JUMP The Fence

I've caught bits and pieces about the California girl who was kidnapped 18 years ago and was just found living in a tent in the backyard of her kidnapper's home. So many thoughts come to mind:

• First of all, THANNKKS for the luxurious living quarters fu**ker. I finally got to watch the first 2 TIVO'd episodes of "Hoarders" and these people had nothing on that poor little girl's backyard clutter-filled Shangri-La.

• Speaking of living in the backyard. Can someone please explain why the girl never JUMPED the god-damned fence? Seriously, she was kidnapped at the age of 11 - not 2. Clearly he tempted that poor little girl with a rare Beanie Baby (perhaps the "Pinchers" the Lobster?) and a box of Sweet Tarts. That  Casanova Kidnapper must have done a number on her for her to have stuck around in a pup tent with dirt floor for so long.

• This guy was a registered sex offender and as such the courts were required to regularly visit him. Because they looked hard. Hey cuites, you might want to check out Chester the Molester's makeshift Indian Princess campsite in the backyard. 

• Not only did he kidnap her, make her live in a shitstorm junkyard, but he impregnated her (twice)  AND forced her to give birth in the yard. For the love of god, if I'm going to be kidnapped and forced to live in a dirty tent, my kidnapper better at least throw a handful of Vicodin my way while I am birthing his children in a pathogen paradise. 

• She also had a job (not sure where but from the looks of her living quarters, I'm guessing the $1 Store?). At some point wouldn't you pull aside a co-worker and tell them in Pig Latin: "I've een-bay idnapped-kay. All-cay for elp-hay". 

In all seriousness this is no laughing matter. That poor girl left home a darling 11-year old and is returning a very messed up 29-year-old mother of 2. Meanwhile the police just dug up a bone on the kidnapper's property. May he be forced to birth 2 very large children (out of his penis hole) in the middle of a dirt field before being tossed down below into the fiery pits of Hell. 

-Val & Parker

You Stay Classy Walmart Shoppers

I've always hated Walmart - truth be told I've only been there a handful of times and despite their formidable deals, I'd rather pay $0.50 more for a can of Pork N' Beans at my local Safeway than to traverse the maze of hell that is Wal Mart in order to find those bargain beans. (The same goes for the whole "Costco Gas" argument).

But I might reconsider my Walmart Boycott after coming across this amazing new website. Who'd of thunk that a photo gallery of Walmart shoppers in action could provide so many  minutes of entertainment. Seriously, whenever I'm feeling lonely or those dreaded low-self-esteem issues start to shine through, I can always visit People of Walmart. Sorry Parker, I think I've found my new best friend. (And she's doing the splits in the Walmart entrance in a pair of cozy sweats and a baby blue trucker hat!)

-Val

Death Watch 2009 Continues....

Several years ago when my beloved Anna Nicole died, I immediately emailed Parker about this great loss. Since then, we have developed a kind of a sick "Death Watch" competition - to see who can scoop the other first when a celebrity passes on to heaven (or in most cases, hell). 

Our "Death Notice" emails used to be long and detailed, looking something like this:

I just saw on PerezHilton that Heath Ledger found dead surrounded by drugs. OMG!

But with the passing of time and the death of more and more celebrities our emails turned to shorter texts which read simply:

Farrah Dead. 

2 days ago, I was literally awoken at 5 am with the jingle sound of an incoming text: "Ted Kennedy died. Got ya!'"  I was vindicated later that night when I texted Parker back with the grim words "Dominick Dunne dead! Scooped you." (Parker had only vaguely heard of Dominick Dunne and was less than impressed). 

Just a few hours ago, Parker send me the following earth shattering news: DJ AM Dead - SCOOP! (OK, I'll give her this "scoop" but in all fairness, both of my laptops were in the shop and I had no access to the world wide web of gossip that I check 10 times daily). Scoop or no scoop, I'd just like to write an open letter to the dead DJ AM:

Dear DJ:

I don't mean to sound insensitive but last time I checked, the life of a Hollywood "DJ" wasn't exactly what I would call "stressful".  I wish someone would pay me millions of dollars per year to drink Red Bull, and spin Lady GaGa records at Villa Nightclub 4 days per week. Didn't you just barely survive a deadly plane crash less than a year ago (and a few months later on the cover of People Magazine thanking your lucky stars and praising life?) I've just about had enough of you and your cohorts (Michael Jackson, Heath Ledger et. all) offing yourselves with crack pipes and vials of pills. Last time I checked, most of you dead Hollywood youngsters had a pretty "sweet" life. It's not like you are being laid off from your factory job with 4 kids at home and a house in foreclosure. Now that you are gone - you will be rewarded with a People/US/Life & Style cover story with sad testimonies about what a great guy you were from all of your hard-partying Hollywood pals: "No one could spin vinyl like DJ Am. He would dub a Bee Gees groove over a P Diddy rap and it was pure genius!" 

Newsflash: DJ AM was no genius. He was a lucky bastard with a turntable and a crackpipe. RIP Dumbass.

Afterword: In retrospect my assessment of the death of DJ AM seems rather harsh and a bit creul. Rumor is he suffered from depression (I've been there and it's no fun). But don't you just want to yell "C'mon people!" every time a new young hollywood type dies of drugs? 

