Ytossie Fandango

I'm Concerned

2008-02-11T14:18:00.001-08:00

I'm concerned. Dolly went too far. What happened to the rustic American values my "Coat of Many Colors" girl possessed? She started her career with "Dumb Blonde" and now she's released an album called"Backwoods Barbie?" I'm worried, people. A world where Dolly Parton looks like a melted Loni Anderson is no world for this country girl!

One of Them is Sweet

2008-01-28T10:02:00.000-08:00

Rudy looks like someone... wait, wait.... I know who it is .....

Return of the Rat

2008-01-26T11:59:00.000-08:00

I am back! I had to abandon my blog for a couple of years, because I was working at a celebrity PR firm. I didn't feel I could comment in an uncensored way on pop culture while I was there, because of the reach of my firm's clients and their extended relationships. For example, in Country Music Video Roundup #1 With Tris and Charles, we made fun of Bon Jovi and Richie Sambora and their chicklet-like teeth- little did we know that just a few months later I would be working at the firm which represented them! Anyway I have left all that glamour behind now and returned to boho-land so I can freely note and mock what I want. It's funny, though, how being forced to read People, Us, In Touch, Star, OK!, Perez Hilton and the like every day destroyed my interest in doing so. It's kinda like how working at a punk label turned me into a Robbie WIlliams / Oasis superfan... Anyway, this post is just to say HI, and I'M BACK, BITCHES. In the words of Portland's greatest band, The Wipers, it's the RETURN OF THE RAT!

Vote for Frank

2006-09-11T12:57:00.000-07:00

My friend Frank's book, King Dork, has been nominated for a Quill Award. There's online voting, so please vote for it now. It's in the Teen/Young Adult section, and you can also vote it Book of the Year. While you're at it, please vote for my client and friend Lane Smith, who you may know from his classic, "The Stinky Cheese Man." His book, "John, Paul, George & Ben" is nominated for Best Illustrated Children's Book.

Better Than JonBenet, Yes, That Good

2006-08-23T14:10:00.000-07:00

1996 was a bad year for me. You know how you look back on the last year of a long, failed relationship, and, in hindsight, the entire year just should've been lopped off like a gangrenous toe? Well, that's what 1996 was for me. It was the skid marks *after* the lumberjack disrobes. I mean, how much could one woman take? But on December 26, 1996, a date that shall live in infamy, my attention was momentarily diverted from the domestic nightmare which had entombed me. Little JonBenet. Her death was tragic, but seeing as how I am an American and all, I used it as a delectable opiate to avoid my life for hours on end. Who did it? Was it Mom, Dad, or Burke? Did the pageants point to a darker inner life, and if so, were all baby-pageant people pervy? Why was the note written from a pad in the home? Why was the glass inconsistent with a break-in? And what about the magic number, $118,000? I have gone back to suckle on this scandalous milkshake at every opportunity, reading the books, watching the specials, engaging in long, drunken discussions with my friend Erika. If my enthusiastic spectatorship was tasteless and ultimately disrespectful, I apologize. To...whomever. I needed it at the time. But now that it's 10 years later, and we have this Ed Grimley nutjob emerging from his $170.00/month Thai sex hotel to tell every camera in sight that he did it, that he loved her, and that he had sex with her, I can't really stomach it. I hope that I am a better person, but maybe it's just that my own bummer avoidance abilities are diminshed. It's called "growing up" and "needing anti-depressants" and "experiencing life as though you were a lobster headed towards that final swim on the stove." And as a direct result, I don't get as much satisfaction from the garish parade on TV. Don't get me wrong, I am still in the Lower Ninth Ward - there is no higher ground in this scenario. When I read Andrea Peyser's unbelievably caustic column in the New York Post, "Doomed By Ma and Pa's Sick Ambition," I knew I didn't have the heart to follow the story anymore. And fortunately, I don't have to. There is a way, way, way better story beginning to surface, one that we can all agree preys neither upon 6-year-old girls, nor upon Jews via a post-Moonshadows muttering Mad Max. We have THE HYBRID MUTANT. The Hybrid Mutant is a win-win. It's a real life monster. Plus, he's already dead, so you aren't gonna hurt his feelings. The next time your life is making you think seriously about sprinting toward that rainbow bridge in the sky, just give the Hybrid Mutant a try. He has blue lips. Nobody knows what he is. And he is REAL!!!

Wines

2006-08-03T11:47:00.000-07:00

We all love our wines. But sometimes too much wines can take a handsome man from baby-faced hunkitude to wizened Jew-hating Unabomber. If you think you can handle the truth, pop a Vicodin and click on "play".

It's Time To Talk About Katie Holmes

2006-04-15T20:51:00.000-07:00

I am a very lucky woman. I have a great, devoted, funny, handsome husband. I have a nice apartment in Brooklyn. I have been blessed with relatively good eyebrows and non-offensive ankle and foot shapes. Now, my luck has increased about a millionfold. I have a new job that involves reading tabloids for about the first hour of my job. It's like I've been praying, and God has been listening.

So, you see, girlfriend, I was busily "working" this Friday, and reading the April 24 issue of US. You know, the one with Lohan and Simpson on the cover with the word "FIGHT" in 78 point. In any case, there was a photo in there which awoke the sleeping giant within me. It was a psychotic, repellent, unbelievable photo of Katie Holmes, in what is estimated to be the 11th month of her "pregnancy" with Tom Cruise's bebe. Just take a look.

Think about it, people. Back in October, 2005, she suddenly appeared to be 5 months pregnant, outta nowhere. With her bellybutton popped out and everything. Here's a photo from October 8, 2005, the first time she was visibly pregnant. Doctors estimated her then at 5 months. That would put her at 11 months now. Jigga?

Let me just say this: I don't think little girl lost is preggers at all. I think that the allegedly sterile Cruise found someone so similar to him in bone structure and coloring (dark brown hair, hazel/greenish eyes, olive/gold skin, dimples, etc etc etc) that if it looks like EITHER of them, it will look like both of them. And must I mention the ever-so-suspect HOME SONOGRAM MACHINE? What can the purpose of this possibly be? Except to explain the ABSENCE OF DOCTOR/HOSPITAL VISITS????

