DVD: Desired Video Delinquents or This Post Really Really Stinks

We like trash. It's our tonic. Our vice. We sift through cable's most disposable offerings and slurp them up like greasy old noodles. Yum. We love being full of trash. We must be bloated with it. We are trash junkies. Two hours without it and were all like, "more trash! more trash! Get us a trash IV, stat!" We crave the trash. We worship it.

But trash is not always available. At least not the tasty trash. That's why we need our trash on dvds. We spin that shit nightly. We bathe in the stench of stinkiest special features. We pause on the most garbage-licious moments. We rot in the waste of mind-pummeling commentaries.

So we ask the mighty gods of trash -- why do you withhold some of your most delectable offerings?

For example:


Jessica is on DVD. Why aren't you Ashlee?

So trashy. So painfully slimy and sticky. So icky yicky ya ya yay.

And what about:


My Super Sweet Sixteen

Garbage. Waste. Refuse. Pig guts. Give it! Give it!

And what about Rich Girls, aka Ally Hilfiger and Jaime Gleicher?



would you watch these two stinkers on DVD?

Detritus. Rubbish. Two foul piles of it.

And don't think we lack a sense of history:


Trash of our teens.

90210: the dump's original zip code. Earnestly noisome. Odiously adorable.

And look! We already have something fresh and healthy to cleanse our palette:


At least the Puppy Bowl is on DVD

Aw! Adorable puppies. So you can't judge us, because we like puppies.

'kay?

NPAAAAAAARGH

Recently, the topic of National Public Radio has been abuzzing in these parts.

When I moved to the USA from Canada a few years ago, I looked forward to being able to listen to NPR. The rave reviews I had heard! "Car Talk"? Out of control!

Canada has a completely different public radio system-- the CBC-- that I regarded at the time with disdain. (Now, thinking back on its openness to leftist political perspectives, I really miss it). In the early days of our long-distance international courtship, when Femme Feral menaced Baltimore with her exquisite fabulousness, and I did my affluent despairing in Toronto, visits to my sweetheart were made even sweeter by the "exotic" NPR programming I could finally listen to. I really loved the Charm City public radio that I would hear in FF's tricked-out CRV.

I mean this totally sincerely... there were great public affairs shows, the awesome basso porfundo tag team of Diane Rehm and Daniel Schorr, and excellent local interest African American programs. There were also some of the best bluegrass and old-time shows I have ever heard, something for which the Baltimore/DC public radio was famous before the suits at NPR decided to axe music programming in favor of its now endless cavalcade of effete adenoidal pencilnecks. (But you can still find incredible NPR-affiliated old-time music programming online if you look hard enough, like Dick Spottswood's awesome weekly show on WAMU, free to listen to! Go to: http://www.wamu.org/programs/ds/)

Ironically, the best TV depiction of the horrorshow that NPR has become is on HBO's The Wire, set in Baltimore. Two of the African American drug dealers are riding in a van, heading out of Baltimore on an errand. Suddenly, the hip-hop radio station they are listening to starts cutting out, and the younger of the two, Bodie, starts to complain that the radio is broken. Having never left inner-city Baltimore, he is unaware that radio stations change outside the city limits. Frantic to find something to listen to, he twists the dials until he finds a clear signal... and lands on a particularly nauseating Garrison Keillor monologue from A Prairie Home Companion. The camera lingers for a moment on his face, and captures his sense of incomprehension and alientation.

I can really relate to Bodie! The world depicted by NPR is remote not just from inner-city African Americans, but to everybody who is not a white, middle-class, property-owning, two-party system loving, university-educated, Sunday Times crossword-attempting, L.L. Bean catalogue-ordering, Norah Jones-digging professional. The mainstream media tends to think that all of America either fits this demographic, or desires to, or is a mindless hillbillly who votes for Bush and goes on dates with his sister.

