Tarhearted.

MARY HARTMAN, MARY HARTMAN

I don't know what to say about the 1970's serial, Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman, except that after only two episodes into the DVD box set is is my favorite sitcom of all time. A spoof on soap operas, Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman follows its titular housewife, played by seemingly doped up but brilliant Louise Lasser, whom I knew only from Todd Solondz's Happiness, as she deals with mass murder, aliens, homosexuality, mental breakdown, a pervert grandfather, and the waxy build-up on her kitchen floor. I'd be surprised if Todd Solondz cast Louise Lasser in Happiness for any other reason than her performance on this show. The two works have a commonality in their weirdly banal viciousness. Also, the show has no laugh track, so you're left to squirm a lot of the time. Heaven!

The show caused quite a stir back in the 70's, among liberals and conservatives alike, and would have been canceled a lot sooner had it not been for the passionate support of ben stein, then an aid to Richard Nixon. What a crazy world we live in!

Today only the first 25 episodes are on DVD, but there were 326 episodes made over two years. What a tragedy! I need them all. SPOILER: Apparently, the first season ends with Mary having a nervous breakdown on a nationally syndicated talk show for housewives and it's widely considered that Lasser's performance in this scene is one of the best in televised sitcom history. Also, season two is said to have begun with mary in a mental institution wherein the inmates are part of a Nielsen family. Genius!

The show also includes a young Mary Kay Place as Loretta, Mary's neighbor. Loretta is a racist 22 year-old married to a much older man who hides away in her filthy house all day pretending she's a famous country singer. She's delightful as always!

Mary Hartman, mary Hartman is on Netflix. Do yourself a favor. I leave you with this brilliant monologue of Mary's:

"I must have been born under an unlucky star. You know I have filled out entry blanks for every single drawing in the supermarket for the last twelve years, and the only thing I ever won was a coupon for a small little jar of tomato paste. But they were out of tomato paste, and by the time they got more in, my coupon had expired. And now I have venereal disease."

THEY CHANGED THE GRADING SYSTEM AND 'F' IS FOR 'FANTASTIC'!

I hope everybody had a relaxing 4th of July weekend. I know I did. In fact, some of it was forced relaxation, as I developed a weird fever and had to stay in one night.

Have you guys heard of the Fox Reality Channel? Oh my god, it's the worst television programming ever. By worst, I mean the BEST, obviously. My fever sweats only made it more enjoyable.

First I watched a show called Sex Decoy: Love Stings, which seemed to be a trashier version of Cheaters (if you can imagine that.) This is a reality show wherein those who suspect their partner is cheating send in a sexy decoy to tempt them into confirming their suspicions.

There was a commercial for another show wherein scantily clad women show off their boobs and bootie to a panel of douche bags who, if they like what they see, raise their pelvis to say "schwing" a la Wayne's World. This is a timely reference if ever there was one.

Clearly, quality programming.

My favorite commercial was for Flirty Girl Fitness, an at-home workout that utilizes sexy dancing and a stripper's pole. And it even comes with a pole!

Women who buy into this sort of thing often talk about how empowering it is. I don't know though. I kind of don't buy the whole post-feminist "I can be a stripper and a feminist" mentality. As my good friend's Upper East Side grandmother once told her, "You can grab a man by his brain or you can grab a man by his balls, but you can't do both."

I'm reminded, of course, of the lovely Lulu from John Waters' masterpiece Polyester, and I leave you with her:

THE GREATEST MOVIE EVER: I DRINK YOUR BLOOD.

In continuance of my exploration of glamorous Satanism in cinema I give you, I Drink Your Blood (1970). This time, it comes in the form of evil hippies who give their souls to Satan (in the opening scene, no less!)

Said hippies are living in the abandoned hotel of a rural community when they abuse a teenage local girl. The girl's grandfather, upset, goes to give them a what for only to have his glasses stepped on and to be force fed LSD. Amazing.

Then, the victim's little brother decided to poison the hippies with rabies. He has a syringe full of rabid dog blood just laying around, naturally, and injects it into meat pies he convinces the hippie satanists to buy. As you can imagine, rabid zombie Satanists follow.

Here is the trailer:

I Drink Your Blood is gorgeous. I don't know why Broadway hasn't given it the musical treatment yet. I really don't.

