Chapter 64: Random

Let’s start off tonight’s blog like a Lady Sovereign song: RANDOM. Perhaps it is the late hour (1:32am,) or the fact that I didn’t sleep my best last night, but I have just had some really random thoughts running through my head this evening that I feel the need to let out. The first of these thoughts is this: “Cheers” really has to be one of the least attractive ensemble casts in Television history. Aside from Woody Harrelson, who I’ll admit was kind of attractive in a 80s sort of way, the men on that show were just plain gross. I will never understand why people thought Ted Danson was sexy back in the day, because he absolutely was not. The women were not much better, with the exception of Shelly Long. She is adorable. I know people like to say that Kirstie Alley was so gorgeous back in the day, and I guess she was prettier than she is now, but I don’t see it. She reminds me of somebody’s embarrassing aunt from New York. Another really unattractive TV cast was “Roseanne,” but it was done on purpose and really kind of the point on that show. I’m not sure when it happened, but at some point it became completely unacceptable to have an ensemble cast on television that is not filled with beautiful people. I don’t know, though, I think the ugly cast thing may be making a bit of a comeback, given the popularity of shows like “The Office,” “Parks & Recreation” and, most recently, “Modern Family.” It’s just fascinating to me how that works. I mean, I can pretty much understand it; I like watching pretty people on TV just as much as the next guy. It just seems like America hit a point where people lost interest in seeing people who looked like everyday, average Americans and wanted everyone on TV to look like models. It’s like people stopped wanting to see a reflection of real life and wanted TV to be a fantasy world. I’m not complaining at all, I just find it interesting.

Speaking of beautiful people, there is this new-ish dating website called Beautiful People. Just as the name states, this is a dating site for people who are beautiful to connect with each other, (which I thought was the whole point of Model Mayhem, except that they had the decency of using the guise of “helping models find work.”) When you register, your pictures are reviewed by the staff of this website and they determine whether or not you are a beautiful person. If they feel you are beautiful you are welcomed into their “elite online club.” If they determine you are NOT beautiful, though, you are kept out of their club. The reason this is on my mind is because I recently heard a story somewhere, (“Chelsea Lately,” if I remember correctly,) about this site doing a big overhaul and kicking off members who had gained weight over the holiday season. This kind of ties in to this movie I watched this evening, called “Spread.” Ashton Kutcher plays one of the young, beautiful, poor people who move to LA to try to make a name for themselves. When that doesn’t work out for him, he decides to become a hustler, of sorts, and basically gets rich cougar types to support his rock and roll lifestyle. The whole thing unravels when he meets a female version of himself and falls in love with her, only to find that she is unwilling to give up her life of gold-digging to be with him. It was a better movie than I expected, and actually made me think a lot more than I ever thought an Ashton Kutcher movie could. The movie began and ended with the same line, “All of my life, it was obvious I’d end up in this city.” I kind of feel that way, too, albeit for very different reasons. It certainly helps that I started out in that city, but I’m not going to nit-pick. Another quote that really stuck with me from the movie was “They say you have to kiss a lot of frogs to find your prince, but in LA everyone thinks they’re royalty and the frogs don’t stand a chance.” This got me thinking a lot about me moving out there. As much as I know I am royalty in my own ways, the self-contained world of LA will most certainly see me as a frog. I suppose that only leaves me the option of proving them all wrong. Plus, I don’t really need or care to be a prince to anybody… I’m a fucking queen!

You know what’s funny? “Celebrity Big Brother UK.” That show is a mess. I am a big fan of the Big Brother series, both in the US and the UK, but the celebrity version just takes the whole thing to a different level. I was just watching some clips and such from the current series airing in the UK, with American celebrities like Heidi Fleiss, Sisqo and Stephen Baldwin, alongside British celebrities like the above mentioned Lady Sovereign, Alex Reed and, my personal favorite, DJ Basshunter. I have been obsessed with Basshunter for a while now. For those who don’t know, he is a singer/songwriter/DJ based out of the UK, with one of the best dance/house albums I have heard in ages. I just find it fascinating how they can manage to get current celebrities in the UK, like Lady Sovereign and Basshunter, to take part in a reality show like that. Here in the US that would NEVER take place. Just look at the US version of “I’m A Celebrity, Get Me Out Of Here!” That show was nothing but has-beens, like Stephen Baldwin and Janice Dickinson, and never-weres, like Heidi & Spencer and Sanjaya Malakar. You just can’t get proper celebrities to do any sort of reality show here in America. Unless they’re black celebrities, and then they do their own shows that get very popular on BET, like Keyshia Cole and Monica. I don’t know why celebrities here are so opposed to reality TV. People who currently have a successful career won’t even do a show like “Dancing With The Stars,” which is considerably more high-brow than something like “Big Brother.” It does wonders for the careers of these stars in the UK. The only reason I discuss this is because I think it would be way too much fun to see like one of the less A-List Disney stars, like maybe Mitchel Musso from “Hannah Montana” or David Henrie from “Wizards Of Waverly Place” locked in a house with people like Richie Sambora, Kobe Bryant, that prostitute from the Elliott Spitzer case, and maybe somebody like Kristin Chenoweth or Christina Applegate or something. That sounds like a fascinating show to me, but that will never ever happen here in the US. It’s a shame.

