Category Archives: Miscellany

Where Are They Now – Saved By The Bell: The New Class

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Whoever said “all good things come to an end” wasn’t entirely correct. Sometimes, good things sputter, flounder, and turn into a shell of their former selves and then come to an end years later, long after their period of relevance.Yeah, I’m talking about the Saved By The Bell Franchise. Remember that weird senior year where Kelly and Jessie were replaced by Tori, who may as well have been a permed wig and a leather jacket perched on top of a wheeled office chair? That was nothing compared to what lay ahead. Saved By The Bell: The New Class contained a rotating cast of teens who aged out every year. If you watched it for enough seasons, it must have been how being a teacher feels, staying in the same school and watching the kids get younger and younger. These kids all sort of ran together into not-Zacks and fake-Kellys and weird-Slaters. We all sort of know where the original Bayside gang is now, so I think it’s about time we catch up with the cast of Saved By The Bell: The New Class.

Robert Sutherland Telfer (Scott Erickson)

This kiddo was really trying to hit all the marks.He even has three names, like Mark-Paul Gosselaar (and Brian Austin Green, and Jonathan Taylor Thomas, and Taryn Noah Smith, and so many more). But Scott Erickson was fake Zack, and it just wasn’t the same.

These days, Robert Sutherland Telfer has quit the small screen and managed, in 2014, to exist without an internet presence. A few probably false bits of information on the internet: (1) He was fired from SBTB: The New Class after it became known that he was a “radical conservative”; (2) He was fired because he “didn’t act like he should”; and (3) “he competed in amateur gymnastics under the tutelage of famed Québécois magician F. Brian Fester.” Curiously, magician F. Brian Fester’s only Google hits are in fake-sounding bios of this kid from Saved By The Bell: The New Class. Anyway, the real magician here is Robert Sutherland Telfer, for maintaining such a trackless existence on the worldwide web.

Jonathan Angel (Tommy De Luca)

“Tommy D.” was an odd combination of Slater and Joey Tribbiani. Actor Jonathan Angel has mostly left the business, last appearing in the small 2006 film “Leaving L.A.” By the LinkedIn process of elimination game, he is either a 3D animator now or, perhaps much more likely, he doesn’t have an internet presence and that’s some other guy who has a cool job. You may be more familiar with Jonathan’s dad’s work – Joe Angel is the radio announcer for the Baltimore Orioles.

Isaac Lidsky (Barton “Weasel” Wyzell)

Now we have something to work with. Isaac Lidsky played Fake Screech, and although they even gave him wacky mismatched outfits and a stupid nickname, it still wasn’t the same. After leaving The New Class, Lidsky graduated with math and computer science degrees from Harvard (after enrolling at age 15!) , founded an internet advertising company, Poindexter Systems, then graduated magna cum laude from Harvard Law. He was on Law Review, naturally. Lidsky, who is blind, founded Hope For Vision, a charity that promotes research for the visually impaired. And he clerked for my favorite Supreme Court Justice and yours, Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Lidsky has also founded a construction firm, as if all of the rest of that weren’t enough. He is married and the father of three triplets: Thaddeus, Phineas and Lily Louise. Well done, Weasel!

Natalia Cigliuti (Lindsay Warner)

Not to be outdone by Fake Screech, Fake Kelly is also doing pretty well for herself. Natalia is still a working actress, and you may know her from Raising The Bar, The Glades, All My Children, and 90210 (the original version and the 2000s spinoff). Natalia, who was born in Uruguay, is also the mother of a 9-year-old son, Kaden. You can catch her on Twitter and Instagram, where she posted this great photo of her, Sarah Lancaster and Samantha Esteban (Becker) today.

Bianca Lawson (Megan Jones)

Megan Jones was sort of a combination of Lisa and Jessie, and when you think about it those characters could have easily been rolled into one person – a straight-A student like Spano fending off the affections of a nerd, like Turtle. But today, you may be most familiar with Bianca Lawson as one of those human vampire people who does not age. After leaving The New Class, Lawson played a teenager again in Buffy The Vampire Slayer – and then again on Dawson’s Creek (Nikki Green), and in Save The Last Dance, and then an early 20-something on Secret Life Of The American Teenager, and most recently Maya Saint Germain on Pretty Little Liars. Yes, Maya was like 33 years old. Hats off to Bianca, and also to the portrait that Bianca has in her attic that ages on her behalf.

Bonnie Russavage (Vicki Needleman)

The notes I jotted down for this post include this description of Vicki Needleman: “Fake Jessie only even more useless.” And basically, yes. There was no need for this character. Or any of these characters. Or this entire show, to be quite honest.

After The New Class, Bonnie all but left acting, choosing to go to college and earning a degree in Business Administration. She works in the medical field and is a parent, and seems to be living a nice, normal life – except with the cool party anecdote that she used to be on a Saved By The Bell spinoff as a teenager.

Sarah Lancaster (Rachel Meyers)

Rachel Meyers (sort of a Lisa-ish character, for you SBTB purists) is doing well for herself! Sarah Lancaster took college courses while filming The New Class, and pursued an acting career after she left Bayside. Most recently, she’s appeared in a string of TV movies, which is probably good work if you can get into it. However, you may be most familiar with her as Ellie Woodcomb on Chuck – as well as one- and two- episode stints on tons of tv series. Meyers is currently married and is the mother of a young son, Oliver. You can follow her on Twitter – she seems like a nice lady!

Lindsey McKeon (Katie Peterson)

My notes for Katie Peterson said “generic clean-cut 90s girl,” and I’m going to stick with that. She played sports and had kind of a Delia’s Catalog vibe. Post-Bayside, McKeon appeared as Taylor James on One Tree Hill, Tessa on Supernatural, and Marah Lewis on Guiding Light. Her IMDB bio is a bit vague but she sounds like a genuinely smart and interesting person – she likes to travel, is on the board of a nonprofit, enjoys reading, and, like Meryl Streep and my niece and nephew, hails from Summit, New Jersey. Lindsey was married last year, and has several film projects in the can.

Ben Gould (Nicky Farina)

Check out that Regulation Cute 90s Boy Haircut! This was one of those kids added a bit later in the series, after the original New Class started to age out. Ben continued to work as an actor into the early 2000s, with roles on Once and Again and E.R.

Christian Oliver (Brian Keller)

Brian Keller was a Swiss exchange student who was named Brian Keller, because presumably that was the most Swiss name SBTB execs could come up with? German-born Oliver was the cute foreign guy in the mid-90s. Remember Stacy’s love interest, Luca, from The Babysitter’s Club movie? Yep, that was him. More recently, he appeared in Valkyrie, but he has worked consistently on tv series, movies, and tv movies. Christian has a surprisingly serious website.

Richard Lee Jackson (Ryan Parker)

Ryan transferred from Valley (ooooh!) but he was actually all right. Since The New Class, Jackson has continued to act, most recently appearing on Grimm. He is also a musician and the current drummer for Enation, in which his brother Jonathan is the lead singer. He was married in 2005, and you can keep up with him via his website.

Samantha Becker (Maria Lopez)

In the ultimate proof that the showrunners of The New Class weren’t even trying, this character’s name is only one letter off from the name of one of the original series’ stars. If The New Class had gone on any longer, I’m sure we would have been treated to characters named Mark-Paul Gosselaark and Tiffany-Amber Thiessen. Samantha Becker is now known as Samantha Esteban, and recently appeared as Monica Garza on From Dusk Til Dawn. You may also recognize her as Letty from Training Day. I know I’ve said this about everyone so far but based on her Twitter she seems like a really nice person.

Salim Grant (R.J. ‘Hollywood’ Collins)

Why did they call him ‘Hollywood’? Didn’t they all live in L.A.? Grant has worked on and off as an actor since Saved By The Bell. He has primarily moved into music production, working with Rising Platform Productions LLC – ” a full service Production Company and Independent Record Label.”