TARHEARTED SUGGESTS: GOSSIP "MUSIC FOR MEN"

Beth Ditto, of Gossip,  is a goddess and one of the best live performers I've ever, ever seen. And guess what? I've been to a lot of shows. She is one of the only ladies of modern rock who is sincere with a fucking backbone.

I also love what she said about Katy Perry, because I'd already said it to whomever would listen. She said I Kissed a Girl was a "boner dyke" anthem for "straight girls who like to turn guys on by making out or like faking gay".

Also, "I hate Katy Perry! She's offensive to gay culture, I'm so offended. She's just riding on the backs of our culture, without having to pay any of the dues and not being actually lesbian or anything at all. She's on the cover of a fucking gay magazine."

In short, she rules.

Gossip's new album, Music for Men, is way better than whatever you're listening to. So turn off whatever you're listening to and listen to this music. It's better.

Also, it has an infomercial with hot dudes in short shorts (my greatest passion):

ONLY THE GOOD DIE YOUNG.

Goodbye, Farah.

I'm glad your pain is gone and am hoping that if there are angels they're copying your hair. You were truly gorgeous, inside and out.

I SMELL CRAZY.

I had an incredibly stressful day yesterday and (like a lady) I decided to take a piping hot bath, give myself a facial, and go to bed with a book. All that was missing was the candlelight and Feist album!

Anyway, I was lying there in the bath when I noticed that my hippie soap bottle was covered in craziness. Actually, that's not quite true. I'm sensitive to aesthetics and I work in Marketing for a living, so if an ad is chock full of copy to the point where it's jumbled or "busy" it's as if I don't see it. It's a sort of willful ignorance. I guess the warm water relaxed me enough to actually give the bottle a look-see though, because I spent a full five minutes wondering what the fuck I was reading. "The earth is god's spaceship." Say what? This is some heaven's gate shit. I could have spent ten or twenty minutes reading it.

Today I followed up with some research. Who is the Dr. Bronner and how does he make his magical soap? The Straight Dope clears it up:

Bronner is an 85-year old (as of 1993) German immigrant who hangs out in Escondido, California. He's not an MD or strictly speaking a rabbi, but claims he's got the equivalent of a PhD in chemistry, which I guess makes him a master chemist. He's also not your average soap maker. Whereas Messrs. Procter and Gamble dream (well, dreamt) of enzymes and long-chain fatty acids, Bronner dreams of world peace.

Bronner wants to convince mankind of the virtues of the "All-One-God-Faith," which, together with the "Moral ABC," his answer to the Ten Commandments, will unite the human race. The details of this can be a bit hard to follow. For example: "Replace half-true Socialist-fluoride poison & tax-slavery with full-truth, work-speech-press & profitsharing Socialaction! All-One! So, help build 4 billion Hannibal wind-power plants, charging 96 billion battery-banks, powering every car-factory-farm-home-monorail & pump, watering Babylon-roof-gardens & 800 billion Israel-Milorganite fruit trees, guarded by Swiss 6000 year Universal Military Training," etc.

Talking to the doc on the phone is the audio equivalent of reading one of his labels. He can be pretty linear when he wants to be, but eventually always veers off into a rap about the Essene rabbis and whatnot, delivered in a nutty-professor German accent. Believe me, it's an experience.

Bronner has had an eventful life. The son of a Jewish German soap maker, he emigrated to the U.S. and pleaded with his father to do the same when the Nazis came to power. The old man refused. One day Bronner got a postcard with the words, "You were right. --Your loving father." He never heard from his parents again.

Initially settling in the midwest, Bronner married the illegitimate daughter of a nun, who eventually became suicidal and died in a mental hospital. (He says she was tortured by the hospital guards.) He also began devising his plan for world peace. Fittingly, he took to the soapbox to promote it. One of his listeners, Fred Walcher, was so inspired that in 1945 he had himself crucified in Chicago in order to publicize the plan. (He survived.)

Later Bronner was arrested while trying to promote his plan at the University of Chicago and was committed to a mental hospital. He escaped three times, finally fleeing to California in 1947. He's been there cranking out soap and soap labels ever since.

Despite his eccentricities, Dr. Bronner has built his soap company into a prosperous concern, mostly by sheer force of personality. In the early days he would set up a table at health food conventions. If a dealer strayed within ten feet, Bronner would pounce and not let go until he'd gotten an order.

