Snow White Disgusts Me

I will never ever never let my kids read Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Or watch the movie. Or own the Barbie. Never.

You want to know why?

Because it's disgusting, that's why.

At first glance it seems okay, right? The seven little men living alone in the woods is, admittedly, a bit weird. However, who are we to judge? But that's at first glance.

The other day, I was pondering over this particular work of fiction. Why? I asked myself, do the dwarfs have such strange names? And why is Snow White so nice? And why did Disney deviate so far from the original story in the creation of the movie?

Then the oh-so-true truth dawned on me. The sick, horrible truth: Snow White is a commercial endorsement of drug use, psychosis, and mild disorders.

Allow me to expound:

Doc

He's the pre-med dropout/alcoholic. After showing up drunk to class for the third time, he was "let go" from his courses. And given a restraining order. When the dwarfs realized Doc couldn't act as their supplier anymore, they moved out into a secluded wood to wean themselves off their addictions. It didn't work. Doctor Dipso's constantly red nose (I mean come on--he can't get sunburned in a mine), beer belly-paunch, and onsetting wet brain do little to disguise his addiction. (Not to mention, an alcoholic doctor. Come on, man--spare us the irritating cliche.) Luckily for him, the A-type personality and delusional optimism that keeps his drug circle droogies in line also keeps Grumpy's knife at bay.

Dopey

It's a sad day for humanity if I have to explain this one. He's the hippie pothead, originally too scared to try anything hardcore, and now too brain damaged to care one way or another. He's the luckiest of the seven, as the forest provides a fertile environment to grow and harvest his marijuana, so he never has to go without a fix. The green-suited dope fiend is probably also sharing in Doc's booze supply (note beer belly, red nose, and vague, swimming demeanor).

Sleepy

He's the resident barbiturate addict. Ironically, he wasn't a druggie before moving out to the woods, but his brothers' compulsive and violent withdrawal behaviors sent him running for escape . . . which he found in sleeping . . . all the time . . . with the help of downers. Sleepy has been known, at times, to substitute alcohol for drugs, curling up with a bottle of Scotch (Doc's Scotch) and crying himself to sleep. It's a clinical depressive thing--you wouldn't understand.

Sneezy

Tell me, what drug is taken through the nose, hurting the nostrils and causing uncontrollable nosebleeds and sneezing? That's right--he's on a regular diet of Bolivian Marching Powder, this one. Unfortunately for our little cokehead, during the making of Snow White he was in the habit of blowing several rails every night, leaving him with sick hangovers right out some cliche drug movie and nasty-tasting postnasal drip during filming. (His inexplicably retarded behavior--EXPLAINED: the man was using Doc's liquor stash to counteract splitting cocaine-induced headaches. He did fabulous considering how plastered he was.)

Grumpy

Originally, Grumpy was a heroin addict. Seeing as how his dealer wasn't willing to tramp into the happy bunny forest where the dwarfs relocated to exchange the goods, though, he made the switch to methadone in hopes of coming off his dependency altogether. He failed. As a result, though he's been spared the seemingly inevitable opioid withdrawal syndrome, the methadone has left him and without any of the euphoric effects of heroin, leaving him a right crotchety old jerk (and completely stabilized, mind you, meaning he can continue his pissy behavior right up to his death).

Bashful

A chronic sufferer of social anxiety disorder, Bashful turned to self-medication within the SSRI family of drugs when Doc got his hands on some Paxil. (Side note: Bashful used to be a rather trim little thing, but as paroxetine causes serious weight gain, he's now running [no pun intended] at about forty pounds over.) His condition being so severe that the ingestion of any more pills would result in heart failure, Bashful also frequents Doc's alcohol supply--Coors Light, to be exact, which keeps a nice buzz going without causing (too) serious an impediment to his mental faculties, and also doesn't contribute (too) heavily to any further weight gain.

(It may be worth mentioning here that most of the dwarfs are burgeoning alcoholics, courtesy of Doc. It was unavoidable, really, given that alcohol is the universal substance to abuse.)

Happy

I'm of the personal opinion that men this morbidly overweight should not even attempt cultivating facial hair, as it makes them out to be some sort of deranged Santa. And by God, I was right. Albeit, in this case, it's more of an overly-friendly Captain Kangaroo, potato sack shoe-wearing, strangely shaped hat-sporting deranged elf of Santa, but my point remains, nonetheless. Anyway, I think it should be clear to anyone with two brain cells to rub together that that not only is Happy a chronic overeater, but is also, not surprisingly, on "happy pills." Ecstasy. Lord knows all the symptoms match up: enhanced sense of self-confidence and energy, feelings of closeness and the desire to touch others, as well as peacefulness, empathy, and acceptance. Now if only there were medical terms to explain away that blasted horn he insists on playing, and we might actually be getting somewhere.

