And the Oscar Goes To . . .

This year’s Oscars were as bad as this year’s Super Bowl. Lots of excitement leading up to the big show, but almost immediate and total crushing disappointment once it got started. I’m talking about Ellen.

Look, she seems like a lovely woman. Obviously, with a talk show that survives on celebrity guests, she wasn’t going to make fun of them on a Sunday and then try to book them on a Monday. I get it. However, she was so far from biting wit that she was nothing more than a toothless mutt gorming wetly onto a blanket. Give me a song and dance number, or some mean-spirited jokes, or anything that shows the host prepared, even a tiny bit, for the evening. Instead, we got selfies and pizza. That is comedy?

Other lowlights included the gallery of dead people montage. I believe this section is officially called In Memoriam and while those in attendance have finally figured out that they should not clap when their favorite person is shown on the screen – as this is essentially a wake, not a popularity contest – it still leaves the audience at home scratching their heads trying to remember if they knew such and such was dead. It is the perfect time for a potty break, refills, etc. This year, they did the entire bloody thing and THEN had Bette Midler stride out in all her glory and belt out Wind Beneath My Wings. Um. What? Couldn’t she have sung during the montage and killed two birds with one warbling stone? Did the slowest, most boring part of the evening have to be TWICE as long?

This was an especially bizarre choice because they also let Pink sing the entirely of Over the Rainbow in appreciation of Judy Garland. Let’s parse this problem out slowly. Judy Garland’s own children were in the audience. One of those children is Liza Freaking Minnelli. This is a woman who already owns an Oscar for singing in a musical. She has pipes (and an EGOT, but I’ll get back to that.) So why, exactly was she sitting in the audience watching someone else salute her own mother? It’s a mystery.

There were just so many strange choices. They brought out big name celebrities to rush through three best picture choices at a time, barely showing scenes or moments or even title cards. The best song choices got to sing at best, half of their songs. That left plenty of time for a montage of heroes (conspicuously free of any heroines) another one of animated characters, and the aforementioned shout out to the very dead Judy Garland. This type of producing drives me crazy. Focus on the essentials – the actual shit actually nominated. Then, if you have time, throw in some bonus stuff, but make it relevant and make it entertaining.

The presenters were also problematic. It felt as if someone wanted old Hollywood represented so they raided the closest old folk’s home to see who they could dig up and throw onstage. I am not disparaging the acting ability of Kim Novak or Sidney Poitier. However, she was an advertisement for The Joker’s makeup line and he was the textbook definition of doddering. While it was nice to see how gently Matthew McConaughey and Angelina Jolie dealt with these poor souls, I honestly felt they both should have been left wrapped in blankets, with a nice cup of tea back in their own homes. 

And then there was John Travolta. Jesus Mary and the oft-forgotten Joseph. I don’t know if he was channeling the Crypt Keeper, dead Elvis, or Castor Troy, but dear God, whatever they stuck on top of his head was terrifying. He had one job to do – introduce Idina Menzel. Now I realize that is an unusual name. However, I know they ask the actors to show up the day before to practice. For those who announce nominees, they actually pre-tape the names so that they don’t mess them up (which is why they always cut away from the actors on stage to show clips.) What John Travolta did to her name was a travesty. He got up on stage, seconds before she had to belt out the frontrunner for best song, a song beloved by millions of children, a song many people had spent the entire show waiting for – and he called her Adele Dazeem.

Uh-deen-a          does not equal                  Adele.

Men-zell              does not equal                  Dazeem.

Asshole.

There is also such an obvious cool kids vs non-cool kids vibe during the telecast that I thought things got weird. The first three rows are the cool kids. They get the pizzas. They get to dance with Pharrell. They are the ones who get to walk onstage. The rest of the audience, even those up for awards? Relegated to the cheap seats. A man won an EGOT last night. I yelled so loud in triumph that my husband, sound asleep on a nearby chair, almost fell off it in shock. An EGOT! Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony! One guy, all those awards! That is something worth shouting about. But did it get any more than a passing mention on the telecast? Nope. Because he is a songwriter, so no one gives a shit. There are only 12 EGOT winners in existence. If Bette Midler had won an Oscar and earned her EGOT, balloons would have poured down from the ceiling and a marching band would have come out. But it was just a song writer (even if he is the youngest person in history, at 38 years of age, to have accomplished this) so the show just went on.

