the slack daily

What Marriage Looks Like.

In case you missed it.

Happy Birthday to America's #1 Husband!

Will & I, May 2011. Photo by Martin Degrell

 

Will's 33rd Birthday, 2007

You've come a long way, baby.

Five Movies I Don't Want to See on my DVR.

Note: This post initially was published a couple of years ago on the comedy blog Pointless Banter, which Bobby Finstock traded for a "gently used" copy of Ted Bundy's address book.

The other day I was scrolling through the “to-do” list on our DVR to make sure that the LOST premiere would be recorded when I came across the following movie title, scheduled to record the next morning:

How to Murder Your Wife.

Will and I have an open relationship. Not meaning that we bone other people, but we’re pretty communicative about our thoughts and our feelings and all that sappy bullshit that you hear on Oprah (if I watched Oprah. Okay, I watched Oprah that once, but I was young and needed the morale boost.)

We’ve only been married nineteen months, so I’m sure this will eventually harden into a crust of resentment and rage.

Give us time.

But this got me to thinking about other things I don’t want to see showing up on my DVR:

 

Reversal of Fortune

Jeremy Irons gets an Oscar for being a possible-wife-murderer. This is not a good precedent for those of the wifely persuasion. 

I could fall into a persistent vegetative state by staring at Jeremy Irons' forehead.

 

Side note: I used to have a MAD CRUSH on Jeremy Irons, and now he's playing Pope Alexander VI in "The Borgias" and it's a little skeevy for this Catholic girl to have a crush on a Pope, although that particular pope would've been waaaaay into it.

 

The Lizzie McGuire Movie.

During my tenure on Lizzie McGuire, I discovered that the late-night airings were almost always our highest-rated shows. I don’t like to think about that too much.

 

Dirty Dancing, set for “Save Until I Delete.”

One could make an argument for a Swayze revival – now that we know he’s suffering from pancreatic cancer, he’s suddenly everyone’s new best friend (Christopher Reeve flashbacks, anyone?) and not the guy who did “Father Hood.” (Sigh. RIP, Mr. Swayze.)

Can I call you Baby? That’s what my father calls me!

 

Beaches.

Spoiler alert: she dies in the end. Girls in high school were obsessed with this movie. Watching the first few scenes made me wish I had been diagnosed with a terminal illness just to escape watching it.

 
"Some friendships last forever." That sounds like a threat.

Top Gun, cued up to the beach volleyball scene.

I don't want my husband asking me to be his Wingman, I want him to want to have sex with someone who has breasts. And I’m not talking about Goose - I'm talking about me.

 

It's weird to think there was a time when Tom Cruise wasn't crazy.

 

Anything you'd be freaked out to see on the DVR?

TWENTY DAYS LATER

We're twenty days into this whole 2011 project. I know! I didn't think that 2011 would last, but it seems to have caught on with the kids.

Crowdsourcing New Year's Resolutions was somewhat of a bust. Those who did participate said I should:

1. Make more corny sex jokes. I CAN MAKE IT HAPPEN.

2. Do more public speaking. I would love to. I actually LIKE speaking in public. Mostly because I'm insane, but also because I'm someone who loves to perform but it shy about doing so, so participating on panels and gving short talks feeds my insane ego.

3. Get back on BetheMarriage. This is something I've been thinking about as well. But if it comes back, I need it to be better. Different. And the brainspace that is required is being rented out for various other opportunities. But I swear, it's on the table.

4. Write more about Lizzie McGuire. Check.

And that's it. Maybe you've resolved to participate more, but it's really my fault. Emails have been pouring in by the tens asking me where I am. One of my resolutions is always is to write more, and in this case, it's been happening. Just not here.

I think a lot about the buffet of social media options, what I use and why.

Twitter I use to be a smartass and fine-tune my very rusty comedy skills (as a result, you can also now find me on WitStream!), as well as socialize with my friends.

Tumblr I use to write thoughts that are longer than Twitter and shorter than a blog post. I also use it to make posts that I want other people to share. (Like is Gwyenth Paltrow an Andy Kaufman experience in my yet-to-be- memefied What If Wednesday.)

Facebook I use to keep tabs on my friends and see if ex-friends have gotten fat. SHUT UP WE ALL DO IT.

The Slack Daily I use when I have something that's longer than a thought and a punchline.

...

So I haven't been around much, because I've been using those thoughts and punchlines (just add character + story) to my WRITINGwriting which is the stuff I'm being paid (or will eventually be paid) to do.

I'm writing more.

I've been prioritizing that over things like sunlight, food, sleep and personal hygiene.  Ripped right from the headlines of Sheila E's "Glamorous Life."

I've always wanted to be a Warren Ellis, or my new friend Chuck Wendig (I call him a friend because I think that's what you call someone with whom you discuss hobo handjobs over Skype, yes?) who churn out words (good words, at that) at an impressive rate. But one doesn't turn into Warren Ellis overnight - there's simply not enough whisky.  However, inventing the term pudding-fucking insane is a start.

So that's where I've been, and that's what I'm doing.

The point is, my darlings, I'm always somewhere. And you're always welcome to find me. (ON THE INTERNET YOU PERVS.)

 

 

AM-BROSIA.

The slackmistress brings you a slack daily classic from July 2007....

