Dammit. The '80s were NOT cool!

Why oh why do the singers, bands, actors & actresses from my childhood want to whore out my memories? It started with "Don't Stop Believing" by Journey, featured on Laguna Beach (WTF is Laguna Beach?! A "Scripted Reality" show? When I was a kid, we called that just plain old TV.) When I heard my 16 year old niece singing it, I found out that Steve Banana Crotch Perry sold out to The Man and boy, that pissed my cranky ol' ass off.

Now I hear rumblings of movie remakes. Footloose, Predator, Karate Kid, The Neverending Story, Ghostbusters. The list goes on and on, and the longer it goes, the worse it gets.

There seems to be a misconception in Hollywood that the 80s were good. The 80s were NOT good. The 80s were a fashion, music, and pop culture black hole. As a decade, the 80s are totally disposable. Literally nothing happened until 1989 when the Berlin Wall fell. Up until then, the decade had only been a long series of terrible, no good, very bad, teased & stonewashed years which just BEG to be forgotten. Music. Movies. TV shows. Clothes. All of it. Painfully tacky, horribly mediocre, terribly over-saturated. Mall bangs, for God's sake? Do we REALLY want to relive that action?

I was a teenager in the 80s. I remember how much it sucked. I remember wearing shirts that changed colors when your body temperature rose...which says alot about the time period. It was a time when we wore clothes to ACCENTUATE OUR SWEAT.

How low did our standards have to be back then that Suzie Q's "Two of Hearts" was a huge hit? Suzie Q looked like Olive Oyl on crank and she sounded like somebody taking a helium enema. I saw her on a recent One Hit Wonders marathon on VH1. She has NOT improved with age.

It just makes me wonder that kids today look back on the 80s as some kind of golden age. My teenage nieces LOVE the John Hughes movies. I think they think we all lived in huge brick houses with white columns, and had quirky best friends with cute little nicknames like Ducky, and changing the color of our eye shadow was all the makeover it took to land our dream guy. I think they think we all knew how to apply lipstick with our cleavage and detention was one long party with a few joints, some groping, and also dancing. Mostly dancing.

I wouldn't go back to the 80s for anything in the world. The entire decade was like biting tin foil. It was bright and tacky and sticky and sharp and loud. It smelled like hot duct tape & Aqua Net.

I am a product of the 80s. Need I say more?

We are so screwed

So. You’re driving down the road in your high-rent neighborhood. Kids won’t stop arguing. After many repeated warnings, kids STILL won’t stop arguing. Pull car over, kick kids out, tell ‘em to start walking and drive the 3 miles home in blissful silence.

Then.

Get arrested, charged with child endangerment & neglect, have your kids taken into protective custody & your mugshot splashed all over the interwebs.

P.S. the kids were 10 & 12.

Ok. When I was a kid, our options when we were told to stop arguing were a) shut the hell up or b) receive a customized ass-whooping. Getting out of the car was an option, too, but the car wasn’t going to slow down to LET us out.

When I was 12, one of my chores was to check for rattlesnake tracks & make sure they were headed AWAY from the house and not TOWARD the house.

Walking 3 miles was called “going to the store”…with a note to pick up a pack of cigarettes for Dad.

Those poor kids, having to find their way home to their million-dollar house, with only their cell-phones and $200 down-filled parkas to keep them warm & safe. Those darn sidewalks and streetlights must’ve been terrifying for them…in broad daylight.

One time, I got stuck in the outhouse on the hill in the dark with a rattlesnake between me and the house. My decision was to sleep in the outhouse or jump over the snake.

Another time, I dropped the end of the shed (SHED: a small building used to house thing such as generators, wood, lawnmowers etc.) I was carrying on my thumb. My choice was to pull the fingernail the rest of the way off or let it fall off on its own. So I can totally understand how the poor darlings who had a choice to walk the 12 blocks home would have decided against it.

Tough choices are what life is all about, baby. Like choosing the thickness of the willow branch to take back to the house to receive your whoopin’. Ya. Choices like that.

And now those two kids have learned that Mom is bad & the state is their savior & I’ll bet they have Child Protective Services on speed dial on their precious little cell phones.

This generation is the future of our country? Crap.

What the...

Ok. I watched David Lynch's Blue Velvet just now...wait. That's not completely true. I watched til about 30 minutes from the end and then just couldn't watch any more. There are several reasons for this.

#1: I didn't attend art or film school & therefore just do NOT "get it".
#2: The "sex" scenes creeped me out to the max and what the hell was up with the helium?
c: Dennis Hopper. Ew.
#4: What's with all the close-ups? Dead ear? Closeup. Ant? Closeup. Grass? Closeup. It's like a John Wu movie and slow-motion doves. It's the "go-to" when they don't have anything else to go to.

It left me with a headache & the need to watch Bambi just to clean out m'brain.

I just don't understand. Why would you make a movie/star in a movie/watch a movie that makes you feel lightly coated in slime & like you've been breathing a low-grade poisonous gas for the past 2 hours?

Someone please explain.

Ick. Now I must shower.

It's the dope talkin'

Saw a bumper sticker. It said "quit staring at my bumper sticker and drive". It got me thinking. If the smartass guy who put that sticker on his bumper had never put the sticker on his bumper, other drivers would have no reason to stare, thus would be able to drive with no distractions, so whatever might happen, the driver of the bumper sticker car earned every bit of vehicular headache comin' his way.

