I admire you, Lovely, wherever you may be.
You talk like Marlene Dietrich
And you dance like Zizi Jeanmaire
Your clothes are all made by Balmain
And there’s diamonds and pearls in your hair, yes there are.
You live in a fancy apartment
Off the Boulevard of St. Michel
Where you keep your Rolling Stones records
And a friend of Sacha Distel, yes you do.
You go to the embassy parties
Where you talk in Russian and Greek
And the young men who move in your circles
They hang on every word you speak, yes they do.
But where do you go to my lovely
When you're alone in your bed
Tell me the thoughts that surround you
I want to look inside your head, yes i do.
I've seen all your qualifications
You got from the Sorbonne
And the painting you stole from Picasso
Your loveliness goes on and on, yes it does.
When you go on your summer vacation
You go to Juan-les-Pines
With your carefully designed topless swimsuit
You get an even suntan, on your back and on your legs.
And when the snow falls you're found in St. Moritz
With the others of the jet-set
And you sip your Napoleon Brandy
But you never get your lips wet, no you don't.
But where do you go to my lovely
When you're alone in your bed
would you Tell me the thoughts that surround you
I want to look inside your head, yes I do.
You're in between 20 and 30
A very desirable age
Your body is firm and inviting
But you live on a glittering stage, yes you do, yes you do.
Your name is heard in high places
You know the Aga Khan
He sent you a racehorse for Christmas
And you keep it just for fun, for a laugh ha-ha-ha
They say that when you get married
It'll be to a millionaire
But they don't realize where you came from
And I wonder if they really care, or give a damn
But where do you go to my lovely
When you're alone in your bed
Tell me the thoughts that surround you
I want to look inside your head, yes i do.
I remember the back streets of Naples
Two children begging in rags
Both touched with a burning ambition
To shake off their lowly brown tags, they try
So look into my face Marie-Claire
And remember just who you are
Then go and forget me forever
But I know you still bear
the scar, deep inside, yes you do
I know where you go to my lovely
When you're alone in your bed
I know the thoughts that surround you
`Cause I can look inside your head.
"Where Do You Go To My Lovely" Peter Sarstedt
Thursday, February 24, 2011
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
Desperate Love
Desperate Housewives is the worst show on TV. The characters are petulant and Botoxed to high heaven, the plot lines are preposterous, the dialogue is weak, and the acting is, well, desperate. Now let me clear the decks and tell you the truth. I'm a bottom-feeder and I love this god-awful soap with all my heart. Undoubtedly, you, dear reader, are scratching your head wondering how the hell you've wandered into the clutches of a writer with such poor taste. You put your coffee cup down and bang your head against the table, rattling the floor beneath. You cringe, you writhe.You simply don't understand.
And you know what, reader? I don't get it myself. I surreptitiously pull up Safari and salivate at the thought of spending an hour with Eva Longoria, Felicity Huffman, Teri Hatcher, and Marcia Cross via hulu.com. I probably sound like a lesbian but I'm not, I can promise you that. My love is chaste though these women are objectively fiiine for all of their middle age.
If you've never tuned in, let me break the characters down. Longoria plays Gabrielle Solis—a smokin' hot Hispanic with a penchant for retail therapy, shaming her family, and swishing her pony tail. Next up is Huffman. She plays Lynette Scavo—obnoxiously moral mother of five (or is it more?) with an idiot husband and loads of laundry to do and dishes to wash, always bemoaning the loss of a nonexistent career while flexing yoga-toned arms. Then there's Teri Hatcher, who plays Susan Delfino. Delfino is a shit-show with a heart of gold. She tries to “do the right thing” but burns down a neighbor's home, acts in yuppie-porn, shamelessly seduces an ex-con turned plumber, and just generally runs around like a chicken with her head cut off. Finally, Marcia Cross plays Bree Van de Kamp—a severely uptight woman with stifled sexual urges and a tendency towards manic baking (pastry and not marijuana).
The four live on Wisteria Lane—a manicured street that hums pleasantly with quiet scandal as the flowers inevitably twist over and under the homes. Wisteria Lane is home to the elderly, the gay, the Puerto Rican, the young, the rich, the Black, the middle-class, the once jailed, the once troubled, and the like. This veritable melange of people and circumstances seems highly improbable. On a fundamental level, how are the lavish and the destitute paying the same mortgage? How are ex-cons living next door to beauty queens and manic bakers? Wisteria Lane pushes the borders of reality until we're taken to a perverse and psychotic suburbia. The shenanigans are never-ending and the plot lines move forward, unconcerned with coherent narrative.
