Ugly Ugly Ugly! The Clothes of the 90s

What I'm Listening To: Creeps Me Out by IMA Robot

Uh, I just want to start out by apologizing for not writing last week. It was my sister's wedding on Sat March 21, and so in honor of my sister's happy nuptials as well as a mea culpa for not writing, I've posted a picture of my sister in a classic 90's outfit. BTW, this was in front of my dorm room door at UW Madison. Gotta love that Charlatans poster! Whoohooo!

So last night I'm sitting having pizza with some friends after the free spa experience we had at some basement in Brookfield. Yeah, check it out at www.prettycity.com if you'd like. And like any group of women, we got to talking about clothes, and out comes this long drawn-out story about how that one time back in the day at Forever 21, Charlotte Russe, Deb and some other teen-time store and they got a buttload of super cute clothes...all for under $100. Uh, did I mention that it was super cute stuff? They even got luggage, for cripe's sake!

Then the story segued into finding someone's high school graduation photos in the car, and what she was wearing, and how, because it was the 90's, it wasn't so cute. And how now there's all these super cute (stop counting how many times I've said super cute, 'kay?) stores like Deb and Forever 21 and H&M that totally WERE NOT AROUND when we older ladies were all in our 20's. ARRRRGH!

I just want to tell you a little bit about me in the 90's. Well, for one thing, I went through my 20s during this decade. Yes, my 20s, the years when my face was fresh and clear, the years when my ass was minuscule, the years of my glowing youth and beauty. Yeah, I forgot to mention, these were also the years when I thought it was OK to dress in men's clothing, pretty much all the time. I mean, this is the time when I actually thought a sexy club outfit was a pair of leggings, a HUGE chambray shirt that went to my knees, and topped off with men's brogues and a HUGE black blazer. I looked like a man who forgot his pants. And seriously, I thought this was a HAWT outfit. I remember, I wore it in San Francisco when I just got there, and we went to the cluuuub. I met this nice 30-year-old guy....and I was 24 at the time! Gosh, I was smokin'!!! Being SF, he was probably gay, though, and just thought I was a very femme-looking man. Oh well.

What pisses me off is that I feel like I WASTED my 20s -- my cutest years, mind you -- wearing the UGLIEST outfits ever. I just want to say for the record -- it wasn't just that 90s fashion was terrible. Because it was. We had no fashion role models during the 90s besides "Saved by the Bell - The College Years" and "Friends". Sorry, I know it's hard to believe, but I think that I owned one of the tops Screech had on during that show. I know, sad, right? And christ, I think I had more cardigans than Phoebe. No doubt! Combat boots and shorts, as my sister so elegantly demonstrates in the photo above, was the outfit du jour for the tragic hipster. At least in Madison, that is.

But it wasn't just the fashion black hole surrounding me at this difficult time. It was ME, and being 5'11" in a 5'2" world isn't always easy. I mean, I wore men's pants because, uh, it's the 90s people, and there was NO online shopping, so I couldn't find long pants for women anywhere except specialty stores where they charged $100 for some rayon jobbers with an elastic waistband. Yeah, uh, I don't think so. So I wore men's jeans and men's shoes (try finding a cute shoe in a size 12 in 1995...come on! I dare you!). One time, my roommate came home and she's like, "Do you have a man in your room?" and I'm all like, "Uh, no. It's my first month here. I should be so lucky!" and she's like, "Well then, whose shoes are those in the kitchen?" and I had to confess and tell her they were mine. So embarrassing, I must say.

So now it's almost the end of the first decade of the 21st century, and as far as the eye can see there are celebutards and barely talented rawk stars with their own clothing and perfume lines, and everyone and anyone has a cute outfit on!! Even prostitots like Miley and Co. have access to foxy clothes and fun shoes and accessories that I couldn't have even dreamed up when I was their age. Are they wearing men's shoes? I should think NOT! Are they thinking that a patched cardigan and a ragged t-shirt with a flannel tied around their waist is a cat-sound of a look? Um, they probably wouldn't even wear that to scrub out the toilet. Lucky dawgs.

I just sigh heavily when I think of all the dorky outfits I thought were hawt back in the day. Remind me to show you the photos if you're blue because you will LAUGH your ass off. So I'm making up for lost time and wearing all the cute outfits now! Except I won't wear anything above the knee or below the boobins. Is that bad? :)

A rousing game of Barbie!

What I'm Listening To: Paralyzed by Rock Kills Kid

It's Barbie's 50th anniversary this year. There's tons of stuff and nonsense about this exciting event all over the Internet, the paper and TV. Just read her wikipedia entry to get the gist of it all. You know, the scandal about her not having nipples, how she's been the subject of numerous lawsuits and controversies, how she's led little girls to hate their bodies and spawned the feminist revolution against being plastic, etc etc. Yet I can't name one female friend of mine that didn't play with Barbie as a girl. I certainly did. Hells yes! Let me tell you all about it!

