From Lebanon to Lindsay Lohan: No, You Can't Watch's Fruits of Summer
Lawd have mercy, child. 101F at 7:45 in the evening. And yeah, if you're from Palm Springs or Tucson, feel free to snicker "pussy!" all you want, because I've heard your tales of 118F woe, but for Texas, believe me, this is just not on. Aside from the summer of 1980, I can't remember it being this crap-tacularly hot, ever. And there's no relief in sight, either. Talking on the phone with a friend out in El Paso yesterday, I caught myself begging him to send some of those torrential downpours our way. He said he'd try, but no promises. Meanwhile, it's Satan's breadbasket out there, so be sure to bring the butter and preserves, and say a prayer for your friendly power grid while you're at it, too. We could be going down California-style here real soon if we're not careful.
Despite the triple-digit torture, I live for the summer season. Summer always brings out the nostalgic, sentimental jackass in me, and to be honest, it's welcome proof that yes Virginia, there's still a trace of joie de vivre left running through these jaded and bitter old veins. Summer brings it out like lip gloss on Lolita: flashing back on trips to visit my grandmother in Galveston, fondly recalling the days when we weren't afraid to stick our toe in the the Gulf of Mexico. Those huge Coppertone billboards were everywhere - the one with the dog pulling on the little girl's swimming trunks. Everything smelled of Coppertone, too, or my grandmother's fideo that would be on the table waiting for us when we got back from the beach, accompanied by freshly-shucked cold oysters and peel-and-eat shrimp by the pound, all plump and pink and Gulf-tastic. And after a week with Grandma and her St. Martin de Porres statues, we'd pack up the car for the ferry ride over to Bolivar and subsequent trip to Beaumont, which would always start out as a bit of a bummer and become suddenly groovy once I stepped into the steaming kitchens of my mother's aunts and cousins, where there'd be sumptuous stock pots full of every kind of stuffed leaf and vegetable known to mankind: grapevine leaves from the vine outside, cabbage, eggplant, squash, and peppers, in every kind of sauce - lemon, tomato and yogurt. I'd sneak the raw rolled grape leaves from the platter, and Aunt Sarah would curse at me in Arabic and whack my hand, hard. Still makes me all warm and fuzzy inside all these years later, even as I'm being baked alive and the whole world's gone plumb nuckin' futz.
And with that, I bring you No, You Can't Watch's Fruits of Summer:
A Shout-Out To The Long-Suffering Lebanese. Here's one of the reasons I haven't updated this bloody thing since last month: I've been glued to the news, watching World War Goddamn Three get underway in the land of my maternal forebears, in vivid high-definition horror. This is not how I'd originally hoped to spend the summer, watching people who look just like, well, younger versions of my mother and her aunts and cousins, tearfully fleeing their homes by boat, car and on foot, wondering which road's least likely to be shelled on the way out. July's first mass exodus out of Lebanon was one of the largest on record since WWII, according to the BBC. And the six years of relative calm prior to all this? Down the fuckin' toilet. You knew it was two good to be true. Aside from the unfortunate bomb blast that killed Rafik Hariri, it truly did appear that this eensy-weensy Mediterranean nation was getting back on her feet, trying to shake off the effects of endless civil war, Syrian and Israeli occupation, hyper-inflation and everything else in its long and colorful history. I'm in too good of a mood to get all mired down into the whole Israeli/Hezbollah thang - too much gray area and and there are plenty of other blogs dedicated to all that. Besides that, the media deluge is enough to make me want to commit crimes against humanity. Time for the pee-filled balloons, if you ask me. But it's the people caught in the middle who've been in my heart all this time, making me want to well up like a Fairuz song.