I was determined that Will experience the small-town-ness of Glen Ellyn, and there was no better way to do so than 4th of July Fireworks.  SlackDad dropped us off at the high school football field and we bought cokes and popcorn and made our way through the muggy night up the bleachers to find a seat.  The place with packed with blond men and blond women clothed in matching khakis and polo shirts.  Their blond children twirled glowsticks in their sticky popsicle hands.  Will leaned over to me and said

Is Mayor McWhitebread attending the festivities?

We laughed and sat back and I pointed out where my friends and I would swing on the swings by the lake when we'd cut class and where my red-and-black 84' Firebird almost slid down the hill.  Our conversation was interrupted by the zip! and pop! of a test firework being shot off.

Yes sir! came the voice from behind us.  You can do it!

Does he think the fireworks can hear him? I asked.

Maybe he's a fireworks lifecoach.  They need encouragement, too.

And encouragement they got.  With every zip! every pop! every bang! came the parade of cliches yelled out into the night.

C'mon, higher!

Way to go!

His wife shushed him and he tried to be quiet for a firework or two, but he wasn't able to contain himself.

That's the way daddy likes it!

Show me the money!

We weren't the only ones that noticed; our entire section on the bleachers was laughing openly.   It wasn't malicious, it was just one of those moments where you all were in on the joke, even the one with Patriotic Tourettes.

Bring it home!

As the finale wound down and the last sparkly bits of fire streaked across the sky, he sighed and declared.

Ambrosia!

Will and I walked home through the muggy night holding hands and telling stories about our respective hometowns.  As we walked through the front door into the air-conditioned house I thought

Ambrosia, indeed.

Best Husband, Ever.

Me:

Hey, my ex-boyfriend .... is going to be in town in a few weeks. He wants to know if it's okay if he crashes on our couch one night?

Will:

We Love You, I Swear.

PEOPLE OF EARTH:

I regret to inform you that BetheMarriage is going to go on a brief hiatus. As Real Life(tm) piles up around us, our time and creative capital is spread rather thin. While we adore the time we spend with you every week, it's time to prioritize like the productive adults we'd like to be.

Okay, maybe we don't want to be adults. But we do want to be productive.

BetheMarriage has always been a labor of love (literally.) What started as a joke evolved into, well, I don't know if it evolved into anything, but we've get it going because we love the community involved. And we still do. But there are other opportunities that require our time and effort at the moment. We don't want our normally half-assed show to be even more half-assed, because you guys deserve more than a quarter to an eighth of ass.

You can still find me on this blog, and on Facebook, and our entire family is on Twitter.

WE WILL RETURN! Je promis.

Big Love,

Nina
the slackmistress

The Future is Now.

Some people say the future is about making the impossible, possible.

If that's the case, the Future is Now.

A wine has been created that I refuse to drink:

Ed Hardy Wine! The severed horse head of gifts.

Casey McKinnon wonders if it tastes like douche?

Perhaps. With a hint of date rape and notes of Jon Gosselin's hair gel. 

Speaking of booze...BetheMarriage LIVE! (On Ice!) is live today at 5pm EST/8p EST on uStream. Log in if you want to chat, or pull up a chair and a drink and just watch us make fools of ourselves.

If you've never seen an episode, you can expect a little something like this:

THIS IS NOT A TEST.

We are back. Tonight. 5pm PST. BetheMarriage RETURNS to Ustream.

(Friends of) Friends of Tom.

Following up on my last blog post.

While we didn't reach 100 reviews, I still chose to make a $100 donation to The Best Show on WFMU last night (on behalf of Will, myself, and Daisy J Dog.)

With a few minutes left in the broadcast, Tom Scharpling announced (and John Hodgman tweeted!) that they were $500 away from $80,0000. Knowing that we were going to end up pledging the cash anyway, I picked up the phone. It's like being a cheaterpants. But in a good way.

We appreciate EVERYONE who left a review on our podcast.

As we will have two Premiums from The Best Show (Will's pledge nets us three premiums, mine a single one) we will still give away the Premium* to one of our reviewers. If you want in, you have until Saturday at 4pm PST to leave a review of our podcast on iTunes. We will announce the winners on our show BetheMarriage on Saturday night.

(If we pick a winner who already has a Best Show premium, please let us know so we can select someone else and share The Best Show love.)

I have to say that when Will and I met, I didn't understand why he was so into this show. On Tuesday nights I left him to his computer while I did something else. I thought it was funny, but it was a guy on a microphone over a thousand miles away.

What I learned over the course of the past three years is that that guy on the microphone has built an  amazing community around him. It started when Lisa Jane Persky took Will's picture for her "Friends of Tom" photo project, and later that night I met her and her husband Andy Zax. From there it was a cavalcade of artists and weirdos and funny people.

(You can see why I felt like I fit right in.)

It was being a friend of Friends of Tom that I ended up a fan of the show. And of their cranky ringleader, who is a little bit mad, a little bit brilliant, and a whole lot funny. Having him out there DOING IT is a reminder that we can DO IT TOO. 

You can check out The Best Show which streams live every Tuesday from 8pm-11pm EST on WFMU.org, or check out their various podcasts.

Thanks again to all who participated, and we'll announce our winner on Saturday night!

*Please note: It'll take some time for the Premium to get to you, as we have to get our pledge cards and pay before the Premiums are sent. Just a heads-up!