Why We Can’t Dress Ourselves

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by Daisy Sage and KatScratchFever

Daisy: KatScratchFever and I decided to write this article, to both complain about and explore the reasons why it seems like we can’t find cute clothes of decent quality to purchase on a working persons budget for several years now.

Neither Kat nor I are extremely overweight or oddly put together in any way. We are both quite fab, as a matter of fact.  Kat is tall, well built, and striking.  My body type could be described as a short  (5’4”) version of Christina Hendricks, with more or less her same differences in measurements, if you shave a couple of inches all over (I found this out when they were auctioning off some of her Mad Men dresses online and printed all the dress measurements.)

However we are both grown up women whose figures are not flattered by the thin tubes of crappy fabric run up by some poor 12 year old in a sweatshop somewhere, desperately trying to not to lose consciousness until the next rice and water break, for the purposes of filling the burgeoning racks at the likes of Forever 21 or even H&M.

What follows is a dialogue between Kat and I, to explore the reasons for this dilemma, and find possible solutions.

Daisy: When did you first start noticing that it was so difficult to find nice clothes that were affordable?

Kat: It probably started years ago, but I wasn’t fully conscious of it until I was out of college, had a full-time job and began budgeting and being critical of the things I was spending my money on. I very much want to subscribe to the idea that “I’m too poor to buy cheap”, but in the case of clothing, it seems almost impossible. Housewares and furniture have the kind of longevity that makes it rewarding to have a “buy less, buy better quality” ethos, but clothes are not as durable. You spill things on them. The cat swipes at you as you walk by and rips a hole in them. You slip on the four inches of ice crust the Snowpocalypse left in its wake and tear them. They wear out in the horrible industrial washing machines you use because you don’t have the luxury of laundering things in your apartment. You can’t afford to have your entire wardrobe dry-cleaned once a week.

Daisy: Indeed. In the last few years, I have lost several clothing items I liked through “attrition”; i.e. tossed out worn things, or given them away in a fit of feng shui, only to wait in vain for proper replacements to magically appear.  I still pine for a perfect pair of royal blue velvet jeans that I wore threadbare in places to the point that they tore across the ass, which you can’t really repair. (Maybe the velvet jeans and I could have made it work out, somehow.) I currently have in particular a “jeans deficit”.

Consider the dichotomy of two pairs of Gap jeans I own. One of them is one size larger than the size I have normally worn for years, that I bought when I had gained a little weight. Since, then, I’ve lost some of that weight, and these jeans are now so large on me that I can only wear them in public for very short jaunts down the street, covered by a very long sweater (because they WILL inevitably fall all the way down on my ass if I don’t catch them in time).

Conversely, another Gap pair of jeans I own, which the label says is the size I have traditionally worn, (just one number size below the ass hanging ones) are so still so tight on me that I can only get them on by lying on the bed and doing a type of yoga breathing exercise in which I expel and exhale all the oxygen from my body on a cellular level.

A third pair, also in my regular size fits just fine, but the fronts of the legs have worn so thin, and have rips from constant wear, that they are only suitable to wear on a hot summer day to a HORDE concert, and I’m not sure they have those anymore.

I’ve been told by those who know clothing manufacturing that in the last few years, the Gap is so loosey goosey about pattern cutting in their factories, that you could try on 10 different pairs of their jeans, all ostensibly the same size, and not one of them would be the same size or shape.

Kat: Most certainly, in the last four or five years I’ve noticed a decline in quality, or a huge jump in price, from the places that used to be my stalwarts for reasonably priced, well-made women’s clothing (the Gap and J Crew come to mind), and by far my overall satisfaction with the stores where I used to achieve moderate success on this front (H&M, for example) has gone way, way down.

Daisy: I concur.  H&M is a sad shell of its former self, selling various sad shells of clothing.  I find it useful to stop in for a random pair of sunglasses or socks when I pass by, but that’s it. Although, I must admit, I bought a sundress there last summer on sale for $10 that I didn’t even try on, and it ended up looking great on me.  Go figure.  Anyway, Kat, what is your opinion about why this decay in our clothing options has happened?

Kat: My opinion is that this is a result of a giant mess of apathy on all fronts. The general public no longer cares how they look, or at the very least takes minimal pride in putting themselves together well. Clothing retailers are apathetic about the quality and construction of their product and care mostly about their net profitability. Everyone cares more about being “Fashionable” and “Hip” than dressing appropriately for your body. We live in a throwaway society, which has little respect for high production standards. I think that much in the way that some people say there is “no middle class” anymore (or it will be that way in the very near future), there is no real “middle class” for clothing, only expensive boutique garments, and things that I will end up using as cleaning rags in six months or less.