Anthony Harrell (Cornelius ‘Eric’ Little)

 

After I shook off my confusion at Eric being a nickname for Cornelius (I’m sure they explained it?), I got a sense of deja vu. Didn’t I do this already? Yes. Prior to SBTB, Harrell appeared in Kids Incorporated, and he has already been featured in one of our Where Are They Now posts. He is currently a singer and performed with the R&B group Brutha.

Ashley Lyn Cafagna (Liz Miller)

After appearing as a regular on The Bold And The Beautiful, and guesting on series like Seventh Heaven, Ashley set her sights on loftier heights: contemporary Christian music. Now known as Ashley Tesoro – which means Ashley Treasure because she is such a gem (yeah, I majored in Spanish, what?), she released an album called Simply Worship in 2012. Okay, Tesoro is actually her husband’s surname, and together they run Tesoro Entertainment and Tesoro Records, Christian production companies. She has a one-year-old daughter, Gabriella, and also enjoys martial arts. You can look at her adorable family on Twitter.

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Stop Complaining About The Ice Bucket Challenge

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By now, I’m assuming most of you have either done the ALS Association’s viral Ice Bucket Challenge or seen video of it flooding your social media. Pun intended. In case you need a refresher, a person who is nominated to take the Ice Bucket Challenge must post a video on social media of themselves pouring a bucket of ice water over their person (in regular pedestrian clothes). They must mention why they are doing this ridiculous activity (to raise awareness and funds for the ALS Association) and nominate more people to take on the challenge. Also they must donate $10 to the ALSA. If one decides to not take on the challenge, they must donate $100 to the ALSA. Either option must be done within 24 hours.

Okay, so let’s back up a bit. This all started when the friends and family of former Boston College baseball player Peter Frates launched an ice bucket challenge campaign towards the end of July. Peter was diagnosed with ALS in 2012, and everyone involved was doing it in hopes to raise money for the ALSA. Since the task involves nominating other people within a small time frame, the challenge quickly spread around the city of Boston. I personally saw it keep popping up on my news feed and then sure enough it spread across the country, reaching my friends here in LA and it seems over the past week, it’s gotten to people in high places. From police to firefighters to entire sports teams to celebs like Justin Timberlake, Jimmy Fallon, Tyler Perry (one of my fave videos), Oprah (she has yet to respond to Tyler’s challenge), Mark Zuckerberg, and even Ethel freaking Kennedy, who challenged President Obama – who declined respectfully and donated to the cause.

JT being a delight

As the challenge went viral, I noticed that the message of raising funds and awareness for ALS was getting buried by the actual act of dousing yourself in ice water. Yes, the whole point is to get attention by shocking your body to the core, but why even do it if it’s not going to a good cause? That’s dumb. This whole campaign’s point is to raise money. Yesterday I even saw a video of someone in Japan (one of my FB friends was tagged in it) pouring a bucket of ice water over himself and didn’t even say one word. He did, however write a caption to go along with the video which said, “I just wanted to join you!I do not know the reason why we do this. But, I understand that we only have 24 hours left to do this. Please accept my apology if the way I am covered with cold water is inappropriate.” The Ice Bucket Challenge has reached all the way to Asia but he doesn’t even know WHY Americans are doing it? Not only does it make us look stupid and well, ‘Americans’, but it proves all the naysayers right in that people are doing the Ice Bucket Challenge to entertain and for shock value, not for its real cause. Those naysayers include people like this writer for Slate, who proposes people start the “No Ice Bucket Challenge”, in which people skip the ice bucket thing all together and just donate to the ALSA.

I know I’m starting to sound like I’m against this whole thing, but hear me out: here’s the problem with this guy’s No Ice Bucket Challenge pitch – this is already a thing. Anyone, anywhere, can donate money any time to the ALSA. And since it’s an ongoing thing where they seek funds, the organisation (or its supporters) have to constantly come up with creative ways to get people to donate to their cause. It’s why advertising is a thing. For instance, you know a company like Coca-Cola exists, but they have to always have to keep re-inventing ways to entice customers to purchase their product over Pepsi, and in general, just stay in their brains. ALS isn’t necessarily a well known disease and this one simple campaign has already attracted the attention of thousands of people from around the world. So the next time someone hears about ALS (or Lou Gherig’s Disease), they might remember, ‘oh yeah, that had to do with the whole Ice Bucket Challenge thing’, maybe I’ll donate to them that year.

Not only that, but since July 29th, when this whole Challenge really took off, to today (August 15th) the ALSA has raised $9.5 million, and that amount is only going to get bigger as the days go on (like I said, Oprah has yet to respond). For comparison, this same time last year – the ALSA only raised $1.6 million. That statistic alone should prove to the “No Ice Bucket Challenge” people that all of this wasted ice and water was worth it. Stop complaining and look at the facts. Or better yet grab a bucket and put your money where your ice is.

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Things I’m Willing To Believe About Ben Affleck

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Well, friends, we’ve cycled back into that biennial rumor that Ben Affleck and Jennifer Garner are having another baby. Frankly, I just don’t know why this is a concern. Is it because people are worried about overpopulation? Because it’s not like the world is overpopulated with charming, well-dressed children who are genetically suited to star in romantic comedies and movies where they avenge the deaths of their blue-collar family members. If there even is a quota on that, we haven’t hit it.

The worst thing about these rumors is they usually say that Affleck is a massive jerk, and Garner is having another kid to “hold onto him.” I have a very specific, mostly baseless mental concept of Ben Affleck, and that just doesn’t fit with it. My Mental Ben Affleck could best be described as a “classy Masshole.” He has a heart of gold, or maybe the outside is gold and the inside is some kind of craft beer.

There are some fictional facts I’m willing to believe about Ben Affleck, but they’re more like this:

  • Ben Affleck’s first swear as a child was “Jesus, Mary and Joseph!”
  • Ben Affleck’s first job was giving tours of Old North Church.

    Old ladies loved how into the “one if by land, two if by sea” bit he got.

  • All of Ben Affleck’s high school girl friends had names that ended in “een”: Maureen, Colleen, Eileen, etc.
  •  The city of Boston has issued Ben Affleck a platinum Charlie Card.

On the regular CharlieCard, Ben Affleck is also the artist’s model for the guy in the ball cap blocking the door.

  • Ben Affleck lost his virginity at Fenway (it was closed), at whichever age you, personally, consider neither too young nor too old.
  • Every year, Ben Affleck makes a “Good Will Hunting” pun at his annual hunting weekend with the boys. Nobody thinks it’s funny, ever.
  • But make no mistake, Ben Affleck is freakin’ cherished by those guys.
  • When there’s a mosquito or a fly around his head, Ben Affleck is the only living human person who actually tells it to “buzz off.”
  • Whenever you see Ben Affleck carrying a Starbucks cup, don’t be fooled: it’s actually Dunkin’ Donuts inside.
  • In Ben Affleck’s wardrobe, Friday is Polo Day.
  • Ben Affleck was a very early member of New Kids On The Block. He named the band.

    They were initially called “Kids On The Block” but Ben Affleck said they needed something that “sounds newer.”

  • Ben Affleck’s one true regret in life is never joining a frat.
  • Ben Affleck had to work with a dialect coach for Good Will Hunting. He kept getting psyched out and using his “acting voice.”
  •  Ben Affleck has quite the collection of Hummel figurines. He inherited the first ten or so from his meemaw, but kept buying them because “fuck it, I think they’re cute.”

“If you don’t think this is fuckin’ adorable, you’re probably an asshole.” – Ben Affleck

  • What you may know (via IMDB) is that when he was a kid, Ben Affleck’s mother told him that in order to get a dog, he’d have to pretend to walk a fake dog for a week. He quit after five days and never got the dog. I like this because it has the air of an origin myth, like George Washington and the cherry tree, only possibly even more fake-sounding. What you may not know is that Ben Affleck’s imaginary dog lived to the ripe age of 17, and Ben continued taking it out for walks and to the dog park well into his early 20s.
  • Inspired by Ben’s mom, Matt Damon told Ben that he’d only collaborate on Good Will Hunting if Ben would show his commitment by writing a pretend screenplay for a week. By the end of the week Ben had written the first ten pages of Good Will Hunting, a children’s story heavily influenced by Make Way For Ducklings, and a limerick calling Matt a “doosh bag” (spelled exactly that way). The rest is history.
  • When Ben Affleck takes his wife for ultrasounds, he always looks up at the bulletin board and comments that the doctor “has a lot of babies.” Nobody’s sure whether he’s joking or not.

