What Is Art?

Sid from 'Toy Story' grew up to be an artist.
 

So...I went on a mini-adventure with Roger today, we were searching for the answer to the question, "What is art?" We started at LACMA, which was under a ridiculous amount of construction--super enjoyable background noise while looking at art. 

At first glance modern art makes me feel like a hick because I think it's all ugly crap and maybe I'm not sophisticated enough to actually "get" it---then I look at it again and realized, no, society's really just lowering the bar on all levels and it really is pure crap.

Knock, Knock. Who's there? Don't touch my effing door. Don't touch my effing door who? Seriously, you touch my golden door again and I'll snap your arm off.

 Here we go again! Put some pants on Tom. Gah!

This painting brought me so much joy. See Heather, not everyone is stoked about wang. For eons women have been annoyed by them.

After walking around more modern and Asian art (why do they have a peaceful Buddha with an angry dragon in the same piece, kind of contradictory.) we went to the tar pits. A lot of people don't know what the tar pits are, to which I ask them, do you not understand English? It's pretty self explanatory. While we walked around the HUGE tar pit I commented to Roger that I didn't believe this was the only spot in LA that had bubbling tar. I bet the buildings across the street are on top of tar as well. As I was explaining my theory we came across

THIS...

 AND THIS...

 AND THIS!!!

Clearly I was correct because there was tarry crap oozing up all over the place as stupid parents let their kids run all over the grass. Have fun getting that stain out of Jr's slacks, stupid!

We walked over to the HUGE pit,with the cheesy Mastodon statues, and found the winner of the 'What the Hell?' award.

 

This dude walked the ENTIRE pit leaf blowing...nothing. I told Roger it would be our luck that we would witness this jag fall into the pit AND THEN have to do something to rescue him. I kid you not, as soon as I said that, this dumb bastard slips and ALMOST eats it into the pit. Then he turns, laughs and said, "I'm not going swimmin' today!" Idiot. 

I know what you're thinking. Where are my random tar pit facts? Here you go!!  

• About 8 -12 gallons (32 - 48 liters) a day ooze and bubble to the surface,occasionally trapping invertebrates, reptiles, birds, small mammals  and occasionally large mammals (like clumsy gardeners) especially during warm days when the asphalt (tar) is softest.
• This pit is 14 feet deep, so that gardener would have been totally screwed.
• Also, palm trees are baller enough to grow in tar. Good for them.   

We then proceed to do a photo shoot of pictures that would be in our version of a cheesy 1970s sitcom. Enjoy.

 

Come and knock on our door.....

 We've been waiting for you...

Where the kisses are hers and hers and his,
Three's company too. 

 

Come and dance on on our floor......  

 Take a step that is new.....

 We've a loveable space that needs your face,
Three's company too.

You'll see that life is a frolic and laughter is calling for you....Down at our rendez-vous,
Three's company, too!!!!!!

Being that happy is exhausting, so we went for lunch at Canter's Deli before heading to Hollywood Forever Cemetery. On the map online, it looks like a fairly small cemetery.

Nothing like the beast that is Forrest Lawn---boy was I wrong. Going to Hollywood Forever is like going to a library because EVERYTHING is jam packed...

Until you get to Douglas Fairbanks.

That sucker bought up an ENTIRE section.  

Douglas Fairbanks Sr. (See, I told you he looked swarthy, Roger.)

 The Sheik! Valentino's crypt. I did not see any sign of "The Lady in Black." 

She is a mysterious woman who visits his tomb. No one knows if she was a lover, wife...fascinating.

 Marion Davies tomb was really hard to find because it's not marked Davies, it's marked DOVRAS, her real last name. I walked all over the place trying to find her and when we did, we couldn't even peak in. Crap. And, no, she is not buried with Baller Status Hearst. Double lame.

Everyone knows Estelle Getty! (Why there are rocks on her headstone, I do not know.)

