I HATE MYSELF FOR LAUGHING AT THIS

I do. I really, really, really do. It's a clip of a murder suspect (spoiler: he did it) getting interrogated by the police. However, I keep watching this because it makes me laugh. 

*Look, I know I'm wrong for laughing at it. And you know I'm wrong for laughing at it. 

And now I know that you know that I know that you know I'm wrong for laughing at it. 

And I agree completely.

*(Although I don't know why sometimes Blogger randomly centers my text blocks. Blogger sucks.)

Two things: 

1. The murderer morphing into a monosyllabic, monotonal Paranormal Activity-style demon.
2. The uber-country, southern-fried, straight-out-of-Mayberry cops. 

I only found out about this video because John and I got the Peacock app and our newest guilty pleasure is old Dateline NBC mysteries, which I also hate myself for watching. I hate violence, I hate the public's obsession with murderers and serial killers, I hate the way society has turned this shit into entertainment. That said, DAMMIT, I get suckered in by Dateline mysteries every time. I'm not proud of it, but at least I'm "owning" it, as the kids say. Whatever.

So I looked up more info on this case. Why? Morbid curiosity. I guess I'm as susceptible as the next person. That's when I came across this interrogation video and found myself laughing inappropriately throughout the whole thing (awful) and was slightly comforted to see in the comments that I wasn't the only one. Cold comfort, but still.

First white shirt cop questions Stephen: "Look at meh when ahm talkin' to ya, son."
(The cop will soon regret saying that.)

Then pink shirt cop joins the fun. 

("Wha, Stay-vin? Wha? STAY-VIN!")

The only reason I feel (sort of) okay about posting the vid is because they don't really delve into the details of the murder and the discussion doesn't get particularly graphic. That's because the suspect/murderer sits there blank-faced, answering almost every question with "Yes," "No," or "I don't know." It seems to me that he's trying to freak out the cops with his unemotional robot routine, but after a short time it stops being creepy and just becomes funny and increasingly absurd. The interrogators get more and more frustrated and southern with each passing minute. You can tell they're itching to shut off the camera and just start bouncing this little pissant off the walls like a hairy basketball. "BOY, you ain't rahhht in the heed!" 

If you didn't watch the video above, congratulations. You're a much better person than I am. However since I've come this far (and so have you, presumably), let me post some memes I found--turns out this generated a wealth of memes--and I'll get out of your hair and go back to work and finish my NaNoWriMo project and start my Christmas cards and get some shopping done and do the 500 other things I'm putting off right now. 

 

Okay, I'll just see myself out now.

 

Ok, millennials. If we #FreeBritney will you kindly SHUT UP about it?

I don't mean to sound insensitive about Britney's plight, but let's have a little perspective here. Britney Spears is an obscenely wealthy white celebrity living in Malibu, not a political prisoner sleeping on the dirt floor of a Belarusian detention center.

Pictured: not Britney Spears

Okay, I know I've ripped on Britney a lot in the past, but over the last several years I've mellowed a bit (yes, really), and it's dawned on me that I never actually had a problem with her personally. True, Britney's music has never been my cup of tea and I found her ubiquity circa 1999-2008 vomit inducing. But it's always been painfully obvious that Brit-Brit was never in the driver's seat of her own career anyway. She's a former Mouseketeer for Christ's sake, groomed and tossed onstage by her creepy parents, thrust into the limelight by Disney, polished and packaged by MTV, then foisted on the public for decades now by the corporate media. So it's not so much Britney that I detest; it's the relentless PR machine that's been shoving her down our throats since the late '90s.

I don't plan on watching any of the roughly 37 documentaries released this year about the whole Britney brouhaha, but I've read enough internet think pieces and editorials to get the idea. Basically Mom and Pop Spears, The Mickey Mouse Club, various managers, agents, handlers, the paparazzi, tabloid newspapers, celebrity bloggers, gossip websites, Justin Timberlake, some hanger-on named Sam Lutfi, her rodent-faced baby daddy K-Fed, Diane Sawyer, Matt Lauer, Tucker Carlson (ew), and pretty much any regular Schmoe who ever publicly expressed a snarky opinion about Britney Spears should be hanging their heads in shame at how spectacularly they've all failed her. 

