Planet Earth Is Blue and There's Nothing I Can Do: Bye Bye Bowie

When I woke up this morning to the news of David Bowie's death, I felt that deep, painful sadness in the pit of my stomach. Then my mother called to "see how I was doing" with the news and offer a heart to heart about how she felt the day Elvis died and I then I wanted to cry. Today is my day the music died.
David Bowie was an enigma. He was sexy and weird all at once. His unmistakable voice was both soothing and haunting. And his music videos and appearances in movies created looks that were forever burned in your memory. Each one was about him being reborn with yet another androgynous yet arousing and totally unique style.

It is often confessed on the internet that "Labyrinth" was the film of sexual awakening for many in my age group. And it is true. Yes, yes....that bulge in the tights. But David Bowie in his giant blond mullet Goblin King glory really did make me feel things like lust and intrigue for the first time. I was just so glad to find out I wasn't alone on this.

Yes, yes I do Bowie.
But more importantly, that film opened my young eyes and ears to the magic of this strange but beautiful man.
I consumed all of the Bowie of the past and began following the Bowie that was still unfolding. "Under Pressure" has been my anthem for years and I feel no shame in calling it my favorite song. I honestly could listen to it a thousand times on repeat for days and still love it. And even though I hate going to concerts, I saw Bowie on his Reality Tour in 2003. In the front row. I swear he winked at me with his hazel eye. He was a true ageless rock god whose voice and presence was huge-bigger than life, despite his small frame. And most importantly, Bowie made being different so glamorous and cool. He was a true artist who made every detail he presented to us matter.
I don't really know how to properly mourn the loss of a rock god. Especially one who crossed so many generations that it seemed impossible for him to be anything but eternal. Just last week, Bowie released his new album and video for "Lazarus" and upon seeing it, I accepted it as yet another curious Bowie transformation--a weak, frail bandaged man twitching and writhing in pain.

The glamorous haunting intensity all staged for the glory of dramatics with his voice as strong and succulent as ever. But now, that video seems to take on the meaning of Bowie's goodbye, his ominous staged confession that he knew he was dying. It seems cruel to be left with this image as our final look at Bowie. But that was maybe just as he would have it.
A sad, silly part of me keeps hoping that this is just a Bowie fake out. That the title "Lazarus" means he will be back, he will be risen. The next Ziggy Stardust. But that is just as foolish as assuming that Tupac calling himself Makaveli on his last album meant that like Machiavelli suggested he was using a fake death to fool his enemies. (A google rabbit hole of conspiracy theories I once went down after watching a documentary on VH1.)
But reality is that Bowie is gone. The Golden Years are over, though lucky for us, his stardust will always remain.
And perhaps it is ok that I all I want to do is watch Bowie videos all day.

Lust in Translation

So science is working really hard to get us more sex.

Pretty much all technological advances are no sooner developed then they are curated into being used for mating stupid humans. Think about it. Your cell phone is such an incredible feat of technology, capable of giving us great advantages from knowledge, and yet we use it to swipe right on Tindr and send sexy poop emojis in text flirtations. What is wrong with us?
Maybe we just need a device that is even more advanced to help us see that the key to the world before us is communication. Not just from emojis and 140 character tweets, but our real, beautiful, poetic words that reach across countries and language barriers. If we had a device that allowed our words to be heard by everyone, translated instantly into their language, just think of the possibilities. That would get us back on track. We'll all be expressing ourselves as eloquently as the Bard himself and the world will find the peace it searches for.

But soft what light through yonder window breaks!
That device is here! The Ili!

The Ili is a necklace that looks like you are wearing a late generation ipod shuffle, but is actually a mobile translator which instantaneously translates all you say into the language of your choice.
There is no way that we can misuse this device. Except the one.
And the company that launched it, Logbar, went ahead and just jumped right to what we stupid, sex starved humans will use this new technology for. Sex. But even worse, their first commercial introducing the device pretty much has a man sexually harassing women with it. And it turns out, sexual harassment is creepy in any language. But especially when translated through a stick in front of your face with a robot voice.

