American Hairdo

Saw a fun movie the other night.  I think it was called American Hairdo (or Two Years  A Hairpiece or Gravity Defying Body Parts or something). It was nominated for the Best Picture Oscar, but snubbed in the hairdo and make-up category, go figure!

Anyhow, it was all about this glued-on toupee with a combover who is married to an up-do with a side of baloney curls, but the combover is also having a relationship with a Charlie's Angels shoulder length wave redhead. The combover and the wave are in cahoots as genuine fake-loan con artists, with the added attraction of the wave's breast-baring daytime business attire. The wave faux-cheats on the combover with a fake-perm with prosthetic tooth veneers and a beard and mustache who works for the FBI. 

Authentic Charlie's Angel

Anyhow, the toupee-combover is an authentic con man and the fake-perm is a manic FBI agent who snags the combover and the shoulder length wave in the act of real-scamming and gets them to set up a faux-scam involving a number of regular-boys' haircuts, one gigolo side bang, a slicked-back sleaze-head, a schmatte-wearing hair-hiding faux Arab, and a pair of Junior Soprano eyeglasses.

In the middle of all this is a well-meaning but corrupt Elvis pompadour who is the mayor of a New Jersey city, and number of his connections:  Grecian Formula political heads. 

There's not a lot of diversity, but in one scene the corrupt Elvis pompadour does have his arm around an Al Sharpton Afro, but we never see one Jheri Curl at all. (Where are you now, Super Freak?)

Everything ends up swell for some: the combover and the wave move in together, the up-do and the side-bang move in together.  None of them get killed or go to jail.  On the other hand, the rubber-curler faux perm from the FBI is real-conned by the combover and the wave and ends up in disgrace. The Grecian formula political heads and the Elvis pompadour end up fined or in jail. We don't find out what happens to the Afro.

Along the way (not in scenic order):  a science oven (microwave oven) explodes on account of the up-do sticking a foil-wrapped metal baking pan inside it; the wave and the faux-perm go disco dancing at Studio 54 where they do the Hustle and have faux-sex in a toilet stall; the Elvis pompadour and the combover lip-synch to Delilah; the faux-perm's Mamma Mia dishes out some gratuitous cliches with the cannoli; one huge fat middle-aged male belly gets an entire scene to itself as well as a cameo at the pool party (but you can go Google that yourself).

I like to think of myself as a 60's gal, but now that I think of it, I did spend more of my adult years in the 70's.  Care to join me as I drown my aged sorrows in an iconic fern-bar cocktail? Harvey Wallbangers all around, bartender.

Done with Downton

Okay, I'm a mean girl at heart.  I laughed when Matthew flew out of his snappy roadster and broke his neck at the end of Season Three.  I knew it was coming.  I had read that Dan Stevens was done with Downton and on to other things.

I decided I was done with Downton, as well. I just can't bring myself to watch a show where I want to slap more than 50% of the characters, no matter how much I enjoy seeing their costumes. 

More fun than a barrel of suppurating donkey meat with a soupçon of fox flesh.
But not much more fun.

So, I wasn't one of the twenty gazillion watching the Season 4 premiere last Sunday night.  I'm not saying that if I come down with a case of stomach flu a couple of months from now, and the room is reeling, and I am lying there sucking on ice chips that I won't succumb to a Downton binge. But right now I am looking forward to new seasons of House of Cards and Orange Is The New Black on Netflix.

Netflix is so much more civilized.  They release all the episodes on the same day and we, the customers, can choose how we want to watch. Why, it's almost like living in the future. 

And while I'm at it, why doesn't anyone say that someone who sits down and reads a book over the weekend is "binge-reading." It's as though binge-watching were something shameful, like eating thirteen pints of Ben & Jerry's at one sitting. 

Apollo-ing News, Old Chap

Call me tasteless, but I can't resist blogging about the ceiling collapse at the Apollo Theatre in London's West End before the dust settles, because this certainly gives new meaning to the phrase "The performance brought down the house."

How the fashionable set dresses for a night in the West End.

The Apollo is the very theatre where last spring we paid through the nose for great seats for ourselves and our nieces to see the show that, until this evening, was playing there: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. Fantastic show, amazing stagecraft and acting, worth every penny.  As for the theatre itself:  what a "tip," or as we say in the States, "garbage heap."

