Oscar Mock Elections

Best dressed: Michelle Williams.  Thank you for wearing color.  And, a good one!

Best date: Busy Phillips dutifully accompanying best friend Michelle Williams through the last few awards seasons.  What better companion for a single gal than a funny BFF who can make you laugh to cut the nerves? 

Most over-exposed: Angelina's drumstick.  Since it naturally wouldn't hang out of the massive slit in her Versace gown on its own, she was forced to perform miraculous feats of the hip all night in order to display her naked thigh.  Would like like fries with that, Ms Jolie?  No, really... you should have some!

We've Never Seen You Like This, But We Like It Award: Jessica Chastain.  (You weren't the only one with two films up for Best Picture, Brad!)

Best Caped Crusader: Gwyneth Paltrow (also winner for Most Sensible.)  The red carpet microphone-shovers all commented on what a chilly L.A. night it was... and then proceeded to slam every woman in long sleeves.  Gwyneth found an appropriately chic middle-ground without having to wait for some gent to offer his tux jacket.

Most flattering: Octavia Spencer in Tadashi Shoji, again.  Proving if it ain't broke, don't fix it.  Now if she could teach that woman in the pantsuit, behind her, a little something about flattering poses...

Prettiest Sheepdog: Ellie Kemper.  Some fashion critics loathe when red-heads dress in the same hue as their locks.  Yes, I prefer it when she wears azures and teals, but I still thought she looked beautiful. (Even more so if she would have had her hair dresser snip her bangs that morning...)

Most Befuddling: Where's Chris?  Anna Faris was repeatedly featured on the red carpet, but she was hardly there to promote House Bunny!  Her cutie-pie husband, Chris Pratt, costarred in a Best Picture nominee (Moneyball) and I don't remember seeing him at all until the boring after-show (that I ended up switching off and going to bed during.)  And, even then, only from afar and with no mention of him, just more talk of wifey's Liza dress.  Oy!

The "I'm Calling These Tuxedo Boots for the Fancy Cowboy" Award: Brad Pitt

The "Thanks, But I Brought My Own Trophy" Award: George Clooney

Most Annoying Moment: The absurd Sasha Baron Cohen (in costume as "The Dictator") spilling "Kim Jong Il's ashes" down the front of Ryan Seacrest's suit and all over the red carpet. 

Further Annoying Moment: Ryan's pansy whining about it for the rest of the evening.  Way to prove to the world why he picked his target!

 Best Presenter of the Night: Emma Stone joking with Ben Stiller about needing to add some gimmicks into their presentation for Visual Effects.  Leading up to my Favorite Unspoken Moment of the Night: Jonah Hill's silent decline to come up onstage to dance with her.

Second Best Silent Moment

Worst Silent Moment: The Artist sweeping way too many top honors away from my faves.  I'm sure I would have adored it if I'd seen it, but half of last night's speeches I needed a translator for... and, sadly, one was not provided. (Five second delay allowing for subtitles next time, Academy?)

Memorable Unsilent Moment: Cymbals have got to be one of the most annoying instruments ever invented.  But, I did get a giggle out of watching Brad Pitt's hair flow in the breeze of them.

Funnier than Crystal Award: Chris Rock.  Sorry, Billy!

 Favorite Win: Octavia Spencer for The Help.  I was rooting for her or Jessica Chastain. They both did a marvelous job in it.  And, it's so nice to see a truly grateful winner.  (Who also thought she might have fainted when her name was first called?  I couldn't tell if she was caught up on her dress, or if she was just going down.  Kudos for pulling it together!)

 Best Speech:  For proving that she gets it... but she's still got it!

Shoes in the Road

There's been a subtle phenomenon that's had me baffled for an entire lifetime and I'm finally ready to address it:  Why are there so many shoes in the road?

Every day of my life, within every commute---short or long---I see shoes in the road.  Not pairs of shoes.  Random single shoes lying around the shoulders of highways and byways, blending in with the roadkill.  They resemble those cartoon men in those cartoon deserts, slowly crawling toward those cartoon mirages that they will never reach.  Where do the shoes come from?

