Crazy, as in Patsy Cline-"Crazy"

I don't know what seems crazier, her metalic headband or the bull horns, or the rifle through her beehive.

What do you think?

Oh, it doesn't matter, with a voice like hers she can sing with a bucket on her head and look anything, but crazy.  Wish I could say the same thing.

And now for something completely different: Fabulous shoes.

God, I love shoes, but not just any shoes, THESE shoes.

Seriously, I am 100 percent, crazy in love with them, and I'm not quite sure why, but I am.

This was my week to casually glance through a Garnet Hill catalogue and fall head over heels in love with these Born brand dress shoes with slouchy ankle socks.

Must. Have. Them. Now.

"I Can't Believe I'm Still Single": Political Commentary Becomes Ratings Bonanza!

"Girls Just Need to Relax 

-- or -- 

World Leaders and Strap-ons"

This episode of I Can't Believe I'm Still Single, Episode 3, Season 3, opens with clip from film My Life's in Turnaround.


(Click here to read last week's episode recap of Episode 2, Season 3)


Super ugly, bloated, dopey close up of Eric drooling over a "yuppie" blond lawyer.  


Teeth crooked and dingy grey.  (I have a flashback to my high school days when I was in school with him after seeing this clip.   My God, he's invested in a lot of plastic surgery since then.)


I marvel that this man stays employed.


Shall I continue?


We sit through those annoying opening credits with that obnoxious music.


Next, close up.  Eric just as he is today.   Liposuctioned, plastic surgery,   [Note:  My sources tell me there has been zero plastic surgery or lipo.  So, to quote Vampire Weekend "I Stand Corrected."]   ... Older.  Still talking.  Still eating gross food.  Still 100 percent just "Me, me, me..."


Eric continues to try to poach chicks names off of Donny's Facebook page while  Donny (Donal Ward) patiently explains to Eric why Eric may have a problem finding true love at this time, especially from a woman Donny could suggest for him.


Donny suggests Eric may have something of an addictive issue about dating...Eric discounts this.


While in Donny's apartment they spend a great deal of time verbally rambling about how dating is so challenging for Eric.  Meanwhile, Ebner wanders about, generally upstaging Eric by picking up and reading take-out menus in the background.  In the foreground a bloated Schaeffer continues to blather on, waving a banana in the air while whining about women.  What's not to love?


Then we flash over to Eric's apartment.  Eric is tossing about a football while waiting for the woman who is going to give him "a massage" to arrive at his door.


Mark Ebner and Em Sinick are sitting on his sofa "waiting" with Eric.  The dialogue/set up becomes decidedly scripted.  It has suddenly become a set-up.


Mark questions Eric about his "massage."  Mark injects a some lively vocal energy into the scene just trying to get Eric to call this what it really is, a date with a call girl, but Eric keeps calling it "therapeutic massage."  Mark is focused and serious while Eric minces about regurgitating pearls of wisdom about the sex industry.


Em becomes beige.


Eric's masseuse arrives.  They go "inside."


Then we are privileged to watch a really long and boring interview with his "masseuse" about sex and life.  Only thing is, sex and life are interesting, but she and Eric are not.


Note:  Jenna (the call girl, I mean massage therapist) sits for a long, long time in a very uncomfortable position on the bed with her shirt off and a strap-on pointed right at Eric.


She seems frozen in one position and keeps laughing nervously while the camera rolls.  Her strap-on jiggles ridiculously every time she uses verbal emphasis.  


I don't know what it was about this that began to bother me so much, but I found watching her position on the bed excruciating to sit through because I felt she was so intensely uncomfortable in the scene.


I just felt like she desperately needed to sit up straighter, or move differently.  Her legs looked cramped under her that she just seemed very tense and uncomfortable. 


During her dialogue when she laughed she pulled out of frame, as well, also adding to this feeling of discomfort with the entire situation.


This lengthy, shallow scene takes on the serious tone of a "Front Line" episode, while the dialogue never becomes any more profound than a local city council meeting on cable access gone very, very awry.


The show cuts in and out of an interview with Ebner about Eric's very uninteresting thoughts on whether or not he could find love with a call girl.   Ebner remains focused and serious while Schaeffer squirms, lip-licks, blinks and continues to share his many thoughts on this extremely un-fascinating subject with all the relentless charm of a leaky toilet.


He winds up this lovely banter and scene by shaking her hand while telling her, "You are precious.  You're a servant to all good things in the world.


