Hey, Hey, Palin!

With the addition of Governor Sarah Palin to the mix, this race officially became The Election of States In Little Boxes Somewhere To the Left of Mexico.  McCain saw the Democrat’s black man from Hawaii, and raised ‘em an ovulator from Alaska.  For while we’ve been distracted with oil prices and immigration, the travel agent lobby has stealthily been forming its own shadow government.

On the up side, Palin was introduced on Friday to the music of Rudy.  Brother school, holla!  Although… for victory-imaging purposes, the Republican party might have perhaps chosen theme music associated with a college football team other than one currently boasting a record of 3-9.

On the down side, however, she is a former beauty pageant contestant.  That’s a great big libber boooooo, although, judging by her predilection for guns and admittedly impressive basketball resume, she could likely dunk your average Sand Stripper into oblivion in about five seconds.  I’m suggesting the formation of a third party, the F With Us And Die ticket, with Palin at the top and thing-hurling Stephanie Brown handling veep and security duties.

She’s a rare find, the Governor:  Her husband is part Eskimo, she has a child with Down’s Syndrome, another who is deploying to Iraq, and she herself, as previously mentioned, is a she.  That makes her, in the world of identity politics, a very rare fourfer.  She has almost total Identity Immunity.  Thrown in a few more issues, maybe a transgendered Jewish brother-in-law who’s adopted several Muslim children from Ecuador who smoke and are products of a charter school system, and she’s all set.

Yep, McCain’s pretty much given Obama the finger and then spun around and stuck it directly in Hillary Clinton’s eye with this one.  I cannot wait for the debates, when three Senators and an aspiring vice president will get into a big fat argument over who hates Washington the most.  The Jonas Brothers will moderate.

making popcorn at:  mbe@drinktothelasses.com

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Labor Day Fun Suggestion

Say, if you’re looking for something to do this weekend, go support the likes of Bonk.

Bonk! at:  mbe@drinktothelasses.com

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Tickets for the Teacher

Dear Mary Beth:  How was your first day in the classroom after a year away?

Well!

Day jobs are bad; returning to a day job after a year without one is hideous.  You’ve experienced life on the full freelance side, and then… oh, sorry, you shall return to the Land of Other People now.

I’m teaching college again, because the national IQ has risen a point and a half since 2007 and we can’t have that.  Also, we ain’t got no money.  Back into the pantyhose for you, Master Ellis.

The university hired me maybe five minutes before my first class started, and since the educational theme of my MFA program was “Have Some Proust, and Also a Bong Hit,” it took some time for my transcripts to arrive, and the department refused to process my paperwork without it, as I was clearly some sort of security and intellectual property threat.  This meant that I began the semester with no campus ID,  no parking tag, no BlackBoard login, no email address, and no stack of syllabi.  The only thing I was deemed fit for was to enter the classroom and teach.

So I did, and everybody got out alive, and I was in a relieved enough mood at the end of it all that I complimented one student on her footwear and let another in front of me in traffic, even though it was one of those obnoxious two lanes-narrowing-down-to-one affairs in which ninety percent of motorists start switching lanes when instructed to, and the remaining ten percent fubar the entire thing up by zooming down to the absolute point of merge and then sit there with the turn signal on, all, “Oh, goodness gracious me, where did this come from?”

Here’s how traffic niceness is repaid:  A friendly wave from a state trooper on an interstate exit ramp.  The sides of the roads were littered with stopped cars, and I lowered the window:  Perhaps all college teachers entering the classroom without a syllabus were, as I feared, cited.

“You look confused,” the officer said.

“That’s absolutely nothing new.”

As it happened, I was a single occupant in an HOV lane during HOV hours.  I looked around and pointed out that I was not, in fact, in a “lane,” but an exit ramp, which lacked any indication whatsoever that I was not permitted to drive there.  I’ve seen HOV lanes on the Beltway; they’re marked every four inches with eleventy-seven signs and warnings and diamonds and screaming animated figures and what have you, but on this ramp… nothing.  His explanation was that the entire road was considered HOV at rush hour:  all lanes, exit ramps, roadkill, everything.  I asked where a sign might point this out, and he instead asked for my registration, indicating that this was, perhaps, free-floating Beltway knowledge I was simply supposed to acquire via inhaling, like which Metro lines always run late, or which bars are best for chatting up an Assistant Deputy to the Under-Secretary’s Secretary.