Every now and then I know a pedestrian is hit in a tragic traffic accident and the impact may cause their shoes to fly off.  This happened to my niece once.  Her shoe did fly off, but it was also immediately retrieved.  (And, by the grace of God, her shoe suffered worse injury than her body.) But, every day?  If there were that many car-on-pedestrian accidents occurring, we'd be hearing about it on the news and we'd become very unlikely to leave our houses on foot.

Another cause could be domestic disputes.  There's always that couple you'll drive past who's sparring, waving arms at each other and shaking fists.  Or, the big brother torturing the little brother in the back seat.  I always presumed that at least a small percentage of shoes in the road had to have been thrown there by a disgruntled party.  "Quit touching me!  Quit touching me!  Stay on your side of the line.  I've got your shoe, now are you going to quit touching me?  No?  Whoops..."  And, one more shoe is added to the one-legged road's closet.

There's always the piece of luggage that spills off of the unsecured luggage rack.  But, if road shoes came from luggage, they would also be accompanied by road pants, shirts, socks and undies... which is something we rarely see.  (Although, I did see a lone---very large---bra on the side of the road once.  That must have been one heck of a domestic dispute!)

How many more causes can there be?  Is it those people in the passenger seats who air their foot out the window, by the side view mirror, without tightening their laces first?  Is it joggers who take a spill, sprain their ankle, and end up crawling the rest of the way home before noticing the missing party on their left foot?  Is it those victims running away serial killers who run so fast they run right out of their shoes?

I wrack my brain every journey in the car and have trouble coming up with any answers that make better sense.  I guess the world may never know.  Shoes-in-the road is destined to be an eternal enigma, not unlike those lost socks in the clothes dryer.

If you've ever lost a shoe in the road, leave your story in the comments field below.  As you can probably tell, I'm dying to know how!

Songs of my Youth: Borderline

"Borderline" is my first Madonna memory.  And, boy, did being introduced to Madonna open up the floodgates.  Mind you, this was before I got to know Madonna with an intelligent adult mindset.  As a kid, she just rocked.  (Or, popped, I guess...)

She was from Michigan (hadn't realized that she's not so fond of Michigan yet), she was the epitome of diva glam (didn't realize this was personality flaw yet) and I suddenly realized how I wanted to dress for the rest of my life (and that I would definitely need to up my stock of rubber bracelets. Five per arm would no longer cut it.)

Madonna made me, secretly, want to be worshipped.  I remember having a pad of purple paper that was shaped like a heart.  I used up the whole darned thing practicing my autograph.  After I'd sign a dozen or so, I'd toss them around the room.  No, I wasn't an intentional mess-maker.  In my imagination, I was on a marble hotel balcony in Paris, throwing this small token to my adoring fans below.  It was the least I could do.  They had spent the entire previous night outside in the rain, chanting my name.

Yes, thank you Madonna.  This was the influence you had on the 1980's tween set.

I remember watching the "Borderline" video and listening to the cassette that we recorded off the radio (via black tape recorder, held up right next to the speaker) over and over again with my older sister.  She had created a "Borderline" dance, you see, and I was desperate to learn it.

The dance basically consisted of drawing a sweeping invisible line (a "borderline", if you will) on the floor with your index finger every time Madge sang the lyric "borderline".  As you may recall, "borderline" gets repeated several times in row toward the end of the song, in keeping with the classic fade-out that earmarks all 70's and 80's music.  You couldn't miss one dance move!  If she chants "borderline" five times, one after another, you bend over and you draw that line five times... and just as quickly.  Left index finger sweeping right, right index finger sweeping left, throw in a twirl if you can squeeze one in between beats.  Yes, it may not have been the most attractive dance, but it was ours (and, not to mention, a great aerobic workout too!)