In the first season of Desperate Housewives, eternal narrator and distinguished housewife Mary Alice Young commits suicide and shocks the neighborhood. Mary Alice kills herself for fear of a black secret involving her husband and son coming to light. At her wake, Gabrielle, Lynette, Susan, and Bree meet and greet over cucumber sandwiches and noodle casserole, perturbed by their mutual friend's demise.
In the following seasons, I was both disgusted and delighted by the meandering story lines of the housewives. Gabrielle would seduce the beefy, if overly sensitive, high school gardener before finding that her daughter had been switched at birth; Lynette would give birth to a nation of a children before realizing that her husband had once cheated with the black diva next door; Susan would tryst with her ex-husband, marry her beloved ex-con, give birth to a child, star in domestic porn and burn down her enemy's house; and Bree would get divorced, own up to her alcoholism, seduce her AA life coach, seduce a young repair man, cope with her children's raging hatred, and bake pastry after pastry.
I'm seven seasons in and at no point were these story lines believable, and at no point was I bored.
In the show's opening credits, tinny carnival music plays as an apple falls from the tree—a callback to Eve's sinful foray into the forbidden fruit. I wish I could say that I had the willpower, the absolute lack of hunger, to close my lap top and forget the whole sinful charade once and for all. But somewhere in there, I too was seduced, and now I wait with bated breath and infernal hunger. I wait for my computer to load, and for these stupid women to appear like the snake in the mist, offering evil wisdom and glistening, red delight.
And you know what, reader? I don't get it myself. I surreptitiously pull up Safari and salivate at the thought of spending an hour with Eva Longoria, Felicity Huffman, Teri Hatcher, and Marcia Cross via hulu.com. I probably sound like a lesbian but I'm not, I can promise you that. My love is chaste though these women are objectively fiiine for all of their middle age.
If you've never tuned in, let me break the characters down. Longoria plays Gabrielle Solis—a smokin' hot Hispanic with a penchant for retail therapy, shaming her family, and swishing her pony tail. Next up is Huffman. She plays Lynette Scavo—obnoxiously moral mother of five (or is it more?) with an idiot husband and loads of laundry to do and dishes to wash, always bemoaning the loss of a nonexistent career while flexing yoga-toned arms. Then there's Teri Hatcher, who plays Susan Delfino. Delfino is a shit-show with a heart of gold. She tries to “do the right thing” but burns down a neighbor's home, acts in yuppie-porn, shamelessly seduces an ex-con turned plumber, and just generally runs around like a chicken with her head cut off. Finally, Marcia Cross plays Bree Van de Kamp—a severely uptight woman with stifled sexual urges and a tendency towards manic baking (pastry and not marijuana).
The four live on Wisteria Lane—a manicured street that hums pleasantly with quiet scandal as the flowers inevitably twist over and under the homes. Wisteria Lane is home to the elderly, the gay, the Puerto Rican, the young, the rich, the Black, the middle-class, the once jailed, the once troubled, and the like. This veritable melange of people and circumstances seems highly improbable. On a fundamental level, how are the lavish and the destitute paying the same mortgage? How are ex-cons living next door to beauty queens and manic bakers? Wisteria Lane pushes the borders of reality until we're taken to a perverse and psychotic suburbia. The shenanigans are never-ending and the plot lines move forward, unconcerned with coherent narrative.
In the first season of Desperate Housewives, eternal narrator and distinguished housewife Mary Alice Young commits suicide and shocks the neighborhood. Mary Alice kills herself for fear of a black secret involving her husband and son coming to light. At her wake, Gabrielle, Lynette, Susan, and Bree meet and greet over cucumber sandwiches and noodle casserole, perturbed by their mutual friend's demise.
In the following seasons, I was both disgusted and delighted by the meandering story lines of the housewives. Gabrielle would seduce the beefy, if overly sensitive, high school gardener before finding that her daughter had been switched at birth; Lynette would give birth to a nation of a children before realizing that her husband had once cheated with the black diva next door; Susan would tryst with her ex-husband, marry her beloved ex-con, give birth to a child, star in domestic porn and burn down her enemy's house; and Bree would get divorced, own up to her alcoholism, seduce her AA life coach, seduce a young repair man, cope with her children's raging hatred, and bake pastry after pastry.
I'm seven seasons in and at no point were these story lines believable, and at no point was I bored.
In the show's opening credits, tinny carnival music plays as an apple falls from the tree—a callback to Eve's sinful foray into the forbidden fruit. I wish I could say that I had the willpower, the absolute lack of hunger, to close my lap top and forget the whole sinful charade once and for all. But somewhere in there, I too was seduced, and now I wait with bated breath and infernal hunger. I wait for my computer to load, and for these stupid women to appear like the snake in the mist, offering evil wisdom and glistening, red delight.
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