Daisy: I think what you say makes a lot of sense.  It seems like even moderately priced clothing of decades ago was constructed so much better than today.  And the dye colors of the fabrics were more rich and vivid.  I once had an A-line winter skirt my mom had worn when she was young, bright blue mohair, lined, with a fuchsia and dark purple thin plaid pattern over it.  Below the knee, side zip, kick in the back.  I kept that thing together for years re-sewing ripped or loose seams, fixing belt loops, until I gave up on holding it together.  I know I won’t find anything like that again, outside of a high-end boutique.

Kat, what is one of your worst shopping for clothes experiences in the last few years?  Which retailers do you detest the most and why?

Kat: Oh, there are many, but this one still stings. I was in H&M (on a budget, as usual) in the dressing room with about seven dresses to try on for a wedding I was to attend. Most of them wouldn’t zip or were too weirdly shaped or too revealing and I was growing frustrated and running out of time. The fifth frock had a side zip, but to put it on I had to slide my arms into the sleeves and pull it over my head. Overall it fit so damn well, except that the short sleeves were obviously tailored for a size 10 woman with size 0 waif arms and my barrel chest was stuffed so tightly in that it was difficult to breathe (a typical clothing woe of mine). Defeated, I tried to take it off by first pulling my arms out of the sleeves, but they were so crammed in there they wouldn’t budge. I tried to pull it up at the waist over my ribs to give the arms a little slack, but still, no dice. I finally resorted to a technique I’m sure many women have used before in this situation: hike dress up over hips, bend in half at waist, cross arms around body and try to slowly inch the dress off inside-out, peeling your sausage arms out last. This time though, it didn’t work, and now I thought I’d have to call the dressing room attendant for help. Some sort of dressing room rage took over at this point, and I just started flexing my arms and yanking at the thing, which finally ripped, giving me enough extra room to extract myself and fling the dress on the floor, ready to HULK SMASH!!! I put it back on the hanger, hid it between the other dresses, gave everything back to the attendant and went to the closest bar to quell my rage with a bottle of wine.

Daisy: Oh I’m feeling your pain there. I have experienced the existential angst of being trapped in a cheap dress in a try on room, on more than one occasion.  Either I couldn’t get it up over my chest or down over my hips. As I pulled on it, I wondered how I got into it in the first place. It’s completely exhausting.  You CAN’T be trapped in a dress, except yes, you are.  I would not fault you one bit for ripping the freaking thing.  What else were you supposed to do?  I’m sure H&M survived the potential loss of the $1.67 the dress was actually worth (as opposed to the $29.99 it probably retailed.)

Kat: As for hated retailers, Forever 21 is just the worst. Other cheapo stores like Rainbow and Strawberry get lumped in there as well. Most of them don’t even have dressing rooms and the ones that do are so small I barely have room to try anything on. I’m convinced this is because they know if you can’t try stuff on you will likely buy it anyway because it’s cheap, and the likelihood of you coming back the within the time frame of their return policy (usually 7 days if you want your cash back, not store credit) is slim. It’s a racket, I tell ya.

Daisy: I didn’t even know Rainbow was still around. The last time I was in one was years ago.  I was working part time for a small business out near the east end of Long Island.  There was practically nothing around in the way of civilization, so many times on my lunch break, I would get some kind of fast food, and then go wander around the Rainbow in the local strip mall. It gave me something to do, and I figured I might find a clothing item in my price range. Never found anything there except a customer base of old before their time “Sixteen and Pregnant” candidates pushing double strollers and their irate moms. The merchandise was not only depressing; some of it was literally dusty.  I felt as though it was the retail store that time forgot.

Kat: Why do you think it is that it is still so hard for “normal” shaped/sized women to find well fitting clothes? Is it because retailers are still trying to mimic the high-fashion world where everyone is a size 2, despite the actual size of their clientele?

Daisy: I think it is a convergence of a couple of things. Yes, I do think retailers are trying to mimic the high fashion, size 2 model, because it is what is promoted in the magazines, and there is a burgeoning demographic of young girls who either naturally fit into that stuff, or are willing to starve themselves to do so. Also, I think that as food manufacturers have over the last few years managed to keep the prices of packaged foods relatively stable by sneakily reducing the size of the packages and/or the portions of food inside them, that clothing manufacturers are able to sell cheap clothing by using less fabric, and lower quality fabric to make the bulk of their clothing.

Kat: I like equating the cheap wardrobe I have that is filling my closet and dresser but leaving my soul empty to fast food and portion sizes. Your analogy is very apropos.

Daisy: Thank you. So Kat, what do you think is the way forward for stylish ladies such as us to dress ourselves well?  Vintage?  Ebay? Vigilant Goodwill shopping? Sewing?