    Now’s a good time to mention that Ben Affleck loves babies and babies love Ben Affleck.

  • In the mid-90s, Ben Affleck told Movieline magazine that his favorite TV show was “Singled Out.”
  • Whenever Ben sees a lady with a French manicure, he tells her that she “looks real nice.” He appreciates when you make an effort, you know?
  • Ben Affleck was at the receiving end of this – with a super soaker:
  • Ben Affleck has seen every episode of Dawson’s Creek, but hates “that doosh [sic] with the big forehead.”
  •  Ben Affleck was in the original cast of Goonies, but his scenes were reshot with Sean Astin when it became clear that Ben’s baseball team had a real chance of making it to the Little League World Series.

They’re cool now, though.

  • Ben Affleck’s son, Samuel, is named after Samuel Adams. The patriot and the beer.
  • Ben Affleck hates Chicago. Says it “gives him the creeps.”

    Gives Ben Affleck the willies.

  • Ben Affleck’s confirmation name is Matt. Matt Damon’s confirmation name is Ben. (Imaginary Ben Affleck is Catholic, although Real Ben Affleck is, evidently, not).
  • When they’re making fun of Gwyneth Paltrow, the Garner-Afflecks use an affected British accent. Violet’s is particularly good.
  • Ben Affleck is constantly scheming to become best bros with Bradley Cooper.

    Can you blame the man?

  • Ben Affleck has a tattoo that incorporates the logos of all of the Boston teams – and you’ll never guess where it is!
  • Did you guess his butt? It’s there.
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Camp Cookies + Sangria: This One Time, At College Camp

Posted in GSOY (Gratuitous Story of Yourself), Miscellany by

Here’s the cold hard truth about getting older – you default to lying only because you can’t remember. “Were you the one telling me about all your horrible birthdays? And how you think they’re ‘cursed’?” “Yeah, that was me… No wait, that’s not true. That’s Penny from Happy Endings. My birthdays are fine.”

For our summer series, we’ve talked about how we never got to go to camp as a kid – and that’s a lie. I’ve been to camp. I went to sleepaway camp for exactly one week when I was maybe 12 years old and that was it. Never went to summer camp again. I think the reason I always forget it happened was because the whole thing didn’t feel real and it was just a tiny blip in my life. Like the day I spelled ‘architect’ wrong in my 6th grade spelling bee was more memorable than my entire week at camp. Let me explain.

I went to a camp called Mindstretchers which was located at Keuka College in the tiny hamlet of Keuka Park, New York, right on the Finger Lakes (there are a bunch of lakes that look like fingers from afar, I realize how weird this sounds if you didn’t grow up in upstate NY). It was approximately an hour away from our hometown of Rochester, so it wasn’t too far that I felt like I was going on some big adventure.

I guess I always wanted to go to camp, because that’s what the cool kids did, like Lindsay Lohan on The Parent Trap, but my parents were never into it until the one year I guess they just got sick of me. But like I mentioned, this camp was at a college. I didn’t actually get that Parent Trap or Salute Your Shorts experience I had envisioned. This was like, kind of smart camp? I mean, imagine you’re like 12 years old and you get to spend a week at a sprawling campus – living in DORM ROOMS!! Shared bathrooms! Living the life, y’all.

college camp

i’m not pictured in this photo, fyi

So here we were, just a group of kids between the ages of 10 to 15 at this camp called Mindstretchers, which BTW, according to one internet poster, is described as a “camp for creative thinking and writing”. They’re not too far off. Also of note – I went to this camp so long ago, that there’s BARELY anything on the internet about it, except some dude who created a FortuneCity homepage in like ’98 and posted pix of “me and my friends at Mindstretchers camp”. Basically, I went to a nerdy camp at a college, and it explains a lot about me as an adult.

Prior to attending the camp, we had to sign up for three “classes” we would take throughout each day. One academic, one artistic, and one athletic. Here’s what I chose:

Psychology Class

legit got this from the keuka college website under the pyschology dept page. is freud all they teach there?

It was my first taste of what a real college class would be like, and I’m pretty sure it was taught by one of the poor professors who basically just needed extra money. I’m sure he wanted to take the summer off like a normal teacher. I remember this is where I first learned about Freud and the Id and anal personalities and whatnot. Something I carry with me to this day.

Acting Class

this is NOT from Mindstretchers, nor do I know these kids, so yeah, it’s a little creepy I’m using their pic

Honestly, acting class was the highlight of my day, even though we had to do those stupid circle acting exercises and icebreakers. But I was into it. Our class took place in the college’s gym, and there may or may not have been one of those multi-colored parachutes involved. I’m starting to regret not going to an all out theater camp…

Soccer

Let’s be real – I am NOT the athletic type. I was forced to pick a sport and I picked the least offensive one, based purely on the fact that one of my best friends at the time was like a superstar soccer player. First day, I was legit the only one not only without shin guards, but without cleats – I HAD PINK AND GREEN ROO SNEAKERS. So embarrassing. To me, it seemed like all the kids were friggin Bend It Like Beckham and I was Posh Spice trying to keep up. The Worst.

We even had all our meals in a dining hall. For some reason, the walk from the dorm to the dining hall always made me feel like I was an adult – an adult in college, and I felt so cool. To clarify – I was not.

Looking back, my experience at summer camp was actually more of  “traditional college” experience than my actual college one. At Mindstretchers, I took a psychology class where I learned about Freud, as opposed to my real college experience, where I wrote an entire final paper about stereotypes found in MTV’s The Real World. But also, the more I think about it, Mindstretchers maybe was just a giant ploy on behalf of the Keuka College Admissions team, attempting to lure impressionable kids with memories of summer camp in order to go to college there for real when the time came. Ugh, adults. This is all to say that it’s not like I didn’t have a good time at the camp, it was just … a thing I did one time that I never did again. That is if I remembered correctly.

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Marilla Cuthbert Was A Creepy Church Hag : C+S Book Club

Posted in Entertainment, Miscellany by

If you’re Canadian, imaginative, bookwormish, or red-headed, chances are at some point you read and loved Anne of Green Gables. Published in 1908, Lucy Maud Montgomery’s story is a timeless tale of orphans and family and imagination and screwing up your hair and dreams and getting your friend drunk by accident and Canada and Canadians and will they/won’t they romance and child-buying. Especially child-buying. When Anne, a plucky carrot-topped orphan with a heart of gold, ends up in Green Gables, she brings love, light, and happiness to Matthew and Marilla, a brother and sister who are married or whatever. Not to ruin this children’s classic for you, but Marilla wasn’t a kindly old lady trying to give an orphan a new start in life. She was a creepy church hag. Here’s why:

Marilla Tried To Buy A Little Boy To Do Chores

When her brother-husband got too old to run the farm, Marilla did the only logical thing (if you’re creepy and also awful) – she bought an orphan boy to do chores. Or tried to, because she got sent an orphan girl instead. Like Target, the orphan asylum has a pretty liberal return policy, but to her credit Marilla does keep the kid.

