Geez, if it were that easy, I’d already know what the Cappy’s baby smelled like and have kissed his wife with embarassing effusion on both cheeks in person.
Hippo birdie, old friendoh and brotha from anotha motha. I hope it was full of everything you deserve. Just wish I could’ve been there to wish you happy birthday in person. It’s like, where is this button??
Photographed by Bill Figge and Ed de Long.
So, it’s still in the 80’s in my little pocket of the universe— that’s around 30 to you metric friendohs — and I say that calls for one last Girl of Summer. (Don’t call it an Indian Summer; call it Global Warming’s Brief and Only Benefit.)
The lovely and talented Heather Ryan was Playboy‘s Miss July 1967. She is an all-around smashing girl and I’m super-psyched to finally finish the write-up on her. Whatch’all know about unusal pets? Cause this strawberry blonde here’s ’bout to change the game.
Says Heather, I don’t think there’s anything unusual about owning an ocelot, but people always stare when we go walking together.”
(“Call of the Wild.” Playboy, July 1967.)
Not so sure it’s the ocelot they’re double-taking on.
[Heather] currently resides at her family’s Glendale home, on the brink of the canyon: “It’s pretty desolate out there, but we’re lucky that we have no close neighbors, because the ocelot often screams at night.”
(Ibid.)
No couch potatoes looking for a BJ and a Blockbuster night need apply:“I am,” she says, “fascinated by adventure, and I suppose it pervades most of my tastes. I like actors like Paul Newman, Charlton Heston and Steve McQueen, because they usually portray men who are as untamed as my ocelot.”
(Ibid.)
Speed-loving Heather admits to driving her 1966 Mustang faster on occasion than the law prescribes.
(Ibid.)
Attagirl. Speaking of which, the most terrible Mustang experience befell me this week.
I was running a bit late on my way to work. I headed on to the freeway with a newish Mustang ahead of me. The guy crawled down the ramp and inched his way through the merge, then continued to torture me by poking around in the middle lane, keeping me from getting in to the leftmost, fastest lane.
I was totally shocked. You’re in a Mustang, man! You do not drive a Mustang in the middle lane! Somewhere in Germany, the Cappy just felt a pang in his heart and shook his head, and he didn’t know why: now you know, brother. A guy was driving a Mustang in the middle lane at about 60 mph. I know. It was a scandal.
Though she hasn’t had much exposure to the psychedelics-freedom-love movement currently the kick among West Coast youth, Heather recently witnessed a mass “love-in” at Elysian Park.
(Ibid.)
“I’d never seen such a crew — everybody walking about and presenting the most unlikely gifts, like fruits and flowers, to each other.”
(Ibid.)
But she was not much in to the hippie scene, particularly the men —
TURN-OFFS: Men with long hair, and the unnaturalness of women today.
(“Playmate Data Sheet.” Playboy. July 1967.)
Totally agree. I don’t like long hair on men … sorry long-haired friends, it’s just a personal preference. No long hair, no skinny jeans. Spread the word.
As for Ms. Ryan’s dislike of the “unnaturalness” of women, who can argue with that? Besides girdles and foam butts, there was already plastic surgery and ubiquitous hairpieces. Of course, the problem has only gotten worse. I can only imagine what Ms. Ryan thinks of some of today’s Playboy centerfolds.
Number one favorite shot with a bullet.
AMBITIONS: A legal secretary or model, or perhaps I’ll enter a biological institute and become a laboratory assistant and transcriber.
(Ibid.)
Ms. Ryan did not fulfill those ambitions …
…Because she totally exceeded them. Get it, girl! A wildlife biologist, Ms. Ryan is a published author and has lead all-female eco-tours. Taxidermy is her hobby. In the Playboy article, she mentions enjoying hunting quail and rabbit, so it’s kind of a natural progression.
Ms. Ryan also mentions, when asked what she thinks is a great read, Something Wicked This Way Comes. Bradbury’s little masterpiece is one of my top favoritest books of all time, too. I just re-read it last weekend, as I like to read it every year around Halloween. Synchronicity! One of these years when I’ve sufficiently expiated my sins of ignorance to Mr. Auden, I will have to have a “Something Wicked” October.