But things didn't really take off until he was discovered by the counterculture during the 60s. With the aid of his sons Jim and Ralph, who handle production and sales, he currently sells some 400,000 gallons of liquid soap and 600,000 pounds of bar soap a year. He says he's now worth $6 million--not bad, he notes drily, for somebody who's supposedly nuts.

Amazing. Dr. Bronner also has his own birth control method for you lady readers:

Bronner's birth control method involves using lemon juice and Vaseline as a spermicide.

I love you, Dr. Bronner!

IN A 90'S KIND OF WORLD.

I performed this opening theme for The Boyfriend last night (minus the ugly jeans) and it made me realize how much I miss the nineties.

There's an episode of My So-Called life in which ever angst-ridden Angela has an inner monologue about how weird it is that her generation doesn't have a Kennedy assasination; a universe altering moment during which everybody remembers exactly what they were doing. I remember feeling that way too. Before 9/11 the closest I came was the OJ Simpson verdict.

It really was a simpler time. Formative things I loved and now miss:

-120 minutes on MTV

-thrift store shopping at Value Village in Seattle

-My So-Called Life

-riot grrl

-the Empire Records soundtrack (shut up! I loved it)

-the Wicca craze that took over my junor high

-the CK1 television spots in which bored teenage models stood in front of ugly wood paneling and were told to take off their shirts or jeans or whatever. They got pulled very quickly.

-OK Soda, which I heard was a marketing experiment. Is that true? We use to call 1 (800) I-Feel-OK about eight-hundred times I day.

Okay, I just looked it up on Wikipedioa and now I'm obsessed with OK Soda. Very interesting marketing history by the same genius behind New Coke and Fruitopia.

P.S.-Never forget.

CHECKING IN.

Only have time to say a quick "hey".

Thanks, Katie!

THAT VOODOO YOU DO.

As much as I obsess over the occult (witchcraft, voodoo dolls, ouija boards, crystals) I do so from a kitschy perspective. I'm a pretty staunch atheist- I don't even believe in Jesus so I'm sure as hell not going to believe in this madness. I think the whole thing is silly and entertaining, but it also makes me giddy, much as it did people of the early 20th century who hosted seances in their parlors as soon as dinner parties. It's campy, fun and aesthetically pleasing!

That said, sometimes I'm reminded why I shouldn't dismiss coo-coo spirituality so quickly. I was watching New York 1 this morning when I was treated to a story about a little girl in Queens whose mother and grandmother set fire to her during a Voodoo ritual meant meant to drive out evil spirits.

The mother initially told police that she was boiling water when she was startled, causing her to spill the hot water on the little girl. The truth is much, much worse. The mother, grandmother, and a friend named Sketch (obviously) performed a ritual they referred to as Loa. A circle of rum is poured around and on the head of the person from whom the spirits are being driven and lit on fire.

The grandmother eventually poured water on the burning girl, but not before she was covered in second and third degree burns. Instead of taking her to an emergency room they gave her a bath and sent her to bed. It was a full twenty-four hours before the girl was taken to a hospital where she is now in an induced coma under treatment for her burns.

My condolences to this little girl. Here's hoping someday we've put an end to religious abuse.

I'm reminded of a recent entry on one of my favorite theater blogs, Parabasis, questioning whether or not Christian Scientists had a right to deny their children medical attention because it was against their religion.

Short answer: NO.

I HEART SMUT.

I just bought 16 sleazy paperbacks from the 50's and 60's to begin working on my next project: to weave some of the stories together for a late night theater sex comedy soap opera. It may be a pipe dream, but these books will be fun to read nonetheless.

I Wanna Destroy You is having a staged reading next week.

MilkMilkLemonade is getting its first full-production in the Fall.

Up With (Some) People in the Samuel French Festival.

Save Yourself for You in the EstroGenius Festival.

Everything is coming up Conkel at the moment! Let's see how long that lasts.

I'm trying to get some gay pulp titles but they're SO expensive on Ebay. I lost every bid I went in on. I can't justify spending over fifty bucks on vintage porn lit right now. Apparently the gays are way more into their sexy literary history than the straights.

I managed two get two readily available gay titles: Song of the Loon and Lord Dismiss Us, respectively. I'd love to know about any smut resources I may have missed.