" Picture it. Sicily. 1900. An olive skin woman sets out for the new world. On her journey, the ship is filled with all sorts of diseases like smallpox, consumption, and scurvy. And that was in the business class. " -Sophia on The Golden Girls

 "I'm ready for my close up Mr. DeMille."

 "Young Fella"-DeMille's term for Gloria Swanson.

Below is the real deal, just so you know what we were really going for. Not as good as Carol Burnett, but pretty close.

"You see, this is my life! It always will be! Nothing else! Just us, the cameras, and those wonderful people out there in the dark!... All right, Mr. DeMille, I'm ready for my close-up." -Norma Desmond

By the way, DeMille, Valentino and Swanson were ALL HUGE celebrities at the same time and worked in many silent films together.

Is that you Agent 99? 

At Don Adams' grave, he was in the original 'Get Smart' TV show. 

Doing my best Hattie Mc Daniel.

 "Miss Scarlett whar you goin' with out yo shawl with the night air fixin' to set it? Come on in hare before you catch yo death-a dampness." -Mammy in Gone With The Wind.

We didn't get to see everyone we wanted to see. It's to be continued!

So...did we find an answer to our question? We learned that good art is,typically, made by people who are dead. 

SUPER FREAK

Give It To Me Baby! (SAY WHAT?)

So...Tuesday I went to the Bowers Museum,with my friend Roger, to see the Benjamin Franklin exhibit. I used to work at Bowers and knew it was always full of kids and blue hairs. I know quite a bit about ol' Benji Frank and was hoping for a comprehensive look at his life. Well, you can hope in one hand and crap in the other and see which one fills up first. I felt like I was on a Splash Mountain-esque version of 1776, in other words, my hand was full of crap.

Cold Blooded

Everywhere I looked there's this friggin' squirrel, named Skuggs. What they didn't tell the kiddies was, skuggs is what squirrels were called back in the 1700's and when a pet "skugg" Benji had gifted to someone got killed by a dog, he wrote this, "Here Skugg Lies,Snug as a Bug in a Rug." So next time you say that, think "snug has a half eaten squirrel." Adorable.

In addition to being in Critter Country, there were touch screen TVs EVERYWHERE! If I wanted to watch TV, I would have stayed home. One clip was called "The Gout and Mr.Franklin." (As seen below)

She's a very special girl, from her head down to her toenails.

(Especially if she has the gout.)

So, they don't want to directly talk about his kinkiness, but showing kids a video of him talking to a drag queen version of himself is ok because he's Avatar blue? What--alright. Moving on.

They had some cool hands-on exhibits for kids, the best being about electrical currents. A bunch of private school, entitled, OC boys held hands and were shocked. It was awesome, especially when one kid hit the floor, then got up and wanted more. That kid will have drug problems.

  AND,I thought there would be actual portraits, not reproductions from art.com! They did have actual books Benji owned, some of which had pretty interesting titles.

Come on, Rick, I'm tired, let's go home 

It's Such A Freaky Scene

These chairs,one of his many inventions, were all over the place. A chair with a fan powered by a foot pedal...I would buy one. But, as you can see from my grimace in the photo above, like the senior citizens who this chair would be marketed for, I too can't stand screaming kids.

JUST THE FACTS JACK: It doesn't please me to say B.F. made Rick James look like Carlton from 'Fresh Prince', but he was the very definition of a super freak. He loved GILFs ("And as in the dark all Cats are grey, the Pleasure of corporal Enjoyment with an old Woman is at least equal, and frequently superior." Gross, dude.), paid for hookers, was a dope head, a member of the Hellfire Club (The Hellfire Club was known for it's orgies, as depicted in 'Eyes Wide Shut,' yea, that weird ass movie with Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman before her face got jacked.), and workers in 1998 dug up thousands of human bones buried in the basement of his London home (he lived with a doctor who wanted to study anatomy, which was illegal at the time, so BF paid unsavory people to bring him fresh bodies at night...wouldn't their neighbors have smelt that? No one complained...really?)

I say, forget the exhibit and watch some History Channel.

Temptations sing!

