Make mine a Double-A

Thanks to Fairvilla Megastore for making traffic bearable the other day. Driving by the adult novelty store I noticed that their pre-Valentine's marquis reads "All you need is love - and batteries."

Clip and Save (Your Ass)

I'm shocked - shocked - to realize that it's been over a month since I've posted anything, but I don't think it will come as a surprise to anyone that paid gigs have to come first and I'm thankful to have had enough of them to keep me that busy.

That said, this is a long-overdue posting of the last story I did for the Orlando Weekly which came out on Christmas Eve, 2008. Called "Clip and Save (Your Ass)" it's what I like to think of as behavioral modification coupons - since no one can afford actual things anymore the best we can do for each other is change our behavior.

Hope the tiny url works and hope you enjoy!

Clip and Save (Your Ass)

How to Curse in Norwegian

Funniest language lesson ever:

Nice Girls (and Mean Girls) Finish Last

This is an excellent story by Tana Geneva of alternet.org about why the workplace doesn't seem to reward women the way it does men:

http://www.alternet.org/workplace/112128/in_the_office%2C_nice_girls_finish_last/?page=2>In the Office, Nice Girls Finish Last

 Plenty to learn from here. Wish I could say it's surprising that hard work and talent don't count for much, but here in Wonderland, nothing surprises me anymore. 

The Cleaner

OK - this is my first step away from my usual pop-culture / sex / humor sensibilities and into something more serious. The piece is called "The Cleaner" and was the cover story of the Orlando Weekly this week. It's about crime scene cleaners - not exactly holiday-upbeat - a bit dark and grisly, in fact (not hard to deduce from the subject matter, huh) but I'm really proud of the result. Hope you enjoy it (and if you do, don't be shy to comment on their website!)

The Cleaner

2-Minute Zombie

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/video/?slug=orl-wn-zombie101207

I know copying & pasting a url is a pain, but for some reason I can't get this page to link...I promise, though it's worth it.
It's a two-minute film of a two-hour zombie make-up job done on my by Barry Andrson, head of the art department for Ripley Entertainment and make-up artist on movies like Day of the Dead and Hairspray. It's really cool - totally worth a cut-and-paste.

Sexiest Psychos in Cinema / Why Scary is Sexy

I was so overwhelmed when my first video blog got  3,497 hits on YouTube  (so far…and thanks to being picked up by alternet.org) – pretty great incentive to do another one, just in time for Halloween!

This one is on the 5 Hottest Psychos in Cinema with a special 2-minute bonus track on the physiological and psychological reasons why scary can turn people on (this is my favorite bit - short & sweet).

Thank you so much to Jim DeSantis for all his hard work, patience and AWESOME editing and titles! (check out his Movie Brain Rot podcast under “Alice Loves…”) Jim, You Rock!
And I hope everyone likes watching these as much as we enjoyed making 'em. :)
Xoxo
LL

Remember "Separated at Birth"?

They look a little alike...just sayin'...

A lot of belly for your buck

This week I had the luxury of doing a story on Orlando Belly Dance for the Orlando Weekly:  

http://www.orlandoweekly.com/artsculture/story.asp?id=12691

It's really hard to write well about something you really love - you never feel like you quite do it justice. I feel very much this way about dancing, but this profile of Suspira is the closest I've ever come to getting the words right (thanks to her help).

  I've had such great luck with dance teachers, starting with Azuri Zanaar, whose generosity and talent were an inestimable gift;  without her I'd never have had the daring to step on a stage. I've also studied with Vanessa, Bhirgha Gypsikelt and Belle Abbas, all of whom have made the dance their own in a brilliant and influential way. Now I'm studying with Suspira, who, like Azuri, is an inspiring mix of comfort and provocation - she always makes me feel like I'm good enough to be better. 

Anyway, there is a tradition in dance of honoring your teachers - I hope I've done that, here, on stage and in class.

Wow, that was kind of serious. Isn't this where someone should say "Bring on the dancing girls?" 