Don and I used to always say that we should be casting directors because we always had interesting ideas for who should be in movies instead of the people who actually are in them. We also always said that we should work in PR or Marketing for record labels because we’d always sit around saying things like, “Why the hell is this song being released as a single? It should have been this one instead,” or “Well, her album would have been more successful if they had released the first single in Spring instead of Summer,” and things of that nature. I miss conversations like that. Don and I could always waste hours at a time having silly conversation about the entertainment industry and all the reasons why we could do it so much better than the people running things currently. It’s funny how I used to have a lot of friends back in California who all had the exact same interests as I do. I used to have a long list of people I could call and spend an hour or two just going on and on about pop music and the different pop stars we loved, arguing over why my favorite is better than their favorite and comparing all their different accomplishments and such. I don’t have friends like that anymore. I was developing a complex for a while because all of my friends here seem to have the same interests as each other, but very few similar interests as me. I was thinking for a while that I was just completely without kindred spirits here in Florida, but I have come to realize that isn’t entirely true. I have kindred spirits, I just have to look a little harder to find those connections. I also think that those people that were kindred spirits before probably wouldn’t be as much anymore. I still love and am devoted to my pop music, but I don’t necessarily know that I could have hours-long conversations about it now without feeling counter-productive. I don’t need to talk about music now - I need to make music. Plus, my taste in music has evolved immensely since then. Don’t get me wrong, Don is still and always will be my main kindred spirit, and he has evolved immensely since that time, too. The other people I would hang out with there, though, are probably best left in the past. Not all of them, but a lot of them.

Today was a pretty boring day at work. The guy who I thought was the only other person to apply for the position open right now didn’t wind up getting it because, apparently, there was another applicant that nobody knew about. That was a bit of a surprise twist. It doesn’t really make a whole lot of difference to me, either way, but it does add a little bit of intrigue and an element of surprise to the whole situation. My sister left early today to go pick up her girlfriend from the airport. She has been in Maryland for the past week training for her new position, and my sister has been kind of mopey because of it. It will be nice to have her back, too, even though she is not returning to our program at work. She’ll at least be around. In fact, tomorrow evening we are having a little get together with her and some of the people from work to celebrate both her and my sister’s birthdays, which both took place in the past week. I’m pretty excited for it, as it is a good excuse to get out of the house and spend some time with people outside of the workplace. I still haven’t figured out a ride to the Yehuda Berg signing/discussion on Sunday, but I am determined to get to it one way or another. I am pretty sure I’ll wind up having my sister drop me off and pick me up. I’m a little low on cash this week, unfortunately. I paid $55.99 for a carton of cigarettes, which really sucks and wiped out a big chunk of the money I had left over after paying rent and such. Still, so long as I remain frugal at the gathering tomorrow night and only spend money on the Yehuda Berg book at the signing, I should be fine. I just have to avoid the type of frivolous spending I have a penchant for doing. It will be okay. I am not going to stress out about money. Money comes easily and the money that I have will be plenty to get by on, and if there is a need for more it will come to me somehow. I am not concerned about it. On the topic of money and things just kind of working out, my Mom managed to pay the past due balance on our phone bill this morning and now our account is current. I’m not sure how exactly to sort it out, but somehow I am determined to get the current charges paid before the next bill comes out so the account will remain current. It is current now and I am going to keep it that way.

I lent one of my co-workers my copy of “The Secret” a little while back, and she has been applying it in life recently, and is seeing results in some very cool ways. She came upon some unexpected, and needed, money and got her schedule at work changed, even though it was always made out to be impossible for her to change her schedule. It just serves to remind me how successful positive thinking can be, and inspires me to try to bring that focus back into my life. So, what are things I need to focus on and make happen in my life? Let’s see. I will hear from my Uncle soon, and he will say yes to me living with him when I move. My Mom will get a better paying job soon and our household income will be stable. My cell phone bill will stay current. I will write more songs on my keyboard and get generally better at it. I will learn how to drive and get a license. I will stay happy and positive in the workplace for the next 5 months and then I will happily move to California. I will find a job quickly once I get there and be able to contribute to my Uncle’s household. I will make something of myself. I WILL accomplish all of these things. I will do them all, and do them all fucking beautifully. The Universe is working in my favor and all of these things are coming to me and will be fucking beautiful. I am certain of this. I will remain focused on these things and these things only. Nothing else really matters right now. One last thing, though: I will make the most of the time I have left here in Florida, and spend it with the family and friends that I love here, then I will go on my way a much stronger, greater person for having this time.

Let’s end tonight’s blog the same way we started it, like a Lady Sovereign song: BANG BANG… see, wasn’t that RANDOM?