Saturday Spotlight: Post Secret

Every Sunday, I go to PostSecret.com and spy on other peoples' secrets.  They make or buy a postcard, write their secret on it, then mail it anonymously to Frank Warren, who runs the website.  The story goes, he was a student doing an art project for college, and his idea was to hand out blank, self-addressed postcards for people to use for anonymous secrets.  Well, the idea was a great one, and it picked up steam until people were -very creatively sometimes- making their own to send in.  He's ended up with enough postcards to post a long list of them on his website every week and publish seven hardcover books full of the most interesting ones.  I have four of the books.

One is actually signed.  Frank Warren did a thing on Facebook once, where if you like & share or whatever, he'd pick one name at random and send an autographed book and a real actual secret that he received in the mail.  I won!

So, go on.  Give me something to look at next Sunday.  Make a postcard and send it to:

Post Secret

13345 Copper Ridge Rd

Germantown, MD

20874-3454 

Or, if you want you can even send a donation.  He gives the money to a suicide hotline called HopeLine and they've raised over a million dollars so far.  True story.  They also do art exhibits (I've been to one) and he does speaking engagements.  Check out the website, you'll see.  Here's a link.  ----->  This here.

But maybe prescreen before you bring the kids, okay?  It's sometimes very heavy.

Nurse Jackie

Look, Edie Falco is a national treasure, okay?  She's been on two of my favorite shows ever and she is an absolutely amazing actor.  She played Carmella Soprano on HBO's The Sopranos (rated very R) and the title role on Nurse Jackie (almost equally likely to scar a kid for life; NO KIDS).  She's won Golden Globes and Emmys and zillions of awards, and she deserves them all, plus MORE... in fact, if I ever meet her she can also have my lunch money.  Not that she needs it.  But whatever.

Okay, so here's Nurse Jackie in a nutshell:  A crew of hugely talented actors portray the real-life workings of an NYC emergency room.  It's kind of like Scrubs, if all the characters were Dr. Cox.  So, dark and cynical and funny and horrific all at once.  But they can cuss and show boobs and stuff.  You know.  Showtime stuff.  Anyway, it's all finished now and you can marathon it on Netflix.  It's really good.

M*A*S*H

Man, I've been putting this one off for a long time.  I've been supposed to post it for a few weeks in a row, and now that I'm finally doing it, it was supposed to go up about 3 hours ago.  The problem with writing about my favorite show is that I don't know where to start or what to include.  There's a really neat story that I have about Quantum Leap, for instance, that couldn't be included when I wrote about that show because it was already pretty long and I didn't want to lose you. But M*A*S*H... that show has been with me at every stage of my life.  The characters are my friends now that I'm older and they were my educators when I was younger.  The show started before I was born, so for me there's no such thing as life before Hawkeye.  Who would want that, anyway?

Okay, so let me help you out if you're not familiar with the show, or if you haven't seen it since the 80's.  M.A.S.H. is an Army acronym that stands for Mobile Army Surgical Hospital.  During the Korean War (which lasted 8 FEWER years than the TV show), doctors were drafted to work in those hospitals in war zones alongside regular volunteer Army personnel.  The show is a portrayal of how that kind of situation may have played out.  It covers the horrors of war, social injustices that were perpetrated by Americans and affected Americans, Koreans and everyone else, and the camaraderie that can only be built from tragedy.  Through all that, there were only a few episodes that were not complete comedy.  The thing about good comedy is that even though they're jokes, they can really make you think.  You can pay attention and learn about things you'd maybe rather not think about in a way that feels more comfortable and safe in your head.

I feel like I should warn you, in case you're headed over to Netflix right away, though.  The pilot is actually a feature-length movie, and none of the actors return for the show, except for Gary Burghoff, who plays Radar.  Radar, by the way?  Awesome.  So adorable and funny and sweet, just the exact opposite of everyone else in the war.  My favorite episodes are from seasons six through eight, when there's a magic combination of Radar, Colonel Potter, BJ and Charles.  I love every season, and there's never one where they jump the shark but those seasons are just the best to me. 

Season 7 (I clearly don't own this)

There's only one actor who is in every single episode of the show, and that's Alan Alda.  He wasn't in the movie, of course; Hawkeye was played by Donald Sutherland in the movie.  Alan Alda is an incredibly talented actor, though, who also co-wrote and/or directed some of the episodes.  He's got an autobiography called Never Have Your Dog Stuffed: And Other Things I've Learned, which is completely hilarious and includes stories of his childhood on the Vaudeville circuit with his parents!  I recommend it.  I actually have plenty more recommendations and stories for you and I may get to them later, but I know I've used up a lot of your time today.  I hope you'll go watch or re-watch M*A*S*H on Netflix today (or online elsewhere... or on DVD if you're like me and have all the seasons already) and read Alan Alda's book.  Or all of his books.  There's more than one.  And I hope you love those guys (and the girls: Hot Lips and Nurse Kellye) as much as I do! 

