Monday Night Music Fix: Ladies Night!!!

I am in a serious chick mood. Which means you are too. Here are some lovely ladies I am into right now.



Hello Safe Ride





Amy Winehouse




Lilly Allen

I have always been a dog lover. Never a cat person, always one for Team Dog. Since I adopted Potato near Tompkins Square Park almost three years ago, I have thought of myself as an advocate for the canine especially the bully breeds. This started because when the Chef & I moved back to Ohio the first time we were confronted with fear and ignorance, not only from strangers but also our family and friends. People in Ohio, we found, had a super negative view of pit bull dogs or anything that remotely resembled one. I read about the laws, I started a MySpace group, I sent bulletins. And then we moved back to NYC, the land of the pit bull. The state that fights Bully Breed Discrimination, the state that has laws fight breed specific legislation (something Ohio is known for). All was well again. My activism decreased, my interest subsided. That is until now.
We are back in the suburbs, the land of Hummer's, fake nails, and forgotten beliefs. I know that while we are in this land of ignorance and apathy we must play by the rules, however I guess I wasn't aware of how the rules in this town are bullshit.

Here we go:

Last week, Potato got free. He ran into the neighbors yard and almost got hit by his car while he was backing out of his drive. The Chef got Potato and took him inside. Not a big deal. This particular neighbor has 2 dogs that are constantly in his front yard running free and terrorizing Potato & Vito (who we never let into the front yard). Fast forward an hour. I am outside with the dogs in our 6ft. tall privacy fenced in backyard. I hear a very loud banging on my storm door (I have a doorbell). I answer and it is a very stern Animal Control Officer who tells me that he received a complaint about a pit bull who is CONSTANTLY free in the neighborhood. Bullshit. We have been home three weeks, and Potato got loose ONCE. Long story short, he tells me that my dog is 'VICIOUS' and I need $100,000 liability insurance as well as a 6ft. covered kennel in my already fenced in backyard. I told him that I was under the impression that the UNCONSTITUTIONAL pit bull dog laws had been changed. You see Ohio is the only state in the nation who has a law that says any dog who resembles a pit bull (big head, short hair, stocky body) is vicious. In other states, to be considered a vicious dog, the dog must have had a history of biting, attacking, or menacing someone or something. But not here. This white trash animal control guy informs me that even if the State of Ohio repealed or amended it's bullshit laws, the City of Strongsville overrules state laws. Awesome. So I introduce him to my 'vicious' dog, Potato. Potato licks him.
Now I am pissed. I am pissed that we moved back to this state. I am pissed that everyone is fat and loves GWB. I am pissed that my dog could get killed for no reason other than his looks. I am pissed that people are so ignorant and don't care to change their train of thought, not just about pits but about everything that's going on in the world today. I am pissed that every time someone sees that I am pregnant again they ask me if I am going to name the baby 'Pitcher.'
So what the hell am I going to do about all this anger? Well my friends, I am going to educate and educate some more. I am going to go grassroots for my dog. I am going to recite that poem 'When They Came' everyday and apply those words not just to me but to all dogs discriminated because of other dogs deeds. I am going to start a movement for my dog and all other bully breeds out there being discriminated against on a daily basis. I am going to start local because I know that I am not the only pit owner and other's in this area must be going through what I am going through. As of now I am going to promote my MySpace Group as well as start a Meetup. I encourage anyone and everyone (no matter where live) to join and be active. Write letters. Speak up. After the 'Potato Incident,' I found out that there are some people in the House of Representatives who want this law amended to change the definiton of a 'vicious' dog. I encourage you to write letters to all House members in support of House Bill 189.
You can find House member's contact info HERE. I also encourage you to sign the BAN BSL online petition that I will be sending to the House members before the bill goes up in May. Let your voice be heard!