I attempted to communicate all this by crying very, very hard, which for some reason failed to accurately explain my position.  The officer, clearly just trying to help, asked me to roll up my window halfway.  He fitted a lightreading device over the side.

“Are you aware that this degree of tint is illegal in the state of Virginia?”

I know approximately as much about tint as I do about stealth HOV lanes, and told him so, and also explained that I’d purchased the car used, tint and all, in Florida, where apparently people drive about willy-nilly with 27% tinted windows, the entire state thisclose to anarchy.  He pointed to my license and reminded me that I’d been living in Virginia for several months, and shouldn’t I have taken care of this by now?  And I stared at the steering wheel instead of saying what I wanted to say, which was that it was kind of difficult to take care of something illegal when YOU DON’T EVEN KNOW IT’S ILLEGAL, it’s not as if I were operating an off-shore money laundering account and was then stunned at the news that the IRS might want to ask me a couple questions about it.  And he told me to drive safely and left me there with my two tickets, three month’s worth of adjunct income in the passenger seat.

At least I wasn’t alone in the car anymore.

I called my husband, who could, of course, do absolutely nothing:  “I don’t understand what you’re saying,” he told me as I sobbed the story and my First Day Teacher Makeup all over my cellphone.

“I said, ‘WE’RE *&^@ED,’” I screamed.

I don’t drive a limo-dark BridesMobile, or carry a concealed weapon beneath that tint, or hate on cops, or break laws, unless I’m perhaps taping the daily Incredible Abs Workout off the DVR.  So that makes me wonder:  What’s it like to have the type of job which is, in part, dedicated to just absolutely ruining people’s days, upending budgets for months on end and ginning anxiety attacks?  Were there no openings in the collections department at MediCare?  He didn’t know that the only reason I was on that road was because our upside-down mortgage won’t be met without the job I was returning from, or that my mother had been in the hospital for the past four days, or that I was having Ladies Time.  Although I’m thinking he guessed about the Ladies Time.  All of this should not matter.  And alone in the HOV lane, it does not.

I’ll think of that every time I hand down a very well-deserved F- over the next four months.

court date at:  mbe@drinktothelasses.com

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Olympics Crack UPDATE: The Shakes

My readership shot up 70% during the Olympic Games, which was terrifying.  I was afraid that this meant people were coming to me for actual information, and was quite relieved when I looked at the search term leaders and realized that what Phelps giveth, the pervs take away.

I hereby deem this the Squickest Olympiad Ever on the sole basis of my analytics.  You cannot imagine the number of readers who came to the site after searching up “nastia liukin dad kiss on mouth,” “nastia liukin father creepy,” “nastia incest,” “nastia bare feet,” “shawn johnson bare feet,” “shopping for crack,” and, most alarmingly, “oh noooo weightlifting olympics.”  It accounts for hundreds and hundreds of hits.

You know how many people searched for “mary beth ellis”? Four.

I’m starting to think that’s a good thing.

totally missing live broadcasts consisting almost entirely of taped footage at:  mbe@drinktothelasses.com

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Olympics Crack UPDATE: Withdrawl Pending

The great nation of Australia, perhaps because it’s a gigantic island and the people are left alone to hatch awesome plans like this, has this Olympic habit of coming out of absolutely nowhere and winning things they aren’t supposed to win.  Previously my favorite upsetter was short track speed skater Steven Bradbury, who hurtled gloriously to an Olympic championship when the rest of the field fell down.

Right up next to him jumps Matthew Mitcham, who singlehandedly prevented a total China sweep in diving.  Chinese diver Zhou Luxin led the entire time, and it was a tense competition, with one diver entering the pool at a forty-five degree angle.  In these circumstances, it’s highly useful to have a man around for color commentary:  “That had to hurt the boys,” observed Josh The Pilot as NBC froze frame at the point of impact.  “He was pretty much pecker-first.”

Another diver, we learned, was missing his first day of class at Purdue in order to compete.  If I were this kid’s prof, I would, solely for poops and giggles, count this as an unexcused absence.  I would demand a note from the President of the IOC.  That’d keep him busy for the next four years.

