sweetness

Happy Fourth, ya'll

dear jack: you need better writers...

I love Jack.

I would probably love to have wild, crazy monkey sex with Jack were I not otherwise occupied.

I love how uninhibited and goofy Jack is, that he has no problem parading around in his tightie whities, beer gut hanging in the breeze for all to see. I love that he seems to know how to have fun and obviously does not take himself seriously. There is way too much of that tired BS going on...Angelina and Brad, are you listening? Back to Jack--the dude is funny and he deserves some decent writing.

Envy was not much of a movie, made worse by the presence of Ben Stiller who I think is a tiny little tight-ass no-talent jerk. And the writing was lame.

Sadly, ditto, my friends, with Nacho Libre. It has so much potential but falls flat in a lot of instances. The wrestling scenes aside, there is not much fun here. The laughs are too few and far between and stuff that could have been hilarious was stale or just went nowhere. Jack is a truly funny guy, yes, but with a script as weak as this, even Jack started to seem like he was flailing around in a desperate attempt to be as entertaining as possible. I did dig his accent and his skinny feral sidekick. And I hope Jack gets a really good, funny script next time. He deserves it.

Nacho Libre is nacho best bet if you expect the same level of humor Shallow Hal delivered or even School of Rock. Bummer. But loved the tights.

could we be any cuter? maybe, but likely, no.

I just had to include a shot of the mandatory phone basket which Kip the Nazi instituted after she who shall not be named (not I) knocked someone's brand new Blackberry into the pool in a fit of uncoordinated dorkish lunging for the frozen Cosmo bucket. Ah, well, so it goes when you mix alcohol and UV rays and girls and a pool. I also wanted to include this photo since the lovely Barb was the official photographer of the other PP photo posted here a few days ago and was therefore not in the photo. BTW--don't you just love Carolina's "Holy shit-Macauley Culkin" face? Yeah, neither do we but we put up with it because we love her anyway. The things we do for love.

click this...

Schmoopie had a slumber party to attend last night so after we dumped her off we gleefully bolted to adult-land: imbibed at an adult beverage establishment, grabbed a slice of pizza (white pizza with spinach and cherry tomatoes for me--yum), strolled around and watched an outdoor metal concert for a bit and then wandered off to the big movie-plex downtown where we saw "Click."

All I can say about Adam Sandler is he was at his peak (for me) back when he was doing Opera Man on SNL and did the Monica-Hannukah song. I was less than entranced last night. Adam is a nice guy and all that but I would have loved to see Denis Leary in the role...with nudity...anyhoo--the chick playing his long-suffering wife looks no more like a chick who has had two kids and would be married to a loser, Twinkie-swilling, workaholic/yes-man than I look like Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm. Kate Beckinsale and Adam? Puulease. I guess since Adam's production company produced this movie he got to have the typical middle-aged white guy fantasy of being a so-so-looking average Joe with a beer gut and a bad attitude who ignores his kids and refuses to give his wife a massage before sex but is still somehow able to be married to a Victoria's Secret model-type. Sad, sad, sad. And the other thing I don't get is this: why does Holllywood keep hiring British/Australian chicks to play American chicks? WTF with that? Like we don't have enough Amercian actresses who could have done the role? Now I know why the Brits hated Renee Zellweger doing Bridget Jones. Talent aside, it's the principal and it just doesn't wash with me.

So, final wrap-up: I give it a 4 on a scale of 1 to 10 mostly because of the absurd casting and the unforgivable,unoriginal and cynical lameness of the "It's a Wonderful Life"/"Back to the Future" rip-off. But I LOVED Christopher Walken's performance as usual and will see him in anything. And mel will like Click because they don't say "fuck" one time. I counted. Zero "fucks." Honest.

