Monthly Archives: May 2009

What I’m reading.

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So many obscene comments, so little time

There’s a new Bachelorette in town, and she means business. Please read my recap of Jillian’s adventures with her harem. I really do enjoy being able to snark on the show, but I want to get serious for a moment. It is hard for me to recap this stuff, especially on a day like today when the California Supreme Court California citizens and the support of the Supreme Court decided that same-sex couples are also second-class citizens. Whereas a show like The Bachelorette can carelessly use marriage as a ploy for a reality show. Where Jillian can decide on who she will marry based on trivial matters like what a guy puts on their hot dog and who can win a silly car chase set up by producers. Whereas many of my loved ones cannot marry the person they have chosen to devote their lives to for decades because of hate, ignorance and privilege. Thanks, reality television, for the slap in the face.

In other news, here are some other books I’ve read lately.


I love office culture, have been a longtime fan of the cartoon Dilbert, and would love a certain sitcom if it weren’t for an irritating Steve Carrell. Then We Came to the End book mesmerized me and made me feel part of the office culture described. The interesting part about Then We Came to the End is that it is written in first person collective narrative, which at first is challenging to get used to. Eventually I did get used to it, but I felt like at times it actually distanced me from the characters because no one truly had their own perspective. Highly recommended nonetheless.

Daniel Clowes is a graphic novel god. He continually amazes to wow me. This collection of his Eightball short works series  includes the genius Art School Confidential, which was later a mediocre movie. I recently went to a film screening where he appeared, and he shared that most of his earlier work is based on characters in Berkeley and he did most of his writing at Cafe Roma on College Ave in Berkeley, for you East Bay dwellers, which excited me. I wrote much of the early entries of this blog at that cafe. If you haven’t read Ghost World, it’s particularly awesome. And the movie adaptation is fucking incredible. Enid is my personal hero. Often I will ask people if they’ve seen the movie and squirm until they say, “you remind me of Enid” and I say “I WAS HOPING YOU’D SAY THAT!”

I couldn’t really call myself a horror/sci-fi fan until I read Richard Matheson’s I Am Legend. I haven’t seen the most recent Will Smith movie adaptation and I don’t plan to. I Am Legend is short but totally captures the point and is so well read. And legitimately scary- usually I am not scared by books. Well, I take that back- clearly Christopher Pike books used to freak me out.

I’m weird and read about a gazillion books at one time, so the other ones I am working on are American Wife, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, World War Z, and Scar Tissue.

mustard sandwich and brown lipstick

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I find it amusing that there are small details about books that stick with me. Especially with this one. I hadn’t thought about this book in a while but as soon as I started reading it all started coming back to me.

This book bothered me when I read it back in the day, but I really had no idea why. It has the requisite amount of boys and kissing, but it never left me feeling right. Rereading it, I can figure out why: Laurie, the main character, is really troubled. And it’s subtle. She has no identity of her own, and always acts just like other people want her to. And I don’t think she even did is consciously. It’s the influence of her best friend Soap, who has problems of her own.

Soap constantly gets in trouble at school, and does it to get attention from her parents, which is my Freaudian interpretation. Also, she feels like an outcast, she kind of outcasts herself. laurie, her friend since childhood always goes along with it. Laurie has no other friends than Soap, because Soap tends to isolate the two of them from everyone else. Finally, Soap gets expelled and has to enroll in Miss Pringle’s school for girls, and convinces Laurie to convince her parents to enroll her there too, which she DOES! Talk about a pushover.

Laurie meets Hilary, who is super rich and sophisticated, and takes an interest in Laurie although Laurie is not so sure she likes Hilary, but is desperate to have friends other than sope. MEMORIABLE TIDBIT #1: She is at a sleepover at Hilary’s, and Hilary thinks her pajamas are babyish, so she makes her wear one of her sexy nightgowns. The fuck? Also, she suggests she let Laurie cut her hair, which Laurie of course goes along with.

