insomnia haiku

Classic Sesame Street songs about cookies are good enough for me

When I was in San Francisco this past Thanksgiving weekend, I got to spend nearly a glorious week hanging out with my nephew. It'd been almost a year since I'd seen him last, and now he's at the age (two and a half) where he can say all kinds of words, some of them even forming semblances of sentences.

He can say my name, for example: Tia Patricia ("Tia" being the Spanish word for "aunt"), which -- with its five syllables full of consonants -- is a much better job than his father ever achieved at his age (Brian used to call me "Patika." Another family friend referred to me as "Matricia.")

I had my computer with me, and, having been subjected to the Wiggles for the first time the previous night (the horror! the horror!), I decided to start showing Diego old classics from my childhood. Onto YouTube I went, to unearth old Disney scenes:

"Bare Necessities" (a song I like so much, I sang it in performance class when I was in my 20s)

"Mary Poppins" - "Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious" (wasn't Mary always just so cooler when she was with Bert?)

With the majority of people in the house being Spanish-speakers, we all got obsessed -- as we always do -- with singing 'Cielito Lindo.' This time, Luciana Pavarotti with Enrique Iglesias! Girls screaming! Kids singing! Que chevere.

And then there's the old 'Sesame Street' songs. These days, I hear, 'Sesame Street' is dominated by a nearly intolerable munchkin puppet known as Elmo. Now, I understand why kids like Elmo, but the "Sesame Street" I knew didn't focus on one character -- it was full of diverse, original songs and muppet characters I loved. And the songs themselves? Wow. Listen to them again. They're actually really good.

I am immensely proud that Diego asked repeatedly for encores of these, two of my favorites:

'I Love Trash' by Oscar the Grouch (Diego spent the rest of the weekend singing, "I loooove trash!"). What was the lesson they were trying to teach here, though? It's awesome to be messy? (I'm OK with that.)

And, of course, "C is for Cookie." I love the swaying monsters in the background. They're like football players being forced to perform in the school production of "Swan Lake."

As soon as a video would end, my nephew would point and select what he wanted played next. "Another one!" At one point, my sister-in-law called over and said, "He's never allowed to watch this many videos at once." Me: "Well, he asked for them." (I believe the specific request was "MORE MOVIES! MORE MOVIES!") My brother: "You could say no." My mom: "But she's the aunt!"

Yes. I am the aunt. My job is to be fun, and then give my nephew back over to his parents. I love being an aunt. It's pretty much like being a grandparent, except younger.

All those Sesame Street videos drove me to look up some more this morning, including this one that I remember from the very early days, with all the human characters and only a few of the muppets.

Seeing them all young and together like that, I couldn't help but think: Do you suppose any of the cast members slept with each other? They must have, right? The fact that they were working on a children's television program doesn't exclude them from the rules of attraction and friction on an ensemble TV show.

I'm going to guess Maria hooked up with David, and Susan and Bob had a torrid affair. I can't wait for the tell-all book.

This week's video obsessions: teenagers singing about dreams, and a silly old bear

I don't listen to the radio anymore, so I have no idea about today's popular music. (I couldn't identify a Justin Bieber song if my life depended on it.) The only way I ever hear this stuff is if it's on a TV show -- like Glee, a show that, if I'm being honest, is pretty silly and not particularly good 85 percent of the time. But I love musicals and singing, so I tune in faithfully every week.

Anyway, after last week's episode I'm obsessed with this song "Teenage Dream." Which was apparently already kind of a popular hit by someone named "Katy Perry" (just kidding, I know who Katy Perry is, though I have zero idea what songs she sings -- YES I AM OLD), but of course I had never heard it before. And now I can't get the damn thing out of my head, except sung not by Katy Perry but by fresh-faced prep school boys who rather remind me of the men's a cappella group I loved in college. (The term "groupie" would not have been inappropriate here.)

The fist-pumping in the scene may be a little much, but otherwise -- for whatever reason -- I very much dig this.

 

And speaking of obsessions, I didn't expect much when I heard there was a new Winnie the Pooh trailer out, as Pooh was never one of my favorite characters. But something about this trailer just hits me right in the soft spot of what someone might call a heart. I think it's the fact that they got the original guy to do Pooh's voice, or perhaps it's the song, which naturally I can't identify (though this one, I had heard before). Whatever it is, please watch this. You'll be surprised at how lovely it is.