There are many books I read at special times of year, but Something Wicked is one which I never fail to get toe-curling excited about in my anticipation. The descriptions are gorgeous, the writing crackles and terrifies and moves you — I adore all Bradbury, but I put Something Wicked in the most special, highest place.
Click above to scope the original Playboy article scans; there are pictures included in the spread that are not in this post, so give those a spin!
Cover model Venita Wolfe was photographed by Mario Casilli, who shot the following month’s centerfold: the lovely and talented sweetheart DeDe Lind.
Capped by me.
Scream (Wes Carpenter, 1996). Ghostface Killer: Pussy Magnet. Everyone loves games!
This was the first slasher movie I ever saw. I watched this film sitting at the theater between my father and my boyfriend at the time, the Cappy, and I got all teary and horrified when (SPOILER) Drew Barrymore bit it in the first three minutes, and wanted desperately to go home. Thankfully, they didn’t let me. I was paranoid and jumpy and squirmy for days. Then I got hooked on the paranoia and jumps and squirms and eventually over the next few years watched every cheesey horror movie I could get my hot little virgin hands on, which lead to Troma, which lead to giallo, which lead to wanting a degree in film, which didn’t go the way I expected but lead me to where I am now, which I wouldn’t trade for anything. All because of Scream.
See? Everyone loves games!
Special thanks to my wonderful Miss D for helping me make all my Scream-screencap dreams come true with the gracious loan of her DVD.
Agnes of God (Norman Jewison, 1985).
Sorry for today’s post scarcity; despite the Cappy being gone, I was feeling under the weather this morning and then had to visit the laboratory vampires in preparation for an appointment I’ve got later this week*, but I’ve bounced back and will knock your socks off with the shower of posts I plan for tomorrow.
The film stars Meg Tilly, Anne Bancroft, and Jane Fonda and received many award nominations, with Miss Tilly winning the Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actress. cap via xmission.
Teevee Time, Liberated Space, Daily Batman, the inaugural edition of a new Wonder Woman project, a Girl of Summer, and October’s new object of focus (shrouded in mystery for now) are all included. Time to reboot and pump up the jam — can you dig it!
*After the labwork, I admit I went to India Bistro with Miss D. (hangs head) I’m a failure as a blogging couch potato.
Updates might be spotty the next few days: the Cappy is about to be in town in, like, an hour on that aforementioned leave and I will be trying to spend as much time as possible with my brother from another mother before the Army steals him away again.
This is an outtake from a shoot for a poster that came free with an X-Files comic book that the Cappy and I both had in high school. HMS Dorkytimes, ahoy!
For a four-eyed loner who spent most of my childhood in the back of moving vans with headphones and a comic, and my school days trying to stay under the radar, I am ridiculously lucky to have such great, great friends as an adult. The past few weeks have made me more aware of that than ever.
I’ll try to squeeze in or schedule my Daily Batmans and some fun stuff in the next few days, but I plan to be mainly absent. Catch you on the flip!
Photographed by Nicolas Silberfaden.
Laughter and tears are both responses to frustration and exhaustion. I myself prefer to laugh, since there is less cleaning up to do afterward.
(Kurt Vonnegut.)
Shared the Batgirl photograph in this series in July and thought it was a goodly time for the Catwoman shot. I had a little bit of a weepy day, just kind of processing recent events which I’ve of course been dodging because it involves difficult introspection about Big Shit vis-a-vis life and death. But my chin’s back up and I look forward to a lot of laughter tomorrow as the Cappy comes in to town on a use-it-or-lose-it leave for a Very Special Episode of “How E. Got Her Groove Back.”
Special thanks again to Gordon Fraser for the heads-up on the article from which the pictures come.
via
my sweet old etcetera
aunt lucy during the recent
war could and what
is more did tell you just
what everybody was fighting
for,
my sister
via
isabel created hundreds
(and
hundreds) of socks not to
mention shirts fleaproof earwarmers
etcetera wristers etcetera, my
via
mother hoped that
i would die etcetera
bravely of course my father used
to become hoarse talking about how it was
a privilege and if only he
could meanwhile my
via
self etcetera lay quietly
in the deep mud et
cetera
(dreaming,
et
cetera, of
Your smile
eyes knees and of your Etcetera)
(E.E. Cummings. “My sweet old etcetera.” is 5. New York: Liveright, 1926.)
is 5 was a collection of satirical and anti-war poems which Cummings wrote during his time as an ambulance driver in France during the Great War. That’s when he also began working on his novel The Enormous Room.