Why do people put bumper stickers on their cars, anyway? Does that pithy saying/catchy phrase/trendy logo in some way fundamentally define the driver of said vehicle? Or aren't you more than a member of the Dutch Mafia, the mother of an honor student, a Wiccan? Is that big, shiny "BITCH" decal on your back window really the first, last and possibly only thing a person driving by you at 75 mph has to make a determination about your character?

Hilarious to me is the car with "BITCH" on the rear window, and "Don't Judge Me" on the bumper. WTF. Lady, make up your mind.

Even MORE hilarious is the big 4 wheel drive with the shiny chrome testicles hanging from the universal joint. What's THAT guy tryin' to say? "I've got big balls...unfortunately, they are directly attached to my truck. The one's I carry on my person aren't nearly so impressive."

What about the guy driving the 1984 Diesel Rabbit, blowing enough black oily smoke to choke a whole roomful of environmentalists, covered in grimy, oily dirt, and bumper stickers: "Earth: The Only Mother We All Share" & "COEXIST" & "Plastic Is NOT Fantastic". I just don't get it.

I'm not willing to stick anything to my car that will get me a) egged, b) beat up or c) followed home. That includes a Ducks sticker in Corvallis, a Rebel Flag in Ashland, and a "Celebrate Hit-n-Run-a-Hippie Day" decal in Eugene.

What's the point? What kind of a sticker can you possibly attach to your car that will sum you up in even the vaguest, most simplistic way? Hint: I guarantee it's NOT a decal of Tinkerbell.

It's the same reason I don't get a tattoo. An inked portrait of Joey from the New Kids on the Block may be cool at 18, but pathetic at 22 and down right embarrassing when I'm 34. A tattoo doesn't come off without leaving a mark. Neither does a bumper sticker.

Lucille! How silly of me!

Matthew viewed my blog & was very disappointed that I misnamed his hat. "No, Mom," he said, in that tone usually reserved for a patient man speaking to a high-spirited but not-too-bright dog, "not Louise. Lucille. My hat's name is Lucille."

Man. I'm really dumb. To get the name of my son's hat wrong. I mean, really, what kind of a loser am...hey, look! A rubber ball!

What's that on his head? Oh, that's just Louise.

Matthew got a haircut. He did not like it. Um...that's an understatement. Like saying Tori Spelling is a little bit weird looking.

Anyway, he promptly talked Steven into buying him a hat. But not just any hat. A hat with style. Flair. Shazam. And then he named it...Louise.

Why did he feel the need to name his hat? And what *other* things may he have names for? I do not know. I do not ask.

Let's just put it this way: if I hear him talking to "Stella" in his room, I'm definitely knocking before I enter.

Jesus Wants To Touch You

So let's recap. Jesus wants to touch you, fill you up, bring you joy, and make you speak in tongues. And here's the manual explaining specifically and with colored pictures exactly what parts of you he wants. Oh, wait. Make that...ALL OF YOU.

Becca says I'm definitely going to hell.

It's all good tortillas til someone loses an eye

How bad does your luck have to be to take a bite of a tortilla chip and have a shard of that chip shoot up into your eye? Just how much does karma want to kick your ass? The answer is bad, read bad.

I did it. Because I'm the type of person who has food related accidents. That makes me a minority. I wonder if there's a scholarship for that?

MAN my eye hurts.

Susan Boyle yada yada yada

Speaking for ruddy-looking women with wide hips, bad fashion sense and caterpillar eyebrows everywhere, I say YAY SUSAN BOYLE!

It's what we're all thinking, so why not blog about it? So. Susan Boyle. Scottish, so I couldn't hardly understand a word comin' out of her head, but DA-YUM when she opened her gob to sing - holy crumpets! Loverly voice, that. And a personality to boot. She gave Simon Cowell the old bumpity-bumpity-BUMP move! Suh-weet!

The thing is, people are making a big deal out of her voice versus her looks. Um. Has nobody ever seen Amy Winehouse? Speaking of DA-YUM. And do people think it takes a beauty to become rich and famous? Rosie O'Donnell, anyone? Martha STEWART?

What you gotta do is put her looks in perspective. I mean, if you're gonna be famous in POLITICS, you can look just about any old way. Ol' Susan Boyle'd fit right in in Washington D.C. Her and Janet Reno could compare mustaches & stuff. Or if you want to be famous on BROADWAY, you can look like Nathan Lane. Which she kind of does, come to think of it.

The fact that she's trying out for a talent show to be a famous pop star is the only reason her looks are even an issue. Which I personally don't understand. I mean, Clay Aiken?

I figure, a full body wax, hair style from THIS CENTURY, and a gym membership and she's totally HOT. In fact, put her in a pink polo and she's Perez Hilton!

Ol' Susan Boyle's got a kick-ass voice. Her and her cat, Pebbles, are on their way to the top. Way to go, my square torso'd, double chinned twin wonder! YAY!

My son's take on 80s hair metal

My son, who loves bands like AC/DC & All-American Rejects (yes, he likes both and I keep expecting it to create a terrible rip in the time/space continuum), came into my room while I was folding laundry and watching "Hot Rod" (yes. again.) and the song "Cherokee" by Europe (remember THEM?! LOL!) is on the soundtrack. So Matthew comes in and chats for a few minutes, then turns to leave and says, "Your taste in music is terrible." I took that to mean 80s hair metal. And I couldn't really argue with THAT. But then he said, "Who the heck sings a song about parakeets?"

LMAO!!!

Lord have mercy.