This commercial is super slimy and complete with awful pick up lines you expect to hear after midnight at a dive bar in the wrong part of town. And yet coming out of the dimple-rimmed mouth of this British model they are even more disgusting. This asshole adonis goes around saying things like "I should thank your parents" while wondering through the streets of Japan asking girls to kiss him. Not surprisingly, despite his fancy, magical translating machine and Disney prince good looks, these girls are repulsed, and most of them run away in terror, save a few who clearly were raised orphans without parents to teach them about stranger danger.
Watch this and try not to be disgusted.

While I'm not sure exactly what else we would desperately need to say in a foreign land using this device other than "Where is the toilet?" and "What kind of meat did I eat?" I am positive that this obnoxiously creepy flirting is not what it should be used for. I am also pretty positive that not one woman was on the team working to come up with this marketing concept.
Also, this commercial is a total knock off of an episode of the short-lived, but never-the-less brilliant sitcom ,"Better Off Ted." In the aptly named "Lust in Translation" episode, the team of accidentally evil but adorably dorky scientists at Veridian Dynamics launch the exact same translator product, and the main character Ted obviously uses it to flirt with and bed the buxom blond German corporate head. Like with all sitcoms, it predictably doesn't end well for the translator, Ted, and the blond, but everything wraps up nicely by the end of the episode.

This show has been streaming on Netflix for years (and if you haven't binged on it, I suggest you do.) So I can't help but think whoever came up with the Ili, or at least whoever came up with their commercial, totally caught this episode of "Better Off Ted." So not only does Logbar lose points for their disturbing sexual harassment commercial, they also lose points for lack of originality.
I guess we don't need any more devices or ways to be heard. We apparently have very little worth saying anyway.

The Holiday of Making A Murderer

Happy 2016! I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday season. I did. Thanks to Netflix. Netflix gave me exactly what I wanted this holiday season. A show so worthy of binging that I forgot all about the three trillion questions my nosey relatives asked me about how my "acting" career is going and if I have found "somebody" yet. A show so deliciously captivating that I forgot all about the high calorie holiday cookie bender I'd gone on. A show that turned my post Christmas cold that had me curled up on the couch shut off from society and massacring tissues into the most wonderful time.

I am of course talking about "Making a Murderer." The Netflix original documentary series that they launched just in time for the holidays, knowing that everyone would be desperately searching for something to do beside stand in line to return their gifts or visit more with their strange cousins. 

And unless you have been living trapped underneath your Christmas tree due to a freak decorating accident, you too probably got sucked into this 10 hour television trap. 

Watching the whole 10 hours. At once.

Despite the several times in the 10 hours when Netflix stupidly questioned my life choices by interrupting the next episode from starting saying "Are you sure you're still watching?" Are you mocking me Netflix? Stop passing judgement and just get back to showing me that fat pawn of a prosecutor with the mustache. 

The whole 10 hours got me more and more filled with rage and shock at the seemingly evil police state we live in. My rage levels became out of control high while watching this. Like Nicholas Cage rage.

I had to consume a box of wine to calm myself.

Making a Murderer follows the story of Steven Avery and his intellectually challenged minor nephew who are accused of rape and murder shortly after Steven Avery was released from jail where he spent 18 years for a crime that DNA cleared him from. Avery was also in the midst of a multi-million dollar lawsuit against the county for this error when bam-he's back in cuffs. With crazy evidence popping up everywhere. It was a true crime story 10 years in the making by Columbia film grads Laura Ricciardi and Moira Demos. And each twist and turn left me with so many questions to fuel the fire burning inside me. I had flames....flames on the side of my face. ....

Why are these County policemen who clearly have motive allowed anywhere near this case and evidence? Why was Avery's poor mentally challenged nephew questioned without help and then led into believing that if he told them what they wanted to hear that he could get home in time to watch Wrestlemania? If Avery did kill this girl and try to hide it, why didn't he crush her car, that was literally in the lot next to a car crusher? What is wrong with this jury? Why?