The above letter of August 15, 1918, is transcribed:“My Darling little sweetheart,
Just a few lines hoping that my letter finds you in the best of health, I’m very well at present and my family the same, Well loving, you see I’m faithfully thinking of you,
You know I love you very well my little heart, I am never loving anyone else,
If you are killed I will stay with you all the time and with my little baby if you give me one, I hope to see you very soon,
So will leave you now with my best remembrances from all my family,
Best love, from your loving little sweetheart, wife very soon.”
The beautiful and painstakingly artistic letter has recently become part of the Love and War exhibit at the Australian War Memorial, who are asking anyone who recognizes the couple, a Martha Gybert of Saint Sulpice, France, and the Australian soldier to whom she writes, to notify them as to what became of the two. They believe the letter may have made its way to Australia because it had either come over from France with the bride, or was returned with the soldier’s body and other effects. Obviously, the hope is that it is the former explanation. More info here.
Yesterday, in lieu of my previous service plan for the 100th birthday of Mother Teresa, I was called in to substitute for my ill colleague again. So, during the time the children write in their journals, I had them instead follow a basic form letter and write thank you notes, with drawings, to soldiers who will be serving in Afghanistan. The Cappy (he has been promoted now but calling him the Commie seems … “off”) is hooking it up because he knows the unit and the chaplain to whom I’ll be sending the letters, for which I’m so thankful. It was a spur-of-the-moment idea that ended up working out much better than I could have imagined; I initially thought it was hackneyed but I hadn’t counted on the children’s reaction to the letter-writing. The kids were genuinely fascinated by the project, and we traced over the world map in the classroom to demonstrate the countries their letters would cross before they arrived in their recipients’ hands.
I was surprised by how engrossed they were in the idea and how the details of why there are U.N. forces in Afghanistan at all seemed so revelatory to them. (I stuck mainly with the line that there are bad people there who are keeping the good people in the country from having the resources they need to succeed, so we and other forces are trying to help the good people get their country back from the bad; like, how do you explain the complexities of involvement in Afghanistan to fourth graders? Even explaining it to ourselves is problematic.)
When a girl told me, “My grandfather is a vet. He lives with us now,” and I said, “Oh, was he in World War II, or Korea?” and she replied, with a look at me like I was deranged, “Vietnam. My uncle was in the first war in Iraq,” I realized that these nine-year-old American children have grown up with the Towers down and all manner of skirmishes and action in the Middle East as a matter of course. They were so “in to” the project because the idea of a military presence in the Middle East, with attendant nightly television news reports of suicide bombers and attacks on bases, is so completely de rigeur to them as to be almost meaningless; unless someone in their life has been personally touched by the violence, it is just another part of the buzzing adult world that surrounds them.
For most, this was the first time it occurred to them to put a physically human face on stories that are a regular — and regularly ignored — part of their daily lives. This was a first time of actual connection, emphathetic thought and prayer for people serving around the globe in wartorn places that are just names on television for the kids.
For my part, I’d been concerned, because it is a parochial school, about taking care not to conflate patriotism with a love of God because that can lead down such dangerous behavioral and judgemental alleyways, as well as being always wary of the wavering line between informed support and general jingoism. But I was surprised that, beyond drawing war planes and helicopters or crosses and flags, the kids wanted to know more about the actual lives of the people who would be receiving their letters: I learned something, too, from this project, and that was that I can be as guilty of stereotyping an abundantly adamant yellow-ribbon-sporting, SUV-driving fellow citizen as I suppose they might be of me, who approaches an understanding of conflicts in what I thought was a less black-and-white way. I don’t know it all and neither do they. These kids drew their symbols and wrote out their dutifully trite declarations of support, but it was from a place of real love, and curiosity, and empathy. They are the next generation who will decide how to successfully negotiate international conflicts, and they are not a lost nor entirely manipulable cause. It was a very sobering and educational experience for us all. Probably more so for me than them, but I am glad that they seemed to have derived a real pleasure from the project.
