February, 2009

  1. A Valentine Confession

    February 14, 2009 by ChiaLynn

    I have a confession to make. Valentine’s Day used to mean something to me.

    In elementary school, I longed for Valentine’s cards from the boys I crushed on. And, of course, I got them – the same flimsy cardboard hearts, adorned with bad puns and cartoon bears, that every other girl in class got. There were rules, you see. If you brought Valentines, you had to bring one for everyone – and they all had to be the same.

    Things changed when I started dating. Now Valentine’s Day brought gifts that were just for me. I might still have some of them, somewhere. Flowers and candies and strange plastic toys. I don’t remember that I was ever single on Valentine’s Day, but I also don’t remember any specific Valentine’s Day. It’s all a blur of red and white, and it’s all faded into the mists of time.

    I got married (the first time), and while we always said “Oh, we don’t really do Valentine’s Day,” we did. There was always a special meal, at a restaurant we didn’t often go to, and there was always Valentine’s sex, because Valentine’s Day means you have to be in the mood.

    Looking back, I realize that Valentine’s Day meant something special then because, no matter how I denied it, something was missing from Every Day that had to be wedged into this one heart-soaked Day in mid-February. That’s no longer the case. I know it’s cliche to say that “Every day is Valentine’s Day,” but if that means that every day, you say “I love you,” and that every day, you do something to show it – then it’s no cliche.

    And so tonight, because we have no need to indulge in a Greeting Card Holiday to prove our love for each, NovySan and I are home, drinking cocktails (Pegu for me, a Perfect Manhattan for him), and getting ready to spend some quality time on UStream with our friends Be The Boy and The Slackmistress.

    It was the Slackmistress’s recent post on Pointless Banter, concerning Crap Women Don’t Want for Valentine’s Day, that provided the original impetus for my Valentine’s Post. When she described a Valentine’s Day card display as looking “like they split Cupid open and shook his red heart-shaped entrails all over the place,” I thought, “What if we celebrated Valentine’s Day really authentically, as the feast of a martyred saint?” Which led me to a meditation on the reason for the season, as they say.

    According to the always-infallible Wikipedia, there are three saints commonly identified as the Saint Valentine after whom the holiday is named. Catholic Online, though, while acknowledging that there is some controversy over the number of St. Valentines, and their exact occupations, focuses on one – a Roman priest, who, according to the Nuremberg Chronicle, was stoned, beaten and finally beheaded for the crime of performing Christian marriages and attempting to convert Claudius II (also known as Claudius Gothicus, which leads me to a wonderful mental image of Derek Jacobi in heavy eyeliner and latex club wear).

    So, if you aren’t spending time with your sweetheart tonight, or if you can’t come and join us for Be the Marriage LIVE! (On Ice), you might consider martyring someone. Or, in fact, massacring several someones, if that’s more your speed. Just don’t tell the cops I sent you.

    Category Friends, Holidays, Love, Random Babbling | Tags: ,,,, | 1 Comment

  2. Today’s Hollywood Adventure

    February 12, 2009 by ChiaLynn

    I came into work with NovySan today. A little before noon, I walked down to Tere’s to get us some lunch. It’s a trip I make almost every time I come to NovySan’s office, and it’s not uncommon for men to yell strange things at me between here and there. “Nice tits,” for example. Or, “I want that ass!” Today, though, was a little different.

    I was on my way back, walking west down Melrose, when a black sports car made a fast right onto Wilcox, without signaling. There was a bicyclist coming toward me, as well, riding on the sidewalk, and although he hadn’t been in any real danger, it was dicey enough to annoy me.

    “Of course you don’t need a turn signal,” I muttered. “And never mind that you almost hit someone,” I added.

    The bicyclist also made the right onto Wilcox, and I crossed the street and hit the Walk button on the other side. A moment later, I heard a voice. A loud, angry voice. I looked around, and saw the same bicyclist, stopped in the crosswalk on the other side of the street, and staring right at me.

    “You better watch your fuckin’ mouth!” he said, “you motherfuckin’ asshole fucker!”