Also check out these great websites that promote this cause:

Love Does Not Discriminate

Rott-n-Chatter

Dog Politics




PEACE 4 PITBULLS

Fridany Night Film Fix: Wedding Crashers Redux

Thirteen Things That Make My Toddler Pyschotic

1. Not being able to eat cottage cheese for lunch, dinner, and breakfast.
2. Not being able to go outside during a massive thunder and lightening storm.
3. Mommy.
4. Daddy.
5. Vito kisses.
6. Getting the play dough taken away from him when he is smashing it into mommy's new shag rug.
7. Anything.
8. Nothing.
9. Not being allowed to which the national average of 4 hrs of TV a day.
10. Getting bubbles stuck to his fingers.
11. Not being allowed to stick things in his ears (like pink insulation from who the hell knows where?)
12. Putting food on his plate if it doesn't 'belong' there.
13. Stepping in wet grass even though he is the one that took his shoes off in the first place.

So this is the new baby. My scanner is crap. If you live by me the pictures are way better in person and you can totally see the alien boy up close & personal. I can't believe how excited I am! I guess actually seeing my little guy really confirmed that we are having another wonderful bundle of joy and insanity:)

Monday Night Music Fix: Bjork's Wanderlust & Earth's Intruders (SNL)

The background music in Earth's Intruders sounds like a womb recording. I wonder if it is. I wouldn't put it past Bjork to use a womb recording as her bass line.

Thursday Thirteen

Thirteen Things I like about being back in Ohio

1. My mortgage is half of our NYC rent, neither of us are working so that works out really well.
2. Signing up for a gym membership that costs $300/yr not $300/month.
3. My dad.
4. Our families.
5. My backyard.
6. The library. Yes there are libraries in NYC but they are confusing and a pain in the ass b/c you have to walk and carry lotsa books.
7. I feel really really SKINNY. And I am prego. Lotsa fatties in Ohio. No offense if you are large.
8. Food is so cheap. Organic milk is the price of NYC pesticide infested milk.
9. The Metroparks. It's like Prospect Park & Central Park combined minus the cracked out homeless folks.
10. Pretty soon my Gpa will be up from FLA and I am a big fan of him. He lives in same town and he cracks me up constantly without ever trying.
11. The news. Seriously it is hilarious. It's like watching The National Enquirer, no Wacky World News. Everything is soooooooooooooo fabricated it's funny. New York news was so sad and disheartening. If someone was killed in NYC you wondered how another human could do something, but if someone is killed in Ohio you wonder why it had four eyes and a blue leg.
12. My bizatches. Especially my BFF. I have missed her greatly. She is my rock and boy does she know how to listen to my long winded ass.
13. Papa John's pizza. Haven't had it yet but that garlic butter sauce has been on my mind since we crossed the state line.

Friday Night Film Fest: The Dark Crystal

I was just catching up on some of my favorite blogs when I ran across this post. Memory lane. Ahh I do love thee. In honor of Disney Afternoon Cartoon's I am featuring a Disney film for FNFF. It's no ordinary Disney flick however...scary, sad and dark, no Little Mermaid here.
You can watch the entire film on YouTube if you so desire.

In a faraway world a mighty astronomical event is about to occur,
the Great Conjunction of the planet's Three Suns. At this time, the
cruel Skeksis who rule this world from the castle of the Dark Crystal
are frightened to learn that an ancient prophecy may be coming true:
A survivor of the Gelfling, an elfin race they thought they had
destroyed, is seeking to restore the missing shard of the Dark Crystal
before the moment of the Great Conjunction, thus ending the tyranny of
the Skeksis. Hidden in the valley of the urRu, young Jen the Gelfling
has been raised by a tribe of mystics and knows little of the world
outside, but know his Master's dying words have charged him with his
mission to find the lost shard before it is too late. Traveling
through many strange places and encountering many extraordinary
beings, Jen races against time to unravel the mystery of his quest and
save his world from the forces of evil.

Confess HERE!!!!!!

Thirteen Vonnegut Quotes

1. All time is all time. It does not change. It does not lend itself to warnings or explanations. It simply is. Take it moment by moment, and you will find that we are all, as I've said before, bugs in amber.


2. History is merely a list of surprises. It can only prepare us to be surprised yet again.


3. The public health authorities never mention the main reason many Americans have for smoking heavily, which is that smoking is a fairly sure, fairly honorable form of suicide.


4. One of the few good things about modern times: If you die horribly on television, you will not have died in vain. You will have entertained us.


