Now in Technicolor

I was striking in black and white. You couldn't see my red spots. You couldn't see my racoon eyes. But what fun is life without those?

Friday, April 27, 2007

All Mourn the Death of the Inflatable, Plastic Palm Tree!

Coming up the walkway to the building I saw the oddest sight. In the courtyard there was an overturned inflatable, plastic palm tree. You know, like one of those you buy at Party City in the "Luau" aisle aside the grass skirts, leis, and fake coconut bras; right above the ukulele that you can't play because the strings are just big, plastic, stupid-heads. Not that I have anything against fake ukuleles.

But to continue with my vision:
It wasn't only the fact that in the smack dab middle of the courtyard rested a dying inflatable plastic palm tree but the fact that around the perimiter of the grassy island was yellow streamers tied to various posts and table legs along the way so that from a distance it looked like it was yellow caution tape--a murder!

People were wandering around as if it didn't matter to them but--oh no! I knew what had taken place! It's one thing to hate the idiotic summer luau theme, with its tiki torches and harry cross-dressing men in tangled wigs, plastic adorned leis, grass skirts, and genuine coconut bras hulaing to corny music only The Ultimate Luau CD 1983's greatest hits can offer, but to murder in rage a defenseless inflatable plastic palm tree is going beyond hatred to insanity. What has this novelty decoration ever done to you except exist in its design as a cheesy, yet mildly retro, corner lerker sometimes adorned with clearanced christmas lights and always equiped with complementry inflatable repair kit?

Now, no suspects so far in this case but rest assured I'll keep updated accounts of any suspicious activity. I might not let this one slide so easily. I have an uncle that's inflatable.

currently: quirky

current piece of writing: "and miles to go before I sleep"

Friday, April 20, 2007

The Minutes Before the Moment

11:50am
The fake woodgrain of my desk is the only thing I can think about writing about. An old SONY fm/am radio sits with its silver antennae pointing east.
11:51am
I am surpised at how few words I can think to write in a minute. How my mind ticks so slowly through the seconds and my fingers are waiting with bated breath for the next smart thing to come out of my mind.
11:52am
The phone rings.
11:53am
Emily isn't coming in today because she's sick. She's not been here since Monday. There are two things to copy and a video to take back to the media center in her box.
11:54am
A cinnamon roll sits 3/4s eaten in my new tupperware container from my new lunchbox. I can't think of anything amazing to say. It's six minutes until--
11:55am
I'm starting to think that writing minute by minute might not have inspired the creativity I thought it would. All I can think, with five minutes till, is of the minutes in the lives of 33 people before seeing the world as it was for the last time. It's a depressing thought--but perhaps they're happy despite it all.
11:56am
I am stumped. Minutes should mean so much more and last so much longer than they do. If I were forced to live life minute by minute--I think I'd rush around so much I'd forget to see. And yet,
11:57am
People are talking in the halls. Students are gabbing rushing through the corridor in a slow gait. The clock on the wall is a little slow or fast. People are thinking, I can feel their thoughts. Some people aren't, and I can feel
11:58am
A minute lasts too long. People can think too much in a minute. They can second think, rethink, stop thinking, breath in and out enough to revive, stop breathing
11:59am
The boss called noon early according to my clock.
12:01
So I waited another minute. It's weird because I could still hear people talking.
12:02
Even though I could feel people pause.

Thursday, April 19, 2007

Flying with one good wing.

What's more annoying than a gnat? A gnat with only one good wing. The little critter was limping on my desk, pouncing across the list of teachers, their corresponding offices and phone numbers not five minutes before. Everytime it would attempt to fly it would do a loop and end up right back where it was. It's little gnat-y body would circle around in a seemingly confused sense and try it again only to find that for all its frantic trouble it, again, ended up in a painfully similar place to where it started. It walked around flipping and flopping desperately until it flew off the ledge. The first time it did this it found the desk again but the second time it was hopelessly in mid-air. It performed a jumble of loop-d-loops and frantic twirling like an airplane with one engine cut who is desperately trying to compensate by flying it circles. Perhaps more like a one man boat with one oar, which he keeps paddling on only one side.

The gnat, in mid-tailspine, spiralled around my head (as only gnats, injured or not, can do) before it disappeared from my periphery all together. For all I know it could be on top of my head right now or dying in the dust-ridden carpet below.

I suppose if I were a more predictable writer I'd analogy the flight of the limping gnat with our own futile journey through life. I'd pick out specific instances in my life in where I found myself twisting and turning in mid-air just to land back in the same place I started. But really, honestly, and truly my inspection of a gnat was just that. It was nothing more than a creature who seemed to be having a fit about a broken wing and who thought it's only purpose in this life was to fly, whether it be in frantic circles or straight lines.

Sometimes a gnat is just a gnat.

currently: extrospective

current piece of writing:
"Not only don't I know who I am, but I'm very suspicious of people who do know who they are. I am sometimes ten or twelve people a day, and sometimes four or five people an hour."--Tom Baker, actor best known for Doctor Who (4th doctor)

Wednesday, April 18, 2007

The Monkees meet the Beatles meet the Fraggles meet your craziest acid trip.

What can you say about The Doodlebops ? This kid's show features a multi-colored cast of three. Starting out as rough cuts in the first season in costumes described as "malfunctioning" and rightly so. Frumpy ill-fitting clothes paired with badly made "ear hoods" clearly denotating where the actor's face ended and the hood began, the show has improved greately since its conception in 2005. Season two saw an array of changes, including better fitting costumes and a complete throwout of the embarassing ear accessories. The characters finally became real.