The 105 Year-Old Virgin

         Clara Meadmore was a quite a dish in her younger days. Certainly there were a few young men - and probably a few young women – who’d have liked to hook up with her.

         Well, tough tittie for them. Clara is still a virgin at the age of 105 and doesn’t feel like she’s missed anything. A BBC news story on her 105^th birthday, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/cornwall/7663662.stm>Celibacy the Key to Long Life

says that when she was younger sex meant marriage and she never wanted to marry.

         “I have just never been interested in sex. I imagine there is a lot of hassle involved and I have always been busy doing other things.”

         You go, Clara!

         No, I mean it. In giving the finger to getting the finger (or anything else) Clara showed a lot of personal style. It’s all about authenticity, and in bucking the tiresome mandate of marriage and kids and all socio-sexual expectations, Clara showed some balls – and having them is more important than seeing them. Just because I write a lot about sex and relationships doesn’t mean I think everyone needs to be getting it on 24/7….or ever…it’s all about doing things your own way.

         And I’m sure she’s onto something with the “better things to do” motif. I often think that if I wasn’t besieged by hormones I could have been a gazillionaire and had my own cartoon, arts foundation and ape preserve by now. In the time we spend jockeying for, having and recovering from sex and relationships we could have found life on other planets. And had sex with it.

         On the other hand, the subhead of the BBC story says that Clara attributes her long life span to celibacy. If that’s the case, and I have to leave the earth little earlier for all the amazing times I’ve had, well, I have three words to say: I’ll get packing. In fact, it’s kind of fun to consider this idea and rate various escapades: ‘Yep, that was worth a day…oh, that was worth 6 months!…oh, I want some time back for that one...” You should try it. But only alone or with your friends. If you play this game with your partner and you assign vastly different time values or accidentally say “Remember that time we did it in the airplane bathroom?” and it turns out is wasn’t them, well Bob Eubanks isn’t going to be there to help you. As ever, play wisely.

         (Speaking of, I hope it’s obvious that when I say there is sex that’s worth dying a little younger for I’m not implying there’s sex that’s worth risking your life for – this is by no means and endorsement of unsafe sex. This should be apparent, but in 17 years as a writer I’ve discovered that I can say, “Flowers are pretty!” and there will be one reader who interprets that as “Hail, Satan!” so I thought I better clarify).

         I certainly do appreciate Clara’s spunk (insert own spunk funny here). Her story, however, has also made me reflect that I’ve had some experiences that were worth an awful lot, (even losing years, though, as Denis Leary famously said about smoking, they’re the years on the end so who cares?) Hopefully they won’t come to mind when someone at this year’s Thanksgiving celebration says ‘So, what are you thankful for this year?”

Sarah Palin and Newspapers

Sarah Palin can’t name a single newspaper

I like this because it reminds me of when cats try to be very sneaky by crouching behind a blade of grass in the backyard, convinced that you couldn't possibly spot them there.

I know print is dead and I know it's tough to speak on the fly, but the fact that Sarah Palin couldn't even come up with the name of a single newspaper - The New York Times? The Hooterville World Guardian? Anything? - is troubling. Even "I watch the news on TV and the web," would have been good or "Why, I often watch CBS news, Katie Couric...of CBS news!" that would have showed a little charm and savvy (that's what you would have done, I know). To come up totally snake eyes on this, though, is comical...or would be...if it wasn't so goddamn serious.

Paul Newman

 

    At 80 my mother could still talk about Errol Flynn with the same grin she surely did when she was a teenager and saw him for the first time. She had unabashed crushes on a variety of movie stars and was as smitten with movies in general as she was with anyone in them. Thanks to her I became film literate, being taught at a young age the joy of Bogart, Taylor and Hitchcock. And at the head of the pack there was Paul Newman, whose blue eyes could always make her grin her Errol-Flynn-grin.

    She was right, of course. Paul Newman had a relaxed class that shone through so many of his performances - he seemed like a guy you wanted to know and a guy you could look up to as well. Everything he did he did with the kind of ease that only comes from the hard work and devotion to craft.

