Maria von What's-her-Face

Christmas is my favorite time of the year! I could actually careless about Christmas Day; it's the season that tickles my Elmo red! Not only that, but lot's of decorations, pretty lights, and most of all, music. I do love me some Christmas carols, be them traditional or breakaway pop hits. I am even spreading the holiday cheer and sending out [a limited amount of] Christmas cards! If you are a lucky recipient of one of my Christmas cards (holiday cards for you boring, non Christmas celebrators out there), then yay! If not, then you better try your darndest to win my love and affection for next year! It's like Survivor, American Idol, The Weakest Link, and all those other dumbass shows where there is only one winner. But in my Christmas Card Game, there are multiple winners! I am even spreading the Christmas cheer to the children I tutor. Last night we made paper stockings, festively decorated with PikaClause and all! It also helps that I drugged myself before going last night, but that's a whole other story!

Today's story is about some of my favorite things [at the moment]. If you don't have favorite things, then you have either (a) not thought hard enough, (b) not been loved enough as a child, (c) a retard, or (d) all of the above. The first thing on my list is Korean music that contains pretty, and often entertaining, boys. Girls are fun, from time to time, but can be way too annoying with their 오빠아아아~ and their 'I'm simply more beautiful than everyone else out there'. Boys, on the other hand, besides having it going on, they are more personable, make us laugh more often, and are so not frontin' on my pride. Plus they know that if they step out of line they get a hand to the back of the head [or whatever blunt object is lying around]. Not to mention, they are quite nice to look at.

Another one of my favorite things is coffee flavored drinks [like that isn't obvious], but not for the obvious reasons. I enjoy said drinks because they make me look cool. We all want to look cool, but not everyone can. People lack the personal will to look cool; they only think 'I want to look cool' but never follow through. The key to my success: I follow through and actually drink coffee. I don't just think 'I should drink coffee' I go out and actually drink the coffee. That's what separates me from everyone else, well except the others who drink coffee.

Perhaps one of the more underrated favorite things that I do not often talk about is apple pie. Man, I sure do love me some apple pie. Not only that, I like apple pie with fresh vanilla ice cream. Apple pie is not something that needs to be fucked up with a lot of extras, like powder and pretty flowers and chocolate. No, apple pie's taste is in the simplicity of it: apple pie and vanilla ice cream. Anything more and you've ruined it. And if you ruin apple pie, you don't deserve to live. And if you don't deserve to live, well, there's a reason we haven't filled in the Grand Canyon with concrete and built apartment complexes and a mall over it. At an equal level to apple pie is the color purple, not to be mistaken with the book and/or movie with the same name [I'm strictly referring to purple, the color]. More men should wear this color, and not just the pretty ones in the Korean boy bands, though they do wear it better than anyone else I've ever seen so guys do have rather big shoes to fill with that one.

In conclusion, Christmas is an amazing time of year. There are just so many good things about it! If you don't love Christmas, then you don't love life. And well, if you don't love life, you know where to go... that's right, the Grand Canyon.

We All Live in a Yellow... Wait, Where'd the Dog Go?

Tonight, on a very special Blossom: Six realizes she is a lesbian and is in love with Blossom's father's girlfriend. What ever happened to good 'ol family television programming like 'Blossom', 'Whose the Boss?', 'Family Matters', and my favorite 'Perfect Strangers'? So the last one wasn't as family-oriented as the others, but it still had that ABC we love happiness and pg-rated television air to it. Granted I haven't been in the States for quite some time, but I can say that the era of television where a large-noised Barbara Streisand look-a-like girl with more hats than Cher has wigs is certainly gone to an oblivion, along with the elderly whore from 'Golden Girls,' Laura Winslow from 'Family Matters', and everyone's favorite know-it-all: Clarissa. Now this is all and dandy, but really what am I talking about here? That's right, I'm talking about Starbucks releasing their Christmas blend of coffee and their Christmas-themed paper cups for take-out.

But really, what I'm talking about here are memories. We all have them, whether we remember most of them or not, and we all have a variety of them ranging from good to bad to weird to sexual. Our memories are who we are, just like a childhood defined by 'Boy Meets World' and 'The Price is Right'. Just the other day I was talking to Matt about our family holidays. We discussed 'tradition' as it is known in both the House of Gitzen and the House of Wachtor. He hates Christmas and I hate canned peas, but really we both realized that tradition led us forward, albeit against our will, but its how we got to the place we are at today. Turkey is good for Thanksgiving, Italian food for Christmas Eve, and the all important Christmas Ham for that day when in a little down of Bethlehem, nothing really happened because we later found out that Jesus was actually born in July. It hit me when I walked into Starbucks today and saw that all the Christmas stuff was up. They were doing point cards for this years Starbucks planner, which made me realize that the planner I had was exactly one year old, and exactly one year has passed. When I think about my first Starbucks planner I got in Korea, my head spins just a little faster. Time seems to always slip away from us when we least expect it. We go and check Facebook and before we know it, your high school friends are married and have children. Teachers are retiring, famous anthropologists are passing away, and people just won't stop dying. We've found ourselves in a world without forgiveness, where people rape people because they can, and people watch because they have no balls to stand up and protest. "The West Wing" always had some of my most favorite quotes, some of the best words to remember I'd ever seen. But perhaps the best is simple and straightforward: "Decisions are made by those who show up."

