Arianna Georgi

A while ago I was at Target and wound up in an aisle full of piñatas.   I was looking for hand soap, but I quickly forgot about that and then got into an intense internal debate about if I should buy one.  I have been trying to be frugal ever since my cat cost me 2500 dollars, but the piñatas seemed like a smart buy.  I was going to Joe’s house later and I felt like a piñata would just really add an extra layer of excitement to the evening.  “Oh I brought a pinata with me!” I would say and everyone would be delighted.  We would spend hours bashing holes in his wall as we attempted to get at the delicious stale candy.  In the end, however, I decided against a piñata.  Pinatas are for special occasions I told myself.  You need to wait.

I have regretted not buying a piñata ever since.

I am going to attempt to rectify this grave mistake at an upcoming fiesta I am hosting.  This means that I have spent a lot of time online reviewing possible piñatas:

This is a ridiculous Pinata

I am very unclear on what is happening with this piñata.  It looks half piñata, half picture my brother drew in 2^nd grade.  Also, the caption features this phrase:  Our Pirate Giant Pinata features the angry captain of the ship in traditional pirate clothing. Uh, okay.  I guess it is better than this:

Terrifying Pinata of Nightmares

In the end, I decided on this piñata, which as my good friend Nathan described as “a gay sombrero”

One of the most baffling things I have to be true about piñatas is that most of them are in the form of smiling, happy animals (burros, perros, etc).  This is very strange to me.  “Hey kids, look at the this smiling dog!  Now bash it open.”  We really should be teaching children NOT to hurt animals and the piñata just sends the wrong message.  My piñata will be not in the form of a sentient creature, because I don’t think I could handle bashing the smiling eyes of a burro in.

For my party, I am considering filling the piñata with something horrible because I think that would be hilarious.  Imagine if you spent a bunch of time trying to break a piñata and it was full of overdue bills?  Or broken glass?  Or spiders?  I probably won’t do this because I do want a bunch of spiders at my house, but if I ever have a backyard I will do this for sure.

Tags: fiestas, pinatas, pirates

Wednesday has Hellcats going for it, but Tuesday has its own brand of magic in the form of a show called Millionaire Matchmaker and Patti Stanger.   The premise of Millionaire Matchmaker is simple.   Guys with a lot of money have a really hard time finding attractive women to date them (FACT), and will shell out big bucks to have a super bossy woman in a sequined shirt yell at them.   What makes Patti so qualified to yell at them (and wear sequins)?   The credits inform us that she is a third generation matchmaker, with a “very high success rate.”  I am not sure what either of these things mean, but the dating successes must occur NOT on TV since no one on this show every seems to like each other (that would not be as exciting for the viewers at home!)

On each episode of Millionaire Matchmaker, Patti starts by having her loyal assistants present her with the videos of the two millionaires.  Most of the time these are guys, but sometimes they are women (to which Patti hisses “I hate millionaireresses”).  Sometimes they are gay (In this case Patti screams “I love the gays!).  Although this is her job, Patti is generally highly annoyed the videos.  She rolls her eyes and makes rude comments.  She picks one character trait for each person and then harps relentlessly on it (he has a Peter Pan Complex!)  Patti then sums up by saying that although Lance seems like he’s only into 20 year old strippers, she’ll try to help him because she believes everyone deserves love.

From there, we get to watch Patti audition dates and matchmake.  In the new season, the show has (wisely), relegated the actual dates to the last ten minutes or so, which gives us more time to watch Patti insult line-ups of potential dates and make comments involving the word “penis.”  (In fact, I have gotten very drunk several times playing a drinking game where I do a shot every time she says this.  I really don’t think there is a single episode where Patti does not mention pensises.  It’s all part of the charm!)

Today, I finally got around to watching the episode of Millionaire Matchmaker from last Tuesday.  It was pretty much exactly like the above description.  Patti instantly picked things about the two millionaires she could mention over and over.  For Jordan, a 31 year old very short man, Patti diagnosed ADD.

