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Violet and I promise each other every year, as we find ourselves running out to get one last thing on Christmas eve, or as we are wrapping everything early Christmas morning, we will not wait until the very last minute to get things ready for Christmas ever again! We will not wait until the very last minute to get things ready for Christmas ever ever ever again!
This year Violet and I have waited until the last minute to get things ready for Christmas. Every year, in the 11th hour, we scramble to buy a few things and make a few things for everyone in our collective family. One year everyone got a little something we bought and a jar of home made kahlua, another year it was candied orange rinds, the year before that it was home made hot fudge.
This year we had all but given up on making anything, as time has slipped by and we are just too busy. But then, last night we decided we should try to one up ourselves and wrap the gifts we had scrambled to get that day before Christmas morning. But it was late and we realized we didn’t have any wrapping paper.
That’s when Violet dug out several paper bags, a potato and some paint. And here’s what came of it all:
We cut open the bags, cut the potato in half…
And then we carved:
And then we covered our potatoes in paint and stamped and stamped and stamped the night away.
We made wrapping paper, tags for the presents and holiday cards.
Here’s one of the cards (and yes, the red collar has been hand painted on each and every dog, it’s the Seal’s signature look after all):
The model/inspiration for the project?
Coolest potato ever, no?
Two things to cover here: Burlesque and Chaz.
1st:
I saw Burlesque in it’s 15th hour of going live in the theaters (as live as an already made movie can be) and here’s the truth: It rocked my fagilicious-lesbianitious socks. I was nothing short of totally entertained for every single mil-second that the movie was playing.
Here’s the other truth: The movie isn’t great. The plot is kind of silly and doesn’t do a thing to make you say, “We couldn’t have known that would happen!” Christina uses her sexy mousy-speaking-voice-self to eventually get on stage and blow the place away with the singing ability of 4,752 burly chorus women. But we already know this about her, don’t we? Not that her voice isn’t incredible and constantly mind-blowing, it is. It’s just… we already know this.
I am NOT trying to come down on this movie, I am just trying to offer some honesty before I freak the fuck out all over again about HOW AMAZING AND FABULOUS Cher was… is. She has a lead role and her camera time is way too thin. If this movie wanted to triple it’s viewers and sales there should have been a whole lot more Cher – but we could say that about anything couldn’t we? Want to make a bazillion dollars selling squashed fire ants? GET CHER! You’ll be able to retire rich as all hell in two and a half hot minutes.
So, here’s how Burlesque went for me in a verbose and dramatic summary: “Ya, ya, Christina’s hot, Christina can sing, Christina isn’t a terrible actress but her character didn’t give her much to work with. The boys are all dumb and love her, the girls are all jealous and want to be her, the dancing is totally entertaining but…
And then, all of a sudden, 20 or so minutes into this film with a silly story line where the waitress’ name is Loretta and the main dumb boy’s name is Jake… all of a sudden the world goes silent and there she is, standing on stage, as she slowly turns around and begins to shine a light back into life as we are so lucky to know it, with that melting golden butter blanket of a voice: Cher begins to sing.
And then I whimpered and then I died and then I turned into a puddle of faggy-goo. Violet tried to save me as I slid through the cracks of the theatre chair onto the ground and flowed down the sloping theatre floor until I hit the movie screen, seeped inside of it and got totally lost for what could have been forever, in everything that makes Cher the most remarkable definition of fabulous that ever was, is or could ever be.
It is no exaggeration to say that Cher makes this movie.
Cher carries the whole thing. Her gay sidekick, played by Stanley Tucci, was a definite second best, upping the bar on the acting scale and making the poorly written lines a bit more believable. But Cher. Goddamn that amazing woman. Whatever she did, said, sang, however she laughed, moved, licked her lips, flipped her hair, (SPOILER ALERT!) smashed a window with a tire iron… Holy mother of all things wicked, perfect, sexy and hot, she was just simply, incredibly, wonderfully, flawlessly Cher. And by Cher I mean the truest form of fabulous that ever was, is or could ever be.
So! Go see Burlesque, be ready to not be totally excited about the content but at the same time watch the Goddess of All Things Fabulous and Sparkly be absolutely amazing in every single way… as usual and to be expected.
Now, this Chaz thing: To everyone out there who has come up with some decided, negative opinion of Cher because of this whole Chastity now Chaz thing: To you I bid a sincere fuck off. Seriously.
This is about Cher and Chaz. This is between Cher and Chaz. This is about a very loving and uber famous mother and son, once daughter. This isn’t you and your college roommate, Christie, now Christopher. This is one of the most public and famous (and fabulous) women in the world with her very public adult child trying to maneuver in the world the best that they can.
If I all of a sudden changed my name from Jesse to Jasper and my mom got tripped up on that and said things like, “I just think of her as Jesse still.” Well, guess what folks – that is not an insult or an injustice or homophobic – that is just my mother, who named me, who has been calling me Jesse for 33 years getting a bit tripped up by sudden and dramatic change to how she has known me all of my life.
Chaz gets this. Cher admits this.
Yes, I am defensive of all things Cher, but that is because she is perfect… but also, folks calling her transphobic for accidentally calling her son, Chaz, who was very recently her daughter, Chastity, for the last 40 years, by female instead of male pronouns, isn’t anything else but forgetting to call her very loved child, now son, all of less than one out of forty one years, very recently daughter for the last forty years, ‘him’.
Still taking issue? Well, how about this, how about right this very second you start only writing with the hand you never use – and when you forget and write with the one that makes you the most comfortable- BECAUSE THAT IS THE ONE YOU’VE USED YOUR WHOLE LIFE, well, consider it blatant self hate.
Oh? You just forgot and aren’t used to it or comfortable or good at it yet? You aren’t left-hand-transphobic!?! You’re just a righty who finds it really difficult to remember to use the other one? Ah, I see. Well then, give it some time, because we’ll just assume you are, at the very least, one smidgen of a percent as kind and wonderful and amazing as Cher, which is more than enough to know that you’ll be just fine. Be patient with yourself, Righty… eh hem, sorry, I mean Lefty. We’ll get there.
And now, a clip from the movie with the woman that makes the world go around when gravity takes a break:
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