I'm telling you: there is a white woman somewhere carrying some baby - either theirs, his, hers, or just a look alike. Something is rotten in nuttervillle. One woman's opinion.

The Blair Underwood Project

2006-03-22T13:24:00.000-08:00

There are so many things I love about Blair Underwood. I love his name. I love his hair. Need I mention the "Sister, I'm Sorry project"? I love the fact that he rode into his own wedding amount a trusty steed. I love my memories of the 80s and watching LA Law. And now, psychic Sylvia Browne, in her weekly Wednesday appearance on Montel Williams, has given me a whole new reason to love Blair Underwood. He wrote a book, the subject of high, high praise from psychic Sylvia Browne. Blair's book is called "Before I Got Here," and it chronicles the pre-birth memories of numerous children, including his own son, Paris, who was born with knowledge of The Rapture. Blair's book really blows the lid off those tired old Christian theories about, you know, souls and God and stuff.

You Can't Spell Squidbillies Without An I

2006-03-04T14:41:00.000-08:00

Have you ever drifted so deep into the crevasse of solipsism that you began to feel that all things are about you? Even things like the flailing, deadening winter Olympics and the listless, unforgiving weather? Well, one thing out in the world that yanks the me-chain hard these days is my new favorite TV show, "Squidbillies." You can watch clips here. It's from the Aqua Teen Hunger Force dudes, but I've never seen that show. Squidbillies is a cartoon, which isn't usually my favorite medium (except for you-know-who), but being that it's about a family of inter-breeding squids in North Georgia, with a theme song by Billy Joe Shaver (of "I Been to Georgia on a Fast Train" fame) and lots of totally over-the-top squid sex and violence, I honestly feel right at home in their world. In many ways, I *am* a Squidbilliy. In so many ways, we all are. I giggle, and chortle, and gut-bust every time I am lucky enough to find it on, and I laugh out loud the whole show. So, it's highly recommended. And just so - relatable. I *do* think this song is about me. Take that, Carly Simon!

Country Music Video Roundup #1 with Tris and Charles

2006-02-11T10:47:00.000-08:00

Well, How-dee! I don't know what Saturday morning means in your house, but in the Aaron home, it means 2 solid hours of country music videos, watched from bed, with accompanying moans, griping, and, we admit it, the occasional goosebumps when gran'paw dies or what have you. Both CMT and GAC have their Top 20 Video Countdowns on Saturday morning, and between the two, there's a WHOLE lot to see. Here's our roundup so YOU don't have to watch.

1. First video up was "Boondocks" by a band called Little Big Town. This was the perfect introduction to the hee haw jugtown nightmare that is fake-authentic country music. One shot in the video is literally of a tousle-haired, sundress-wearing vixen, shot from *under a hog's belly.* This video has it all: clotheslines, pickup trucks, hay, you know, so "country" you wonder if the singer is really Australian.

2. "Believe" by Brooks and Dunn. Now, we freely admit that when "Believe" started, someone groaned. "I just can't do B & D right now," Tris said. We mean, the Red Dirt Road album, that horrible "You Can't Take The Honky Tonk Out Of The Girl" song - let's face it, there are some blights on B & D's record. Although we do love it when our favorite clown-show country music critic, Robert K. Oermann, calls for his smelling salts and swoons over how Ronnie Dunn has a "perfect tenor voice"; and we are always amused at the impotent flailing of Kix Brooks, who was originally shipped in to shake it because Ronnie's such a stiff. But, the "Believe" video gradually induced a rapt silence in the new Queen-sized. We were hooked in by the tale of friendship between our singer as a boy and the old black man down the street. The old man's life had been hard (war, dead wife, etc.), but his faith never wavered. The chorus mentions "lines written in red" and Charles (raised Baptist) had to fill in Tris (raised nothing) on what that means. "Christ's blood?" she guessed. "Well, sorta, but it's probably that all the Lord's words in the Bible are literally printed in red." A nice touch in the songwriting. The rhyme with "hearse" at the end was a little clunky, but hey, the old man's in heaven, so it's all peace in the valley. Basically, we LOVED this song.

3. "Kerosene" by Miranda Lambert. First off, we may be prejudiced because we were Buddy Jewell fans on Nashville Star, the same reality show which spawned Ms. Lambert. He was the hulking, hat-wearing, ex-high school quarterback and frat boy who grew up in a country music family, strayed, and then finally rediscovered the magic via Don Williams and Alabama, broke up with his first wife, hacked it up at Six Flags Over Texas, and sang more than 4,000 demos for established country stars, never catching a break while his second wife supported them with her nail-salon job. We loved his original song, "Help Pour Out the Rain," about appreciating your kids and telling them that, yeah honey, you will see grandpa in heaven. Good shit. Meanwhile, Miranda Lambert was the usual cute, perky young lass (see Carrie Underwood) who you've seen a million times before and will see a million times again. The camera loves her. She's got a great smile and a decent voice. Whatever, natural selection rules. So it's no surprise that Miranda's had a bigger career than Buddy, mostly because of "Kerosene," which came out last year, and was a favorite of horny pseudo-populist rock critics (the same people who thought "Redneck Woman" was a feminist classic). Miranda has awesome hair and makeup in the video, gives the boys what-for, and sexily sets stuff on fire (with kerosene!). It's one of those songs where a perfect-looking person who has had every break in the world sings about how life has screwed her over, but she's gonna make it after all. Sure Miranda, you would know. Anyway, who really cares, except for the tiny fact that "Kerosene" is a shameless, ham-fisted, note-for-note rip-off of "I Feel Alright," the title track from Steve Earle's incredible "Be careful what you wish for friends / I've been to hell and now I'm back again" 1996 junkie/crackhead redemption album that was generally unacknowledged or condescended to by those same rock critics (who had already written Earle off years ago because he never became the next Springsteen), and if they listened to country at all, preferred to ironically embrace the Garth legacy of headset arena-rock vaudeville. Well, Lambert took "I Feel Alright," changed the lyrics to a bunch of inane go-girl cliches (or just flat out repeated phrases like "smokin' gun"), whipped her hair around, mimicked all of Earle's vocals right down to the "heh" that comes in the middle of the verse, some producer gave it that digital guitar and drums boom, and then, to top if off, she lists herself as the sole songwriter! But, "Hey, it's just pop music, it's a good song no matter who wrote it, so lighten up," right? Well, no, actually, we won't.