I am not going to discuss the awards. I haven’t seen most of the movies, so my opinion is invalid at best. I did like the general bitchy vibe of Cate Blanchett’s speech and the goofy earnestness presented in Matthew McConaughey’s. He managed to throw out both a “Just Keep Livin’” and an “alright, alright, alright” so he’s still aces in my book. I still wish Channing Tatum didn’t insist on wearing clothes and wish some of the actresses wore more of them (bras, for starters), but overall, they were all no doubt deserving and hopefully were gracious in defeat.

One day, I am going to throw my own Oscar party. But until I have some skin in the game and it is a race for Matt vs. Ben, or a project I loved, or actors I can actively root against, I’ll just have to keep bitching on Twitter, Facebook, and blogs.  

Cleanin' Out My Closet

My parents are considering moving. Right before I got married, they moved into a new home in a new state. Their new home was twice the size of their old one for half the number of people and they immediately filled it with a menagerie of dying and decrepit animals. It is basically a nursing home for dogs and my daughter weeps in fear and breaks out in allergic hives every single time we go visit.  

Many years and a major health scare later, they want to move. They have finally realized that the house is too big and that, in case of emergency, my being an hour away (without traffic) is a problem for them. The fact that they decided to move onto the same BLOCK as my family is sort of a problem for me, but one that I may never actually have to solve because long before my parents will pack the last cardboard box, they are going to put each other into matching pine ones.  

Neither one is able to handle change well. Both are pack rats, though of widely disparate items. What this means is that every time she throws out one of his items, he hunts through the trash for it and returns it to its proper place in the garage or basement. He is convinced that every car part, tool, lamp, and piece of furniture is “worth something.” Every time he convinces her to give away a candle, beach bag, or garage-sale toy, she immediately buys something new to replace it, convinced that she will need it as a gift for someone at a later point in time. The best part is that they both call me to yell about the other one. It is a cycle of insanity that cannot be broken.

This weekend, after discovering that they have started dismantling and moving random pieces of furniture for absolutely no reason, we went to visit. As always, my daughter cried then swelled. My son wandered, bored out of his mind, desperate to find the one pet in the house with the normal amount of fur, teeth, and body parts. My poor husband, practically high on the amount of allergy medication required to get through a house liberally covered in dust, cat, and dog fur, simply lugged whatever he was told and tried to stay out of the way.

I prepared for battle. My first war zone was the liquor cabinet. My parents have a beautiful one that came from my great-grandmother. There may not be quite enough liquor in it for the average gathering at my children’s school, but it would be enough for an average wedding. I decided it was high time to clear out the shelves. Obviously, we all know I don’t drink. However, I know of many a beer-n-beer, bazaar, and family fun night that could use a basket of booze to raffle off for a good cause. As I emptied shelf after shelf of top-shelf liquor, my dad stood next to me, like a grumpy old troll guarding his bridge, eyeing every bottle. My dad, the Irish cop, never drinks more than the occasional Coors Light while at home. Thus, it was a mystery why he had both Jameson and Johnny Walker (red and black label), Baileys, Beefeater, and Bacardi, and not one, but two bottles EACH of Absolute and Courvoisier. My parents, neither of whom have ever once had a glass of wine, possess a dozen bottles in a variety of shades. They had mini-bottles of wine from weddings so long ago, the kids produced from those unions are of drinking age. When I was little, I was fascinated by a little bottle that looked exactly like a grenade. This weekend, I convinced my dad to detonate it and the “white dessert wine” that issued forth was a toxic, clumpy brown. I did eventually liberate all but the wine and the Jameson, but I kept an eye on my dad as he packed up the bottles lest he try to pull a fast one and take half of them back.

During this battle over alcohol neither party would actually drink, my mother was gleeful. She was less so when I decided that the second battleground was going to be her “crap closet,” so named by me years ago because nothing in it is worth greater than ten dollars. I have spent years going through this closet every birthday and holiday, as she parcels out one precious, discount item at a time. This weekend, I took it all. No more board games “for the poor kids,” or board books “for when someone has a baby shower.” No more puzzles “in case I need to throw one in with a gift” and no more craft sets “for when the kids come to visit.” My town pool needs new games, my town library needs books, and my town summer rec program needs crafts. And while she hemmed and hawed over every single item, she did eventually give up everything including the ugly umbrella-shaped lamp shade, which strangely enough, turned out to be an ugly umbrella-shaped bird feeder.  