Flashback Friday! Originally posted Nov 22, 2009 @ 12:38 pm.
Heads-up, Scorpios! (I’m looking at you, Cappy) — the lovely and talented Rita Lee, Miss November 1977, lists your sign as one of her turn-ons.
Photographed by Richard Fegley
A certain almost unstable level of insecurity and uncertainty comes across in her interview that I think translates in to these photographs. Check out her general lack of eye contact, her sidewise glances, her closed mouth, the way her hands have to be doing something. The wiki says that the photographer, Fegley, had her pose for his portfolio and even put her in a book. I guess maybe that nervous energy, that vulnerability, made her an interesting subject for more serious photography.
“I was very naïve and men took advantage of that. I always worried about what other people thought of me.” …
She says she would never have considered posing for “some of those other magazines” and that she was surprised that the Playboy people were so professional. “I didn’t know what to expect. I’d heard all sorts of things, like they photograph your body and put another girl’s head on it, and that none of the information on the girls is real. I was afraid that maybe after all the preliminary shootings they would decide my breasts weren’t big enough or something and ask me to have plastic surgery.” (“Growing Up,” Playboy, November 1977.)
She also talks in the interview about moving out and living on her own at 17, and how it was a mistake and her parents were right about her conservative upbringing. The below shot proves that Fegley got a smile out of her eventually. But it looks like it was a battle. Judging from what she said about her past and herself in her interview, I think she may have been pretty down and vulnerable during this period.
“I used to read about Marilyn Monroe. I felt as though I could identify with her. I learned something from her. Her suicide was like a warning for me.”
Shit-oh-dear, someone needs a hug and a Xanax! I am only comfortable making that joke because she is still alive and not dead like some of these other ladies. It’s actually terrible to read the interview and see the pictures because what emerges is a glimpse at this seemingly depressed, insecure woman with valid, sad anxietes about appearance and relationships, overly sensitive to the falseness inherent to human interaction, the whole ball of wax. I kind of do wish I could give her a hug. Some souls are born lost.
GOALS:
As I get older, to develop a better understanding of myself and others. To always have a fulfilling relationship with someone.
TURN-ONS:
Scorpio men, candlelit intimate dinners, swimming nude, genuine affection and trust.
TURNOFFS:
Phony people, particularly men who are attracted to women only because of looks.
Her repeated emphasis in both her data sheet and her interview on trust and wanting a relationship with someone who will look past her looks is heartrending to me. She must have really been burned in her past. I hope that she did find that fulfilling and ideal relationship, and that she married someone she really trusted, who deserved it, and lived happily ever after.
addendum June 4, 2010: This flashback is by way of introducing the Girls of Summer project, special Misses June, July, and August who I have picked out and researched and will begin posting up hopefully daily, probably starting on Sunday. (Got dogs in the fire tomorrow.)
Or is it the third? Either way. Breaking news: Some guys are just plain ol’ rock stars and you cannot keep a good pimp down!
All photos are Christian Bale by Ellen Von Unwerth, Interview magazine, February 2001.
I had a wonderful time with the Cappy while he was here yesterday and today. I think it will be impossible for me to be in a bad mood for quite a while. Tomorrow I am lunching with Miss D, finally, and I think I should see the Fountainhead soon; he called today but I was busy with my best boy — of all things we were looking at vintage CandyLand boxes online to try to pick out our versions from childhood, because we played kidlet — and spanked her ass like bosses!– but were chagrined by the changes time has wrought in the character designs. The Cappy in particular was very disappointed in the revamp of Queen Frostina.
It’s funny: I always forget how ridiculously and simply wonderful it is to just hang out and jabber for hours with the Cappy on end. He really is a brother from another mother. The time truly flies.
Also, this morning while we were driving around a few memory lanes, I called bullshit on a red light after already having sat at it for at least a full minute; I just up and went. Halfway across the incredibly busy intersection I had this horrible adrenaline-charged panic that surged through me shrieking, “Shit! What the fuck am I doing?!” but fortunately I hit the accelerator and hightailed it the rest of the way out of there, to the accompaniment of multiple horns honking — but no one even had to brake, the timing was completely surreal. Thank god. All we can surmise is that, focused on our conversation and lulled by the fact I’d been driving around over an hour, I saw it was briefly clear and atavistically bolted. I do have a well documented lack of patience, so it’s possible!
