The Office That Lays Together Stays Together (Who's Doing the Plowing on Mad Men's Sex Farm)

Ok, if you don't watch the show, then don't bother reading this post because it's going to get confusing and I'm going to go pretty fast. Here we go.

Lets start with 1/4 (used to be 1/2) of the company partners, silver fox Roger Sterling and go from there. Roger slept with and eventually married Jane, Don's secretary who lived on Jane Street and it was a cute joke. Everyone hit on her when she first got to Sterling Cooper but she gave it up to Roger and got rich. Before that he had an affair with Joan Holloway before she found a cute doctor and changed her last name to Harris. They reconnect in season 4 up against a fence. It's hot. She used to have a relationship with Paul Kinsey but it was implied that she broke it off because he talked too much about it. He's made moves on Peggy, who rejected him and things got awkward. Peggy did get it on with Pete the night of his bachelor party and then once again in the office, which knocked her up. She gave the baby up for adoption and then started an affair with Duck, yes 'Duck' last name Philips that Don hires to get more accounts into the company. Ken hits on everything that moves,  except for Sal who expresses a serious crush on him even though he's married. Harry gets drunk on the night of the Nixon/Kennedy election and has sex with his secretary Hildy in his office, and later regrets it. Things get awkward. After Don divorces his wife, he gets engaged to his new secretary Megan but continues to sleep with every girl he comes across, strangely avoiding the office and therefore being somewhat on the outskirts of the Sterling/Cooper/Draper/Pryce sex-a-thon. Lane Pryce hasn't hooked up with anyone yet because everyone thinks he's uptight and awkward. Bert Cooper had a long standing affair with his secretary Mrs. Blankenship and seemed very distraught when she dropped dead at her desk. Shit happens. Lois is annoying and no one wants to have sex with her. The end. For now. 

The Music Lovers (1970): Sexual Violence and Classical Music

an ironic poster promoting the film

What do you get when you combine classical music, British mad man director Ken Russell, and suicide by Cholera. Well none other than The Music Lovers (1970) of course. A film interpreting through a bizarre, surreal, and unforgiving narrative the life of ill-fated brilliant, tortured, and timeless Russian composer Peter Ilych Tchaikovsky. Starring Richard Chamberlain as the paragon, and the incomparable Glenda Jackson as his maniacal hot mess wife Nina. 

As a Russian, there is nothing I like more than Brits taking on Russian stories as if they were their own and fucking it up usually with not enough understanding for the culture and too much focus on a convoluted narrative, this is of course not inclusive of any work done by Ken Russell or Peter Greenaway who are in my book cinematic Christs (well perhaps not the best choice of words) but I see them as been completely infallible. 

But lets back track a bit. The film is a bio-pic of a brilliant but troubled composer (sounds like a really boring puff piece stinking of lots of technical Oscar nominations, i know) But Russell decides to give this formula his unique personal touch. Be afraid. He reaches every point of zenith in the narrative with a classical piece of music that is played so loudly and seemingly violently that it accentuates every scenario  making it more and more bizarre. The film takes on the narrative as a cautionary tale peppered by Tchaikovsky's work in order to illustrate certain points not known to us as the general public. 

1. Tchaikovsky was a homosexual and was closeted his whole life. 

2. He married his eccentric wife Nina to prove his heterosexuality to certain benefactors and hangers on.  

3. The two realized they could not co-habitate the same room much less make a marriage work and thus he moved to the country to compose for his benefactor seeming to get well and resume composing 

4. while on the opposing side of this seemingly happy part of the story, his unstable wife, so reaching the end of social morays that she is committed to an institution where she becomes even more bat-shit and is eventually put in seclusion. you know, as not to be an influence on the just regular crazy.

Tchaikovsky and Nina on their
Honeymoon c. 1878.

The epilogue: 

Peter, realizing he could no longer lie to himself and others about his sexual identity, killed himself by purposefully ingesting cholera traced water. And Nina is committed to a much more stringent ward in the asylum reserved for those of only "completely schizophrenic and those with violent delusions.''

