Estelle Getty Was....

1. A Funny Jewess
Born Estelle Scher in New York on July 25, 1923, Getty began her career in Yiddish theater. Her most important stage role was as Mrs. Beckoff, Harvey Fierstein's mother, in both the off-Broadway and Broadway productions of Torch Song Trilogy, a role that brought her a Drama Desk Award nomination.

2. My Only Hope For the Matriarchy

"I've played mothers to heroes and mothers to zeroes.I've played Irish mothers, Jewish mothers, Italian mothers, Southern mothers, mothers in plays by Neil Simon and Arthur Miller and Tennessee Williams. I've played mother to everyone but Attila the Hun."-Estelle


Three Tall Women.....but one shorty ruled them all.

3. A Senior With Sex Appeal

What did Estelle look like when she was young? We'll never know. But this exercise video is sexy. And it never fails to remind me I need to call my Grandma and thank her for her weekly Hallmark puppy/duck/kitten card with the $10 dollar bill inside.



4. Commonly Understood To Be A Feisty Woman

Estelle Getty, known best as Sophia Petrillo, the feisty and fabulous mama on "The Golden Girls," died this morning in her Hollywood home.

Estelle Getty, who starred as the sarcastic octogenarian Sophia in The Golden Girls, died yesterday at the age of 84.

The actress became a gay favorite as the acid-tongued Sophia on "The Golden Girls".

The New York-born actress was revered for her wisecracking, perennially caustic stint as Sophia Petrillo on the beloved 1985-1992 series about four female retirees enjoying their golden years.

5. The Start of the Apocalypse?

PR: I was reading about Getty on the Star Tribune site and there was a quiz advertisement "IS TILA TEQUILA CLASS OR TRASH?" I usually don't give in to flashy click pleaders, but I clicked "Class" just to give the poll some variance (thinking, of course, EVERYONE, would click "Trash") and then I was led to the results page and most people had voted "Class!" THEN, oddly, my browser was redirected to Jcrew.com, all the while I was drinking some tea brought in by my ex that tasted like apple juice, and IF THIS IS NOT A SIGN OF THE APOCALYPSE I DON'T KNOW WHAT IS. Come back Estelle.

Squidz: That was written in the scriptures as the fifth sign: and it shall pass that Estelle's death shall deem Tequila classy, the rivers will part, Jcrew will appear, and SO ON AND SO FORTH. Run to the hills, little Bansies, run, run.


The Future....

I am placing my hope in young Amanda Bynes. I don't know why, but she seems like the most reasonable heir to the matriarchal throne.


A Personal Wish
For the masses, Estelle only lived from age 50--84. I will be so mad if when I die the papers don't run my youngest and most attractive photo.


Menopause Time.


Arthritis Time.


Retreat to Childlike Adorableness Time.

Jokers Never Die

I was trying to hold out for the IMAX experience after Amos insisted that one must only see The Dark Knight on the screen it was designed to be played on, but tickets for the IMAX are sold out until, like, two months from now and yesterday morning as I was walking to the gym I heard not one, but two spoilers from people shouting about the movie on the street.

The first was from a group of high school boys cavalierly strutting down Flatbush Ave in the 95 degree heat sans shirts. One of them yelled, "BATMAN WAS SOOOO GAY, YO!"

And I was like, fuck you dudes. I did not want to know Batman's sexual orientation in advance. It totally spoiled the surprise.


Public service announcement for the Post-Batman population: Keep your voices down. Use code. This is a cultural event.

Since it was so cancerous out yesterday I had to bide my time before the evening's Dark Knight viewing with other motion picture shows. For the afternoon we choose Werner Herzog's Encounters at The End of the Earth. It was beautiful, visual air-conditioning about the South Pole and the strange collection of folks who migrate there. It reminded me of my college roommate Dave who travels to the Antarctic nearly every winter to do geology stuff. He once told me that all the male scientists working there take "polar wives" for the season. Again, can someone please write the bestselling Oprah's book club novel titled The Polar Wife documenting the sad life of a scorned seasonal lover in the coldest place on Earth? It's the perfect premise. My book club is waiting.

Encounters taught me that once a penguin's internal compass gets screwed up and they start running towards the mountains instead of the water (i.e. towards imminent death) you can't stop them and point them in the right direction. They'll just turn around and take off for the mountains again, joyfully flopping on their way with utter conviction. It's really sad.



Werner Herzog is funny. When he learned about this tragic directional delusion that can afflict select penguins, he asked the scientist, "Vwut Voctor, Voes Vis Mean Vat Vee Penguins Vave Vaught Insanity???"