While I agree that Britney was undoubtedly shat on from a great height by lots of people over the years, I'm not sure most of the world's population is at fault for her mental health issues and whatever else she's facing now. I'm sure as hell not shouldering any of the blame; if I could cross my arms, flip my ponytail and erase Britney's stardom I'd do it in a shot. In fact, the poor girl probably would have been happier if she'd stayed in Louisiana and lived an anonymous existence raising kids or corgis or whatever and blowing off steam on karaoke night at the Downtown Daquiri Lounge once a week.

And also? I'm really fucking tired of seeing stupid headlines like this:

I don't know Kevin, you talent-free hack. It wasn't my turn to watch him that day.

Speaking of Timberfuck, can I just say again for like the 1000th time that I never got the appeal of that dude? When he was with his lame boy band (and by the way, why do they call these dancing, lip-synching, trained monkey teenybopper acts 'boy bands'? They're boys, sure, but bands? Bands play instruments, goddammit! I think it's an alliterative thing for lazy music journos, hence 'boy bands' and 'girl groups,'), why was Justin the breakout star? He was so mediocre in every way, even when contrasted with those other Backstreet Boys erm, N'Sync dullards. And remember the music press when he went solo? They pushed him so hard, it was baffling. Rolling Stone was especially determined to make me care about Justin's crap music.

    Rolling Stone in the 2000s: all shit, all the time.

If you've been paying attention to the Free Britney movement (heh, "movement), you'll know that Justin Timberlake is now problematic and possibly canceled. Not because of his musical output, which still sucks, but because he acted like a giant jackass when he and Britney broke up. It has mostly to do with his skewering of Britney in one of his sucky music videos, and also because he admitted in a radio interview that he and Britney had S-E-X. 

Yes sir, they did the no-pants dance. The four-legged foxtrot, if you will. Made the beast with two backs. Played hide the cannoli. Took a trip to pound town. Sent out for sushi. Ate out at the Y....over the panties, no bra, blouse unbuttoned, Calvins in a ball on the front seat, past 11 on a school night. 

Yes, it's fucking ridiculous, but this revelation was actually deemed shocking at the time. To put it in '80s terms, dig if you will a picture...

It's 1986 or so and Billy Idol is doing a promotional tour for his new album, Whiplash Smile. Billy has just broken up with his longtime girlfriend Perri Lister (actually it seems they broke up after having a kid together in 1989, but just humor me here). 

Radio Interviewer: So Billy, I hear you and Perri broke up. That sucks, man. 

Billy Idol: Yeah well you know. Shit happens. 

Radio Interviewer: You guys dated for several years. While I have you here in the studio, Billy, tell me, did you and Perri ever, you know.....DO IT?

Billy Idol: Oh yeah, we did it. Lots of times. I saw her naked, too. 

Radio Interviewer: Dude, high five! 

But no, people in the '80s weren't asking Billy Idol or Perri Lister if they boned, because back then there wasn't endless speculation over whether or not pop stars were having sex. I'm guessing because it was generally assumed that they were all fucking like bunnies, and also due to the fact that back then nobody cared enough to make a goddamned federal case out of it. 

I understand that the public debate about Britney's virginity is explored in the current crop of #FreeBritney documentaries, and it sounds like they all share my view on the topic, which is to say "What the fuck was up with that, anyway?" I read some old articles and interviews, trying to figure out whether the virginity narrative was originally floated by Britney and her "team," or if it was something a reporter asked her about and she gave the "I'm waiting til marriage" speech of her own accord, but it's not clear how (or why) it started. I just know it was a really creepy thing for the media and the public to fixate on, and anyone genuinely invested in the "purity" of a teenage girl--celebrity or otherwise--is a damned pree-vert.

And the obsession with virginity wasn't limited to Britney back in the aughts. I seem to recall Dubya signing an executive order to declare Jessica Simpson's hymen a national shrine around 2002 or so. 