This whole film has a filthy tinge to it, with Ken Russell's imminent and undeniable 'stank' all over it. What was supposed to be a docile and tactful rendition of a love gone ridiculously wrong by means of social morays, manners, and practices at the time, Russell (with good reason) chose to go a completely different route. 

The film is a bizarre presentation of the volatile platonic relationship between those two while Tchaikovsky's own music playing in foreground as it were, explaining the mayhem without words. It is a no-holds-barred attempt to humanize Tchaickovky from the bright star of musical genius that he was to the troubled, confused, alcoholic man he was lifted from the next drunkard on the street only through music. I also allows you to see the perverse side of some of his music and understand it in ways you probably didn't when your mother took you to see The Nutracker or Swan Lake when you were little. The lust and passion of the piece becomes evidence as Russell uses it to frame the most dynamic interactions between Peter and Nina that inevitably reach an insane climax, leaving one dead, and the other on a desolate road to mental deterioration. Now, both of those things actually did happen, but considering the discretion by which everyone lived their lives back then, the storytellers and Russell himself had to invent many if not most of the story to see how in their minds, they could create a story based particularly on sexual frustration and sexual identity. He is a director that likes to avoid subtly as much as possible, and bring absolutely every thematical element to the very forefront sometimes violently shoving it down our throats with a cathartic realism which at times works better than others, but I have to say that this particular time watching it, I was amazed at how the music was able to affect the visuals of the narrative when put through a certain prism. What is a Ken Russell film without a few plates being thrown across the room, smeared lipstick, lots of fake blood, full frontal nudity and strangulation?

The story is a manic and violent conflict between two opposing passions who yearn for the same understanding but destroy each other in order to save themselves. 

Anyway, great great film. and it's on Netflix Instant now. 

Glenda Jackson was in my opinion the greatest actress of the English speaking world, winning 2 oscars, both of whom she has yet to pick up. 

And a big tip of the hat to Ken Russell who is still as insane and still as visionary. The Brits need him now more than ever. He's about 100 but can still hold and point a camera. I can't wait for him to adapt the Royal Wedding into a surreal, brash, and campy musical. Two please and pop corn. 

MASTER CHEF GETS ALL ABOUT APHRODISIACS.

Tonight's episode of Master Chef (2009 - ) features an elimination challenge which involved cooking with an aphrodisiac ingredient, hence combining my two favorite things: food and sex. I don't even want to get into which i've dealt without for longer. Anyway, the winner of the 'quick fire' Jennifer, a perky cute 30's something blonde with a huge rack and peppy personality was given a choice from three ingredients said to  have scientific properties of sexual arousal when ingested. I'm sure by now you've surmised that one of the options was oysters, which I'm sorry to say I detest. This does not mean i don't have a sophisticated palate, it just means I don't enjoy eating giant wads of snot. No offense to anyone who loves them, but I'd rather go for a more conventional approach to arousal than making incessant sucking noises as the slimy gooey texture of the oyster slid down my throat, did I paint a gross enough picture for you yet? The next one was a complete shocker: artichokes. A very metaphoric food for sex in retrospect considering how much you have to work at the damn thing to get rid of all the intolerable bad shit to get to the 'heart' of it. I'm a huge artichoke kind of girl but can't recall one time when i've finished a soup or salad with an artichoke base and immediately felt the urge to pummel the man next to me in a fit of sexual excitement. Take me waiter at chili's! that spinach artichoke dip makes me just want to rip off all that 'flair' from your suspenders and drag you to the back seat of your 1997 Chevy Impala that smells like old gym socks and beef jerky. 

But next time I'm on a date and the guy has impressed me enough to make me want to cook for him (which is a feat accomplished by very few as of late) i'm putting artichoke into the whole meal, drugging him with subconscious bursts of desire with every bite. 

The third ingredient that Jennifer actually ended up choosing for the whole rest of the competitors is another easy conclusion. The 500$ a pop turd looking thing that pigs burrow in the ground for hours because only their sophisticated snouts can pin point this diamond in the rough (and no, none of that was intended to be sarcastic), the truffle. 

I have many soft spots for truffles, and i'm sure at least some of them are in my erogenous zones. Truffles look horrific but once are placed on the palate of one's tongue ignite pleasure that is too good to be only measured with one sense, and perhaps that is why it is regarded as one of the most potent means of sexual stimulation...orally that is. 