4. "Jesus, Take the Wheel" by Carrie Underwood. This is the American Idol's first video and she looks rapturous, like some kind of glowing CGI princess lolling around in a carefree born-again Guideposts bliss state. Which is appropriate, because that's who Carrie is, after all. She's our little angel in size 0 jeans, and if we didn't need that as a nation right now, then face it, she wouldn't exist. Some of us may complain and some of us may feel a little alienated -- as EC once sang, "You're never the bridegroom / She's always the bride" -- but really, shouldn't we just appreciate what Carrie has to offer? And what she has to offer is bracingly powerful -- a pitch-perfect, cinemascope-sized voice dramatizing an undeniably positive message: JESUS HAS YOUR BACK. Essentially, he'll bail you out no matter what -- when you're laid off by Ford and have to take a job in the sporting goods department at Wal-Mart, when your employer steals the pension that you've been paying into for 30 years so now you have to keep working for ten more years despite the fact that your broken hip still hasn't really healed, or when you have to desperately transfer a $15,000 balance from one credit card to another to get a 5% better interest rate because the finance charges, if left unchecked, will send you to a collection agency and ruin your credit report for at least seven years and realistically that means that you'll proabably have to sell your house and move into a trailer. Carrie has no idea what any of that feels like, but if she did, she wouldn't be able to make it seem so easy to give over your entire life to JC, even though it kind of feels like a crazy, illogical thing to do. Here, Carrie sings about a lady who was driving, with her daughter in the backseat, hit some black ice, and was seconds away from crashing her car, when she realized that she should just hand over the keys to Dr. J. See, when you put it that way, it doesn't seem crazy or illogical at all. On the down side, the song repeats the same scenario three times, like Carrie forgot her notes back at the Hyatt Regency, and didn't know how to improvise. For us, the lack of variety was a problem. It's not a deal-breaker, but when you're making these afterlife or death decisions, it helps to be able to relate on as many levels as possible. How about a scene, for instance, where a divorced husband, drunk on White Russians, is driving home from, say, Blake's Bar and Grill, after missing his son's Little League game again, and his car hits some black ice and goes into a spin, while an 18-wheeler roars toward him. Then he realizes.....etc. Now that would've really driven the point home, but we're just nitpicking. Mostly, this song/video kicks Satan's ass.

5."Living In Fast Forward" by Kenny Chesney. Take 8 parts Jimmy Buffet, 2 parts Troy Aikman-style closeted quarterback, put him on a yacht in a coral choker and sleeveless tee shirt, griping about how hectic and meaningless life is as an arena-selling-out "hillbilly rock star." Are you throwing up yet? We did. This song will make you miss Montgomery Gentry. For real, mang.

6. "Whiskey Lullaby" by Brad Paisley and Allison Krauss. Nobody in contemporary country pulls off a duet quite like Brad Paisley. While it would be wrong to compare this clean-cut pretty boy to Mr. George Jones, our favorite vodka-swilling-riding-lawn-mower-driving-cos-wifey-took-my-damn-car-keys legend, Brad has Geo's sense of aching maleness that provides a perfect counterpart to a sweet soprano like severly overexposed and most definitely NOT a lesbian, Allison Krauss. This song is very confusing, even with the literally interpretive video. This man and lady are in love, then they part, then both drink themselves to death, and THEN, after the preacher in the gentleman caller string tie buries them beneath white crosses with their names handwritten on them (hun?), they are reunited in the afterlife and it feels so good. The two-part weirdo message appears to be (1) drinking to allieviate pain works; and (2) don't worry if you die, it's really the best thing that can happen to you. While we can't argue with either point, uh, they don't seem very, uh, Christian and stuff. At least strictly speaking.

7. "(Might Just) Make Me Believe," Sugarland. Jennifer "Cagney" Nettles is the shticky blonde singer in the tight striped low-riders walking around through "cricks" and pines. Kristen "Lacey" Hall actually writes the songs and plays guitar. Guess which one's expendable? Answer: Bluebird-cafe singer songwriter and plus-sizer Hall left the group earlier this year.

8. "When I Get Where I'm Going" by Brad Paisley and Dolly Parton. We love country songs about heaven. The story line always works -- happy life gets cruelly snatched away but is regained on the "other side;" or, cruel crappy life finally becomes happy when you reach your "final reward." More simply, we just wholeheartedly agree that it's gotta be better "up there" than "down here," where the hideous schizophrenia of modern life leaves us with just enough energy to weakly implore Santino to learn how to fucking sew, already, on Project Runway. At a certain point in life (like now), it's just a lot more reassuring to imagine that this isn't "all there is." That's just us. So once again, we're feeling the aching, macabre Paisley duet, again with a rumored yet avowed and proven non-lesbo, especially since the video has a series of guest stars holding up photos of deceased loved ones -- including, no joke, Michael Reagan with a photo of Ronnie, and Mrs. Dale Earnhardt with a framed illustration of the Intimidator, direct from the Garage Mahal.

9. "Who Says You Can't Go Home" by Bon Jovi feat. Jennifer Nettles. The bimbo from Sugarland makes a stop in Jon Bon Jovi and Richie Sambora's own Mellencamp-esque, "In a Smalltown" rip-off. The point is, you CAN go home again. And when you get there, you will find two guys in their forties with chicklets for teeth and Bruce Jenner-like feminizing plastic surgery. And there will be a team of Habitat for Humanity workers wearing Bon Jovi tee shirts. And a mugging, grimacing floozy will be making awkward, vaguely hip hop-inspired arm gestures like some kind of even-lamer Gwen Stefani outfitted in American Eagle instead of Vivienne Westwood.