Next review: Nacho Libre. Oh. My. God.

floaters

by the by, here's a shot of the platter we gave to Laura as a memento of our many, many "pool parties." Though my image is covered up by Amy's paw, my ensemble features decorative watermelons, an homage to my watermelon shooters. I make the best in all the land...and we have had the black-outs to prove it, honey.
And I can also spit watermelon seeds like a mo-fo. No dirty comments, ladies. Okay, maybe one or two.

there she goes...(sniff, sniff)

My girl gang is down another member and though we had a hell of a good time the other day at our all-girl wrestling match/pool party/poker game and we were all talking sassy smack as usual, we each had big ole lumps in our throats because Laura is leaving us tomorrow to move back to her home state of Alabammy. Not a move taken lightly--even in these times--by a white woman married to a black man--and they are headed to a very rural area where they will both teach.

We know she wants to be close to her family and she has been through a lot the last two years, but breaking up the band, so to speak, is a tough thing to do and we are all grieving the loss of our girl and with her, the inherent shift in chemistry that has made our girl gang so perfect for so many years. That chemistry has been achieved over these many moons by the combination of the perfect amalgam of wacked-out personalities (we are among our group: writers, teachers, artists, musicians, horticulturists, moms, grandmothers, sisters, wives, lovers) that blend together beautifully (even when we want to kill each other), years together, dragging each other through the tough spots and cheering each other on in good times. That combined with lots of wine, frozen fruity drinks and tons of junk food and we have had the perfect group friendship.

But it's been tough lately. In the last year we lost our beloved Karen and then last month, Lisa and her husband, Joe, abruptly decided they needed to move back up to Pittsburgh to be closer to family to await the birth of their baby girl following the very traumatic loss of their first. We all totally understand but we wish we could be there for her in the coming months, too.

So Laura is off on her next big adventure and we wish her fair winds and following seas.

It's funny, as we all gathered to have our last group photo taken (Laura is the lovely blonde, far right, third row. I am the chick in the first row with the biggest hooters of all time! Yes, I had my push-up bathing suit on), one of the many balloons we had tied around the deck broke loose and soared upward like a rocket.

We all looked up and watched it take off and bob along on a breeze like Forrest Gump's feather and at the moment the picture was snapped, one of the girls hollered: "There she goes! How's that for metaphor, bitches?"

Indeed.

06/15/06 rescue me, baby

I am in love with Denis Leary. It took a while--he had to grow on me. I thought he was a major asshole back in the "I'm an Asshole" day, but I really dug him in "The Suicide Kings" (1997) and now I find him irresistible as a philandering, boozing, lying, cheating, conniving yet haunted firefighter on his FX show Rescue Me. It's the only television show I watch. Period. And the more dysfunctional his character becomes the more I drool. One man demolition crew, careening out of control, leaving a trail of total wreckage and broken relationships in his wake? Oh, yeah, baby, so sexy. How sad is that?

But no matter, Denis has moved to the top of my list. What list, you ask? Come on, I know you have one. The "Honey, I love you, but if I ever have a shot at __________, I have to leave you" list. And Honey nods as he stares at the TV and pops another Bud because, really, who are we kidding here? Like it'll ever happen.

Anyhoo, here's the list I have shared with the GITB and he has approved it (this is the list of men I am officially allowed to have a fling with): (yeah, I know) drumroll please:

• Denis (we already covered him).
• Ray Liotta (I have no explanation. I just want to rip his clothes off).
• Bruce Springsteen (have loved him since 1975. I should have been the mother of his children).
• Andy Garcia
• Jeremy Sisto (Brenda's psychotic brother on Six Feet Under)
• That guy who played Furio on the Sopranos

PS--addendum: I forgot (I know, how COULD I?): Benecio Del Toro. YUM.

06/13/06 we lived

The wind blew like hell (65 mph) and the rain kept hammering down but we got through it. The biggest terror was wondering if the dog's bladder could avoid exploding because Miss Daisy (the dainty flower) refuses to do her business in the howling wind and tropical-force rain.