Now, the challenge was not only to create an appetizing dish using an ingredient that most of these competitors have ever seen much less tasted. A lot of people made the mistake of cooking a filet mignon in truffle essence not realizing that actually truffles don't go with much, but definitely not with meat. 

A burly generation Italian home-cook named Guiseppe created a taglioni dish with truffle cream sauce and spinach, and immediately made my mouth water. He book ended his presentation by saying his wife (who he loves very much still) his words...was the inspiration. The judges loved it, moving on. 

Nothing rather than that is really worth mentioning, and for some reason the men seemed to triumph over the women in this round because it seemed they had an easier time finding a good romantic memory to use for inspiration, while the chicks were all snarkily looking at their ingredients trying to recall a rare moment when they weren't being royally screwed over. Food is to me always sexy, I know this sounds cliche but i really do eat with my eyes first, then my mouth, and just like attraction to someone else if the food doesn't appear appealing, what it can offer you becomes secondary to how it looks, even if it tastes divine. 

So my course of plan is to stick to my diet coke/barley and the missed connections tab on craigslist because even though i don't take it seriously, i still find it hilarious. And for all of you happy people out there, i wish you many oyster filled romps with your significant other (preferably when the oysters have been cleaned, shucked, and sprinkled with lemon juice). Bon Appetit!

It's Official. Ty Burrell is all kinds of hot.

Modern Family (2009 - ) could be one of the best shows recently added to the boiling cauldron of pop culture lardons that is our weekly television schedule. I jumped on board pretty fast, and everyone i showed an episode to was quick to be co-captians of my Modern Family adoration ship (god that sounds lame). 

I've been watching old episodes...because i'm bored and i own them...and because i was excited that all of the ensemble received Emmy nominations this year. That's right folks 6 noms. 4 boys, 2 girls. the only people not nominated are the kids, and lets be honest, who gives a crap about them anyway (manny included). And I cannot believe into how horny i am getting for Dunphy patriarch Phil (Ty Burrell). He's somewhat deluded, very gullible, absent minded and wonderfully weird. Sounds like my perfect type. 

This is the kind of man i eventually imagine sharing my life with. One with whom i can share a vibrant and comically ridiculous sex life, two good kids and one average one (go ahead and try to figure out which one i'm talking about...Luke), and can at times control because the fact that I'm smarter and sharper than him is not so much annoying as it is endearing. There i said it. I have inappropriate thoughts about a TV dad. And you know, it looks like i'm not the only one as evidenced by this website:
Phil Dunphy Tees
Now that hasn't happened since the good old days of Danny Tanner who turned out to be a complete perv just like me, and even more perfect. 

It's always rather surreal when you begin to have elaborate dirty fantasies about a character who is a beloved character enjoyed mostly by family audiences, and only as the lovably clueless and clutzy dad. He's definitely not a hunky long-haired bare chested sweaty slice of Grade-A man meat that tears your clothes off with his teeth, but none-the-less, Phil Dunphy has a sexual side (as awkwardly misguided as it may be) particularly when he role plays with his wife on Valentine's Day as Clive Bixby a man who is in town for a trade show and 'gets things to make noise' wearing an awesomely ill-fitted turtleneck with a blazer that looks like it was stolen right out of Dean Martin's wardrobe from the Rat Pack. 

'just breath? that's what i said to you while you were in labor, and you threw my smoothie at me...PILL!'

My favorite Phil Dunphy arc is when he suddenly and without reason goes into a fit of excruciating pain which later turns out to be a kidney stone but is reluctant to call the fire department because of the reputation of the firemen of being 'really hot'. It's probably Burrell's best work in the whole season, though I could go on for a while quoting some more of Phil Dunphy's insane logic. And considering how much i relate to Julie Bowen's character of Claire Dunphy in her controlling anal-retentive 'bad-cop' demeanor, i guess Burrell personifies that man we all want who goes with us to horrible movies, makes lame puns, sprays us with a fire hose (gotta watch the show) and does dirty role-playing when we're in the mood for some excitement with atrocious consequences. 