There Are Church Ladies, And Then There Are Church-Hags

… and Marilla is the latter. She initially kept Anne on a trial basis, like a mail-order vacuum. Even after she made up her mind, she wasn’t so sure about Anne –  because as a neglected orphan/indentured servant, I guess Anne’s bosses forgot to teach her about Jesus. Keep in mind, Anne was 11 and had already raised two families of what I can only picture as 19th century Garbage Pail Kids, so I guess she didn’t have time for scripture. Sorry Church-Hag, but she didn’t. To her credit (?), Marilla tried to buy a pre-Christianized orphan: she specifically told Rachel that she didn’t want a “London street Arab.” When Anne screwed up her bedtime prayers because nobody had ever cared about her enough to tuck her into bed and teach her social norms, Marilla said “Don’t you know it’s a terrible wicked thing not to say your prayers every night? I’m afraid you are a very bad little girl.”  But later,  when Anne tells Marilla about her boring day at church, “Marilla felt helplessly that all this should be sternly reproved, but she was hampered by the undeniable fact that some of the things Anne had said […] were what she herself had really thought deep down in her heart for years, but had never given expression to. It almost seemed to her that those secret, unuttered, critical thoughts had suddenly taken visible and accusing shape and form in the person of this outspoken morsel of neglected humanity.”

Yep. Marilla doesn’t even like church, but she’s still obsessed with it and tells small children that they’re “very bad” because nobody told them how to pray. And that, my friends, is a Church-Hag.

And Remember That Shit With The Brooch?

This is like 50% Marilla being a creepy church hag and 50% Anne being an idiot, so maybe you get the family you deserve. Anne gets all worked about about going to her first picnic and eating her first ice cream, and although picnics are uniformly less fun than you think they’d be (it’s seriously just eating, but outside), ice cream is awesome and she’s right to care so much. But Anne borrows Marilla’s brooch and leaves it on her shawl, and then Marilla thinks Anne stole it because orphans and heathens or something. So Marilla says Anne can’t go to the picnic unless she confesses to taking it. Anne gives a false confession under duress, and I can’t blame her because I would have confessed to murder when I was 11 if it meant I could get some Ben & Jerry’s. Still would. Then Marilla’s all “well, now you definitely can’t go to the picnic,” and Anne doesn’t know that picnics are lame yet so she is pissed. Then they find the brooch, and Marilla learns a valuable lesson that non-church hags never really need to learn in the first place: not to badger orphan children into confessing things they never did because you can’t keep proper inventory of your own stupid brooches.

She Uses Wine “Medicinally” … But We All Know What’s Up

Anne tries to give Diana raspberry cordial, but accidentally (or “accidentally”) rips into Marilla’s secret stash of currant wine instead. Marilla makes the following excuses and admissions:

  • “Well, this story will be a nice handle for those folks who are so down on me for making currant wine” – so, it’s known in the community that Marilla has a problem.
  • ” I haven’t made any for three years ever since I found out that the minister didn’t approve”- EVEN YOUR MINISTER, Marilla. Even your minister.
  • “I just kept that bottle for sickness.” – AKA withdrawal tremors
  • “[The currant wine] couldn’t have the least effect on anybody” – well, no, not if your tolerance is off the charts.

 

Bitch, If You Have Enough Money To Buy A Human Child, You Can Afford Puffed Freaking Sleeves

Damn, Church-Hag. I don’t know the going rate for a chore-orphan in the early 1900s, like how many toonies or whatever, but if you have that kind of money you can probably buy that kid the ugly dresses she wants. So you have to buy a few extra yards of fabric for the kid’s stupid sleeves? Most teenagers at some point will tell you that they “didn’t ask to be born” but seriously, Anne didn’t ask to be born, orphaned, leased out as a work-horse to human breeding farm Mrs. Hammond, so starved for human contact in an orphanage that she creates imaginary friends in the mirror like Tom Hanks on a deserted island with a soccer ball, bought by old married siblings by accident, and then given the worst dresses. Do you know what Marilla dressed Anne in before Matthew took pity on her and bought her those ass-ugly sleeves? Wincey. I Googled it. It’s basically burlap.

Like, did you spend so much buying your orphan that you have to dress her in bag material? That’s not just cruel, that is straight-up terrible budgeting. Get an accountant, Church-Hag. Maybe you could work out a budget to save up for a heart.

You Are The Company You Keep. Marilla’s Company Is Rachel Lynde.

You know those people who manage to insult everyone, but everyone makes excuses for them? That’s Rachel Lynde, Actual Worst Person In The World. So by association, Marilla is the Actual Worst Person In The World. Marilla may be your classic Creepy Church Hag, but Rachel is an even more insidious Church Hag – the normal-seeming gossipy kind who makes fun of orphans. Rachel doesn’t even like Marilla. She compares Marilla and Matthew’s living situation to getting used to being hanged – which, also, is Rachel some kind of idiot, because I’m 100% sure you don’t get used to that over time, you just get more and more dead. Rachel is the kind of mean old bag who meets a motherless child and says things like “She’s terrible skinny and homely. […]  Lawful heart, did any one ever see such freckles? And hair as red as carrots! ” That one got me in the gut, as a fellow skinny, freckly redheaded kid and also a human with feelings. But Marilla makes Anne apologize for calling Rachel out, because Marilla is a high-school girl who is friends with the queen bee because she’s too afraid not to be friends with her. Frankly if I want this kind of petty Canadian mean-girling I would just watch season one Paige and Ashley on Degrassi.

Oh. The other “company” Marilla “keeps” is the child she bought by accident, so that doesn’t really speak too well of her either, does it?

The Legacy Lives On

Despite her creepiness, Marilla has some good points. She does decide to keep Anne, and doesn’t do a totally awful job raising her, and Anne is so dense and weird that I can’t blame Marilla for getting frustrated sometimes. When Anne and Gilbert finally get their act together, they even name a kid after her (and honestly, that’s a whole other post — Anne And Gilbert: Shit Or Get Off The Pot, or alternately, Anne And Gilbert: When You Hate Someone It’s Probably Not Because You Secretly Love Them). Marilla was a creepy church hag, there’s no doubt about it, but she was at least a sort of crusty, lovable creepy church hag. In fact, if I ever buy a child to do chores for me, I hope I can be half of the owner-parent that Marilla was to Anne.

 

 

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Design Spy: Crazy Decorating Styles You See At Open Houses

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When my parents put the family home on the market during my freshman year of high school, they knew it was going to be a tough sell. The location could best be described as “drug dealer-adjacent.” The neighborhood even had a nickname – and not a cute New York-y one like LoMoFi or The Fishmonger District. No, it was called The Fatal Crescent, because if there was one thing we loved in the inner city, it was comedic nods to Mesopotamia. They knew that everything had to look amazing during the open house. They almost got it right, until they forgot to remove the laminated Mets poster that covered the buckling section of the wall in the attic bedroom. [I think it somehow explains a lot about me that all of my childhood posters were laminated. NO I CANNOT GET A GRIP. Getting a grip isn’t an option when you’re raised to painstakingly laminate Rose and Jack’s party in third class.] Imagine our dismay to come home and find that a prospective homebuyer had taken down the poster to get a closer look. I mean, God. That shit was loadbearing.

 

Through attending weekly open houses as a homebuyer, I’ve learned that my parents weren’t alone: a lot of folks just can’t get it together. So, as I get increasingly weary of comparing square footage and furnace attributes (who in the fresh hell has OIL HEAT?), I’m taking an almost anthropological interest in home decor instead. Sure, every family is different – some of them cover their buckling walls with Yankees posters, which may not even be laminated – but I’ve noticed some common decor styles:

 

Mormon Mommy Blogger

I’ve written before about my fascination with Mormon Mommy Bloggers, mostly for their effortless ability to do what I cannot: to exist as a generally appealing person who is also a lady. The Mormon Mommy Blogger decor style can be practiced by anyone — even if you aren’t Mormon, even if you aren’t a mommy. You need a bright and cheerful color combo, bird appliques, stripes and chevron, and tons of shit from Etsy. Just go to Etsy on a day – any day at all – hit up the homepage when they feature items that go together, and buy it. Then go to Anthro and buy a bunch of their stuff too. Most items you get will have the word “whimsy” or “tribal” in the description, which makes sense because you are part of the most whimsical tribe of all (the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints).

Instructions Included

Some people aren’t able to get through their daily life without signage telling them what to do and where. They may forget to Live, Laugh, and Love if it isn’t written down somewhere. In the kitchen, there is a big sign that says “EAT.” Over the bed: “DREAM”, or, for more whimsical people (but not, like, Mormon-whimsical) “Always kiss me goodnight.” In the family room: “FAMILY.” I’m sort of surprised their bathroom wall doesn’t proclaim “POOP” in Helvetica.