10. "Honky Tonk Badonkadonk" by Trace Adkins. The hilarity of a sub-sub Toby Keith/Ray Benson type serial rapist-looking redneck using rap slang in da club just rules. Sign us up! This song has about as much to do with country music as "Who Let The Dogs Out," but it has everything to do with mocking hip hop's language and culture of sexism, while asserting the equal radness of country's culture of sexism down in Dixieland. White Power! Also, who knew that the lyrics "Got it goin' on / Like Donkey Kong" were ever gonna happen? BTW, this piece of Shiite was #1 on the Video Countdown. Did you see that Primetime Live about those two kids who got high on meth and wandered off into a blizzard and thought a pasture full of cows was a group of 200 foreigners who didn't speak English and refused to help them? It's like that.

A Synonym for Rooster

2006-02-07T01:39:00.000-08:00

We tried to watch the Superbowl and halftime show. But those revolting cryptkeeper drug addicts are just too gnarly. There are 2 TV-related games in my home, Mick Jagger Mute Button (MJMB) and Sean Penn Freeze Frame (SPFF). In the former, you must watch the poultry-esque quivering of an old man in spand-sex sans "Satisfaction;" the latter speaks for itself. You just hit pause on any close up of our greatest thespian and let the craggy goodness wash over you.

Chappelle No?

2006-02-07T01:29:00.000-08:00

Isn't it weird how this Washington Post television reporter hates Oprah's guts, and does what she accuses the big O of doing - making it all about her? Jury's still out on Chappelle, but, seeming more and more like pot-related paranoia to this child of Big Chill "those are hash brownies, honey" parents. I am still pretty mk ultra psyched for the 2 hour Liptonapalooza on 2/12!! You go, James!

Ganja Goo Balls by Great Beast

2006-02-06T22:45:00.000-08:00

I often peruse Craig's List for comedy. "Women seeking men", the "Pets" discussion board, "Casual Encounters" - all provide ample fodder for my laff needs, while also reinforcing my shut-in's feeling that I ain't missin' anything out there in the big ole world. But no section is a bigger goldmine than "Musicians." For whatever reason, it just rules. If only the comedy greats - Billy, Whoopi, Robin, Carrot Top, Ray Romano, or Larry The Cable Guy had struck upon this formulation. Dumb guy plus music aspirations equals funny, funny, funny. Actually two of the funniest people I know have explored this theme superbly. My friend Frank in his forthcoming book, "King Dork"; and my friend Jon Wurster in his comedy CDs. Today I wandered through this lush garden of humor, eating freely of the ripe fruit of the Gods, and I duly ended up with an MP3 on my hands of a song by a band called Great Beast. Their hit single, is, of course, "Ganja Goo Balls." And I was also shown a vision from our Lord - a Christian band, admitting freely and of their own volition, that their key venues are "coffee houses, prisons, juvenile halls, recovery groups." God bless them, every one.

n.b. You *really* might wanna click on that Billy Crystal link. For rilla, gorilla.

Hustle & Flow

2006-02-03T19:56:00.000-08:00

Some of you who have dabbled in (A) the social sciences (B) women's studies or (C) Berkeley, California may be familiar with the idea of the menstrual hut. These crazy rag riders on the Michigan Womyn's Music Festival site have taken "the hut" cyber. Break out the lavender satchels and yarrowroot tea, beyotches!!

An Agenda Observed

2006-02-01T10:07:00.000-08:00

So, I got into this novel writing workshop in Brooklyn that starts in a week. I am pretty excited. I intend to work on a storyline that involves grieving, and so I thought I would buy a C.S. Lewis' essay, A Grief Observed . It's a beautiful little book about his wife's death and his own resulting crisis of faith. I went to my trusty Barnes and Noble in Union Square (the same Barnes and Noble where I once wandered through a James Frey "Million Little Pieces" reading by accident). After looking all around for the Lewis essay, I finally broke down and asked the customer service desk people where it was. They directed me to "Christianity" on the 4th Floor. "That's sort of weird" I thought, but, whatever. Then I got there. Between Islam and Astrology was this GHETTO little shelf called Christianity. They didn't have AGO or any of his other jillion books and essays. What the ? I wondered. Then I saw a sub-sub Ghetto section behind it called "Christian Inspiration" and bingo, there, right under a book titled "He-motions; Even Strong Men Struggle were the collected essays and novels of this great, great mind of the twentieth century. Certainly they also have a Narnia display in the kids' section; but they also had all the Narnia books here, along with the Screwtape Letters and 2 dozen other titles. I know that Jack felt inadequate in life compared to Tolkien; could he even imagine the indignity of his legacy living among the Left Behind series, right under He-Motions?

Requiem for a Scream

2005-02-10T22:34:00.000-08:00

So tonight I finally got around to watching the new Denzel Manchurian Candidate. Oy. First of all, weirdo cameo appearances by people like Al Franken as a TV pundit (why? how?) and Oprah hanger-on/best friend Gayle King as a reporter (did anyone but me catch that) made NO sense to me.

With vacuous and sweeping references to the Patroit act and the threat of terrorism, the new Denzel Manchurian Candidate was a real MoveOn.org bummer fest. What was originally a brilliant, abstract examination of encroachment on the individual is now a silly, "they are mobilizing against us, fellow boomers, we must re-subscribe to the Nation RIGHT AWAY" partisan diatribe. What was timeless is now mired in specificity. Even Meryl's hilarious Hilary aping can't save this sinking ship, Celine.

What's interesting to me about the original 1962 Frankenheimer version, other than the greatness of the art itself, is that the star, Frank Sinatra, bought the rghts and effectively buried it in the wake of the Kennedy assasination. It seems like a such a grandly Sinatraian act - both touchingly considerate and chivalrous, and totally meglomaniacal. I mean, WTF did this mind control metaphor have to do with JFK? Not even my bro Oliver Stone went there!

The 411; Teens and Sex - A Katie Couric special

2005-01-26T19:41:00.000-08:00

Let me see if I can summarize this dense, informative piece for you:
Katie is blowing the lid off terms like "hooking up" and "friends with benefits" while letting us know that there's a lot of
(1) Teen Sex
(2) Sex in the Media
(3) Lack of Communication between Parents and Teens
And there* appears* to be *some sort* of causal relationship between these elements.
Move over, Stossel!!!

Take my syndicated columnist, please!