I found this one here, a must-read for M*A*S*H fans!

Cyndi Lauper

When I was a kid, I listened to whatever music my mom was listening to, just like I'm sure all kids do. One of my favorites, and almost the only one I still like now is Cyndi Lauper. A few years ago... about 8 or 10, I guess... I went to see her in concert. There surprising thing about her is that she is MUCH better live than on the radio. As much as I love listening to her CDs, I'd trade them all in to listen to her in person! I learned at that concert that she was going to have a blues CD coming out. The second that album hit the store I bought it. I mean, I lived in Germany by that time and I drove about an hour to get to a base where I could pick it up the first day it was available and it did not disappoint. I'll leave you with a video here and let you decide for yourself. 

Click here to see Rollin and Tumblin by Cyndi Lauper

Beetlejuice

Do you guys remember Beetlejuice? It was the greatest, wasn't it? I keep hearing rumors about a remake so I wanted to just review what I loved about the original in case the new guys are scouring obscure blogs for input. I absolutely loved the waiting room scenes, those were my favorite parts. Seeing the complex stories being told only by makeup is really, really fun for me. Always has been. 

Another thing I never really appreciated at the time, being so young when the movie came out, was that Alec Baldwin was a total Baldwin! I can really appreciate that now, although it's super weird to think that I'm probably DEFINITELY older now than he was back then. Crazy. 

The music in that movie is the best, too! Remember when they all danced around the table to Harry Belefonte? I wanted a ghost to turn me into an expert dancer too! And at the end with the football team on the stairs? I was super jealous of Winona Ryder. She got to do that, plus be all emo angsty teenager. Unfair. 

Of course I loved that Kevin McAllister's mom was the bad guy, and I totally watched the cartoon every Saturday morning, but I'm pretty sure that movie is where my life-disrupting eye phobia started. You can't win them all, Beetlejuice. But good try.

Saturday Spotlight: Jay Are Adams

Do you ever sit around thinking, "Hmm... what should I be looking up on YouTube right now?  I need something hilarious but not filthy, so what am I to DO?" Try Jay Are Adams.  His profile on there is Caliryda21 and he's really funny.  He's even funnier in person as a stand-up comedian but he does these little songs on YouTube that he probably never does in person (I'd guess) so following him on there is pretty fun.  He's also on Instagram (you'll want to follow him there... you'll see), Snapchat and Twitter @JayAreAdams and of course Jay Are Adams on Facebook.  If you just look up 'Jay Are' on Facebook, he has a Page you can 'like' as well.   

I pretty much hoard every business card I get...

This dude is military, which is pretty cool with me.  I met him while he was stationed near me for some training or something.  He was at an open mic and he completely KILLED IT.  So funny!  He's pretty funny on Twitter too, which is good because it's sometimes a couple of weeks or a month between YouTube videos but they're worth your time.  Give him a try.  I'm telling you, you'll like him. 

Hunger Games

Here's the thing about me: I don't usually watch movies until they're on Netflix or TV, so all the movies I've seen are usually a zillion years old (hence all the 80s movies on my blog).  My awesome friend Candice recently introduced me to an app called Show Box, though, and I've used it to watch ALL KINDS OF MOVIES!!! I'm super in love with it, so thanks, Candice.  I watched The Hunger Games on TV a while back, so when I saw the rest of them on Show Box I watched them all right away... except for the last one, which wasn't out until Tuesday.  I'm on vacation this week, so I waited until everyone else went to bed and watched it on my phone Tuesday night and man, was it worth it!

North American first edition cover

I don't have a lot of reading time, but I try to do what I can, like I read Mayhem, the sequel to Madness by Derek Dykes (you can read about that here) on the plane Saturday.  The best compromise I've found is audiobooks.  They're free from the library and I can listen to them while I drive.  The book versions of these are, as usual, better than the movies.  I'm only on the second one but I'm really enjoying it. Suzanne Collins is definitely a new favorite of mine and I hope to read a lot more from her.   She also has a five-part series called The Underland Chronicles so I'm trying those at some point, for sure.

So the movies are great, as I probably don't need to tell you.  I'm surely the last one to see them.  I really just love Jennifer Lawrence and Josh Hutcherson in those movies, and Julianne Moore's hair was wonderful!  It was nice to see Phillip Seymour Hoffman again and he was brilliant as ever.  What a great actor he was.  I'm obviously in love with Lenny Kravitz just like everyone else, and I'd have loved to see more of him.  His character is actually way more important in the books, so if you haven't read them and you liked Cinna you'll like the books too.  Anyway, I just really always suggest reading.  Reading is FUNdamental, ya know!  Get to it.