Mad Men cast sings Bye-Bye Birdie, reminding me of how much I miss Mad Men

Only if you watch Mad Men can you appreciate how much this video -- of the cast and crew singing "Bye Bye Birdie" at the show's wrap party -- just made my day. I do think that the people lip-syncing were cheating (that means you, Jon Hamm and January Jones), but I'll let it slide.

If Christina Hendricks (Joan) and Bryan Batt (Sal) had been in this, my brain might have actually exploded.

Also: the guy who plays Paul is totally drunk.

(via NYMag)

Let's hear it for Stephen Colbert ... there's nothing he can't do

The episode was in December, but I just saw this -- Alicia Keys singing "New York State of Mind" on The Colbert Report while Stephen Colbert does the rap part, using his own lyrics. Daaaamn, son, Colbert got GAME. (Am I sick of this song yet? Nope. Not yet.)

Why did I never realize that "library" rhymes with "disco"?

Catching up on old episodes of Community (thereby clearing out my DVR for Thanksgiving, in the process making some not-so-tough choices -- buh-bye, FlashForward, I've officially given up on you), which has been a pleasant way of passing a couple hours while waiting for my backache to go away.

Community was a show I was really excited for at the start of the season, but it's been Modern Family that's had true staying power for me. THAT show, I love. This one, I find amusing when I get around to watching it, but I don't feel any particular compulsion to watch it every week. I don't know why.

That said, I just caught this bit after the end credits of one episode, and it's pretty darn funny. Again, I don't know why. (OK, I do know why. Because deadpan rapping in rudimentary Spanish = comedy.)

Full of Glee

Things have been kind of hairy at work, but every once in a while you get to do something fun.

Today, I got to interview the kids from Glee -- a show that I love. They were adorable. The geek kids, whom I interviewed in one group, are obviously friends and have a great time together; the "popular" kids, whom I interviewed in a second group, were a little more polished and seasoned, but my favorite moment was before the cameras rolled when the guys were burping and Cory (who plays Finn) looked straight at me and said, "Long night. Loooong night." A-HA. Well, I guess they aren't actually teenagers.

And I almost got the geek kids to do the "Single Ladies" dance, once they found out that Beyonce had done that very dance in this very studio -- but alas, no one had the song ready to play. Stupid, stupid! Fire someone! A crew member started playing it on his iPhone, and they were practically ready to bust a move when they heard it, but then they realized it was only someone's phone, and ... no dice. Oh well.

Hardest part for me was keeping silent in between questions, since I wasn't on camera and I'll be edited out of the video -- and anything I said during the answers would come off as this weird disembodied voice out of nowhere. It's just not natural for me not to talk back. Instead, I was reduced to making faces at them and nodding vigorously, or mouthing words at them. So strange. Is this what they teach you at journalism school?

Oh. And I have the biggest crush on the guy who plays Puck. He is even hotter in person, if you can believe that. He doesn't have a mohawk anymore -- he's got sort of a buzz cut-shaved head thing going on -- and man, I couldn't even look at him. I wonder if they teach you about THAT in journalism school.

Will post the video when it's done next week. In the meantime, in honor of the day ... "Single Ladies."

Killing two birds (podcasts and vacation pics) with one post

Finally uploaded my pictures from vacation, and this time I decided to use Picasa instead of Flickr, mostly because Flickr was taking too long. I haven't decided which I like better yet, though one advantage Flickr has is that it's able to recognize what kind of camera I have, whereas Picasa cannot.

Anyway, they are here as well as below (though go to the link itself if you want to see the pictures all nice and big and purty, and with captions).

And here's this week's Film Fixation podcast, which was a lot of fun, since we had our very first guest -- all the way from MSN Movies in Cal-i-for-ni-yay! He was cool. I dig this episode (we talk about Where the Wild Things Are, of course, plus the new Coen brothers movie A Serious Man, and the amount of weight that Gerard Butler seems to have gained -- or is it all in his face?).

