Everyone that knows me well knows when I am low on money.  I stop going to Barnes & Noble on a daily basis, stop visiting the most amazing thrift store ever a.k.a. Boomerangs in JP (or “02130 shout out to H-Block” as I like to call it), and when people call my cell phone I become outraged.  Read: HOW DARE YOU TRY TO SEDUCE ME INTO USING MY PREPAID CELL PHONE MINUTES?  The ‘Everyone I Know’ refers to the perhaps 5 people I speak to on a regular basis which includes you, yes you reading this blog.  Seeing as only 4 people have the web address it looks like I need to send someone an email come tomorrow morning.

But when the MTV Video Music Awards, broadcast to millions of impressionable unemployed 22 year olds, runs low on money the whole damn world can tell.  What the F in the slingback, back-alley-performing, Jonas Brothers promise ring, who the wild wilderbeast is Russell Brand having ass s*it was that last night?!?!  Someone answer me!  That was the most low budget production I’ve ever seen.  Russey Simmons from “Run’s House” does a better job entertaining me with strange noises and his perpetually ashy lips.  Quick comments:

• Britney you look good girl, but the drugs have taken their toll.  Notice they were playing your very first hit “…Baby One More Time” (“Hit Me”/”Domestic Violence 101 Anthem for High Schoolers” during your opening.  We’ll never have old Britney back, I was more pleased with seeing your C-Section in inappropriate pictures on TMZ.  Now sit down.
• Paris.  I don’t believe you actually do anything with Benji Madden in a bedroom besides pick out his clothes.
• Rihanna, you are not a good performer.  You are a pop creation, and my insatiable appetite for catchy songs is the only reason why I support you on iTunes.  And yes, you did swagger jack Fefe Dobson.
• Jordin Sparks, shut the hell up.  You and Jennifer Hudson annoy me for different reasons of course.  Well, no actually its for the same reason.  I hate you both.  If I ever saw you in the mean streets of Boston I would kick both of you in the knees and run.  See you at Faneuil Hall bitches!

Without big names stars coming out (read: yes Beyaki we all miss you), MTV seems like it is digging at the bottom of the barrel for ‘named celebrities’ to make appearances.  Who the heck invited Elise Neal?  And I’ll be damned if LL Cool J and Katie ‘Lipstick Lezzy’ Perry were not performing in a dark corner during the commercial intermissions!!  And WHY Sweet & Sauteed Jesus was the auditorium the size of the one at my middle school?  MTV, you need more people.  There are too many youtube videos up of select performances, so I’m going to hit you handful of folks with an old school video, one that I thoroughly believes is a true reflection of real music and entertainment.

Give it up for 3T featuring Michael Jackson circa ’95

I have to jack a post from a very dear loved one in the blog world, Natasha of TheYbf.com.  Of course this is outside the book and Indie film realm, but in light of the MTV VMAs airing tomorrow night, its important to recognize pop culture milestones.  Other than Project Runway, this IS one of the biggest nights in television.  Sidebar: Jerrell or a woman will win this season, my vote is one of the skinny bitches and not Koto or Terri. An yes, I do have a shrine to Tim Gunn in my bedroom.  It’s bedazzled with dead crickets and rhinestones.

I digress.  Seeing as this year is the year of the bisexual and  the tranny (think “ANTM” & “I Want to Work for Diddy” contestants and my bffs Tila Tequila and Li Lo) and we have ourselves an interesting show for tomorrow night.  I would like to move ahead to the foolywang that appeared at the Conde Nast Fashion Rocks! 5th year anniversary that went down in NYC last night.  The following is why the phrase “Jesus Take the Wheel” was borrowed from the country song and used in everyday life.  These outfits, and riding the red line starting at Ashmont station in Dorchester, are the only times I actually say the phrase aloud.

I really need him to get a lineup and a Biore oil absorbing cleansing pad immediately.

Tyra, you are pulling the one-trick pony act that is clubbing in downtown Boston: chicks with a potato sack dress and a belt from Forever 21.  Like I said, Year of the Tranny.