I perfected the dance with such precision that I thought I was transforming into Madonna.  I decided to test the theory on a washing machine repairman that came to the house one day.  I was terribly shy, so I stayed two rooms away.  But, I popped that cassette in and went to town drawing lines in the carpet with my index fingers.  He was there for quite awhile, so I had to rewind the tape quite a few times, but it didn't stop the dance in me.  I was dancing, I was sweating, I was Madonna.  (It was probably also the best cardiovascular workout of my entire lifetime.  Past or future.)  When he finally packed up his toolbox and walked past the living room to leave, I was convinced he couldn't wait to go home and tell his daughter, "You'll never guess whose washer I fixed today!!!"  When, in reality, he probably just went back to the shop and complained, "That job seemed like took forever.  The lady's kid was blasting some crap music across the house.  It's bad enough I have to hear that garbage at home!"

It took until an early-90's viewing of Truth or Dare to realize, "Oh.  Madonna's not that nice, is she?  Who wants to be like that?!"  Then I proceeded to watch the flick over and over again.  And, then Evita.

Oh well.  At least Madonna had finally been shelved to being strictly entertainment and not a way of life.

Parents, don't let your children grow up to be fame whores.

Grammy Mock Elections

Since the entertainment industry feels alot like high school much of the time, I figured I'd stage a mock election based on last night Grammy Awards show.

Perennial Best Dressed: Kelly Osbourne


Most likely to have been influenced by Dwayne Wayne: Lupe Fiasco

Family most tolerant of nonsense: Weird Al's

 

 Most likely to bite your neck at the after party: Skyler Grey

Most likely to have found the Fountain of Youth: Cyndi Lauper

Best hair, male: Bruno Mars

Best hair, female: Adele

Most unexpected Farrah Fawcett impression: Rhianna

Most likely to have mated with a Gobot: Sasha

Most overlooked, but always there, Destiny's Child member: Kelly Rowland

Best use of a Spectromagic Parade prop cast-off: Deadmau5

Best use of a Golden Girls wardrobe cast-off: Katy Perry

Nice try, but you're no Gaga award: Nicki Minaj

Most likely hiding place for lost woodland creatures: Steve Earle's beard

Second most likely...: Fleet Foxes

Best use of granny panties: Fergie

Best effort of pretending to look at her eyes: Marc Anthony

 Best "Look Ma, no hands!" moment: Bruce Springsteen

Most likely to glow in the dark: Coldplay

Most likely to have side jobs as Coldplay set decoraters: La Vida Boheme

Best behaved: Lady Gaga 

Best tribute EVER: Jennifer Hudson for Whitney Houston

Worst tribute ever: The two morons texting during Glen Campbell's standing ovation

Best tribute, quirky edition: Foster the People for The Beach Boys

Most likely to be imprisoned (for swiping your Crest Whitestrips): Ryan Seacrest

"Are we forgiving him already???" award: Chris Brown

Most likely to succeed, this decade: Taylor Swift

 

 

Most likely to succeed, for life: Adele

Best send-off

 Now stock up on popcorn, only two weeks until the Oscars!

9021-0 yeah!

As I was sitting around, unemployed, today---working on #8 and #9 on my To Do List---I came across the most miraculous discovery.  Contrary to every prior conviction I once had, I found out that daytime tv does not suck.  Because daytime tv runs classic Beverly Hills 90210 reruns!

Yes, the Soapnet channel runs 90210 reruns in threes.  Yes!  THREE episodes BACK-TO-BACK!

Today I got to relive:

1. Andrea Zuckerman dating the summer school drama teacher.  First off, in TV land, it's cool to enroll in summer school while the rest of your friends are off cavorting and frying their dermis at the local beach club.  No one in Beverly Hills is flunking or forced to sign up.  They love school and can't get enough of it.  As proof, not only Andrea, (that's ON-drea, lest you forget.  Only Dylan McKay can, and does, get away with calling her AN-drea) but also Brenda, Donna and David Silver (before he was "cool") register to take drama class from the Elvis-lookalike who played Tracy Turnblad's beau in the first (and better) Hairspray movie.  Now this was a tricky situation, you see, because Brenda is also hot for teacher. (Although she's still dating Dylan at the time.  But hey, he's in Hawaii, visiting his mom.)  She takes on tutoring Andrea because Brenda's supposedly the better actor (blech!)  They end up "running into" teacher at the Peach Pit and take him on a whirlwind tour of L.A.  Try as Brenda might, Andrea is the one who ends up winning him over with her clever comments about the Plasticine Period and scores herself a coffee date.  (Should have majored in prehistoric science this summer instead, Bren.)  It's only fair.  Andrea was the only student who's actual age was greater than the combined average of the faculty.  (Must have been rough being the only junior with crow's feet.)  All in all, Brenda ends up slapping Andrea in their soap operatic class scene (where Andrea proves to be the superior actress anyhow), teacher ends up having a secret girlfriend back home, Brenda confesses her cheating lust to Dylan and everyone makes up in the end.
2. The Yosemite trip.  That's all I need to say.  You remember this one.  Rainstorm, botched beer run, Brenda follows Dylan like his shadow, Donna gets her period, David finally gets to tag along with the gang, Brandon falls off a cliff (which was indirectly Brenda's fault, of course) and Dylan grunts and saves his life.  This was also the episode where I was reminded that Dylan's character had his own electric guitar solo in the score.  Any time you heard, "Naaaarrrrr-nar-na-NARRR-narrrrrrr" you knew there was heavy brooding ahead.
3. Enter Emily Valentine.  So what if Emily takes birth control pills, Brenda.  You had no right to tell Brandon about it!  Because, you're going to feel really stupid in about 45 minutes when you find out she's still a virgin.  Oh yeah, and no one thought you were tough when you started that cat fight with her at your family's barbeque.  Cat fight meaning, saying snotty comments about Emily with her right there in the room and then telling Dylan to,  "Stay out of it! This is between me and Emily."  (To which Emily looks as if she's thinking, "Oh.  Is there something going on between us?  I was just trying to hang out here with my five boyfriends.")  The worst thing the show ever did was to make Emily's character go bat-poop crazy in later episodes.  Was is so hard to have one female character on the show that was slightly edgy and not a mall rat?  P.S. This is also the episode that makes it very clear that "Wicked Game" by Chris Isaak is the official make-out song of West Beverly.  As it should be.

The moral of 90210?  "Nobody... loves no one...♫"

Book Review: Stories I Only Tell My Friends, by Rob Lowe

I was never really a much of a Rob Lowe fan during the Brat Pack days.  When I watched The Outsiders I crushed on Matt Dillon and Pony Boy instead.  When I, later on, watched Wayne's World [insert deep confession here] I crushed on Mike Meyers.  I didn't even see most of Rob's big hits because the pretty blue-eyed playboy thing just wasn't the right box office draw for me.

So, when I saw Rob had written a memoir and saw it had even earned rave reviews, I "ehh"ed and kept it on the back burner.  Then I read A Prairie Tale, Melissa Gilbert's life account, including saucy details of their torrid love affair, and I suddenly became curious of the "He Said".

Well turns out he didn't say much... about the couple's romance at least.  In fact, her name is only mentioned twice and only as a timeline device, as in "I was dating Melissa Gilbert at this time."  If you've picked up this book looking for sexual scandal, you've picked up the wrong book.  Some people are into graphic tell-alls, but I actually respected the author for not kissing and telling.  He definitely alludes to his "a different girl, a different night" habits, but is careful not to name names or be seedy or descriptive about it in any way.  Because that's not what the stories he only tells his friends are all about.

The stories he tells his friends, and has now included his reading audience in on, are epic.  In fact, I can see a biopic coming out sometime in his later years.  He has the classic nutty family that's practically a requirement for the best of autobiographical accounts.  A cowboy-seeming dad.  An over-the-cuckoo's-nest mom.  A quack of a doctor stepdad, who brings him and his family from the Midwest out to Malibu.  And, then things are just getting started.

Back home, Rob had already developed a love for community theater.  Being hit over the head, at a young age, with that cosmic hammer---that all thespians seem encounter at some point in life---gave him a drive I wish I had for anything at that age (or any age, for that matter.)  He had already had some insanely coincidental celebrity encounters back in Ohio, while on his quest for learning everything he could about the biz.  So, when lurking around his new California neighborhood, trying to meet friends and find a way to fit in, he was intrigued to come across some kids---looking to be about his age---who were running around town, filming home war and action movies.  These kids?  Oh, just some guys named... Emilio Estevez, Chris and Sean Penn. 

