Criminal Minds. And Booty

Sorry, I can't talk right now, A&E is running an all day marathon of Criminal Minds and I'm only halfway through. A day long orgy of grim, tight mouthed FBI agents and serial killers who giggle. Tip: if the guy sitting next to you on the bus is giggling, you're in trouble.

A big part of Criminal Minds' appeal is Shemar Moore

The FBI apparently doubles as a gay porn factory. Shemar also starred in Tyler Perry's Madea: Diary of Mad Black Woman. I know this because I have been sucked into the vortex of black cinema on the On Demand channel of my cable. The "black cinema" turns out to be all Tyler Perry, all the time. It's as if a "gay cinema" channel was dedicated to permutations on Cage aux Folles. Actually, that's probably happened but I just haven't found it yet.

There is on-going speculation about Tyler Perry's sexuality, to which I respond with a hearty "duh." And it's not his choice of appearing in drag for his most famous role, it his directorial decisions that give away his big mo-ness. Exhibits A and B:

Adam Rodriguez

Boris Kodjoe

stars of a couple of Perry's vehicles and typical of all the men in his movies all of whom are humpy beyond any human norm. It's possible they are mutants. Perry's set-up for the shots of female protagonists show the tender concerns of a dish detergent commercial, while the boys get an on-going soft-core porn thang.

Plus, the women, who are always strong , but oddly mistreated, usually look like they're about ten years older than the men (strong, sensitive, caring, butch, Christian.) What's with that?

Lastly, here is the big wedding scene from Madea's Family Reunion.

Could anyone but a gay man with serious conflicts about heterosexual norms give the greenlight to this in his movie. Yes, those are live women strung up there with some harps. Did I mention various closer shots of the set included big muscley almost-naked men in frames with angel wings and trumpets. Why? Uh, the polite answer might be "I dunno;" the less polite supposition being Tyler owed some trick a favor and this was payback.

Anyway, I gotta go, I got serial killers waiting.

Before and After Pornster

Darlings. I stumbled on this totally scary image over at Infomaniac's; it appears to be an accessory to give a man (or rather, a person with a penis) the startling effect of having a cameltoe. If that is your desire in life, then you have come to the right place, you lucky freak, you.

Of more interest to me is the model since I swear it is the gone-to-seed remnants of a Colt model I used to be wild for who operated under the completely ridiculous name of "Beau Wheeler."

For some other jobs he tamed it down to James somethingortheother, but he'll always be Beau to me.

So, look at the face. Come on, you can do it. Don't you think I'm right? My, how the mighty have fallen.

Stripper Joe

You know how deeply I lust after the enormous hunk o' beef, Joe Manganiello, from True Blood. I have even taught myself to spell his name correctly, the better to write "Mrs. Joe Manganiello" on my notebook should I ever find myself trapped in homeroom again.

Word now reaches us he will be participating in the biopic of Channing Tatum, aka Mr. Potato Head, specifically on that sleazy portion of Mr. Channing's life when he was a stripper. I had to make a short sidetrip through Wikipedia to find out who this Channing creature is; turns out he ground out some G.I. Joe movie. But wasn't that Demi Moore before she got her Showgirl tits? I'm confused.

Not so confused that I'm not already salivating at the idea of seeing Joe peel down to a tiny little thong. Yay babay.

Rocky

Tomorrow is garbage day here in the beloved canyon mrpteene calls home, so that means tonight is Put the Goddam Trash Out Before Your Forget It Again night and all up and down the street the raccoons are singing their weekly songs of love and snack foraging. Have you ever heard raccoons? They make this weird, high-pitched chittering that sounds like when the aliens are chatting in some cheap sci-fi horror.