Summer Funnies. OK, we need some laughs and we need 'em bad. The Jesus billboard in Houston was definitely one of the highlights of the early season. After all, isn't there some story out there about Jesus turning water into wine? If that's indeed the case, surely He wouldn't mind in the least if you wanted to switch over to beer every now and then, or even a pitcher of Mai Tais. And speaking of Jesus, how 'bout Mel "Sugar Tits" Gibson? Bitch, please. Can you say "What would Jesus drink?" I'm willing to bet His Holiness would be amenable to a Pilsener from El Salvador, with a dash of lime, and would even laugh at your Frank Booth ode to Pabst Blue Ribbon from Blue Velvet. Which brings us to...
Summer Ade 2006. Chambord margaritas, to go with the mess of chargrilled goodies from your grill-monster. Beat the heat with two of these beauties and you'll be flying to the Moon and playing among the stars, unable to feel your face. Use your favorite margarita recipe - anything from Cointreau with your own sweet-and-sour mixture (the zest of a lime and lemon, soaked in their own juice) or your pet pre-made mix if you're in a hurry, and add your favorite tequila with a shot or two of Chambord. I'm sure there are margarita purists out there who'd be horrifed, but hey, that's tricks.
Best Early Present From Santa. The Bar-B-Chef Texas Charcoal Grill will rock your world. When it's not 187 bloody degrees, of course. But from buffalo burgers to bananas, this baby has the power to do everything but pull rabbits out of hats.
Lindsay Lohan. God help me. What with the continual onslaught of updates from the Mideast war and those November elections right around the corner, I've gone all Trashy Tammy again, and am completely hooked on Dlisted and their their endless bikini shots of this freckled and pneumatic little starlet, who used to remind me of the young Ann-Margret in Tommy, saucily flouncing about in that tub of baked beans - that is, until just a few years ago when she started looking all disheveled and skeletal and was admitted to the hospital, looking less and less like Ann-Margret with every new paparazzi snap, morphing into a matchstick-legged fashion victim desperately in need of a stylist and a bump in the bathroom stall. Recently she was taken to the hospital for "heat exhaustion" and after the producer of her current picture in progress sent her a come-to-Jesus letter threatening legal action if she couldn't be bothered to show up for work, she did make me think of the Misfits-era Marilyn Monroe, but only briefly. Girlfriend's no Marilyn, though, but we love her anyway. I live vicariously through Lindsay. La Lohan is my refuge. Kill me now, but I can't wait for the Playboy spread.
Sweet Sounds of Summer. "Cenizas" by Maldita Vecindad & los Hijos del Quinto Patio, "Lola R. Forever" by Marianne Faithfull and Sly & Robbie, "Shadow Line" by The Fleshtones, Nouvelle Vague's "Teenage Kicks," "Baby One More Time" by Fountains of Wayne, "Lion's Jaws" by Neko Case, "Revolution Get Down" by the Bellrays, "Peach Kelli Pop" by Redd Kross, and Saint Etienne's alternate version of "Lose That Girl."
Sizzling Page-Turners. Diablo Cody's Candy Girl, Alicia Erian's Towelhead, True Tales From Another Mexico: The Lynch Mob, the Popsicle Kings, Chalino and The Bronx by Sam Quinones, and waiting on my nightstand, Blair Tindall's Mozart in the Jungle. Escape!
Hot Quotables on See-Sawing Gas Prices and Why We Fight. "Americans love cheap gas. It's our divine right. Jesus wants us to have cheap gas, and all of it!" - My Special Man-Friend.
The Sad-Sack Story We Never Wanted To Hear About Again But Did. OK, now some crazy ass creepazoid in Bangkok named John Mark Karr has confessed to the 1996 slaying of six-year-old beauty queen JonBenet Ramsey. Now while he does come off as the poster boy for pasty-faced pedo-fucks, he also comes off as being ultra-fake and full of shit, considering that his ex-wife claims he was in Alabama with her at the time of the slaying and that he was obsessed with child murder cases in general. And if the Thai police did arrest him on some sex-related charge, as originally reported, it makes me wonder if this Gary Glitter-wannabe said he killed JonBenet just so they'd extradite him back to the States and he wouldn't have to stay in a Thai prison, where they're rumored to stick glass tubes up the asses of kiddie-diddlers and kick 'em real hard, just for that extra-special feeling of love. C'mon. Even Nancy Grace would have a hard time saying no to that.
