Author: LobaBlanca

BookBin2013: My Mother Was Nuts

~ LobaBlanca

mmwn

I’ve written before about how certain shows from my youth have stuck with me while certain others leave me feeling not the least bit disturbed that there was a point in which I could stand more than 5 minutes of them without wanting to defenestrate the television. One of the shows that I think still falls in the former category is Laverne & Shirley. Looking back on the show now, I think that it was the characters’ blue collar appeal that initially drew me in, even as a child. I watched the regular antics of these two working-class women and recognized in their struggles with work and money the same struggles that my own family sometimes faced.

With less Booboo Kitty, of course.

In fact, I think it’s safe to say that I consider Laverne DeFazio and Shirley Feeney just as much part of the pantheon of female role models from my youth as Beverly Crusher, Jaime Sommers, Diana Prince, Bonnie Barstow, Jo Polniaczek, and Terry Dolittle, just to name a few.

I’ll get back to that last one in a minute.

I liked them both, but Laverne was my favorite. She always seemed less concerned about etiquette or appearances, a little less genteel, a little more crass, a little quirkier, a little more likely to tell the dirtier jokes and share the better stories over a pizza and a pitcher of beer. Plus, she embroidered all her tops with a giant cursive “L” and drank Pepsi Milk.

Yes, Pepsi Milk. It was a mixture of milk and Pepsi-Cola. I remember drinking these with my grandmother one summer. I don’t know why this sticks in my mind, but it always makes me smile whenever I think of it.

So, what does all this have to do with my latest BookBin entry? My Mother Was Nuts is the autobiography of none other than She Who Was Laverne.

What can I say? If you liked Penny Marshall as Laverne or if you have liked her continued Hollywood career as a director, I would recommend this book to you. It’s funny, straightforward, and incredibly interesting. Suffice it to say, she has led quite a life. Also, Marshall has a wonderful way of being honest without being catty or vindictive. She tells things plainly, saying only what’s important in a refreshingly objective way, and then moves on. She doesn’t try to tear anyone down and she doesn’t try to build herself up…even though, she could if she wanted to.

After all, Marshall was the first woman director to break $100 million at the box office…on only her second directorial outing (not counting those episodes of Laverne & Shirley she directed). She broke the boundary with Big and she repeated this feat with A League of Their Own, one of my absolute favorite movies ever made.

As for my earlier mention of Terry Dolittle, this was Whoopie Goldberg’s character from Marshall’s directorial debut, Jumpin’ Jack Flash, which was one of my earliest Flashback Friday posts. Yes, it was horribly inappropriate for 10-year-old me, but it also showed me that someone quirky and strange and just a little left of center could be awesome. In fact, this is what I wrote of Dolittle:

More than just making me laugh, though, I think at some point in my impressionable young mind, I made the choice that, when I grew up and got a

Flashback Friday: Mr. Machine

~ LobaBlanca

mr_machine

I’m quite surprised that I haven’t posted this one before. I also have very little to say about this particular toy, beyond the fact that I always thought it was one of the most interesting toys I can remember from my childhood. I never owned my own Mr. Machine. One of my aunts had one, and I remember she would sometimes take it out and let it run up and down the apartment hallway, much to my wee delight.

Here is one of the original commercials for Mr. Machine:

http://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/8WHQI5iKYfM

After watching this, I’m almost 100 percent positive that my aunt had one of the reissued 1970s versions, because her version didn’t ring or come apart. It did, however, whistle a jaunty little tune (a most appropriate description for any tune from a toy in a top hat) while wheeling about.

Fun times.

And now that I know that the original version of Mr. Machine came apart, I feel this irresistible need to find my own. I must know what it looks like inside!

Flashback Friday: Mac Tonight

~ LobaBlanca

Time to revisit Loba’s obsession with bizarre company mascots from her youth, thanks to a lovely reminder from one of my favorite ImagiFriendsTM (although we’re friends IRL, so I guess I can’t really refer to him in this way…but I love the classification so very much).

In addition to Spuds MacKenzie trying to convince me that I should like his diluted horse pee beer and Chester Cheetah coercing me to have perpetually stained fingers, or all those kooky kids’ cereal mascots luring me toward their sugary dentally damaging delights, there was this, er, lunatic:

mactonight

Get it? Lun…never mind. Denizens, may I introduce you to Mac Tonight, from that ever-trippy corps of crazy McDonald’s ad campaigns. As I remember it (and that wonderful oracle of truth Wikipedia kind of confirms), our silver sliver-headed songster came about as a means to let us all know that McDonald’s was a really swingin’ dinner-time kinda of lounge, hep cats. Apparently, Ronald was a little too garish for that evening rush that McDonald’s was hoping to drum up. The Golden Arches wanted less red, more blue. Less clown, more…moon?

