Friday, August 23, 2013

The One Where Mary Jane Inspired
‘The Rachel’

Remember the good old days when we’d yet to hear of the Deficient Duchess or her swoon-worthy locks, and instead were wetting ourselves over ‘The Rachel,” the haircut that Jennifer Aniston made famous on Friends

It was the must-have look for longer than it probably should’ve been. Even yours truly sported, with some hesitation, something similar. It didn’t matter what your circumstances were – what your face shape was, how plump or thin your face was, or even the thickness or wispiness of your hair – everyone wanted it.

In fact, Jen’s hair had much the same effect that Kate’s clothes have. Women around the world made the unfortunate decision that if it looked good on a heavily styled, well put together, thinner than average woman, it would also look good on them. This assumption was and is grossly false, of course, but these women didn’t care. They were on a mission.

And so it was that ‘The Rachel’ became a pop culture phenomenon. 


Honestly, I didn’t think it was that bad. As far as haircuts go, I’ve certainly seen much worse (even on myself), but Jennifer has made no secret of the fact that she hated it. Hated. It. It seems that she, like many celebrities, suffers from Ungratefulitis, a disease running rampant in Hollywood in which the infected person comes to hate, and talk trash about, the very things that made him or her famous. (See: Robert Pattinson.)

I mean, seriously, could she be any more ungrateful?

After all, it pretty much had to be her hair that put her on the map because it certainly wasn’t her acting.

On the other hand, I’m not in any position to judge someone for hating her hair. I’ve found myself in many a hair-related meltdowns, and you know what they say about people in glass houses…

They should never walk around naked.

Anyway, maybe Jen was right to hate her hair, BECAUSE, as it turns out, her hairdresser was HIGH when he cut it. High. On drugs.

I don’t even like it when my hairstylist talks too much while she’s cutting my hair. I want her full, undivided attention to be on what she’s doing (i.e. chopping my locks). So I can’t imagine allowing a scissor-wielding, illegal-drug-taking fool anywhere near my head.

Ever.

But, then again, I’m old-fashioned.

Saturday, August 3, 2013

Dude Acts Like a Lady

I have to admit that, for the most part, I can take or leave Dustin Hoffman. He just seems incredibly odd to me (something that’s been confirmed by the people I know who’ve met him), which is probably why he’s such a versatile actor. Strange – dare I say, slightly unbalanced – people always seem to make the best actors.

Despite my apathy towards the little guy, however, I will say that I enjoyed his film Tootsie and have even recently added it to my film collection. I always found his Dorothy character to be quite likeable and not bad-looking for what she was: a middle-aged, grandmother type. According to a recently-resurrected AFI interview, however, Hoffman would disagree with this assertion.

Apparently upon seeing himself in drag for the first time, Hoffman was displeased with the image that greeted him – not because he didn’t look like a woman, but because he didn’t look like a pretty woman. And he told the makeup artist as much. I imagine it went something like this, “Make me pretty, you fool!” But the makeup artist responded with the words that every woman fears: This is the best we can do; this is as pretty as you get.
 
 Dustin Hoffman in character and out. I'll let you decide which is which.  

The reality is, Dustin Hoffman is not a pretty woman. (He’s also not a pretty man, but that’s a story for another day.) And it upset him, but not for the reasons that you may suspect. Sure, it probably hurt his ego a bit – none of us wants to hear that we’re not pretty – but more importantly it caused him to do a little soul searching.

And just like with his image in the mirror, he didn’t like what he saw.

He realized that, for all the amazing qualities that (s)he possessed, Dustin the man never would’ve approached Dustin the woman (aka Dorothy) because she wasn’t aesthetically pleasing enough. And applying this same thought process to other women, he wondered how many worthwhile people he had missed out on meeting, simply because he overlooked them.

I could continue to try paraphrasing the Hoffmeister’s thoughts and feelings, but why don’t I just let him tell you in his own words? He says it better than I ever could. 


Thursday, August 1, 2013

Here’s Your Hat. Where’s Your Hurry?

Have you ever thought about where you’d like to live if you were homeless? Obviously there are several factors to consider: sense of community, generosity of strangers, cleanliness of underpasses, etc. But, perhaps the most important consideration is climate.

I oftentimes find myself wondering how the homeless in the colder climates – say, Wisconsin – survive. Don’t get me wrong, I love Wisconsin with a capital L, but I mostly visit in the summer, when it’s 70 degrees and sunny – or as I like to call it, paradise.  I can’t imagine being there in the winter, which, let’s be honest, can last well into April. Heck, I was there in October – living in a house, not under a bridge – and I was still cold.

And it appears that I’m not alone in the assertion that warmer is better when it comes to living outside. It seems that the desire for a moderate climate has led quite a few house-challenged folks to, where else, Hawaii. (How you can afford airfare to Hawaii when you can’t afford shoes is a mystery to me, but perhaps they’re all a homegrown crop.)

Anyway, Hawaii sounds like a pretty good choice to me.  Sleep on the soft, white sand. Bathe in the crystal clear Pacific. Not a bad deal at all. 

   You could certainly have a worse view out your front door.    

Sure, it gets hot, but you have a plethora of palm trees to keep you shaded from the sun and it never gets too terribly cold. It’s a tropical paradise, as they say (if your idea of paradise includes thousands of pushy, sweaty tourists and overpriced everything).

Apparently, however, the state of Hawaii is no longer interested in housing – or, more importantly, funding – these beach-dwelling folks. In fact, in an effort to clean up its islands, the state is planning to start offering its homeless a one-way ticket back to the mainland, provided of course that they can prove that there’s someone on the other end to take them in.

My question is, how are they planning to monitor this? Record who comes and goes? Make sure that the people in question really qualify for the program? For instance, how does one prove that he or she is homeless? You can’t exactly bring in a driver’s license or cable bill with no address on it.

Yes, it seems to me that it would be pretty easy to abuse this program, swindling a free trip to the mainland out of the fine folks of the Aloha State.  

But I can’t worry about that now. I’m off to book a one-way ticket to the Islands. Anyone want to come with?