On The Sunny Side Of The Street

Although I can't have any chocolate, this was all the sugar I needed this V-Day.

So... I spent Valentine's Day with Alec Baldwin. You can stop braggin' about your assorted box of Russell Stovers chocolate and romantic dinner at Olive Garden, and KNOW my day stomped yours. Bright and early on Valentine's Day morning, I got up and drove into Hollywood to see Alec Baldwin received his star on the Walk of Fame. Heather came with me and we stopped at Starbucks before hand. I needed the boost, with my porcelain skin and aversion to any time of day ending with A.M., I already draw too many similarities to a vampire. The girl in front of us ordered $25 worth of coffee in between texting. I wanted to smack the back of her head, I had places to be, skank!

TIP: THIS is NOT the person to crowd in front of.

We got to Hollywood an hour before the ceremony, and there was already a butt load of people, but I got a good spot. The girl in front of me left to go find a bathroom and a few minutes later I heard, "Excuse me." A girl, NOT the same one, pushed in front of me. Oh hell to the no. I'm a rule follower, and you can NOT just say excuse me and crowd your way to the front, not when it involves me getting out of bed early AND Alec Baldwin. I saw her gross ass bedhead hair that hadn't been brushed for days, all oily & dandruffy, basically a walking Head and Shoulders ad. She was wearing high heels and rolled up jeans...I knew she was a stupid skank. I looked at the girl next to me, I saw that she was also frustrated. Since I was bigger, I pushed right up against skank-a-saurus Rex , breathing down her gross neck, making it super uncomfortable to be there. "Woooow, you've got to be effing kidding me,"  I said to the back of her flaky head. She stood there for a few more seconds, then left. She tried to get into the press area, but she was neither a member of the press, nor hot enough to enter. That's the brakes! She came back to my area and I stood close to my new rule following friend and didn't let her squeak in. "Uh, some people," she said. "Screw yourself," I replied, I'm pretty sure she did, she's a skank, they can't help themselves.

Shampoo is for closers.

I noticed the same homeless dude that was at Mel Brook's ceremony was at this one, thankfully it was not a hot day so the trash bag he utilizes as a purse didn't smell as bad. The press really started coming in and the guy in the photo below looked a lot like Huey Lewis, I wondered where 'The News' was. (That guy is actually Jerry Penacoli from Extra!)

Oh, whoa, workin' for a livin'.

The event started. Johnny Grant isn't the mayor anymore, so the new guy got things rolling. A few stars were there; Jack McBrayer (Kenneth the Page from 30 Rock), Nick Offerman (Ron Swanson from 'Parks & Rec" and Megan Mullally's husband), Stephen Baldwin (proving that everyone has a goober little brother) and Anne Heche (who cares?!) &  Megan Mullally spoke. She is very funny and wrote a great speech. Billy Baldwin was supposed to speak but was sick, so another schmuck talked, then Alec got up and excepted his star.

He was very gracious, the speech was funny but he thanked a bunch of industry people that no one knew. (Why do people do that? If your agent got you a gig, you don't have to thank him ---you already PAID him, he did his job, what he was paid to do. Oh well, he's just a nice guy.)

I don't know what that guy was yappin' about, neither does Alec. 

"I'm going to be your bottom, Kenneth, and I want you to ride me as hard as you can."- Jack Donaghy

After he did interviews (with NBC only reporters) he came over to us peasants. What sucks about stuff like this is there's always a bunch of douche b's that want to get crap signed so they can sell it on eBay. I effin' hate them and they were there in force.

A: Always, B: Be, C: Charming

Always Be Charming

It was a fun way to spend Valentine's Day, but I had to drive back and go to work. After an awesome day, a little kid in a wheel chair snapped my happy ass back down to reality and told me I looked like Miley Cyrus. I took it as a compliment since he was a kid and had no way of knowing she's actually a gangling weirdo. Then his Mom chimed in and said I must get that all the time. Thank you life,even though you gave me lemons to make lemonade with, you always make sure to squirt a little juice in my eye, just to keep it real!