Once they realized I was not taking no for an answer when it came to taking the good stuff, they started bringing out the boxes of bad stuff. Did I want a mini-crepe maker? No. How ‘bought a cast iron griddle so encrusted that it might actually have been used as a murder weapon? No. A giant princess piggy bank with a missing crown? No. The miniature version, but with feathers? No. If the crap closet was the backroom at a Boscov’s, this was the discount section of the same, where everything is half off and broken. Eventually, I just started saying yes to everything. In the end, it is far better that this stuff winds up in my trash cans than their moving boxes.

So, while a few battles have been won, the war is far from over. Realtors still need to be procured in their state and heavily bribed in mine. There are still many closets, rooms, and drawers filled to the brim with things that are both worthless and priceless and two people who don’t know the difference. Plus, the ultimate showdown, the epic battle of wills between mother and father has yet to happen. This will be the deciding factor between good and evil and will be an apoplectic Apocalyptic war unlike any other. Oh yes my friends, the final death match is still to come ---- the garage.

50 Shades: The Musical!

I recently received an e-mail from my friend “Rorey” telling me about something absurd called Fifty Shades! The Musical. Within minutes, I had bought tickets for both of us. You see, Rorey and I have already watched soft-core porn together by, as we thought of it at the time, supporting local theater. Last year, she took me to see The Full Monty at a local playhouse filled with local actors. What this meant, in the context of this play, is that I saw the crab cake guy from the supermarket in all of his, um, glory. For the record, shellfish is officially off the menu.

Rorey and I did not know exactly what to expect from our second foray into dubious musical theater. I knew the premise was supposed to be a book club that discusses the novel in song. I expected a bit racy, and maybe even slightly off-color dialogue, but I did not expect an entire song titled, “Fill My Hole” that was stuffed with so many double entendres, they went right into triples. Sure, the lobby had a kiosk filled with pink puffy handcuffs, a grey tie (not the one from the cover) and lipstick that you would could not apply in public without being arrested for indecent exposure, but I thought it was all in jest. Or I thought that until two actors simulated sex on top of a member of the audience. I have never, ever in my life been so excited to be in the cheap seats and far away from the stage as at the very moment in my life.

Basically, the show went back and forth between the women discussing the book, and scenes from the book itself. The show was not subtle, but it was smart. Ana was dressed all in beige. She addressed her roommate by her full name, every single time. Jose was a flamenco dancer who never stopped taking her picture and hit on her piteously. There were hot guys wearing very little clothing and a woman in little more than a corset and garters who acted as Ana’s Inner Goddess. And let me tell you, when the first hot guy came out shirtless, I was really looking forward to meeting Christian. And that is where the show was brilliant.

Christian Grey, the supposed hottest guy on the planet was played by a man who could have been Chris Farley’s long-lost twin brother. He belly hung ponderously over his pants, his shirt was too tight, his line readings were a marvel of Shatner-esque proportions, and he didn’t dance so much as flit and flitter about the stage. During one song, he donned a Borat-like swimsuit in ruby red and proceeded to prance and pounce around the stage like a drunken uncle at a wedding. It brought to mind the infamous Chris Farley/Patrick Swayze SNL sketch from the 80s where the two played Chippendales dancers. He was gloriously absurd, so anti-Christian that you were helpless to do anything but laugh. A lot. The show also threw in fantastic tributes to The Phantom of the Opera, The Mikado, Les Miserables, and in moment so bizarre that I will never, ever be able to look at light sabers the same way again, Star Wars. It also managed to skewer the basic premise of the novel over and over with Ana endlessly taking about freedom and Christian endlessly talking about fisting. Fisting. Fisting. Fisting. They used that word so much, it actually ceased to have any meaning at all.  

The show is a touring production (I included the link) and I highly suggest that you go see it. Grab your best girlfriends, specifically the ones you can talk dirty with (because the other ones may actually die of shame) and make it a girl’s night out. There is one section of the show that is customized by region and while my Christian sang “I could eat you like a cheesesteak,” yours will probably sing about something different that manages to be both wildly inappropriate but also completely hysterical at the exact same time – exactly like the book!

http://50shadesthemusical.com/tour/

Buying Alaska

When it is this cold outside, the only thing you can really do is settle in with a blanket and a good book. As I am currently forcing myself through my to-be-read shelf of books and am faced with two dozen books I really am not interested in reading, I have turned on the TV instead. What am I watching? I’m so glad you asked.