I might do this in my house, but I’ll make it a little more realistic. Kitchen: “REGRET.” Bedroom: “Always spend a half-hour deciding what to fall asleep to on Netflix.” Family room: “DVR.”

Page 104 of the Spring 2011 Pottery Barn Catalog

Decorating comes naturally to some people – and to others, The Pottery Barn catalog comes quarterly. Close enough. These folks will buy a coffee table, and also buy the exact flat bowl, weird twine ball, and candlestick holder that appear with it in the catalog. These houses look nice, but I’d like to see what these people do if you give them an off-book vase or picture.

Mid-20s pastiche

No, not the 1920s, though I wouldn’t mind seeing a few more art-deco homes. I’m talking about being over the age of 25 and having never bought furniture on purpose. These people have the plaid couch from their college house, the IKEA desk from their first apartment, the weird rococo chair from their nana’s den, and the dining room table that their parents replaced. I’ll admit that my furniture comes from all kinds of sources, but I make an effort to paint or upholster things so that it all goes together. Mid-20s Pastiche is more of a stylistic melting pot.

The ‘Car Interior’ Interior

I’ve been to a few houses that are very clearly Men’s Houses By Men Who Would Like You To Know They Are Men. Walls are painted a carseat gray. Accents are in some shade of red. There might be black bedding. There’s definitely chrome, and possibly framed car photos. The homeowner definitely uses some sort of hair wax. Ladies, if a gentleman brings you back to a house like this, it’s always okay to make an excuse to leave, because otherwise you might get killed. I don’t know why, but this style sets off my creep-o-meter.

I enjoy being a girl!

This is the female analog to the car interior style – in fact, the houses in these two styles are essentially the adult version of the Barbie/Hot Wheels Happy Meals. You can expect the following: Animal print. Hot pink. Wine glasses with maribou on them. Wall art celebrating martinis. Some sort of artistic depiction of shoes.

This woman doesn’t have a tinted black and white poster print of little girls she doesn’t know with caption “girls just want to have fun!”… but she did in college. There’s a very real possibility that she was in a sorority, but make no mistake — not all sorority alums are like this. She knows exactly which Sex And The City character she and her friends are (she’s “a Charlotte,” but probably more like a Season 1 Shoshanna.)

The Feral Child’s Keeper

This goes beyond babyprooofing – these people are actually afraid of their children. Every surface below six feet is completely devoid of ornamentation. Furniture is bolted to the walls. Bills are stored in something you have to lock. Crayons and markers change locations as soon as kids figure out where they’re stored in case they do some rogue wall coloring. Furniture is covered in sheets (“the one time we took off the sheets Emma-Lynn spilled a gallon of chocolate milk on it”). Floors are covered in dropcloths (“sometimes Ayden trails paint behind him – house paint.” Ayden is a baby). Light switches have duct tape over them (“otherwise Kayler likes to play with the lights” Kayler is over the age of 7). The kitchen has a lock on it. Everything has a lock on it. These people cannot have nice things because their children will ruin nice things (their children are not Mormon). I picture parents setting up the Frozen DVD then slowly backing slowly out of the room, occasionally opening the door a crack to throw in bags of fruit snacks then slamming it so the feral children don’t nip at them.

The Collector

Hummels. Camels. Precious Moments. Lladro. Bells. Teaspoons. Ashton-Drake plates. Madame Alexander dolls. Tchotchkes representing the land of your ancestors, even though they immigrated in the 19th century. These people never met one of something that they wouldn’t rather have 30 of. On the plus: they’re probably super easy to buy Christmas and Birthday presents for.

Crockpot Method

As in: Set It And Forget it! These people decorated their house one time, in the past. These are the best houses to go to because you feel like you’ve entered a time capsule or a living history museum. The classic crockpot house has 60s or 70s decor – big yellow flowered wallpaper, shag carpeting, avocado appliances, a bathroom fit for one of the Pink Ladies. But as more baby boomers move out of the houses they raised their kids in, sometimes you see an 80s or 90s house, with Laura Ashley curtains, light pine tv cabinets, and geese or ducks wearing bonnets.

 

All The World’s A Stage

This house looks awesome. The decor is current but not so trendy that you can’t see living there. It’s natural enough that it doesn’t look like a catalog page. But look closer – is that plastic lettuce in the kitchen? Yep – the house has been staged.

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#Prince George Memes #Better Than Your Faves

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Exactly one year ago today, a lot of creeps from around the world were on Baby Watch, staring at a hospital in England, waiting for a couple to come out to debut their new kid. Of course, because it was the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge with the future king, it wasn’t as creepy. Today we celebrate his first birthday, and a year of adorable public appearances from Prince George. It’s hard to believe that this tiny tot:

Is now this overall-wearing sorta ginge (?!) walking babe amongst us plebs.

That’s right. I said plebs. Plebeians. The commonfolk. Let’s be real, none of us (unless you’re a member of the royal family reading this right now, in which case – ‘what up’) are worthy enough to be in Prince George’s presence, let alone look at photos of him. This is precisely why the plebs of the internet are my heroes. Who would have ever imagined that some pedestrians would be able to turn Prince Geezy’s public appearances into memes that will forever make me laugh and swoon at the same time? In honor of his royal highness’ landmark birthday, here are some of my favorite Prince George memes the internet wizards have made since his birth last year. Enjoy. And happy birthday baby!!

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Camp Cookies + Sangria: Weird Summer Camps Parents Send Their Kids To

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As part of our summer series, we’re taking you beloved readers to internet camp. Both of us were deprived of going to cool camps (like the space camp Nickelodeon sends you to when you win Double Dare), so we’re making up for it as adults. This week, we’re taking a look at the camps that are a little odd. The ones in which parents are so desperate to give their kids to strangers that they’ll pay any amount of dough to get rid of them for a week or two.

High Explosives Camp

Rolla, Missouri

Explosives Camp is held at Missouri University of Science and Technology, where high school students can get a “hands-on experience” with explosives. The students are of course educated on the proper ways to handle and detonate various explosives, but the big hurrah comes at the end of the camp when they basically get to blow alll the shit up. Campers setup and shot a fireworks display, which includes high explosives, blasting agents, rock blasting and demolition. In case you’re wondering, campers must be at least 16 years old, and a background check is done on all applicants to “ensure good moral character and ethical standing”. AKA no crazypants.

Ninja Camp

New York

According to the Ninja Camp USA website, they are an “Intensive Ninja Fantasy Camp allowing Adults & Kids to experience the life and training of the Great Shinobi (Ninja’s) of Japan.” IDEK what that means, but what I’m taking this as is adults giving kids knives to pretend they’re ninjas. Just so we’re clear.

Camp Rivendell (Fantasy Battle Camp)

Calgary, Canada

Words I am typing for informational purposes but in actuality have no idea what they mean: Camp Rivendell is named after the Elven outpost in middle-earth established and ruled by Elrond Half-elven from J.R.R. Tolkien’s legendarium. Also, it’s a Catholic camp for boys. The purpose, according to the website, is to provide  an “incredibly fun and imaginative setting for boys to learn about virtue and authentic manhood, while also growing in their Catholic faith.” Okay. There’s planned battles, tournaments, jousting, castles, forts, real armor and even an enemy called the “Orc Army”. Basically it’s just one week of LARPing to extremes while practicing the sacraments in their downtime.

Wizards & Warriors Camps

Westford, Massachusetts


Speaking of LARPing, kids can stay in America to participate in this Wizards & Warriors Camp. They’re thrown into “battles” and get to create their own armor, play with (foam) weapons, and make up their own characters. Watching the video above kind of made me sad for the kids who feel like loners at regular school but I’m also glad they found a place where they’re accepted at the camp. But also, this place looks like a shitshow. Everyone is running around willy nilly! How is there any order??