Oh but wait, THERE'S MORE! We started a new TV podcast last week, called Drama Queens (original title: TV Snobs), in which my friend Kelly and I talk about all the shows we love, like Mad Men and Top Chef and How I Met Your Mother. This week, we also engage in Trashy TV Corner, because God help me, I am still watching The Hills. Check it out here. With these two plus guesting on another one, I taped three podcasts this week. That shit is exhausting, yo.

I think that's enough self-promotion for one day. And now I'm off to scrutinize the ESPN Game Tracker and see how Cal's doing against UCLA. Either that, or laundry.

You can't go home to Melrose again

I made it through about ten minutes of the new Melrose Place before I changed the channel to tennis instead. Yowza, talk about your bad acting. Was the original this bad, and we were just younger and dumber, and now blessed with selective memory? I watched the original Melrose Place faithfully for many many seasons -- we had viewing parties, with dessert -- and granted, it was cheesy, but what made the show so fun to watch was that wonderfully soapy, over-the-top drama. Maybe I simply don't know the new characters yet (not that I ever will, since I won't be watching), but they just seem so ... vanilla.

I can't imagine the new Melrose will give us anything as spectacular as Kimberly RIPPING OFF HER WIG -- still, in my mind, the most shocking moment on television ever (second place going, perhaps, to when Stephen slapped Irene on The Real World: Seattle). My blood pressure just went up as I watched this. I can still remember the screams.

Happy things

1. I love the show So You Think You Can Dance. I know how this sounds, and I know what you're thinking, and you're wrong. Wrong! Not to sound like a reality-show dope here, but it is soooo much better than American Idol. And here's why:

- On American Idol, you can be a sucky singer and still make it relatively far, because ... I don't know, people are stupid and they vote based on personality. But on SYTYCD, contestants have to learn two -- sometimes even three or four -- intensely choreographed routines every week. And I'm sorry, but if you're a terrible dancer, you're not making it anywhere on this show.

- The dancers are paired off (and then, in the later rounds, split up and re-paired), which makes things awfully interesting. Hip-hoppers have to pair with contemporary dancers, ballroom dancers with ballet dancers. Sometimes it's a great combination. Some times, it really really isn't.

- The judges are smarter -- they are all choreographers and former dancers -- who critique using actual technical terms like "rond de jambe." Can you even imagine Paula Abdul ever saying the word "melisma"? She probably thinks it's a skin cancer. And for much of the first part of the season it is they, not the fans, who decide who stays and who goes.

- The host, Cat Deeley, is adorable and game for anything and clearly thinks of the contestants as her babies, and she isn't a smarmy smirking bastard who spends all his time making desperately defensive gay jokes.

- This show is the only reference point I have for music the kids listen to these days. Seriously, I am so out of it, every once in a while I'll hear a song in a store or something and go, where have I heard that before? Oh right, on So You Think You Can Dance.

- They dance hip-hop and bolero and swing and even Bollywood and ... oh, don't take my word for it.

Katee and Joshua - Bollywood ("Dhoom Taana")


Chelsie and Mark - Hip-Hop ("Bleeding Love")

Katee and Joshua - Hip-Hop ("No Air")

2. I finally watched the premiere of Glee last weekend and now I'm pissed I have to wait until the fall to keep watching it. Damn you, Fox! What the hell is the point of that? Stupid tease of a network.

3. I can't think of a third thing. Maybe you can come up with one for me. In the meantime, I worked insanely hard on our list of Top 40 Movie Soundtracks, and while I'm not 100% happy with it because our picks skew so modern and we didn't include scores or musicals (which I argued for, since I'm the only person at work who likes musicals -- though this means I get to come up with our movie musicals countdown myself, so start lobbying me now!), and we also didn't include Swingers, which I kept trying to put on there at the 11th and then the 11-1/2th hour ... but the format, which I came up with, turned out nice I think, so check it out if you have a second. And then tell me why we're idiots for not having included ___.

My freshman college English professor would be concerned about this post's lack of a thesis statement.

Hello insomnia, my old nemesis. I'm not sure whether I can't sleep because it's the end of a long weekend, or because I'm stressed about the week to come (Oscar nominations are Thursday), or because I'm being interviewed on the radio tomorrow morning -- twice -- as an expert on "Lost," which is not only laughable but is also making me really nervous.