But Matthew, he persevered, protecting the boys and winning on the final dive when Luxin fubared his.  I cannot imagine that kind of pressure.  I freeze up on a 250-word article deadline for the Penny Saver.  But here’s this guy facing a home crowd and all the world staring at his Australia-stamped butt, performing exactly what he needed to do exactly when he needed to do it.  “See the look of shock on Luxin’s face!” said the commentator, which I wouldn’t categorize as “shock” so much as “the clear realization that he will never ever be seen or heard from again,” as demonstrated here.

In the wake of the Most Emotional Volleyball Game Ever, I was left to watch the medal ceremony for the men’s marathon, which meant NBC was forced to broadcast the dread medal ceremony which does not involve an American at the top of the podium.  The world was officially exposed to Kenya’s national anthem, and it struck me that with the great number of medals Jamaica has won in this Games, I could not tell you for the life of me what its anthem sounds like.  Please tell me there are steel drums involved.

For about the billionth time and for the billionth reason, I wish I hosted a TV talk show, because then I could dedicate enormous amounts of time showcasing the Shafted Olympians.  We would have lengthy interviews with weightlifters and table tennis mavens, and the gold medalist women’s rowing team, deemed worthy of 0% hype by NBC, would get an entire week (and they sang along with the National Anthem during their medal ceremony.)  The more of your body which is covered during competition, the more airtime I’d award, which means that the fencing team would pretty much move into the green room.

The Closing Ceremonies were marked largely by the Enormous Inflatable Attack Drums (speaking of Purdue, somebody ought to alert the administration about this.)  The overriding theme seems to be “Hey!  We’ve got 20% of the world’s population!  And light-up spinny things!”

In other Olympics news, the vast majority of the U.S. team wisely elected to leave their Ralph Lauren Caps of Shame back at the Village, while Canada, inspired by Hungary’s Opening Ceremonies Fashion Don’t, commits a Fashion Never.  A “Memory Tower” takes the symbolic place of the extinguished flame, and btw, if anyone wants a jump start on shopping for my Christmas present, think… Memory Tower.  Also, just in case you’ve been wondering how we’ve gotten through these entire Games without the vocal stylings of Jackie Chan, here you go.

London, grasping the spectacle gauntlet as the next Olympics host, displayed its mighty power with… umbrellas, a bus, and a lickety-lick interview with Michael Phelps.  Party on, Great Britain!  The 2012 Games are going to be… just… great!

attempting to move on with my life at:  mbe@drinktothelasses.com

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Olympics Crack UPDATE: When Michael Phelps Says He Owns The Pool…

So Michael Phelps is joining his coach in buying the aquatic center in Baltimore where he first began to train.  It’s a shocking investment for a 23-year-old, that he’ll be purchasing pool tile instead of blowing his endorsement money on hookers, beer, and a pony like 99.99% of his age group would.

Imagine the athletes from some of these POS nations who have the choice of training in, like, extra- large puddles or defecting in all but name to other countries in order to find decent facilities– and here’s Phelps with his own personal aquatic complex. “OK, everybody out of the pool.  Owner’s Swim.”

Also, one of the horses of the bronze-winning Norwegian equestrian team, Camiro, has tested positive for “illegal substances.”  That’s what happens when your warmbloods get in with a rough crowd.  Know your horse’s friends, Olympians!  Carmiro, you and He let me know if you’d like Reddi-Whip or Cool Whip with your pumpkin.

COMMENTATOR QUOTE OF THE DAY: “A hard rub, but it stays up.”

two seconds to pass the baton, use it wisely at:  mbe@drinktothelasses.com

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Olympics Crack UPDATE: And On the Twelfth Day, She Ironed

Today’s Olympic Crack UPDATE is sponsored by…

CollegeGal The Reader, awesome since at least June 2005

LynD The Reader, awesome since she only knows how long

Thank you kindly, ladies.  (I’m assuming here.  If you’re not ladies, please don’t let it stop you from giving me more money.)

Today’s most important Olympic News is that I had to get some ironing done, so I settled in with my board and my wrinkly skirts and some men’s volleyball.  Normally I have little patience for volleyball, which I remember in high school as this endless affair which I greatly sucked at, especially serving.  However, in grade school, I scored my life’s only athletic achievement in the form of being on the best volleyball squad in our whole entire seventh-grade gym class.  Nobody could beat us.  Then they put us up against eighth-graders, and the reign came to a crashing stop.  I was, however, awarded a Blo-Pop for my horrible, horrible serving efforts.