I have watched endless hours of Law and Order:SVU, so I feel that makes me pretty versed in criminal affairs, the law, and spotting liars. And this show raises tons of red flags and makes you lose faith in the American justice system. Where is Benson, Stabler, and that husky voiced DA chick when you need them? They would have never let this happen. 

But despite the rage and the endless whys, this show was amazing. And for once, I was able to partake in conversation using the current lexicon that had entered pop culture. Usually, from the moment I hear people raving about something, I immediately become disgusted and avoid it. I still haven't watched Breaking Bad, Walking Dead, or Game of Thrones. See mom, I did listen. If everyone else is jumping off the bridge, I don't just do it too. But in this case, I discovered this show that silently entered the world digitally, without any prior hype, while alone on my couch. Netflix suggested it to me, and since I am a fan of a good mystery and was tired of watching sappy Christmas specials, I decided to give it a whirl. And by the time, 10 hours or so later, when I came out of my viewing hovel on the couch, it seemed everyone else had simultaneously discovered it and seen it too.
And everyone was fascinated and outraged. They blogged, and posted, and tweeted, and obsessed over this.  They even did something relatively productive. They created an online petition to the White House to pardon Avery and his nephew that has already acquired the 100,000 signatures needed to ensure that the White House must now respond. So the story isn't over. Thank goodness, Netflix could get a second season out of this.

So if you haven't watched this show, get on it. Call out sick immediately and just settle in and go for it. It's like a band-aid, best to rip it all off at once. There is no way to train for this kind of marathon.

And if you have already watched it, try to keep calm and avoid giving in to the conspiracy theory life. This show is a dangerous gateway drug that will lead you down the acid trip rabbit hole where Tupac is alive and Paul is dead and the government is trying to control your mind and poison you. 

Just be grateful for the wonderful holiday memories you shared with Netflix this year. Wasn't it a nice change of pace to spend that week between Christmas and New Years filled with rage from something other than family out-staying their welcome?

Here's to a 2016 filled with things that unite and excite us as much as "Making a Murderer!"

App-etizing Temptations

A while back I had a concept to design an app that was like tindr except instead of posting your picture, you post a picture of your pet. The idea being that if I saw a picture of a cute cat or puppy it would be a better introduction into who the guy is and what we have in common than just another stupid muscle gym selfie.  I would call it "Chasing Tail." But since I don't design apps, and I'm sure this concept would lead to some sort of kinky or awful complications that would horrify me, I dropped the idea. *
But I was onto something, apps are everywhere and there is an app for literally everything. Including now drunk shopping.
That's right. There's an app that will help you impulse buy while you are intoxicated. Like that jerk friend who lures you into the McDonald's on the way home from the bar.

 The app "Drunk Shopping" is brought to you by the same mastermind as that app from 2012 that blocks babies from your facebook newsfeed replacing them with cute cat pictures. So clearly, designer Chris Baker, a former Buzzfeed employee, knows what we want. And what we want is ridiculous crap.  Like this Nicholas Cage face shirt.

Nobody sober would want this. Ever. But when you enlist in this app by texting "heyyyy" to 551-333-7685, you will get a text at 2am on Saturday nights-when the booze has adequately addled your brain-with items such as this and the link to buy them. The app even sends texts egging you on to buying it by trying to reason with your drunk self about how awesome it would be if you had things like a Nicholas Cage shirt or a Loch Ness monster ladle. Dangerous. This app is pretty much like perusing pinterest while drunk. Not a good idea. 

Amazingly, I have never fallen victim to the temptation of tipsy internet shopping. I am more into tangible things I can acquire that have instant gratification aka purchases of the food variety. Those pretzels from street vendors are my kryptonite. I once bought every pretzel the vendor had for my friends and I to binge on. That was the closest I think I've gotten to blowing the bank while boozy.
Designer Chris Baker feels no guilt about preying upon drunken fools, and told Buzzfeed in an interview that "most of the time we’re sure people won’t be completely hammered, they’ll still have a great experience just seeing what products we choose and how we write about them.” I am considering signing up for these texts just so when I wake up (not hungover) on Sunday mornings I can scope out what the crazy internet item is they dug up. I'd also appreciate if there was a way that the people who accidentally actually bought this crap while drunk had to post about it. I'd love to see some confused dude opening a package that contains a Nicholas Cage shirt. Trust I will be checking the hashtag #drunkshopping for updates.