Between catching up with Miss D tomorrow and trying to rid my computer of a frumious bandersnatch that’s been redirecting me from search results to adware (total folklore), I will probably only be spottily updating the journal. Until then! Salute — I’m off to bed!
Cesar Romero as the Joker and Lee Meriwether as Catwoman/Miss Kitka (remember, Jul-Newms was washing her hair, so a former Miss America stepped in as kitteh-lady) in the 1966 film version of Batman.
Dearest and weirdest old friendohs with common interests — they are a Thing!
Ghost post; I’m pubbing it up with the Cappy right now. Woohoo!
Super-busy day, y’all. Lunch with Special K and then the Cappy is in town tonight!!!!! Eeeeee! Haven’t seen each other in two years. It’s going to be so wonderful. So here’s some Wednesday for your Wednesday and I am mainly outie for the rest of the day. Love!
Mrs. Firkins: Mm. Well. Wednesday brought in this picture. Uh, “Calpurnia Addams?”
Morticia: Ah! Wednesday’s great-aunt Calpurnia. She was burned as a witch in 1706. They said she danced naked in the town square and enslaved the minister.
Mrs. Firkins: Really?
Morticia: Oh, yes. But don’t worry. We’ve told Wednesday: “College first.”
She may look like an icy-hot Spy Who Came In From The Cold (I have mentioned before my Bond-based, niggling Eastern European fetish), but the lovely and talented Kata Kärkkäinen, Playboy’s Miss December 1988, was actually Finnish.
Photographed by Stephen Wayda and Byron Newman
Kata was a girls’ bowling champion in her native Finland before coming to America for her senior year of high school, where she was actually kicked off the bowling team. I have a feeling it was less to do with being a girl, as she insinuates, than it was to do with her other behaviors: Kata joined an exchange program, jetted to remotest Rapid City and gave her high school classmates a crash course in Eurostyle. Stevens High School is still reeling. “They found me pretty wild,” Kata says of the teachers and schoolmates she bowled over at Stevens High. “I dressed punk. I dyed my hair blonde — or red and black — or wore it in a Mohawk. I wore wigs, and sometimes a tuxedo, to school.” (“Photo Finnish,” Playboy, December 1988)
Kata is a Scorpio who shares a bappy with the Cappy (October 27th – a BIRTHDAY OF CHAMPIONS!) and Napoleon. Auspicious company for a girl who used to go for the 80’s version of guyliner and striped sweater boys.
“I don’t go crazy over how many muscles a guy has or how hairy his chest is. I kind of like skinny, feminine guys. One of my boyfriends in Finland used to wear make-up. We’d go out and some people thought we were sisters. It was kind of embarrassing, but kind of interesting, too.” Don’t abandon hope, American guys: The more she sees of American chests, Kata says, the better she likes them.
I like the implication that American guys in this time were unilaterally buffed-out, tanned, models of masculinity who drove stateside women wild with their oozing sexuality, and we ladies went for that or we burned in hell. I’m not so sure that was the case. (*cough* Duckie.) But on the other hand, I’m all for bashing pretentious emo Eurotrash, so good on Playboy.
These days, Ms. Kärkkäinen is a novelist. You may visit her official site here, but be advised it is in Finnish. Her 1999 novel Minä ja Morrison was adapted into a film in 2001. The movie functions loosely as the second part of female director Leena-Kaisa “Lenska” Hellstedt’s (and friends’) Levottomat trilogy.
Kata Kärkkäinen has an IQ of at least 148 (sd 24) according to Cattell & Cattell Culture Fair IQ test (see Ilta-Sanomat, 5 Oct 2006). (the wiki)
Finally, when the centerfold is this hot, you’re damned tootin’ you put her on the cover, too. The girl can move some magazines, y’all!
Thinking about Daryl Hannah got me thinking about how I keep seeing stuff here and there in the last few years — yes, years, a) the older I get the faster the time goes, and b) that is how long it takes me to accept a pattern and my feelings about it — that reminds me of Blade Runner.
Pris in all her glory. Screencap from the movie via Napalm Jelly on the livejournal.