Lil’ Mama please give every single thing you have on back to T-Pain.

If I were a papparazzi, I would actually seriously think Solange was attempting to insult my intelligence.  Oh wait, I’m not a razzi, and I still think the bitch is trying to insult my intelligence.  I’m a consumer, not an alley kitty.

KeKe I love you.  You are hood, ghetto, self-absorbed, quasi-mainstream (think Vivica A. Fox 10 years ago), and yet you still choose to wear cut out ensembles to mainstream events.  Dont change!  Matter of fact, bring finger waves back!

Indie movies can be REALLY REALLY weird.  I swear the only reason why Vanilla Sky wasn’t categorized in the Indie genre is because of that damn Tom Cruise, but I’ll tell you there are films out there that are even stranger.  One of them is “The Tracey Fragments” starring Ellen Page.  Yes, if you just said to yourself ‘Torrey just has a problem with Ellen Page being 30 and always playing 15 year olds ‘ you are right!  Page is Tracey Berkowitz a twisted youngster that rides the train only covered by a blanket and describes her boyfriend as ‘so gorgeous and famous’.  In the first scene she’s calling her mother a dyke and ugly bitch, and you know I how I feel about profanity people.  The cinematography is absolutely horrible and the picture in a picture thing gets old after the first 40x.  

If you would really like to read the film as normal, its about a family whose son goes missing and sends their pathological daughter to a quirky therapist to work out her issues.  Throw in the fact the missing boy thinks he’s a dog after Tracey hypnotized him, neglectful parents that are constantly dressed like they are from Revere, Massachusetts, and that the therapist may or may not be a tranny and you’ve got yourself one helluva 77 minutes you will never be able to get back.  The one good thing about watching a movie like this (after watching “Juno”) is that you can really see how talented an actress Mary Kay LeTourneau actually is.  To go from such a far fetched film like this and commit to portraying a character that is 1000% loony and then move into a role of a ‘normal’ girl that just happens to get knocked up is pretty amazing.  

Oh, and P.S. the movie has subtitles sometimes.  That’s annoying.

I’m finally back into the swing of things that is.  Usually, boys and girls, I am either reading a book a week or watching & reviewing an Indie film a week.  I wanted to keep that momentum going until I met a Mr. We-Wont-Use-His-Real-Name, but I call him ‘The Baby’.  FYI: This is not the 38 year old guy from a few posts back.  That guy came and went.  It literally lasted two weeks before I was like, right am I on Candid Camera??  The worst part of the whole thing was I still have friends that are like ‘so what happened to that guy, are you guys still dating?’ which makes me question why am I even friends with these numbchucks in the first place. JKKKKKKKK </sarcasm>

More on The Baby later.  Well, ok here’s a quick rundown.  I met him at my old job just a month before I was scheduled to leave.  It just so happened that he was leaving his job himself, TO MOVE TO MARYLAND.  So this last month has been really really intense, and I’ve spent almost every day with him.  I wish things were different but they aren’t, and he’s moving away.  We’ll see each other but to say we will engage in a ‘long distance relationship’ is so up in the air right now.  So I have to get back to my normal routine of blogging on a regular basis, if for no other reason than to ease my mind off missing The Baby so much.  This week I read ‘No One you Know’ by Michelle Richmond.

The more I read the more I want.  Literally and figuratively.  In general, the more I read great novels and well written pieces of fiction like this, the more I want to read and the more I want to write something great myself.  I know as I read I like to make little notes to myself, and with every book I add to my ever growing library I take a lesson or a pointer from each of them.  From ‘No One You Know’ I came away with a huge lesson in pacing oneself.