5. I still believe that peace and plenty of happiness can be worked out some way. I am a fool.


6. The two prime movers in the Universe are Time & Luck


7. Make love when you can. It's good for you.


8. We could have saved the Earth but we were too damned cheap.


9. The insane, on occasion, are not without their charms.


10. Call me Jonah. My parents did, or nearly did. They called me John.


11. Vietnam was an exercise in mistaken idealism; Iraq in cynical money-making. And there's no optimism or idealism now -- Americans are tired of knowledge. Our leaders, the C-students from Yale, know this. We're proud of being ignorant; that leaves virtue at our core. We aren't frazzled by knowledge like foreigners, so we can be trusted.


12. Who is more to be pitied, a writer bound and gagged by policemen or one living in perfect freedom who has nothing more to say?


13. If you find your life tangled up with somebody else's life for no very logical reasons, that person may be a member of your karass.

My absolute favorite author of all time is dead. He inspired me with every word I read. In some way his mind helped form a part of mine.



Requiem by Kurt Vonnegut

When the last living thing

has died on account of us,

how poetical it would be

if Earth could say,

in a voice floating up

perhaps

from the floor

of the Grand Canyon,

“It is done.”

People did not like it here.

To read more go HERE & HERE & HERE.

Mr. V has always been a friend of death. With that said I wish him the best in the other world.

Leaving The Hampton's today and spending the night in Brooklyn with the Chef's cousin and his lady. Sad but excited to get home and actually see my husband. Although that won't be happening until Saturday as he will stay in Manhattan until then. But after that he's mine!

Happy Easter!

I just watched The Neverending Story with the boy and even though I have seen it 2 million and one times, my eyes have been opened to the underlying theme. I wish I had time to do an analysis of the film in comparison what is going on in our politico today. Yes I did take Politics & Film & yes it was my favorite class. How could it not be? Not only did I watch great movies like Strangelove and Clockwork Orange but I also got introduced to many many world war films that I NEVER would have watched ever. Anyways. Off to put jelly beans into plastic eggs and hide them in the scary forest surrounding our vacation house. Goodnight.

PS...What do you think of the name Atreyu?

Friday Film Feature: Grindhouse

This one's not out yet but if the movie was able to breakup the marriage of Rodriguez and his wife of 16 years, not to mention him ditching five kids, all for Rose McGowen you know it's got to be good or at least pretty f'd up.
Plus two movies for the price of one? Hells yeah. Now I won't feel so bad paying $16/ticket.


Grindhouse is a 2007 film. In the United States, the film is presented as a double feature of two full-length segments, one being a zombie film, Planet Terror, written and directed by Robert Rodriguez, and the other being a slasher film, Death Proof, written and directed by Quentin Tarantino, with faux trailers advertising fictional films preceding each segment. In much of the rest of the world, the film will be split in two and each feature will be released separately.

The idea for Grindhouse came to Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino when Tarantino would set up screenings of double features, complete with trailers preceding and between the films. "[Tarantino] would have some trailers and a movie, and then some more trailers and a second movie," remembers Rodriguez. "I thought, 'We have to re-create this experience for people and show them a double feature like this.' The double feature just came to mind [from] us wanting to re-create that experience."
The film's name originates from the American term for theaters that would play "all the exploitation genres: kung fu, horror, Italian horror—also known as giallo—sexploitation, the "good old boy" redneck car-chase movies, blaxploitation, spaghetti Westerns—all those risible genres that were released in the 70s." According to Rodriguez, "The posters were much better than the movies, but we're actually making something that lives up to the posters."
Rodriguez first came up with the idea for Planet Terror during the production of The Faculty. "I remember telling Elijah Wood and Josh Hartnett, all these young actors, that zombie movies were dead and hadn't been around in a while, but that I thought they were going to come back in a big way because they’d been gone for so long," recalls Rodriguez. "I said, 'We've got to be there first.' I had [a script] I’d started writing. It was about 30 pages, and I said to them, 'There are characters for all of you to play.' We got all excited about it, and then I didn't know where to go with it. The introduction was about as far as I'd gotten, and then I got onto other movies. Sure enough, the zombie [movie] invasion happened and they all came back again, and I was like, 'Ah, I knew that I should've made my zombie film.'" The story was reapproached when Tarantino and Rodriguez developed the idea for Grindhouse.
During the time Planet Terror began to come together, Tarantino developed the story of Death Proof. Tarantino was fascinated by the way stuntmen would "death-proof" their cars so they can be driven headfirst into a brick wall at 60 mph and still protect the driver—as long as he's in the driver's seat. This inspired Tarantino to create a slasher film featuring a deranged stuntman who stalks and murders sexy young women with his "death-proof" car. Tarantino remembers, "I realized I couldn't do a straight slasher film, because with the exception of women-in-prison films, there is no other genre quite as rigid. And if you break that up, you aren't really doing it anymore. It's inorganic, so I realized—let me take the structure of a slasher film and just do what I do. My version is going to be fucked up and disjointed, but it seemingly uses the structure of a slasher film, hopefully against you."
According to Rodriguez, "[Tarantino] had an idea and a complete vision for it right away when he first talked about it. He started to tell me the story and said, 'It's got this death-proof car in it.' I said, 'You have to call it Death Proof.' I helped title the movie, but that's it."
I don't think there have been any good car chases since I started making films in '92—to me, the last terrific car chase was in Terminator 2. And Final Destination 2 had a magnificent car action piece. In between that, not a lot. Every time a stunt happens, there's twelve cameras and they use every angle for Avid editing, but I don't feel it in my stomach. It's just action."