Well, back in the dark ages, when there was no cable TV, no CDs, no Ipods, no computers, and no mobile phones, and you even had to change the TV channels by hand (gasp!), I was a little girl living in Shorewood, WI. Maybe I didn't have a lot of friends to play with. Maybe things were a little, let's just say, uh, hectic, at home. But I definitely had myself a Barbie. And I luuuuurrved my Barbie.

Now every girl played Barbies differently, but my Barbie, like her owner, was a solitary creature. Friends never came over to Barbie's house. Barbie did not really socialize, either. And family? Snort! Barbie doesn't need a stinkin' family, 'kay? As for menfolk, heck, Barbie didn't need Ken either. I mean, I had a Ken, of course. But Ken had one outfit -- a tuxedo, the stud muffin! -- and you couldn't do anything with that molded plastic hair. And, as all Barbie owners know, the best part of owning a Barbie is doing her hair. Combing it. Braiding it. Putting it in a pony tail. Taking it down. Cutting it. You get the picture. So Ken really just sat in the Barbie suitcase waiting for his day to come. Sigh, it never did.

When I played Barbie, of course my girl had to do something all day for a living. Duh, she had to earn money for cute clothes somehow! She was, get this, a model. But my Barbie always seems to be sitting in a waiting room waiting for her photo to be taken. And since I haven't played with Barbies for over 25 years now, I don't really remember doing any photo shoots with my Barbie either. I just remember her sitting around...a lot. Maybe that's because I only had one piece of Barbie furniture -- a wicker chair. So Barbie just sat there and looked pretty. Chua, that's a model's job!!

My Barbie may not have had a lot of furniture, but of course she had a car. I just want to state for the record that even as a kid I thought all the plastic Barbie accessories available at the time -- the Dream House, the Corvette, and even that huge scary afghan hound dog -- were just R-O-N-G wrong. My Barbie was waaaaaaaaay too classy for pink plastic and glitter. She was a working girl, dude. No, not that kind of working girl, but the parallels could be drawn. ha! Sitting around dressed to the nines and waiting all the time are the hallmarks of OTHER professions that we won't go into right now. Anyway, since I didn't have all of Barbie's accoutrements, Barbie drove around in a clog, uh, I mean, convertible. Just because it didn't have wheels didn't make it any less of a slick ride. Jeez, use your imagination people!! I had to! :)

Once in a very long while I would play Barbies with a friend. I had my friend Jenny come over to my house one time with all her Barbie gear. But Jenny didn't play Barbies right. I mean, she would thump her Barbie as she "walked" her over to my Barbie's house, and the thumping almost bent her Barbie's legs in half. Yikes! Also, it was Jenny who kept making Ken and Barbie "make love". But Jenny called it something worse that started with the letter "F". OMG. Uh, my Barbie, like her owner, was a innocent little lady. Not some hussy, Jenny! Yeah, needless to say Jenny wasn't invited back.

Some friends, though, knew how to play Barbies in the proper fashion. My next-door neighbor Marla had set up her Barbies in a bookshelf in her attic, kinda like a multi-level condo layout. So I'd bring all my stuff over and set up in the empty bookshelf next door. I just remember spending HOURS playing Duran Duran's "Rio" album up there in that stuffy attic, and pretending that our Barbies were going on dates with Simon Le Bon and John Taylor. Oh, did I happen to mention that Marla and I were 12 years old at the time? Yeah, maybe a little old to be playing Barbies, but we didn't care. Half the time we were talking about boys instead of playing Barbie anyway. Good times.

One year I got the Barbie Makeover head for Christmas. It was just Barbie's head, and you could really curl her hair and put makeup on her. Awesome!! Remember those little wires in her hair so it would hold a curl? And the cute makeup cases? I played with that thing so much her hair started to fall out. More good times. Wonder where that thing is now?

Oh, I hearted Barbie all right. I played Barbies so much that one time, when I mentioned to my mom that I didn't have anything to do, she suggested that I "play a rousing game of Barbie", which became an inside family joke for years to follow. I don't have my Barbies any more, but I'm sure if I did I would enjoy a game or two just for fun. Except now instead of modeling and driving around in a clog, Barbie would play stuff like "Barbie partying at the club" or "Barbie auditions for a modeling reality show" or "Barbie tries to quit smoking". Yeah, good times.

Do you still have any Barbies? Maybe we could get together?? Please?? Call me!

Mini-posts: And all I have to do to be happy is ... spend money?

Gosh, that Jezebel website certainly opens my mind to something new every day.

Chew on this little tidbit of opinion people.

So let me get this straight. If I hadn't gotten married, all I really had to look forward to as a single lady is mindless consumerism and endless hours of shopping? WHOOHOOO!!! Thanks for confirming my reason to live!!