    I don’t know how many times my mom and I watched “The Sting,” and “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid,” together; the Robert Redford/Paul Newman pairing in the 70’s was very much like the Brad Pitt/George Clooney pairing of today and my mom was charmed with both of them and with Newman’s wife, Joanne Woodward, who matched his talent and earthiness. Thanks to my mom I got to know great films like “Cool Hand Luke,” “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof,” and “Slap Shot,” which some might not see as in the same league, but which remains one of my all time favorite movies since my mom took me to see it in 1977.

    Paul Newman passed away yesterday, a sad, sad loss for the world which needs examples of class and commitment to quality more than ever. I’m glad I got to know his work and more grateful all the time that my mom loved to take me to the movies.

AP: Paul Newman, actor who personified cool, dies

 

  

Slap shot photo, above, film screenrush.uk.com

GQ photo, top, from seniorcitizen.com

My First Video Blog!!!!

Jesus, I am so proud of this! It's the first one, ya know, so I know it's not perfect - but I'm hoping it's going to end up like the Simpsons - just a little thing at first, then bigger, then generally acknowledged as awesome, then huge, then stellar, with merchandising and syndication and a devoted core of millions who look at the earliest episodes and think "Why did we think THAT was so cool?"

But for now it is - it's supercool! My most twitter-pated thanks to Jim DeSantis of Movie Brain Rot
for being such a huge help and for shooting and putting this together, Brian Quain of Before You Submit
for talking me into doing video in the first place and Fairvilla Megastore for loaning us the adorable cheerleader outfit! Fairvilla Megastore
They have the BEST costumes, for Halloween - or for down-and-dirty/sweet-and-flirty fun every other day of the year (and we hope they'll let us film there sometime!)

Anyway, these are my Top 5 Most Sexually Educational scenes in film (non-porn) and TV - we did this because it's September and that means back-to-school month and we all need a little sex Ed - contrary to what the abstinence-only crowd thinks. Actually, ESPECIALLY because of what the abstinence-only crowd think!
Anyway, please leave some good comments for us on YouTube and here on Alice. See you soon!!!! xoxoxo LL

Best Commercial Ever

BEST COMMERCIAL EVER

Had the TV on without noticing it the other day until this phrase caught my ear: “….the most sophisticated piece of technology you’ve ever peed on.”

It turned out to be a Clear Blue Easy commercial and though I hope I never ever ever need their fine product (again), if I do, they have my business for life. Best Ad Ever. Here it is on YouTube:

Clear Blue Funny

After this you’d think that Clear Blue Easy couldn’t be any cooler, but they can: in 1997 no less a legend than David Lynch did an ad for the company:

Clear Blue David Lynch

Finally, this is one of the best SNL parodies ever,and less of a parody than some of the shmlatzier pregnancy test commercials would lead us to believe:

SNL EPT

My best tip for remembering birth control is simply to spend time in a supermarket, public library or anywhere else at least one set of kids is running one or both parents ragged. Nothing like a tantrum to remind you "Oh! Gotta buy condoms!"

I Want to Believe

I have to get it out of the way: if anyone knows any sex addicts who look like David Duchovny, please feel free to introduce me.

The “X-Files” actor checked himself into a rehab center for sex addiction yesterday and I’m pretty sure I’m not the only one who thinks that a straight man who looks like that and can’t get enough sex is the best support for the existence of God than anything any church folk have come up with in thousands of years of trying. And dammit…I want to believe.

Shallow? Yes, I admit it. And I understand how some people, and by extension their loved ones, can be very adversely affected by something like this. I do wonder, though, how easy sexual addiction is to define, especially when our definitions of sex and intimacy seem to be changing. For an excellent look at some of these issues, check out Rachel Kramer Bussell’s 2007 essay in The Huffington Post
Am I a Sex Addict? Are you? ).

