All I Want for Christmas

Are these. They are totally hot (hence the name "Wonder Sauna Hot Pants)and surely will melt away my muffin top and flabby thighs. I would wear them everywhere!

PS: This picture came from break.com

Former Child Star (sort of)

It's ironic that growing up I always wanted to be an actress - yet was painfully shy and never got my 'big chance'. Meanwhile two of my best friends both spent their youth auditioning for movies and television. Parker grew up in California where she made appearances in local commercials and played a schoolgirl being eaten alive by angry bees in the 70's disaster flick Swarm (click here to read her account). Meanwhile in Arizona, my elementary school best friend Viv would often miss school in order to film scenes for "Little House on the Prairie" and at the age of 7 landed the part of 'Girl in the Road' in the Steve McQueen western "Tom Horn". (Ironically both "The Swarm" and "Tom Horn" had cameos by Slim Pickens. Total 6th degree of Slim Pickens). When Viv landed this part, I was beyond jealous - sure that she would be living in the limelight attending parties with Michael Jackson and Sean Cassidy while I suffered through 2nd grade math.

Only recently I discovered my husband Tom also had his 15 minutes (ok seconds) of fame in yet another flick. The early 80's was not especially a good time for movies (think "Xanadu" and "Staying Alive") but Tom saved his acting ability for perhaps the worst movie of all time: "Kidco". The plot in a nutshell is this (taken directly from IMDB.com):  Kids who live on a horse ranch decide to sell the excess manure as fertilizer, but their new company soon comes under fire from the state tax board.  Yes, it's true the craptacular movie known as "Kidco" actually had a plot that revolved around .... crap. 

Last week, while rifling through the channels I couldn't believe my eyes. The HBO Family channel was airing "Kidco" (and not just once, but several times throughout the month!) I grabbed my DVR controller faster than Lindsay Lohan grabbing a vodka and Red Bull at an open bar and recorded the next showing. A few days later I rounded up the kids and  Tom for the big surprise: a screening of "Kidco". The lead in the movie was played by Scott Schwartz, who was riding high off his success in "The Toy" with Richard Pryor and playing a bully in "A Christmas Story." Sadly, for Scott, "Kidco" was the beginning of the end - he later went on to star in such classic pornos as "New Wave Hookers" and "Dirty Bob's Xcellent Adventure 35". (Once again thank you IMDB.com). 

Tom has approximately 7 scenes and although he never mutters a word, his non-verbal acting skills were nothing short of spectacular. In  the opening scene he plays a kid involved in an underground 7th grade gambling/bingo ring. As the camera pans by his face I  immediately paused it while my kids laughed at their dad - aged 13, with a bowl cut, trying to look like a bingo-playing thug. Later Tom has a reaction scene which called for him to look 'relieved'. Cut to Tom sighing and quietly mumbling the words "Phew". It was Oscar worthy. Tom also has a few scenes in the courtroom and later at the end of the movie is shown prominently clapping with excitement as the manure-selling hero (Scott Schwartz) gives a speech to thousands of cheering adolescents.  

Kidco was the end of Tom's acting career. But, luckily for me I have it forever on my DVR queue, so he can relive his brush with stardom any time he wants. In retrospect it's probably a good thing he got out of the acting game when he did. I could never marry someone who had filmed a porno.

-Val

I am McGruber

By now you've seen/heard all the hoopla about Sarah Palin being on Saturday Night Live this weekend. It was great - especially when  Amy Poehler did the Sarah Palin rap. Amy Poheler is sooo pregnant I thought for sure her water would break mid rap. 

I've been a fan of SNL since it first aired back in 1975. No matter that I was six years old and didn't understand half the humor, I've stuck with it through thick and thin (except during the mid-80's thru early 90's when I actually had a social life). But, of all the skits shown last Saturday night, I'd have to say my favorite is the MacGruber skit (a take off of the Richard Dean Anderson 80's vehicle "MacGyver"). I love his reaction when he checks his stocks, which was almost a mirror image of me checking my 401k on the Internet every day last week. When MacGruber turns to armed robbery and heroin thanks to the economic crisis, I could relate:

-val

Puff N Stuff (Junior) High

This weekend I was driving  my son and his best friend Nick around when Nick blurted out that "a ton of kids at school smoke pot." Wait. What? "Are you talking about the 8th graders or the 7th graders," I asked. "Oh, the 7th graders" Nick replied. "The 8th graders are all into shrooms." 

OK, Holy shit. I didn't get my first exposure to the Mary J. until I was at least a sophomore in High School. And shrooms? I immediately imagined a school full of 8th graders stumbling along like Zombies and reaching out and grabbing invisible ice cream cones from the sky as they are shrooming their pubescent brains out. 

Nick, by the way is my son's zany, outspoken best friend. He is the complete opposite of my son Daniel, who is quiet and ultra mellow (but not from smoking pot).  If you've ever seen that amazing 80's sit-com "Silver Spoons", Nick is the obnoxious Jason Bateman to Daniel's even-keeled Ricky Schroeder. The boys went on to promise that they aren't part of the "stoner crowd". I know this to be true (for now) considering I pick up my son every day and he comes home and immediately retreats to his room to play video games and electric guitar until homework time. He never has any spare cash and his weekend social life mostly consists of  watching "The Soup" with his mom on Friday Nights. Even so, how much longer before some stoner kid named  Randy offers my sweet innocent son a "J" after school. What will he do next year when his fellow 8th graders decide to shroom on their field trip to Disneyland? Will he make the right decision and, in the words of Nancy Reagan, (who I never listened to growing up) "Just Say No"? Damn those OC stoner kids! Sometimes parenting sucks. Rest assured I will be watching him like a hawk for the next 5 years!

An Open Letter to Madonna

Dear Madonna:

What happened? I used to worship you in 1983 back when you were a free spirit with dark roots and ripped fishnets. I even wore rags in my hair and those low lace-up black boots that you made so popular.  "Borderline" was my teenage angst theme song and I had fantasies of running away to New York where we would become best friends and live in your cool Manhattan loft and shop at Vintage stores together wearing black leggings and Acid washed denim jackets with our bed-head hair.

Then came the 90s and you changed for the worse. You developed that ridiculous English Accent and began wearing cone-bras and leather. Somewhere along the line you just turned into condescending, snarky, snob with an attitude and a bug up your arse. Whenever I see you on the telly (that's English for television) it's like there is a subliminal "BITCH" message flashing before my eyes. Your soon to be ex-husband always looked like he was going for a  colonospcy when you were together. It is clear he was miserable.

FYI - you are a singer, not a philosopher, so lighten up. It wouldn't kill you to stop rolling your eyes at everyone and crack a smile once in a while. Put down that yoga mat and macrobiotic shake and chill the f- out with a beer once and a while. Maybe even put on a lace top and rubber bracelet for old times sake.

Yours Truly, -Val