screenland!

really, it's just too much to swallow

If I've heard it once, I've heard it a zillion times. Yeah yeah yeah, I have dreadful taste in movies. I know. My appetite for cinema is basically the video equivalent of a take out pizza with extra cheese. Serve me up a slab of some crusty, queasy, sleazy & weird deep dish motion picture magical deliciousness that is thankfully devoid of any ingredient which could possibly be mistaken as wholesome, nutritious, or mother approved. I once got kicked out of the movie theater for projectile vomiting all over Julia Roberts' face during a traumatizing trailer for Eat, Pray, Love. True story. Would that technically be categorized as a splatter flick? Whichever way the barf blows, I'm still rating it a zesty two thumbs down (the throat). Splarf!

I'm suddenly feeling thuper hungry

Well, since you're such a GD expert, what sorta sleazoid scripts should I get my eyeballs glued to, already? Jesus.

I'm glad you asked. I suggest you select something that really turns your crank! Do you like bizarro campy art charmers featuring absurd protagonists who feather their frosted manes while whispering hushed soliloquies in quizzical Eurotrash accents as they simultaneously perform slow, sensual boogies that could perhaps be succored by the assistance of unlawful contraband, à la Liquid Sky? Yeah, me neither.

Excuse me while I Liquid Sky

If that makes you feel all daggy, perhaps, like me, you prefer standard slasher gore that's a little more meat heavy and generous with the plasma side dishes, saaaayy.... Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Blood Feast, the lesser Blood Diner, or even House of a 1000 Corpses. Squishy suppertime surprises, slow movin' hillbilly pussy magnets wielding ratchets & hatchets & hammers, oh my! And, oh yes, There Will Be Power Tools. Y'know, Camp Crystal Lake does seem like a pretty chill place to relax and experiment with doobie sparkage and pre-marital pudenda-fastening 'til you inevitably bite the big one and all, but it's Mamma's guts 'n gravy sammich & soup slurpreme that keeps my clicker in perpetual rewind mode. Yes, I own a VCR. No, you can't borrow it.

I'm WAY too stoned for this!

OR... Maybe you are the rare deviant bitch of my dreams who prefers the stylishly warped Giallo gemstones violently ejected straight outta the grizzled brains of eye-talian crown prince Lucio Fulci, such as New York Ripper or Don't Torture a Duckling (don't torture a wha...?) If that's your jam, you should probably feel shamefaced about your peculiar appetite for these '80s moving picture perversions, but nevertheless, I love and accept you with each one of my four beating chambers.

What? I just stepped on a duck. Golly...

do you know what today is?

You're goddamned right.

love, adore, etc.

Holy cats y'all! After what seems like a lifetime, I'm zapping myself back in time to a youthful place I like to call Easy Street, a sentimental stretch that slithers vertically erect on the edge of planet East Coast. I'm already in mad preparation mode, concocting extravagant glamour prescriptions for my juicy July escapade. A flight to Baltimore, followed by a drive to Brooklyn, we'll hit up Coney Island and Brighton Beach, drive back to D.C., then make our way down to Virginia Beach. I'm hoping to hit up all our old haunts & pioneer some new ones, too. If only we had time to include the elegant shores of Jersey and its glistening parade of orange pecs in our voyage! Damn...

My compadre in crime & I will be livin' it up like a couple of nitwit slobby bears as we roadtrip up and down the coast, gobbling up Coney dogs, strolling the boardwalk, wandering around in the scorching July heat in search of scrumptious wads of fluffy pink candy and two minutes of resplendent GGGG-force rollercoasting. We'll splash around in the delicious briny ocean and then trash motels galore with the refuse of six-pack suppers and fistfuls of uppers. What more could a simple hooligan like myself possibly want out of a wet hot American summer?

Wellll.... since you asked... we'll pay a visit to all our old digs, like Shoney's (for their gracious tolerance of our endless rounds of dominoes and rough language, as well as their enjoyably unique slant on suspiciously murky diner grub), the 9:30 and its more exploitation-centered unruly twin, the Black Cat (for a lip-smacking souffle of live ska shows and hot buttery nipples), the Pleasure Place (to chew the fat with the old gang, maybe stick around for a sticky story or two), and peep some zany killer-amok cinema at the Sand Screen for sure.

Can't wait for the galaxy of grimy & glittering adventures to be had! Getting pixilated in weird dive bars and kibitzing with wildly-accented New Yorkers will be the smokin' hot 7-11 queso on this super Americana burrito. Bon voyage, y'all!

summertime spelunking

Having a mental drought these days. Feverishly working on my novel and I can't seem to separate my blogging silliness from the family of characters sprouting up in my brains. However, I've finally greeted the new millennium with gusto and joined the ranks of the Twitter brigade (still refuse to get caught up in the rapture of Facebook, though. Baby steps).

