People die violently every day. Why can’t Kathie Lee be one of them?
Posted on August 12, 2008 @ 9:00 pm
When I was working on my degree in Playwrighting, I took a class called Visceral Writing. Our Professor took us on field trips and we then needed to write a three-page play out of the experience.
I still remember the first class. He took us to Sunrise Hospital to look at the newborns and then we went to a funeral home and through one of those twists of fate that if it were written in a film or novel would be contrived, there was a baby funeral that day. The coffin was white and tiny. The Hispanic family that were following it looked like they had been put through the wringer.
I say this, because I just had an intense visceral moment that made me very happy that I am not living in America at the moment.
I need to say something first.
I really, really, really with the intensity of 1,000 suns HATE Kathy Lee Gifford. I hate her. Hate is too weak a word. I hate George Walker Bush. I hate Bob O’Reilly. I hate Ann Coulter.
Kathie Lee Gifford née Epstein is a class all to herself. She’s smug. She’s pretentious, obnoxious and every other ous. She’s the antithesis of clever. She’s a terrible singer. She spells her name with an ‘ie’. If I need proof that there isn’t a God, I point to the fact that she is still walking the planet because if there were a God she would have knocked her teeth out years ago. And I’m not even getting into the sweatshop stuff and the Christmas specials.
When Frank Gifford got caught having an affair, my first thought was I’m not surprised that he had one. I would have been surprised if he hadn’t.
I’m not a fan.
I hope that her children are happy and well because it is not their fault their mother is a cow, but I hope that they decide to live their lives in such a way that it will cause her head to explode. Like they come out as gay or decide they’re Jewish.
Is that wrong?
What brought this up?
Up until this evening, I was blissfully unaware that she was on the Today show as I have been safe over here. Then I read the New York Times. Because I like to torture myself, I watchedafewclipsof her on You Tube and I felt my blood pressure (along with a case of the giggles) rise.
I stopped.
I took note of my feelings of intense, visceral dislike and wrote this.
I feel much better now.
Vitriolic rant over.
The best part is, in my wanderings, I found this classic bit from Jon Stewart that reaffirmed my faith in humanity.
Taking the piss out of your boyfriend on National TV
Posted on February 8, 2008 @ 12:29 am
There are so many levels as to why this is fucking hysterical- but if you don’t know them. . . just hearing the simple bit of Sarah Silverman sing about how she is fucking Matt Damon will be quite enough.
Brilliance.
Ms. Silverman is one of those women I love to be friends with but she would be way too smart and would probably embarrass me.
Well not really in the strictest sense. We are all dieing. You. Reading this. (Yeah, you too.) You’re dieing. What’s the Woody Allen gag? “I know I’m going to die. I just don’t want to be there when it happens.”
Me, I’m here right now for the first sniffles and coughs for 2008. Big cheer! . . . No? Okay. . .
I knew it was coming Tuesday. It knocked at the door and said, “Hello. I’m pestilence. May I have a word?”
“And I said, “No, no thank you. We have quite enough pestilence in this house thankyouverymuch.”
And I thought it left. Well not really. I knew it was waiting to pounce like a Santa-suited Salvation Army Volunteer on hapless Christmas shoppers.
So I’m sick. I’ve been worse. I sound terrible though. Sort of like Demi Moore circa 1985 St. Elmo’s Fire when she was really coked up. I sound like that, except my husky rasp is punctuated by KkkkuUUUAAAAaaa- KkkkuUUUAAAAaaa! coughs that are loud enough to upset radio transmissions from air contact controllers to pilots.
In space.
And Stuart is in San Francisco. I have to make my own tea.
Go here for a fun little test to see if you are right or left brained. It is the silhouette of a woman. If she spins clockwise you use more of your right brain. Anti-clockwise then the left.
Some people on my team said that they were able to make her move the opposite way than what they first saw.
Me, I’m right brained all the way. I can’t get her to switch.
I forwarded the page to Al and he IM’d, “she turns right to left, but more imprtantly, (sic) I can see her nipples.”
One nice thing about a UK office is that biz speak is used usually for the sake of humour and even if it is used seriously, everyone knows it’s bullshit.
Americans often don’t get the joke. An exception is a friend at my old gig who told me he had a contest with someone else to make up biz speak words to see who could get their manager to start using them first.
Some people are more suseptable than others to the influences of biz wank vocab. My boss often, bless him will say, “I’m sorry, I don’t want to randomise you.” (Spread you too thin.)
Tim sent out an e-m today that created an inspired string. . . he included the font colour and bolding.
From: Tim
Guys,
I wanted to reach out to you, and synch regarding the SMACK PACK. We have all ramped really well despite a major challenge of losing two members – Nicole and Khaled.
I’m going to schedule a brainstorm session for us to discuss and go over our meeting with Mark and Julie… but in the interim I thought I would pencil in topics for our meeting…
—————————————–
From: Ross
Thanks for netting that out Tim. You’ll make a “seagull manager” yet.Do you have a date for the brainstorm, though, as Im a bit short of bandwidth right now.