And if more world leaders would just accept that they want to get f'd in the ass, then we would all just get along better."


Quick!  Text this to Madeleine Albright!  









--  Roll credits, folks!  


Thus endeth the third episode of Season Three of "I Can't Believe I'm Still Single."




For more further info about this blogger's feelings re: following Eric Schaeffer's work so closely, feel free to read my comments below:

"Still Single" Season 3, Episode 2: Television Ambien

I Can't I'm Believe Still Single, Season 3, Episode 2.

Or:  How To Produce a Movie So Crappy Everyone Falls Into a Coma First.

(For the record:  It's "My Life's In Turnaround 2")

Seriously, what the fuck was that limp mess?  A comedy?  A documentary on film-making?  Or a cable access show shot in some creepy dude's apartment?

Really?  That was the show?  Did I accidentally take an ambien before watching it?



The beginning wasn't so bad.  The serious dialogue with Mark Ebner as an investigative reporter and Donal Ward appeared to be leading somewhere important.  I thought we might actually be setting the stage for something interesting, thematically.  Eventually.  It had to, right?

But, then Eric gets in the car with his bag of God-only-knows what junk food and starts riffing on picking up chicks at his bank, and then the episode just falls to crap.

The show also includes some humiliating, and really boring, audition session footage -- including an actress who has nice skin and good cleavage who auditions for their project.

However, Eric stops her and explains there's another project.  It involves casting someone to play his real-life girl friend.  He tells her she'll be playing Mela, who is disabled.  I don't think he ever  asked her if she'll do the part.  And, typically, she never questions much and just blindly accepts that she's playing it.  (At least, that's how it seems on camera.)

Then the show switches to Eric's apartment where his so-called real-life girl friend, the tall, physically-challenged Mela, arrives with Eric's paper bag over her head (*see last week's recap for this).  It's awkward and humiliating.

Mela limps around the apartment and Eric informs her that a gorgeous blonde actress will be playing her and there may be kissing involved.  Mela isn't crazy about the kissing part.  (Well, no tongue.)

Blonde actress arrives.  Discloses astrological sign, she's a Gemini sun, Pisces moon.  Mela confesses she's a Capricorn on Aquarius cusp.

(For for further astrological breakdown of the show, here's how that rolls:  
Eric, Aquarius. Em, Cancer. Mark Ebner, Virgo.  Stas, Gemini.  Donny, Leo.  Blog author, Aquarius sun, Leo moon.  For further explanation about this, consult Eric's mother.)

They talk a lot about kissing.  Then there's copious footage of Eric Schaeffer licking those chapped lips while ogling two chicks kiss through a wrinkled paper bag.

Note: This is the most boring scene of two chicks kissing ever put on film.  It's like watching a documentary on the history of bricklaying.

Oh, wait!  Did Eric just say he wants the blonde to piss in his mouth because Mela does?   Did I hear that?  And the actress should avoid coffee because it makes her urine smell bad?  He also tells the blonde chick not to drink or smoke any weed because he doesn't put "anything unhealthy in his body."   (Other than rancid Nemo Bars and shopworn dildos.)

Oh, and the blonde has to troll for chicks for Eric?  Because that's what his physically challenged girlfriend does for him?

But, then Eric has the self-described "wonky eyed gimp" teach the actress to walk like her and, being the charmer he is, Eric thinks it's comic to mix up Multiple Sclerosis with Cerebral Palsy.  I hope someone sends hate mail.

Then the pretty blonde actress makes out with the lip-licking Schaeffer upon exiting and limping out the elevator -- and then the show is done.

How was that a show?

Next time I'd even welcome a car chase from Starsky and Hutch.

I Can't Believe I'm Still Watching "I Can't Believe I'm Still Single" Season 3

I CAN'T BELIEVE I'M STILL SINGLE, SEASON THREE --

SHOW NUMBER ONE:




Meet Eric Schaeffer:


He has a "Semi auto-biographical" show about him not finding true love or anything resembling it for many a season on Showtime.  God only knows why.


Here's an older promo for his former seasons.  I can't find one new to put here.  Guess there's no money for promotion at the network this year.

Meet some of his loyal entourage (Who happen to really be the main reasons I now watch this.)

Meet Mark Ebner 

Meet Mark Ebner, a feisty die-hard investigative journalist, and self-described "New York Times Best Selling Author," who also was Schaeffer's college pal way back when.  Schaeffer wisely added Mark to the show last season, presumably, to have a "straight man" to play off.  