In case you are like me and consider super-famous-intellectual things that everyone recommends a pretentious, potentially boring burden to actually go look up (nothing raises my hackles like being told by someone I scarcely know that I “should” read or watch something: fuck you, my time is my own) and pursue viewing on your own, I will fill you in a tiny bit, cause this is one that I’m pleased to report I found for me was actually worth chasing down. The 1982 science-fiction/detective noir film is directed by Ridley Scott, and in it the excellent Daryl Hannah debuts in her first screen role as Pris, the acrobatically gifted/full-set-of-clothes-on-both-boobs-and-bajango-challenged Pleasure Replicant (happens to sexbots all the time — the poor girls got no clue how to simultaneously cover the upstairs and the downstairs).
Pris and another Pleasure Replicant. Workin’ it.
Sean Young is also featured in the film. You may remember her as that hot crazy chick who tried way too hard to get Tim Burton to let her play Catwoman in Batman Returns (psh, what kind of silly vintage-loving brunette gets obsessed by Catwoman; what a madcap and unheard of nutball). Now she is on reality tv shows, one was for being a country and western star and I think the other was to cope with her “alcoholism” or some shit — she seemed like fun to me when she was chugging that wine on the first show so whatever. Miss Young, who can scootch on down to my place any ol’ time for Funyuns, chardonnay, and old Julie Newmar episodes of Batman, plays the lead character’s love interest, Rachael in Blade Runner.
Screencap from the movie via Napalm Jelly on the livejournal.
Anyway, turns out the wheels of what I’d been seeing and the echoes I found in them of Blade Runner, which I haven’t seen in many years, may have been turning too slowly for me to notice until recently, but I was subconsciously smart enough to right-click and save a few of the things I saw. For examples:
Supermodel, “it” girl, and Panda Eraser’s second most-fave platinum blonde Agyness Deyn in Stockholm, Sweden, September 21, 2008.
Screencap from game via Julia Segal on the tumblr, around six or eight months ago.
The only “lovely” for now — she knows what she has to do to be billed as “talented” too — Miz Kat Dennings, rather clearly done up like Rachael the Replicant.
“Blast Off” by Peter Christian. Pleasure Replicant styling influence, I think.
… and one more of Kat Dennings from that same photoshoot cause ever since the Cappy brought her to my attention, she is up and coming on my list (don’t pretend like you don’t have a list).
Via No Smoking in the Skull Cave.
I’m not going to tell you that you “should” see Blade Runner. I will only say that I resisted, mainly because I was being stubborn and prejudiced, and when I finally gave in it turned out to be freaking sweet. I’d love for that to happen to someone else, because it’s a good feeling and it opened up my mind to not being such a reverse-discriminatory bitch about people’s “hipster” recommendations of popular esoteric things: turns out sometimes a thing has cool cult popularity because it deserves it, and I don’t need to disdain its countercultural cache. It’s okay to be on the bandwagon from time to time, even the small ones that scarcely anyone knows about and you suspect will be snobby. It’s a convoluted lesson, really, now that I look at it … sorry.
Do not confuse Miss November 2007, Lindsay Wagner, with the 1970’s-era Bionic Woman star and mattress spokesmodel of the same name. This one hails from Nebraska and was a ring girl for the Omaha Fight Club (she’s not in it, so it’s okay for her to talk about it, I guess).
Photographed by Stephen Wayda
I think this may be the first Miss November we’ve seen with a total and complete lack of hair, you know, Down There. Gosh. Pubic alopecia in one so young (barely legal at the time of this shoot) is a tragic thing to see. Breaks the heart. Maybe next time you get a haircut, you could sweep it up and send her a little merkin? Just to keep her warm. Hardwood floors get cold in the winter, y’all.
This Lindsay can’t bend steel, but she’s got a straight right that will have you seeing stars. “We have an Omaha Fight Club,” she says, “and I’m a ring girl when my brothers compete. I don’t fight, but I train in self-defense and practice with a lot of guys.” (“Nebraksa Knockout,” Playboy, November 2007)
“I thought I’d never make Playboy in a million years,” Lindsay says. “I’m confident in the way I look, but you know how girls sometimes have the feeling they’re not good enough to accomplish something?”