But, then, almost every West End theatre is a tip: narrow aisles,  seats in odd heights and sizes, subterranean stages, bomb-shelter lighting, and plumbing that dates from the Thomas Crapper era. The Brits must have extremely strong bladders, because while I see them guzzling down alcoholic drinks during the interval, I also see them, probably wisely, avoiding the very unrestful restrooms, or as they non-euphemistically refer to them: toilets.

The Apollo's were particularly appalling with flusher handles that while they moved up and down, didn't actually dispense water with which to create flushing.  Our very American comments and suggestions elicited much laughter from the line at the ladies' loo. 

In addition, almost every one of these dumps charges a restoration or renovation fee, but the only renovations that ever appear are new posters for new shows, and perhaps a coat of  Pepto pink paint on the decaying plaster.

If this had happened in the States, the lawyers would already be circling the carcass, and the CYA pronouncements would be belching out of corporate headquarters.  I'll be interested to see how it plays out across the pond.

Curious Incident in the Night-Time, indeed.

Ben Franklin Was Wrong

No, not in the millinery department. 

Maybe he wasn't wearing his furry but fetching thinking cap that day, but for once in his over-achieving life, Benjamin Franklin got it wrong.  Writing to his daughter about the selection of the Bald Eagle as the National Bird, he wrote:For my own part I wish the Bald Eagle had not been chosen the Representative of our Country. He is a Bird of bad moral Character. He does not get his Living honestly. You may have seen him perched on some dead Tree near the River, where, too lazy to fish for himself, he watches the Labour of the Fishing Hawk; and when that diligent Bird has at length taken a Fish, and is bearing it to his Nest for the Support of his Mate and young Ones, the Bald Eagle pursues him and takes it from him.

Sounds a lot like the United States Government to me, Ben, but I'm not going to spoil my appetite with a diatribe against the Feds.

Franklin championed the wicked varsity loser Wild Turkey, although maybe he would have been heartened to know that a popular booze bears its name.  I am not sure Ben actually ever had a close encounter with his candidate, or perhaps the wild turkeys of his time were
"in Comparison a much more respectable Bird, and withal a true original Native of America."

I'm no bird expert (I find their beady eyes unsettling), so I won't argue with the "true original" part of the description.  But "respectable?" Please tell me exactly what is respectable about birds who swarm in packs all over our almost-urban neighborhood, sashaying down the middle of the street led by a strutting and, I might add, polygamous Tom Turkey? Answer:  not very much at all.

They walk up onto our porches as if they were invited to tea. They roost in our trees like pterodactyls.  They practice their gymnastics on the terrace wall. They have attacked old men and school children.  One afternoon while minding our own business, we happened on a small group pecking away on a neighbor's lawn.  When my husband whipped out his phone to snap a shot the alpha bird started to charge us.  Not about to be taken down by a sack of wattle and feathers, I picked up a stick and waved it as we backed down the street laughing our butts off while Big Bird McCrankypants ran after us. Well, the coward ran after us only when we turned our backs on him, even though I kept waving the stick behind me. Eventually it registered in his BB brain that we weren't after his harem, or him for that matter, and he re-joined the ladies in destroying what was left of the lawn. 

The authorities should have left well enough alone back in the day when the Wild Turkey had disappeared  from Massachusetts. But, no, they had to import a few dozen from a neighboring state with some to spare (thanks a  lot, New York) and now there are 15,000 of them. I think half of them have moved to our town--probably for the same reasons everyone else does: the good school system and lovely parks.  At least the turkeys won't be contributing to the over-abundance of tots who are necessitating new schools and tax overrides.

There is some kind of hunting season for turkeys (avian variety), but it's not long enough.  We have a friend who spends a few days each year crouched in the woods dressed in leafy tree camo and emitting the call of a female turkey in order to seduce, um, lure, a Tom into shotgun range, generally to no avail.  Katniss Everdeen, come on down!

I will be serving turkey* to my family tomorrow, along with too many side dishes, and way too much dessert. (We won't speak about the wine.) The only thing "wild" about the bird was the price I paid at the fancy-schmancy grocery store. 

