Sunday, August 10, 2008

A few words on Dolly Parton

I ask you, World at Large, what could be better than a Dolly Parton concert? Puppies? Unicorns? Rainbows? Maybe. But Dolly's pretty close up there. Having seen her show in Seattle this weekend I can say there are few comparisons to Dolly and that's not a bad thing.

For one, the woman played NINE friggin' instruments (a third of which were rhinestone encrusted), sung her own songs (which - get this - SHE WROTE HERSELF), had two costume changes and still rocked out the platinum wig and sparkly fringly cocktail dresses at age 62.

For two, when you're in a crowd of Dolly Parton fans, there's absolutely no room for cynicism or posturing. It's just not allowed. There is no "cool crowd" to mock you and make you feel bad about yourself. You have to surrender to the ridiculousness and joy of being in a stadium with drag queens and gay boys and professional-grade mullet-wearing country fans and 60-year-old librarians all of whom are dancing around to "9 to 5" and "Thank God I'm a Country Girl" and there's something, well, very weird, but also very wonderful about that.

All I needed was a (Botox free) Kenny Rogers for the Islands in the Stream portion of the show and I can say all was complete.

Sunday, August 03, 2008

A Lesson in You Tube, Where Beth Learns WAY Too Much About Vincent D'Onofrio

File this one under "Embarrassing Confessionals," kids. So I keep hearing about this new fangled thing called "YouTube" on the InterWeb that the young kids keep paying so much attention to, and sure enough I spent most of last weekend seriously obsessed with it. Seriously It started off innocently enough where I was trying to find this clip from "Law and Order: Criminal Intent" for someone involving Vincent D'Onofrio.

(Side Note: I heart Vincent D'Onofrio. I mean, I HEART HIM. He meets all of my Soul Mate Requirements of being ridiculous tall and slightly wounded and very likely depressed and he gets me all melty. But I digress.)

So there I am, on YouTube, trolling for clips of Law and Order: Criminal Intent and then I get distracted by all of the videos of Vincent that are available and I can't very well not check them out, right? Except, well clearly I've been living in a cave since the mid 90's, because I'm amazed at the sheer number of fan sites/music video montages that are both really really creepy/stalkerish and totally, completely hypnotic/mesmerizing. I mean, have you seen these, people? And of course I can't turn away. Hours pass. Contacts dry out. I find myself unable to stop watching the 540 Vincent D'Onofrio-related clips from movies and TV and interviews and photo shoots because the Internet is a harsh mistress and she demands your attention, dammit.

Is is possible to spent an entire Saturday night watching some stranger's homemade videos set to ridiculously cheesy romantic music just to watch Vincent D'Onofrio have a rough sex scene with a C-grade actress in a movie from 1994? Um, yeah. Just like it's possible to watch about a zillion photo slide shows of him set to syrupy Sarah McLachlan music while his sad dopey Bobby Goren mug glows on my laptop.

This is officially time for Beth to Get A Life. Either that or to figure out how to make a slideshow of her own so I can stop feeling dirty and just sign on to the dark side of Internet video fan sites. In the meantime, I'm just sayin' if you happen across a Vincent D'Onofrio 2009 wall calendar I won't be sad if it shows up in my stocking.