Stranger Things

Alright, you've seen Stranger Things, right? If there one thing I love it's a Netflix original, and this one doesn't disappoint. It's about these three kids who try to find their friends after he disappears walking home from a day of D&D. They team up with a telekinetic girl named Eleven (a terrifying implication, because where are the other ten?) and try to find and defeat the Demogorgon. 

The best part is the pure nostalgia of it. If you were kicking around in the 80s you'll see a lot of things that will bring you right back. The props and set dressings aren't the kinds of things they used in 80s movies, they're the kinds of things normal people really had in their houses. What I call the 'grandma couch'... that brown couch with the wagon wheel and flowers... you know the one; that's the kind of thing you'll see. They've even got Winona Ryder, arguably one of the best parts of the 80s. She's really great and gives an amazing performance but the real stars are the kids. I didn't really have a favorite kid while watching the show because they're all legitimately talented actors. But since I've finished, I've seen this video:

This kid's been a Broadway star for years now and he's seriously got some pipes! His name is Gaten Matarazzo (no relation to Heather Matarazzo from The Princess Diaries). If you look him up on YouTube you can find tons of videos of him singing, and they're all wonderful. Here's my favorite:

It's great. Click it, you'll love it. Let me know what you think down below. 

The Princess Diaries

Ya know Julie Andrews? Perfect and beautiful, right? Guys, I know. 
I KNOW! 
And when I saw The Princess Diaries I first noticed Anne Hathaway, who's gone on to become a household name. I've seen most of her movies and watched grow up on-screen since then. I think even still, I mostly love her much because of that bushy hair in this movie!  

My own bushy hair

Really, I loved that movie so much that when I heard a sequel was coming I was absolutely delighted! Only, here's the thing: I was deployed to Oahu, Hawaii when it was released, and that happened to be the very week that my mom and her friend (of the moment) came to visit me. Without mentioning the movie, I offered to send them on a nice luau date. Nobody wants their daughter on a Hawaiian date night, so I got to watch The Princess Diaries 2 on opening night! I felt like Heather Matarazzo (who played 'the best friend', Lily, in the first one, and who was really important to the story) kinda deserved more screen time, but it was very responsible of them to make her a good student, so it is what it is. The movie was still amazing and every bit as good as the first one, which is rare for a sequel. The highlight of the whole thing for me was watching Julie Andrews sing. It wasn't a big, juicy song but it just felt like a big, warm, Mary Poppins hug!

Which is what every movie should aspire to. 

Even the scary ones. 

That was a joke. 

Milli Vanilli

I actually have kind of a story about Milli Vanilli. As you probably all know by now, I grew up in a very hot climate, in the desert of southern California. I don't remember the heat really bothering me too badly as a kid, but I went back for a visit when I was 17 or 18 and it literally felt like I was being baked. I honestly felt like I was becominging cooked meat. We had moved to the Oregon coast and didn't need air conditioning in our car there, so my mom had bought a car without A/C and we never missed it... until we drove it to California. Even with all four windows down all the way it was intolerable. It was just like being blasted with hot air and it was no fun for me. 

Rewind a bit to 1990. One time we left a few of our tapes in the car over the weekend. That was a terrible idea. The tape part was okay, the part that actually has music on it (kids, you'll want to google that). But the plastic cassette part was, at one point, obviously liquid. Milli Vanilli was ruined! Now who were we supposed to blame it on? Nobody knew! So we took two tapes apart and combined them so that the Achy Break Heart tape, or whatever actually played Milli Vanilli. It was pretty smart. Later, as a teenager I found the same tape at a thrift store for a quarter or something. My friend Michelle and I blasted it in her Camaro with the T tops off. So much fun!

Thanks, Michelle. You're a blast!

The Rosie O'Donnell Show

In the 90s, I had a favorite TV show, which came on after school, so I had to rush home to catch it every day.  I was completely hooked on The Rosie O'Donnell Show and I never missed it if I could help it. I loved the opening theme song (which had a different line at the end each day), I loved all the guests that she had on and I loved her Koosh Ball shooter!  I even loved her complete obsession with Tom Cruise, even though it was way too much and I've never even liked Tom Cruise.  I loved it because I can DEFINITELY relate to being 'too much' when it comes to fangirling.  'Too much' is like my natural state. 