What Schaeffer may not have expected was that the onscreen presence of Ebner, who is so intuitively comfortable tooting his own horn, only seems to heighten how uncomfortable, even narcissistic, Schaeffer himself comes across.  Actually, maybe this is deliberate, I don't know.



(If you really want to know more about Mark Ebner here are a couple of quick links.  Fishbowl  LA, and his own website, Hollywood Interrupted.)


Now meet Em Sinick:  Eric Schaeffer's producer for all seasons of "I Can't Believe I'm Still Single."

(Em looking happy.  Must've found out she's working on another primetime cable show)


Em Sinick is now, and has always been, Eric Schaeffer's much-wiser self both on screen and off, apparently.


Here she is below with another of Schaeffer's entourage, Stas Tagios, the series cinematographer.

Em Sinick (Producer, Field Producer) I Can't Believe I'm Still Single

and Stas Tagios (Series Cinematographer)

Em Sinick is amazing.  


If I were producing something -- I'd hire her run things in a New York minute:  She's hard-working, patient, savvy and even-keeled.  She's the one in the background who runs it all.  


So, meet Em; the smart, plucky, long-suffering partner in Eric's crimes against himself and pretty much all women.  But, she's way too strong and funny and much wiser than Schaeffer seems to realize.  And she's a pretty great blogger, too.


The World According to Em.


Now meet Stas Tagios, the series cinematographer.

Stas has been a pretty wonderful documentary-style cinematographer, who, stays beige and aware while capturing wonderful, unexpectedly funny and touching moments many other filmmakers would never have thought to capture.  Has a keen eye for when to keep the camera rolling.  Also, quite interestingly, we learn in Season Three, Stas managed to steal and marry one of Eric Schaeffer's dating rejects, Wendy Ho -- Huh??

Okay, this happens to be the first show and I wanted to like it.  Really, I did.


Well, I wanted to hate and love it.  


But I have to say, it just felt too scripted, which I really never noticed so much, until this show.


I think the funny part was discovering who the best actors were: Em and Ebner, with Em taking the artistic lead for deadpan delivery, and Ebner for his quick comebacks. But the moment they "out" Eric from his the sweat closet at his colonic lab in Palm Desert we see where the show is headed.  


That faux-dopey look on Eric's face it just blew it and I suddenly saw how faux-"improv" this really was.  Quite a disappointment given that Ebner and Sinick were doing so well with their plot so far, coming off far more real than Mr. Actor/Writer/Director/Producer.


But once Schaeffer graced the screen it was such an obvious set-up this first show was.  It really all fell apart with his rambling on about how fat and depressed he was, as his motley crew tries tries to entice him into coming back into the light, Carole Ann, and do us all a Season Three, after all!


Come on.  


Then Eric hems and haws...and poses on his colonics bed and fishes for compliments, and on and on until it really ruined what could have been a funny beginning.  After all, Em and Mark had the right energy going, I totally bought that this was going to be another "Sherman's March..." moment.


Then, Eric opened his mouth and....not so "Sherman's March" Blech!


But, best lines so far, scripted or not:


Ebner:  "Oh, wait so your colonicist is going to start judging you now?"


Schaeffer:  "...really...really so like we're just making movie shit -- are you sleeping?"

Ebner (waking up): "I'm a boom operator."

Other slightly memorable moments:


Phone rings:
Eric: "Who's calling me?"
Ebner: "Where's 714?..."


(My husband looks at me.  I look at my husband. "Don't look at me!" I say.)


Eric: "714 is like in the valley or something?"  


(For any mystified blog readers: 714 is an area code for coastal, north Orange County, CA just below Long Beach, Ca.  In other words, the first three numbers to my own phone.)


Eric: "It's not frat boy shit anymore it's an adult season."
Ebner: "You mean, adult entertainment."


Eric: "Literally, if you say one more stupid thing I'm going to send you back,
right away, right, 'cause it's not funny anymore..."


(No, Eric, it's not.)

Intro of Donny Ward:  (See photo above.)


Meet Donal Lardner Ward:

Donny's apparently from My  Life's In Turn Around, which included scenes shot with a John Deere cap with hair sewn into it.


(Oh, and, Donny?  Guess what, Dude?  You are on a reality TV show, sucka! )

Now he apparently has an HBO show recently called How To Make It In America and has worked in the past with Schaeffer on projects. Now he's in Season 3.

