The Tory Party

Name a Sneefy Movie Moment. Survey Says…

For class I had to write a thing about the scene in a movie that made me want to make movies. Casablanca? Citizen Kane perhaps? Oh no. The zing moment for me was in Edward Scissorhands where the little girl says “You cud have seen him. You still cud go.” OH SNEEF. Bring on the sneef. I mean, what kind of power does a movie have when it builds and builds and all it has to do is show you a little girl stuffed in a huge bed saying “you still cud go” and then SHA-POW waterworks.

So you’re saying the same guy who played this character played Gilbert Grape, Ed Wood and Jack Sparrow? So how many Academy Awards has he won by now? NONE?! (Insert spit take. Interrobang!)

There are lots of good examples of “you still cud go”:

• Forrest Gump asking Jenny, “Is he smart?”
• Tom Hanks’ character in Castaway saying to Helen Hunt (as he returns her watch), “It belongs in your family.” OH FRICK.
• Djimon Hounsou’s character burying Maximus’ clay figures at the end of Gladiator and saying, “We’ll meet again. But not today.” I AM DYING OF SNEEF.
• Titanic is so stuffed with them I can’t pick: the Irish mother tucking in her kids, the elderly couple on the bed as the room fills with water, Victor Garber’s character setting the clock on the fireplace, Jack’s his “you’re going to have lots of babies” speech, Jack’s death, old Rose dropping the necklace, and, of course, the fantasy sequence reunion at the Titanic staircase. Dying. Of. Sneef.

So today’s question, what line or tiny moment in a movie just plowed you down? Like, Aragorn bowing to the hobbits at the end of ROTK plowed. Totally plowed.

Hey, remember that time I forgot how Monster’s Inc. ended and got sneefed up all over again like it was the first time? That movie was awesome.

Where Did I Go?

Where did I go? I was all like posting every day and then I vanished into the air like George W. at 10:00 AM September 11. Fear not — the big shift is that I’ve gone from having an office gig where I dorked around online for half the day to having a film school gig where I`m hopping all the time. (Okay, not *all* the time. Not even most of the time. Just enough of the time to be interesting. And it’s fun hopping, not unfun hopping. Example — tonight I have to go back to campus at 7 PM to watch Edward Scissorhands, which is only challenging in terms of how many guts I`m going to cry out. If [and when] I start complaining about *being in film school,* y`all just feel free to punch me in the neck.)

Anyway. Y`all are super cute and sweet to miss me at all. Let me hit you with some rapid-fire stories:

• I threw a party Friday night and tied one on but good (for the first time since I’ve been here — otherwise I’ve been Miss Maternal Instinct and the designated driver). The miracle of boozing when you’re 26 is that you know how to tie one on without hurting yourself. And you actually have some sodas and stuff around for the DDs. *HINT.*
• There are only a couple of film school first-years my age. Not much for the dating. Whenever I consider a nineteen-year-old I think of Matthew 9:17 — “Nor do people put new wine into old wineskins; otherwise the wineskins burst, and the wine pours out and the wineskins are ruined.” Who went to Okinawa Christian School? I went to Okinawa Christian School.
• Eeee! My sister just got here from Chicago so I must adjourn. But I shall return!

Gardening Advice from Dad

when getting a drink of water from the outdoor hose, let it run a few seconds first due to this morning two slugs came flying out of the hose of possum track when dad turned the water on.

heart dad

Eww.

Stagger Lee`s Essay on Blackness

Stagger Lee is a friend of mine who rolls Jeeps, drinks Crown Royal, fights in desert wars to protect my sweet ivory ass and is generally much, much cooler than me. This essay is hers:

You know, I just looked at the HotGhettoMess.com site, and found it sad, yet funny. And it made me think…

Anyone on your site that knows me personally knows that I can be described as “the whitest black girl I (or we) know.” Even my girlfriend describes me that way, and she’s white.

Why? Is it because I know and use the proper pronunciation of ask? Is it because if I’m fixin’ to do anything, it actually involves tools and taking something apart? Is it because I don’t use chemicals in my hair to straighten it out like, say, a white girl’s hair? I don’t understand.

Help me, someone.