I think a shade of that concern shows, but only a shade. I don’t know what these girls think that Playboy is, that they get so nervous. Unless it’s the money that freaks them out — I mean it is a big shot at some pretty good cash if you don’t blow it. I guess that could be spooky. Still, it’s not like a firing squad: it’s just a camera.
The only shot that I think in this spread has any merit, composition-wise, is the centerfold up top. It’s pretty hackneyed at this point to have the girl in men’s clothing like she has just come from raiding your closet, but it’s still cute. And she manages to make it look fresh. The best thing about all these pictures is that she has a nice smile and good eye contact. She doesn’t look frozen or fearful or dramatic. Just friendly and fun-loving. That’s appropriate for her age and how she’s been styled and sold in the interview. Good stuff all around, just not, like “great,” which is totally outside of her control. Her end of the quality is solid. And that is me being really strong and not crazy, because the truth is, she looks to me like my dear friendoh the Cappy’s ex, who you need to know is a no-good slack-cunted slagwhore cumdumpster, and I am battling to keep the strong association I have with her appearance out of my opinion of this nice girl, here, and be fair and not let my head get hot and melt my brain. (I get really, really protective of my friends, to the point that if I find someone has injured them in some way I can turn on that person on a dime *snap* and try to set them on fire with my thoughts.)
You can hit Ms. Wagner up on the myspace (current mood: “sad :(” — that is no good at all, maybe you could send her a glittery graphic or something, okay?), but I cannot, as she breaks my Movie Dating Rule: she was born after the release of Mannequin (1987). She can throw me a wink in a couple years, when I’ve once more lowered my standards! I’m thinking next stop, The Sandlot (1993).
Ugh, thanks Playboy cover, for reminding me that, besides being a cheating fuckface in his sporting life, Barry Bonds is also a cheating fuckface off the diamond. He even bought That Woman a house in Scottsdale so he could boff her during spring training while his wife was home with their daughter. Meanwhile, he drug his first wife through a humiliating series of court battles to keep her from getting his earnings, which she wanted to continue to sock away in savings for the education of their two sons. Gar, what a dishonorable goddamned waste of a human being all around he is. Such potential, so many opportunities handed to him, and such terrible choices he has made. Terrible choices. That is so weak. Ugh! Now I’m in a bad mood.
Elizabeth: you pick a year, I’ll do that one today
the Cappy: hmmmmmmmmmm
Elizabeth: any ol’ year, I got ’em all.
the Cappy: 2004
Elizabeth: GREAT CHOICE!
My friendoh the Cappy-bappy is in Baghdad waiting for a plane to Germany, so let’s all help him pass the time, shall we? From MTV’s Road Rules and the Real World and some permutations therein* to the pages of Playboy, super-cutie-patootie Cara Zavaleta is your Miss November 2004!
*I have never seen any of those shows.
The set dressing and conceptual design of most of the November shoots from the early 2000’s were completely lacking in any type of ingenuity. It’s like, the creative types were fired and they just brought in photoshoppers. “Just airbrush her beyond recognition and the background doesn’t matter.” Newsflash: it matters. Also, just because you have an airbrush feature in your photo editing software does not obligate you to use it. Authenticity matters!
And so does a model who is smiling and playing a fun character. Every lady has a little girl inside her that wants to play dress up! Harkening back to the pinup style really helps a model get in to it, it seems. Playboy hit it out of the park for me with this one. This spread is a standout in the shoots from the early 2000’s and it is absolutely adorable.
I have no clue who photographed the adorable oldtimey saloon scenes, but I know exactly who did the Women’s Air Core uniform bookworm-type ones:
Rob Schneider! Super-cool! I’d be grinning if I was her, too! Because this was a much more recent shoot than some of the others I’ve been featuring, there are like truckloads of pictures of this in varying degrees of resolution around the internet, so many that I could not possibly do them all justice, so I’ll wind things down with a classic composition that has all the best fetishistic elements of the shoot. Masculine attire, knee socks (argyle!), book, cigar. Out. of. the. park. Well done!
Fuck to the yeah: the Cappy and I are just doing the usual, chatting, but it happens to be while he packs to leave that hellhole, thank you very much! I could not oversell my happiness right now.