Destination America is one of the random channels in my cable arsenal to which I have become addicted. My absolute new favorite show, one that I can watch without an ounce of guilt, is Buying Alaska. In each episode a person or couple looks at three homes in Alaska, frequently in remote locations and decides which one will best suit their needs. It sounds basic, right? House Hunters and all its offshoots have been doing this since God cut off his curls. However, Alaska, being the only final frontier that does not require Gene Roddenberry, is a very different beast.

For example, most of the homes showcased on these episodes do not have electricity or running water. This is called living “off the grid.” Those that have electricity, but no running water are called dry cabins. Those that have both usually also have something called an arctic entry. Are you intrigued yet? 

What I find enthralling is that people willingly move to a home that does not have what I consider essentials. If I wanted to pee in a chamber pot while sleeping in the rafters of a shack out in the middle of nowhere, you’d call me crazy. In Alaska, they call that cozy. I’ve seen episodes that require people to memorize the latitude and longitude of their homes because the closest street address is 10 miles away. When you are in trouble, you don’t call 911, you call the Coast Guard. I’ve seen episodes that require people to use a boat, a four-wheeler, an ATV, a fat-bike, and/or a snowmobile to access their homes. Cars are for pussies.

Don’t even get me started on the bathroom arrangements. It was stupid cold in the Northeast today. I bundled my kids up to walk to our car, then walk from the car to the doorway of their school – probably 10 yards total. Now imagine having to do that, but multiply the distance by 10, drop the temp by 30, and your destination at the end – an outhouse. (If you are lucky, it has a door. Surprisingly, not all of them do.) The cheeks on my face felt like they were going to freeze off today, I can’t imagine if I had to drop trou and get the other end drafty. Throw in bears, other assorted wild animals, a ridiculous amount of bugs in their six-week summer, and you have a recipe for kidney failure and severe constipation because I would NOT be going outside to pee. Ever. Hence what is known as the “honey bucket.” Still no. (How do you even wash your hands after?)

Now imagine taking a shower. I saw a young newlywed couple buy a home with no indoor plumbing. In order to shower, you had to walk across the yard, start the generator, wait for it to heat the water (carried in by ATV), take the three-minute shower available due to water supply, dry off in what is essentially a shed, and then hike back across the yard. Remember, this is Alaska in winter, where is snows eight months out of the year. You are not throwing on a hat with your slippers to run out and get the mail. This is a full-on, multi-layer approach to walk through land that has not been plowed or shoveled, in snow that could reach your knees, in temperatures that can cause frostbite almost instantly. Can you imagine doing all that just to shower? It sounds exhausting.

What kills me is that people live this way willingly! One guy said he felt like he hadn’t “earned” electricity. Dude, really? Guys in federal prisons doing time for the worst crimes get lights and toilets, what the hell do you think you have done in life that you haven’t earned either? Others want to get back to nature and live off the land. While I find that a lovely sentiment and I applaud their ability to hunt and fish enough to feed themselves and their family, where are the fruits and veggies coming from? The chocolate? The copious amounts of whiskey I imagine are required to warm your belly and toes? Can you imagine a life where the closest Target is the one in your long-range rifle and is pointed at the back of a moose?

However, after years of watching the aforementioned House Hunters and screaming at the TV when the home owners say they want a fixer upper, then complain about having to repaint, it is refreshing to see people buy homes with bare, insulated walls, no sinks, and nothing even resembling a bathroom and think they have found their dream house. In the lower 48, we talk about mud rooms to keep the clutter of kids and all their crap at bay. In Alaska, they need an arctic entry as a way to store their assorted gear without opening an interior door into their home and automatically losing half of its heat. They don’t need a garage so they can fill it with junk and keep their car in the driveway. They need a garage so that it doesn’t take them an hour every day to clean off their cars and start their engines. They don’t worry about traffic on their morning commute. They worry about trails being washed away. It truly is another way of life and while I am happy to watch it, I would not be happy to live it.

