Also in music: Dave Grohl is a NATIONAL GODDAMN TREASURE.

Trying to find a particular artist or song on the multitudinous channels of Sirius Satellite Radio is exactly as frustrating and annoying as it was to attempt the same feat on regular radio (usually in pursuit of the next track on my recorded-from-radio mixtapes) back in junior high, only it's way, way more chagrin-filled now because what I'm looking for is one song each from Taylor Swift and Lorde, both of which songs I've heard exactly once, don't really remember the names of, and find it hard to admit I'm pursuing on purpose.

"And I HATE SQUASH!"

Ethan Hawke is a known Turbo-Quattro Dickcheese, yes? Like, in every possible real-life way, right? So it's easy to forget how goddamn good an actor he is. But: He is.

We just saw Boyhood last weekend, 100% because of Richard Linklater, and oh you guys, it was so so so good. Nearly a week later and I haven't been able to stop thinking about it. So many scenes are stuck in my head, so many feelings still being felt -- GOSH it was something. And but so all of the actors were completely ace, but special mention for Hawke because of what Roger Ebert's Bigger Little Movie Glossary called the "Pentimento Paradigm." TQD Hawke is so good that you actually forget how awful a person he is, and that's talent (grudgingly acknowledged), y'all.

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Pentimento Paradigm: Pentimento is when images from an old painting seep through and become visible in a newer picture that has been painted over the old. Thus the relation is when what we know about a filmmaker or actor seeps into our perception of his film work. Example: Any old Rock Hudson movie now that his private life is no longer private. Being aware of the reality behind the fiction may add to the complexity of the drama (Taylor and Burton in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?) or distract from its intentions (Woody and Mia in Husbands and Wives).

My parents keep asking how school was. It's like saying, "How was that drive-by shooting?" You don't care how it *was,* you're lucky to get out alive.

So hey, show of hands: Who else is writing a novel set in the early 1990s and just realized that a not-small chunk of it (of which you were pretty dang proud) is actually just a mashup of two episodes of My So-Called Life, including the names of two (2) minor characters?

Oh. Just ... just me then. Mkay.

Or so the Germans would have us believe.

Me and Acting, or: There Are So So SO Many Reasons I Am Not A Star of Stage and/or Screen, You Don't Even KNOW.

So because I cannot stop myself (decade-long girlcrush), I am re-reading Bossypants in bits and pieces before I turn in for the night. And I'm thinking about Acting, and how for me, that's such burned, scorched territory, never to be traversed.

I did some THEATRE back in the day -- compulsory, in the case of church xmas plays and elementary-school pageanty thingies, but everybody did that stuff.

What astounds me in thinking on it is the times I did it voluntarily in high school, never mind the fact that I am A)spectacularly terrible at it, and B)hate it like I hate group projects, quarterly check-ins with the grandboss, and the thought of actual jail.

Unlike Ms. Fey and others who do this for a living, I did THEATRE not because I actually wanted to, but because in my mind, it was what Alternative kids did. In my defense, there weren't a lot of options in Cowburg High School that had even a whiff of Alternative about them -- Mr. Gleemonex loves to just die laughing at the clubs in my HS yearbook, what with Fellowship of Christian Athletes, Future Farmers of America, Auto Shop, etc.

But I'm still kind of at a loss to explain why I was so sure that Drama Club and One-Act Play and taking Theatre as an elective were so important to me (at least 9th & part of 10th grade, after which I outgrew that particular flavor of horseshit and sampled a few others). I never understood what was fun about it -- it was a lot of extra-hours work, you didn't really control anything (least of all your fellow actors), the word "thespian" is stupid, I certainly didn't "become" Becky Thatcher in my disastrous stint in the role, and hot calzone-fucking SHATNER did I hate the actual performances. I still remember the dread, the angst, the pure distilled loathing of the event ... I didn't even want my family to come to the shows, because I knew I was terrible and I hated everything and its ASS FACE.

And there weren't even any cameras or stagehands and such. If I had to do any acting -- like, say, it was a demand made by people who had kidnapped a family member -- I'd probably end up getting murdered by the crew or my co-stars for gumming up the works. Y'all, I can't even take a normal snapshot -- I stand there all frozen-smiling, trying not to blink, wondering if my chin looks weird, dying to brush that single strand of hair out of my eye, adjusting my stance so I don't look like I have lunch-lady arms, waiting for somebody to TAKE THE FUCKING GODDAMN PICTURE ALREADY, CHRIST IT'S DIGITAL, TAKE FOUR HUNDRED OF THEM TO GET ONE THAT WORKS OR ELSE JUST KILL ME NOW.

So anyway. Actors: My hat is off to you, sirs and madames. I reserve the right to bag on you freely in this here blog, but I'll never not give you credit for doing the impossible.

Now, the Medusa from Clash of the Titans, I didn't have a personal relationship with.

In honor of Women's History Month, a brief selection of:

Terrifying Women From My Past

--E.G., dance teacher: My first and entirely formative experience of ballet. She brooked NO SHIT, she gave no quarter, she taught ballet old-skool style and if your three-year-old ass couldn't handle it, you could just tippy-toe on out of there. After this, I couldn't really deal with the kind of classes that were all touchy-feely, do-what-you-like, hippie low-standards crap -- E.G. permanently ruined my ability to regard any kind of dance other than classical ballet (taught, practiced & performed at the highest level) as anything but amateur hour waste-of-time hogwash. Incidentally, her first name made my top three for my daughter's potential names. Innnnnteresting.