Despite the triple-digit torture, I live for the summer season. Summer always brings out the nostalgic, sentimental jackass in me, and to be honest, it's welcome proof that yes Virginia, there's still a trace of joie de vivre left running through these jaded and bitter old veins. Summer brings it out like lip gloss on Lolita: flashing back on trips to visit my grandmother in Galveston, fondly recalling the days when we weren't afraid to stick our toe in the the Gulf of Mexico. Those huge Coppertone billboards were everywhere - the one with the dog pulling on the little girl's swimming trunks. Everything smelled of Coppertone, too, or my grandmother's fideo that would be on the table waiting for us when we got back from the beach, accompanied by freshly-shucked cold oysters and peel-and-eat shrimp by the pound, all plump and pink and Gulf-tastic. And after a week with Grandma and her St. Martin de Porres statues, we'd pack up the car for the ferry ride over to Bolivar and subsequent trip to Beaumont, which would always start out as a bit of a bummer and become suddenly groovy once I stepped into the steaming kitchens of my mother's aunts and cousins, where there'd be sumptuous stock pots full of every kind of stuffed leaf and vegetable known to mankind: grapevine leaves from the vine outside, cabbage, eggplant, squash, and peppers, in every kind of sauce - lemon, tomato and yogurt. I'd sneak the raw rolled grape leaves from the platter, and Aunt Sarah would curse at me in Arabic and whack my hand, hard. Still makes me all warm and fuzzy inside all these years later, even as I'm being baked alive and the whole world's gone plumb nuckin' futz.
And with that, I bring you No, You Can't Watch's Fruits of Summer:
A Shout-Out To The Long-Suffering Lebanese. Here's one of the reasons I haven't updated this bloody thing since last month: I've been glued to the news, watching World War Goddamn Three get underway in the land of my maternal forebears, in vivid high-definition horror. This is not how I'd originally hoped to spend the summer, watching people who look just like, well, younger versions of my mother and her aunts and cousins, tearfully fleeing their homes by boat, car and on foot, wondering which road's least likely to be shelled on the way out. July's first mass exodus out of Lebanon was one of the largest on record since WWII, according to the BBC. And the six years of relative calm prior to all this? Down the fuckin' toilet. You knew it was two good to be true. Aside from the unfortunate bomb blast that killed Rafik Hariri, it truly did appear that this eensy-weensy Mediterranean nation was getting back on her feet, trying to shake off the effects of endless civil war, Syrian and Israeli occupation, hyper-inflation and everything else in its long and colorful history. I'm in too good of a mood to get all mired down into the whole Israeli/Hezbollah thang - too much gray area and and there are plenty of other blogs dedicated to all that. Besides that, the media deluge is enough to make me want to commit crimes against humanity. Time for the pee-filled balloons, if you ask me. But it's the people caught in the middle who've been in my heart all this time, making me want to well up like a Fairuz song.
Summer Funnies. OK, we need some laughs and we need 'em bad. The Jesus billboard in Houston was definitely one of the highlights of the early season. After all, isn't there some story out there about Jesus turning water into wine? If that's indeed the case, surely He wouldn't mind in the least if you wanted to switch over to beer every now and then, or even a pitcher of Mai Tais. And speaking of Jesus, how 'bout Mel "Sugar Tits" Gibson? Bitch, please. Can you say "What would Jesus drink?" I'm willing to bet His Holiness would be amenable to a Pilsener from El Salvador, with a dash of lime, and would even laugh at your Frank Booth ode to Pabst Blue Ribbon from Blue Velvet. Which brings us to...