So instead, I’ll sit and use my DVR to tape the show on my HDTV player, beamed in through cable, with the heat on and maybe a fire going, then run the tap to put water in my Keurig to make myself a cup of hot chocolate, all while I sit in my well-insulated home, on the grid.

The Year in Books

This year, I am going to do something a bit different. Instead of listing my favorite books, I am going to list my favorite authors. I found myself going back to the same ones over and over again, so I think this is a far easier path to tread than picking out the best individual stories. So pick through the titles and spend some of those Christmas gift cards on your own portable time machines because books are always, always bigger on the inside. I will only list the books I have read, since it is unfair otherwise. Every author writes a bum book and I would hate to direct you toward something awful.

Carlos Ruiz Zafón

Shadow of the Wind, Prisoner of Heaven, Angels Game

The Watcher in the Shadows, The Prince of Mist (YA)

This author has been on my list before. His adult books are an interconnected series all revolving around the same family and the same bookshop, but can be read in any order. Get a copy with thin, onion skin pages so that you can truly feel the time slipping away as you turn every page. This year, I was surprised to discover young adult books, horror stories that were so well-written, so engrossing, and so terrifying that I would be hard pressed to give it to any child who didn’t already have a driver’s license. Each one caused me to finish, shuddering and shaking, but rushing right out to get the next one.

Kate Morton

The Secret Keeper, The House at Riverton, The Forgotten Garden, The Distant Hours

The characters in these books are so fully fleshed out that you will feel as if you know them. England and the 1940s play a major role in almost every book and the premise of each one is roughly similar – a woman tries to find out a mystery about her family. The tone of voice of each novel is what makes them so wonderful. You know that feeling of being underwater, bobbing along in the warm current, content and enjoying the beauty of your surroundings? That is what reading these books feels like – right up until the temperature drops and you are hit with a wave that jolts you out of that feeling of safety. Happy swimming.  

Gillian Flynn

Gone Girl, Dark Places, Sharp Objects

At this point, we’ve all read her most recent book. However, she wrote two more before that and while they have their flaws, they still deserve a read. All of her books keep you guessing, but it is the first two that really make you wait, racing through each page, desperately trying to figure out what is going to happen next. Her protagonists are hard and broken people, but memorable in their desperation to find out the truth. I actually think Sharp Objects is the best of the lot and while it could use a little fixing (it was her first novel after all), you will never, ever forget what happened to all those teeth.

Mark Halperin and John Heilemann

Game Change, Double Down

The former books deals with the 2008 election, the latter with the 2012. Both non-fiction books are absolutely riveting in their detail about what truly goes on behind the closed doors of a presidential campaign. I admit that I knew few, if any names of anyone but the actual nominees, but this book makes it easy to follow the myriad players in the game of politics. The first is a must-read for Sarah Palin alone, but the second really shows you how the sausage is made in terms of picking a president.

Ben Mezrich

Sex on the Moon, Busting Vegas, Bringing Down the House, The Accidental Billionaires

These non-fiction books all take on a single story and make them as engrossing as any fictional journey. The author has a dozen books total, so I have lots left to read, but these four were universally excellent. The theft of lunar rocks from NASA, cheating at cards in Vegas, and the creation of Facebook seem like relatively dry topics, but in this author’s deft hands, they play out as thrilling roller coaster rides filled with passion, recklessness, and hubris.

The first time author award goes to Helene Wecker for The Golem and The Jinni. The title tells you pretty much all you need to know about the main premise. Make it your book club pick, borrow it from the library, buy it for yourself, but go read a book that is really quite remarkable about setting such fantastical creatures in New York City of the 1900s.

And the worst authors of the year are as follows:

Veronica Roth – Her Divergent series is terrible. The first book was at least marginally interesting, but the second book was frustrating and the third book was flat out ridiculous. I have a vicious rant all bottled up inside for the first person who asks me about the ending. JESUS! An awful series from start to finish, if you really want dystopia and strong female characters, just go read The Hunger Games and call it a day.

E.L James – I just can’t with this author.

Amber Benson – This one broke my heart. The Scoobies have a truly special place in my heart. Every time Danny Strong gets an award for writing, I yell “Go Jonathan” at my television (even though he is technically my nemesis-es). So when I found out Tara had written a series of books about Death’s daughter, I was all in. Until I read the first one. Vapid, poorly written, and poorly plotted, I’d rather watch another season of Dark Willow than read another one of Amber Benson’s books.

