That Dirty Boy...

Watch out, Shepard Smith. I have a new pretend boyfriend, and this one is a Dirty Boy...

Some nights, there's just nothing on TV. You flip and flip and flip until the battery in your remote dies a slow and anguished death. And your left with nothing.

On one of those kind of nights, my remote died on the Discovery Channel, where I'd often watched brave men dare the elements so that Red Lobster can have "All You Can Eat Alaska King Crab" promotions. Hearing the narrators voice, I thought this was another episode of the Deadliest Catch. It wasn't. Instead, it was another show with the same fellow. And this time, he was on screen.

I watched with amusement as he mugged his way thru a series of disgusting jobs~jobs you or I would never want to do for all the money in the world. His deep baritone voice describing the work as he valiantly attempted it. And he wasn't too hard on the eyes. I was, to say the least, intrigued.



I knew I knew him from somewhere. But from where? I would be hard pressed to tell you. At first I thought, Oh, from Deadliest Catch. But he's not onscreen for that.

So I scratched my head and did what I always do when someone catches my eye.

I Googled him.

Mike Rowe, narrator of the Deadliest Catch, host of Dirty Jobs...and former QVC host.

I'm pretty sure I bought SOME piece of crap from this man at some point during his tenure at QVC, since he worked my then QVC addicted butts favorite shift: Midnight...when the Today's Special Value was unveiled!

Of course I never bought that Katsak from him. My cats were far too intelligent to fall for that, may they rest in peace.

But I digress...back to Mike Rowe and his Dirty Jobs.

So, over the course of a week, I found that this show was ALWAYS ON. There was even an 8 hour marathon! He apparently is to Discovery what Geraldo is to FNC (I know only a few folks will 'get' that LOL) So I watched and I watched and I watched. Sometimes, I was fascinated. Sometimes, disgusted. More often than not, I was disgusted.

Mikes humor carries him thru each of these jobs with grace and charm, regardless of what the job is. Alligator wrangler, chicken sexer, USAF Jet fuel tank repairman, bovine inseminator, turkey farm ranch hand. You name a disgusting job, and odds are this man has attempted it. Particularly if it involves "Poo". Anything with Poo...catching Poo from a cow, squeezing it out of newborn chicks, sweeping or shoveling it up after animals, rinsing it off equipment in a waste management facility, mixing it into a funky cement (only to have it inadvertently fly into his mouth), removing it from a majorly disgusting salvage toilet...well...you get the picture.

Generally, buy the end of a job segment, Mike is covered with something...dirty. Mud, coal, paint. If it can spill on him, odds are it will.



Sometimes, though, we get treated to Mikes chest, and as anyone who knows me can attest, I do indeed appreciate a beautiful male chest. Tom Selleck, Bruce Willis, Tim Allen (shut up, Sarah LOL) and now I will add Mike Rowe to that collection~er~list



So for this, and much much more, I thank Mike Rowe for entertaining and delighting me...with his wit and his, ahem, "hotness" ;)

Trick...or Treat?

Happy Halloween!!

Sadly, this year, I was ambivalent about my favorite holiday. Lack of spirit around me has apparently trickled down and bummed me out.

Not for lack of trying on my part, though. I decorated my desk at work, even bringing in a light up Jack O Lantern and pumpkin deedly bobs to wear on my head, but to no avail. I kept the radio on a Halloween station all day and sang along to Don't Fear the Reaper. I baked a cake for the office with orange icing and candy corns spelling out BOO, but it was all bah, humbug.

Maybe because the holiday was mid week?

I used to decorate and dress up. I used to put up a graveyard in the front yard and play with the kids who dared enter. I used to wear costumes to work and get into character. I used to watch spooky movies in the dark. I used to carve Jack O Lanterns. I used to ENJOY Halloween.

Today, alas, it was business as usual. I even went to the store to pick up the new Christmas tree I ordered.

If I'm so grinchy about my favorite holiday...whatever will I do when my LEAST favorite rolls around?

Humbug...Christmas is less than 2 months away.

...On The Path Unwinding...

Rafikki appeared on the stage, and she called out to a gazelle in the balcony, who answered her with a call of his own. Silently, two giraffes majestically sauntered across the savannah behind Rafikki, who was calling to another animal in the balcony, who answered.

And the tribal rhythms began.

Elephant, rhino, gazelle, zebra, and birds all regally moved down the aisles of the Minskoff Theatre and onto the stage, where Rafikki silently held up the cub Simba. All heads bowned and knees bent as the Circle of Live began.

And I was moved to tears.

I had waited for 10 very long years to see The Lion King on Broadway. There was never the time, money, or energy to go see it. Something else always needed more attention. Then, an offer I couldn't refuse appeared in my email and I took the opportunity~discounted tickets! How lucky was I!

Truth be told, I would pay DOUBLE what I paid to see this show again. I have never seen anything nearly as beautiful as this mounted on a stage. It was like no play I have ever seen. My seats were in the sixth row orchestra, on the right hand side of the theatre. Right on the aisle. The rhino passed right by me on his way to kneel before the newborn Simba. As close as I was, after a while, it was difficult to see the actors as actors and not as lions, heyenahs and an old baboon.

For two and a half hours, the actors on the stage were not men and women. They were great beasts of the savannah, hunting, fighting and playing. It was an amazing transformation and something that will stay with me, on the path unwiding, in the circle, the circle of life.

Take Me As I Am

Tonight I finally got to poke thru my recording of FNC's Studio B. I enjoy Shepard Smith and tape him to watch later, which often doesn't come.

Anyway, there was a story regarding a Dutch researcher and his theory that by 2050, humans will be marrying robots.

