Life Imitates Art: Lessons

Photos from Exclusively Marisa & Leave Me The White

You’ve heard the old saying “All I Need To Know I Learned From…”‘. I’m not the first to have noticed and implemented things from films and tv.

Doug-It’s All Been Done Before. In the episode of “Doug En Vogue” Doug is accused of copying his own clothing style. This leads him on a journey for a “totally original look”. This is when we learn that nothing is completely original anymore. You can adapt or fuse new styles of whatever-clothing, music, writing-together but it still won’t be completely new. When you have writer’s (or any other kind of) block you may remember this and stop beating yourself up.

Untamed Heart-Marisa Tomei’s character teaches us that if you spray the perfume then walk into it, you will smell good but not overpowering.

Trainspotting-Drugs are bad, mmkay.

Raiders of the Lost Ark-Why fight someone when you can just shoot them?

A Clockwork Orange-People never really change.

The Big Lebowski-Most things are easier to handle with a “beverage”.

Showgirls-Life is nothing if you don’t have a dream.

To Die For-”What’s the point of doing anything worthwhile if there’s nobody watching?”

Tomcats-Men will do some stupid shit for pussy.

Eurotrip-Yeah, we’re all gonna give up drinking tomorrow.

Don’t Tell Mom The Babysitter’s Dead-Lying your way into a job is possible. You can get rid of a dead body if you pay off the flunkies who work at the funeral home.

Superbad-If something embarrassing happens to you, use as a funny self depracating story to get everyone’s attention.

Striptease-People in the sex industry are usually looked down upon by “regular folks”.

Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure-History is hard to remember.

Will & Grace- You can’t make a gay man straight.

In Her Shoes-Sisters can be total bitches.

Gossip Girl-High school is completely superficial.

The Office-Just because someone is your boss doesn’t make them smarter than you, or a monkey.

The Devil’s Rejects-Everyone likes ice cream. Even serial killers.

High Fidelity-Even if a guy is a complete asshole who cheats on you, you’ll still want him if he’s hot and can talk a good line of bullshit.

The Last Seduction-Sex is a tool.

Titanic-If a guy really loves you he will let you live while he drowns.

Velvet Goldmine-Most of us are groupies at heart.

Detroit Rock City-If you win a radio contest don’t hang up before they get your name, address and phone number.

Clueless-If you try to help someone they may overshadow you.

Life Imitates Art: Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer

What happened to all of those morality cartoons and specials that were supposed to teach us something growing up? I thought about this while watching Rudolph for the 1st time in years tonight. I enjoyed the program when I was little but it didn’t seem to apply. In grade school, for the most part, everyone got along. Of course there was good natured ribbing but nothing really out of the ordinary. We weren’t Stepford children or anything. Kids were different. Some were short, some tall, some skinny, some fat, some white, some black, but we didn’t ostracize each other for our differences. All of us just wanted to play tether ball, hopstoch, hand games and wear our hair in pony tales with balls at the end.

Despite this I had a feeling of dread prior to the start of high school. I had seen enough movies to know that I wouldn’t popular. I tried to make myself fit in before school started. My mother took me to every hair stylist in the mall. None of them wanted to attempt to straighten my hair. After going back 2 or 3 times, one of them told my mother that she would try but that my hair would probably just go back to normal in a few hours & that she wouldn’t issue a refund when this happened. So I decided to go the other way. I thought I’ll be me. I’ll have fun. I went to one of the salons and asked them to dye my hair red, as dark as possible. The woman kept showing me shades & I would say “No, darker”. She was so amused that she had 3 or 4 other stylists come over so she could show them. I have very thick hair as well, so she told me she had to use lots of extra bottles of color and would charge me extra. (I now realize that she did exaggerate, but I didn’t know shit about dying hair then). I walked out of the salon with an awesome bright do. I bought color stay shampoo and went home. This was on Friday. I started school on Monday & didn’t want it to wash out, so I didn’t wash my hair. Somehow it still faded. I had to mention it to friends & even then they could only spot a slight tint.

Aside from that, I wore what I wanted. One of the most out there outfits was a lime green vinyl jacket with matching skirt that I bought from Dots. I later sold this via eBay to a dude who only wore vinyl. I know I had a pic of me in this but I can’t locate it. I also wore regular clothes. But I was put down for everything. My hair was too “poufy”, my name was strange (you can make jokes out of both my first & last name), I was fat. I was actually average size. Sometimes I believed that this had to do with the Academic classes that I took, which were populated by preppy, rich kids. Of course, I didn’t fit in there. However it became apparent that the whole school had found a target when even a boy that I had been in class with since I was 4, who called my mother Mrs. & now who had become a thug & was buying drugs from the dealers who lived next door to me called my name in the hallway one day. I wasn’t sure what he wanted but when I stopped, he called me an insult. So I was the whipping boy for every class, although this was pre-emo & there weren’t the 50,000 cliques that there are now. I could go on & on about the horrible stuff that everyone did to me but I’m saving that for the tv movie. xd. They beat me down for years, so I mostly ignored everyone & kept to myself.