However, in the Olympic version of volleyball, the players 1) are competent, serving the ball at like 128 miles an hour instead of five inches an hour, arcing weakly into the player directly in front of the server, and 2) there’s a point every single time the ball hits the ground, whether the side doing the non-screwing-up served it or not.  BONUS.  I didn’t understand this at first, and kept switching away during the timeouts to a BBC presentation of Persuasion,  which was refreshing with its closeups of dinner hams and Lyme rocks and people gazing longingly.  This kind of volleyball, though, I can handle.  The whole thing was over by the time I pressed out my interview suit jacket.

Also, in Olympics-level volleyball, when there’s a substitution, there’s this highly classy use of little numbers on a stick.  The replacement simply trots out to the court with the number of the player he’s kicking off, and in all it’s a far more seamless process than the one we used in SAY soccer, which was to tear across the field towards our future position at the whistle, screaming “JEEEEEENNNNNNNIIIIIIFEEEEERRRRRR!” “No, the other Jennifer!”

Olympics Fashion UPDATE:  Michael Phelps will see Mark Spitz’s pornstache ‘n’ BET award-winning bling look and raise him a little splash of TOTAL NUDITY.

Gymnastics UPDATE:

-The NBC opening bumper, which heretofore has featured, complete with photos and captions, Olga… Nadia…Mary Lou!  Tonight?  Nadia.. Nadia…Nastia.  Thank you for your interest in remaing relevant, Mary Lou; however, a newer, shiner leotard is a better fit for our needs at the current time.  We have no further need of you, but we will keep your application on file should the need for a women’s all-around Olympic gold medalist arise.  Please collect your Prevention feature interview and six-month supply of Turtle Wax at the door.

-A Chinese gymnast finished third on beam, largely because, as one of the commentators sighed, “Every skill, it’s just not special today.”  Wow.  That’s just about the harshest thing I’ve ever heard.  This is Generation Special, coming in the wake of my age group, The Era of Eleventh-Place Trophies.  Somewhere in my parents’ home is a raft of the “I’M A WINNER” buttons, which were solemnly distributed to every single child in my grade school, flung with the great earnestness of self-esteem Mardi Gras beads.

-I really could go awhile without having to hear Bob Costas say “gala” again.

-High bar bronze medalist Fabian Hambuechen stood alone in the gymnastics exhibition spotlight to great fanfare, reached up to the apparatus as the music swelled… and… then stopped the whole entire thing dead to have the tension wires readjusted for about ten minutes.  Don’t tell me my people don’t know how to gala.

-I am aware of how hideously non-PC this makes me, but to this point, my absolute, hands down, very, very favorite Olympic Moment consists of listening to a French announcer attempt to pronounce Jonathan Horton’s name.  The second absolute, hands down, very, very favorite Olympic Moment was watching, for a full thirty seconds, close-up footage of an Italian gymnast named Igor hocker into his hands so as to make championship caliber hocker-chalk paste.  I taped the whole thing to watch with a cup of cinnamon tea on bad days, it was so inspiring.

-Apparently, in Shawn Johnson’s perfect world, a beam routine is accompanied by recorded whistling.  I really, really hope that the gymnasts were not permitted to choose their own music for the gala, but then again, this is the same person who thought it might be an excellent idea to incorporate the delicately lyrical sound of ambulance sirens in the music of her floor routine.

-Nastia Liukin commits the Perfect Olympic Ovulation Sports Storm by performing a balance beam routine to the pop version of “Once Upon a December,” which Tara Lipinski used as her short program music when she won the figure skating gold in 1998.  True to the Sport of Katerina Witt, her performance is 90% armwaving before she even gets on the beam. GET ON THE BEAM, NASTIA.  YOU MUST WORK FOR OUR CONTINUED APPROVAL.

-The utter highlight of the all-around aftermath was watching Nastia make it all the way to thirty full seconds of being the Olympic champion before becoming an utter disappointment as a role model for The Kids.  After she won, she attempted to call her mother to tell her the news; apparently Mom felt more comfortable wandering the streets of Beijing at twilight rather than watching her daughter attempt to fulfill a lifelong dream.  So Nastia tried to call her, aaaaaannnnd– Mom’s not picking up.  America’s Sweetheart:  “S—.”