Educate Yo' Self: Song my blog title is referencing

A Real Pipperoo

And I thought he would come back as a van...DOWN BY THE RIVER!

So...this was a freakin' weird week and I'll tell you what kind of sparked the weirdness. I was reading about random things I'm interested in at 4AM, like any normal person, and I stumbled across this news clip from a few years back.

That is effin' amazing! I like mystical stuff, but also know that a lot of people don't buy it, which I get, but this is a little hard to explain away. Two days later 'The Glenn Miller Story' came on TV. I've seen that movie about a million and one times since I was a kid and thought both stories were similar. (If you don't know who Glenn Miller was, shame on you, go spend some time at your grandparents' you ingrate! He pretty much created Big Band dance music...ugh, here's a song...jeez, I'm like Wikipedia on legs!!)

To make him sound more hip, his song 'Chattanooga Choo-Choo' was famously referenced in 'Young Frankenstein'...and if you haven't seen that movie, choke yourself. 

All this got me to thinking, if little James got reincarnated, what about Glenn Miller? He didn't have a great death, shouldn't he get a round two? And don't think I didn't look it up! (I didn't find a thing on that topic, but I did find a lot of conspiracy stories regarding his disappearance.) Then I thought, what about Hitler? Now I have to hope I don't have a kid who's unhealthy, a mental defective, an asshole and/or Hitler! Come on! It would be just my luck to have a kid and it 'd be the reincarnation of Hitler! It opened up a Pandora's Box of pretty much, unanswerable questions for my mind to feast on. Oh well, I suppose I can sleep another time!

Mick Jagger, Meltdowns and Main Characters

Even if I get Alzheimer's, I will never forget this friggin' song.

So...class numero tres. It was too windy to sit outside before class so I began my search for a hide out indoors. As soon as I opened the doors to my building 75 music students came pouring out. Every stereotype you can think of for musical theater students, insert it here x75, then picture me like a salmon swimming against a stream of loud nerds. Finally, I found a small art library to sit in for an hour and a half, thank God!

Crazytown and some poor Asian dude were the only ones in class when I arrived 10 minutes early. That poor sucker will never come to class early again. She named dropped about some book she edited being made into a movie and some actor signed on, and I'd just love it--- blah, blah, blah. First off, you don't know what I would love but if you like it, it might be a little too (insert BS buzzword jargon here) for me! And second, if I don't know the actor, he must not be that awesome.

Our homework was to write a 3 act summary of Toy Story. Not as easy as it sounds. I'm learning that screenwriting is all about the less words the better, so I had to make my 3-4 sentences per act count. After talking about that movie, we got to watch Act I of 'Moonstruck,' and I noticed how much detail there was in the movie this time around. If you haven't seen it, SNAP OUT OF IT and rent it. If you have seen it, the next time you watch it, notice how much death is referenced and that Johnny and Ronnie haven't talked in 5 years (5 fingers=a hand), and I could go on, but I won't.

As we were getting our assignment for next week I noticed one thing the teacher didn't cover that was noted on the syllabus for the week. It said, "Main Character's Goals: A word of advice from Mick Jagger." I asked her what the advice was. "You can't always get what you want, you get what you need." This was one subject I could have taught that class about because I know that song all TOO well.

Explanation: To keep me from being a whinny little sh*t, my Mom used the Rolling Stones as an embarrassing torture tactic. If I asked her for a toy that I couldn't have and kept asking, she would start singing that song where ever we were, a toy store, the mall, doesn't matter. It was embarrassing as hell and I would walk away as fast as I could and she didn't have to hear me pitch a fit about getting something I didn't need. As I got older, all she would have to say is, "I hear the choir warming up, " which was a warning that she would start singing, and I would walk away from the battle. More parents should do this because I NEVER threw a fit about some worthless piece of plastic. I'm not messed up because of it either...just don't sing around me, I will walk away from you as fast as I can.