When I was a senior in high school (1999 this was), my drama club went on a field trip to New York to watch plays on Broadway.  While I was there I started my coffee cup collection, and I came home with close to a dozen souvenir mugs.  It's strange, but somehow I've ended up with around 100 coffee cups (I would've guessed 50 but I just counted them and... WOW.) but the only one left from that trip is my Rosie Show mug.

Here it is!

The reason that show occurs to me now is because my favorite episode ever was the one where Kerri Strug, who basically won the Olympics that year, came on.  My sister and I were watching the Olympics the night Kerri Strug won our country the gold by totally nailing her second vault... after she'd BROKEN HER ANKLE on the first try.  I watched the medal ceremony bawling that night.  I watched Kerri Strug on Rosie bawling later on.  I watched her on a lot of shows and interviews and documentaries, bawling every time.  And now that there's YouTube, I watch that vault over and over again and cry every time.  It's what ridiculous old ladies do, right? Seriously though, I cry over everything.  I really do.  And every time I think of the Olympics, Rosie O'Donnell, gymnastics or anyone named Kerri, Carrie or Cary I push back an urge to tear up.  Because that is easily the best feel-good story I've ever heard, and I watched it unfold in real time.  Then the heroine went on my favorite show and talked about it.  That was a good year.

Avi Kaplan

Well, this post was supposed to go up yesterday but I figure my follower will forgive me (I got big jokes). Today let's discuss Avi Kaplan.  He's one of the members of Pentatonix, and here's what happened: The other day I was listening to music but my phone doesn't go very loud.  I put YouTube up on TV so I could hear it all over the house while I cleaned.  As I walked past on one of my trips, I got distracted (my natural state) and watched a minute or two of a music video.  This popped up:

In the midst of a perfectly normal day, this face is startlingly attractive.  It was, like... jarring.  I enjoyed it.  Now you can, too. 

Candyman

I'd like to share with you quickly a little bit about my relationship with scary movies. As I mentioned, I started reading Stephen King when I was nine years old, and I've been watching horror since long before then. As an adult, not many scary movies can keep my heart racing all the way to the end but when I was a kid I was much easier to hold. I've always loved being frightened by movies, and I've always kind of chased that high of being terrified to turn the light off bedtime. If you've read my posts up to now (particularly this one) you'll know that the town I grew up in was an hour from civilization in the two closest directions so I can literally count on one hand the movies that I saw in theaters between '86 and '92. Candyman, Death Becomes Her, Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Who Framed Roger Rabbit are the only ones that come to mind. Of those four, only one left me terrified at bedtime, and as a matter of fact I was terrified at all times! Even though I was plenty old enough to have been jaded about the genre in general, I guess seeing it on the big screen really affected me and I was scared enough to even pee with the door cracked open for probably a full week. It remains the most afraid I've ever been of a movie and it holds a very dear place in my heart. 

Now. Recently I discovered Tony Todd, the Candyman himself, is on Twitter. I followed him immediately and tried to come up with some way to put all of this information into 140 characters but before I could, I found that he's one of the celebrities who follows the fans who follow him! Obviously, he doesn't know me from Adam on Twitter but still... he followed me! He's my Twitter follower and he seems to read fan tweets often. This is a big day for me and I'm going to use it wisely! He's getting a link to this post in addition his fan letter, and hopefully he'll read it. Keep checking back on Twitter, folks! I just may receive a mention!

Demi Lovato

Hey, pals.  I have a question for you.  Have you ever listened to Demi Lovato?  Because I hadn't until recently.  I hadn't heard anything bad about her or anything, it's just that I'm 35 years old and it had never occurred to me to give her a try.  Then one night on James Corden (I watch the show the next day because who can stay up that late?) she sang Stone Cold.  You guys, it was simply gorgeous.  Her voice was beautiful and the lyrics, which she co-wrote, were touching.  Every once in a while I find myself Googling that video to listen to while I do whatever I'm doing.  I'll link it here and let you all judge for yourselves.  Gimme those comments down below, folks!  Let me know if you like it too.