Laurie hangs out with Hilary, her boyfriend Boots, and his various douchey friends. Hilary has a makeup party at her house. MEMORABLE TIDBIT #2: She puts makeup on Laurie, which includes borwn lipstick. Laurie also puts some on her cheeks (?) borrows one of Hilary’s bras and stuffs it with tissues. When some guy sticks his tongue down her throat, she goes upstairs to the bathroom and vomits. Which is, sadly, my reaction to courtship rituals.

MEMORABLE TIDBIT #3: Laurie goes on a double date to the movies with Hilary and the douchebags, and the guy stick his tongue in Laurie’s ear. That totally freaked me out when I first read this.

Meanwhile, Soap’s father is having an affair with one of their teachers, and they cut school to spy on them. They spy on them in the park. MEMORABLE TIDBIT #4: Soap’s father brings his mistress lunch, but it’s a mustard sandwich because he didn’t have anything else to bring.

Meanwhile Laurie’s new friends are mad that she is hanging out with Soap, but Laurie ends up choosing to hang out with Soap in the end, realizing Soap is her only true friend. Is that really a happy ending? Soap still has her troubles and once again she and Laurie are social outcasts. However, Soap does recognize that her parents’ marriage trouble was affecting her, and laurie does realize that Hilary wasn’t as good a friend as she thought she was. I don’t even think Laurie has grown much. Just go with me on this, but it reminds me of  Superbad, where the impressionable Evan is codependent on Seth and feels like he missed out on other friendships because of Seth. Yes, I do believe that Superbad was, in parts, actually endearing. And pretty fucking funny.

I wish there was some sort of sequel, so I could know if Laurie was able to grow some ovaries.

Claudia Kishi, fashion icon

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Lady Gaga is the shit. Does no one remember that she made an appearance on The Hills? Where Lauren fixed her zipper? Anyway, her crazy outfits seem to be inspired by our favorite junk food hoarder, Claudia Kishi.

Variation on the Flinstones outfit/bone in her hair:

This looks like some crap Claudia would make in art class and wear around town thinking she’s totally artsy and individual.

I’m sure at some point Claudia went pantsless. “She was wearing a t shirt and tights, and anyone else would be arrested for indecency but on Claudia it looked cool.”

Regina’s Legacy

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Liz: Broad-shouldered and...constipated?

I was going to try to make this one into a one act play or some other format, but it is so goddamn horrible I have to spell it out for you. I couldn’t have made this worse if I tried.

Elizabeth is the center of everyone’s world. The Morrows are going through dead Regina’s stuff, trying to decide what to do with it. Her most prized possession is her camera, so instead of giving it to Nicholas, or, say, the doctor that cured her deafness, they give it to Liz because Regina liked her so much. Of course.

Sweet Valley High is the most unrealistic school in the world. Some guy Jim (who?) starts a photography club and it’s all the rage. BAM! Suddenly SVH has a state of the art darkroom. Wow, Liz, how convenient that you were just given a camera! The club decides to work on a project together. They could do anything in the world, like to a photo essay about the elderly, endangered species, still-lifes…Of course, what do they do? “I could be about life at Sweet Valley High”, Elizabeth suggested. “It could be aphoto essay. Barf! Vom! More navel gazing. And apparently the whole school is supposed to care about the activities of these kids. It’s almost like in High School Musical 3 when their school musical is based on the lives of the main characters, as if the whole school gives a crap. Or, even better, remember in their senior year, the kids of Beverly Hills 90210, had a senior breakfast, and they highlighted the activities of only Brenda and Brandon and their friends? As if West Beverly High cared about their camping trip? I digress.

The kids get entangled in a crime and seek no help from the authorities or their parents. Liz is out taking pics at the beach, and photographs some shady looking guys. They try to attack her to get the camera, and she doesn’t tell any adult. She decides to enlist Todd in investigating the crime, and Todd is happy to go along because it means no fighting and Liz gets all worked up about fighting crime he probably saw a chance to grab some boob. It’s like when Tobias and Lindsay rekindled their passion while spying on Michael’s blind girlfriend.