At first in this show he seemed genuinely surprised, and aloof, but I'm not quite buying it wasn't a set up.  The show gets really kind of dead in those scenes.  I'd have cut them.  I wanted to nod off holding the boom.

As for swimming, Donny?  Okay, let's see your man boobs, pal.  Bring them on, after Ebner smokes you in the pool!

Ebner:  "I beat you (Eric) in swimming."
Schaeffer:  (Warning Donny) "He shellacked me."


"Ass sweat?"
(I don't get ass sweat.  No, I mean, I really don't get ass sweat.)


And then there was the gratuitous show of dominatrix crop markings.  And his silly man boobs.  And just -- come on, Eric!  Don't you even see what worked and what didn't in past seasons??!

Schaeffer needs to really be open to what's worked in past seasons and stick to that.  It starting to get too contrived and gimmicky.

Em, though, you still rock the show with your deadpan style.  Your neutrality.  Your distance.
And you and your down-to-earth, witty sidekick, Ebner, really do add a great deal much needed dimension to the show.


Oddest scene in Season 3, Show No. 1:


MELA limps into apartment?????


MELA?!   She was one of the most graceful, lovely past women he ever pretended to have first date with!!! Do NOT make fun of the Mela!


No!  No, no, no.  Mela!!!  What are you doing?  Please just don't be there.  Why are you there?   And then you let him fondle your breasts. Over and over. AND YOU LET ERIC PUT A BAG OVER YOUR HEAD?!?!?!


YOU LET HIM HUMILIATE YOU LIKE THAT?  A physically challenged actress and you let him make fun of you like that?  Oh, Mela!  I just don't get it.  I really don't.  It's not funny to see you put yourself into that situation. I have only too much respect for you to laugh at this.  And the gross things he said to you about the bag/mask.  Not you!  Not funny on you.


You seem so sweet and beautiful and there's just no way around the obvious degrading act of that.


Oh, God!  --- I just want to kick Schaeffer's ass so much for this!


(And them's fightin' words, trust me.)

Pogomix's newest Disney inspired feel good moment...

Pogomix's newest offering brought a smile to my girls and I tonight as we all sniffled with our new November colds...



Pogomix.net calls this track "Wishery," comprising vocal syllables, musical chords and sound effects recorded from the 1937 Disney classic Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs.   And below is an Alice inspired confection.


"there is a long way to love but i'm having trouble"





The music video was composed using chords and vocal samples recorded from the Disney film 'Alice In Wonderland'.
http://www.twitter.com/pogomix
http://www.pogomix.net/

Holy Moses! Tonight's the premiere of "I Can't Believe I'm Still Single, Season 3!"

Yes, folks, this is it.  The Premiere of Season Three!!!

The big night I have been waiting for...for...a while.

Yes, tonight is Eric Schaeffer's next installment of his big-ass car crash of ego-driven self-blather regarding his endless quest to find someone to love.

And once again we get to see more about why that's so not a surprise.

Looking forward to it!


I Can't Believe I'm Still Single from CouryC on Vimeo.

My Quick 'N Handy Election Day Progressive Voter Guide: For Orange County, California

Okay, folks.

Tea Party is out and voting today.  The lines are perky, and long and they all have wee chips on their shoulders...Trust me.  Just saw them all.

So, unless you are a rabid tea-bagger, and you actually give a crap about this election, then I suggest you find a way to get in line and do some voting, because the lines were long with people wearing a lot of "red, white and blue!" (-- blech!)

Here's my quick and easy two cents on how/why I voted in today's election (Take it for what it's worth.)

Voted Democrat straight down the line -- all the main ones.  (Brown, Newsom, Bowen, Chiang, Lockyer, Harris, Jones, Heising, Boxer,
Skipped the Justice stuff (Who cares?  Why bother?)
Schools -- Your call.  Your District.  (My kids go in a different district, so I'm out of the loop, there, frankly.)
Mayor:  Skipped.  I'm done.  They're all scary.  Winner takes the spoils.
City of Westminster:  PENNY LOOMER -- Only Democrat there.
PROPS:

19 -- YES.  Why not?  It beats alcoholism and it's a great way to raise needed funds.
20 -- Yes.  Makes it more fair to redistrict later for future voting, perhaps?
21 -- Yes.  I like Parks and Recreation.  And dolphins and raccoons.
22 -- No, mostly because other progressives said are against this.  I still don't really get this one.
23  -- No.  Oil Companies do not deserve our support.  THIS WOULD ALLOW BRIT PETROLEUM  TO HAPPEN HERE, TOO.  HORRIBLE IDEA.  NO, NO, NO.  LOWERS SAFETY LAWS FOR OIL COMPANIES AND DRILLING.  BAD IDEA.  VERY BAD.  Duh.  How dumb would this be now?
24 -- Yes. Would repeal a law that temporarily lowered taxes on businesses, but if it passes some business taxes could go back up.  (I admit, originally, I got this backwards.  But, fixed now)

 25. -- Yes.  May make it much easier to create a budget.

26.  -- No, because it may make it much harder then to pass environmental laws.  Bad idea.
27.  No.  May make it easier for the state legislature to re-elect their own.


And this is my own two cents on how to vote quick and easy on a day when clearly all the tea baggers are out in full force.


LINK TO COURAGE CAMPAIGN (AKA MORE AUTHORITATIVE) PROGRESSIVE CALIFORNIA VOTING GUIDE SITE

So, just go vote, guys.


Good luck!

Why November reminds me of Pina Bausch

I first saw Pina Bausch at The Brooklyn Academy of Music in the late fall of 1985.  Then, again in 1986.  I had no idea who she was when I was first invited to go see her work, and to be honest, had no idea what I was in store for when the lights went up.

It was only after seeing Pina Bausch's Tanztheater Wuppertal perform that fall, when I finally discovered that a medium as elusive as "Dance" can provide work that is both exquisitely beautiful, heartbreaking and crashingly slapstick all at the same time.

Director and choreographer Pina Bausch (July 27, 1940 - June 30, 2009) "Cafe Muller" (1978, TV version 1985) Cast: Pina Bausch, Malou Airaudo, Domenique Mercy, Jan Minarik, Nazareth Panadero, Jean Laurent Sasportes. Musiс by Henry Purcell / "The Fairy Queen" and "Dido and Aeneas"

When I looked at the calendar change today, to November, I suddenly, inexplicably, had a flashback to this period in New York City of November in 1986.

For some reason I am reminded of that brief time of shaking things up and largess and days when artists seem to reflect so much promise.

Odd, really, this is on my mind now, because the world today is nothing like things were then.  Back then we wore red lipstick and shoulder pads.  Back then even the night air seemed to glitter.  Back then we thought Thatcher and Reagan was the worst it could get.

November back then was a time of wild discovery in mid-1980's in New York City, for which I am immensely grateful to have experienced:  A time of bold risk-taking and intense theatricality.  The cockiness in those city streets seems unrivaled to this day.  The artistic collaborations I witnessed then colors the way I view all art, to this day.  No, actually it colors my entire life.

Those epic, jewel-toned memories of ground-breaking performances hover at the very surface of my memory, these days.  Until recently, I could not fathom how my past could prepare me for, or be any use for the life I am living here, today, in suburban Orange County.  When my job title now is mostly: "Mom."  But, actually, I do get it now.

Now, I know that all I absorbed then has inextricably become a part of the framework from which I now measure all creativity.

Now, I even teach my children to witness their five senses, and take the time to discover which mediums of expression best work for them.  To find a way to celebrate seizing the day in whatever manner best suits them.

And if they choose to express themselves I want them to know that creating something meaningful  needs to be universal, but also must remain deeply personal to them.   This sounds easy, but it isn't.

Nothing can be beautiful unless it is personal.   There are many fine artists who remind us of this, but in the world of dance, none more so than Pina Bausch with her wild vision.

Bausch's work completely turned upside down the way I thought about dance.

Movement.  The use of negative space in relation to musicality.  The use of all movement as "dance."  What is choreography?  What movement is considered dance?  It changed the way I think about theatricality and performance space.  Of storytelling.  To this day I find her work endlessly fascinating, shocking, hilarious and unforgettably, beautiful.  Her work, and her company's work will remain in my heart and haunt me forever.

I am saddened to see that Pina Bausch no longer alive.  Somehow this escaped my notice until today when I saw this piece of hers from the '80's.

Here's the link to the Pina Bausch Tanztheater Wuppertal.

Here's a link to where to buy posters of Pina Bausch's company and work.  I borrowed these images from her site, so if you like them, you can buy them at the link above.