Pictured: a proud day for Amurrica

"My fellow Amurricans, today we recognize Miss Simpson's tireless commitment to chastity and her steadfast belief in church-sanctified marital sex. Jessica, you are an inspiration to the unfulfilled loins of our country's youth. Thank you, and may God continue to bless Amurrica. Karl Rove, you get to cut the ribbon."

No that didn't really happen, but the post-9/11 climate was so bizarre that it sure as shit seems like something that could've happened. Come on now, I'm not wrong.

Not to rip on Bush some more, because now that we've lived through the horror of The Orange Menace, Bush looks like goddamned Churchill in comparison. BUT, is it any wonder that millennials are so irony deficient? They grew up in the era of freedom fries, inbred sister wives destroying Dixie Chicks albums, and, erm, whatever the fuck this was: 

When the media shows footage of homophobes President Bush and Prince Abdullah strolling hand-in-hand looking like Archie and Betty on their way to the malt shop, and you're meant to take it seriously? Well, I think it would tend to warp your sense of irony, especially if you're still in your formative years.  

This trend of teen pop stars advocating virginity seemed to peak around 2008. I remember seeing the VMA's that year when Russell Brand hosted, and he made some sort of crack about the famously chaste (at the time) Jonas Brothers and the purity rings they wore to signal their pledge to remain sex-free. Well, Brand's comment did not sit well with American Idol "winner" Jordin Sparks (who?) and later that night when she took the stage to present whatever bullshit award she was there to present, she snotted, "I just wanted to say there's nothing wrong with wearing a purity ring, because some of us aren't filthy whores." (I'm paraphrasing, but that was the gist.) Of course, times have changed a bit and if Jordin said that today I believe she'd get her prissy ass canceled by the Twitterati for "slut-shaming" and be forced to make a groveling social media apology. Personally, I think that if this sort of dreck is representative of her musical output, Jordin Sparks should have been canceled for trying to bore everyone to death.   

Ah, millennials. Ya gotta love 'em. I'm not being sarcastic, I have a lot of friends who fall into the millennial category and they're good eggs. Much more socially aware than us Gen Xers, but we're trying to catch up. Yep, some of my favorite people are millennials. And it's not entirely their fault that the music of their generation sucks so hard; with public school arts programs being systematically gutted over the past few decades, is it any wonder that many millennials consider people like Drake and Katy Perry purveyors of good music? At least they have a valid excuse. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for people like Rob Sheffield. And that sort of breaks my heart.

Yes, my fellow Gen Xer, Rob Sheffield. It pains me to say this, because I enjoyed his book Love Is a Mix Tape and of course I appreciated him giving my favorite band their due in his second memoir, Talking to Girls About Duran Duran. But Rob also talks a lot of shit, and he is oddly, inexplicably worshipful of Britney Spears. For instance, he once claimed that Britney's music is actually punk. Yeah, okay. Sex Pistols, Buzzcocks, The Slits, and....Britney Spears. "Punk." Lester Bangs is spinning in his grave.

I guess if Avril Lavigne is your idea of punk, so is this.

Then in 2019 Sheffield penned a think piece marking the 20th anniversary of Britney's debut album Baby One More Time, calling it "avant-garde." (Rob, you ignorant slut.) Seriously, Laurie Anderson should kick his ass for that one. 

I remember Britney's first music video where she's dancing down the hallway of a Catholic high school, all tarted up like she's about to hit the main stage at Spearmint Rhino. I also remember a standup comedian around that time who quipped, "When I see that Britney Spears video I think two words: JonBenet," which I found funny and creepily on-point. 

But the video that stands out to me more is her follow-up, "Sometimes." (I'm not posting the video, instead here's the 1986 Erasure song of the same name.) 

Much better to have this "Sometimes" stuck in your head, trust me.
        

If I were in a less charitable mood, I might call Britney's song "music to slit your wrists to," but the thing is, it's not terrible. It's not even that bad; it's not interesting enough to be bad. The bland melody and generic lyrics are formulated to be as inoffensive as possible. The video is noteworthy as a meticulously crafted commercial for a brand new product: Britney Spears. The "Baby One More Time" vid was a showy, risqué ploy to get your attention. Now that they have it, her marketing team has put together an easily digestible promo to showcase the wholesome Britney, the all-American, all-things-to-everyone, all-purpose pop star. 