Role-Playing Games at Independent Lake Camp

The Poconos, Pennsylvania

So role-playing games are like really popular these days, huh? Independent Lake Camp is your usual, run of the mill camp, but there are different areas kids can focus on, like theater, sports, or art, but then they also have specialized programs like magic and role-playing. The campers are put into small groups led by a game master and they play Dungeons and Dragons, Star Wars, Magic: the Gathering, etc. For those super smart geniuses, there’s also a “rocketry” program where campers can make their own flying models. Not sure what that has to do with role playing, but it sounds cool.

Plantation Farm Camp

Cazadero, California

Plantation Camp is not as bad as it sounds. Located in the Sonoma County Redwoods, kids live and ‘work’ on a farm, and are completely unplugged. No iPhones, iPads, iPods, iNothing. The campers care for the animals and gardens on the farm and do a total ‘farm to table’ experience every day. Seems like a good idea in theory, but how many of these kids were forced to go to this place by their parents?

Zombie Camp

Burlington, Massachusetts


Zombie Camp is a place were children can go to learn survival skills and how to live in the outdoors. But also learn how to kill zombies with nerf blasters. Just imagine it’s like living in The Walking Dead but Jr. edition. Also, can we just take a minute to shout out the poor souls (read: broke college kids) who have to dress up as these zombies and run around in a field all day? Props.

Equestrian Teen Tour of Russia

Moscow and St. Petersburg, Russia

This Equestrian camp isn’t even that weird – it’s just… so specific. Campers can mix their love of horses with their love of classic Russian culture, you know, like most kids between the ages of 7 and 17. Participants ride their horses in the morning and by afternoon, they’re hitting the city for cultural tours of local museums and historic sites.

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American Things To Do To Make You Get Over The World Cup Loss

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So, we lost. I’m no soccer connoisseur, but I’m pretty sure it’s still a shock that we made it so far into the World Cup. It was exhilarating for the like, two weeks we were in the thick of it, as people who usually don’t care about professional soccer were suddenly into it for the spirit of AMURRICA.

And now that we’re out, we have to deal with the depression that comes once the reality of losing settles in (and what exactly we’re going to do with that Tim Howard Shrine). And to pour salt in the wounds, the loss came just days before the most patriotic day of the year. So to help you deal with one of the most bittersweet Independence Days you’ll ever celebrate, here are a few things to do today to help you get over the World Cup loss.

Watch and recite the speech from Independence Day

It doesn’t matter if you’re Democrat or Republican, one thing we can all agree on is that Bill Pullman as fake President of the USA is one leader we can stand behind, especially after this rousing speech before they fight all the aliens. You know, it sounds ridiculous once I type it out like that. But if you don’t stand up and clap in the name of America after this, you should probably check your citizenship at the door.

Drink beer from a red solo cup

In one of those Buzzfeed articles, it showed people from around the world holding ‘American parties’ and in almost all of them, they are drinking out of red solo cups. I didn’t realize it until reading the listicle, but why DO we use these cups at every college/drinking party, both portrayed on screen and IRL too? Either way, the rest of the world is right, we use these brightly colored cups to excess and drink your soccer cares away today/this weekend – preferably with a cheap American beer.

Register to vote!

Democracy – we got it! Also we have these awesome ‘I Voted’ stickers that you get after said voting, and these are the exact ones I got in LA that have different languages around the perimeter, including one in Filipino!! What up diversity!

Wear all the American flag things

As I found out last year, apparently any article of clothing with the flag printed on it is actually a flag. Like it should be treated the same as a real flag, according to the U.S. flag code. Basically, we’ve all broken the code. Oops. Maybe you shouldn’t go all out like Katy Perry (but I mean, good on ya if you do), but prove to the enemy that we stand strong in the face of adversity and don’t let those colors run (lawdd).

Eat your weight in hot dogs

Every 4th of July, iconic hot dog company Nathan’s Famous holds the Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest, in which contestants shove the meat into their mouths at rapid pace and whoever eats the most gets fame and fortune (a bejeweled mustard belt), because, America. 30-year-old Joey Chestnut (pictured in the center) has won every year since 2007, and last year he even beat his own personal record of 69 hot dogs in 10 minutes. Needless to say, you don’t want to hang around the 10:01 mark unless you want to lose your appetite.

Just eat all the foods

Our friend Renee relocated to the Netherlands a couple years ago, and she held her own American Thanksgiving at her house for her Dutch friends, and made all the fixins, from mashed potatoes to sweet potatoes to vegetables to the obvious large turkey – and he Dutch pals kept questioning why she made so much food for such a small group of people. Because, you do. But WHY they asked. Just make less of it. NO. That’s not Thanksgiving, that’s not America. We’re known for our entirely too large portions and nothing helps you beat stress better than with just piles of food. And alcohol. But mainly food.

Spend too much money at Wal-Mart

Ah, Wal-Mart. Where the items are dirt cheap and so is the employees’ salary (allegedly). If you want to see America at its finest (and also a good reminder that your lives could be worse), all you need to do is go to the People of WalMart site and feel better about yourself, while at the same time disgusted for our society as a whole.

Play baseball

Ever since the 18th century, baseball has been “America’s Game”. There’s nothing more patriotic than going to a ball game, eating some peanuts and cracker jacks (and possibly a hot dog – too soon?), and hearing the National Anthem sung by a local singer who never made it big. Plus, you’re probably already into baseball anyways, so just focus your attention from soccer back to baseball.

Play (American) football

In addition to baseball, Americans love a good game of football. I mean the Super Bowl is like the biggest non-official U.S. holiday. It’s the second largest day for food consumption in the country and also the most watched television event every year. While the last game of the U.S. match in the World Cup did get huge ratings for ESPN – it’s nothing compared to the over 111 million viewers of the Super Bowl.

Basically play any other sport except soccer

I’m not saying you should NEVER play soccer – but maybe in the interim of your depression, just try a new sport that hasn’t taken off the ground in America yet. Like table tennis, perhaps. This sport is huge in Asia! It even is an official sport at the summer Olympics, so that’s gotta count for something!

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Live Blog: Outlaw Prophet: Warren Jeffs

Posted in Entertainment, Live Blogs, Miscellany by

Let’s be real. This movie has two of my favorite things: The best/worst president of the fake United States and the crazy world of Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter Day Saints (FLDS). Call me crazy, but I love learning about insane groups of people like Scientology or cults. Do I have a problem? Maybe. Whatever, I’m LEARNING.

This particular Lifetime movie is based on Stephen Singular’s book When Men Become Gods, documenting FLDS leader/prophet Warren Jeffs’ (played by the great Tony Goldwyn) rise to power following his father’s death. It should be quite interesting watching our beloved POTUS acting as a mentally ill man. Here we go!

M: I  never read the Singular book, but I can definitely recommend Under The Banner Of Heaven if you’re interested in non-fiction works about LDS offshoots. Look, we never pretended to be cool; only interested in things.

T: One second into the movie and there’s already a shirtless Tony Goldwyn. I already know I’m going to have very conflicting feels about this :\

OH GOD IT’S BECAUSE HE WAS NAKED IN BED WITH TWO WOMEN AND ONE OF THEM CALLED HIM “UNCLE WARREN”. AND THEY’RE FLEEING. Well, he’s fleeing. With a gun. So, I mean, that’s a sign of trouble.

Apparently Martin Landau is in this and TBH I thought he had passed away already. Whoops.

The executive producers of this movie are Craig Zadan and Neal Meron who have been producing the Oscars for the past few years, but more importantly, a lot of your favorite movie musicals, including Footloose, Cinderella (with Brandy), Annie (with Kathy Bates), Chicago, Hairspray, and Smash. Clearly they thought the next step was to make a Lifetime movie about the FLDS.

Oh yeah POTUS singing, playing guitar and harmonizing… is that what these people do at their sister wives weddings?

M: I will say, the establishing shots of the rural Southwest really make me want to take a vacation in Arizona or something. The wedding music sounds a LOT like folksy protest music from the late 60s, early 70s. Like hippie stuff but minus the drugs.