I get it…night time is the right time (to clog your arteries and succumb to grease-induced zit attacks), so when the Man in the Moon starts to serenade you about when it’s time to head for golden lights, you listen, you dig? Especially when he’s twirling around on a cloud that’s strangely solid enough to hold the weight of a baby grand piano and him, but still light enough to float through the city streets to spread his snappy tune.

[Loba Tangent: Apparently, I wasn’t the only one to notice how silly it was to have a cloud holding up a piano…TPTB quickly replaced the cloud with…a twirling Big Mac. You know, for the realism.]

I snark now about Mac Tonight, but the truth is that I loved this guy when he debuted. That’s the whole point of these wacky mascots, right? Be so ___________ that impressionable people can’t get enough of you or the product you’re shilling? Sadly, though, he wasn’t cool enough to convince me that I should eat Big Macs, which are actually my least favorite McDonald’s offering of all. I’d even choose one of those mystery fish cinder-block burgers before I would order a Big Mac with that disgusting “special sauce” (there is nothing “special” about ruining mayonnaise with ketchup and relish, dammit).

However, he was cool enough to earn his own amazing cavalcade of merchandise, including T-shirts, cups, jackets, belt buckles, toys, hats…I even remember getting my pudgy little paws on a pair of Mac Tonight sunglasses, exactly like this pair:

mtglasses

I loved these sunglasses and wore them for years…long after the little Mac Tonight logo wore off and there was no evidence that they were anything more than a pair of Ray Charles-esque RayBan ripoffs. But that’s okay, considering that Mac Tonight was nothing more than a corporate ripoff of a Bobby Darrin song called “Mac the Knife.” Get it? Yeah, Mac Tonight’s themes were even nothing more than (marginally) reworked lyrics set to the same Darrin tune. It was so blatant (and so very unapproved) that Darrin’s family finally sued McDonald’s, thus bringing an end to Mac Tonight’s night-time TV ad reign…at least here in the States. Apparently, Mac was revived (and CGIed) in 2007 for new commercials for overseas markets in several Asian countries and South Africa. Here’s what the computer-rendered Mac Tonight looks like:

mtcgi

Gone is the Darrin ripoff song and the baby grand. Now, he plays a saxophone and sings a nondescript tune, like this:

https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/mOlLIP9-vlQ

Meh. Not nearly as groovy as the live action Mac…who was consequently played by Doug Jones. Name not ringing a bell? Don’t worry, denizens, his real face wouldn’t probably ring a bell either. He’s made quite a name for himself in Hollywood, however, for playing amazingly intricate prosthetically disguised characters, including this freakishly disturbing character from Pan’s Labyrinth:

pans-labyrinth

He was also the faun in this movie as well as Abe Sapien in the Hellboy movies. He was also one of the Gentlemen in one of my favorite episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer:

buffygentleman

Ah, “Hush.” The episode that introduced Tara Maclay into the Buffyverse. Also, one of the most unnerving hours of television ever filmed.

How the hell did I get from a singing moon to Tara Maclay? It’s a good time for the great taste of the healthy helping of WTFery always ready to be served here at the lair, denizens.

I leave you now with this compilation of Mac Tonight commercials that prompted this whole Flashback. Check the Simpsons cameo. You know you’ve hit the big times when the Simpsons dredge you up! Or, conversely, you know you’ve been on air too long when you have to dredge so deep to the bottom of the pop culture barrel that you reference Mac Tonight (types the wolf who just wrote an entire Flashback Friday on said character…).

https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/IrIg18Uby4E

BookBin2013: Double Dealer

~ LobaBlanca

doubledealer

Lest I end the evening (or the month) with a negative review, let’s talk about that other television franchise over which I’m thoroughly gaga: CSI!

I may have mentioned this at some point here at the lair, but a while ago I found a great eBay auction on a large lot of CSI novels (I think I ended up with the first 10 novels; I could be wrong on that count, but I’m too lazy to get up and check) for a relatively low price. It was low enough, in fact, that I decided that even if I hated every single novel, it was still worth the cost.

Of course, we all know the deal by now: I bought them, received them, stacked them, and promptly moved on to other books. However, I decided one of these novels would be the perfect length for at least one leg of our recent Hawaii adventure…and I was right! I was able to finish this one during the flight from the islands to LAX. Perfect timing!