Nastia, btw, has an endorsement deal with AT&T, and that was one magnificent ad about signal coverage, right there.

SILVER MEDAL OF THE DAY: After an awful lot of witchface at these Games upon WINNING a SILVER MEDAL, Sally McLellan of Australia, my second-favorite nation, officially joins Paul Wylie, Jonathan Horton, and Liz Manley in my Pantheon of Awesome Placers.  Screaming, jumping all over the track, shocked with herself.  Definitely not glaring at the back of the winner’s head during the medal ceremony, possibly spitting gum into ponytails.

COMMENTARY QUOTE OF THE DAY: “We’re seeing some critical ball handling here.”

so tired, so very very tired at:  mbe@drinktothelasses.com

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On Giving Me Money

LynD The Reader recently asked a very welcome question:  I want to give you money.  How might I accomplish this?

Usually, my income comes to me in the form of crumpled and occasionally moist dollar bills.  But in the original bottling of Blonde Champagne, I had an Amazon Honor System button for donations, which worked really, really well until the site starting falling apart like the Bluesmobile.  I tried adding it into this page, but the great thing about WordPress, in addition to the horribly narrow columns, the utter inability to change text size or font, and complete prohibition on adding stat analytic tools, is that it’s unable to accommodate an Amazon button.

So I’m going to have to do this the old-fashioned, floppy drive way:  As a link.  How we’re all going to enjoy this.

And many thanks to LynD for even providing me a cool way to ask for it.  She’s good for several more rounds on the house.

the many ways of gimmieing at:  mbe@drinktothelasses.com

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Olympics Crack UPDATE: The Team Representing the Vatican Is Not Going To Like This

When I grow up, I want to join the Olympics trampoline team.  It’s fun, it’s flippy, you get to wear ballet shoes, and, most importantly, glitter is necessary.  Potential backup:  Pole vaulting.  The mat’s all pillowy and stuff, and the American chick who won the silver medal has only been pole vaulting for four years.  All I need is a great big stick and a coach to make passive-aggressive remarks at me from the stands when I come in second.

Training begins as soon as the current stock of sugar ice cream cones in the pantry is depleted.  London, 2012!  The search for proper scrunchy shall consume all the energy of the House of Ellis!

Besides, I have, according to NBC, the most important elements:  Having a family member who once competed in, attended a performance of, or even thought about said event.  My father was on his high school’s trampoline team, which means IT’S DESTINY AND FATE AND TRULY TRULY MINE.

What’s really sad is that this driving ambition didn’t come to me until well after I married.  I’ve heard rumors that the Olympics Village becomes orgytastic at about this point in the Games, with many of the athletes done with their events and at loose ends and aderenaline.  Apparently in Sydney, the organizers ran out of condoms– and they were prestocked with 65,000 for 10,651 athletes.  Either somebody was making a whole lot of water balloons, or there was some serious gettin’ it on goin’ on, even in the face of what must have been a wide availability of Bloomin’ Onions.

According to Yahoo! News, the Parade of Condoms are “part of a campaign on HIV prevention and anti-discrimination.”  Okay, HIV prevention, that makes sense.  “Anti-discrimination,” though?  Is there some sort of conspiracy afoot to give High-Sensitivity Trojans to the European athletes, and stacks of rubbers purchased at gas station vending machines to everybody else?  You can just imagine what kind of nonprofit job interview this could create:  “I see here you worked with the IOC.”  “Yes, I achieved world peace and equality through distribution of Lamb Gut Nut Huts.”

This year, the condoms aren’t going at the rocket rate of Turin’s, despite the very best efforts of the U.S. men’s gymnastics team.  Possibly Italy snared the bulk of them for use in the Opening Ceremony.  Even so, Vancouver is prepared to give the Winter Games athletes sixteen condoms apiece.  Sixteen.  For a span of Seventeen Days of Glory.  Are professional lugers seriously getting this much action?

BEST GOLD OF THE DAY: Women’s rowing.  Whole team stood on the podium in their bare feet and sang the national anthem really, really loudly.  Nothing was thrown.  Nobody made witchface. Good for them.  Now go away for another four years until we deign to care about you again.