2005-01-26T11:40:00.000-08:00

In the latest example of the great trend of the 2000's - the end of journalistic ethics - the National Review online now revealed that one of their Bushie attack dogs was actually a paid contractor for HHS. Hola, Maggie! Welcome to the storied legion of Jayson Blair and Stephen Glass, once lying hacks, now rich and famous best-selling book authors. The weirdest thing is that NRO isn't even disturbed or planning to fire her. WTF do you have to do to lose your job over there? I once lost a job at a hair salon for taking 2 sick days. No respect, I tell you. No respect.

Where is Colin's son when you need him?

2005-01-25T18:47:00.000-08:00

If only the FCC was as concerned about this outrage as they were about "Nipplegate."

Red State Mommies RULE!

2005-01-24T19:08:00.000-08:00

Ah, Monday. It can only mean one thing. Ok, two things. It means the boyfriend goes to work in money-makin' Manhattan, and I have the whole palatial estate to myself (to "work" from home). It also means that I get to watch "Trading Spouses" on Fox, one of my many beloved reality TV selections. "Trading Spouses," like its companion show on ABC, the better-titled "Wife Swap," offers two families the chance to "trade mommies" for two weeks, in exchange for $50,000. This week, the controlling and bitchy neatnik Mia from MN went down to gun-thumping Chattanooga to live with the Howard family, while their very own heart-of-golder, Angie, flew north to attempt to bring some fun and warmth to the uptight Hammond clan. Angie's intro gushed "We may not have much money, but have each other," and a little deja-VIEW crackled in my brain. "Hey, I think I've seen this one before." I thought. Oh, no; that was the down-home cajun Mom who swapped with weird Cali vegan meglomaniac who made everybody watch animal rights films while she cried. No, no, it was that plastic surgery trophy mom who tried to give the kids make overs. Wait, I *had* seen it before, a million times. Tonight's episode, like many, many, many of them are, was about watching the richer family revealed to be a bunch of shallow, cold, pretentious automatons, while the poorer, but funner, family may be quirky, and may have hundreds of taxidermied crocs around the compound, but, dammit, they love one another. Inevitably, the poor family is southern/red state and the rich family is more urban, from California, or Maryland, or Minneapolis. It sort of makes me wish my southern upbringing had included some buttoned-down, carosel-eschewing, army-insulting, chitlin-rejecting mom from the north. Then, when we were finally reunited, my whole family could have danced around the moonlight, catching fireflies, strumming guitars and generally revelling in the simple pleasures of God, family and country.

Fat Pig

2005-01-23T19:38:00.000-08:00

Welcome back to Ytossie. I have been gone for a while, since election night to be precise. No, I wasn't in a Bush-reelection- depressive state, unlike many of my fellow boho types. I've been facing a few - uh - challenges, not the least of which has been planning my wedding, which will basically be an elopement except pre-planned. You know, no one invited. Just us and some mail-order minister blowing a conch shell and draping us in orchids while talking about freedom, creativity, and the lyrics of Jimi Hendrix.

Now, don't get me wrong. Love the family. I do. But the "big day" is set to be just us. So why is it that I spend almost every day in the gym, doing reps, picturing the tankini and sarong?

In the midst of this, I went to see the new Neil LaBute play, Fat Pig, which was playing in the West Village at a tiny little theater on Christopher Street. This is a play about a successful man with a harpie ex-girlfriend and beastly friend at work. He starts dating a heavy woman, and, in typical LaBute fashion, things get as ugly as possible from there. For starters, let me say that Andrew "Weekend At Bernie's 2" McCarthy acted circles around everyone else in the play.

Ultimately, I have to give Neil credit - he leaves no stone of ugliness between the genders unturned in his search for material. And the last time I saw weight issues tackled in earnest, I believe it was in the horrific and permanently damned Shallow Hal. But in LaBute's grafting of the model of interracial couples onto that of - what? - intersize couples, he missed a few things. He made the subtle discomfort into blatant outrage. He wrote an office as though it were a high school, with people running to show the photo of "the fatty" in the cafeteria, and highly juvenile commentary firing through emails, all around, between colleagues and friends.

I think we can all agree, for lots of people, the skinniness monster is big. It can involve a ferocious competitiveness between women, and degrading dismissiveness in men. But even then, bitchiness tends to be a subtle art. Successful down-looking involves maintaining your plausible deniability at all times, much like Nixon and Dean tried to. The play would have been better for me if it hadn't involved a main character facing a weird 1984-like world of stark choices when it comes to junk in the trunk. LaBute's attempt to demonize the characters who held these beliefs did not change the fact that theirs was the moral of his story. He wrote a world where weight rules all, and if the implication is that it's wrong, but true, I find that to be a tremendous literary cop out. I don't like cheap values disguised as moral complexity.

I'll be thinking of this as I hit the treadmill this week to attempt to look good enough for my private wedding that no one is invited to.

It's Like Playing Trivial Pursuit With Gramps

2004-11-02T21:31:00.000-08:00

Here in the data center on Election Night 2004, "It's Like Playing Trivial Pursuit With Gramps" was a quip by my boyfriend while watching the excruciating attempt to simulate liveliness by shockingly non-retired old dudes Dan Rather and Ed (Anyone Got Some Weed? Do You Like My Turtleneck? ) Bradley. If you knew the Gramps in question, or had, in fact, played Trivial Pursuit with him, as I have, you'd know the drudgery invoked. Another Charles classic was "Look at this Murderer's Row of Hacks" upon seeing Carlos Brown, ("internet hack"), Larry King ("decrepit hack"), and Jeff Greenfield ("used to have a semi-relevant career hack") babble ad nauseum about how "Ohions care about jobs." They were, I guess, no match for MSNBC's B-level fest with fedora enthusiast Willie Brown and former balletrina Ron Reagan. Anyway, here I am, waiting to see who will be the leader of the Free World and it's a tight race and the votes aren't all in - yet the news coverage on TV is unbelievably banal, tedious and dead. It's weird, Jeeves.