Joking aside, I at Alice the Goon spent many happy hours watching of the X-Files (I really was more interested in the chupacabra and the ghosts than I was in Mulder’s face) and hope Mr. Duchovny finds whatever he’s looking for in rehab.

And I get how anyone could wonder if they’re addicted to sex. My own preoccupation with it has made me wonder whether I belong at a meeting as well, especially in 2003 when I was writing about Eric Benet’s (Halle Berry’s ex) sex addiction for In Touch Weekly and thought what a great place a sex addict meeting would be to meet men.

Certainly I’ve been unhealthily hooked on some people over the years – I think most of us have had human habits we found painful to break. But as for sex itself, I’ve decided I’m not an addict – I just dig it. Our attractions, our interests, our changes of heart are endlessly interesting and I just keep writing about it, like a Trekkie who knows he’ll never command the Enterprise but eventually does quit his job at Office Max and open a comics shop. Letting your passion shape you without controlling you – maybe it’s the difference between an addiction and a job.

(This image came from the David Duchovny Picture Gallery on geocities.com)

Before You Submit

I at Alice the Goon am excited to announce that I’ve hooked up with Before You Submit, a brilliantly innovative consulting company helping independent filmmakers make the best films – and get into the best festivals they possibly can. You put your heart, soul and life savings into a film, you’re totally committed to bringing your ideas to life – you don’t want to make something people are going to wind up skewering ala MST3K. Before You Submit is kind of like a transition phase between film school and real life, those critiques and suggestions you used to get from your professors and fellow students that would have helped so much before you coughed up all those festival entry fees.
I’ll be joining BYS as a writer and Sex in Cinema expert and hopefully soon we’ll even have some video blog footage to put up. Keep checking them out at:

The website: Before You Submit

And the blog: Before You Submit BlogSpot




See you there!

Review: Midnight Meat Train

Unless you live in a haunted, abandoned summer camp on Dead Teenager Lake, your home is too comfortable for viewing horror movies. The minute you go get your Pop Secret out of the microwave you’ve diluted all the tension some screenwriter worked for years to try to achieve. The best place to see horror is in a theater.

For that and several other reasons I was sad about Lionsgate’s decision to cripple the theatrical release of “Midnight Meat Train,” the best horror film I’ve seen awhile. Evidently trying to distance itself from a genre it’s helped in the past, Lionsgate (American Psycho, The Grudge, Hostel, Saw) gave ‘Meat Train’ a limited release. It was the equivalent of only wearing your good jewelry out into the backyard.

This beautifully shot movie by the lusciously disturbing Clive Barker has just the right amount of scary/bloody scenes to keep the viewer’s hunger in high gear. It’s gory. I’ve seen gorier, but it’s gory. It’s Clive Barker, for god’s sake. If Clive Barker had written “Steel Magnolias” Julia Roberts would have come back from hell in a rubber suit and bisecected the Hee Haw Junior League with a meat hook and a paint scraper and it would have all made sense. This is why we love Clive Barker.

‘Meat Train’ is about Leon (Bradley Cooper), a photographer who’s starving for his big break. He’s promised by a high-end gallery owner (Brooke Shields), that if he gets some really gritty images of city life he can be part of a group show. After capturing the image of a mysterious man in a suit during a violent incident in the subway, Leon starts prowling the tunnels at night, obsessed with his artistic mission and, increasingly, with the mysterious man. Where this leads to I can’t say lest I wreck the ending, but I’ll tell ya, this is the first time I’ve ever glad my town doesn’t have a subway.

Vinnie Jones in the role of the man in the suit was positively inspired casting – his chiseled, superhero bearing, robotic sense of purpose and the fog of silent solitude he travels in make him as irresistible as a second potato chip. He is the most magnetizing character in the film but on a different level, Leslie Bibb, as Leon’s girlfriend, nearly stole the show, not because she did such a great job – though she did fine – but because her resemblance to Jessica Lange is so uncanny it’s hard to concentrate when she’s on the screen.