*Just like this except Trouserville's apron doesn't have ruffles.

I am thankful for many things this year. In addition to the classics (health, food, family, etc.), I am thankful that the Wild Turkey is the also-ran of National Birds, even though it is arguably appropriate for the nation of turkeys (see paragraph 3, above) in which we dwell. Gobble, gobble, gobble!

For more great lore about turkeys visit enature. Since I'm sure there are some contacts on your phone who merit their own special ringtone, you can download enature's wild turkey.

You Can't Always Get What You Wah-ahnt!

Let's all sing a chorus with Mick and the boys in (dis)honor of America's biggest geriatric criminal crybaby.

According to an article in the Boston Globe this morning, (and you can take it for what it's worth because I certainly didn't fact-check it),  Whitey Bulger's main goal in life, once he stopped racking up body count, was to remain at large forever.  "At large" is such an odd term when it refers to a moral midget like the Bulge,  especially since he was living anything but large holed up in California, where he was playing tightwad by stretching cheap tube socks over soda bottles to stretch them out. (Either that or developing some kind of Molotov cocktail for his own personal Ragnarok.)

D'ya see what this Bulger fella is whinin' about now?

At any rate, his desired endgame, when he felt that death was near, was to head to Arizona and crawl into an abandoned mine where he would curl up, die, and remain hidden forever.  Cue up the 1930's gangster voice:  You'll never take me alive, copper.

Well, tough luck, boyo! You'll just have to settle for life in the can--that would be the "But if you try sometimes well you just might find/You get what you need" portion of your program-- and the rest of us can head into the holidays thinking about some other kinds of turkeys.

Foc.us? Foc.me!

No Forks in the Sockets
No Beans in your Ear
No Pistachio Nuts in your Nose
ETC.

Don't we all need a jumpstart for our brains now and again? I do, especially when faced with a task like balancing the checkbook or finding the jack-o-lantern candleholder that I tucked away last Halloween.

But, don't we all remember our mothers telling us not to stick a fork in an electric socket?

If Ma were around today she'd be telling us not to stick electrodes into our brains.  Ma's no longer here so Trouserville will pick up the megaphone:  don't go sticking electrodes into your brains.

 In other words: no self-administered transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS).

BEFORE tDCS

AFTER DIY tDCS

Yes, we are living in the future where scientific information  (much of it half-baked or in this case, half-fried) is freely available to anyone with an internet connection.

There has been real research by real scientists in real universities to determine whether tDCS can help re-carve neural pathways for those with Parkinson's disease, for example. There are some indications that this may work, though some of the researchers  have fessed up to forehead burns. 

Enter the FDAWW (Future Darwin Award Winners of the World) who have taken this preliminary research and run straight to the hardware store with it. You can see them on You Tube hooking up 9-volt batteries to wires and sticking the wires into their brains.  Not as a Mr. Wizard science project they hope will get them an A, or because they are dressing up like Frankenstein for Halloween. No, they are trying to enhance their video gaming ability.  Duh! Double Duh! and a hearty WTF.

If you aren't the DIY type there's a company in the UK who will sell you a device  with the classy moniker Foc.us, for about $250.  I haven't checked it out, but it sounds like a gussied up version of the classic tin-foil head wrapper beloved of cranks everywhere. You might have to get on a waiting list, though,  since the first production run of 3,000 sold out faster than you can say scalp burns.

I guess there are a lot of people out there who listen neither to their mothers, nor to the inner voice that is shrieking "Sucker!"










If you want to read more about it check out Jump-Starter Kits for the Mind which appeared in the New York Times Science Section on October 28, 2013.  I know you have enough brain power to just click right through the advertisement that pops up first.

Bad Blogger, No Doughnut

That's right.  Haven't blogged here for weeks.  Will be all tricks and no treats for me come Halloween, no doubt.

Really, nothing has annoyed me enough to blog about it.  I am pretty sure the world hasn't gotten any better, so it must be that someone is pumping laughing gas into the ventilation system over here in Trouserville.  Or blame it on the meme:

See just how easy it is to waste time on the internet:  Keep Calm and Posters