Kat: I think Muumuus are the wave of the future. In twenty years everybody will be bulbous piles of jelly zipping around on scooters ala Wall-E and I won’t ever have to wear another pair of pants again. (Fingers crossed!) Here’s where I’m hoping our fellow Crasstalkers have some opinions and advice to soothe our wardrobe-weary souls. I have always been interested in learning to sew, but continuously fail at finding the time or finishing beginner projects. Since my sewing skills are only advanced enough to make tote bags, unless I cobble all fifty of them I have into a utilitarian, carryall ToteMuumuu, I won’t be wearing any homemade garments any time soon. I scour thrift stores regularly, but everything worth buying has long been picked over in NYC by all the fly-by-night Ebay vintage store mavens and Brooklyn Flea Market clothing hoarders. My girlfriends are all in the same situation as I, and though we sometimes do clothing swaps, none of us have a go-to store for new items that stand the test of time. Your ideas?

Daisy: I actually can sew, although I haven’t touched the machine in years. It is a whole lot of work, as you say.

As to the clothing swap thing, it’s the kind of idea that sounds fun, but for me is not that practical because my female friends are all different heights and sizes.  And even if we   fit into each others clothes perfectly, it seems like rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.

Personally, I’m very excited about your ToteMuumuu™ concept.  Let’s speak privately about trademarks and lining up investors. If we hurry, we can hire an Indonesian manufacturer, and roll that sucker out to the floors of the women’s departments of Sears and JC Penneys within a month.  (Of course you will have the final say on whether the samples live up to your aesthetic vision.)  After we cash in, we can buy ourselves wardrobes from high-end boutiques and have all our clothing tailored.

Ratings Shuffle: America Still Likes These Boobs on Their Tube

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So, Charlie Sheen does the Crack. Um, okay. I totally get it, booze, girls, and a television show that gives you a veritable monetary windfall — to, uh afford your booze, girls, and now crack cocaine. Sounds almost exactly what we expect from Charlie Sheen, minus the part where he tells kids to “Stay off the crack unless you know how to manage it.” Ho, Boy! Yeah. That Sheen — doing so much for America’s youth.

Anyway, this does nothing to explain how America is still keeping Two and a Half Men at the top of the Nielsen Charts. I’d really like to meet a Two and a Half Men fan one day. Mostly to see if they have tails and live beneath the basement stairs in various old age homes scattered throughout Middle America, but that’s for another day.

Here now is what’s going on in your new weekly ratings report!

CBS, this behemoth network full of single men and/or nerds sharing a home, military head slapping, and a guy who tells his kids about all the women he has sex with that aren’t their mother, was the leader of the pack last week pulling in 3.4 adults in the 18-49 group, edging out Fox which finished a tenth of a point behind with a 3.3 rating. ABC came in third with 2.1, and NBC, home of The Cape, trailed in fourth place with a 1.6 rating! (Is it because of the The Cape, because I think it’s because of The Cape.)

The number one program, and undoubtedly the biggest draw for the CBS network last week, was Sunday night’s Grammys Award Show which apparently many of you sycophants thought was awesome. I did not. We’ll agree to disagree on that point.


The much troubled Charlie Sheen and Co. came in at a more than respectable #6 according to Nielsen, but was beaten out by American Idol on both Wednesday and Thursday nights, followed by Modern Family, and Glee. However, the crack afficionado and cast still managed to win in ratings over House, NCIS (Head Slappers!), The Big Bang Theory, and Grey’s Anatomy, which rounded out the top ten. [TV By the Numbers]

Unfortunately, or fortunately, who knows! The network’s rebooted James Belushi and Jerry O’Connell legal drama, The Defenders, is looking at the chopping block. And, guys, it’s looking back and saying yum. Not the first show on the network staring down the barrel of cancellation, Medium had that honor. Reportedly, there’s a bit of scuttlebutt about how the network cancelled Medium just to put The Defenders, a seemingly worse show, in its place. That’s mostly all bunk since Medium had abysmal ratings and was slated for cancellation anyway. Case and point, I personally haven’t watched that show since the early 00’s right before the big, “I see dead people who haunt me and help me solve crimes” boom, which eventually became, “I have psychic/stellar deductive reasoning skills to help me solve crimes and wiggle my eyebrows at pretty girls” boom, all mostly serving to clog up television like a preternatural arterial blockage of unoriginality. But whatever, Psych! It rules! The Mentalist…not so much. Luckily, we’re only down to about two of those now, but no, it’s certainly not The Defenders fault. It was just time for Medium to end.


Things also aren’t going so well for T.J. Hooker’s new grumpy old man series, $#*! My Dad Says. Um, can I just say that the Zapf Dingbats My Dad Says Shit-show didn’t really look like a good idea to begin with? I don’t know, but something about James T. Kirk walking around in a khaki vest haranguing his son, even without a purse on his arm, just seems so very 1986. Estelle Getty is probably somewhere in the ether shaking an angry fist at the blasphemous portrayal of her shtick.