For along time I assumed that the whole of the world was like this. When I visited my niece in WV, people were nice though. Even the cheerleading squad that my niece was a part of didn’t treat me like shit. Through the years I visited my sister in Maryland & eventually lived there with her. She told me that other places weren’t the same. (She had been teased too, but not to my degree). I didn’t believe her at first. However it was true. I had found my own little Island of Misfit toys. I suppose that my Baltimore friends would be looked at as freaks & weirdos by the people here, as would my net friends. Not that I care.

Since I’ve gotten this new sort of high fashion hair do strangers have been treating me bad at stores by cashiers & customers. It’s probably that combined with my piercing & makeup. It doesn’t make me sad. Sometimes it makes me angry. I almost wanted to laugh at this customer & cashier when I was in line at the grocery the other day though. There were acting like I had AIDs or something. The customer moves her stuff away from mine on the conveyor belt (yes, there was a spacer in between), the cashier was pretty abrupt once she saw my face & I just thought “Here are 2 women with that hideous old lady hair do that they act like is forced upon them”, one was only 40 & they think I look bad. Yes, I could wear my hair long with no makeup but it would still be my hair, I would still be me & if everyone is gonna mistreat me, I might as well be myself. I have my reasons for living here right now but that doesn’t change the fact that I would still like to have my own little band of misfits here but there aren’t any. Tres annoying.

P.S. The pic from when I was in 7th grade above includes some of my friends at the time. Some of them were insulted in Jr. High but I stuck up for them. Isn’t it nice how they really stuck through everything with me. LOL

Real Maryland Friends

Life Imitates Art: Two and a Half Men=Two Woman and a West Highland Terrier

While watching Two and a Half Men tonight I began ruminating on when I first got into the show. When it first premiered I wasn’t interested in watching the two leads who I had found so attractive in their younger days as these seemingly sad pathetic middle aged men. However I caught a few episodes after my sister & I started living together & became hooked. Was it just the crude humor & frequent half nude Jon Cryer sight gags? I now realize that it went deeper than enjoying a show about someone who drank more than I did at the time. It’s the relationship of the 2 brothers. Unfortunately I can now see many parallels between the show & my own relationship with my little sister. Of course the big thing was that I tried to find a job for a ridiculously long time before anyone would actually hire me during which time I was living there for free. Yes, I was made to feel bad about this then from time to time ala the show just like Alan. It still pops now & then now but I think I’m almost over it. The main difference being that Sheen plays the older, more impressive brother, while my sister is younger but the successful one. The first example isn’t really that impressive, you can skip it if you like. I seem to have run out of steam quicker than I thought. Oh well, still kind of interesting to me.

Charlie/Donna	Occupation:  Successful Jingle Writer-can make a lot of money in a short amount of time./Successful Hairstylist-can make a lot of money (relative to this situation) in a short amount of time.-both artistic jobs	Looks: Undeniably hot/Undeniably hot	Love Life: Charlie could have a new woman every night without even trying./I was not the only one who noticed that she seemed to have the kevorka (ala Seinfeld). She could attract almost any man in a 50 miles radius. Once a group of us went to a gay bar for fun (there were 2 or 3 young, attractive gay men in our party) & she was the only one who went home with a guy’s number.	Social Skills: Smooth/Smooth
Alan/Mary	Occupation: Mediocre Chiropractor-would actually be a good job in real life. Doesn’t get the money because it goes to his wife./Series of Joe Jobs when not Unemployed-Minimum wage that wouldn’t have been that be if they had given me sufficient hours.	Looks: Handsome but not who the eye goes to when standing next to his brother. I mean c’mon this was Ducky, you wanted him too. I wouldn’t kick Jon Cryer out of bed. However you put him next to Charlie Sheen & yeah you might knock him out of the way to get to Sheen./I’m not trying to sound conceited but I’m been told many a time that I’m attractive. However next to my sexier, younger, stacked sister I might as well be wearing a garbage bag.	Love Life: Not a great track record with women & his exes often hate him. Sometimes Charlie would throw him an extra woman if he didn’t want her or already had one./Awful track record with men & all exes hate me. I have been the recipient of a gift in male form.	Social Skills: Socially inept, always says the wrong thing./Socially inept, always says the wrong thing.