I cannot tell you all how much I hate this cultural construct.... what a betrayal it is of democratic, populist principles, what an odious example it is of the arrogance and hubris of middlebrow intellectuals. Public radio-- owned by the public and responsible, in theory to all Americans-- obviously should not serve only the tiny slice of citizens who work with their brains, are not subject to the arbitrary whims of management, and summer in the Hamptons. NPR would make you think, just like any small town newspaper owned and controlled by the local Chamber of Commerce, that the only local history worth knowing is that of the annual rubber-band ball rolling contest. That the proper posture towards the powerful is deference and submission. That cooptation of public space and the disappearing commons by petroleum corporations, union-busting big box megaexploiters, and the ethanol lobby is just fine so long as a few palms get greased.

Like a row of delightful fisherman figurines in a quaint New England tourist trap, NPR invites only one rational response: fuck you.

For real good online radio, Amy Goodman's Democracy Now! really rocks! (www.democracynow.org).



Amy Goodman

The Fluffy Dollars Quiz Show

Check out this slide show of celebs with their fluffs.

Who is your favorite?



honey child gets our vote. Look at that face!



And check out Chyna with her new frizz-face at the ESPY awards:



new puppy on the block

And though it isn't fluff related, we feel compelled to tell you that Xzibit was there too.
What a cutie!


will you pimp our ride? Please?


And check out our girl Tori:


Pug, Tori, and Hello Kitty at the Sanrio Benefit for Much Love Animal Rescue on June 29.

Thought I'd Share This With You...

The baby barn swallows who live on our porch are learning how to fly.


barney babies

This Book Made Me Cry

The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stepher Chbosky

Celebrutality Vol. 2: Hysterical Revisionism

Mopey Bills here! First things first, thanks to Elka, for this delightful detourning of my moniker. I will never wash my name again!

Secondly, the discussion of fake vs. real celebs has been raucous and thrilling. Giving props where props are due, I am willing to consider removing Jake Gyllenhall from my list in deference to the comments of Nick Hennies. I never saw "Donnie Darko," the cult movie, but I do very much like Rick Danko, the bass player for the Band, so I figure, drawing on undoubtedly flawless Aristotelian logic, that Jake cannot therefore be all bad. Q.E.D.


Rick Danko

Femme Feral could not be correcter than she is in her insistence on the heinous injustice of Kim Stewart and the Bam person being even vaguely famous. In my world, there is room only for one Bam guy, and that is Emeril, for whom I have sincere, if inexplicable, affection. One teaches me how to make delicious stock from shrimp tails and models proper pastry bag cannoli-filling technique; the other maybe slept in the same room as Jessica Simpson. No real contest there.

Finally, while the competition for most unfamous-but-allegedly-possibly-famous band is more crowded than a phone booth during a 1920s fraternity rush week, I nominate and second the group Good Charlotte. These guys are so not famous it is not even funny. They even have signature model guitars for sale in the Musicians Friend catalog. That honor is supposed to be reserved for poodle-haired burnouts like the guitarist from Journey, not people named "Benji."

Which brings me to my final point-- there is only room for one famous Benji, period. And that is the lovable pooch of the silver screen!

Benji

a gathering of the Dons and Deans of lowchen university

Wish Granted: More Venus and Serena

Venus and Serena have a new show Venus and Serena: For Real
on ABC Family. Premiers July 20th.

FF was unPREPared for the Yuckiness of Prep

FF, inspired by the Sad Billionaire, gets her hate on re:the self-hating book of the moment.


yuck: the disheartening and uninspired story of Lee Fiora, a midwesterner who attends a chi-chi east coast prep school on scholarship, will make you wonder what all the fuss is about.

I'm a little emotionally raw, having stayed up all night reading this let-down of a book. I know, I know. I could've just put the book down and turned off the light. I could have stared reading Rhymes With Witches or Around the Way Girls 2 (both of which I'd procured the same day I got Prep). I could have watched my Buffy or Gilmore Girls dvds. The thing is, despite inspiring all sorts of yuck feelings, I wanted to know what was gonna happen in this tedious yet oddly compelling tome. And because I'm committed to staying up to date with they way teen girls are portrayed / represented, I felt the need to familiarize myself with the emotional landscape of Sittenfeld's protagonist, Lee Fiora. Plus, Sittenfeld's book has gotten tons of media attention and, well, I was curious.