My mother asked me once how do I pick out books to read.  I thought the question was odd, but I responded that I read a lot of reviews and take my time browsing in B&N.  A review of Richmond’s work was in the Boston Globe and actually read very differently than I imagined the book to be written.  ‘No One You Know’ is actually about the story of Ellie Enderlin, not her sister Lila.  You see, Lila was a brilliant Stanford mathematician who was murdered 20 years ago.  When Lila was murdered, Ellie was still an undergraduate in college, and in the aftermath confided in one her professors about her grief, rage, and struggles.  Her professor, a Mr. Andrew Thorpe, unknowingly took Lila’s story as told by her grief-ridden sister and wrote what would become his first best-selling true crime novel.  Thorpe published Lila’s story and in turn ruined most of Ellie’s young adult life.  Her parents separated and later divorced, and Ellie grew up believing the person identified in Thorpe’s story was actually Lila’s killer.  This is all until Ellie runs into the prime suspect 20 years later in a Guatemalan coffee shop and discovers he didn’t do it after all.

As Ellie rewrites her own story and (YES) discovers who really was responsible for her sister’s death, Richmond moves everyone’s story forward without confusion or tasteless tantrums of rage.  The story moves smoothly from the way past (Lila’s murder, the days before, the day of and the days after) the past (their parents separation, the book’s publications, its infamy) the present search for her killer and some freakin’ answers and what the future will bring for everyone whose lives were completely ruined (including the wrongly accused).  Definitely, a book you should check out, if for no other reason than to see a literary montage done right!!

Checking things off the to-do list is wonderful.  Things I’ve done this week thus far have been:

• running a few miles on the treadmill
• borrowing Amara’s Body Ecology Diet book 
• Watch my latest netflix movie, which WOAH, happened to be really amazing!!

Here is the official trailer for “Lars and the Real Girl” (yes, this is the same movie that came out almost a full year ago).

As you can probably deduce from the trailer, Ryan Gosling plays a painfully introverted guy named Lars who ‘chooses’ to include an anatomically correct ‘blow up doll’ of sorts into his life.  Lars believes the doll is real.  Her name is Bianca.  Bianca’s back story alone is enough to make you laugh out loud, but also confuse the hell out of the audience.  I personally was surprised at the way Bianca was seamlessly integrated into Lars’ world, further than a matter of being polite but as an actual functioning member of this small tight-knit society.  There are so many questions that arise as the audience views this film.  How do we treat people with a mental illness in this country?  Is Lars even mentally ill?  Why is everyone treating Biance like a live person and what purpose does she actually serve?  The last question does get an answer in the conclusion.

SPOILER ALERT!!

(But THIS is the reason Gosling deserves an Oscar)…

Officially PUBLISHED that is.

My short story “The Blinds” is featured this week on the Meeting House Magazine website.  Check it out here.

Too many tabs open at one time for you?  It’s below the belt…

…is definitely, unarguably MOVING.

My first experience with this daunting task was, of course, the move to college. My parents actually rented a UHAUL van. Not a minivan, an actual van. You know the kind that pedophiles use to spray paint ‘FREE CANDY on the side. Think Herbert the Pervert goes to college.

My parents and I were victims of believing that real-life dorm rooms in any way resembled the ‘dorm rooms’ in sets that we saw on TV. Goodness we were wrong. It was like going from a normal sized abode filled with posters of Cullen Jones to a hut the size of toilet bowl. Add in two other women, one Chinese and one white, and you’ve got a one room diversity matchbox that resembles some villages in Cuba.

Over the next three years, my parents and I got used to the hassle. In my final year I actually moved in and out of Mount Holyoke by myself. I think I lost all my water weight those days, but regained it at the rest stop on the Pike that has that 24hr Drive Thru window and serves breakfast all day. But nothing has taken away the everlasting anxiety. I was very VERY close to moving to the Bay area. Literally, everything was in place for me to move and at the last second almost everything fell through. Now, I am planning a move to the city of my dreams: Chicago. And, the anxiety persists.

Why Chicago?? I love Chicago, and I hate trying to explain why. “It’s the business” (thank yous to racist Young Berg) should now be an acceptable answer. But Richard Florida thinks there is another, far better explicated, reason. Florida is the author of Who’s Your City.