He soon befriends the local guys and works his way into costarring in some of their homemade flicks.  His circle eventually comes to include Charlie Sheen (more interested in becoming a pro-baller at the time), Emilio, the Penns, Holly Robinson and eventually Tom Cruise.

My favorite scenes from the book are the tales of these future Brat-Packers' high school days, running around town (including Rob's first frightening encounter with Martin Sheen, freshly home from a hellish Apocolypse Now shoot), auditioning together and heroically becoming stars together when a chunk of them land parts in Francis Ford Coppola's The Outsiders.  The film, who's the making of, provides even more favorite chapters and the movie set's behind-the-scenes tales could become a tome all their own.

He continues his Hollywood story through sobriety and up unto the present day.  As I was finishing up the last chapters, someone had snuck up beside me and asked what I was reading.  I sheepishly showed her the cover, to which she exclaimed, "Rob Lowe?  I wouldn't think he'd have much to say!" 

To which I replied, "Neither did I."

Attention Walmart Shoppers

The Walmart parking lot: A good place to die

As much controversy as the People of Walmart website has brought with its creation, can you really blame it?  I, myself, have very strong opinions about shopping at the discount retail chain.

It's not because I'm rich (ha!), snooty (eh?) or like Paris Hilton, who had avoided the place merely because she thought they were some kind of store that sold walls.  No.  It's just that every Walmart experience I've had has been an odd one that I wished would be over with as quickly as possible.

I can't quite put my finger on it.  I can't tell them how to fix it.  Every visit is unnecessarily overwhelming, overstimulating and mysteriously cringe-inducing.  And, I'm faced with these issues each time I step foot in the place because they have something on sale there that I can't find any place else.

Take, for instance:

• Their shopping carts.  Although, I am impressed with their cart retrieval area (complete with heat lamps to dry and warm the carts in inclement weather) I always seem to end up with the wobbly one.  Over and over, I think poorly on my luck of winding up with that shaky-wheeled cart once again.  Then I realized that all the carts are wobbly!  There is no luck involved.  Each and every cart squeals with that ear piercing metal-on-metal grinding sound and steers as if all four wheels have not yet decided to work as a complete team.  In fact, I'd beg to reason that they've installed one oval wheel per cart, just to throw us off.
• Their shoppers.  Those steering the carts seem to never be in the proper lane.  It's bad enough to listen to the bitter symphony of thousands of metal-on-metal squeal carts all being driven at one time.  But, Walmart shoppers seem to have no grasp of the concept of driving in the right lane and passing in the center.  I usually get my heels scuffed once per visit.  There's always disorienting cart traffic, not unlike the old silent films depicting what street traffic looked like before the installation of traffic lights.  There's always someone parked side-ways, mid-aisle, letting neither lane pass.  There's always an abandoned cart, half-full, with its shopper invisibly somewhere in the surrounding 25 foot radius (but suddenly visible once you try to move their cart out of the way.) 
• Their parking lot.  Each time I exit a Walmart parking lot, I feel fortunate to have escaped with my life.  (Those cart drivers end up in cars, you know.)
• Their cashiers.  They all seem to hate being there.  They're usually gossiping with their neighboring cashier, complaining about their long four hour shift, pausing your ring-up to call their manager to see if they can go on break yet, or simply wandering off.  (Yes, my cashier up and wandered off today.)

Sigh... 

So, attention Walmart shoppers.  You're scaring me away!  Go ahead and call me snooty.  Call me a prejudice consumer... but I never seem to have these problems at Target.

There.  I've said my peace.