So, that’s it folks. CBS reigns supreme. This makes me sad, mostly. I blame everyone else. I take responsibility for The Big Bang Theory, but that’s all. We should gift wrap V in an alien egg incubator and give it to CBS. That would help. No, really, this is awesome for CBS, I think.

Meet Your New Favorite Planet: Tyche

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Astrophysicists John Matese and Daniel Whitmire of the University of Louisiana at Lafayette believe they may have discovered a new planet in our solar system.  Nicknamed Tyche, the object is believed to be the size of four Jupiters, comprised of helium and hydrogen, and orbits our sun at a distance of 15,000AU (one AU, or Astronomical Unit, is the distance from the Earth to the Sun, 15,000AU is roughly 1/4th of a light year).  This orbit puts it well within the boundaries of the Oort Cloud — a cloud of debris orbiting our sun with a radius of one light year — where long-term comets (those with an orbit greater than 200 years) originate.

Matese and Whitmire first proposed the existence of Tyche in 1999 as a result of studying the origins of long-term comets.  It was discovered that their orbits originated in a cluster that was roughly the same angle from the ecliptic, or the path of the Sun through space.  An object at least the size of Jupiter in the Oort cloud could explain the disruption of debris along this plane, which could in turn account for the pattern of mass extinctions on Earth.

In 1984, paleontologists David Raup and Jack Sepkoski found a pattern of mass extinctions in the fossil record dating back 250 million years.  They discovered that every 26 million years, a mass extinction occurred.  The lack of any Earth-based evidence of any sort of change led the team to believe that the cause was extra-terrestrial.  The existence of Tyche could explain this pattern due to the orbit of Tyche disrupting Oort Cloud objects and send them towards the inner Solar System, thereby increasing Earth’s chances of an impact like the one that is believed to have killed the dinosaurs.

NASA’s WISE Telescope (Wide-Field Infrared Survey Explorer) may have already discovered Tyche.  In April, the first batch of data from the telescope is set to be released.  Matese and Whitmire think that it will reveal the existence of Tyche within two years.  The object they are looking for is believed to have cloud bands much like Jupiter, and have a temperature of -73C, or five times warmer than Pluto.  The heat would be left over from its formation, and would take longer to cool off due to its size.

If Tyche is found to exist, though, it would not add to the number of planets in our Solar System, as it most likely formed around another star and then captured by the Sun’s gravitational field.  The International Astronomical Union would most likely create a new category for this planet.

Angry Teacher Corner

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This is my first year teaching. For the last five years I’ve worked as a journalist and decided to change careers. The year has been a roller coaster. I teach ninth and tenth-graders in a suburban city, in Texas. Perhaps the most shocking things I’ve been exposed to involve the stupidity of not only the students, but also the parents and administrators. I will try to share stories with you on here when I can, using this as a column. I’m not a religious man, but now I spend every night praying for the future of this country.

Story 1: On the first day of school, during my forth class period, I had a bastard get into my lunch while I was greeting his classmates at the doorway. The bastard stole a Kashi Bar out of my lunch sack. I confronted the bastard, and sent him to the office with a referral. This is when I learned immediately about school politics. The bastard spent about 20 minutes in the office before being sent back to me. He was sent back because I didn’t follow the district’s discipline matrix, which goes as follows: 1) verbal warning 2) teacher detention 3) phone call home 4) referral. So, although this bastard stole something from me, I did not contact his parents, give him a warning, or assign him a detention (which I’d have to monitor in my room after school).
When the bastard came back to my classroom after his short office visit, he proceeded to walk in and told me I shouldn’t have sent him to the office and that he didn’t steal anything. When I told him other students saw him steal it, he told me, “Suck my dick.” Wonderful!
A few weeks after the incident, the bastard was arrested for breaking into a cellular phone store. Because he was here illegally, he was deported. I still have sweet dreams about this clown falling off a train trying sneak back into the country.

Story 2: I had a whale stay after school one Friday to serve a detention. She was there because she was disruptive when I was absent and a substitute was in class. After serving her detention, the whale left with another student and said she was her ride. The next morning I was doing Saturday tutorials at the school to help out struggling students when an angry whale mother burst into my room and asked me where her daughter was. I let her know that the baby whale left with another student and told her the story. Mama whale became irate saying that it was my responsibility to watch her leave and that baby didn’t come home that night. Granted, mama whale was told what time the detention was ending before her daughter served it and was given a week notice.
After leaving my room in a rage, mama whale went to the police department to file a missing persons report. I felt bad about the situation, so I began to call other teachers describing the student that baby whale left with, because she was not in any of my classes. After two hours of phone calls, I found a note in my trash can from the night before with baby whale’s name and another student’s first name. Using our dated technology, I was searched through our student database for a girl named “Hailey”. I spent about three hours calling various Hailey-parents before reaching a mother who said her daughter came home with some girl she’d never met before and that she’d spent the night. I placed mama whale in contact with the horrible parent and reunited the whales. This was about four hours of work searching for this girl and locating her; I headed home feeling good about myself.
Monday morning came, and I was called into the office and verbally reprimanded by my principal for allowing the girl to leave. Mama whale had complained to the principal after I spent my Saturday morning locating her daughter.