--L.S., music teacher: Made E.G. look like goddamn Carol Brady with the forgiveness and nurturing ... L.S. was the music teacher for my elementary school and also the music director at my church, so I got a double dose of her during the xmas pageant and the Easter shows. You know how little kids wriggle around, and sing off-key & out of tune, and generally kind of fart around in class? NOT IN HER CLASS, BUCKO. She kept the kind of order Hitler would have creamed his khakis over. And we always had to do terrifying things -- sing all the verses of the national anthem, solo, a cappella, and sans lyric sheet, in front of the class; recite the scales (bass & treble) forward and backward; sign our names to the BAD BOOK if we fucked up. She kept it on her piano. No one EVER got to sign the GOOD BOOK (except maybe Berwie once?). She FIRED US ALL from the second-grade musical for not knowing the words to all the songs without our books in the second week of rehearsals -- cancelled the fucking show, just like that. And you better believe, when it came to costuming for these shows -- church or school -- the moms hopped right the fuck to it and did it exactly to spec. They were scared of her, too. Oddly enough, her first name made the top-three list as well. What is WITH me?

--C.D.'s mom, L.: So unlike my own mom, and I never could tell if she was serious or not, and she was usually serious. C was an only child, and as such, got her mom's Full Attention, and No Wiggle Room. She's one of my mom's best friends now, and I genuinely enjoy her company, but man, back in the day ...

--Mrs. L., fourth grade teacher: Austere, severe, she met her every goal ... in contrast to my lovely sweet third grade teacher, Miss B., Mrs. L. was like a stone wall with dragons for eyes. This year was was a weeder year, the year when kids started falling out to other tracks -- and if you wanted to be a Track 1 kid, you did it her way. I was scared of her, I hated her guts (I believe this is when I learned the word "battle-axe"), and yet in the end, she became one of my favorite teachers of all time, and remains a friend to this day.

--S.S., friend of my older cousin: Rich, pretty, from a big and locally-prominent family, the members of which were all verbal scrappers/fighters/one-uppers. She thought nothing of tripping a little kid like myself -- physically or with words. She liked to play nasty tricks and call out your shortcomings whenever there was an audience. Taught me valuable lessons about that kind of person and how to spot them and keep them out of your life.

I wanna be a veterinarian, cause I'm like really good with children

Y’all hear about that dizzy twat Elisabeth Hasselbeck making noises about wanting to leave The View? Something something waaah they’re mean to me. Listen honey: You don’t know from mean. “Mean” isn’t a bunch of Jewish grandmothers talking louder than you on daytime Teevee, trust me. Good luck finding another job where you get paid a fuckton of money to sit around and look pretty while you spout illogical and depraved Republican nonsense … wait. FOX, duh. (Curses, foiled again!)

Whatever, I hate The View so much – even accidentally seeing a 20-second clip affects me like the trailer for Nights in Rodanthe – it makes me feel like I’ve grown an extra vagina or three, like I have to rush out and buy some curtains, some Mom Jeans, some frozen entrees and a couple of douche products for that not-so-fresh feeling.

Their group evisceration of Wheels-Off McCain the other day gave me seeeerious internal conflict – it was sofa king awesome, they all (minus the lovely Missus Hasselbeck) redeemed themselves forever, and now I can no longer wish them and their whole enterprise ill.

Utter cha-hos

So the Olympic torch is supposed to pass by The Corporation's building twice today, and we've been warned it'll be a zoo. As a matter of fact, there are people lining the Embarcadero already. And on the one hand, god bless 'em -- it'd be pretty hard (not to mention Highly Unadvisable) to try to do this in China, so they're drawing attention to the issue the only way they can. And it's bizarre to me that the geniuses who organize the torch run, not to mention the people who awarded the Olympics to China in the first place, thought they'd get away without anybody making a stink about it. That shit is fucked up, y'all.

On the other hand, gaaaaaah. The torch-bearer is not the issue here, people. It's a HUGE honor to be selected to carry the Olympic torch, and what should be a memory of a lifetime is going to be tainted by people screaming at you and possibly physically attacking you. Plus, in this city, nobody can fucking focus -- I guarantee you there'll be just as many people out there on the route with "FREE MUMIA" signs and "wacky" costumes & body paint, blathering about some fringe/tiresome dead-horse issue that has nothing to do with China's human rights record, dancing around like it's some kind of party or something.

Mixed feelings here, y'all.

All hail the mighty state

Internets, I want to share some good news with y'all today: My State of Origin, Texass, has become the first of fiddy to require that young girls get vaccinated against the sexually transmitted virus that causes cervical cancer.

Yes, Texass, the state in which abstinence-only sex ed is the rule (not coincidentally leading to one of the highest teen pregnancy rates in the nation [PDF]), the state in which the entire chapter on human sexuality was torn neatly out of the health books used by young Gleemonex's state-mandated Health Ed class in public high school. THAT Texass.

Governor Rick Perry has signed an executive order to this effect, and the requirement will kick in in the fall of 2008. Amen!

Now, the nationwide, state-by-state effort to enact legislation requiring this vaccine is bankrolled by Merck (the makers of the vaccine, called Gardasil) -- Big Pharma, yo -- which leaves Gov. Goodhair's motives less than pure. But the Gov is still going to take a whole lot of misogynist, unreasoned and unreasonable aggro bullshit from his wingnut constituents for it. And in Texass, that group is small neither in number nor in influence. It's a risk, so good on him for, well, staying bought (Merck contributed to his campaign and to PACs that lobby the TX lege).

I'm just so glad to see this happening that I'm not going to angst out over how it came to be. Now on to the other 49 ...