S.A.G.S and TITS

I'm 100% sure I have a photo with the same facial expressions with my best friend. If Fey and Poehler are anything like Cassie and me, they can only be noticing one thing, someone farted.

So...after the world's most uneventful shift, I watched the SAG Awards tonight and I will say, award shows are AWESOME with a DVR. And, for an award show ONLY for actors, not a lot of them can read cue cards super great. For some reason during the red carpet interviews, the majority of them were snoozeburgers. You're wearing  $100,000 of diamonds on your chest and get to drink all the free booze you want, I'd be super stoked!

Every one's fascination with Natalie Portman---I just, why? She's knock-up by her boyfriend who's a ballerina...Judy Garland had a kid with a gay guy too, big whoop! I read a quote from her while she was promoting her dump-tastic rom-com and these were her feelings on the romantic comedy genre, "They always want to get married at the end. There’s some kind of makeover scene. That stuff offends me." Well, Nat, there actually are movies about a hot girl who sleeps around, they're called porn and THAT is a more reasonable thing to be offended by, hippie.

Not to paint myself as a complete prude, let's talk about mammalia.

Tits, Ba zooms, Fun Bags, Medicine Balls, Pechangas, Nay-Nays---my world, welcome to it.

I also found out that NO ONE knows when 'Mad Men' will be coming back. This news seriously screwed my impending summer romance with my TV sideways because 'Mad Men' comes in and fills the cold, sad void of no new '30 Rock.' And on top of that news, my girl, Christina Hendrick's looked cute but the dress was super boring. (I have only recently purchased by first LBD, black is boring---I look better in technicolor!) AND, her husband was annoying and talked WAY too much on the red carpet interviews. Shut your yap and thank your lucky stars that you get to go home and sleep next to that.

Christina is all about her bazooms and that dress didn't really show them off. Since, I too, am in the Big Titty Committee, I think that you'd better show 'em off while they're nice, because some day they'll be like that song lyric, "Can you throw them o'er your shoulder/Like a Continental Soldier?"

Sophia Vergara ('Modern Family') knows what I'm talking about and I LOVED her dress. I would rock that dress if I ever went anywhere awesome. 

I Want To Go To There.



Alec Baldwin won for Best Actor in a Comedy. Thank God, because Big Bang Theory is a Hindenburg of a show. I don't know how that nerdy dude won at the Golden Globes and Emmys instead of my precious Daddy Bear.

On a completely random note, I love the photos of Tina Fey and Amy Poehler. They remind me of Cassie and me being total goobs and I'm happy to know that I can continue being a dork for a few more decades!

The Eyes Have It

Vegan cupcakes---what? No. Just, stop.

So...I had a plan of action this week before driving to UCLA. I knew that if I got there early (which I did), I would sit away from the entire building my class is in and read, then go to class 5 minutes before it started. That seemed to help since I didn't have to sit directly next to Whack-a-do this time. We had to go around the room sharing our ideas for scripts we wanted to write. Sounds easy? Sure, but we only had 2 sentences in which to get the idea across. Yikes. Some ideas were great,others needed work and others sounded like movies that had already been made. Mine went over well and Crazytown's was full of...*eye roll*..."buzzwords" Buh!

I only had to deal with chatting during our break. She asked if she should take the train to San Diego or drive. I said drive but she "doesn't really drive on freeways." Oh, ok. I don't know how you have survived in LA for almost a year without doing that, much less successfully walked this planet for 36 years. I am amazed.
She then went on to talk about how "delicious" vegan cupcakes are. Choke yourself for even letting those words come out of your mouth and for being a liar.

We got to discuss Tootsie at length, which was great. Almost as good as being able to eat a piece of cheese...it's a close call. I thought one of the most interesting parts we talked about was that they didn't have time for "Tootsie" to get to know Jessica Lange's character because it would have been too much dialogue, so they picked a woman who you could fall in love with from just one look. Awesome shortcut! And the new 30 Rock episode tonight even had an entire ending dedicated to scenes with just looks. Life wrapped that handy lesson up for me in a Jack Donaghy shaped present!