To Do List

Everyone keeps asking me my plans for after my workplace closes this week.  I'm pretty sure, they mean what are my plans for employment.  I have a to do list.  It just doesn't have much to do with a 401K plan:

1. Get back to blogging more often.
2. Go see at least 1/3 of the the Best Picture Oscar nominees, before the ceremony for once.
3. Clean my desk.
4. Clean my room.
5. Clean my linen closet.
6. Catch up on sleep.
7. Read a pile of books.
8. Attempt to relearn how to use a sewing machine.
9. Attempt to make a quilt. (I was inspired by a Susana Allen Hunter exhibit at the Henry Ford Museum six years ago and never found the time to sit down and get to it.  Love her free-form, pattern-free style!  Haven't forgotten it after all these years.)
10. Attempt to make a Pioneer Woman-inspired owl pillow.
11. Look into opening an Etsy store (if I can manage to pull off goals 8-10. But, no pressure if I can't.)
12. Get back into painting/drawing.
13. Finish that darn Christmas project.
14. Take some new pictures.
15. Visit a museum or two.
16. Get back to the eye doctors and finally get contacts back in my eyeballs.
17. Exercise.  For real this time!
18. Grow out my bangs a half-inch.  (You should see them.  I trimmed them wet this time and they're hideous!)
19. Make a new recipe.
20. Be inspired enough to add to this list.

Don't worry.  Somewhere in the 20's will also be "figure out life" and "get a new job".  I'm still planning on being a contributing member of society.  I just need a fresh head first!

When I Grow Up

I recently found my copy of Dr. Seuss's My Book About Me in the family basement.  My Book About Me was a popular Seuss-illustrated book, that most of us kids in the 1980's owned, in which you filled in the blanks about your life. 

It asked you such questions as how many doors and beds are in your house, how many buttons you own and what sort of noises you are capable of making (complete with checklist containing the options of "rooster", "dog", "cat", etc.  I checked off all of the options and added in "person", "robot", "cow", "duck", "horse" and "weirdo".)

There's a page titled "I Like to Write Stories: Here is one I wrote" accompanied by two lined pages for the child to complete their story.  On the first page I wrote, "MY Book about ME.   My book a bout me.  I ♥ Ricky Schroeder." On the second page I drew a self-portrait in which I'm wearing an orange shirt with the word "Cat" on it, blue jeans and brown shoes.

There are pages to trace your hand and foot on.  A page for favorite foods ("Peanut butter, chicken mcnuggets - only McDonald's, nachos, pizza, popcorn, etc."  All still dietary staples.)  A page devoted to drawing your hair, on which I inexplicably did this to myself:

 (No I didn't have orange hair as a child.  What I apparently did have was a lack of mousy brown crayons.)

There's a page looking into how you handle your anger.  It's titled "Sometimes I Get Mad at Some People" and provides a yes/no checklist.  I checked "yes" to sometimes getting angry and moved on to the section that's a psychoanalyst's dream.  The further options given are "I kicked someone", "I pushed someone", "I hit someone" and "I yanked hair".  I checked "yes" to all of the above, including a "yes" next to the box which states "I'm sorry I did it." (And, yes, my veins do contain Irish blood.)

Then toward the end of the book, is the "When I Grow Up, I Want to Be ________ " section, filled with two pages of helpful suggestions, in case you needed ideas.  I filled in the blank with the word "nothing".

Work was never an appealing concept to me.  I re-completed this book several times over my elementary school years, and eventually came to circle the options "T.V. star", "Frogman", "Writer", "Mother", "Artist", "Dog Trainer", "Millionaire", "Singer", "Cartoonist" and "Yak Trainer".   (I also scribbled out the options "Nun", "Burglar" and "Rabbi" with very deep no. 2 pencil markings.)

Thirty years later, and I still have no answer to that question.  In a week's time I will be joining the ranks of Michigan's unemployed as a result of the company I work for's need to close two of its smaller offices.  I will have seventeen severance-paid weeks to figure out this answer, or to at least find the nerve to reenlist in another soul-snatching job that simply pays the bills (as has been the pattern set in the twenty years since I've graduated high school.)

It's always interesting to look back at the goals you had as a child during these fork-in-the-road moments in life.  The hilarious choice of doing "nothing", certainly still seems appealing, though won't exactly make ends meet.  (Although my ever-ready hopes of the Publisher's Clearinghouse win does seem to fall both under the childhood wish of doing nothing and becoming a millionaire pursuit.  So, let's call that Plan B for now.)