It opens with Britney gazing through one of those beach telescope things, mooning prettily over her designated love interest.         

    

      

Her dreamboat is shown clutching a football and walking along the surf with a dog. These quick shots tell you everything you need to know about him: he's a sports-loving, dog-owning, red-blooded dudebro, lest you think he'd be caught dead doing something femme-y like petting a cat or reading a book. 

Then Britney heads down to the pier to bust some choreographed dance moves with her, erm, peers. Everyone is decked out in white. 

Britney lounges on a picnic blanket clad in a virginal white dress....

 

.

...and hangs out with some girlfriends, still wearing white. Even her car is white.

You know, maybe the biggest difference between Gen Xers and millennials is the latter's affinity for synchronized dance routines in their music videos. Something about a clutch of plucky kids dancing in formation is so cringey and off-putting to me. 

I mean, they're all just so sincere about it.

Call me jaded, but I prefer my music videos firmly tongue-in cheek. For instance, Simon Le Bon trussed up to a windmill....

"You got sirens for a welcome, there's bloodstains for your paaaaaain."

Debbie Harry rapping with The Man From Mars....

"And you don't stop, just blast off, a sure shot."

Or George Michael pretending to be sexually attracted to a woman....

(Wait, you mean he wasn't being ironic here?)

What else is there left to say about Britney? Well, I don't dislike her. I hope she is completely freed of her conservatorship, I guess. I can't abide her musical output, but reportedly she has no plans to subject us to more of her vocal stylings anytime soon.....although we'll see how long that lasts because I can't see her team wasting all this free publicity without cashing in with some new project. Maybe she'll release another fragrance and spare us any more albums. 

I just hope we've heard the last of this #FreeBritney bullshit, because it's doing my head in.

 IT'S DURAN DURAN DAY, BITCHES!!!

I actually had another post written but I'm going to shelve it for a few days because how could I NOT commemorate this? 

I'm really digging the new album so far. The new single "Anniversary" kicks ass. 

And the video? FABULOUS.

Some thoughts....

Nick still rules.

Love the bit with the young Duran Duran cover band.

It's nice to see Roger prominently featured (and smiling!).

John getting kidnapped by the Daniel Craig lookalike is hilarious.

Okay, so there's a lot of the Kardashian lookalike in it, but I don't mind too much because they're mostly just making fun of her giant fake ass. (Yeah not very feminist of me to say, but you can't inject your ass cheeks with 30 pounds of window caulk and expect to be taken seriously. The giant fake ass trend can't die soon enough for me; it doesn't look sexy, it just looks painful. The lower back strain!)

I don't know what the Billie Eilish lookalike is meant to be doing, but I LOVE that they have the Ariana Grande clone licking a tray of pastries. I feel like that's a shoutout to Gen Xers like me, because seriously the only thing I know about Ariana Grande is that she was once caught on camera licking a donut. (No, it's not a euphemism for something dirty--she licked a donut in a bakery. God, the pop star scandals of today are so boring.)

And the Queen is there! YES! (I'm a big fan of The Crown. Betty RULES!)

40 YEARS OF DURAN DURAN, BITCHES!

NOTE: This post has been a long time coming, obviously. I started to write it months ago, then had to put it aside because everything was too raw and painful. I was only recently able to come back and revisit it. I still feel like it's rough and unfinished, but such is life. Here's my long overdue tribute to the girls.

ALICE JANE 

Alice came to me in Minneapolis when she was a year old. Her first owner, a friend of mine from work, was moving out of state and couldn't take Alice with her. I was living in a small apartment and still had Shelby and Riley at the time, so I was worried that a third cat might be a bit much. My friend was 21 years old and....not the most responsible pet owner (not judging, just saying). She informed me that if I didn't adopt Alice, she planned to "put her on Craigslist." That sealed the deal for me. I said, "Fuck that. I'm taking her."