Big Jer took this photo of me today in between baby cuddling & burrito chomping.

literate smut: tinseltown - take 1!

And A C T I O N . . . Some people may not know this about me, but I actually possess a PhD in Celebrity Exposés. I'd like to take a moment to present a brief composite of the research I've compiled over the past several grueling years spent devoted to conditioning my psyche with single-minded scholastic scrutiny into these indispensable case studies of tinseltown ethos:

Six Degrees of Paris Hilton by Mark Ebner

The good news: If you're a true glutton for punishment, but still can't stomach the notion of reading a book about an overgrown and underfed hotel scion with plastic hair and enormous feet, you'll be happy to know this gonzo tome has practically nothing to do with Paris Hilton. The bad news: If you feel you might be uncomfortable with any aspect of the truly filthy underbelly flopping uneasily beneath the Versace belt of Hollywood's neon six-pack of depravity, you will positively squirm at the sickening sequence of events outlined in this anthology of ballsy investigative journalism penned by showbiz super-sleuth Mark Ebner. I've always been fascinated by Hollywood's wolfish appetite for psycho starlets and their inevitable extermination from pop culture, but after reading this captivating account detailing the myriad exploits of presently-incarcerated criminal mastermind Darnell Riley and his posse of crooked California comrades, I have become damn near fanatical about soaking up as much diabolical lawbreaking juice as my wet-behind-the-ears little brain can absorb.

dapqueen gives it: 4 out of 5 casting couches

The Truth About Diamonds by Nicole Richie

An actual page-turning secret pleasure by Nicole Richie that hysterically dismisses the entire Hollywood faux-fawning/dick-stroking party scene in one jewel-sparkling swish of a bony wrist. This wry and catty satire provides a meow-wow look into the life of an on the rise B-lister who harbors some steadily escalating ill will toward a certain infamous celebrity racist (see above) she's been BFF with since kittenhood, as well as the rest of the aristocratic fameball bunch she regularly humps around Hell-A with (imagine: smokin' laced cigs in drug dens with Diddy; martini-swillin' at thousand-buck-bottle V.I.P. tables that come magically equipped with mirrored tabletops, thus rendering line formation in the powder room a mere inconvenience of clichéd '80s lore; and a top secret transmission of the mysterious world of haute couture's glitziest grimesters and its carnival of neurotic survival of-the-fittest riddles reported in exhaustive detail. Again, imagine: bingin', purgin', starvin', druggin', vom-ooping. Pop a TrimSpa, baby, spew one for the team, rinse, repeat, ad nauseam. Got that? Neither do I). With fierce characterization and attention to detail, Richie illustrates the fameballs' insoluble celluloid germination and punishes them with words for their assault on the festering tabloid industry that has by now given way to a full-blown rebirth of scandal sheets and digital defamers that have encircled all of our existences for nearly a decade. The result? An overflowing squirt of many new vast and torturous celebrity empires of idiocy, such as the golden-showered skinned Kardashian clan and all the rest of those loud annoying bitches on the E! channel. Bravo, Nicole!

dapqueen sez: 5 out of 5 casting couches

Star by Pamela Anderson

It has been an utterly disheartening experience to endure the constant scoffing people project upon the high praise I award this splendid fairy tale that depicts the ultra-shiny disco dusted planet that the "fictional" Star Wood Leigh resides on. If you've read enough bleak Bastard out of Carolina-esque accounts of cheerless family laments to last you a lifetime, this breezy beachside read might be a truly welcome respite. Solid gold, Pam. I feel that heat.

dapqueen shouts it from the rooftops: 5 out of 5 makeshift casting couches/tanning beds

sTORI Telling by um, hmm... oh! by Tori Spelling

Just... no. If you've ever tried peering into the soulless, money-hungry vacuum that is Aaron Spelling's darling daughter and imagined you might feel even a microscopic frisson of stimulation, you'd be dangerously mistaken. GIRL, PLEASE! You grew up in an opulent palace, starred in the '90s teen soap du jour with Shannen Doherty at the apotheosis of her wayward infamy, lived through at least one questionably successful schnozz-job, and your mom had a frakin' present wrapping room in the Spelling manor - yet even your ghostwriter removed herself from attempting to extract one peewee scrap of luminescence from the nebulous abyss of your personality? T, I totally had your back and you totally let me down! Why you gotta do me like that, T?

Cita, you tried warning me! What can I say? When you're right, you're right!

dapqueen murmurs: 1 out of 5 breakfast nook stools (that is where she landed those roles, right?)

Well, clearly I have exquisite taste in literature. Be sure to tune in for future installments of my exploratory celebrity probings! Next time I will include a shiny new cluster of firm but fair critiques, including the scintillating works of Leguizamo, Lords, and... Superhead? Cheers!

1 year today

I knew I was feeling a sense of unease on Friday, a vague sense that regurgitation was imminent. And so it happened. I felt dazed, though unlike most times, I didn't feel any relief when it was over. It wasn't until Saturday afternoon I realized why.