Indeed, I am not hood. I lock my doors when I drive through the hood because I’m afraid of getting carjacked, not because I’m expressly afraid of my own people. I don’t listen to a lot of rap music, not because I don’t like it, but because there are only so many times people can be unoriginal before it drives me crazy. I read books because I like to read, not because someone said I had to read. I had roommates in college that were convinced I was white until they met me, based on phone conversations. Damn right I’m not hood.

Everyone knows someone like B-Rad in “Malibu’s Most Wanted.” You know, that one white boy (or girl) that doesn’t seem to understand that they are not from or in the ghetto. Everyone knows someone like Carlton in “Fresh Prince of Bel-Air,” that one black kid who seems so lost because he doesn’t know who he is. Most of us fit somewhere in between those two extremes.

I can still remember when my family moved to North Carolina. My mother fought tooth and nail to get me into the Gifted and Talented Program, because that’s where I was placed in every other school system I had been in. Finally, she succeeded, and that’s when I found out about stereotyping. This was the first time I found out that black equals dumb. From then on, I would be the token black kid in almost any and everything I did in school. And if I wasn’t the only black child in the class, there most certainly would not be a black male in there with me. In junior high, where image is everything, I remember hiding my report card from other kids so no one would think I was a sellout because I was on the smart kid track. When I got to high school, I discovered that the only time I had black kids in my classes was if the class was non-academic in nature (i.e., gym, band, shop). I was actually told by my “guidance” counselor that if I wanted to play sports on a varsity level, that I should pick the easier classes, if I wanted to keep my GPA up. That’s funny, because I had soccer players and tennis players in my advanced classes, and no one told them that they were too hard or taxing on an athlete’s brain. When I applied to NCSSM, my high school told me my grades weren’t good enough. Imagine their surprise when I got accepted and the little white valedictorian wasn’t. Then, they deemed, it must be because of demographics and Affirmative Action. I was subtly told that if I wanted to play sports, it would be better for me to stay at my home high school, which was in a more prestigious conference, than attend NCSSM because I would have more of shot of getting an athletic scholarship from a bigger school. Now, I’m not saying that they told me that because I’m black, but I’m pretty sure they wouldn’t have told me that if I were white.

In college, there was a new twist added; the black guy with white girl “problem.” I had friends whose daily conversation in the quad was about why black man X was with white girl Y, when there were all these fine Nubian sisters out there that he could have. They were totally pissed off about it, even though the white girl was as nice as she could be. During Homecoming, there was a white sorority that entered the step contest, and to the horrors of most black students, they won. Now, of course, according to the majority, it was rigged, and the white girls had to win because if they didn’t, they could claim reverse racism. They won, because they were the best. It’s as simple as that, but please don’t tell my Nubian brothers and sisters out there that there are white people who can dance better than they can. And Goddess help us all, when Eminem came out with The Slim Shady EP, whoo Lord. “That white boy is stealing our music just like Elvis did!” they cried. And like, hello, what was 3rd Bass, a rap trio that was 2/3rds white?! Somebody help me, y’all.

But the main problem, according to my contemporaries, was the interracial dating grand scheme. You know how some people are… white girls are stealing all the available black men that aren’t already gay, in prison, or married from us. That’s funny, since I haven’t noticed any secret plan from any white people that says “steal all the black men.” So I asked around, and heard all kinds of different reasons. However, the three that stuck out most in my mind were: 1) white girls are (supposedly) freakier than black girls. 2) white girls are more longsuffering or put up with more crap than black girls. And 3) they aren’t as ghetto, so I’m moving up in the world. Well, okay then. If you met your white snow princess at the local swap meet, guess what? She is ghetto too. If you believe what talk shows tell you, the average white girl that dates a black guy lives in a single wide trailer (yep, not even a double wide), shoots smack, and dreams of a day when some tall, dark and handsome black man with corn rows sweeps her off her feet to move to the projects with him, his 4 baby mommas, and 6 kids. You would think that if anyone wanted that, black or white, that we wouldn’t want him or her in the gene pool at all. But no, it’s all part of the plan of the white devils. Here’s a newsflash: I personally would say that 80% of white girls with black men are with black men that WE DIDN’T WANT TO BEGIN WITH. Yeah, I said it. And if you’re so concerned, why don’t you go find a man, instead of wondering about hers?