It all seemed easier on 'Blossom' because she had a family who loved her: two older brothers (one sarcastic and one Joey Lawrence), a musical father, and a wacky numerical best friend. We were prompted when Blossom would have to face a tough situation, and growing up we all thought that was the norm. We would have people there to prompt us when a nasty turn was ahead. But here I am, nearly fifteen years later, fifteen years older, and I suspect fifteen years wiser; there is no street sign, no announcer, and no Joey Lawrence. All there is, all there will be, is me, my coffee, and my musik. Well, and about 6 billion other people as well. But, you know, they can't pull off green quite the same way I can.

Pleasure or Pain?

You know, I've been doing the whole kpop thing for a while now and I learned pretty early on that nothing will ever cease to amaze me. Call me a pessimist, but I prefer the more philosophically correct term 'realist' to categorize my outlook on this industry. From 15 year old retards kicking out a Korean American for, well, telling the truth to all of a sudden realizing that a song that has been out for months is no good for children to now an upheaval of god only knows what of drama and money between artist and company, this Korean music industry is certainly looking like its crumbling into a state of blasphemy. I mean seriously, we have Kay Perry singing about her lesbianic tendencies, country singers claiming erotic attraction to tractors, and Alanis Morissette being, well, Alanis Morissette and Korea bitches over Ivy wanting to be touched and G-Dragon feeling all broken-hearted. Dare we call Korea reactionary? We do dare and I do call because seriously there seems to be little left in the industry to foster any type of serious music. I love Korea and I've always loved their music, but i feel as if we need to start marching in unison saluting some statue of Park Chung Hee with a Hitler-esque mustache wearing a Siberian winter coat. This is how far we've progressed, or rather how far we've digressed. It's like that quote from "Will & Grace": 'He's gotten so gay he's wrapped back around to straight.'

But should I really be surprised? Of course not. Because as long as we are human we will find new ways to screw ourselves, not to mention the people around us, in ways we didn't know were possible. Case and point. Three of the members of DBSK claim their contracts with SM Entertainment are unfair and they want to break the contract so they can, wait for it wait for it, yes, that's right, go to China and become investors in beauty products. Now I've seen some pretty dumb investments in my life, and I've heard some pretty outrageous stories about dumb celebrities (need I post pictures of a bald Britney and Kayane on stage showing he can own a middle schooler?), but to break a contract over beauty products in China is pretty idiotic, even for Britney and Kayane. I can see it now, both of them looking at each other saying in unison "I ain't going near that shit." So they claim an unfair contract because of its length: 13 years. Now, in all fairness, 13 years is an extremely long period of time and much can happen in that period of time: People can come of age, people can watch their pets get old and die, grandpa can run over the neighbors cat by accident, and yes, Michael Jackson can rise from the dead and bring salvation to this land. I don't dispute that 13 years is too long for a musical contract. However, to realize this 5 years after they sign the contract begs the question: What exactly have they been smoking for the last 5 years to have not realized this sooner? Now sure, recreational drugs from time to time, like alcohol intake, can be enjoyable if done in moderation and done responsibly. But seriously, every day for 5 years... I think we should get the three of them to a hospital and checked up to make sure they haven't completely fried their brain. Even Courtney Love takes a break from time to time to, you know, have a child or do an interview on Leno or something. And why only the three members? Were the other two not good enough for the dope and booze? Were they not good enough for China? Were they too beautiful already?

The moral of the story is simple boys and girls: Don't go to China to invest in beauty products. Well, the real moral of the story is that there is no moral of the story because I haven't really told a story. All I've really done is bitch and moan about a subject that has been in the kpop news recently. It tickles me to see fans threatening SM Entertainment and these companies for the misfortunes of their artists simply because they forget the first rule of fight club: you do not talk about fight club. Like Sarah Michelle Gellar correctly pointed out in "Cruel Intentions": 'Everyone does it, you just don't talk about it.' It's like a 'secret society' for the clueless Selma Blair, but really its simply an industry that is much older than most the people consuming its products. Ask any H.O.T. fan how music business is done and they'll tell you: behind closed doors without the input of the artist. Everyone knew this way back when, so why claim ignorance now? Artists know what they are signing up for, just like strippers know that when they become a stripper they have to take off their clothes. It's a lot like that. The kpop industry is a lot like stripping: Lots of clothes must come off before any real money can be made. Hell ask Bi, he get's a bag of cash every time his shirt comes off.

Really, everyone just needs to wake up and listen to the coffee.