Story 3: I’ll keep this short. We were reading Julius Caesar a few weeks ago, when our sophomore class valedictorian asked me if they called him “Caesar” because he fainted and may have suffered from epilepsy.

Thank you for your time.

Back to the Island! 5-0 Style!

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I know you missed my updates from the 50th (and 3rd-Awesomest) state.

I’m sorry!  The holidays and whatnot.  I’d like to say that you didn’t miss much on Hawaii 5-0, but you did.  You missed so much!

But, we can’t go back in time, so we are just going to have to pick up with this week’s lessons about National Security, Fashion, and Shaved Ice.  Don’t worry.  You don’t have to have seen the episode.  This is all about what we can learn about the world around us.  5-0 Style!

Recap!

Fake pirates kidnap rich kids off of a boat and ask for ransom.  5-0 saves the day!

Pirates are Everywhere!

One of the main things I learned this week? Pirates are everywhere.  (It was right there in the header.) Apparently, they are a huge problem in Hawaii.  So huge, in fact, that if you want to kidnap somebody, you should totally just pretend to be a pirate.  Because then you will just blend in with all the other pirates.

(Note:  Apparently it helps if you dump a dead pirate on the deck.  This is very convincing.)

Other things we learn later about real Hawaiian pirates:

  1. They don’t kill people, just rob them.
  2. People who kill people are fake pirates.
  3. HOOYAH is apparently the name for the pirate code of silence. (A real pirate said it during interrogation. This one in particular might come in handy.)
  4. If you have a specific engraving on your watch, the pirate will not pawn your watch, but wear it, just in case he needs an alibi for a kidnapping that occurred at the same time he stole your watch.

(Note:  These things may only apply to Hawaiian pirates.  I make no promises that they will work on other pirates.  If you are near Somalia, you are on your own.)

Nick Lachey’s Lover is Trapped in the Closet!

I hate love hate love! obvious examples of Chekhov’s gun.  You know the old saying “If there is a Nick Lachey in the scene, somebody is going to get shot by the end of the episode.”  Well, at the beginning of this episode:

The only person left on the boat when 5-0 shows up is a super-cute girl that hides in a closet on the main deck. Sorry, do I hear bells ringing in my head?

Her boyfriend who meets her at the dock is Nick Lachey, and they leave together “never to be seen again.”  HOLY SHIT THOSE BELLS ARE LOUD!

(Note: If at this point you predict that she will be the one who has to bring the ransom to the head bad guy at the end, who turns out to be…Nick Lachey (WHAT?!), you have seen television before.)

Technology Rules!

5-0 has a Surface, or whatever those table computers are called that can take an excel spreadsheet and magically turn all the matching squares into neon green blocks with “MATCH!” written in comic sans.  It’s like the world’s most powerful “My First Matching Game!”  But that wasn’t the cool part.

They also take “biometric” mug shots of your eyeballs so they can match your face to people in ski masks that have eyes that look exactly like NICK LACHEY!  But that is not the cool part either.

They also have a button on all police computers that you touch and it “Transfers call to 5-0.”  I’m sorry.  Did I say computer?  I meant computer screen! That was even cooler, but still not the cool part.

McGuffin or McGarble or Tall Guy has an iPhone App that just shows every kind of gun to a witness for identification purposes.  I call it “Gunphone.”

“This one? *swipe* This one? *swipe* This one? *swipe* THIS ONE?!  IT WAS AN AK-47!”

(Note:  She is in on it!  Why is she correctly identifying the gun?!  Also, why do bad guys always use the same gun?  “We matched ballistics to 400 other crimes on that island over there.” Also, couldn’t they have just figured out the type of gun by those exact same ballistics?  Also, what does it matter?!)


*****

Break 1:  Subtle Product Placement Edition:  The families of the missing kids are all staying “at the Hilton.”  Very smooth MacGuffin!
Break 2: Grace Park walks in wearing a red/pink top and green pants.  My wife says “Why does she look like a watermelon?”  I do not say: “Honey, Grace Park never looks like a watermelon.”
Break 3: Have I mentioned that their primary “man on the street” is a sumo-wrestler trainee who runs a shaved ice stand and gets his “intel” from “what I read in the paper.”  5-0 style!

*****


Pawn Shops Suck.  Explode them!