Charlaine Harris (again) – Her final book in the Sookie Stackhouse (Southern Vampire) series was insulting to all the readers who slogged their way through the first dozen books. Each book was worse than the one before. These books set the stage for the TV show True Blood and while I am still devoted to that show (mostly due to frequent nakedness of Eric Northman and Alcide Herveaux), this last book was the last straw for me. 

Christopher Moore - Every book has a really interesting premise that is eventually ruined by the most basic, infantile humor. I'd love to see his books rewritten but with actual intelligence. Judging by his fan base, this is clearly a case of the reader not matching the author. 

She Bangs!

WARNING: Pornography and sexual acts will be discussed. Please be advised. 

WARNING: This blog is rated X.

So I watched my first sex tape the other day.

The reasoning was solid. I was reading an article about the multiple atrocities committed by Kris Jenner, among them the creation of the Kardashian clan into a multi-million dollar brand. Not a single Kardashian has a distinguishable talent. They cannot act, sing, or dance. They are celebrities in the truest sense of the word in that they have done nothing to earn their status other than simply existing. I personally doubt they can read or write, yet they oversee corporations dedicated to selling their faces and names on countless products. They mostly just show up places in really ugly and revealing outfits, get filmed going about their obviously staged lives, and are mostly known for their poor choices in male companions. However, this article talked about Kim Kardashian specifically and how her sex tape with a guy improbably named Ray J shot her into stardom.

I got curious. I’ve never seen a sex tape and one that would make someone instantly famous seemed like it must be a really good one. I mean, why else would it make her famous? I bet there is a google of porn available on Google. What made this one so special?

Having now watched it, I have absolutely no answer to that question but a million new questions to ask. This video is obviously made by two consenting adults. They knew the camera was one, often shifting it for a better (or more often, a worse) angle. She is shown putting on full makeup and doing her hair in preparation. They obviously wanted to be seen engaging in the act of sex. Yet, for some reason, she never takes off her boring beige bra (and barely takes off her boring beige panties) and he never takes off his socks! She couldn’t afford better lingerie? He couldn’t summon up enough body heat to keep his feet warm? In half the video she is still under the barely rumpled bedding and everything is done by the light of a single bedside table. It’s just weird.

They also never stop chewing gum! I suppose the smack of Hubba Bubba adds something to the soundtrack, but there are points in the video where she obviously has something else in her mouth. Where does the gum go? In one section of the video, his mouth is clearly busy, yet when he randomly stops that act, he goes right back to chewing gum. Ewwwww.

I realize that most video porn is for men. They are visual creatures and like to see things. But what I don’t get is how they can watch this and not see clearly and easily that little Kimmie is faking the absolute shit out of this video. She barely reacts to anything. For example, at one point, Ray J takes her from behind with equipment that in both size and shape resembles nothing so much as a lead pipe. She doesn’t even blink. A speculum, the most hated part of any woman’s annual visit to the doctor is, on average, half the size and width of the sexual part in question. No one enjoys a speculum because they hurt. Yet this woman never even stops chewing gum or takes an extra breath when this mammoth piece of equipment enters her. She just umms and ahhas a bit in a bored voice. So, either she has a lady part as wide as the Holland Tunnel or he missed entirely and is busy screwing a pillow or something.

After seeing the video in its entirely, I can really only come to one conclusion – both the people on it are absolutely awful in bed. There are multiple scenes in this video where he is doing things to her that for all intent and purposes should cause some sort of reaction, yet no matter what he does, she either wiggles her butt an inch or lets out a random breathy sigh. Occasionally, she encourages him using profanity in her baby girl voice that is about as opposite as sexy as it is possible to get. It sounds like she is encouraging a toddler to keep trying to crayon inside the lines. For his part, he can’t seem to figure out how to use his equipment properly. All he does it stop to change positions and try to keep his dick from falling out of her. There is no passion, no ability. It’s all hose, no fire. He just keeps plugging away, trying to get the camera to shine on his diamond earrings. When the film winds to its conclusion, there is no money shot, as it were. No orgasm for either party. If fact, he visibly wilts on camera and she just throws her hands in the air and laughs. It’s like they ran out of tape so just stopped what they were doing. I was very confused.