So yeah, it's a page-turner. I stuck with it even though it made me feel sad and yucky ( I admit that I probably skimmed the last 100 or so pages). I'm too tired to go into details now, but this book made me feel really bad, like my best friend was trying to manipulate me. And somehow my empathy / sympathy for Lee was roadblocked by the laborious nature of the narrative, and I also felt suspicious of its motivations. I guess I felt a little betrayed by the trite plot points and the unloving depiction of Lee. And the writing was fine, though not nearly as noteworthy as many reviewers have suggested. I'll just say that after reading all the press linked from Sittenfeld's website, I've lost all faith in book reviews from most major media outlets. I mean, did we read the same book?

Of course Sittenfeld deserves some props. She does address class, though I think her critique is reluctant -- almost polite. I didn't find any real critique of race or gender that wasn't merely a watered down version of something you might have read in any YA or teen novel from the 70s (the way this book is being treated as "literary fiction" reveals how useless and inaccurate these categories often are). Ultimately, the book suffers from the same burdens as its protagonist: overwhelmed by its atmosphere of regressive values and too mild-mannered for its own good.

yum: radical punk-rock pixie, Weetzie Bat, hates high school so much that she actually does something about it.

Celebrutality Vol. 1

The Andrews Sisters

Have any of you all noticed that as the proverbial sands of time cascade through the proverbial hourglass, the roster of individuals who are supposedly celebrities becomes more and more unrecognizable?

As a boy, my siblings and I were tormented by parents who didn't realize that celebrity is a fluctuating and fluid concept. My mother or father would make a "hilarious" reference to Jack Parr or the Andrews Sisters, and the stares of mute incomprehension on the faces of their young children would inspire a cackling riot of mock horror: "you don't know who Ernest Borgnine is? How did we raise such a bunch of drooling retards?"

Ernest Borgnine

This experience inspired in me a lifelong hatred of trivia. As an academic historian-in-training, this is a bit of a liability, since a lot of my colleagues seem to regard the goal of their education as the perfection of the ability to read the historical annals with the same confidence as a tourist traversing the Hollywood Walk of Fame. I mean, who gives a fuck? It is not like it's a virtuous act to have paid enough attention to everyday life to recall that Woody Harrelson was on "Cheers." If for some reason you forgot, then you could just look it up, right? Wouldn't we be happier just not worrying about it?

Similarly, when I went to the Universal Studios theme park as a young man, I was struck by the fact that the gift shops stocked a similar supply of old Hollywood icon souvenirs: Charlie Chaplin tumblers, Marilyn Monroe desksets, Groucho Marx umbrella stands, Laurel and Hardy lobster bibs... It was as if there really truly was a pantheon of American stardom that would never change.... as if no matter what seismic shifts altered the terrain of celebrity, these faces would remain as potent and recognizable as ever. But why no Alan Thicke corncob-holders or Randy Quaid shaving kits? I would certainly be more tempted to buy one of these souvenirs than shelling out cash for a Mae West rice-cooker.... Leading to the real question-- who did buy these knicknacks? Did they enjoy them? Are theys till cherished heirlooms?

Anyways, all of this rumination brings me to the real subject of my post today: celebrities who don't seem really to be celebrities. How did all of these people become famous all of a sudden? Can enough resistance to the postulation of their famousness on the part of the population at large remove their putative famousness? Let's try!

Jessica Alba
Jessica Biel
(are these the same people?)
Anne Hathaway
Kate Bosworth
Kate Beckinsale
(are these the same people?)
"Boston Rob"
Rob Thomas
(are these the same people?)
Omarossa,
Trista and Ryan
Jake Gyllenhall
Maggie Gyllehnall
Tobey Gyllenhall
NASCAR people....

And more to come!!!

Femme Feral Gets What She Deserves

MY sister?

Oh My! You scored as Ashlee Simpson. You are most like Ashlee Simpson (looks are not identical you just have similar features) Ashlee Simpson 63% Lindsay Lohan 56% Michael Jackson 50% Pamela Anderson 38% Paris Hilton 25% What Celebrity Could Be Your Twin!? (Awesome!!)

Whose sister are you?

jamie lynn or ashlee?


jamie lynn or ashlee?

