on frickin’ ALASKAN politics. I mean COME ON. This whole thing is like “Wag the Dog,” but not funny and very, very real. I already know all about hockey moms, thank god.

Doggie Poppins?

So, we survived the little bit of hurricane Hanna that we got in the form of downpours yesterday. I was watching my friend's dog--the sweetest English Labrador in the world--and he had an appointment at the doggie salon. All well and good, except that the downpour turned the poor guy into a washcloth before we even arrived. And let me tell you, those doggie salon people do not f-around. There was a woman in front of us with two fluffy kind of bichon frisse looking dogs, but curlier, and an argument ensued between BF owner and doggie groomer as to whether or not the dog had matted hair on his belly.

Salon owner: You said on the phone he was in good shape. But this isn't good shape (she says as she rolls over Dog #1 and starts picking through his fur) See? Right here, he's got mattes all over his belly. I would have to use conditioner on them and the time it would take to do that--it would be too expensive.

BF owner: Well, I'm not feeling the same thing your feeling. Can you just shave them?

Salon owner: I can't even comb through them. We don't like to do that because it's painful for the dogs.

BF: Oh.

Meanwhile, a line of various miniatures and owners is developing behind us and of course, they are all terrified of my borrowed dog because he is big and black (stereotypes exist in the dog world as well), despite the fact that his demeanor is about as fiery as Clifford. So, we get up there and the owner seems relieved.

Salon Owner: So, we also brush teeth for $3 and drain glands for $5. Are you intersted.

Me: (note: I never want to sign anyone up for gland drain) Um. I can't say, I know he's scheduled for a shampoo. I'm not the owner.

Salon Owner: (Nodding) I understand. (smiling) Are you the nanny?

Me: (WTF? People have DOG NANNIES?? Do I look like a dog nanny?) Nope. We're just friends.

How are you supposed to answer that? I didn't want to offend any other "dog nannies" in the line behind me but, come on, world. People are losing their jobs, being bankrupted by healthcare bills and now is the time to enlist the help of a DOG NANNY? Ugh.