So Double Dealer, written by Max Allan Collins, is the first of the Las Vegas CSI novels. I’ve mentioned Collins here before; he was the author of three of the CSI graphic novels I’ve reviewed here. From what I wrote previously, I found his writing skills to be mostly entertaining, but I found that his stories didn’t really push the boundaries of the CSI fictional world in ways similar to how the Trek novel writers often pushed that franchise’s “accepted” boundaries. Of this, I wrote:

One thing that I

BookBin2013: Sum It Up: A Thousand and Ninety-Eight Victories, a Couple of Irrelevant Losses, and a Life in Perspective

~ LobaBlanca

sumitup

What more could I possibly write about Tennessee Lady Vols Coach Pat Summitt? I first blogged about her right after she announced her diagnosis of early dementia, Alzheimer’s type. This heartbreaking news inspired me to revisit Summitt’s book Raise the Roof, all about her team’s 39-0 championship season in 1997-98. I enjoyed re-reading this book so much that I sought out and read her book Reach for the Summit, which I described as “equal parts business-minded motivational pep talkery, behind-the-scenes glimpses of Summitt

BookBin2013: The Devil in Silver

~ LobaBlanca

devilinsilver

I’ve been working my way through another book from my own library (I’m serious this year about reducing that stack of books around my night table…or at least of making room for new books waiting to be moved to the “next in line” stacks). However, I placed a hold with the local library back in December for this particular book. When I received the e-mail letting me know that my turn to borrow it had finally arrived…well, who I am to refuse the call of the wild library?

So I put aside the book I was working through and switched my book-loving fealty to Victor LaValle’s The Devil in Silver.

Let’s start with the dust jacket description:

Pepper is a rambunctious big man, minor-league troublemaker, working-class hero (in his own mind), and, suddenly, the surprised inmate of a budget-strapped mental institution in Queens, New York. He’s not mentally ill, but that doesn’t seem to matter. He is accused of a crime he can’t quite square with his memory. In the darkness of his room on his first night, he’s visited by a terrifying creature with the body of an old man and the head of a bison who nearly kills him before being hustled away by the hospital staff. It’s no delusion: The other patients confirm that a hungry devil roams the hallways when the sun goes down. Pepper rallies three other inmates in a plot to fight back: Dorry, an octogenarian schizophrenic who’s been on the ward for decades and knows all its secrets; Coffee, an African immigrant with severe OCD, who tries desperately to send alarms to the outside world; and Loochie, a bipolar teenage girl who acts as the group’s enforcer. Battling the pill-pushing staff, one another, and their own minds, they try to kill the monster that’s stalking them. But can the Devil die?

Again, I don’t usually provide these descriptions in my reviews, but I wanted to in this instance, to make a point. And that point is, this is not what this book is about.

Okay, it is. But it isn’t. It’s kind of like saying that Star Trek is about space exploration. See what I’m saying? It is. But it isn’t…and, with The Devil in Silver, the “isn’t” is what makes it such a compelling and difficult read.

What LaValle has done with this book is craft an enrapturing and infuriating castigation against several publicly facilitated ways in which we manage those whom most people immediately deem unmanageable, whether it be the mentally ill, the incarcerated, the illegally present. It is chaotic and claustrophobic and intelligent and revelatory and…I couldn’t put it down and I couldn’t stand reading it at times because it will cut you with its closeness to the truth.

The horror of this story is not in its “devil” but in the humans themselves, seemingly cored of their humanity by the perfunctory pressures of mind-numbing minutiae and the stunning insensitivities of status quo that have left them totally void of compassion or caring. Just do what you’re told, pay attention only to the words on the screen or the words on the paper. Ignore the human life those words represent. Makes it that much easier to dismiss yourself from culpability when you can say you were simply following orders.

There were points while reading this novel when I thought I wouldn’t be able to keep going. I’ve already stated that I know too well the inner workings of public mental healthcare in this country. LaValle obviously knows it as well. In fact, he has stated that the idea for The Devil in Silver was planted from a personal experience. What was planted all those years ago, LaValle forced into the light through one of the most captivating novels I have read in a long time.

I’m not necessarily sure how I feel about the climax or resultant ending, but I honestly think the strength of The Devil in Silver is more in its telling than in its ending. That being said, LaValle succeeded in creating characters that were, while perhaps not completely likeable, completely believable and completely empathetic. For these reasons, I truly wanted that mythical, virtually non-existent “happy ending.” For some, I got my wish. For others…

Well, I guess you’ll just have to read this one for yourselves. Just be warned: It is not horror in the exploitative or visceral sense of the word. It is horror in the literary, intellectual sense…in the pressing, rooted-in-reality sense. It will burrow beneath your skin in the most haunting of ways.

Final Verdict: I had to return this one, of course, but I might be adding this to my library, if only to make sure that I show support for an incredibly talented author.

Flashback Friday: “Too Beautiful Edition”

~ LobaBlanca

I suppose you could call this a copout “Flashback Friday.” I had other post ideas in mind, but then I got sidetracked by scrolling through some of my old posts from those now mythical Angry BloggerTM days.