Ross
————————————–
From: Tim
I don’t want to make this project into a black hole but lets not get Nonlinear about this.
Stuart organised a work do at Urban Golf, which is right by my old office in Soho. Urban Golf is full of media wankers drinking Stella, paying a ridiculous amount of scratch to play a golf simulator.
It is supposed to be a lot of fun. . .
Stuart texts me.
Stuart: I’m crap at golf.
Nicole: This surprises you?
Stuart: It went backwards.
I don’t think I have wished to witness something so much, ever.
-update-
He called me and suggested we get away this weekend. Then he sounded beyond depressed. “I gotta go. I’m up.”
Five minutes later he texted me:
They fucked with me. I came back from talking to you and I had to golf over hurdles. Like real Olympic style thingies.
I must remember to buy his work mates something special.
Al is in the kitchen whistling The Indiana Jones theme. Ed looks up. “Why is he whistling the Indiana Jones Theme?â€
I smirk, “What’s next Al? ET?â€
Al comes over to our desks. “So try to do Indiana Jones, Superman then Star Wars. You can’t because they are so similar.†I have a feeling Al has been waiting all his life for this moment.
Ed takes him up on it. “Da Da Daaa Dad a Dummm Dad a da! Dad a dad a da! Duma duma duma dum dumma DA DA DA DA DAAA DAAA DAAA DA DA DA DA DA-DA-DA! Uhhhh I can’t remember how Star Wars starts. “
We of course piss ourselves laughing.
“That’s it you can’t do it!â€
Ed was not to be detured. “Okay. I’ll start with Star Wars. Daa Daaa Daa daaa daa Daaa daaammmm da da da daaaa dummm dad da da daaammmm Duma duma duma dum dumma DA DA DA DA DAAA DAAA DAAA DA DA DA DA DA-DA-DA! Uhhh. I can’t remember how Indiana Jones starts.â€
We piss ourselves laughing.
What’s funny about it isn’t that he can’t remember. It’s for the ones that he knows he is committing completely to the Dad a da’s. His Superman is rather inspired.
A few minutes later I look over to Ed and he is mumbling to himself.
“You’re still trying to do it, aren’t you.â€
In Fact, Ah posted a fun little thing where you can upload a picture of yourself and the computer will play with the image and make you younger, older, a different race or as rendered by an artist.
This is me in the style of a Modigliani. . . I really wish they did cubist Picasso.
As anyone who is familiar with Plato’s Theory of Forms, the idea of something is often better than the reality. An item of deep importance to me that I have been searching for much of my life is the perfect red lipstick.
This obsession may surprise some that see me come into the office every day as my appearance (especially recently given that dawn isn’t until 7:30 at the mo) is haphazard at best. I don’t wear a lot of make-up. . . I wear it, but I try to look as natural as possible. Base, a touch of blush, neutral eye shadow, maybe some liquid eyeliner if I can be assed, maybe mascara (but usually not since my lashes are so dark). My one slightly dramatic thing is my lipstick, which usually wears away completely my 2nd cup of coffee.
I’ve had this lipstick problem for a number of years now, which has resulted in my buying many tubes that are rather similar to the other and they end up piling up in a drawer with only a few in heavy rotation. The worst is when you find one that you love and then the bastards stop making it.
Since I’ve moved here, I’ve controlled this shopping habit. I’m not sure why. I have a few old standbys that I have been leaning on so I’ve forced myself to be good.
For evening I currently like Revlon’s Classic Red, but it isn’t as blue a red as I want. I want a 1950’s stop traffic deep red. The closest I’ve gotten was made by Elizabeth Arden, the name of it I can’t recall. I managed to misplace it somehow. I’m sure one of these days I’ll open up an evening bag I haven’t used for a while and I will once again be reunited.
A red lipstick of this sort is not appropriate for the daytime however. My favourite current daytime red is from Origins and has the very sexy name, ‘Service With A Smile.’ I am nearly out, so today I decided to schlep up to the Origins store near Seven Dials to prevent this eventuality.
Horror of horrors, the UK stores are not carrying lipsticks at the moment! Oh, I’ll be fine. I’ll break out a lip brush and I will scrape the last bit of whatever lipstick is made of out of ‘Service With A Smile’. I’ll have to stock up when I go back to LA. If they still make it. . . I can’t find it on the US Web site.
Oh well. There’s lots of lipsticks in the sea. . .
Like an idiot, when I heard that Origins was sans lipstick, I chose to wander around the store and spent 60 quid anyway.
Not that I think that anyone would be silly enough to steal my ramblings, but in case you may be thinking about it. . . the very act of my writing this means that I own the copyright. Really. Look it up.
So, please don't plagiarize. It just ain't cool. And what I say just isn't that interesting. Trust me. Most of my friends don't even read this.
That being said, I do subscribe to the T.S. Eliot philosophy of "Immature poets borrow, mature poets steal." There is a difference between Stealing and stealing. . . This is not to say that I am mature. If anything. . . I'm rambling aren't I? That's what I do. I ramble. So, yeah. I'll shut up now.