The F Word ?

Getting My Hate On

Wonderful 4th of July at the Fluffy Dollars compound yesterday... rockslinga, in-n-outraged, and some other luminaries stopped by the mansion for foie gras and lobster puffs. As would be expected, sparkling repartee and scandalous badinage flowed like wine! After one half of a Grolsch, the Sad Billionaire began to get his hate on. Grrrr!!! For reasons not entirely clear to me, I have tried to moderate my vituperative outbursts of late. But when talk turned to that staple of cocktail party conversation, the film Sideways, I could no longer control my bile.

Now, I should mention that I have never seen the film Sideways. But just the idea of self-obsessed narcissistic boyos cruising wine-country and learning valuable lessons about life and love makes me want to suicide myself. Another one of these Nick Hornsby-esque "men-will-be-boys" movies while Vin Diesel's Michel Foucault biopic lingers in development limbo?!!!!

hammertime is over

But talk of Sideways had another unexpected and far more sinister effect.... it evoked a supressed memory, from around the time of Sideways's theatrical release, of the satanic Charles Krauthammer on Fox News wrapping up another eloquent brief on the understated beauty of Guantanamo Bay's Camp X-Ray with an uncharacteristic outburst of cinephilia: "and go see Sideways with the ravishing, magnificent, pulchritudinous and exquisitely erotic Virginia Madsen." Anybody or anything that could provoke such a display of unadulterated panting from His Dark Majesty Krauthammer must surely be fucking evil!!! Think about it, people! How utterly gross!

So, I say, in conclusion, I hate Charles Krauthammer and therefore also hate Sideways and everything for which it stands!!!

The Myth of the Mean Girls

mean girls ruled in 2004

This is something that has been on our mind for a while. There's been plenty of coverage in recent years of the so-called phenomenon of "mean girls." Lotsa books, including Queen Bees and Wannabes (the inspiration for the movie Mean Girls) and Odd Girl Out. These books seem markedly different from the mid-90s release Schoolgirls by Peggy Orenstein. Instead of focusing on the so-called "confidence gap," the more recent books tend to explore what I think of as girl "in-fighting." Quite frankly, I find this turn troubling.

spice was nice in the 90s

Let me digress for a moment by noting a trend that seems to parallel the media attention devoted to "mean girls." This would be the trend of "girls gone wild" and "hot girl on girl action." I'm not saying these are new ideas, but rather that their acceptance into mainstream culture is new, and it's a whole nasty set of contradictions that's made them "acceptable."

On the first episode of the latest season of The Real World for example, two of the female roommates make out in the hot tub as their male roommates look on with giddy disbelief. In the last season of The Gilmore Girls when Rory and Paris run into former classmates Louise and Madeline while on spring break, they learn that their old chums have taken to making out with one another as a way to gain entrance to parties, attract men, and score free booze. Paris Hilton's sidekick contained multiple pictures of her topless and kissing a female friend. Episodes of "The fifth wheel" have shown girls getting cozy in the "private booth" (the one with a camera, though they do blur out the nipples). Suddenly, in a country where the majority of people are opposed to gay marriage, there are women making out everywhere. Contradiction? Not really. The women in the above situations appear to make out not for their own pleasure, but for those (mainly men) around them. Sometimes they profit from these efforts, but only if their "performance" somehow takes place within the bounds of heterosexuality. And performance like this isn't new (especially in non-mainstream media) ; but it is new on prime time television. As long as some guy gets a boner (and in the case of Girls Gone Wild, $$$. I mean, I don't think those "wild girls" are compensated), that's okay. But I digress (more on this in a later post). My point is that this performance exists (and works) within the context of a sexist and capitalist sentiments and motivations. And of course the same outcome (or, er, "rewards"????) are not in store for most lesbian couples.

rock sistas sleater-kinney

But back to "mean girls." I worry that this recent interest in the "catty" and "aggressive" and "nasty" behavior among teen and tween girls neglects to analyze the context for this behavior. That is to say, it doesn't really ask why girls behave this way as much as it describes the things these girls do. Drawing on my own experience in middle and high school, and the social climates that I've observed among the students in these age groups with whom I've worked, its clear to me that attention from boys is one of the ways girls have access to power. It is also clear to me that girls are not mean to one another outside the context of a contest for power (raise your hand if you hate contests!). Even so-called "ana" (anorexia) clubs are basically girls competing to be thin ...probably because our culture rewards thinness. (I hate that the major contests young girls might be devoting their energy to revolve around boys and thinness. yuck.)