OK, that theory is OUT THERE, on that I do agree....

BUT...

During his discussion with the requisite expert, Shepard got a little rant in about how women, once they get you, try to change you. The expert said that was because women by nature are fixers while men, once they make the conquest, just sit in the relationship content. Shepards response was that was when you ate more transfats and drank beer.

Now, just let me preface this by saying I adore Shepard Smith. I don't think there is a better anchorman or field reporter out there today. I also like that he's not afraid to laugh on the air.

But that remark made me wonder...has that been his experience with every woman he's been with?

Are all women like this?

I ask this as a woman...a woman who's never tried to change any man she's been involved with, aside from asking him to wipe the food off his lapel.

Am I the anomaly?

Or do all me feel that all women want to make them into Stepford Husbands? Take any man we can sink our claws into in order to have a man, then force him to change into the kind of man we want?

I don't think I have ever looked at a man and thought "Oh, diamond in the ruff" and thought how I would change him. I have always taken people at face value. Since I'm told men are people too, I take them at face value as well. If there is nothing attractive about them in the first place, why would you want to even be with them?

Maybe Shepard needs to sit back and take a good look at the women he chooses....are they going out with him because he's sweet, makes them laugh and has a nice smile? Or are they with him because he's on TV and makes a lot of money?

Maybe then he'll find someone with whom he can be himself...

I Love The 80s

Just a quick 80s update....

I was watching TV when this commercial came on. It was obviously a car commercial, but my bad eye for vehicles (the last car I was able to identify by the lit taillights at dusk was a 1985 TransAm...IN 1985) made me think it might be for Volkswagons.

Images passed across the screen, while a voice droned on about how we didnt set out to become a legend blah de blah.

Then I looked up.

The voice said something about a pop culture icon.

And there were "Andy" and "Blaine" from Pretty In Pink (one of the Holy Trinity of 80s movies) standing in front of a car, kissing.

Thats when I realized...the commercial was for BMW.

Funny how the image of Molly Ringwalds quirky oddball locking lips with a still hot Andrew McCarthy as rich spoiled boy can bring that sort of enlightenment to me.

Of COURSE it was a BMW...no self respecting spoiled rich boy in the 80s would be caught dead without one!

Need further proof? watch Jackson Browns "Lawyers in Love" video and see what sort of car our yuppie hero is paddling out of his sunroof in ;)

Field of Dreams

I just finished crying. No, it wasn't a bad cry. It was a good, cathartic cry. The cry I have everytime the long dead John Kinsella approaches his son Ray to thank him for giving them a place to play, inquiring "Is this heaven?"

A lot of people mistake Field of Dreams for a baseball movie. But it's oh so much more. It's a movie about lost opportunity and how far we'd go to get just one moment in time back. It is a movie that uses baseball as a metaphore. Unlike most baseball movies about redemption, Ray Kinsella isn't redeemed by baseball...he uses it to redeem himself.

Tonites showing on AMC was accompanied by little blurbs about the movie...and about how all things seemed to fall together magically to make it the movie it became. Based on WP Kinsella's first novel, Shoeless Joe, the studio decided to change the name to Field of Dreams to disassociate it from baseball. Amazingly enough, WP Kinsella hadn't wanted to call his book Shoeless Joe at all. His title for it was "The Dream Field".

When things so magically move into place, you know something special has occurred. Field of Dreams is the sort of movie that makes you feel so good at the end that you seemingly become redeemed right along with Ray.

The Field of Dreams is still there in the cornfields of Iowa, still working its magic nearly two decades after the mystical movie filmed there. For some, its a place of joy, allowing them to relive moments long gone in time. For others, it's a place to make peace with their past, to find what Ray and John Kinsella found on a cinema screen so long ago.

It's a rare occurrance...when the movie gods smile down and create something as special as this beautiful, gentle movie.

"Is this heaven?"

"No. It's Iowa."

News At The Speed of....Wow...

So today is the 11th anniversary of FoxNews. Congratulations to FoxNews!!

Now, since I don't want to start "cookie~gate, part deux", let me preface this by saying that my preferred news channel is indeed FoxNews and that my preferred anchorman is Shepard Smith. How can he not be? He doesn't take himself too seriously. He does, however, take his job seriously. He's not afraid to bear his soul while reporting...and he's not afraid to make himself the butt of his own joke. If I could apply a word to him, it would be "adorable"...something I'd be hard pressed to apply to any other anchor man (with the exception of Anderson Cooper...but I just find Coop adorable~it has nothing to do with his acumen when reporting the news. Shep Smith, on the other hand, is the whole package)

That said, I have to say this much: I am having a very hard time adjusting to the new set on the FoxReport. Yes, I know that it was time for a change, and I know that it's a beautiful state of the art studio, designed to bring us news at, well, at the speed of live.

I know this.

But I am just finding it busy and hard to concentrate on what's being said. I find myself watching a screen on Shepard's left or the little spinning things in the lower third or I'm looking around the screen when the little digital noise that's made when the lower third changes comes on.

I just can't quite adjust to it.

I know it's only been two weeks, but when I got home Friday night and found that Trace Gallagher was sitting in for Shepard (Yankee road game? LOL) I almost felt relieved and shut my TV off. I also avoided the weekend FoxReport for the same reason.

I hate not liking the new FoxReport. I know how proud of it Shepard is, and how excited he was about his new set (Greta Van Susteren even shot a handicam video of him taking her on a tour of the new studio before the grand unveiling) but I'm just not feeling the love.

It took me a while to adjust to the lack of Skinnerville and the broadcast from the news room for Studio B. Maybe I just need time to adjust to it. I'm an old doggie...it's hard for me to learn new tricks.