Everybody Cut Loose

When the movie "Footloose" came out in 1984, I was 14 and it might as well have been "Citizen Kane"; I thought it was "that good". 25 years later, on a lonely Saturday night I watched it again with my children and I realized, "Jesus, this movie is a pile of crap."

I first saw "Footloose" as a freshman in high school and I'm not kidding - when it was over, my girlfriend and I literally danced (footloose style) the entire mile home from the mall. Needless to say, when I saw it was playing on Encore, I forced my children to watch this "classic"film and made sure to tell them that I danced a mile through my neighborhood at 11 pm at night after seeing this life-changing movie. Seeing it the second-time-around was not quite as inspiring. Here's why:

• In real life, had Kevin Bacon (aka "Ren") shown up to a Jesus-loving, hick farm town with his crazy dance moves, he would have gotten his high-waist jeans, skinny-tie wearing, spiked early-onset-male-pattern-baldness' ass kicked.

• Any teenager who relieves stress ( i.e. the nightmarish stress of living in a "dance free" town) by dancing atop his yellow VW bug in a grain mill might want to see a therapist.

• Later in the movie Ariel's (played by the way-too-skinny Lori Singer) ex-boyfriend confronts her about her secret love for Ren and proceeds to beat the living daylights out of her under the High School bleachers. This scene begs the question, 'Shouldn't the town be more concerned with the shit-kickin, plaid-wearing, middle American teenage 'Ike Turner' then a guy dancing in a field to a really crappy Kenny Loggin's song?' (Note: although Lori Singer's character had a black eye and a cut lip, no one in the town even batted an eye. Meanwhile Kevin Bacon got a brick through the window with the words "Burn in Hell" for doing cartwheels in a field.)

• Lastly, during the final scene of the movie (where Kevin Bacon victoriously gets to throw his "Prom in a Grain Elevator"), I was utterly amazed at the amount of glitter that fell down upon the dancing sinners. Glitter fell from the ceiling for an astonishing 6 minutes - or, to put it in contrast, the freaking glitter fell during the entire extended version of Kenny Loggin's hit song "Footloose." Did they have "continuous glitter machines" in 1984? After the first few minutes I came to the conclusion that the glitter had to be the result of state-of-the-art computer graphics. Had the glitter been real, those dancing teens would have died choking to death while dancing in a virtual tomb of glitter.

I recently heard that they are doing a remake of Footloose. Really Hollywood? While I'm sure the remake will suck just as much as the original, I can only hope that this time around they take it easy on the glitter.

I leave you with this poignant and thoughtful Biblical quote from the movie - dramatically delivered by Kevin Bacon as he goes up against not only the town council but the town's pastor in an effort to sway their opinions about dancing:

"Ecclesiastes assures us... that there is a time for every purpose under heaven. A time to laugh... and a time to weep. A time to mourn... and there is a time to dance."

That's some deep sh*t.

-val

Really Juan Stamosa? Don't Care, Don't Care

When the Mexican version of John Stamos (as Val nicknamed him) picked me up in Tucson for my girls weekend, he basically looked right thru the drunken-cougar-to-be in me and told me should that should I or any of my cougar entourage get a DUI in Oro Valley, AZ, it's s minimum of 10 days in the slammer. My mouth hung open in "Home Alone" style as I pictured me calling Dw and my already pissed off boss to tell them that by day 7 of my sentence I was head of laundry, my new girlfriend shaved my eyebrows and c ya soon mo-fo's. Needless to say, for the remainder of the weekend Juan Stamosa was our driver. He took much cougar abuse but was tipped well for putting up with our drunken debauchery

When Luiz (aka Juan Stamosa) picked me up at 6:15 am on Sun for my trip back to Dallas I was so hungover my hair hurt and I wanted badly to curl up in the fetal position in the back seat of his Bob Hope cream colored Towncar. He spoke the entire time despite me 'fake emailing' in the hope he would shut the f- up. He was exceedingly freshly scrubbed and reeked of Axe Body Spray. I have to admit I was somewhat flattered but kept thinking, "Really Juan? Have tips in 2009 gotten that scarce?"

Once I bid Juan and his haze of Axe adieu, I caught my flight and by that time was a dead ringer for Robert Smith of The Cure. One more day in Tucson I would be Heath Ledger in Batman - minus the smeared red lipstick in both cases, more of a smeared Burt's beeswax - but otherwise I looked the same. Ironically, Val emailed me later from her flight saying she had the "Britney Spears during her pink wig, driving-to-random-gas stations look."

For some reason flying on Southwest puts me at ease much more so than flying any other airline. However once home watching the news, I tried to envision myself in all my Joker hungover glory had I been on the recent Southwest flight where a very large black man exposed himself. I may not have all my facts right but Long Duck Dong apparently whipped it out to the woman next to him then proceeded to get naked in bathroom, head on back to his seat and punch the woman in her face. Really, WTF? Needless to say the pilots turned the plane around and I'm guessing the rest of day was probably not so great for Long Duck (or the passengers).
While this "snake on a plane" scenario would be quite entertaining, I'm sure it would have greatly disrupted my drooling into my travel pillow.

The girls weekend in Arizona was a great success and Val made me laugh so hard many times I thought my Botox would leak. A week later Val and I emailed a picture to each other at almost the exact time: Her photo of a mustard stain on her white pants at work and mine a picture of a giant red drip on the breast of my white Lacoste polo after biting into a very ripe strawberry at work. I knew then we were BFF's forever and possibly even separated at birth.

-Parker