Alice was not happy that first night. She'd been plucked from the only home she'd ever known by some random lady who stuck her in a carrier and brought her to a strange new place with two resident cats who were not exactly thrilled with this new addition to the family. After cowering in the bathroom for a few hours, Alice emerged and started hissing and spitting at me, clearly terrified. I grabbed her, scooted her into the second bedroom, and closed the door. Then I tiptoed in with some water, a bowl of food, and an extra litter box and left her in there to decompress by herself.

She lived in that second bedroom for about a week. I went in to visit with her every day after I came home from work, and I was able to get her to play with some toys and snuggle next to me. I read her The Rachel Papers (Martin Amis’s first novel, which I was re-reading for the umpteenth time) and she seemed to enjoy it. We watched some movies I'd rented from my neighborhood video store (streaming services weren't a thing yet, at least not for me), including an indie flick called Half Nelson, which we both liked.

By the time Alice was released from the second bedroom and made her official debut as a permanent member of the household, she was confident, playful, and affectionate. Although Shelby initially did the typical hissy pissy "I don't like you" thing that cats do with new siblings, she calmed down soon enough and began "allowing" Alice to groom her and even occasionally cuddled with her. Riley was pretty old and infirm by the time Alice came along, so he didn't have much of an opinion one way or another about this new cat. Still, he let her sniff him and gave her a brotherly headbutt once in a while.

Chilling on top of the kitchen cabinets in Minneapolis, 2007.

Simon Reid bought me this cat condo during our two month "relationship."

And check out my old iPod! (Minneapolis, 2008.)

Alice and her favorite teddy bear in Reno, 2013. 

Alice once broke Twitter with this photo. 

My favorite comment (from Anna Maltese): 

"I feel like this cat has called me into her office 
to ask why my productivity levels have dropped."

***********************************************************************

Riley passed away in 2008, and Shelby followed in May 2009. I was heartbroken and wanted to wait a little bit before adopting another cat. Alice, however, had different ideas. She'd gotten used to having other cats around and hated being on her own when I wasn't at home. I decided to go ahead and start looking at the Humane Society for a possible feline companion for my girl.

Enter Audrey.

AUDREY JOY 

 

Audrey started life as a stray and was found living on the streets of St. Paul. She ended up being rescued by the Woodbury Humane Society in March 2009, and two months later that's where I found her. I walked into the cat room of the shelter and immediately spotted a gregarious little patchwork tiger tabby reaching through the bars of her cage, beckoning me over. It took me about five minutes of petting and talking to her to realize that I'd found my new baby. The shelter staff told me she was approximately two years old and her name was Darby. I loved everything about her, except for that name. I decided she needed a more fitting moniker, something classic and feminine, but sassy. And so Darby became Audrey, and she came home with me the next day.

The first photo of Audrey in her new home, May 2009.

Alice wasn't exactly over the moon about this interloper. As much as she hated being alone, she was not keen on having to adjust to a new cat. (I think she was somehow hoping to get the old ones back.) It took Alice about two months to relax and embrace Audrey as a sister. When she finally accepted her, I breathed a sigh of relief. The era of "The Tabby Twins," (a.k.a. "The Minnesota Twins,") had officially begun.

Audrey was an amazing cat from the very start; a ray of sunshine in feline form. I could wax poetic about her forever, but mere words can't do her justice. You just had to know her. And everyone who knew her absolutely loved her. I always said she could make a cat lover out of anyone. And one day....she did.

Witness John's conversion:

"Hey human? Stop pretending you don’t like cats. I can see right through you."

That look says, "Yeah, I got him."

“Pfft, whatever. This human was easy.

Give me a real challenge next time.”

Audrey on his shoulder makes him happy.

"Silly human, you know you can't resist me."

And so it went. Over the years we moved our little family from Minnesota to Louisiana to Nevada to Utah to (again) Nevada and then to Texas. Alice and Audrey hated traveling but always settled in fairly quickly once we reached our destinations. 

The Minnesota twins in Utah, 2016

Along the way our quartet became a quintet when we adopted Cassie, a “cow cat” John fell in love with when he spotted her at a Petco in Reno back in 2014.