T: Martin Landau plays Warren Jeffs’ father Rulon, who litrally said, “Help this old man get to his feet” then proceed to grope the girl who helped him get up.

He proceeded to get married to a young girl, and it total at his death, Rulon had 56 wives.

M: Martin Landau is in the exact same costume and makeup as he was for the Anna Nicole movie. As he feels up a young pioneer-looking girl’s ass, I realize he’s basically playing the same character too. Bet they saved some cash and filmed these movies simultaneously.

T: Basically the FLDS believes that Jeffs was a direct descendant of the big JC and Mormon bigwig Joseph Smith, so he preached that this plural marriages were necessary in order to preserve the “sacred bloodline”.

Rulon also told WJ: “Why don’t you go entertain people with your little guitar” the SHAADEE. WJ didn’t take it well because he went into the bathroom and proceeded to slap himself

M: It was very “Crazy Eyes” from Orange Is The New Black.

T: One of the weirdest things about this sect of the FLDS is that they didn’t go to real school and Warren Jeffs taught the kids, and only taught them from the Book of Mormon. Side note: I bet Tony Goldwyn would be a fantastic teacher.

M: Okay, in the classroom scene a girl is wearing a really unrealistic side-braid. Please, lady. It’s bouffant or nothing. I always wondered if these sects taught all girls to do the big puffy braid as some sort of a right of passage. Or maybe there’s like one lady who’s really good at it, and you’d never want to piss off your sister-wife who did the ~good braids. I bet these women talk shit about sister-wife LaMarvys or Dorcas or whomever whose braids always look flat.

T: True story: When I went to Austin recently, I got there ahead of my friend so I spent some down time in the hotel putzing around. Apparently in Texas they provide you with not only a Bible in the drawer but the LDS bible (The Book of Mormon) as well. I found myself reading it and I got lost within the first few pages. What a snoozefest.

BTW, when we were texting about this movie, Molly said, “The girl from Ramona and Beezus is in this”, because that’s a reference that we both embarrassingly would know her from.

WJ has a heart to heart with Beezus who I’m so afraid will have an inapprops relationship with POTUS :\

M: She’s so grown up! In FLDS circles, I believe that’s what you say before you decide it’s about time for a gal to get married off. In case you’re wondering, Ramona and Beezus is pretty cute. You should watch it. Maybe instead of this, if it’s airing on FX or HBOFamily right now.

T: RULON HAS A GIANT PORTRAIT OF HIMSELF HANGING ABOVE HIS DESK. DO YOU THINK IT’S HIS HEAD SHOT?! DEAD.

M: It’s also of really poor quality. Looks like a paint-by-number. By the way, paint-by-numbers of Rulon Jeffs’ head is one of the few sanctioned hobbies for FLDS ladies. It also passes for art class in their weird Book Of Mormon One-Room Schoolhouse.

T: June 12th is apparently the “Day of Reckoning”, and that entails a lot of candles and Rulon dying because his prophecy of the End of the World didn’t come true.

M: Yeah, there are so many candles and vintage-y dresses and creative braids at the announcement about the Day of Reckoning that it honestly looks like a wedding from Pinterest.

T: Wait so Rulon didn’t originally want WJ to be his successor as prophet? It’s like when *Scandal season 2 spoiler alert* Fitz killed Verna in the hospital bed to keep her quiet about Defiance!

M: As in every board room scene, I totally zone out when they’re meeting in the conference room about the successor. Unfortunately, I also zone out the same way in conference rooms in real life. Ooops. Warren has a chat with Ramona The Pest and she says her second cousin is “mean to her.” Oh shit I smell a forced marriage.

T: After Rulon dies, WJ takes his dad’s glasses and proceeds to wear them throughout the movie. But this guy was legitimately cuckoo, no?

Oh boy a white-haired man spies on WJ and his wives and the rest of the family as they’re burying Rulon – I smell undercover cop.

M: Do they have a pathetic-looking cemetary for religious reasons, or did Lifetime just blow its budget on booking Martin Landau back-to-back? It is a half-step above the elephant graveyard from Lion King.

T: Well, WJ straight up tells the congregation during his eulogy for his dad that he’s the next prophet and all the church elders are all… “WTF”

M: Rulon is one of those names that sounds more and more ridiculous every time you say it in a row. Rulon. Rulon. Rooo-lon. Actually maybe it’s just one of those names that sounds ridiculous.

M: A little girl just told Warren that her dad’s about to make pancakes. F’real? I never got the impression that this was like an “even division of household chores” type community. Although, there’s something to be said for having a lot of backup like the sister-wives do. No wonder they got so pissed when the compound got raided. They had it good. No, they had it GREAT. Every kid having like 20 different moms? What a plum deal. (The reasons that this setup is actually the worst deal ever will be clear soon enough, guys.)

T: Uncle Warren confides in Beezus that he’ll always take care of her… then creepily looks at her through a crack in a door and sees her making out with some other kid… and in a fit of rage/jealousy, he forces her to marry her step-cousin Allen!

WJ: “Your mother tells me you’ve been getting your monthly visitor. That means you’re ready  (to be placed).” #vom

M: Okay, this Menarche Wedding is a billion times worse than that First Moon Party from that commercial that was all over the internet a few weeks ago. Ewww. #RedWedding

T: Beezus is ACTING. And omg this is the worst. Too bad they couldn’t give her a sedative before this ceremony. She’s 14 YEARS OLD!!

M: Ugh okay this is the part – as in almost every Lifetime movie – that I remember that this is based on actual events and feel really horrible for watching it as entertainment. I mean I even feel bad that Quimby had to ACT this because I still feel like she should be playing with her doll Chevrolet, let alone that this for real happens.

WJ: “Go forth multiply and replenish the earth” REPLENISH the earth?? Replenish the earth with humans who are all related to each other and most likely have birth defects?

M: Oh, gross. They’re like the freaking Habsburg monarchs. Also is this horrible wedding (that I can’t even quite watch) happening in a Marriott suite? Or is the FLDS compound just modeled after Holiday Inn-level hotels?

T: WJ’s first wife is inspecting some girls who are getting prepared to be set up with their future husbands. In this process of making sure their horrendous dresses are perfect and not a hair on their head is out of place, she comments to one, “Your braid isn’t tight enough” I mean also your braid isn’t in fashion, but apparently there’s a reason. That reason is for Jesus.

M: I guess this answers my braid question from earlier. We are also treated to the first wife slapping a girl in the face, and the foley artist REALLY gets into the slap sound effect.

T: Rebecca is the Jinger Duggar of the family (in that she wants out immediately, one can assume). Formerly married to Rulon before his death, Rebecca wants to be “obedient” to their marriage contract, and refuses to be placed with another guy. Because she disobeyed the current prophet, WJ, he has her locked up in a trailer to think about what she’s done (?). Rebecca is a real person who escaped the FLDS at 19 and helped the police decipher evidence of child molestation and bigamy found on the ranch WJ and his hundreds of followers live in in Colorado City, Arizona. She has since become an advocate for victims of human trafficking and also wrote a book, called The Witness Wore Red (which you’ll read later why).

In addition to locking a girl up for not wanting to be married off to some guy way older than her, WJ grabs the kid Beezus was making out with and drives him off to the middle of nowhere and leaves him to fend for himself. Great prophet, this Warren Jeffs. On the way back to the compound, he notices the same undercover cop from earlier and then basically harasses him through the window. Then back at the cop’s motel, he discovers an open door and goes into to find a bunch of papers strewn about and basically evidence against WJ. Shit’s going down.

Oh god this is horrible. WJ has three of his wives sitting naked on the bed, while he’s having sex with another one and making her say “I feel god in you” and it’s the most awkward.

M: If I were not live blogging this I would have turned the TV off by now. I’m now remembering that it took me weeks to get through Under The Banner Of Heaven because I kept wanting to put it in the freezer like Joey Tribbiani. To tell the truth, I’m watching this on DVR and fast-forward through the rest of the scene.