She will eat lizards and June bugs but she won't pee in bad weather. It's not even bad weather--any weather--the slightest hint of a misty light rain and she clamps down on the sphincter.

She went like almost 20 hours without doing number 1 or number 2. I got very nervous when the barometric pressure dropped enough to make my ears pop and since the whole family was in the bed watching HBO--including the dog, you can understand my concern. But she never goes in the house. Ever.

Anyway, once things cleared this morning she finally let loose in the back yard and it looks like a rhino pooped out there. So now the big discussion at lunch today was who is on poop patrol. Not I said the Little Red Hen. I already chased all our garbage cans down the street and fished them out of our neighbor's pool. My work here is done.

06/12/06 and away we go

Re: the commencement of hurricane season 2006:

We have beer and cigarettes.

Bring it on.

elliot got old. So did we, btw

Randy and I went to see Poseidon (yes, I lost the coin toss AGAIN) last week.
Three words: we were disappointed.

First of all--whilst I was in the little girl's room Randy bought some sort of "combo" thing that amounted to a huge feedbag-size bucket-o-popcorn best suited to feed some starving herd of livestock and two bladder buster sodas that cost him $13. WTF? I was so horrified by the cost I couldn't bring myself to eat the popcorn. It was the principle. (Plus Randy has a wart on his hand that he insists on treating with Compound W and I keep telling him to go to the dermatologist and have the damn thing cut off because it's not gotten any smaller since November and I refuse to eat popcorn that has been brushed by the wart from hell even though I love my boy toy).

Okay--and I know I don't have to issue the usual and customary spoiler alert here because who the hell is really going to go see this movie? You will wait 'til it comes on HBO and you will only watch it then when the prospect of watching Titanic/Regarding Henry/The Chronicles of Riddick or The Color Purple one more frigging time makes you want to lock yourself in the bathroom and shave your head instead--there is no one singing "There's Got to be a Morning After..." in this movie!

I suppose I got past the snubbing of Maureen McGovern because Randy kept leaning over and singing it in my ear, but still. Then we got into a whispered debate about who among the group of scrappy survivors was really the Shelley Winters character and I was very adamant that none of them could possibly be since there were no spunky, cute, older fat chicks in the film and our whispered debate got intense and louder when one of the gorgeous young studs announced that he had been on the swim team in school as he sexily dove into the water to save someone and Randy squealed "it's her, it's her!" and then the gay couple in front of us glared at us and one of them shushed us. Bitches.

The biggest problem was Richard Dreyfus and his resemblance to the Cryptkeeper in Randy's opinion. I am partial to the perky Richard from the Goodbye Girl days but I have no illusion that he has not aged and that's okay--getting old is cool. Randy was horrified. He kept whispering "Oh my god--he looks sooooo OLD!" and it was more of a big deal because Richard is playing a gay man and very unconvincingly, may I add. He was way more gay in Goodbye Girl playing a straight actor forced to play gay onstage. Anyway, Randy could not forgive his lack of swishiness in this movie or his calling a studly Latino waiter "gorgeous" then 5 minutes later shaking him off his leg as the two hung from an elevator shaft. Even though flirting with a guy then sending him plunging to his death because Kurt Russell cannot handle pulling both of you to safety is pretty typical gay man behavior, actually, according to Randy. At least he hollered "I'm so sorry" (but not in a gay way) down the shaft.

But anyway. I would have liked the whole thing a lot better (make that at all, really) if (A)Maureen had been allowed to sing and (B) the gang of survivors had not looked like the cast of a GAP ad (except for Kurt and Dick) and (C) if Kurt had shown off his Snake Pliskin tattoo (you know, the coiled snake that disappeared into his pants). Although the scene where Kurt drowns is kind of sexy because he goes into these full body spasms that kind of look like--well, you know. Rather than be crude and spell it out, let's just say we now we have an idea of what Goldie has been seeing in the boudoir all these years if you get my drift.

The movies just aint what they used to be. Sigh.