*Please note that after writing this, if I see this app appear I will come after you and sue.

The Great Outdoors

Recently I have seen a couple of stories in the news about people surviving lost in the woods.
Last month there were two sisters in Michigan who got stranded in a remote wooded area for two weeks in their SUV and survived on Girl Scout cookies and cheese curls. Two weeks binging on Thin Mints and cheese curls without anyone bothering you? That actually kind of sounds like my ideal vacation. There are some days I'd eagerly pay to go on that retreat.
And then last week, I read about a woman in Arizona who somehow got lost while running a race and survived in the woods by drinking her own breast milk. I have many concerns and questions about this survival scenario- mostly involving the logistics of sucking on your own tit. Too bad she didn't have some of those sisters' cookies to go with her milk.
But the real question is, why are so many people getting lost in the woods? I think I live in the wrong part of the country for something like this to happen to me so I am not too concerned about having to put my survival skills to the test. Though once I did get stuck on an elevator in an old building in Lower Manhattan and I spent the first few minutes frantically trying to decide how best to ration the tin of Altoids I had in my purse.
While I may not live in the part of the country or have hobbies that would lead me towards the wilderness, that doesn't mean the wilderness can't find me. For example, bear encounters seem to be on the rise.

In my home state of Massachusetts earlier this week, police put out a warning stating, “Chasing bears through the woods drunk with a dull hatchet is strongly not advised.” They had to be specific because apparently some moron actually did that. But what if the bear was chasing you? Two joggers in Granby, CT last week were chased by two bears. Terrifying.
And you're not even safe in New York. At least five wild coyotes have been spotted and apprehended around Manhattan, including the infamous coyote who just wanted a cold beer on the bar rooftop in Queens.
So it is clear, that even if you aren't in the woods, you really have to be prepared to survive every time you leave your house because "oh baby baby it's a wild world."

Keep Calm and Carry On

I'm working on not jumping to wild conclusions and overreacting. Mostly because it is exhausting. For example, the emotional drama I put myself through every time I freak out after going on WebMD when I have a weird ache or pain is worse for my health than anything.
And when I'm at a bar and a random guy starts talking to me, it's probably not accurate to be assuming that he is just planning to mug me.

But I do find it hard to calm my own self down when I live in this world where it seems everyone around us is anxious to escalate every benign situation into epic mass panics.




A great example of this occurred this week at a Target in Australia involving a man, a selfie, a Darth Vader cut out, and a crazed, paranoid woman. 

It shook down like this: A man stopped in the toy section to take a funny selfie with a giant Darth Vader cut out to show his kid. But then a female shopper heard from her kids who were also in the toy aisle about a man, wandering alone in the toy section, with a camera pointed at them. She did what any reasonable person would do and jumped to a crazy conclusion-that he was a child pedophiler. So she took his picture and posted it on the interwebs labeling him as such.
Here is the inflammatory rant she posted along with the picture:

Her post went viral and now this poor Star Wars loving man is receiving death threats and is afraid to leave his house.
This is a good lesson. We do need to calm our tits down. Maybe also stop binge watching brain food for these fears like Law and Order SVU.  
But, here's the thing-I can understand the thought path paved with paranoia this woman was on. And cell phone snap shots can be deceiving. It's hard to tell which of the two lens on cell phones is actually taking the picture. We are all walking around with James Bond spy gadgets. In fact, I have, on more than one occasion, pretended to take a selfie so that really I could surreptitiously take a picture of somebody doing or wearing something ridiculous that I felt I needed to share. And to keep up that ruse, I even pulled a fake selfie face. So, yeah, her fear is not totally unfounded. But, still.....