I told my roommate that Herzog reminded me of Borat, and she was like, "Ummm Herzog is a great documentarian/iconoclast. Also German, not Kazikstani. I think Borat has ruined you on foreigners for life."

She's probably right.

But wouldn't it be the greatest conspiracy ever if Borat killed his character off earlier this year, only to fool everyone and reinvent his comedic persona as a heavy-accented documentarian who asks strange, amusing questions? Or if he was Herzog all along? It would be better than Obama getting elected president and then revealing himself as a terrorist.

I woke up this morning thinking about Jack Nicholson. It must really suck to have everyone saying that some young new guy did your character better than you. But the young new guy is dead so you can't really defend your acting without seeming like a huge dick. I really want to talk to Nicholson about this, I also want to know if he regrets being such an asswipe to Angelica Huston, who was probably the best thing that ever happened to him.

Heath Ledger was really good. He transformed the character from Nicholson's rather campy, shallow villain to a troubled, nerdy psychopath/anarchist with daddy issues. In fact The Joker's daddy issues were pretty much the same ones Ledger had to deal with in 10 Things I Hate About You-- physical abuse, some mind manipulation, etc. etc. I'm guessing Julia Stiles broke up with him eventually, he never sought therapy, and then ten or fifteen years later he donned some makeup and started terrorizing Gotham City. Boys with dad issues are the worst, anger-wise at least.

I guess the fact that Stiles couldn't convince The Joker to seek professional help was good in the end though, at least for Batman. If he had gotten his life straightened out, Batman would have probably grown bored and started collecting chicks' heads in his freezer.


So as to keep in faith with the public service announcement I outlined in the first picture caption, I'm not going to delve into any specific plot lines of The Dark Night. Just go see it, okay? Because in two weeks I'm going to write more about it. I can't stop thinking about it. The post-to-come will probably take the form of What if Batman and Kumar Went To White Castle?

I will, however, leave you with this more flattering photograph of what might be the most attractive man on Earth. His cheekbones are so exquisite that upon viewing him my hand is torn between reaching between my legs or for my blush brush.

"It's a satire about distortions and misperceptions......"-David Remnick.

Contrary to public opinion, I'm going to go out on a limb and call this the most offensive cover of the week:




Also, if anyone has this 2007 Ok! cover I will pay good money for it. I want to frame both and hang them side by side.

Where Love is Blind, and Humor is Always Golden

Today the youngest of my familial clan emailed incessantly asking me to tell her jokes, which I found highly annoying because 1.) jokes are hard to tell over the Internet, and 2.) I am not a dancing monkey. I sent her links about nipple stimulation via bat, and the shame of young feminists on qualudes, but even girl on girl infighting didn't pique her interest for long. She begged. To give you an idea of what I'm working with, her favorite joke is as follows: A man and his wife sit down at a restaurant. When the waiter comes over to take their order, the man asks "Now how is your chicken prepared?" The waiter grows solemn and responds, "Well sir, we just tell them flat out that they're going to die." Not bad.

So as a passive aggressive way to indicate I wasn't interested in
sending her jokes, I started to send her ones that I made up. Jokes that didn't make any sense, unless you think Dadaism is funny (which it's not). Yet she seems to have such respect for my joke-telling abilities that the fact the following are not funny does not seem to occur to her at all, which is, in itself, very funny. META-Funny. Like how during the lovemaking scene in WALL-E, the title character tells his sleek robot girlfriend "I can't actually penetrate you because this is a kid's movie," to which she replies, "It's been a wordless 75 minutes already, they're asleep, and it's time for my nude scene."

Alissa: Quickly! One more joke before I have softball at 5!

Me: What did the chicken say to the egg?

Alissa: I think I know this one... something about which came
first...but carry on...

Me: POOP OMELETTE.

Alissa: HAHAHAHAHAH, that's good. Kinda gross.... More?

Me: What did Hillary Clinton say to Bill?

Alissa: I don't know! But I want to know...

Me: Could you pass the salt? This dish is delicious!

Alissa: Ha! Good one!

"I See The Dopeness; You Only See the Wackness"....A Review, in nonsense and lists, mostly.

Jonathan Levine's The Wackness is basically the Jewish version of Good Will Hunting. Luke Shapiro, a drug dealing, mildly unpopular Jewish kid pretending to be black befriends (and sells pot to) Dr. Squires, a crazy Jewish psychiatrist. A beautiful, life-altering homosocial friendship ensues. Did I say it was the Jewish Good Will Hunting? What I meant was it was the Man-Boy love version of Superbad. Really, if you were an agent pitching it to a studio you could go with either: A.) This is Good Will Hunting, only Jewish or B.) This is Superbad, only with a NAMBLA spin.