‘Meat Train’ isn’t perfect – some of the sensible-girlfriend-lectures-reckless-boyfriend scenes ring a bit stale and there are occasional elements of comic book obviousness, but that’s part of the fun of horror. Bottom line: the stylish photography, attractive freakishness of Jones’ character and thoroughly creepy story mean that Barker and this movie deserved better than they e. There are plenty of movies that deliver more blood with less art. Hopefully next time Lionsgate has a creepy little jewel like this – and a far shinier one than Hostel or The Grudge – it won’t just wear it to let the dog out.

Kawaski let's the good times roll

If you collect anything, there comes a point when your friends will start contributing to your stash. My friends have collected dragonflies, butterflies, cowgirls, poodles, R2-D2, cows and cats and every time I see something germane to their various menageries (or corrals or space ships) I feel compelled to get it for them.
My most observant friends, I’m proud to say, have started sending me penis imagery, the coolest and most exotic coming from my friend Hilary – natch – who passes along this awesome treatise on “Kawasaki’s annual fertility festival” from the WordPress blog Tokyo Times.

Japan’s Fertility Festival

Those of us who have been celebrating the wang and its wonders in our own way for a long time have got to love this public acknolwedgement. If it’s possible to lobby to have this festival take place in one’s own town, like they do with the Olympics, then I’d like to put Orlando’s Eola Park up as a potential host to the scrotum poles, penis pops and whatever else this wonderfully elemental fete has to offer the public. We could have it during Gay Days! – and it will tarnish our family-friendly image once and for all. If there’s one thing that can overshadow the Mouse it’s The Acanconda.

Art & Porn: Interview with Taschen editor Dian Hanson

After reviewing The Big Penis Book back in June, I was really intereted in talking to writer/editor Dian Hanson who seemed to me to have one of the more intriguing careers I've ever read about. Thanks to alternet.org, who said "Yes!" to a profile on her I got to have a great conversation with her a few weeks ago. The story is below:


Art & Porn: An Interview with Dian Hanson


Hope you enjoy!

She's Not a Hot Mess - She's Just Hot

When I say things like “God, I love Pamela Anderson!” I feel like some old school feminist in the world just winced and held her hand to her forehead, like Harry Potter with his famous evil-sensing scar. I grew up with the bra-burning, hairy-legged, HERstory feminism of the 70’s and between that and the portrayals in mainstream culture, I grew up with a film of “beauty and brains don’t mix” that still clouds my perceptions, even though I know it’s just as much a prejudice as any other. It’s unfair and untrue, but there’s still a glitch in my bain which, when it sees statuesque blonde and does not think “scholar.” And if I’m that way I know a lot of other people have it a lot worse.

That’s why I love Pamela Anderson and moreover, I love her new show on E! “Pam: Girl on the Loose.” This 21st century siren ends her show with a broadcast from her bathtub, a sweet and sultry burlesque move for the digital age and she comes off throughout the show as smart, practical, creative, hard-working, unaffected and lovable. She bleaches her own hair. She blithely gets rid of Baywatch memorabilia in a charity estate sale in a fine example of material detachment. She has a nice, normal relationship with her mom. She’s not a hot mess – she’s just hot.

Maybe the fact that this is such a refreshing change says more about the nature of the current crop of stars than it does about Pamela, or bombshells for that matter. Our expectation have been systematically lowered by the Paris-Britney-Winehouse level BS that one is impressed if a young beauty is even sentient, much less vibrant and interesting, someone you’d want to have a vodka cran with.

Pamela Anderson comes off like that, a sister you’d want to hang with and learn a few things from, things like a) being a success doesn’t mean being a snob-and-a-half, b) you can use and enjoy your looks but they’re not everything and c) no freaking kidding – a Walt Whitman quote they used to was shown during her estate sale to benefit PETA: “This is what you shall do…love the earth and the sun and the animals. Despise riches….stand up for the stupid and crazy…and your very flesh shall be a great poem.”

A nice sentiment. And Pamela Anderson is, I think, one fabulous couplet.