Ben, The Evil, Homicidal Pet Rat

2004-10-11T20:43:00.000-07:00

So, I haven't been writing on here for a few days because I have been trying to write a review of Michael Jackson's new album, "The Ultimate Collection," a five-disc, 57 song + DVD career retrospective. It's truly a herculean task, and I have to do it in only 200 words. It's almost impossible for me to decide what I want to say when so many promising topics introduce themselves. Consider his first solo hit, 1972's "Ben." From the film of the same name, it is a love song to a pet rat. Not only that, but a pet rat who turns evil, and recruits an army of evil rats to kill humans. See, the something's-a-tad-off-with-the-lad theme has been brewing for a while. But who made it impossible to ignore? Is it our salacious media? Our culture of celebrity worship? Or maybe it has been his own aggressive public weirdness for the last 3 decades. I just don't know. But thinking about him, I can't help but compare him to another LA music genius/weirdo, Brian Wilson. Both had young success. Both had overbearing fathers who were clearly jealous of their talent and intent on crushing their sensitivity. Both made weirdo pop albums. But Brian turned his demons on himself. All he did was get fat, set up a tent in the living room, and do drugs. Jacko seems to have become a child predator. So does a music reviewer really owe it to him, or to the art form itself, to overlook that? I don't know. My boyfriend is a genius writer and editor himself, but he fell asleep and my deadline's tomorrow. I read his - my boyfriend's - review of Elliott Smith's posthumous album today in his magazine, and it literally brought me to tears. The way he uses words is just so elegant and - I don't know- thoughtful? Soulful? I can't even write well enough to describe how good his writing is. Anwyay, I am going to keep on chopping away at my MJ review, which is now 400 words, twice as long as it should be. And it has no point. And it's riddled with cliches. Wish me luck. At least, even if the piece turns out so crap that the editor won't run it, I have learned something cool and weird. And that is that the bridge of 1983's "Wanna Be Startin Something" goes like this: “You’re a vegetable/ still they hate you/ you’re just a buffet / you’re just a vegetable / they eat off you.”

Emotions In Motion

2004-10-08T21:28:00.000-07:00

Is there anything more gruesome than a delighted Karen Hughes? She looks like Patrick Swayze in drag in that Wong Foo movie.
The presidential debate tonight toyed with my emotions. I went into it despairing that it mattered; convinced that Bush would win if he only seemed semi-normal. Then, as the discussion began, my hopes rose. I thought that Kerry had drummed up some new material and that Bush was boring, repetitive, and cranky. To me, it was a total choke on Bush's part. He seems like a man who doesn't want to be running, who resents the personal inconvenience to him. Kerry was more refined, concise and calm than ever. Then came the pundits, saying Bush wiped the floor with Kerry. Ok, it was only Sean Hannity who said that, but CNN's polls have it at 2 points. You know what? If the American people think it was a toss up tonight, then they deserve whatever they get. At least Wonkette made it fun.

I Have Stopped Believing

2004-10-08T21:19:00.000-07:00

It's not too late to sign up for the once-in-a-lifetime Rock and Roll cruise with REO Speedwagon, Styx and Journey. A lot of things in this world depress me, and this is no exception.

Healing The World

2004-10-07T15:49:00.000-07:00

So, maybe it's just the cold medicine, but I am enjoying this first-season Surreal Life marathon on VH1 way too much. My favorite moment: Corey Feldman's comments about his on-air nuptials. Of his decision to have both a Rabbi (star of his own one man show "Religion Out of The Box") and a Christian minister (MC Hammer): "I think it sends a really positive message to the world.

Hay Hollywood, Go Home

2004-10-06T17:38:00.000-07:00

I have been trying to get together something to say about last night's debate all day but I have yet to think up anything smart. It was dispiriting to see that Cheney's authoritative, mean-spirited, alpha male routine won him the immediate praise of every TV pundit I saw. I was somewhat heartened to read that Sullivan gave it easily to Edwards, and that when corrected for bias, even the ABC poll had it basically tied. However, there are times like these when I doubt the whole principle of democracy. It seems inevitable that Bush will win on Friday, since all he has to do to win is be more of a guy you'd wanna have a beer with. The only real reason he lost on Thursday was that he was a pouting, impatient, peevish guy instead of our smirking, Hey Buddy in chief. I doubt our process; I felt this way in the primaries too, when it seemed that once Iowa had gone Kerry, so did everyone else. There was no listening to policy or comparing character; it seemed like, once there was a winner, he was the winner, and the momentum was unstoppable. Now I feel, watching the "debates" that Cheney "won" by being a mean, evasive, superior, careerist, and that Bush will "win" by not being as weird as Kerry. I guess democracy means embracing permanent anti-intellectualism as our fundamental mechanism. But maybe I am just feeling outnumbered and surrounded by dummies. A TV show is shooting on my street today in Brooklyn and my landlord has posted a sign on our building which reads, "Hay Hollywood, Go Home."

Uncle McScrooge V. Richie Rich

2004-10-05T14:31:00.000-07:00

I know we are all fascinated by the Veep debate tonight. Will Cheney softball? Will we get to see the glint of darkness in his eyes? Will wonderboy's flashy grin and Daddy-was-a-Mill-worker, Norma Rae antics work? This piece in the Washington Post ("the chatty paper") today claims that Cheney is the de facto NSA. I've read before that Condy is less an NSA than a Bush lap dog, viciously guarding her proximity and access, and expending far more energy on her relationship to the man in power than on her job itself. Kinda reminds me of power publicist Chloe Walsh, who somehow managed to parlay her closeness with Jack White into a whole career. Sleaze, pandering and mediocrity always triumph over actual work. Just comtemplate the success of Maxim magazine if you disagree. Bah, humbug!

De Very Same Skippy

2004-10-04T19:45:00.000-07:00

We are living in a wonderful time. I don't know if anyone but me is aware of it, but the apotheosis of Western culture is upon us. I am referring, of course, to the new commercial for Skippy Peanut Butter Bars. One marvels at the Darwinistic process which begins with opposable thumbs and ends with CGI Rasta Elephants rapping over dancehall beats. Could anything but the hand of the Divine guide such matters?

The first time I saw the ad, I knew. It was clear what cultural forces were at work. The anti-carb diet mania, which has given us totally redundant 1/2-carb versions of Coke (C2) and Pepsi (Pepsi Edge) must've caused someone at Skippy to scratch his head. Hmmm, he must've thought. Our product is relatively high-protein, relatively low carb. Could be a trendy Atkins-snack, if you ignore the massive amounts of sugar involved. Maybe we could market "to go" tubes of Skippy as a hip, low-carb, snack. And what would be the best way to market this product? What would be the most effective means of communicating that the bar is pure Skippy? No granola, no caramel, no chocolate.