Jessica is a total idiot and will do anything for the attention from a guy. The creepy criminal who chased Liz sees Jess in her car, pulls her over, and asks about the photograph. Jessica pretends to be Liz because she thinks this creepy thirty-something guy, Chad, is in to her. They go out and Chad demands the picture, so she tells him its in the SVH darkroom. The darkroom gets trashed, and JESSICA TAKES NO RESPONSIBILITY.

Sweet Valley is in an alternate universe. The bad guys…get this… are into DRUGS! ZOMG! How can anyone be that horrible awful? Liz and Todd trail Chad as he tries to take Jessica captive, they get stopped by a cop for speeding, and…

“She’s in terrible trouble,” Elizabeth continued. “The man she is involved in may be involved with drugs!” Elizabeth had never been so serious in her life. The police officer must have sensed this.

After the bad guys are caught, their trial makes national news. Because selling drugs is so horrific! It almost never happens…IN THE FUCKING WORLD! I think the ghostwriters are raised in caves in isolation and have to write in order to be fed. That can be the only explanation for the fucked up, out of left field ways they view teenagers and the world.

Once again, the twins are the center of the universe. The photo club has been keeping their secret photo essay project a secret from anyone, all to the extent that their friends get mad and Jim’s girlfriend breaks up with him. All over this fucking stupid photo essay. Also, the Morrows decide to donate money to rebuild the darkroom so the twins and their friends can continue to have a photography club, and it’s something Regina would have enjoyed.

And here’s and ending that will bring tears to your eyes and chunks to your throat:

“Todd, do you think it might have been partly due to my memory of Regina, and the fact that I was using her camera, that I felt so driven to discover the connection between the photo and the three men on the beach and the news story about the drug ring?”

“You mean because drugs caused Regina’s death?

Elizabeth nodded. “It’s almost as if, in a weird sort of way, some justice has been done. With the help of Regina’s camera, a major drug ring was exposed! Who knows how many lives have been saved?”

The finals

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We are down to Dear Sister and The Evil Twin. Funny how they are on the extreme ends of the series.

Now that we are down to the finals, I am going to announce my endorsement of Dear Sister, which is a faaaaar better book. There’s multiple personalities! Jessica gets a taste of her own medicine! Bruce Patman! Touching boobies! Todd gets emasculated! It’s got an actual story arc! There’s a pool party involved! Nalice is totally clueless about cyber-sexual Liz! Bad parenting!

Yes, this all does seem over the top, but if this is over the top, The Evil Twin is so over the top it comes from underneath. Ok, so a motorcycle accident is one thing, but a psycho who looks like the twins? Come on. That’s like when Melrose Place turned into a simple show about 20 somethings living in LA to Marcia Cross taking off her wig to reveal she had a lobotomy to make her crazy.

So, when you vote, make the RIGHT CHOICE. Vote for the BEST CHOICE. Vote DEAR SISTER.

I just….no.

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Seriously, I don’t even want to give this garbage the dignity of a full post. Janet Quin-Harkin, shame on you. Are you even a real person? Ugh. Okay. A boy-crazy personality-less girl makes a bet with her best friend that they have to date at least ten boys during the summer. Then they get into a fight about something I don’t care to remember. The main character continues on her dating spree but finds love with some guy that stalks her, and of course he’s a model. Friend gets madder that she didn’t complete the bet. Friends make up. Oh, and there’s a series of wacky scenes where spoiled, boring main chracter tries to find a summer job but messes them up and gets fired. Finally, hundreds of MFA grads slit their wrists because this crap gets published and their stuff did’t.

The competition is sizzling!

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First off, read my recap of The Hills. It’s my last one for the season because I am running out of ways to say that I fucking hates these people.

Secondly, anyone going to Word Camp? I’m going, if anything, to declare my love to Matt Mullenweg, one of the WordPress founders.

Ok, whatevs. Like you care. Here’s the real business: the competition is heating up.  Unforch, Alone In the Crowd is Out! Vote vote vote!

Sweet Caroline…stfu.