(You can also play a drinking game where you drink every time Patti says the phrase associated with her snap judgment.   ADD was probably mentioned about 30 times in this particular episode.)

Leah, the other millionaire, had “masculine energy.”  Masculine energy was summed up as follows:  if a man is opening a jar and can’t handle it, you may ask him if he needs to help.  If he then asks for your help, you can touch the jar.  You are not allowed to grab the jar from him and open it yourself.  This is masculine energy.

(Nothing was mentioned about what my theoretical reaction would be: getting bored watching someone opening a jar and going into the other room to read).

Leah and Jordan were diagnosed by a body language expert, did some speed dating in a weird bar pretending to be a carnival, and were described repeatedly as masculine and ADD.

I need to go finish cooking dinner but I will just sum up by stating that if all of this has not completely convinced you that you should watch Millionaire Matchmaker or maybe go on it as a contestant, then I am not sure what to say.  Like most good TV it’s ridiculous, pointless, and sort of insulting to me as a woman.  It has earned a weekly spot on the DVR.

Tags: ADD, DVR, Masculine Energy, Millionaire Matchmaker, TV

In case you have not noticed, I really like lists. In fact, I tend to have about 10-20 lists going at even given time. I have a list of outfits to wear to work (in case I forget), a list of songs for fall, and a list of my favorite meals. But all of my fancy list making cannot hold a candle to the greatest List Maker ever: Christopher Bridges, AKA Ludacris.

Essentially every single Ludacris song is a list. The general structure goes like this: Ludacris makes a bold statement and then he follows up with a list to support that statement. His lists are long and mostly make sense. If I was on a high school debate team, I would choose Ludacris.

Let’s examine how this structure works in a typical Ludacris song, “Area Codes.” As mentioned above, the song starts with a central thesis: Ludacris has hoes in many area codes.

I’ve got hoes (I’ve got hoes)
In different area codes (area) area codes (codes)

Once that is established, Ludacris moves on to verify that it is true, by listing all of the area codes his hoes live in:

Whenever I call, come running
2-1-2 or 2-1-3
You know that I ball, stop frontin’

The song ends with him basically calling out a series of area codes although sadly not mine (I guess 858, lacks hoes):

9-1-6, 4-1-5, 7-0-4
Shout out to the 2-0-6
Everybody in the 8-0-8
2-1-6, 7-0-2, 4-1-4
3-1-7, 2-1-4, 2-8-1
3-3-4, 2-0-5, I see ya

Anyway, this general format is true for most Ludacris songs:
Roll Out
General Thesis: You have some nice things in your house
List Includes: A woman cooking naked in your kitchen, a bunch of cars, and some diamonds

What’s Your Fantasy
General Thesis: Ludacris will have sex with you in many different locations
List Includes: The George Dome, on stage at his concert, and in a library

Southern Hospitality
General Thesis: Ludacris likes the dirty south and things from there
List Includes: Catfish, big thighs, and Cadillacs

It’s pretty amazing how almost every single Ludacris song follows this format. Welcome to Atlanta is a list of cool things that happen in Atlanta. Move B^&*tch is a list of people really irritating Ludacris while he drives his car super fast. I could go on and on but you get the idea. Ludacris makes my grocery list for making Thanksgiving spoon bread look pretty lame. That’s okay though, I don’t mind being beaten by the best.

Tags: lists, ludacris

My friend Mr. Kenneth Berger, who once went squid fishing (this is not relevant to this story but it is one of my favorite Kenneth facts), recently tagged me in a Facebook note about books.  I don’t normally get into the Facebook note stuff, but I really liked the premise of this one, which was to name15 books in 15 minutes.  The idea was to name the 15 books that came immediately to your mind when you were asked.