All of this winds Saki, the Evil and Adorable cat, into a frenzy, thrashing about the room claiming he can take those stupid critters, just let him at 'em. After about twenty minutes of this while I'm trying to concentrate on porn, I'm considering giving him his wish, but these raccoons are about five times as big as he is and fearless. Apparently that comes from living on a diet of tamales past their sell-by dates. I've seen these bad boys as I've been driving up to the house and I've been scared, in the car. They look like they know how to pick locks. If you want us, the houseboys and I will huddled in terror in the attic.

Break it down, houseboy, break it down.

Weed Whacker

I went out for dinner at the excellent pizza place whose name I forget cause I got too much other excellent stuff taking up room in my superior type brain. A friend of Super Agent Fred's was there and, after hearing my whining about how beat up I had gotten weeding the yard that afternoon, he announced gardening was both soothing and relaxing.

Schmuck.

I'm sure a good axe murder spree is soothing, but the only people who think gardening is relaxing are those who do not indulge in it. I spent hours whacking away at a small-ish mountain of weeds, invasive blackberry canes as big around as my thumb and a passion flower vine that is determined to take over the whole side of the canyon we live in. I got scratches all over, thorns stuck in both hands (through a pair of heavy duty gloves) and sprained my back. Yeah, it was plenty relaxing.

Weeds.

More weeds.

Lotsa Weeds.

Throughout, I had my iTunes playing on the computer up here with the windows open so I could hear it. I realize my neighbors also got an earful, but since I never usually do that, I figured they could suck it up. The shuffle spit out Donna Summer (Bad Girls,) Erasure (Victim of Love,) Madonna (Vogue,) and Dusty Springfield (who knows what? I have lots.) I could just hear them "So he's not just a queen, he's an OLD queen...."

Things not actually weeds up in the yard:

Mexican Sage, rolling off into the distance.

Purple echiveria and an old, old, old red fuschia

Coreopsis

Some itty bitty blue flower, the name of which I have long since forgotten, if I ever knew it.

HurriCan't

I was delighted with this pulpy charmer which our beloved Infomaniac used to respond to my comment that, in turn, responded to her very sensitive post about possible East Coast victims of Hurricane Irene (is this all too internal, too blogger-centric, too meta, too tootoo for you? Tough. Do try to keep up.)

My considerably less sensitive comment to her post said "Pooh. As an old Gulf Coast boy, I still say if it's to the right (starboard) of Florida, it's not a real hurricane." Yeah, that's right, I said it and I'm sticking by it, especially since Irene turned to to be such a wimpy little blow, not much more than a lot of rain and a chance for New York transit official to turn of the subway. (And what's with that? I didn't even know they could turn it off.)

I understand the anxiety of staring down the barrel of an oncoming hurricane, the tragedy of rushing down to the grocery to stock up on supplies only to discover your piggish neighbors have already scored all the beer and cheap scotch. But my substantial experience with them makes me confident that if, on Thursday, the storm trackers are warning you that the hurricane will come ashore in your neighborhood on Sunday, you can feel confident about sleeping in late that morning and then watching the Weather Channel to see where it actually wanders in.

Understand me, I am not exaggerating (for once) my hurricane experiences. My parents' home was located on a lovely, leafy peninsula that stuck out into Galveston Bay. In the thirty years they lived there, it was flooded seven or eight times and threatened pretty much annually. Eventually, the city condemned the whole fucking neighborhood for being too disaster prone and turned it into a nature preserve, complete with alligators. To this day, the nasty mucky smell of a mud flat at low tide is a nostalgic, Proustian experience for me.

So a Category 3 (Category 3? As in Category "What's the big deal, why are you being such a little Girl" 3?) storm comes along and I'm not impressed? It's nurture, not nature.

What Fresh Hell is This?

Today is Dorothy Parker's birthday. In her honor, I plan to do no housework, knock back some vicodan and recite my favorite Parker ode:

Oh, life is a glorious cycle of song,

a medley of extemporanea;

and love is a thing that can never go wrong.

And I am Marie of Romania.

This is not Miss Parker. It is a glorious cycle of something or the other.