Now, of course, someone will point out the obvious, that I shouldn’t be saying any of this because I’m a lesbian. Yeah, but I’m a black lesbian, dating a white woman, so that puts me in the same category. But you know what? She doesn’t live in a trailer park, has a job that doesn’t involve the words “you want fries with that,” and she’s not dating me to piss her parents off. Here’s the best explanation I can give you: there’s mathematically more white lesbians than black ones. Therefore, it shouldn’t be that much of shock that I’m with a white girl. Should I go out and get a black girlfriend too? Would that make you feel better? Let me make it plain—if my girlfriend was ghetto, she wouldn’t be my girlfriend. There, does that make it easier?

So yeah, I will sit back and laugh at things like www.hotghettomess.com and www.templeofblackjesus.com. You know why? Because that’s not me, that’s not who I am, and that’s not what I strive to represent. Here’s another newsflash for you: if I’m not black enough for you, then you’re probably black. You’re the only people it matters to, anyway. Because no matter what else I do or say in this world, I’m still black. And I will be until the day I die.

First Presidential Debate

Remember that time Kerry pwned Bush in the presidential debate? That was awesome. Honestly, I didn’t know he had it in him. I keep hearing that Kerry’s better when he can come from behind, and he’s won all his races by pulling out the stops at the last minute (that’s certainly what he did to take Iowa). If this is true, then I am for it.

Here are some of my favorite moments from the first debate.

• Bush calls Jim Lehrer “Jeff.” I swear to God. It was the first time he called Jim by name. The transcripts have cleaned this up, but I know what I heard. It set the tone.
• Bush on fighting terrorism: “It’s hord. It’s hord work.” I know SNL and the whole world has already been over this, but LAWDAMIGHTY. And I think this could probably have been pulled off if someone was saying it like, “We’re on top of it, and this is something you can’t handle.” But Bush was saying so whiny and so many times it sounded like a sixth-grade girl complaining about the flexed-arm hang.
• Trying to win the peace in Iraq (if I can be so generous as to presume that’s what Bush is doing) is also “tough. It’s hord work. It’s incredibly hord.” Maybe it wouldn’t have been so hard if Bush’s people had bothered to have 1) a plan, 2) a budget, 3) support from someone besides Poland. Or maybe, I dunno, if we pressed on with getting Osama and stabilizing Afghanistan, and left Iraq the hell alone.
• Bush uses the fact that there are people in Iraq bombing us and shooting at us as evidence that we had good reason to be there. Um. So is this like, if I slap you, and you slap me back, that’s proof I had reason to slap you in the first place? But let’s take a look at the quote, because it’s so mangled and stupid: “The enemy understands a free Iraq will be a major defeat in their ideology of hatred. That’s why they’re fighting so vociferously. They showed up in Afghanistan when they were there because they tried to beat us, and they didn’t. And they’re showing in Iraq for the same reason.” Mmm, mangle-icious. Also, I`d like to point out that the “vociferous”-ness of our opposition in Iraq is not a problem as much as the “bombing and shooting”-ness.
• Said Bush, “The best way to protect this homeland is to stay on the offense.” What? I`m sorry, what? He says it again: “I repeat to my fellow citizens, the best way to protect you is to stay on the offense.” What is this, Friday Night Lights? If you want to keep your home safe, you don’t spend all your time and resources blowing up a home in another state that never did anything to you ever.

I didn’t see the VP debate because I had class. (”Why don’t you call me sometime when you… have no class.” Rodney Dangerfield, I loved you well). So any feedback from people who did see it would be most welcome.

Don’t forget the next one is Friday, apparently at 9:00 PM on ABC. Town hall. That should be funny. And maybe, oh, I dunno, some domestic issues. Rock. On.

Oh, and I saw Dennis Miller on Leno last night. Boy, does he suck. He’s become like an awful right-wing latter-day Robin Williams — hirsute, sweaty, and spewing a non-stop string of over-prepared material like Teddy Ruxpin. There’s no interaction, no off-the-cuff remarks (and Leno killed by ad-libbing that floundering Toys R Us is more like “Toys Were Us.” The audience preferred a live reaction to Dennis` static routine that Dennis had to skip his scripted joke!)

Gordon Gano + Anthony LaPaglia = Bad Dennis