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The wrath of the color-coordinated barettes

Caroline is a sad sack of shit. And by that I mean she’s a perfectly normal teenager except that she’s not in the super special Wakefield inner circle. She also is a gossip and that makes people hate her. You’d think she’d learn. Or….they would make her write the Eyes & Ears column. That would make sense, right? Anyhoo at some point, probably in the leadup to this book, she’s made up an imaginary boyfriend, Adam, and that makes people interested in her, mostly because they can’t believe a TOOL like Caroline could have a boyfriend. Adam lives far away and only can write her letters. Caroline uses Robert Browning’s poems in her letters, pretending Adam writes her love poems. Say it with me: GHEY.

Well, what a coinky-dink! There’s a play writing competition and guess which teacher’s pet aspiring writer is entering? AND GUESS WHO IS BASING HER PLAY ON ELZABETH AND ROBERT BROWING! Ruh roh! This can’t end well. Actually, Liz is annoyed by Caroline, suddenly when the person that needs help is not so subservient and pretty, she doesn’t want to help. Despite her constipated/interested look on the cover.

Carline wants nothing more than to hang out the with Jessica/Lila mean girl crowd. She’s kind of pathetic, even more so than Abbie Richards. She hears them mention the beach, so she gets all excited like she’s invited, and when she gets there, Jessica makes fun of her because she is wearing a ONE PIECE BATHING SUIT!

Carline’s sister Anita also suddenly respects her more that she has a boyfriend. They go to the mall for makeover madness. Lila calls bullshit on Caroline and decides to throw a party so Carline can bring Adam. You know, because Lila throwing a party is nothing, but let’s take a moment and feel bad for Lila’s maid who has to work an evening, taking people’s coats and making 400 cucumber finger sandwiches.

Exhibit A. Also, I hate Debra Messing.

Carline is torn, she should tell the truth but she’ll look like an idiot! Jessica ends up reading Elizabeth’s play (which wins the competition of course GAG) and makes the connection that Caroline plagiarized the poems from Robert Browning and was writing the letters to herself. Suddenly Liz sees a chance to parade her perfect (um?) relationship with Todd in front of Caroline and suddenly feels bad for her. so she talks her into telling the truth at the party. Only, Todd arranges for his friend Jerry to come and pose as Adam. Caroline however still comes clean, because that’s what typical teenagers would do! They would rather have integrity and honesty and give up their popularity. Actually, Jerry and Caroline get along well and he likes her because big sis Anita bro9ught her to the mall and bought her hairclips. So Carline gets a boyfriend after all! All is well! Except that it’s not, because Caroline is still a gossip in all the rest of the books.

Exhibit B "She was preapred for anything untill love stormed in." Apparently not prepared enought to wear pants.

And thus, several rom-com plots were born. (See Exhibits A and B). The neurotic unlucky-in-love female protagonist invents a fake boyfriend to prove something to someone, and then to no one’s surprise, falls in love with the fake boyfriend.

Nob Hill” An especially crime-ridden area of San Francisco

In the irritating subplot, Alice gets a job offer from a firm in San Francisco. It’s an amazing opportunity for her, but the twins never think that, ebcause they are too busy whining about how it will affect them. And they can’t believe that anyone would want to live anywhere other than Sweet Valley! So they embark on a campaign to convince their parents to stay, by bombarding them with borchures about Sweet Valley and always talking about how awesome everything is in Sweet Valley. In other words, once again bombarding the reader with how awesome Sweet Valley is and how everyone who doesn’t live there should feel like shit. They talk about how awful it is to live in San Francisco (yea, it’s AWFUL) and how lately there’s been a lot of crime. Actually, I think Liz would love it. She could “save” all the gay people.[At left: Nob Hill, a crime-ridden eye sore in San Francisco.]

Speaking of this whole obsession with always saying Sweet Valley is the best place to live- I am imagining that whenever Francine would get upset, she’d curl up in the fetal position and in her mind go to Sweet Valley- it’s her happy place. Shit could be going on in her real life, but in her mind, she’s just shopping at Lisette’s or binge eating at Casey’s.