Summer Ade 2006. Chambord margaritas, to go with the mess of chargrilled goodies from your grill-monster. Beat the heat with two of these beauties and you'll be flying to the Moon and playing among the stars, unable to feel your face. Use your favorite margarita recipe - anything from Cointreau with your own sweet-and-sour mixture (the zest of a lime and lemon, soaked in their own juice) or your pet pre-made mix if you're in a hurry, and add your favorite tequila with a shot or two of Chambord. I'm sure there are margarita purists out there who'd be horrifed, but hey, that's tricks.
Best Early Present From Santa. The Bar-B-Chef Texas Charcoal Grill will rock your world. When it's not 187 bloody degrees, of course. But from buffalo burgers to bananas, this baby has the power to do everything but pull rabbits out of hats.
Lindsay Lohan. God help me. What with the continual onslaught of updates from the Mideast war and those November elections right around the corner, I've gone all Trashy Tammy again, and am completely hooked on Dlisted and their their endless bikini shots of this freckled and pneumatic little starlet, who used to remind me of the young Ann-Margret in Tommy, saucily flouncing about in that tub of baked beans - that is, until just a few years ago when she started looking all disheveled and skeletal and was admitted to the hospital, looking less and less like Ann-Margret with every new paparazzi snap, morphing into a matchstick-legged fashion victim desperately in need of a stylist and a bump in the bathroom stall. Recently she was taken to the hospital for "heat exhaustion" and after the producer of her current picture in progress sent her a come-to-Jesus letter threatening legal action if she couldn't be bothered to show up for work, she did make me think of the Misfits-era Marilyn Monroe, but only briefly. Girlfriend's no Marilyn, though, but we love her anyway. I live vicariously through Lindsay. La Lohan is my refuge. Kill me now, but I can't wait for the Playboy spread.
Sweet Sounds of Summer. "Cenizas" by Maldita Vecindad & los Hijos del Quinto Patio, "Lola R. Forever" by Marianne Faithfull and Sly & Robbie, "Shadow Line" by The Fleshtones, Nouvelle Vague's "Teenage Kicks," "Baby One More Time" by Fountains of Wayne, "Lion's Jaws" by Neko Case, "Revolution Get Down" by the Bellrays, "Peach Kelli Pop" by Redd Kross, and Saint Etienne's alternate version of "Lose That Girl."
Sizzling Page-Turners. Diablo Cody's Candy Girl, Alicia Erian's Towelhead, True Tales From Another Mexico: The Lynch Mob, the Popsicle Kings, Chalino and The Bronx by Sam Quinones, and waiting on my nightstand, Blair Tindall's Mozart in the Jungle. Escape!
Hot Quotables on See-Sawing Gas Prices and Why We Fight. "Americans love cheap gas. It's our divine right. Jesus wants us to have cheap gas, and all of it!" - My Special Man-Friend.
The Sad-Sack Story We Never Wanted To Hear About Again But Did. OK, now some crazy ass creepazoid in Bangkok named John Mark Karr has confessed to the 1996 slaying of six-year-old beauty queen JonBenet Ramsey. Now while he does come off as the poster boy for pasty-faced pedo-fucks, he also comes off as being ultra-fake and full of shit, considering that his ex-wife claims he was in Alabama with her at the time of the slaying and that he was obsessed with child murder cases in general. And if the Thai police did arrest him on some sex-related charge, as originally reported, it makes me wonder if this Gary Glitter-wannabe said he killed JonBenet just so they'd extradite him back to the States and he wouldn't have to stay in a Thai prison, where they're rumored to stick glass tubes up the asses of kiddie-diddlers and kick 'em real hard, just for that extra-special feeling of love. C'mon. Even Nancy Grace would have a hard time saying no to that.
posted by No, You Can't Watch at 11:32 PM
2 Comments:
So much to comment on but I just want to say that Nancy Grace needs to be covered in feces and set on fire.
Excellent blog, Gini. I enjoyed reading this over a year later. Well, your friend in El Paso may have been a bit tardy, but send those rains he surely did.
As for Lindsay - clearly continuing in a downward spiral.lol
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