May the force be with us all as we try to navigate the galaxy of hysteria.

(Also, I'm back and you're welcome!)

Miss Universe's United Nations of Fashion

It's Sunday night, I'm bracing for Snowpocolypse 2015, and a half of bottle into wine when I stumble upon the Miss Universe Pageant on TV.
Beauty pageants that don't have Honey Boo and tantrums where flippers fall out are as uninteresting to me as sports game matches. But one minute into Donald Trump's Miss Universe and it became clear that this international hooker parade offered something of Olympic proportion with their cultural costumes. Game on, bitches.
Obviously these ladies all robed themselves in gowns featuring subtle, classy nuances that express what makes their homeland unique. Canada really nailed it, eh?

Scoreboard is the new scrunchie.

Canada wasn't alone in the use of an over the top fascinator to set that party mood. Some other favorites included:

Aruba's hooters

Peru's belt buckle (and angry bird cape)

And Indonesia's Maleficent

Good thing her invitation didn't get lost in the mail. I'd hate to think of the wrath she'd have on these other beauties.

It becomes clear it is go big or go home. I guess these girls have to do what they can to stand out and let you know where they are from because literally many of these beautiful girls look identical whether they are Indian or Dutch-I honestly can't tell. They are all tan with big pinterest hair and highlights. (Except Miss Jamaica and her daring pixie cut.)
But really, this night was more about feathers than anything. I imagine backstage to have looked like a chicken coup massacre. You had some real fowl play here with:

Jamaica's gay pride turkey

Nicaragua dressed as Disney World's Tiki Tiki Room

Belgium's no-armed spikey winged beach bird

And of course the good ol' USofA really showed how to fly like a patriotic eagle.

And this kind of bustle showgirl look went on and on with lots of feathers for everyone. I guess since Victoria's Secret has sexy angels, this pageant had to be different and use feathers for sexy birds.

But beyond the feathers, there were also some interesting use of props/accessories.

Bolivia wielded a glittery nerf sword.

British Virgin Isles brought all the genies for good luck.

You ain't never had a friend like me.

Japan made everyone nervous with a weapon that she shouldn't have been able to get past security.

While Hungary had a tiny little stuffed bunny.

I watched a "My Strange Obsession" about this kind of thing once.

At this point, it is clear anything goes. Anything. Even poor Miss Australia who clearly somehow lost her actual costume did ok by just taking some Crayola markers to a big round of cardboard and tying her hotel room drapes around her waist.

But at least she tried. Some girls seemed to miss the memo.

Like Miss Israel

And Miss Croatia who bought her dress at Forever 21.

Or that bitch from France who just threw on a beret with her ball gown because she is above all this.

And of course for all those who tried hard to resist this nonsensical push to be turned into a live action "It's a Small World" doll, there were several poor girls who ended up looking like the slutty Halloween costume version of their nationality.

Ok, Greece.

Ugh. Great Britain. I don't think the Queen approves.

Yikes, Nigeria.

And then there was the inexplicable and confusing multicultural muumuu from Korea.

Pretty much everyone of these stereotypical costumes bordered on offensive.

I mean for fuck's sake Germany was wearing a Berlin Wall snuggie. (And of course carrying some of the 99 Luftballons.) It's as if they said, "What do people think of when they think German? Like good stuff that won't make everyone nervous and hate us again."

And I guess Miss Germany couldn't just throw on a lederhosen and wear a beer stein because Miss Curacau already cornered the market on wearing a booze bottle.

There were some crazy, beautiful, cool looks that could make for some fierce America's Next Top Model high fashion photo shoots. I'd rate my top three smize-worthy as
The Venzuela tree

This goddess from India

And this prehistoric party from El Salvador

Yes, Miss Universe was truly pageantry at its finest.
Other than the costumes, I'd have to say the other big highlight for the evening was Miss Columbia (spoiler alert: the winner) saying that she wanted to pursue business so she could "produce and export Columbian products" thus confirming my suspicion that these girls are as smart as they are stylish.