    It didn’t register at first. I couldn’t make sense of the stream of profanity. Then he said, “That’s right, fucker,” and it clicked. He’s really angry with someone. “I said you better fuckin’ watch it!”

    I looked around. The only other person in sight, who wasn’t in a car, was a gardener with a leaf blower about half a block away, in the direction the bicyclist had come from. It occurred to me that maybe he’d blown leaf litter into his chain, but when I looked back, he was still staring at me, through his black-rimmed shades. “You wanna fuckin’ talk to me,” he said, “you go ahead.”

    “I didn’t say anything to you.” This was true. I hadn’t. But he wasn’t buying it.

    “You fuckin’ got a problem with me, you come talk to me, you fuck.”

    Now, it’s not the first time I’ve been threatened by a crazy person. But it is the first time I’ve been threatened by a crazy person who was so well put together. Twenty-something, muscular, wearing crisp khaki shorts, a nice windbreaker, a clean nylon backpack and a bicycle helmet. Somehow, it was the bicycle helmet that threw me – it’s just such a thoroughly normal accessory.

    And so, because he was so normally accessorized, I tried one more time to engage with him in a normal manner. “I didn’t say anything to you,” I repeated.

    “You don’t know who you’re fucking with!” he replied. “You wanna come over here and talk to me? Yeah? That’s what I thought!”

    And with that, he was gone, pedaling east on Melrose and leaving me to stand on the corner gaping after him, so stunned I missed my Walk signal and had to wait through another long light change. During the mental replay, I realized he must have thought my (really fairly muted) expression of disgust for the driver of the black sports car was meant for him. Leaving aside the questions that raises about him (“How self-absorbed are you? Seriously, you did nothing wrong, and he almost ran you over, and you think I was being rude to you?”), it did prompt me to make a mental note. “Do try to squelch your urge to comment on the things you see around you.”

    Of course, I won’t really be able to do that. I can just try to keep myself from doing it out loud.

    Category Los Angeles | Tags: , | 5 Comments

  3. The Treasures of Blood Island

    February 3, 2009 by ChiaLynn

    “My dear Dr. Foster, you talk like a lovesick shopgirl. We all rot away in the end. But not all of us for a purpose!”

    Having recently discovered the joys of watching B movies while I work out, I’ve run through a fair number of them in the last few weeks. NovySan asked me last night if I was going to do something like Will and Annika’s 200 Westerns; I said I probably should, but I’m not at all sure I’m that organized. There’ve been a few highlights, though, that I’ll try to hit, at least briefly (Carnival of Souls, which might have been more interesting if A) I hadn’t already seen The Sixth Sense, and B) I hadn’t also read How to Survive a Horror Movie;The Lady from Shanghai, which didn’t need to be a B movie, but was; The Bad Seed, which isn’t really a B movie at all; the brilliantly creepy Spider Baby…)

    But this post isn’t about any of those films. This post is about the Blood Island Trilogy, and I probably should have saved it until I’ve watched the third film, but they’re just too brilliant not to share.

    Shot on shoestring budgets in the Phillipines, these are classic Man in a Rubber Suit Monster Movies with more blood and boobs than comparable Hollywood films could have slipped past the censors, even on a platter of entrails. There are man-eating plants (and a beautiful woman who screams and writhes under a puppet tentacle in a way that should have earned her an Oscar for screaming and writhing under a puppet tentacle); there’s the truly horrifying premise of Brides of Blood, that a native god called “The Evil One” is satisfying his lust on the women of the island, and tearing them to pieces in the process; there are atomic mutations that come and go, and somehow affect the island air; there’s a man poisoned by chlorophyll – the doctor’s instructions? “When he comes to, just give him some hot soup – and no green vegetables, of course.” There’s a young woman who “became a whore for love.” (Isn’t that something you wish you’d done yourself?) Oh, and there’s a very scary butterfly cut-out on a string, and a lot of orgiastic dancing. Because we all know how those exotic island women love to dance.

    If you’d like a more coherent review, David Zuzelo’s done great write-ups on all three films here (with screenshots!), but if you’ve got an Internet connection and a few hours to kill… Just go wallow in Blood.

    Category Music & Movies & Such | Tags: ,, | No Comments