T: WJ is not messing around with Rebecca Duggar. He tells her, “I’m going to break you. I’m going to teach you to be an obedient wife” Cue Rebecca Duggar escaping the HEllllll out of there. This remind me of another Lifetime classic, Escape from Polygamy. Miss that one? Don’t worry, I liveblogged that for you too.

M: To focus on the positive, with her normal side braid and white nightgown, Rebecca Duggar looks like a girl from the junior’s section of the JCPenney catalog circa1994.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/wishbook/12482324364/

T: WJ stirs from his slumber after all the sex and has some kind of creepy Spidey sense that something is wrong and goes to check on Rebecca. He sees she’s not in her room, and he yells out, “ONE OF YOU BITCHES LET HER OUT!” What a nutjob.

M: At first I thought that WJ was wearing that special LDS underwear but isn’t that more of a onesie? I guess he’s just wearing a t-shirt and white boxers. By the way I obviously have a huge problem with these weird break-out groups where Ramona Geraldine Quimby marries anyone but Howie Kemp – because I’m a normal human, right? – but nothing against regular LDS folks, here.

T: I just LOLed because WJ slapped the kid who married Beezus after telling him that she wouldn’t have sex with him. He’s all what do I do and he straight up slapped him. Is it wrong that I think this is hilarious?

But then they finally do have sex (obviously they didn’t show it) and it physically makes me want to vomit. Right on Warren Jeffs. Not Tony Goldwyn. Warren Jeffs in jail.

M: I also am getting closer and closer to vomiting as this goes on. I don’t even mean that metaphorically, I mean maybe don’t eat too much before you watch this movie.

T: The cop tells the local news that Warren Jeffs’ compound is much like the Taliban and WJ gets so be mad he legit pulls the tv from the wall and throws it out the window. That’s not exactly how the news works, but okay.

As a result of his furor, WJ attempts to gain “power” back by setting some more rules within the compound. Here are some completely reasonable rules: The color red is forbidden. That means no wearing red or having any objects that are red (a kid’s tricycle is taken away!). Sports are no longer allowed, no media allowed (except radios – and apparently someone had satellite TV before?!), no dancing or music, and probably one of the worst ones: no canines since they’re relatives of the wolf.

THEY ARE PUSHING DOGS INTO A PIT AND SHOOTING THEM WITH SHOTGUNS HOLY SHIT IS PETA AWARE OF THIS WHAT IN THE ACTUAL FUCK.

M: My dog actually started whimpering when the dogs cried, stood up and looked around in concern when they shot them, then came over to me for reassurance. NO WJ. NOW YOU GOT MY DOG UPSET.

T: THESE WIVES ARE GETTING YOUNGER BY THE MINUTE.

WJ HAS A GIANT PORTRAIT OF HIMSELF HANGING ABOVE HIS DESK JUST LIKE HIS DAD.

M: I feel like I’m watching some bizarre combination of The Giver and The Handmaid’s Tale. Reminder: THIS REALLY HAPPENED IN AMERICA. UGH the new wife is an actual baby, like should be shopping at Limited Too (is that still a thing?)

WJ straight up excommunicated a group of men for warning him about the cops being on to him, making them leave their families ASAP.

M: Fun fact: when I was a kid I used to sometimes go to a church where everyone ended up getting excommunicated from the Catholic church. My aunt went there, and she was my Confirmation sponsor, so I’m not sure if I’m still all the way Catholic, technically? Point is, excommunication is about as big as it gets as far as punishments from religious organizations.

T: Wait Beezus was pregnant? And she lost the baby? After that one time? I mean if the girl has a stuffed animal (for herself) in her hospital bed, it’s a sign she’s wayyyyy too young to be having a child.

Someone just used the word “rabble rousers”, which frankly is a word I don’t think is used quite enough. Let’s start that, shall we?

Beezus is out of the hospital and going into the lake to ‘cleanse’ herself, and I thought she was straight up going to drown herself (which obviously is not the way to go, ever, but I would get it). But luckily – Praise BEEZUS – she’s leaving! She followed in Rebecca Duggar’s footsteps and straight up said deuces the compound by stealing a car and driving away.

M: Jeez, Ramona Quimby Age 8 should still be dubbing her dad Nosmo King and accidentally making a crown out of burrs, not running away from forced marriage and child rape, but PRAISE BEEZUS indeed.

T: Eeee another difficult scene to watch. Even with a seemingly naked Tony Goldwyn it’s completely wasted because he’s forcing a group of his wives (like 6 of them?) to basically gang bang this one girl. Also, filming this must have been horrendous too.

M: Fast forwarded. Not sorry. By the way, during the Warren Jeffs trials, audio of these sessions was presented in court and even the transcripts will make you want to simultaneously puke and cry.

Oh look! Surprise visit (B-Roll footage) by Anderson Cooper! More movies need this.

M: There are some very Lilith Fair-sounding vocals going on behind the Cooper footage. Did they tell us how WJ picked which wife to take? It reminds me of visiting my grandparents as a kid and having to decide which stuffed animal to bring. Except, horrible.

T:  THIS MULLET DISGUISE I CAN’T

WJ: “10 Most Wanted List? I’m gonna be bigger than Bin Laden” oooh chile.

M: Oh, so it’s okay when YOU compare yourself to Taliban affiliates, but the news does it ONE TIME and nobody can have TV anymore?

T: He gets caught in Texas while a passenger in a RED CAR eating a salad. This is a true story. the cop asked his name multiple time and he kept eating the damn salad.

M: That is one of the craziest things I’ve seen thus far. Nobody likes salad that much. I actually had the same salad that I brought in my lunch for three days last week, just waiting to finally feel like eating it.

I never ate the salad.

Further proof that Warren Jeffs is not actually even human.

T: The cop just asked the driver if he was carrying a firearm because he could see there was one  in his belt holster – hello you should know better than this. It’s Texas.

“What do we do?” asks the young wife that was chosen to accompany WJ on the run for 2 years.

“Keep sweet,” says WJ.

Apparently “Keep Sweet’ is the mantra for the FLDS.

M: Yep, it’s very much A Thing. And actually “sweet” in general shows up in a lot of fundamentalist Christian circles across the board – like if you read fundamentalist mommy bloggers (even though you are neither a fundamentalist Christian nor a mommy), when they talk about a lady they’ll always call her “sweet [Name].” It is basically what they aim for as a personality trait. NOPE. NOT OKAY. Anyway after I found out about that, my “creepy meter” goes off when a certain kind of person talks about a lady being sweet.

T: So Beezus is back in court testifying against WJ – but where did she go after she fled? Like who did she stay with?

M: I Googled it, and found pictures of Elissa Wall when she got married. She’s such a kid, she looks like season 1-era DJ Tanner.

Tony’s face in trial is so disturbing and looks just like WJ that I’m getting the chills.

AU: Warren Jeffs gets transferred to Litchfield for a day and all the women beat him up then he gets sent to SHU.

Once in prison, the other cell block mates yell at WJ as he walks in, and someone actually says, “You the wife now”! Yeah. you sit there in your cell and think about what you’ve done.

BALD TONY GOLDWYN! BALD TONY GOLDWYN!

All the wives are wearing black now, because he’s in jail. So dramatic.

Uh oh big ol’ WJ is breaking down. He admits he’s not the prophet and never was. What do you do now followers????

WJ attempts to kill himself using his bedsheets to hang himself, and the cellmate across the way sees this and yells to a guard, “The dumbass prophet is trying to off himself!!”

M: They set it up with WJ talking to a successor and it feels like the end of a horror movie when they leave room for a sequel and it’s clear that nobody is safe.

T: At the end, there’s a moment when WJ realizes he still has power inside of jail after a dude comes back to him saying that his 10,000+ congregation will not back down and continue to follow him even if he’s in jail. And I got chills. Tony Goldwyn – you are superb and expertly creepy in this role and I’m gonna need you to star in some kind of rom-com where you play a charming sonofabitch who has hot sex scenes with a beautiful woman okay bye.

 

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