At some point in the episode they needed information from a guy that runs a pawn shop.  I don’t know why.  I don’t care. Something to do with a single golden money clip that tied the entire case together.  Here is what I do know.  Pawn shops are always shady.  Always.  Is there a not shady pawn shop anywhere in the world?  I think that if the guy at the pawn shop won’t help you out you should strap a grenade to the door of his office and then run out the front door.  Fortunately for me, McGrudel agrees.  BOOM!  Maybe you’ll speak to 5-0 now Mr. Shady Pawn Shop Guy.

Sexy Time!

There is always some unnecessarily “sexy” element to 5-0.  This week it was how all the young kidnap victims were being held in a hot cage all half-naked.  They looked like a commercial for Skins or something.  It was totally inappropriate.  Also, hot.  Later in the episode they are trapped in a sweaty school bus.  That was just creepy.

5-0 Don’t Care!

Armed kidnapping in international waters!  Forget the FBI!  Fuck the Coast Guard!  5-0 Don’t Care! State Police Task Force in the HOUSE!

Paying ransom to kidnappers like everybody says you are supposed to?  No fucking way! 5-0 Don’t Care!  We are going in armed and strong.  Paying them will just lead to disaster! One kid’s dad ignored 5-0 and paid their family’s share of the ransom anyway.  When the kidnappers killed a hostage for only paying part of the ransom, guess who they killed?  That’s right punk.  Listen to 5-0 next time! Because 5-0 don’t care! Paying  = disaster!

After the kid died, 5-0 decided to pay up after all.  Changing plans for no reason!?  5-0 Don’t Care!

*****

Break 4: Fight scene in a bar!  (Doesn’t matter why.) (a) Grace Park can jump from the middle of one escalator to another and kick somebody in the face.  (b) A guy named Bobby ran really fast.  His hair looked like it was in a Flock of Seagulls cover band (he did not), and when he ran it started flapping like wings.
Break 5: Survivor Commercial.  A former marine says that the best part of Survivor is no one is shooting at you.  No Mr. Marine, that is the worst part about Survivor.

*****


How Did It End?!

According to the kidnappers, cute-girl-from-the-closet (remember her?) was the only one who could take the ransom to some dirty, sticky, warehouse or dock or whatever, filled with naked-kidnapped-teenagers, BECAUSE SHE IS IN ON IT!  Who else knew that?  That’s right 5-0 did!  The money was just phone books!  Thank goodness we don’t use phone books anymore, so they could just waste them all like that.  “What are we going to fill the bags with?” “I don’t know.  How about all those phone books over there?”

Anyway, BOOM!  POW!  Some disco lights go off or something.  Nick Lachey runs and jumps into a trolley!  McGrawhillber shoots him!  Everybody lives except the kid of the punk-ass dude that did not listen to 5-0.

Moral!

Listen to 5-0!  If you don’t, your kid will die! 5-0 don’t care!

Verdict!

Not enough Scott Caan.

It’s Getting Harder to Ignore the Violence in Mexico – Because It’s Right At My Door

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I moved to San Miguel de Allende six short months ago, and there’s a lot to love about this place. It’s a 500-year old Spanish colonial city that, despite growth and an enormous expat population, retains much of it’s old-world charm. There’s a thriving arts community, the rents are still relatively cheap, and the high-desert climate is just about perfect: cool nights, warm days, dry air and an abundance of sunshine. And while the growing violence in Mexico is quietly discussed at cocktail parties around town, San Miguel has been relatively sheltered from what’s been occurring in areas closer to the US border.

At least until now.

In the past three weeks, three American expats have been brutally murdered here.

On January 19th, Peter Mudge, a retired American who had been living in San Miguel for 20 years, was found dead in his home, the victim of an apparent robbery gone wrong. He was found with a plastic bag tied to his head, and he had been stabbed more than a dozen times.

On January 23rd, the body of a young American identified only as “Andrew” was recovered from the side of a local road, his body riddled with bullets. For some reason, the US Consulate’s office will offer no details, citing the need to protect the family’s privacy.

And on February 6th, Joseph Feuerborn, another expat who had been living in San Miguel for decades, was found beaten to death in his home, also the victim of an apparent robbery.

Stories of the three murders vary widely. Coroners are reported to have labeled Mudge’s death as asphyxiation, and Feuerborn’s as heart attack, even though local newspapers have reported the violence.

The local internet boards, which are populated almost exclusively by Americans, are full of rumor, speculation, fear and uncertainty. And the  people that own property here don’t want this kind of bad news to spread, so there seems to be a push, particularly on the boards, to keep information from getting out there. It’s unfortunate, as the boards are the only source of information at times.

I love living here, but I’m beginning to feel as though I have a target on my back. I’m a gringo, a foreigner. A have in the land of have-nots. A large part of me wants to head back home. And a part of me wants to stay and just close my eyes to what’s obviously happening.