I've done some radio before, but the unpredictability always puts me on edge. I mean, this shit is live, and on a topic like "Lost"? They'll actually expect me to know what I'm talking about. My tendencies to freeze, blank out and babble will not serve me well here. "And so that guy ... uh, what's his name again? The guy with stubble? Played by the guy who was Charlie on 'Party of Five'? Oh right, Jack!" Over the weekend I watched the season premiere (press membership has its privileges), and now on top of my general stage-fright nervousness, I'm worried that I'll mix up the plotlines and accidentally give something away. "And then it turns out Libby's not dead, she's Claire with plastic surgery! And Hurley's the father of Claire's baby! And Jack's father IS the smoke monster ... and the polar bear!" (Calm down, none of that actually happens. As far as you know.)

Anyway, in regard to my recent blogging negligence, I've tried, I really have, to come up with something that might be suitable to post, but all I've got is a head full of randomness (that sounds like a good album name, doesn't it? please don't steal it). So maybe if I empty it all right now, my head will clear itself for something good and worthwhile. Or not.

- It's 2 a.m. right now, so yay, Happy Inauguration Day! Oh, I probably shouldn't have led with that. Now everything else is going to seem stupid and petty by comparison. Ah well. Let's call that my tribute to George Bush.

- Inauguration Concert, Thought 1: That poor navy guy, messing up not once but twice during the national anthem in front of, oh, only a couple million people. He did mess up, right? First he missed the first two lines, and at the end he started singing "brave" a beat too early. I can't even make fun of this guy because I'm afraid he's about to kill himself or something. Um, moving on.

- Inauguration Concert, Thought 2: It amuses me that the person whose appearance on stage got me most excited was Jon Bon Jovi. My inner aging fangirl involuntarily went, "Squeee!" I told this to a friend of mine this weekend and he told me he hated Bon Jovi. Needle scratching across the record: Whaaaaa? I don't believe, in the history of my being alive, that I have ever met someone who hated Bon Jovi. Oh wait, shoot, I have. I dated a British guy once who, when we were in a bar listening to the sound system play "Slippery When Wet," said he "didn't get" the Bon Jovie appeal, and then when I tried to open his ears to the sounds of awesomeness emanating from the speakers, he waxed rhapsodic on his love of Siouxsie and the Banshees instead. I broke up with him a week later. No offense to Siouxsie.

- Inauguration Concert, Thought 3: Also cracking me up was the sight of the little girl, dead asleep, directly behind Obama. I think it was during the Garth Brooks part of the concert. (And dude, what made him so special that he got to sing three songs?) If you knew her parents, wouldn't you call them and say, hey, you might want to wake little Mary up because she's proving more fascinating to the viewing audience than the president-elect himself? On the other hand, they were probably told to turn their cell phones off. So throw something at them, for gosh's sake. Do your patriotic duty!

- Timewaster: White Whine - A New White Person Complaint Daily. I find this so much more satisfying than Stuff White People Like, for some reason. Who the hell knows who's posting this stuff, what color they are, or if the quotes are even real? It's just funny, is all. Cycle back through the older pages for gems like "Ugh, why do people even bother complimenting me on my car if they’re going to mispronounce Audi?" or "Can’t they just make ski boots that are easier to walk in?"

- Timewaster - If you, like me, were always slightly irritated by Garfield and his "hilarious" antics, feeling that they obscured the personality of the comic strip's true star -- Garfield's owner, Jon Arbuckle -- then this is your lucky day. On Garfield Minus Garfield, there is no cat. Hurrah! But it isn't such a happy day after all, because without Garfield, Jon is just ... sad. Wow, lonely and sad. Check out Jan. 8 and 9 in particular. I may have to rethink this whole "Garfield was useless" theory after all.

- "24" - New addition to the 24 Drinking Game: Drink every time Agent Renee Walker says, "I've got to make this right." Another drink if anyone says, "The agency/government's been compromised." Also, I've noticed that Walker's boss, Agent Moss, is saying "dammit" a whole heck of a lot. Did he and Jack make some kind of deal?

- And now, if your day has not already been eaten up by first-day-back swampage and the inauguration and watercooler talk about "Gossip Girl," I present to you the timewaster that will blow. Your. Mind. Courtesy of my friend Tom, here is the greatest music video of all time. Enjoy.