NOW, MORE THAN EVER,
NOT THE NEW ANYONE

At Television Without Pity headquarters there’s a special room where people in hazmat suits hose you down after you finish writing a recap of a really toxic show, and usually you’re okay. But I think I was exposed to unsafe levels of the Liza Minnelli and David Gest wedding special on VH1 last year, because now I am actually kind of sad that they’re separating.

By the way, that link to the recap will take you to Page 4–the halfway point–for safety reasons. And also because last night someone told me that TWoP recaps are too long. (Here it is from the beginning if you disagree.)

Shut up: shopping carts are scary.

I really should mention that the nightmare shopping carts were METAL ones. Dorky plastic ones like this do not inspire terror in me.

Also, an alert reader wrote in to ask me if I’d seen 28 Days Later…, which had a scene involving “a whole mess of shopping carts.” And hey–I did see it. Maybe that’s where the creepiness comes from.

The house where I lived in the bad dream I had last night was here in the city, and it stood close to the street. I was renting an upstairs room there. The tiny front yard was paved over, and it was filled with shopping carts; the woman who was my landlady used them or maybe rented them out. In the story of the dream in my head, the lady would stomp down the front steps and shove the carts together or else against the chain link fence; she would move and rearrange and struggle with them every morning.

I didn’t know the landlady. Somehow I had never spoken with her. I supposed I would, someday.

Then it was night and I was in bed, listening to the sounds outside–the little wheels scraping around, the carts agitating; somebody was pushing them around hard, then harder. The landlady must be upset, I thought. And then suddenly I could hear her downstairs. She was screaming. First, one wordless, hysterical, angry sentence of a scream. I wanted to block it out as soon as I heard it. Then the screaming continued. She was completely losing her shit. I didn’t want to be where I was.

It seemed she was coming up the stairs with that voice of hers. She was screaming something but I couldn’t make out what. My head was foggy from sleep, and but I knew I had to figure out what was going on. I didn’t know what I was going to do when she got to my room but I would have to act quickly. She was definitely coming up the stairs and I could hear her feet. My head was so heavy and it was all I could do to lift it, and my mind pushed and pushed until it woke me up.

And how was your Sunday night?

Somebody emailed me and took issue with my whole boy denouncement and wanted to know if it was a universal thing or what. Just so I am not biting off the head of EVERYONE here, I will permit occasional, conversational use of the “b” word. Chronic usage of “Boy” for purposes of narrative continuity is still frowned upon. Or is petulantly stomped upon. Or has eyes rolled at it. Okay, mostly that last one.

For some reason I hate it when women use the word “boy” to refer to their current, past, or potential love interests. I hate it compulsively. I hate it even more when the word is capitalized (The Boy and I went to the museum today…) or else modified for cutesy characterization purposes (Bookstore Boy left me a voice mail!). I know: people do this a lot. Maybe you do this. That’s fine, but please know that when you say boy it makes me want to shove you until you lose a shoe or else drop your purse or some other accessory that I could then pick up and use to smack you.

And don’t go telling me it’s okay to say “boy” because guys call us “girls.” Yes, it’s annoying and patronizing; no, it’s not the same thing. When guys say girls instead of women it’s a pain in the ass, but it’s somehow a democratic one: girls are everywhere, girls are in songs; girls, girls, girls are the crazy sexy army guys are up against, and that’s a whole other war game I won’t get into here, but it’s one I grew up dealing with, and I can sort of see the truth of it all, even from my side of things. But boys are something else; you rarely hear them spoken of in the plural form. It’s always The Boy; the one; the boy band, even, where three to six guys become sublimated into the one idea, the single entity, the He Who Only Exists In Relation To You–every boy is that, you see; which is to say, every guy that you decide to call boy, one at a time, whenever you try to tell the story of yourself. I get sick of hearing it, that’s all.

But go on, say it. Say “Boy.” Say “I am Pretty Princess Protagonist and the whole world is my very own fucking pony party.” And then grow up.

I touched *BOB*!!!! And I got to talk to her, too. I went to this show on Saturday night. Some of the pictures on that last link might not be work-appropriate, and of course I mean that in the best way.

Also went to the Gaper’s Block party on Friday. That was fun, too, although there weren’t quite as many pasties there.