All in all, I guess Kim Kardashian is as good at porn as she is as everything else. All flash, no bang. 

Punkin’ Chunkin’- The Sport of Fools

This past weekend, we took the kids down to the middle of a Delaware to watch pumpkins being shot out of air cannons, catapults, and trebuchets. It seemed like a good idea at the time. My first inkling that it was not going to be a family-friendly event (as advertised) should have been the spelling. While I understand that pumpkin chucking is a mouthful and doesn’t have the same verve as “punkin’ chunkin’”, any event that sounds like it could host a Honey Boo Boo family reunion probably isn’t going to be PG. Also, I should have used the brain God gave me to realize that you have to be drunk and stupid to think standing next to a jury-rigged piece of pressurized steel is ever a good idea. 

The second big hint that this was no ordinary fall festival was the parking lot. I haven’t seen that level of tailgating since Buffet. This was professional-level revelry. Corn hole? Check. Bocci? Check. Beer pong? Check. Some weird thing with PVC piping and rocks on a sling that my husband called poor-man’s horse shoes? Check. These people didn’t just throw a football in the trunk and call it a day. These people threw the better part of a Home Depot in the back of a pickup and built themselves something glorious. I can only imagine what the overnight camping parking lot looked like. They probably had full wet bars, hot tubs, and tiki huts over there.

The redneck ingenuity of the parking lot carried over into the venue. There were people wearing bandoliers of beer cans, belts made of beer cans, and for one particularly Gandalf-loving group, walking sticks made of duct-taped Budweiser cans. The more they drank, the higher the staff. I’m pretty sure that by the end of the day, they could have used those things to pole vault. This wasn’t a Red Solo cup event – this was a drink straight from the bottle until the bottle ran out type of event – all while sitting on stacked futons, hastily-constructed viewing platforms, or in one case, a couch being pulled around on an ATV. This was ground zero for alcohol poisoning and it was really quite something to behold.

Honestly, it is not like I blame them. Waiting for pumpkins to be launched thousands of feet in the air takes a while. You’ve got to do something to fill the time. We actually wound up getting to the event right as competition was ending. The rest of the day was spent in open fire mode where the sky was filled with flying pumpkins. The key is to make them splat, not explode. Also important was the ability to operate your machinery without spilling your beer. We watched one group of Darwin-award nominee’s use a socket wrench to hand crank a wooden contraption that looked closer to a torture device than a catapult. They couldn’t get a lot of momentum going because well, they were using a socket wrench, and because they refused to put down their cans of Bud Light. We all cheered enthusiastically only to watch the pumpkin pathetically roll a whole five feet into the dirt. I was just happy the poor kid standing closest to it still had a hand. These machines are not exactly following OSHA standards for safety. In fact the next day, one of the bigger air cannons actually exploded, shooting pieces of scrap metal hither and yon. Safety was definitely not first in the minds and hearts of the crowd or the competitors.

I have to be fair and state that while this crowd was raucous, it wasn’t rude. Sure, people were falling down drunk, but they were laughing when they fell. Yes, they did walk around in very large groups usually in matching outfits (camo overalls were popular for the men, flannel shirts/cowboy boots/Daisy Dukes for the women), but they always politely moved aside when my family came through. At one point, we were all in a large group that was being filmed for the Discovery Channel. While the Mythbuster trio of Tory, Kari, and Grant did their thing up front, the group of 20-somethings next to us did their best to get my kids to the front of the crowd and in camera range. The fact that they did this while slurring every other word, uses curses in place of articles of speech, and practically offered to beat the shit out of anyone who got in my kids way was just, well, darling. Their eyes couldn’t focus, but their hearts were in the right place.

We left right before the rain moved in and walking back through the mostly deserted parking lot was just as entertaining. There were a number of grills just left high and dry as their owners realized the inherent difficulty of getting a burning hot grill back into the trunk after a day of cooking burgers. There was the requisite ball playing and some really poor parenting choices. Letting your three year old ride a mini-ATV the size of an average car tire through a parking lot is a great idea if the parking lot is empty. However, when it is full of oversized trucks and SUVs all trying to pull out, many of which had to be driven by people way beyond the legal limit, well, that just seems like you don’t really want to take that child home with you, at least not in anything larger than a box.

In the end, a good time was had by all. Except for the pumpkins. I don’t think they enjoyed it one bit.