The answer they came up with: CGI Rasta elephants on a set resembling MTV's Spring Break. On an idyllic beach, the Rasta Elephants take the stage. Summer gear and macramed hats are in tow. They rap and dance reassuringly, all to a dancehall beat:

"Skippy, dat wot's in de bar; de very same Skippy dat wot's in de jar.
Bom diddy Bom diddy Skippy, Bom diddy Bom diddy Skippy."

Don't worry; it's de very same.

Jesse Sykes & The Sweet Hereafter

2004-10-02T19:33:00.000-07:00

Last night I went to see a band play. The artist is a nouveau 1970's country act from Seattle called Jesse Sykes. I liked the album a lot, with its spare sound, sort of a mixture of Cat Power's ethereal melodies mixed with Son Volt's catchy fake-country-by-way-of-indie-rock twang. However, the live show was another matter entirely. The show was at Brooklyn's best venue, The Hook, where the artist was put to shame by the vast superiority of everyone in her band, The Sweet Hereafter. It was only the violinist/backup vocalist's lovely, spot-on harmonies that made Jesse's weird Patti Smith caterwauling bearable. Jesse seemed to know about 4 strummable chords, and if that guitar player she snagged from Whiskytown (a band I never liked) didn't write all those songs for her, I will be a monkey's publicist. Oh, wait, I already am. I kid, I kid. Between the repeated false starts, the self-conscious languidity, the endless prattle about how "whisky helps," I was ready to head on home before the show even finished. Jesse is on Barsuk Records, home of the inexplicably huge Death Cab for Cutie. I mean, I like them too, but their next NYC gig is at The Roseland, the 3800 capacity venue where I saw Justin Timberlake and my most beloved band of them all, Oasis. So, one woman's opnion: the disc is pretty good, the show was awful, but hey, every night out can't be a champagne supernova.

The War At Home

2004-10-02T15:20:00.000-07:00

I am a happily engaged woman, lucky to be with a very deep, thoughtful, kind, funny man. However, like any couple, we fight. Sometimes our fights are like anyone else's: money, the dog's constant destruction of our property, family, general irritations. But other times we seem to fight about politics, which always surprises me. It's not that we disagree on larger issues, and we both read the same journals and newspapers. More often than not, he seems to chafe at my critique of liberalism. What makes it interesting is that he almost entirely shares my views. But somehow, I sense a fear that I will "go too far." The other night, we clashed while discussing the announcement by Tony Blair that he was seeking a third, but not a fourth, term. Sorry, Terry McAuliffe, despite your pronouncement on John Gibson's show on 9/30, he is not "retiring" because the Bush foreign policy kills all who touch it. In the words of Aersosmith, Dream On. I was saying to my beloved that I think it's a shame to see Blair go, and unfortunate that he seems to be leaving under a cloud of suspicion. My fiancé replied that the suspicion was somewhat deserved, at which point I interjected that I didn't think the famed British intelligence on Iraq had been "sexed up," as was charged. "Yes it was," he insisted, and we were at an impasse. What makes this disagreement interesting is that we had largely read the same pieces about the case; the excruciatingly detailed narrative in The New Yorker, and the website of The Hutton Inquiry itself. Yet somehow, we came to opposite conclusions. From my memory, there were two inquiries, I believe, both of which held the BBC, not 10 Downing, responsible, despite charges that Alastair Campell et al leaned on Kelly. In fact, wasn't the head of BBC, Greg Dykes, removed over the incident? Anyway, that was my understanding. But there are, and always will be, charges and insinuations. I think that what we were really fighting about was my comparatively greater comfort with the U.S. invasion of Iraq, and the fact that I am pretty much undaunted by the absense of WMD. My fiancé, I know, feels much more conflicted than I, and he finds my strident support for the war to be unfamiliar terrain. We are both life-long Democrats, successors to the Boomers, protesting apartheid in college, memorizing the litany of U.S./C.I.A. crimes. Now we find ourselves just as likely to direct our seemingly endless supply of personal bile towards Michael Moore as towards John Ashcroft. It takes a great deal of personal certainty to let go of pat partisanism. I know that he is right, that in my case, there is a truculence born directly of personal anger at the murder of a friend on 9/11. He, on the other hand, is, by nature, coming from a more considered, careful, thoughtful position. Fortunately, it was only a minor and temporary flare-up; we were quickly reunited (and it felt so good, Peaches and Herb ), when RNC weirdo, and my fiancé's fellow UGA classmate, Ralph Reed, showed up on TV. Hiya, Ralphie Boy. I was regaled by stories of working at the Red and Black, their college paper, and what a reactionary douchebag crank Reed was, even then. All was again well at 116 Berry. I don't know how it is in your family, but nothing unifies us like a new, shared object of contempt.

You Forgot Poland

2004-09-30T22:38:00.000-07:00

I was utterly baffled tonight after the first presidential debate to hear the beginnings of a consensus that Kerry won. That was NOT one woman's opinion of what went down. True, Bush had clearly run out of ammo by the end, and true, Kerry scored with nuclear proliferation and Kim " I like to kidnap sexy actresses" Jong Il's nuke collection. And yes, Kerry is taller. But overall, I thought that Kerry's message was confusing- that the war was wrong, but he knows what to do now, even though he never really says what that is, but it involves "allies" who seem to be imaginary - I mean, do you see France and Germany getting in on the action at this juncture? To me, Kerry keeps making the same mistake: he fails to draw an absolute distinction between critiquing the invasion and overthrow of Saddam with the reconstruction effort. You see where I am going here. The invasion and overthrow was (A) correct and (B) something Kerry supported and (C) there's not much we can do about that now, anyway. The reconstruction, even to war supporters like the NY Times' Thomas Friedman, has been a disaster. So why can't he restrain himself and evince support for the removal of Baathists and critique of the nightmare that is the reconstruction? Well, he just can't. He hammers on and on about the wrong points: that the war was wrong, that Iraq has nothing to do with Al Quaeda. Kerry himself admitted that the war was drawing Osama's wrath. We all know that Al Quaeda bombed Madrid because of the war in Iraq. In other words, it's the same old problem. Kerry can't admit that the war was just, that removing the Baathists, despite their secular inclinations, is part of fighting the war on Islamic fundamentalism in a larger sense. And he fails spectacularly to make the point he should be making: that the failed reconstruction effort is endangering us, that it is intensifying hatred of America. That if we fail to establish a peaceful democracy, our war effort will merely have contributed to the confusion and hatred in what Condoleeza Rice loves to call "the most dangerous country in the most dangerous part of the world."