When I started this site I was considered a diarist, and when I added a weblog I started to get readers who called me a blogger. I think what I have now is enough of a hybrid that I’m fine with both definitions. I’ve been friends with some diarists for awhile now, but I’ll probably also go to this bloggy shindig on Friday. Only there are some people who keep asking me what the difference is between bloggers and diarists, and well, the more people use Movable Type the harder it’s going to be to explain this shit. But I think there is a difference, and since I can’t seem to stop coming up with dippy high school analogies I’ll do my best to clarify.

Okay. Online diarists are the drama club at your high school. They feel that what they’re doing is either art or therapy, although generally the really fucked-up ones are artsier. They sit in little groups on the floor in the Student Center and there’s one group that likes to give each other backrubs. They only look like they are all having sex with each other. After a while you figure out some of them hate each other even though they still inexplicably exchange backrubs.

A few are into alternate religions. One is rumored to have been in a coma once. A couple always seem to get the good parts but they’re really fucking funny so it’s okay. The ones in the Ushers Club are the friendliest but occasionally a pain in the ass because they’re always trying to get you to wear some goddamn button that says: “THE FANTASTIKS FLY ON FRIDAY!” and you can’t talk smack around them at all.

Webloggers, on the other hand, are the yearbook staff. They feel that what they’re doing is really important and also might get them into a better college. They keep way too many CDs in the staff room. A couple of them sometimes pretend that all the CDs are theirs, and they know you know they’re bullshitting, but whatever. One of them will come up to you with a notebook and ask you what you think of the new computer kiosks in the library, and don’t roll your eyes, because, you know, it’s a serious question.

Some of them are in the A/V Club. Oh, don’t even get them started.

Others are on the debate team and loudly make fun of the theatre kids even though they would totally bone that one girl. There’s one kid who keeps changing the stupid display font in the Activities section, like anyone cares. And a couple of them are angry as all hell but get swell grades.

There’s always some crossover, of course–a drama kid padding his college application; a yearbook staffer scoring a lead role in Our Town–but otherwise I’m convinced that this is how it is.

Just don’t ask me what I did in high school.

“I really hate this George W. Bush. I hope he dies and goes to hell. Really, I hope he’s tortured before he dies and goes to hell, so that he has to suffer. I would like for him to have his fingernails ripped out. And his toenails. And his eyelids torn off! Really!”

It came in the mail here at work today. The address didn’t include my work title or even the name of my company; the sender had handwritten only my name and the street address. It was a small padded envelope, and inside was a CD with the words THE LETTER PEOPLE scrawled on it. I’d emailed a stranger asking for this CD two years ago, and when it never showed up I wasn’t too surprised. But here it is.

The Letter People was the kindergarten phonics program at my school, and two years ago I was obsessed with finding out everything I could about it. Now I know there was a freaky psychedelic-puppet Letter People TV show based on the program, but I don’t think any of the local stations carried it; my only experience was with the funky artist’s renderings of the Letter People, the “huggable” (and totally kickable) inflatable Letter People, and the songs. Especially the songs: they were all in different musical styles–country, 60s ballad, dixieland, sousa march–and the hands-down favorite in our kindergarten was the hard rockin’ Mr. M song. For years, little pieces of the songs stuck in my head, along with weird synaesthetic notions about letter sex roles. I mean, the Letter People were not an equal opportunity alphabet. The consonants were male and vowels were female. I sort of sensed that the English alphabet was like a large corporation and the vowel ladies were the secretarial pool, because you couldn’t make a word without them, but they didn’t get to start words as often as the male counterparts. I understood this completely.

Anyway, two years ago I began to look up the Letter People and came across a bulletin board where someone had offered to send free CDs of the songs. I’d responded, waited a few weeks, and then wound up buying a cassette of the songs on eBay (where you should look for Letter People stuff instead of asking me, okay? Thanks).

There’s nothing trippier than hearing songs that you know you haven’t heard in over twenty-five years. It turns out the Mr. M song is not the rock anthem we kindergarteners thought it was. It’s pretty lame. The Mr. S song, however, is a fucking masterpiece. And Miss A is exactly like Petula Clark, except, well, completely demented and sneezing. The other day I was thinking about how Letter People songs could be a part of every mix CD I’d ever make–if only I had a CD version. AND NOW I DO!

This kind of made my afternoon: Jon Carroll of the San Francisco Chronicle mentioned Candyboots in his column today.