–>

Florida’s Who’s Your City is a socio-psychological study into why certain people fall in ‘love’ with certain cities. Human Navigation is the tagline.  The book also explores the question of objectively where is the best place to live for your demographic. Although disappointed with the lack of political correctness in the book race-wise (Florida should have said if you’re Black, Boston’s whack), the book is more than mildly interesting and eyebrow raising. Example #45: Move to a city with a lot of gay people. Gay=creativity, happiness & prosperity. Highly recommended if you’re looking for a good nonfiction hardcover read. It’s especially great for a mover with a lot of shakes, like me.

The Old Beyonce

And now…

The New Beyaki

There are no words.

I believe everyone has a ‘top three’ list of pet peeves that seriously bothers/motivates them in life.  I suppose because of my educational background (read: the failures of the METCO program) I put America’s education system at the top of my list.

Of course, perhaps world hunger or homelessness or Paris Hilton is at the top of others lists’, but I have to admit the failures of our education system in general really get my goose.  The disparities, the racial issues, the lack of mathematical strength, and reliance of computers to educate on historical subjects and spelling mishaps is staggering.  Popular culture’s obsession with the stupid is not helping the situation.  And really, thats what we have here.  A situation.

I read an article in the Globe this morning, “Chillax”.  I read the entire article looking for sarcasm or humor without realizing the author Erin McKean is completely serious.  Synopsis: if you design a word and it makes sense, use it.  Examples include “chillax”, “funner”, “bestest”, etc.  Here’s the thing.  The if-the-shoe-fits mentality is seriously hurting our youth because they will not just use chillax with their homies, but on school papers.  For every use of ‘funner’ there is an uncorrected misuse of the English language and a void of a correct and more appropriate word that this kid will need to make it in life.  To imply that this is the fun of the English language is quite simply offensive.

This is what will happen if we continue this trend.  It’s a clip from the movie “Idiocracy” (2006) with Maya Rudolph and Luke Wilson.  The movie is actually pretty funny, this is just the intro.

Everyone claims they are always on the hunt for a good read.  Personally, I have to be ‘in the mood’ for chick lit.  I love the historical drama genre, but its about as easy to find a good history read as it is to give oneself a brazilian.  This is why I highly recommend The Beautiful Miscellaneous.  It’s an easy read with palpable depth.  I dont really agree with the summary of the plot on the back cover (I am sure there is a fancy term for this Ash sorry you’ll need to correct me).  It’s actually quite misleading: this is a story about the average kid of a genius.  Big expectations, low self-esteem.  

The story more or less revolves around the actual genius (the main character’s father, Samuel Nelson).  He is a physicist.  Samuel believes with practice and training, he can turn his son into a genius.  Nathan, the main character is simply not a genius.  He sabotages his relationship with his father at young age to distance the expectations he constantly lives with.  The story completely turns around after Nathan is involved in a car accident that kills his grandfather and leaves him with synthesia (the condition that blends the senses, making people see words, taste colors, etc.  His father is then convinced he is  a genius, and Nathan is enrolled in a school for prodigies.  It is here he meets a girl who is a medical psychic.  She is able to look or talk to someone and diagnose them with an illness with 100% accuracy.  Nathan believes his is in love with this girl and introduces her to his family.  Nathan’s love interest then discloses the fact that she sees a plum in the back of Samuel’s head.

Nathan’s changing relationship with his father as he slowly dies from his brain tumor does not get boring.  Dominic Smith writes in a very clear and concise manner that is not overly dramatic nor insanely robotic.  The novel is actually sprinkled, towards the end, with blurbs Nathan’s father struggles with as he faces his own death:

“A history of invention reveals we made the gun silencer (1908 ) before air conditioning (1911), the kaleidoscope (1817) before Braille printing (1829), cocaine (1860) before penicillin (1929).  It’s a story about pleasure before usefulness, about ingenuitiy in killing before improving our everyday lives (325). 

 

So, get yourselves enlightened: http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Beautiful-Miscellaneous/Dominic-Smith/e/9780743271233/?itm=1