Which is not to say that the movie was bad. It was great. I mean, Good Will Hunting should have been more Jewish in the first place. Psychiatrists that straddle the line between crazy and wise and pill-popping are hard to find (believe me, I've tried), but I can guarantee when you do find such a rare gem of bubbling existential neurosis in a doctor they sure as hell ain't Irish Catholic.

Jewish Psychiatrist:


NOT A JEW Psychiatrist:


Josh Peck, who plays Luke, was absolutely perfect for the role. His kind of dopey pseudo-gangsta, but nerdishly sweet smile managed to convey both the character's pretense and genuine good nature. Ben Kingsley, however, spoke with an affected "New York" accent that encompassed more dialects than the U.N. has country members. This made him seem even crazier. I couldn't tell if it was deliberate. Since it's Ben Kingsley I'm going to give him the benefit of the doubt and say yes.

I was predisposed to like the film's writer/director Jonathan Levine because he went to my alma mater, and he makes fun of it in a recent NYT's article:

At Brown, where Mr. Levine majored in English and art semiotics (“That’s sort of half reading Foucault and Baudrillard and half making stuff,” he explained), he was also a bit of an anomaly, at least among the college’s would-be filmmakers, many of whom were making tone poems.

Luke Shapiro's main problem of course is not getting laid. In high school, that means everything. Actually now in my twentysomethings, it still means everything. He develops a huge crush on Dr. Squire's stepdaughter, Stephanie (Olivia Thirby).


"Yo, um, it would be mad fly, if you could, like, touch my dick."

Contrary to the Katherine Heigl-type neurotic, beautiful, and responsible female lead, Thirby plays the indie-standard ideal female, what I like to call the "Quirky Aggressive". She's pretty without makeup, wears Converse, and says quirky and aggressive things.

SIGNS YOU ARE A QUIRKY AGGRESSIVE FEMALE:

#1.) You do drugs or you like talking about how you do drugs.

#2.) You use unique, half-witty, half-annoying sayings like "Dudesies!", "For YAYs" and make jokes about "Rim Jobs" because you are so cool with your sexuality.

#3.) On dates, rather than awkwardness, you manifest your wants/needs/insecurities through aggressive lines like "So when are you going to kiss/fuck/lick my C???"

(Advice: Quirky Aggressives are only beloved in indie films. Please do not try to be one in real life. Do not make rim job and poop jokes on dates. For the first few months your dude will be all like, "OMG, you're so cool and funny! You're not like other girls!" because you said something about giving "Nietzche a BlowJ" or some Quirky Aggressive-esque bullshit, but then after about six months the charm wears off and you find yourself being hushed in public places or cringed at just for telling your old, beloved rim job joke! You are being silenced, Quirky Aggressive. But Quirky Aggressives won't be silenced so they keep going, because, like, they're quirky and aggressive, and shutting up for a dude is so antithetical to their personality. Which brings us to.....)

ELEANOR!!!

Eleanor, played by Jane Adams, was my favorite character in the movie. She was only in it for ten minutes. Eleanor is a single, thirtysomething ex-band member/stoner who buys pot regularly from Luke, and tells him all her problems when she's stoned. She delivers the best line of the movie: "Why are men so intimidated by me? Is it because I play an instrument?"

Movies in which Jane Adams has played a lonely-heart:

The Wackness
Little Children
Wonder Boys (okay not so much. FCed:MC)
The Anniversary Party

I hope you realize I'm kidding about this Q-A stuff. Everything will be fine, Q-As. Especially if you're a lesbian. I, however, am a heterosexual feminist.

The one thing I didn't like about The Wackness was its constant self-conscious references to New York in the 1990s. We get it. This is New York. It is the 1990s. There were so many Guiliani references I could basically make a case that Guiliani is the cause of Luke's limp dick in the scene where he loses his virginity. But that is a whole 'nother blog post. Basically it does to Guiliani what Definitely Maybe did to the Clintons. Perhaps Levine wrote the movie when Rudy was still a viable presidential candidate.



Even more than it was a movie about male friendship and the hardships of love and relationships, it was a movie about music. The Power of Tunes. How Music Can Change Your Life. Music As The One Constant. How Music Identifies Who You Are.

Movies About Boys Loving Music:
The Wackness
Almost Famous
High Fidelity
Mr. Holland's Opus
8 Mile

And those are only the titles I can think of off the top of my head. Hollywood is built on male love for music.

Movies About Girls Loving Music:
Crossroads?

Tangentially related: Can I just say that CONSTRUCTIVE SUMMER, by THE HOLD STEADY, is totally changing my life right now? This blog is officially anointing it SONG OF THE SUMMER. Rim Jobs and Italian Ices for everyone who listens to it!

Oh, The Irony You'll Have