I found that when I listed the books, they weren’t necessarily the ones that I thought were the best books I have ever read, but rather the ones with small moments I think about on a weekly basis.  For instance, almost every time I drink coffee, I think briefly about the scene in a Tree Grows in Brooklyn where Francie says she’ll take her coffee black, like her father.  It’s not really an important moment in the overall plot of the book, but it’s stuck with me for years and years.  Doing the book exercise I found I remembered these moments and books first.  For example:

• Peter Fallow’s Hangover in Bonfire of the Vanities:  “The membranous sac was his head, and the right side of his head was on the pillow, and the yolk was as heavy as mercury, and it rolled like mercury, and it was pressing down on his right temple and his right eye and his right ear. If he tried to get up to answer the telephone, the yolk, the mercury, the poisoned mass, would shift and roll and rupture the sac, and his brains would fall out.”

• Eva, dancing to burning Down the House while pregnant in We Need to Talk about Kevin

• Jennifer Belle’s description of a woman so cool and subtle she could change shirts in the middle of a restaurant with no one noticing in High Maintenance

• The water full of things “living and dead” and the dog sitting on the back of a cow in the hurricane seen of Their Eyes Were Watching God

• The description of IQ in Soon I will be Invincible

In writing, sometimes the quality isn’t about the big stuff, but rather the details and truths the writer gets right in every paragraph.  Don’t get me wrong, I love the big stuff and the drama…  Scarlett declaring she will never go hungry again.  But it is the small details, Mrs.  Tarelton and her horses, that I come back to again and again.  I think I come back to these moments because something in them rings true to me.  Anyone else?

A dilemma of biblical proportions faced the executives at a, scrappy and innovative little network called the WB in the summer of 2010. Their fall line-up was missing a piece. Sure, they had the amazing Vampire Diaries with it’s hunky undead. They had the new Femme Nikita, which featured a woman round-house kicking people and making young women feel inspired. But most of all, they had a little show called America’s Next Top Model. A shrine to Tyra Banks in television show form, full of models crying and then admitting they were born legless and/or molested by polar bears. What could possible follow that?

The Monday morning meeting was intense. Ideas were tossed around with abandon.

“A show about werewolves, that gossip!” one person yelled.

“Fox is already doing that,” another responded.

“A reality show about vampire trying to become models.”

“Tyra Banks would be mad.” Everyone sat silently until a cough from the back, a new and untested intern asked if he could speak.

“Why the hell not,” said the head writer, “I’m fresh out of ideas and we have nothing to lose.”

The intern stepped to the front of the room. “I have an idea,” he started. “It’s a little outside of the box, and it hasn’t been done before… EVER. It’s about cheerleaders.”

“Vampire cheerleaders?” someone asked.

“No, they are regular cheerleaders, but they do some ridiculously unrealistic jumps. Anyway, there’s a young woman named Marty. She’s studying to be a lawyer on scholarship. She’s a little rough around the edges, but street-smart and loyal, and also a former gymnast.”

“Go on,” said the head writer.

“She loses her scholarship and, get this, is forced to join the cheerleading squad to stay in school. It’s crazy because she has to room with the head cheerleader, who is very opposite of her, she’s very uptight and from a proper family.”

“Do they butt heads?!” someone asked.

“At first, but then they find they have more in common than they thought.”

“What a novel idea,” the head writer responded. “But who would play the head cheerleader.” Silence fell on the room. Everyone was thinking it. There was only one actress right for the part.

“Ashley Tisdale.”

“The Tiz,” someone else murmured.

And thus a show called Hellcats was born, possibly the greatest show every made for television and shown on a Wednesday night at 9pm with the word “cats” in the title. Every week I watch the scrappy Marty butt heads with the Tiz, but then realize the importance of female friendship. There are many other amazing elements. Dance sequences. A rich and snotty cheerleader, whose reserve sometimes hides the fact that is just as vulnerable as anyone else. Marty’s drunk mom who always messes stuff up. I could go on and on, but I have to go to work. If you haven’t already, please take some time to watch Hellcats on the WB. It’s a ground-breaking show that shatters stereotypes about cheerleaders on a weekly basis (turns out, they are athletes!). And it could only come from the WB.

Tags: Great Moments in Television, Hellcats, The Tiz, The WB