I suppose this means I'm in limbo; meaning, i'm at that age when i look at every man i meet as a potential father to my children but also retain some of my 20's sex-crazed obsessiveness. Ty Byrrell, I hope you never stop catering to this strange paradox in my life. You've been brilliant at it so far, and good luck at the Emmy's. Oh and keep wearing those sexy dad jeans and/or pleated pants, for me they are miles sexier than skinny jeans and vintage tees. They remind me of a Phil Hartman throwback. Yes please. 

Brigid Berlin: Her Cock Book, Daily Warhol Phonecalls, and Key Lime Pie

I recently watched Pie in the Sky: The Brigid Berlin Story (1999) which is a documentary about the only still sane/alive survivor of the Warhol Factory crowd back in the 1960's when pop-art ruled, amphetamines ran a rampant spree through middle-class white America, and the small tits were the epitome of beauty, and overseeing all of these culture changes was Andy Warhol, the prince of post-modernism and the prophet of commodified existence. Ok now i'm starting to sound like my thesis and i promised myself that wouldn't happen. So in laymen's terms, Brigid Berlin was the overweight plain looking incessant talker who loved to hang out around Warhol with her polaroid camera or tape recorder and no shirt on ever. 

Brigid Berlin as she looks now in her ridiculously kitschy but lovely West Village Apartment.

You expect his superstars to be tall thin, gorgeous and a bit surreal, but Brig was brash, masculine, and unapologetic for everything, including sticking a hypodermic needle filled with dexedrine through her jeans casually at a dinner party or partaking in everything from mellow dinner parties, to loud hugh end parties at the factory to a quiet look through her Cock Book completely nude (well at least from the waist up). 

Unlike the others, Brig never appeared that she had something to hide, or something to be particularly ashamed of. She was almost as much in control as andy was, objectifying the rest. She can exist, standing topless and 150 pounds overweight, defiant and bold against the silver wall of the factory, look you up and down and then make a decision regarding how you might have come off to her. Were you going to remind her too much of her judgmental and small minded mother Honey who expelled her from Upper Crust East Coast society because of her weight and give her shit for it incessantly? or were you going to bring her house warming gifts of key lime pie and needles filled with benzo's and diet pills? If you were in the latter category, consider yourself on her good side.

Considering her masculine demeanor as contrast with the other superstars who wore hideous amounts of make up and high heeled shoes, Brig started to serve as intermediary between Andy and his hangers on. Perhaps that's why she's still around, still relatively sane, and still as much a talker as she ever was on an amphetamine binge, and who wouldn't be considering she grew up in on of those tragically doomed 'Grey Garden' situation, and aside from Edie Sedgwick was also the personification of the 'Poor Little Rich Girl' But at least this girl new her limits, and her own identity. So when the newspapers, the factory boys and girls, and even her family started applying labels popular at the time to her like 'pill popper' 'lesbian slut' 'fat cunty junkie' and what not, she was able to let it roll off her back, for the most part. Particularly if it came from the violently frustrated Fatwa that had been broiling inside Honey Berlin since the early 60's. 

I guess what really comes through for me in this film, with disregard to Warhol, is just the idea that everyone in our lives deserves respect enough to understand the consequences of their actions. Brigit Berlin is a symbol of a very empowered woman not only of that generation but i think in general. Confused like the rest of us, she clung to rituals to maintain normalcy in her life, whether they be eating, recording, or taking drugs. This is how she seems to function normally in a world of complete abnormality and that is why she's still here. Measuring out celery snacks every morning and organizing her shoe closet, right after that taking her two beloved pugs for a walk and sometimes binging on that giant key lime pie that never leaves her mind, that she will hopefully split with Warhol when they have their Pie in the Sky together in heaven, Andy with his 16mm camera and Brig shirtless with comically bright pink lipstick on. And even if they sit at the same table I would imagine they are talking via phones they brought and put on the table. Just that whole image is so divine. 

Pie in the Sky: Brigid Berlin Story currently available on Netflix Instant

Thank You For Coming

Experience John Waters in his own words. The full version of 'This Filthy World' here, with an embedded youtube review. You're welcome. 

This Filthy World Full Film