Obscure Tuesday!!!!

"But all you have to do is knock on any door and say, "If you let me in, I'll live the way you want me to live, and I'll think the way you want me to think," and all the blinds'll go up and all the windows will open, and you'll never be lonely, ever again. If that's the case, I'll change the plea - that is, if you know the law's right and you're wrong."-Spencer Tracy 


Well, I'm not really in a chatty mood tonight because I'm not feeling too well. Consequently, I'm going to get to business...


Movie of the Week


Inherit the wind...


Probably one of my all time fav films. Really fantastic actors such as Gene Kelley, the 1st Darren from Bewitched, and my all time fav actor Spencer Tracy...
Inherit the Wind is a story about a teacher B.T. Cates who is arrested for teaching Darwin's theories. Famous lawyer Henry Drummond defends him; fundamentalist politician Matthew Brady prosecutes. It's a very thinly disguised rendition of the 1925 "Scopes monkey trial" with debates between Clarence Darrow and William Jennings Bryan taken largely from the transcripts. 


Now some will say that this movie is against religion but I absolutely love the dialogue. Personally, I've never understood how anyone could really say they believe something when they have no idea what the other side is. 











For the poem of the week, may I suggest some Walt Whitman classics and some of my personal favorites. Read them for no other reason than the fact that they are the poems in the Levi commercials. 


Lastly, I'm introducing a woman you should know feature. These are women that I think history has mostly forgotten but were pretty awesome. They went against the times and were originals. I can't imagine anything better. This week's is my favorite conservative woman, Alice Roosevelt. 

During the time of her Father Teddy Roosevelt's Presidency, she smoked cigarettes in public, rode in cars with men, stayed out late partying, kept a pet snake named Emily Spinach ) in the White House, and was seen placing bets with a bookie. Her father once said, "I can either run the country or I can attend to Alice, but I cannot do both." She was an admitted hedonist and warmonger who I just get a kick out of. Click on her name to read the full wiki bio.

Obscure Wednesday!!!

"One morning I shot an elephant in my pajamas. How he got in my pajamas, I don't know."~Groucho Marx

As a cultural omnivore, I enjoy varieties of pop culture elements that seem to cross ethnic, educational and economic boundaries. More, I constantly reference these elements and sadly, YOU PEOPLE NEVER GET MY POP CULTURAL REFERENCES!!! I make a movie reference and you people never get it. You can forget musical and literature references. I'M WASTED ON YOU PEOPLE!!! So, as resident pop culture expert, I'm going to try to educate the few people that read this blog...So here's some rather obscure pop culture phenoms that you people really should know...


Theatre

Avenue Q

I saw this play about five years ago and it still resounds with me today. It's utterly brilliant, highly inappropriate, and still completely relevant. After all, the first line in the play is, "What do you do with a BA in English?" It deals with the disillusionment of our generation and also the current elements of our culture. The general premise is that the puppets, (yes, its a satire of Sesame Street) all live in the same low rent apartment building on Avenue Q in NYC and two of the characters have a romance. From this came the immortal song, "There's a fine fine line."


Here's the lyrics;
There's a fine, fine line between a lover and a friend;
There's a fine, fine line between reality and pretend;
And you never know 'til you reach the top if it was worth the uphill climb.

There's a fine, fine line between love
And a waste of time.

There's a fine, fine line between a fairy tale and a lie;
And there's a fine, fine line between "You're wonderful" and "Goodbye."
I guess if someone doesn't love you back it isn't such a crime,
But there's a fine, fine line between love
And a waste of your time.

And I don't have the time to waste on you anymore.
I don't think that you even know what you're looking for.
For my own sanity, I've got to close the door
And walk away...
Oh...

There's a fine, fine line between together and not
And there's a fine, fine line between what you wanted and what you got.
You gotta go after the things you want while you're still in your prime...

There's a fine, fine line between love
And a waste of time.


There's my personal fav-Ëverybody's a little bit Racist" (Explanation~For some reason, Gary Coleman lives in the apartment building. I still don't know why.)




Music

I was actually going to introduce some of you to Cross Canadian Ragweed. They're a fantastic alternative country music band that are major on the Texas Country scene. I highly recommend checking out this vid: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pkFtl50kqYE

Anyway, who I really want to introduce you guys to is Court Yard Hounds. You know them actually. It's basically the Dixie Chicks sans Natalie Maines. Now I know everybody conservative I know hates the Dixie Chicks. But I pretty much still love them. They always seem to produce music I just love. They even wrote my personal theme song. Anyway Court Yard Hounds are pretty awesome. Check their latest song,  Äin't No Son." Really excellent and it talks about something I think we all can be opposed to, no matter your stance on the issue.



Books


Anyway, as my last recommendation, I suggest The Intellectual Devotional;Modern Culture. It has a different essay about a pop cultural event or person that you are supposed to read every day. Really fantastic. I'm currently on the Intellectual Devotional: American History.

http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Intellectual-Devotional-Modern-Culture/David-S-Kidder/e/9781437654417/?itm=3&USRI=intellectual+devotional

Lastly, check out this list of the Top Movie Quotes in History.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AFI's_100_Years…100_Movie_Quotes


Update-Found this really great YouTube Video. Blog Post coming about it soon but for now, just enjoy...

Cleaning house...figuratively.

I've decided that I will spend the month of April getting my life together. I've spent the better part of the last year almost either taking care of someone or having two surgeries and a month long illness we fondly call "the black death." Ever since Christmas I've been trying to build up my immune system and to get my back strong enough for every day life. In other words, my priorities have been on my various health issues and not on the rest of my life.
The sad thing is that I've pretty much let everything slide.  My friendships have taken a beating. My beloved Team C is fragmented. I confess that it is mostly my fault. I didn't tend to my relationships with my best friends and I'm afraid that even though we still love each other, it's never going to be the same. Somehow, we all ended up in different life courses. I'm at a point of my life when I need to start making a career for myself.  (I'm actually starting to develop maternal instincts. I can hear my biological clock starting to tick.) I've let my relationships with my oldest friends slide. At Christmas, I only saw one old high school friend. I suppose that's because I just don't talk to many of them anymore.
I've let my class work, my house work, and even my art go. I haven't written anything in almost a year. I only do the minimum of classwork. And don't even get me started on the state of my room.
I've come to learn that everything we value, the external centers of ourselves, the things we love---they have to be tended. Most of the time we don't know we are tending to our families, our friends, our work, and our passions because that is pretty much the sum of our lives but let me assure you that when you stop tending, everything goes straight to hell.
So today, on April 2nd, 2010, I resolve to be better. I want to read books of knowledge, not the usual pulp mysteries I read. I want to organize my room, decorate it better, and for God's sake, find all my shoes that are scattered all over the house. I want to try to be a better friend. I want to start new pursuits like playing the guitar, knitting, and painting. I want to find some temporary work so that I can start pulling in a regular paycheck again. I want to finally unpack all the boxes I have left in the garage since we moved into the house almost two years ago. I want to figure out what I want to do with my life. I want to take an exercise class, even if it's just a self defense course. I want to do the millions of things and errands I've been putting off forever.
I want to figure out where I belong spiritually. For a long time I've been on the fence, shunning organized religion because I know I don't agree with the religion I was raised in and I generally don't do well with groups. But I realize I need to try to find a higher truth. I need to figure out where I belong, what I believe. I know I believe in God, I believe in Jesus. I just don't agree with Paul et al. I need to explore my spirituality. I realize reading Eat Pray Love and taking college classes on religion aren't really doing anything for me. I need to figure out what I believe.
I'm guessing this may take longer than a month...