[Okay, they’re probably only mythical to me…]

I guess I’m trying to relocate my inspiration. Don’t think you’re the only ones, denizens, to notice that all I ever do here anymore is post Flashback Fridays and BookBin entries. I suppose, though, that it’s a bit of a small victory that I’m even back to semi-regular flashbacks. In fact, looking at my post stats, I see that (minus the awesomeness that was Darktober 2012) I haven’t had a month of double-digit posts since last May.

At first, it was simply a lack of time. Actually, it still is kind of the same reason…only now, when I do eke out a bit of time to visit, I’m left with nothing much to say. I’ve got ideas of all kinds floating about in my bonny brain. I’m simply so drained by the time I arrive that I submit to the overpowering pull of sloth…that tricksy, tricksy deadly sin. So tonight I decided to go back to a time when I posted not only almost daily, but several times throughout each day. Of course, I was much angrier back then. Anger is a satisfactory fuel when even creativity fizzles out.

Stop that pigeon!
Stop that pigeon!

I did, however, also find inspiration of the non-Hulk-smash variety. Strange inspiration sometimes…like this poem that I jotted down after a random encounter with a pigeon. The silly thing just stood there on my office windowsill, staring at me for at least a solid 5 minutes. At least, I think it was staring at me. Who knows?

Anyway, for whatever reason, the pigeon paid me a visit and then made me utterly envious when it finally blinked and bobbed before spreading it wings and whisking away into the bright spring sky. Nothing makes you wish for wings quite like being inside an office building when the weather finally starts to turn warm and sunny.

Glint and flash of vernal fire in blood-red iris
As purple and green spark against dull gray down.
Perched upon my windowsill, you beckon

Flashback Friday: Memorex Tapes

~ LobaBlanca

Every now and then, I catch myself saying or thinking something about “the new generation” that makes me sound…and feel ridiculously old. I had one of these moments just a few days ago, when it dawned on me that there’s a generation of kids growing up right now who will never need to know what this is:

Is it real? Or is it...obviously something bootlegged off the radio?
Is it real? Or is it…obviously something bootlegged off the radio?

Truth be told, I guess it’s been quite a while since Memorex tapes meant anything to anyone. But all I have to do, denizens, is look at this clear plastic with the funky geometric shapes, and I am:

  • Sitting in front of the mini boombox that sat in the kitchen, waiting for my current favorite song to play on that evening’s countdown show, frowning in frustration when the DJ won’t stop talking over the song’s intro so I can finally hit record. That’s right…I was an old school music pirate.
  • Dubbing records or asking friends to dub their records. But always remembering to record something silly or bizarre somewhere hidden on the tape before making the trade-off, whether it was the theme song from Chip and Dale’s Rescue Rangers or an original rap I wrote about a teacher at school (okay, this might’ve just been my friends and me).
  • Hearing the music suddenly slow or stop and then panicking at the sound of crinkling cellophane, only to hit EJECT and see shiny brown tape now turned into a crunchy mess that spools all over the place and can only be fixed with patience…and a sharp pencil.
  • Riding along in the back of the family car while listening to my latest mix tape. Playing on my Walkman. Through headphones with a differently colored cover for each ear.
  • Snapping on the headphones and hooking the Walkman to my shorts so I’d have something to listen to other than the growl and roar of the mower while I spent the better part of every other Saturday afternoon, mowing lawns. So I could make enough money to go buy more Memorex tapes.
  • Catching the familiar glint of sunlight reflecting off streamers of cassette innards, un-spooled and tangled along the median strip, or finding one of these discarded treasures and taking it home to fix it, and discovering that I’d found my first exposure to DC go-go. E.U., baby, all the way.

The mnemonics of Memorex. All right there. In indigo, fuchsia, and yellow. I see this tape and I think of all the artists I’d rip off the radio…Bobby Brown:

https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/P0FKzPfsxA4

That’s right, kiddies: Before the horrible reality show or helping Whitney destroy herself, he actually had a singing career! Also, if you want an overload of hot 80s mess? Watch this whole video. Yeesh. Or how about Fine Young Cannibals?

https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/9wSn81dLK6s

Lisa Lisa? Took me years to finally figure out “Que sera que sera” thanks to her screwed-up pronunciation…

https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/dxkbTG6PeCI

Escape Club?

https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/eoLHrq3z060

Or what about Was (Not Was)? I never could understand why they wanted to walk a dinosaur…

https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/zYKupOsaJmk

Good grief, but videos were bizarre back in the day. Maybe we can continue this in a future Flashback. For now, I’m just going to leave this here…for all you go-go-deprived souls…

https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/Ypcs4c7ihSo

When you get that notion, put your back field in motion…