Confessions: Dreadful TV Edition

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I’ve watched bad TV my whole life; normally, it was always along the lines of Jersey Shore, Real Housewives, and (very, very ashamedly) American Idol.  But recently it’s gotten worse.  Much worse.  In the past year, I’ve watched (in no particular order):

Pretty Little Liars

I have no idea what got me and Roommate hooked on what we fondly refer to as PLL.  I think we missed Gossip Girl actually being good?  I don’t know.  This show is certainly not good, to say the least.  So why do I keep watching it?  I think it has something to do with the (SPOILER ALERT!  LOLJK I know nobody except me watches this crap) fake blind girl, terribly inappropriate ABC Family channel relationship between a 16-year-old student and her English teacher, “unsolvable” murder, and whatever other ridiculous, Agatha Christie-aneurism-for-high-schoolers plotline they come up with.  It may be of note that this is the only scripted terrible TV show I watch. (Is it of note?  I don’t know.  There are so many things about this show that I can answer with “I don’t know.”)

Say Yes to the Dress

I FUCKING LOVE THIS SHOW.  I’d love to say I have no idea why I love this show, but that would be a huge lie and this is not a post in which I lie to you, dear friends.  This is a post in which I come clean over my addictions.  I love this show because Hot. Damn. I love watching uppity bitches acting like the terrible people we all know they are.  And Randy.  And OMG SO MANY PRETTY DRESSES!!11!!!

World’s Strictest Parents

No joke, I’ve cried watching this.  Cried. Go ahead; tear me apart in the comments over my feelings.  But for real, this show takes either redneck shithead kids or spoiled untamed rich kids and sticks them with super Christian families who make the kids, like, you know, work and the bad kids FREAK THE FUCK OUT.  And then they redeem themselves and learn about feelings. And then they go to college and they meet people at parties who are like, “Hey, didn’t I see you on World’s Strictest Parents?” Like teens through the reality TV cycle, so are the days of our lives.

(I couldn’t find any videos with embedding code from the US version of this show so you’ll just have to trust me.   Or go here.)

Kourtney and Khloe Take Miami

When I saw the previews for this steaming pile of Armenian over-sharing, I thought there was no way on Kgod’s Kgreen Kearth it could be worth watching.  But oh!  How wrong I was!  Much like the other programs listed, this show is worth watching because it’s really fun to judge people who willingly put their lives on television in order to feel better about yourself. (Isn’t that kind of the point of reality TV?)  Let me tell you a-something about this family: Kourtney and Khloe used to like to get really shitfaced and hook up with random dudes and it was amazing.  Unfortunately for all of us, the show was pretty much over once Kourtney popped out the spawn of Patrick Bateman, Khloe married some tall guy who loves lakes, and a terrible spin-off set in New York (it violates the acclaimed scientific theorem that only two Kardashians (neither of which being Kim) at a time are bearable) came to be on the air.

I have more terrible TV shows I love but I think I’ve embarrassed myself enough for one day.  Make me feel less alone and tell me what awful TV you can’t get enough of in the comments.

Wake Up for Hump Day!

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It’s Wednesday and let’s cut to the chase. You came here to look at salacious pictures because you are essentially a degenerate. I am not going to implore you to spend your energy doing earnest things to improve the world. I am just going to give you want you want. Continue reading →

Life, Death and Violence: A Study of February 16

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Good morning little birds!

Today on Life, Death and Violence: Animals! Animals are so precious, except, well, when they’re not. Then they’re not precious. One would not consider the vampire bat or the honey badger to be precious animals, we would suppose. Puppies are precious. Baboons are not. Puppies in teacups broke PreciousMeter, the site used to rank preciousness.  Precious views are down, but that’s not accurate because the new redesign precious levels are just so perfectly precious that PreciousMeter just can’t compute those figures.

LIFE! (or, how we learned to stop worrying and give birth in a teacup)

  • 1804: Jules Janin: Mr. Janin wrote a book called The Dead Donkey and the Guillotined Woman. We here at LD&V had hoped to find out what this amazingly titled book was about, but there seems to be nothing to find other than that it is French horror (frenetique) and that Janin had originally planned the novel as a spoof of the genre, but then fell in love with it and, so, we present to you, an imagining of The Dead Donkey and the Guillotined Woman: A Comedy

Priest: Do you have any final words?

Guilltoned Woman: Forgive me father for I have sinned. I have killed that donkey over there .

SLICE! The guillotined woman is beheaded.

Guillotined Woman: I knew I should have held on to my hat.

FIN

Note: Jules Janin was really fat. Evidence:

  • 1834: Ernst Haeckel: This German biologist, zoologist and philosopher is responsible for such liberal buzzwords like “ecology,” “phylum” and “recapitulation theory.” Burn the witch, we say! He also painted some pretty paintings of animals that we’re pretty sure we saw in ZooBooks when we were 8.