SECOND BEST GOLD OF THE DAY: Women’s discus.  Do NOT piss off Stephanie Brown, who could probably singlehandedly bring Fallujah under control.  Now go away for another four years until we deign to care about you again.

COVERAGE QUOTE OF THE DAY, WHICH IS ALSO ODDLY APPROPRIATE: “I’m seeing legs coming apart here.”

lover cover at:  mbe@drinktothelasses.com

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Olympics Crack UPDATE: SOMEbody’s Been Shopping The Buy 2 Barettes, Get 40 Free Sale at Claire’s

10:35 PM:  In a series of 3D graphics, NBC measures all over Michael Phelps, who is double-jointed, and has hands like dinner plates, and a heart which beats twice the normal amount of blood when under stress, and reproductive organs crafted of the finest, purest platinum.

10:40:  Women’s gymnastics.  Okay,  I know Nastia Liukin was born in Russia, and everything?  And her dad’s her coach, and they’re real close and all?  But did she just kiss him on the mouth?

10:41:  Cut to Mary Lou Retton in the stands, looking totally cute and utterly bored.  She’s drinking pop.  Wait, won’t that make her need to pee?

11:20 PM:  I have scary powers.

One of the Chinese gymnasts just cleared the most dangerous moment in a vault, and, half-paying attention, I yell “FALL!” at the set during her descent.

She immediately goes down cheeks-first.  Ah, gymnastics enemy, thou shalt suffer the fate of the Sasha Cohen!

I HAVE SCARY SCARY POWERS.

11:22:  What’s that you say, the premiere event of the most popular sport in the entire Games is going down?  No, says NBC, you shall not see it!  You shall see Michael Phelps being massaged by two men at once… live.

11:36:  Back to the studio.  Live gymnastics?  These aren’t the Olympics you’re looking for.

In its place: Bela Karolyi! How I enjoy Bela, and my utter inability to comprehend any single thing the man has to say.  Something about “the execution.”  Dude, Alica Sacramore wasn’t that bad.

Midnight, Cubin’:  I am crazy impressed by Michael Phelps, okay, but the interviewer just enthusiastically congratulated him for acknowledging the existence of a teammate who won a gold medal in the previous race.  What’s he supposed to do, rip the thing from his neck and roar, “NOOOOOOOO, only The Phelps may wear the flowering of Chrysus!”

12:02:  Bela Check:  “The ladies are solid and looking good.”  I want this sampled into a major rap single IMMEDIATELY.

12:07:  I really don’t understand why it’s necessary to show so much cheekage on the gymasts, especially considering many of them are Gary Glitter fodder, but Shawn Johnson’s uniform really must find its way into my closet at some point.  It’s sparkly!

How do the gymnasts decide who wears what?  Each entrant is wearing a different work than her teammate’s, and I know they all have the same unitards.  Something like this must require hours and hours of action items and meetings at the very highest levels of the IOC.

12:13:  After a Chinese gymnast performs on the balance beam and pretty much squats down and takes a dump on the far end of it, she is awarded a very high score.  There’s conjecture that the judges are overscoring the home team.  Oh, now that’s just crazy talk.

12:15:  A Russian entrant has prepared for the meet with her makeup mirror tuned to the Pat Benetar Hits the Pubs setting.

12:44:  Nastia:  The!  Floor!  Exercise!  Of!  A!  Lifetime!  This could be a routine we could be watching for GENERATIONS!  Only one color works in THIS family!  No pressure!

12:46:  Nastia gets the score she needs.  She’s the Olympic All-Around champion.  The offending FAILURE, Chinese bronze medalist Yang Yilin, is now WORTHless and properly removed from the sight of The People forevermore.

12:49:  Mary Lou Retton:  Still not in the bathroom.

12:58:  Footage of Bela hugging Bob Costas practically out of his chair, and all God’s people say amen.  Mary Lou has the expression of a person watching Michael Phelps being massaged by two men at once.

12:51:  Silver medalist Shawn Johnson is smilin’ fake, and is clearly ready to spit nails at AK-47 velocity.  “They’re reeeeeeallllly good friends!” says Tim Daggett.  Shawn, still toothy:  “I hate you, *&@^$.”  Meanwhile, Nastia Liukin is permitted to live another day.  Also, potentially, eat.

eating celebratory pound cake at:  mbe@drinktothelasses.com

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