Putney Nope

2004-09-24T13:52:00.000-07:00

Lots of actors wanna be musicians. I don't know why. Actors, I guess, are people whose profession is derived primarily from their looks. Musicians, on the other hand, base their careers on sex appeal. Except the ones I represent. I kid, I kid! Anyway, some thespian jammers are awful ( Cybill Shepherd , Minnie Driver); some are comical (Jada Pinkett-Smith, Juliette Lewis, Billy Bob Thornton) and some are just sad. In the latter category, consider the forthcoming release from Robert Downey, Jr. Sony Classical (Yeah, that's right; SONY CLASSICAL) has announced that they are releasing his opus on November 23rd and that it will include covers of Charlie Chaplin's "Smile" and Yes' "Your Move." It seems that little mister "My-More Talented-Daddy-Gave-Me-Pot-When-I Was-8 -So-It's-Not-My-Fault-That-I-Am-A-Junkie-On-Ally-McBeal-Who-Climbs-Into-Children's-Beds-At-Night" has enlisted some pretty heavy hitters at the helm. In additon to noted (yet apparently hard up for cash) jazz musician Charlie Haden, the album will be produced by Mark Hudson. Now this entire comedic episode was brought to my attention by my wonderful boyfriend, Charles, who then had to explain to me that The Hudson Brothers had a 70's variety TV show, in which they wore jumpsuits and had handlebar mustaches. Now, however, they have remade themselves as sort of Desmond Child--like hitmakers. I guess that, like Huey Lewis sang so rightly, the heart of rock and roll *IS* still beating.

Anderson "Rock and Roll" Cooper

2004-09-23T10:39:00.000-07:00

4 Facts About Anderson Cooper:

1. His mom is Gloria Vanderbilt
2. No journalism training or experience prior to anchoring on CNN
3. Used to host "Celebrity Mole; Hawaii" starring Stephen Baldwin and Corben Bernsen
4. Beloved by crazed Fans

Windsurfing The Peace Train

2004-09-23T10:11:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was the best TV day I have had in a while. The inevitability of John Kerry's windsurfing ways coming back to bite him in the ass was too funny. Only a few days before, my best friend Frank, who has a way better blog than I do, was known to say "Somebody has to stop that man from windsurfing. Now." The accusation of constant vacillating has largely been lost on me; after all, what politicians aren't hopelessly compromising themselves at all times? However, in the President's rose garden speech today with Allawi, for the first time, he struck a blow to Kerry that did give me pause. He intimated that Kerry might be an appeaser, leaving us open to an attack like that in Spain. It did resonate with me at least that no one could possibly think that bombing our subways could make Bush change policy; but would they think that Kerry would? Don't get me wrong, I am voting for John F. "Ichabod Crane" Kerry. But, to me, it was a blow that landed hard.
Another part of yesterday's viewing that I enjoyed was the rare glimpse at Cat Stevens. I noticed that only about half of the TV journalism pieces I saw mentioned that he endorsed the fatwa against Salman Rushdie. I especially enjoyed the footage of his describing how he begged the record company to stop making his records. It's sad how the Man sticks it to Artists by forcing them to keep their shitty hit records in print. I will always be soft on Cat, though, because the first time I ever visited NYC, which is now my home, he spoke to me. I was visiting my friend Haven, who was visiting her rich boho painter Dad, who didn't offer to pick me up at the airport. I had to take a cab by myself to Tribeca, fresh off the plane from RDU, having travelled previously only intra-state, to the NC beach and the NC mountains, that's it. My cab driver, who was learning English on the job, couldn't understand my accent I guess and gave up trying to find the location I had given him. He discharged me, and left me, crying, on the curb. However, he did give me a copy of "Islam; My Religion" by Yusef Islam, which I sat and read until I got myself together enough to use a pay phone and make my way in the Big Apple. Thanks, Yusef!

Welcome to Ytossie Fandango!

2004-09-22T19:17:00.000-07:00

Hello and welcome to Ytossie Fandago, my blog about TV, politics and rock music criticism. Why Ytossie Fandango? Well, Ytossie Fandango was the title of a press release I once wrote for Lookout! Records. The title, of course, was in reference to my favorite cast member of the ORIGINAL "Temptation Island," Ytossie, an LA native, who was "30," who belonged in restraints in a mental health facility, and who was later thrown off the show for neglecting to mention that she had a kid with Taheed. (This season was brilliantly skewered on Salon.com by the super talented and now with Entertainment Weekly critic Carina Chocano.) So, I sent the press release out only to be abused by LA weirdo and ex-Mr. Courtney Love, "Falling James" of the massively unsuccessful band The Leaving Trains, from his lofty perch at LA Weekly. He accused me of insiderism and writing infuriating nonsense--arguing in an unhinged way that no one on his staff knew what I was talking about. He later cemented his reputation in my mind as the second biggest crackpot in rock journalism (you're still having fun and you're still #1, Mr. Jane Dark) by emailing that I should never reference my pride in my Turkish American heritage because, "Study your history! The Turks are guilty of genocide!" What that has to do with growing up in Raleigh, NC, listening to my Da misconfigure English verbs, and make his own weirdly parsley-intense salad dressings, is lost on me. In any case, I was rebuked, along political lines, by a music critic who didn't get my reality TV reference--see the beauty? Ytossie? Fandango!
More to come, I promise. I have comments on the Kerry windsurfing ad, the Cat Stevens/Yusef Islam deplaning, and so much more....Ytossie Fandango, my darlings! xo Tristin