Deedee, played by Lisa Lennox, is the slightly bossy older sister. She's pink. I mean, yes, she wears pink but she IS pink. She is an experienced musician (as are they all) specializing in the keyboard and keytar (the proof that crossbreeding instruments should really be more restricted, though Deedee's keytar adornments like pink pom poms and pink paint do add a certain charm to an instrument otherwise only worthy to bald men in hawaiian shirts playing in 80's tribute bands) I approximate Deedee's character age to be somewhere around 9 or 10. The actor is 24/25. Her style falls somewhere in the 70's, sporting hip gogo boots and a flip up pink hairstyle with headband. Her dress is fringed in a pianoesque keyboard print. Though Deedee's tendancy tends to be bossy, her heart is always in the right place.

Rooney is the brainy middle child who is blue. He is played by actor Chad McNamara who's dancing would put any broadway performer to shame. Previously Chad had been in a role in the HBO (or was it Showtime?) show "Queer as Folk," whose central characters are a few gay men going about trails and tribulations that only gay men can go through. This does not, by default, imply that Chad himself is gay. Besides, it doesn't matter either way but I thought I'd address the issue as some of the Doodlebop naysayers are quick to point out that Rooney is certainly the gay doodle akin to how the purple Tinky Winky with the upside down triangle on his head was also gay. Rooney plays a guitar that would impress Jimi Hendrix. (Though none of the actors play the instruments in concert because of certain costume restrictions, mainly their bulbous finger gloves and the fact that they also have to dance and sing) He invents things and so it is only right that his guitar is pimped out in knobs and gauges. His dress is one of a hippy rastafarian beatnik. His wig is the perfect representation of dredlocks. Precariously balanced in the heap of dreds is a red barret with a blue musical note on it. His outfit is a blue pair of overalls with a guitar wrapped across diagonally from right shoulder to left knee. I guestimate Rooney is supposed to be around 7, 8, or 9. The actor is 23/24.

Then there is the hearthrob of five year olds everywhere. Moe is played by Jon Wexler. And Jon is, for all intents and purposes, hot. I, personally, don't find any of the doodles particularly hot even "unmasked" via www.dontpulltherope.com. Let me rephrase that. They're very attractive but I have no illusions of dating them at any point. But Moe is the eyecandy. He is the AJ and the Nick Carter. 5-39 year olds (no judgement here) have dreams about this little doodle everyday. Of what I've heard, Jon is a pretty shy guy. And so, if I had any drooling to do about his tight butt or his enigmatic smile I'd hold it back. Besides, I'm a Deedee/Rooney girl, myself.

Moe is yellow and has a mop of red/orange hair. He plays the drums and breaks. No, he doesn't randomly crash into things. He dances, he breaks. He's a bboy. Jon is a bboy and so is Moe. He sends 5-8 year olds spinning round and round on their carpets every weekday and weekend morning. He's probably caused the majority of carpet burn injuries. Moe is the youngest of the group, attributing to slightly less mature actions such as yelling and getting in people's spaces and expounding stories beyond their actuality. He hides at the beginning of each show as Rooney and Deedee try and locate him. He also has an infamous fetish for a rope in which he pulls each episode to result in a drenching of water. Luckily, I think this particular water scene is prefilmed and used again and again otherwise Jon would probably be sporting a continuous case of pnemonia. Moe would probably be around 6 or 7. He's that kid who used to interrupt everyone else to share his opinion, a bit off, a bit rambunctious. Jon is 22 years old, fittingly the youngest of the actual ages as well. And, as a said before, Jon is ironically shy compared to his character--shyness being a thing I can more than relate to.

Now you may be reading this (or you may not be reading this) and be thinking--what is all this? Why is E.M.Green suddenly enamoured with this kid's show? Why, furthermore, is she writing about this kids show when more important things are going on in the world like mass killings and floods? And I will answer you this: The Doodlebops is probably one of the best shows on tv now. It's certainly better than American Idol and So you Think you Can Dance?

It's about fun. Even if you are laughing because it is the most ridiculous thing you have ever seen you can't help but smile while watching the rambunctious siblings rush around and perform concerts. The songs aren't oversimplified and are, for the most part, without cheese. These are talented people in this series, intelligent people.

So, when you find yourself getting bogged down or sacrificing your better half for a good dousing of self-pity or even in the face of unbelievable tragedy for a moment allow yourself a temporary escape. Surrender yourself to when you were 5. Watch a rapping hippy throwback from the Sergeant Pepper video busdriver and a bee-bopping soulful black woman and an array of puppeteered characters and relent your body to dance foolishly and freely beyond the bounds of mournful workdays. Don't worry, start with Season 2 if the funny ears and bad costumes bother you too much. You can almost see Lisa's goreous figure in the new costume. Naysayers will call them gay (as if such a term is an insult) and claim themselves superior over such tomfoolery, but I am proud in knowing that I take myself with the seriousness of a preschooler of the universe. And, in a less introspective light, it certainly saves me the money I would otherwise have to spend on hallucinigenic drugs to get the same effect.

currently: fluffy

current piece of writing:
"I like to describe the show as a live-action cartoon. We obviously are drawing references from a number of live action shows. And we crossed it with elements from Pee Wee's Playhouse and The Banana Splits and all sorts of wonderful things from our childhood. My background is in animation. I used to work for The Walt Disney Company and came up through the ranks in Saturday morning cartoons and I bring that to it." --Jamie Waese, creator of the Doodlebops talking with "interactive DAD" in this article.