Cassie "helping" with the laundry in Reno 2018

Alice had her 14^th birthday in August 2020. She’d always been a healthy eater and a rather large lady, but I noticed her appetite had started to flag and she’d lost a little weight. In September I found a lump on one of her mammary glands and took her to the vet to get it checked out. There was talk of surgery, but first I had to get her feeling better and get her weight up, so she was prescribed a cocktail of drugs, special food, and an appetite stimulant. She started to feel better but I had a hard time putting weight on her. We decided to keep her on the meds and keep her comfortable in the short term, realizing that surgery might not be an option given her age and overall health.

I spent a lot of time with Alice those last few months. She was a one-person cat, and her person was me. She also had a PhD in cuddling, so we spent a lot of time in her favorite bed (the one in the guest room with the awesome memory foam mattress) where we snuggled and had deep philosophical conversations and watched DVDs on my laptop—including Donnie Darko, one of her favorites—as I did my best to make her comfortable and help her feel safe and loved and pampered. It occurs to me now that those last months with Alice mirrored the first weeks I had with her back when I brought her home in 2007; the two of us just hanging out, having girl time, bonding and enjoying each other’s company.

We ended up losing Alice two days after Christmas. She had an appointment the following morning for an examination at the vet, where I planned to talk to her doctor about the "quality of life" decision I would be making very soon. But that evening of the 27th she took a turn for the worse, and I knew her time was near. I held her close as her breathing became increasingly shallow....and then she was gone. It was expected, but still devastating.

In the meantime, Audrey had also begun slowing down. Instead of losing weight like Alice, she started gaining weight and getting rounder, which in turn put strain on her joints, which made her move around less, which made her pack on more weight, which put more strain on her joints, which made her even more sedentary, and so on and so on. It was a vicious cycle. I took her to the vet in February, and they ran a bunch of tests but didn’t find much wrong with her aside from a mild ear infection. They gave me drops for her ears (which she hated of course—who wouldn’t?) and sent us home.

On the morning of March 3, 2020 John was working in his office upstairs. I was in the kitchen dishing out breakfast for Audrey and Cassie when John called out, “There’s something wrong with Audrey.” I dropped everything and rushed upstairs to the cats’ bedroom. John was kneeling on the floor next to Audrey, who was lying on her side in one of her beds wheezing and gasping for air. I held up her head as John and I talked to her and struggled to figure out what was happening, trying not to panic.

It happened in less than a minute. Audrey breathed in and out a few times, then sort of faded slowly away. John and I were mute with shock. I sat on the floor for a long time holding my little tiger cat, rocking her back and forth, completely shattered. I called the vet’s office, managed to get her doctor on the phone, and described what happened. The vet said it sounded like Audrey had most likely “thrown a clot,” which is is also referred to as a pulmonary embolism, something that can happen to animals and humans alike. As horrible as it was losing Audrey so suddenly, we were at least somewhat comforted that she went quickly and (hopefully?) with minimal suffering, with John and me right there next to her.

That’s the thing about pets: if all goes well, you outlive them and are there to care for them til the very end. That’s the best case scenario. It’s unbelievably heartbreaking to lose them, but it’s the way things should be, really.

Audrey and Alice were the second “generation” of cats that I’ve owned, and if anything they were even more difficult to part with than the first. Not that I loved Alice and Audrey any more than I did Shelby and Riley; you love your cats the way you love your family, and it’s not a matter of loving any one of them more or less. It’s all the same, but it’s all different, if that makes any sense.

So after a short time as a one-cat family, we decided to add two more. This past spring we went to SPCA Texas and brought home a pair of Siamese sisters we named Stevie Nicks and Sabrina. They’re three years old and still full of that goofy young cat energy, chasing each other up and down the stairs, attacking houseplants, and chattering at the birds outside. They’ve lately become lap cats who purr appreciatively when I sing to them (favorite selections include The Doors’ “Hello, I Love You” and McCartney’s “Silly Love Songs.”) I’ll write a bit more about them sometime, but not now.

This post belongs to our Minnesota twins. Forever loved, forever missed.

Shine on you crazy diamonds.