So we were talking about how he’s going to return soon to his apartment in Krautland after having been gone for a year, in this whole other life in this whole other country, like it’s a reboot to a previous setting of existence, and I can only think what a trip that is in general for any serviceman, but in the specific for my friendoh (hey, I’m selfish, what can I say). Especially emotionally, being in a different place in life and all now but with all these former trappings waiting for him.
Naturally, because we are awesome and you wish you were cool like us, we segued into discussing “Tapestry,” Season 6, Episode 15, Star Trek: The Next Generation. This is not the first time we’ve discussed this episode and the trend of do-overs in TNG. I’m serious: it came up earlier this year. We are consistent, okay? Plus, it also reminds me that I haven’t yet shared all my Ashley Judd pictures! I’ll get on that ASAP, I promise.
Elizabeth: we have, in the last thirty minutes, discussed chicken wings, heavy emotional shit, an episode of star trek tng that we’ve even discussed before, divorce, rebuilding one’s life, and legos
the Cappy: I rule. I know.
Yeah, legitimately, now I’m lego-shopping thanks to his link. I should totally get him some Star Wars ones for when he comes to visit at Christmas! ‘Cause it is making him happy to browse through this site, and I believe that everyone in the Army who is super-important and dignified needs quiet time with legos in the comfort of their own apartment, okay? Haters to the left. I’m just giddy that he’s getting out of the Middle East.
the Cappy: I’m glad you sent that
the Cappy: because I totally was thinking of the wrong episode
the Cappy: it wasn’t tapestry
Elizabeth: it wasn’t?
Elizabeth: which one was it
the Cappy: The Inner Light
the Cappy: its where the Enterprise finds a probe in the middle of nowhere
the Cappy: and it zaps Picard
the Cappy: and he ends up living this second life on another planet in his mind
the Cappy: and has a wife and kids and everything
Elizabeth: OH YEAH
I’m sorry, but your father and I talked it over. You can’t come back to the Enterprise ’til you cut your hair and get a job, Captain.
I totally see the comparisons. That’s a very poignant and moving episode, by the way.
Biggest. Dorks. Ever. I love this boy!
Oh, holy heck!
Approximately one hour ago, one of my dearest of dear people on this earth, the incomparable Cappy, who I consider a brother, a counselor, and a friend with the depth and nuances that only come from years and years of real conversation, turned the big 3-0.
In a perfect world, I would have insisted that he call in sick to work today, and he’d swoop over to my house to spend the birthday in style. We’d gorge ourselves on baked goods and guzzle bottles of beer while playing cards, maybe ogle some movies.
Then we’d bounce over to Outback (I associate that place with the Cappy and only the Cappy from way back … like, over a decade) to do some damage to fat steak and even taller glasses of booze. We’d laugh at the out-of-work-supermodel waiters and waitresses and repeat many times that they got no use for spoons there.
But, that’s not the case. It’s not a perfect world even at all. It happens that he is in Iraq right now. Second time, no less. If it was me, I’d be down. It’s not me and I’m down. I think that’s why I went all nuts with Makery Monday. I needed to do something because this day was important to him (10/27, not the 26th, to be clear; it’s already tomorrow where he is cause he’s from the future and stuff, being in Iraq), which makes it important to me. My friends are the family I choose for myself. I’ve chosen Captain JKA to be a confidante and counselor for the last decade and a half, plus, and I continue to choose him every day. He’s the Man. You don’t even know! I can’t believe we are not together this day!
“Birthday” by DasPenre on deviantart.
So let’s all turn to the east and blow booze and kisses, okay? I miss you and I love you and I can’t wait to see you, brotha-from-anotha-motha and dearest old friendoh. Happy birthday, JKA.
“Basement Kitchen Cake” by vivavanstory on deviantart.
For the wonderful and irreplaceable Cappy who is about to hit that hay like a champ, a final thought for your day:
(photo by the amazing Ellen von Unwerth, if you like chicks and photography and art, check her out!)
Sweet dreams, buddy. You are earning the sweetest ones out there the whole time you’re awake. Love ya!
“I believe that we have a natural instinct which is very strong. Just we don’t know ourselves enough. And I think that if we get into it and we try to understand all we have inside, we can find all the power we have.” –Monica Bellucci
The Thought Experiment 