T.V. star and singer should now be the choices scribbled out with deep no. 2 markings.  I have since come to terms with the fact that the good Lord graced me with the singing voice of someone who is simutaneously blowing a train whistle while trying to shoot peas out of their nose.

I'm not sure what the duties of a Frogman or Yak Trainer involve, and am no longer curious, so it's probably safe to scratch those options off of the list as well.  I never had children of my own, which places Mother out of the running.  Allergies that have developed over the years eliminates Dog Trainer. (Although, I'm pretty sure I never wanted to train the dogs, so much as just play with them and scratch behind their ears.)

Which leaves us with Artist, Writer and Cartoonist.  All still hobbies of mine.  Although, I haven't practiced drawing in close to a decade and I remain completely clueless on how to make a living at any of these things.  I'm also one of those fools that likes to keep hobbies as hobbies, as not to tarnish my love for them with deadlines and such.  So, I guess what this all means is that you'll probably hear of me back in another office setting some time within the coming months.

A seventeen-week deadline to figuring life out?  Yuck.  I think I'll try to have a little fun first and leave Dr. Suess with a big ol' "Thanks for nothing!"  Unless, of course, I come across an ad for a hot-tempered, robot-noise-making, peanut butter-eating frogman.  Then I'll know for sure that destiny is calling!

Book Review: Prairie Tale, by Melissa Gilbert

I came across Prairie Tale while I was in the middle of reading The Wilder Life, by Wendy McClure. McClure's book left me so indifferent that I was uninspired to write a review on it, but in its pages it had mention that Half-Pint herself had published a memoir.

I was always a fan of the Little House television series. My family also owned the country blue box-set of paperbacks, although I never cracked one open other than to look at the illustrations. My reading likes, at that age, fell more into Beverly Cleary, Judy Blume, Shel Silverstein territory. If I had access to prairie life via an hour in front of the tube, God bless you Michael Landon, that's how I was going to take it!

Laura was always my favorite character in the series (becoming slightly over-shadowed once her handsome adopted brother was introduced into the show.) I also being the outdoorsy middle-child tomboy in the family, it was easy to relate. So I dove right into this easy read, even as it spun so insanely far from innocent prairie territory.

Prairie Tale certainly covers Melissa Gilbert's chaste and idyllic years growing up on the Little House set. Her home life was a stark contrast to that of the Ingalls, but she still grew up very privileged and loved. The discomfort in your stomach will come at the point were Melissa starts to party a bit, have teenage sex and dabble with cocaine. You'll do the math in your head and realize that this turn of events comes about while Melissa is still playing Laura, albeit grown Laura who becomes married to Almanzo and a mother... But, nonetheless, Laura Ingalls doing cocaine?!

Then the book got really good.

 

I always knew Melissa Gilbert had dated Rob Lowe at some point in the eighties. I just didn't realize how many years that relationship strung on for and how entrenched in the Brat Pack clique Laura Ingalls, eh... Melissa Gilbert actually was. She partied with the Estevez-Sheens (dad, Martin, included), dated Tom Cruise, Scott Baio, Billy Idol (this is not a joke!) and while Rob Lowe was cheating on her with a number of young blonde starlets, she cheated on him with his own buddy John Cusack!

At this point, you start to finally lose the Prairie image, forget about "Laura" and start to get wrapped up in Melissa Gilbert's story. Which is a good and triumphant one. She winds through heartbreak, addiction, motherhood, sobriety, breaks in sobriety, that whole SAG presidency and all of the drama that came with it. She does dish, but somehow in a way that doesn't seem dishy. Just like someone telling her story and deciding to be completely honest about it.

And, she's kinda funny. Who knew!

In the final Acknowledgments section she leaves a list of possible book titles that her friends (including the likes of Tom Hanks) had suggested to her, including:

• Half Pint Goes to Hollywood
• Lights, Cameras, Blackouts
• From Half Pint to Sag-ging Adult
• Nellie's Not a B****, Mary Is

and my personal favorite

• I Never Tripped on That Hill (But My Little Sister Did, Bwaaaaahhh)

It's a good tale.