Check out Grindhouse.

Thursday Thirteen

13 Things I miss about NYC/Brooklyn

1. The way people dress. Apparently the Ohio 'uniform' consists of a striped polo shirt and khaki's no matter what sex you are.
2. Nannies yelling at kids. In NYC the nannies are the assholes to the kids. They were the ones who would yell or be inappropriate towards the kids in public. It was very sad but kind of expected. Not in Ohio, first off no one has nannies. Second, it is the mom screaming at her kids in a public library. Very impressive.
3. The pedestrian lifestyle. I have been back in Ohio and have barely made it to the curb to take the garbage out. So depressing. How am I going to get my daily dose of low impact cardio? Plus gas is ridiculous. I never realized how little money we spent on gas in NYC. We probably filled our tank 5 times in a year.
4. Target. I know, I know. There is Target in Cleveland. But it's not the same. Target in Brooklyn was hard core. The lines were long. The people were mean. The walk back (10 blocks) was tough especially loaded with a stroller, a child, and 10 filled bags barely hanging onto the stroller. But it was an adventure. A day at Target was like a day hiking in the Rocky Mountains.
5. Franny's. The best pizza on the planet.
6. Fresh Direct grocery delivery service. Check out the website if you've never been.
7. Brunch. Not that I can really enjoy the finer aspects (bloody mary) of brunch anymore. But still it's nice knowing that the option for a great Sunday meal is available. The only Brunch in Ohio is at Ponderosa.
8. The boy's Gymboree class. Silly isn't it? I never made one friend (besides the teacher) yet I miss it. It was so much fun watching him be crazy around all the stuffy parents and their uber cool kids.
9. Taking the boy to the garden at The Brooklyn Music Conservatory. Even in the dead of winter he would run up to the frozen fish pond and demand to know where the 'ishies' were.
10. My friend Meredith.
11. The Chef's days off. We always did something together as a family. Granted the Chef is still working in NYC (we are in The Hampton's as I type this) and we haven't really settled. I am sure that when we do, we will still have our family days.
12. Oshimi lunch special. 1 California Roll. 1 Spicy Tuna Roll. 1 Brooklyn Roll. 1 Miso Soup. 2 Pork Dumplings. Edamame. $7.95!
13. Riding my bike with the boy in Prospect Park. Although I only did this a handful of times I really loved it. We made it around the entire park and would stop and see the crazy geese. So much fun and the boy adored it. Even now if we walk past a bike he starts screaming 'mike, mike' and throws a massive tantrum.



Stay tuned for next week's TT..."13 Things I don't miss about NYC/Brooklyn"

I still haven't gotten settled enough to really sit down and actually write a post. We are still in NYC-Ohio limbo and we head back to The Hampton's on Thursday for Easter. Not excited about another drive to and from the Big A. Hopefully the boy will be cool and handle the 7 hour drive like a pro. Yeah right. Not saying that he is going to be a monster but let's just say that my little angel has been testing the waters of the terrible two's lately...

Monday Night Music Fix: Bowie. Labyrinth. Awesome.