I shop like a maniac NOW, and I HAVE a husband. I think they mean, if you don't have KIDS, right?

Hot Rod - The Making of another SNL Vanity Project

What I'm Listening To: New York Girls by Morningwood

I think I have an Andy Samberg problem. Two posts in a month about this guy?? What is up with me?? Is the universe trying to send me a message about Andy and his curious brand of humor? What am I supposed to be learning here? I'll never know. And frankly, who cares? ha!

Andy Samberg is a ghey-wad. Well, if you were born before 1980 you know what I mean. :) I just got done watching his movie Hot Rod, which, I know, was released in 2007. But hey, I forgot about it, didn't ever get around to adding it to my Netflix list (for good reason, I might add). So recently I caught the end credits on Showtime, and next thing you know, I'm DVR'ing this birdseed to watch after work because Gossip Girl isn't gonna be back on until later in March. ARRRRRGGGH! Okay, enough about that.

Can I just say, ugh? I felt so sorry for everyone in that movie. And they have no excuses for how horrifyingly bad it was. The plot is hopelessly stupid and juvenile. I think that Evel Knievel is turning over in his grave right now. Enjoy my crib notes on the synopsis:

Andy Samberg is Rod Kimble, the world's worst stuntman and probably the only one that performs on a Moped. He has a couple of loyal friends (a bunch of rejects from SNL, surprise!!) who serve as his crew and a possible romance with girl-next-door, Denise (Isla Fisher). When Rod's hated step-father's life is dependent on an expensive (uh, $50,000 is expensive, people!) heart transplant, Kimble wants to perform the ultimate stunt to raise the money to save his life, just so he can have yet another chance (he has already had many)to beat the tough old guy (Ian McShane) in a fight and earn his respect -- because a stepfather's love is EARNED, not given. Gee, what a great lesson for kids of all ages!! And with Oscar winner Sissy Spacek in a small role as Rod's mother, mission is accomplished and belief is truly suspended. I hope Sissy at least got a good payday and some decent craft services out of the whole thing.

Uh, here's my verdict: SUCKED. I hated it. And that's coming from ME, the girl who LOVED The House Bunny for pete's sake. That's just sad. Throughout the whole movie, I'm having this heated internal debate:
"Turn it off, this is horrifying."
"No, maybe it will get better."
"OMG, he just played ANOTHER song by that awful hair metal band Europe on his tape player. That make three so far. Sad!"
"No, Andy is pretty good on SNL. Maybe it will get better."

And on and on. Needless to say, I watched the whole damn thing. I am truly ashamed.

I just wanna know how type of vanity project fare gets from its probable origin as a comedic stoner discussion between Andy and his friends while they plan another episode of "Laser Cats", to an actual movie in an actual theater. (Does Andy even smoke pot? Is pot even cool anymore? I don't know anything, seriously!!) I mean, kids are making movies all the time and uploading them to You Tube, so maybe making a film isn't that hard. But the production, nationwide distribution, DVD rights to Zimbabwe, stuff like that? That's a little more difficult, isn't it? That's why Ron Howard makes the big bucks and the blockbuster theater releases, and Joe the Dancing Groundhog is making 3 minute shorts on Hulu with suspenseful music that make you giggle.

How did Andy convince other sentient beings to make this ridiculous and assinine movie? Did he just say, hey, I'm Andy Samberg, and I thought up "Dick in a Box", so get outta my way while I make you some dough because people will watch anything these days? Is that how this always works with these SNL breakout stars? Did Will Ferrell wake up one day and say, sheesh, you know what this world needs? A movie about ANCHORMEN! A movie where I can stick all my friends (and not so friends, but who cares about them!) on film and we can have a grand ol' time on someone else's money? I hope not. That's effing scary.

Damn, I wish it was that easy! Give ME the money, whydoncha?!! I could make a movie too!! I have friends!! I have ideas!! People tell me I'm funny!! We could make a movie about the library! No one's done that before! I could make a movie about the seventeen levels of intellectual excitement that resides in each and every book. We could have crazy nutbag characters and all my friends and family could be in it. I could direct, and Irene's Catering could be craft services. My sister could make handbags to hold people's scripts! My husband could hang the lighting! My friends could order drinks and make rude bodily noises! The possibilities are endless!

Okay, so if you wanna be in a movie with me, let me know. I am casting on Craig's List. It's called "Library Library" and it's gonna all be shot at the West Allis Public Library, just as soon as I get them to lift their ban on cell phones. Damn, that's annoying. Join me in a making this wild romp through literary liabilities! It'll be fun. Yeah, I mean it!

Next week: I try to turn War and Peace into a funny SNL sketch comedy script, a la Amy Poehler. Get in on the ground floor as my producer and throw some money at me, okay, because it'll be a blockbuster, dammit!!!!