  • 1941: HAPPY BIRTHDAY KIM JONG IL! We can’t believe you’re only 70! Shame you’re no longer the sexiest age possible like Dear Leader Bloomberg (69).  We just sent you a bottle of Johnny Walker Blue and a bobblehead in your image. Here’s hoping it gets through your borders. Remember Kim, don’t arrest the messengers or else they won’t give you the bobblehead. You’ve been asking for it all year, so just do us this one favor.

  • 1959: Speaking of vicious animals with short tempers, a big happy birthday also goes out to John McEnroe, the performance artist credited with founding the Anger at Tennis Balls submovement of 1980s Absurdism. Happy Birthday John! Can’t wait for your MoMA retrospective (or are you going to be at New Museum?)
  • 1967: Like animals, sometimes people just aren’t loved as much as others of their kind. Case and point: Keith Gretzky. We didn’t even know Wayne had a brother, but, then again, we were never huge Gretzky fans mainly because we always got lost in Steve Yzerman’s eyes.

DEATH! (or, how we learned to stop worrying and just succumb to that Spanish Flu)

No one cool or animal related died today, sadly. We do however, have Russian ingénues, French writers (but those die every minute, right!?), Roman emperors, a great American artist and English soap manufacturers! It all sounds so exciting! If we were you, we’d definitely pull up a chair and pay attention.

  • 307: Flavius Valerius Severus: And they said Albus Severus had a bad name! Flavius was emperor of the Roman Empire for a few months before he was murdered like a dog. He was a commoner who rose through the ranks, which is probably why he was murdered although some sources say that he was forced to commit suicide.
  • 1844: Joseph Crosfield: He made soap. Here’s a picture of him:

  • 1917: Octave Mirbeau: Journalist, travel writer, art critic, novelist, playwright. We think he died from an accidental Adderall overdose (can that happen?). He was an advocate of Van Gogh when it wasn’t cool to like Van Gogh, making him an early adopter of the hipster movement. He’d probably be all over Ann Liv Young today, or maybe not since she’s mildly popular. Anyways, he wrote some good stuff that’s still popular and he’s never been out of print. You go Mirbeau!
  • 1919: Vera Khlodnaya: The first Russian silent film star. Only five of her estimated 50-100 films survive. She’s pretty and she died of Spanish Flu during the Great Pandemic of 1919

  • 1990: Keith Haring: That guy who did those outlines died due to complications related with AIDS. Seriously though, we think this is the saddest death today because Keith Haring’s really cool and we totally went as one of his outlines for Halloween last year (amongst other costumes)

VIOLENCE! (or, how we learned to stop worrying and love the jihad)

  • Hezbollah was founded in 1982 sparking decades of violence and war in the Middle East (well, more so than would have occurred without them).
  • BOOM! BANG! SHOOT EM UP! Bombs explode and gunfire is released upon the government headquarters of Uzbekistan in an assassination attempt on the Uzbekistani president. We always thought former Soviet Bloc countries had a weird way of partying like it’s 1999.
  • Also in 1999, Kurdish rebels take over a variety of European embassies after Turkey holds hostage one of the rebel leaders. Said rebel leader is pictured below.

OTHER NEAT THINGS THAT HAPPENED! (or, how we learned to stop worrying and let our toddlers watch Coupling)

  • 1899 – Knattsprynufelag Reykjavikur, Iceland”s first football club is founded. We’ll give 500 monopoly dollars to the first person who can prove that they can pronounce that.
  • 1923: King Tut’s tomb is discovered
  • 1957: The Toddler Truce is abolished! This was a mandatory rule that the British government had placed upon the television corporations that their could be zero programming between the hours of 6p and 7p so that children could be put to bed before the grown up shows came on. We don’t know who the British government thought was going to be in bed that early, but it certainly wasn’t rambunctious little babies like us! We were baby geniuses who had to be up all night working with Toddler’s First Chemistry Lab. Mom would never buy us cesium and we’re still mad about that even though we don’t like science anymore.

  • 2005: The NHL SHUT DOWN and announced the complete cancellation of the 2004-2005 season after months of lockouts. We were devastated by this news as we’re huge Red Wings fans and everyone knows that the Wings are the best and don’t you even DARE to suggest otherwise. WE THROW OCTOPI ONTO THE ICE. OCTOPI! Hardcore. OKAY!? GO WINGS! Go hockey in general, really. Hot, burly men on ice beating each other up with their sticks while chasing some rubber is great television in our eyes. Our father likes it for different reasons, however. Still, hockey is awesome.

That’s all folks. See you next time on Life, Death and Violence. We’re going to go take a trip on Memory Lane with our stash of ZooBooks*. To be honest, we’ll probably order a t-shirt with a toucan on it as well to, you know, wear ironically.

*That Panda is stressing! This is how happy pandas become sad pandas.