When something shocking happens, we tend to force ourselves to do one of two things: Isolate ourselves from others, live like monks (without the self-discipline), fear our own shadow and voice and, depending upon how far we've descended, become sadly absorbed by our perception of how others must think of us.

Or, in contrast, we force ourselves to consciously design new coping mechanisms, reconfigure the ways in which we choose to define ourselves, become - and this is a big one - gloriously less aware of how we perceive the way we think others feel about us.

A lot has happened within this past year. Some of it is terribly shocking, and some of it is shockingly good. I've lost family members in a terribly shocking way. I've come to terms with my own feelings of self-worth in this world after becoming the victim of a shockingly violent attack. I've sought out neuro-therapy and seizure cures for the nerve and brain damage incurred during the attack. I've decided that I no longer want to identify with being a victim. I've made the decision to move back to an area of the U.S. that tends to conjure within me feelings of emotional bewilderment. However, I've also made the decision to let go of the helter skelter hare-brain who stalked my every move and gladly wielded way too much perverse power over my feelings of self-value. Although it's been a few years since I've seen his hatchet face in person, his wretched acts of destruction and psychological terrorism have long since followed me, strangling my every thought, leaving imprints on my every move. Just as he'd hoped for. I've made a solid decision to stamp him out of my life for good. If he ever does come back in any form, I can rest assured that I didn't invite him.

I used to cry a lot. Now I cry very little. I used to hide from the world, afraid to say anything, terrified to vocalize my opinions, my voyages, my successes, my failures. Now I'm tapping into my social reserves, lunging headfirst into (admittedly awkward) conversations with others, eager to learn new social cues. Whereas before, I would feel threatened by somebody who asked me to share something about myself, for the first time in years, I'm actually keen on sharing tidbits of who I am with those who ask.

When you suffer profound loss, you feel obligated to commit yourself to the darkest place you can find within yourself in an effort to somehow unearth some light. You forge an embittered path through the dark roots and thick forests of your mind and tread a delirious line between complete self-destruction and pretending you're normal out of a basic necessity for survival. You devise cockeyed methods for waking up in the morning to go to work: You will not cry at the drop of a hat, but you will shoot daggers with your eyes at anyone who dares cross you. You will not roll your eyes at your boss, but you do feel compelled to brazenly let your naked hostility shine upon anyone who has the nerve to bitch about a bad day that involves rainy weather or incompetent co-workers. You don't even realize the loss of clarity, the soul-crushing weight of negativity, the hopelessness you feel until the inevitable thunderbolt of heavy opaque darkness looms over you like a big black umbrella on a stormy morning burial. And then, little by little, some lightness appears.

Recently, I've experimented with a new kind of therapy called EFT, or Emotional Freedom Techniques. I would like to invite anyone who has ever been wracked with pain, feelings of negativity, grief, guilt, shame, sadness, or depression they believed to be incurable, to try EFT. It doesn't cost money, it doesn't cost much time, and it's honestly the best thing I could ever have done for myself. It seems kooky, but it works. Don't ask me how, I just know that it does.

Rest peacefully Grandmas, Grandpas, Aunties, Uncles, Cousins & Sharon Lee. Too much goodness went by much too fast.

slathered, smothered & catman crothered

Another hastily penned sunrise scoop inspired by my elderly snoring kitty cat whose reverberatory internal furnace sounds like the primordial hard drive of Jumpin' Jack Flash on the fritz, followed by one too many late night X-rated chatroom confabs with Whoopi Goldberg after some feverish digital demonstrations of that fine inflated cocoa cushion.

WOO girl. Some things to go sit in the corner and ponder:

A) What I wouldn't give for the above-mentioned image to delete itself from my own internal storage apparatus.

B) Why do I always feel the need to interpret the contents of tasteful period-piece morsels of cinematic dynamite like Jumpin' Jack Flash and form inappropriate connections between the spunky lead character and the enigmatic co-star? I did it now, I did it with Ghost, and I see no reason to stop when I get around to catching up with Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit. Although, if it's anything like the first Act, the movie itself will be the inappropriate connection, possessing the outrageous gumption of confusing my brains with unclear ecclesiastical messages of gyrating nuns commingling with cloak-donning capos. All the while, my own face will share the leading role with a sparkling slab of saliva as it makes its way down my chin, since I generally save that magical crown jewel of VHS antiquity for when I'm fresh out of mellow-tonin.

C) What I also wouldn't give for Pissy Galore to re-route her catnap locales to a more discreet quarter within our quantum kingdom. On second thought. . . the faint mellifluous wheezing is pretty endearing, even if I am in constant fear of mindlessly petting her angel-soft pelt only to ladle great gobs of hearty semi-digested cat stew into my paws.

Does this look like the face of a pygmy beast prepared to make accommodations?