Anyway, women still only make .77 to every $ made by a men. And high-powered corporate positions are still dominated by men (though this is changing). And there still hasn't been a woman president. And when you watch c-span it still seems to be a whole lot of dudes. And that whole equal rights amendment thing never happened. Sooo . . . yeah, we still have a ways to go. My hunch is that young girls are sensitive to this. My hunch is that they get an idea that there isn't as much room at the top for women. So it seems quite possible that girls might turn on one another because they are cognizant of this inequality. And when you're young, the idea of challenging the status quo isn't as powerful as that whole "fitting in" one. And of course boys don't have to worry about this. There are lots of powerful men everywhere they look. I find it hard to believe that children don't register this inequality. I think "mean girls" are a symptom / result of this sensitivity.

I worry when I hear people sigh, "girls are mean." I worry that this is being treated as a "fact" rather than a condition or a symptom that can and should change. It also seems important to ask if anyone benefits from girls being mean to each other. I mean, if girls are mean to each other, they are less like to challenge the privileges their male classsmates enjoy. And if girls are mean to each other, they are less likely to disrupt the whole status quo.

And then there's this whole idea that men like mean girls. Most people agree that men like watching girls fight (and how far away is a catfight from "hot girl on girl action"?). Wasn't there that joke on Friends -- the one where Joey says guys like watching girls fight because the guys are hoping the girls might accidentally kiss? This joke works because it makes the girl fight into something men enjoy -- it turns the girl fight into something that gratifies men. And that's totally non-threatening (to men).

And what happens when girls are not mean to each other? It seems to me that the whole "sista solidarity" thing is something that clearly makes some men uncomfortable. Perhaps because female friendship and "sisterhood" is something that they can't control. And mainstream culture has yet to embrace lesbians, perhaps because the lesbian relationship renders men obsolete.

I'm just sayin'.


we love our sistas

Fluffy Cubana Pups

We are Havanese if you plea-ease.

You Tell Him Sister

Get Greens in your Summer Reading

Swenson gets green; very nutritious!

What pretty books! All hand-sized and pocket-sized and purse-sized in their printed goodness. All with pretty green letters on their shiny spines. All neat and humble in their modest stature on your shelf. All opening their delicious lanky verbiage within. In a nutshell: fetish-worthy. Yum Yum words. Cracked open tasty lexis. Tongue tempting texty treats.

Get a green summer lover. Get three. Go here. Green Integer books are da bomb bomb.

Go eat and eat and eat.

We like the way these taste:

Tender Buttons by Gertrude Stein
Noon by Cole Swenson
My Life by Lyn Hejinian
At the Damascus Gate by Elana Greenfield
Across the Darkness of the River by Hsi Muren


What are you reading this summer?

have yourself a fluffy summer; listen to Sleater-Kinney

Fluffy quote of the week

Miyazaki

Entertainment Weekly is such a peculiar publication. It's full of contradications: one week they're hyping some ridiculous trend or movie, and then three weeks later they're making fun of people for liking it. It's like EW has amnesia, or a split personality. It's 80% industry ass-kisser and 20% sorta okay -- or as the sad billionaire would say " a little bit good" -- critique and snark.

But sometimes EW will give props to those who truly deserve it. Like our friend, the much-admired Hayao Miyazaki. In the last issue, there's a little interview with the genius creator of Totoro. And he says the smartest thing we've ever seen printed in EW.

EW: Is CGI going to destroy 2-D in the end?

HM: I'm actually not all that worried. I wouldn't give up on it completely. Once in a while there are strange, rich people who like to invest in odd things. You're going to have people in corners of garages [making cartoons] to please themselves. And I'm more interested in the people who hang out in the corners of garages then I am in big business.

Word.


our favorite neighbor, Totoro