Snow White

If you thought the dwarfs were bad, just wait 'til I fill you in on Snow White. Although she doesn't participate in substance abuse (on a regular basis), Snow White does have deep and concerning psychoses. First and foremost, she displays indulgence in fantasies and escapism (through manual labor) to such an extent that she is barred from reality. We first see this shown in the beginning when she is singing that "one day her prince will come" while performing tedious and strenuous cleaning under the abusive jurisdiction of her stepmother. These could very well have stemmed from a desperate attempt to put up walls against her stepmother's maltreatment, having evolved in such a way that she has mentally separated herself from this plane. Another point of interest is her weak-to-the-point-of-nonexistent personal boundaries and a thwarted maternal drive that we see manifested when she joins up with the dwarfs. Perhaps these are just subsets of her fantasies (refer to her seemingly inherent need for a prince?), or another thing altogether, but we've got trouble in River City either way.

I won't even bother asking if I've converted you, because I know I have

Helping Wikipedia

Used an Apocalypstick post to improve the Solaris Wiki entry.

Click to enlarge.

Freudian Slip

One man says to another, "So, I had a Freudian slip yesterday, it was pretty embarrassing."

The second replies, "A Freudian slip? What's that?"

The first answers, "You've never heard of it? Well, I was at the airport, and I wanted to buy two tickets to Pittsburgh. The woman helping me was rather well endowed, though, so instead I asked her for 'two pickets to tittsburgh.'"

The second says, "Oh, I see, that's too bad. Well, I had one just this morning."

The first asks, "Yeah, what was it?"

The second explains, "I was sitting at the table with my wife this morning and breakfast, and I wanted to ask her to pass the butter, but instead I said, 'You crazy bitch, you've ruined my life!'"

I'm a Watered-Down Grinch

I feel obliged to write something on Christmas, 'cause that's sorta the thing to do, innit?

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say there are a lot of Christmas traditions I find aggravating -- like Christmas trees. Really, Germany? Was this necessary to bring with you? I get the symbolism and how it's all happy happy fun time to decorate it with your family and whatever, but I find it a waste of time, space, and energy. When I move into my own place, I'm going to replace a tree with a bowl of red and green jelly beans.

Not to mention, haven't any environment people come out against this?

. . .

Apparently, they have not, but when I searched "christmas tree cruel" I did find the darkly entertaining "Monkey 'kills cruel owner with coconut thrown from tree'" article, so I guess it wasn't a total waste of time.

I'm not one to get outraged over the commercialization of holidays, because I figure if you can trick millions of people into spending hundreds on your merchandise for no viable reason then props to you. I like giving and receiving as much as the next guy, but let's not pretend there's something magical about the season itself that is conducive to charity and good will. Well, people do drink more around Christmas, so I guess there's that. Alcohol does make some people much nicer. Point being, if we cared that much, we wouldn't wait until Christmas to express how much love we have bottled up inside of us as a society -- but I guess that's just the Valentine's Day argument all over again.

My parents told me that (*SPOILER ALERT!*) Santa wasn't real at a pretty young age (i.e. the first time I asked if he was real), so that was never a big aspect of the holiday for me. That's why I have no great love for Santa. Not that I dislike him, but as I grow older I begin to realize how patronizing it is to present this idea to children as reality. I don't buy into the whole "Santa encourages overeating/makes an easier time of it for pedophiles/will give your child Swine Flu/ad nauseum/etc.," but I do believe it sets kids of more delicate mental dispositions up for more than a few debilitating complexes later in life. Like, "Mommy and Daddy lied to me and so they don't love me" stuff on the lucky end and maniacal rages of incredulity and sadness that morph into felonious actions on the hardcore end. Also, may we stop putting grown men in tights at the mall photo places? I have glam rock galleries bookmarked on Internet Explorer; I don't need to get my fill of inappropriate male exposure through Rick the pre-med dropout elf, thanks.

And because I'm sure I haven't taken enough potshots at Christmas' Most Loved, I'm gonna throw in that I find decorating the outside of your house with lights and any other sort of seasonal paraphernalia is a tacky eyesore 95% of the time. I can't remember the last time we did anything of consequence to our house, and that sliver of amnesia couldn't make me happier. It's so hard to do right, I'm annually impressed and aggravated at my neighbor's continued attempts to project Christmas cheer through sprucing up their garage door.

When it comes down to it, though, I do enjoy Christmas. I like family and hot chocolate and staying up ridiculously late for mass and the opening of the first present. I like pulling up YouTube videos of snow, throwing on a scarf, and remarking to my bemused brother that it doesn't look deep enough to warrant shoveling the driveway yet. I like watching those campy claymation videos with their jerky movements and old-fashioned, all-too-naive songs. (Santa, here's lookin' at you and your little "a kiss a toy is the price you'll pay" ditty.) I like the food, the fires (fireplaces, not forests), and the all-around joy and contentment it seems to bring.

So whatever you're doing, or however you celebrate this time of year, have a Merry Kwanzmaskkah, drive safe, and drink at least eight cups of water per day.

In Which I Am a Stick in the Mud

Halloween is such an odd holiday to me. It seems like only yesterday we were celebrating it by slaughtering livestock for wintertime, right? We did this every year for whoknowshowlong, until one day it's like wha-bam! and we're hemming our gingham dresses up to out hoo-has.

I'd like to be a able to offer you a detailed, thoughtful analysis on what caused this shift in paradox, but that's not what I'm going to school for; because honestly, where can Holiday Studies 101 get me in life? And I'm too lazy to read the whole Wikipedia page.

I'd assume that somewhere down the line people realized it was sort of a BS endeavor to be wearing masks and lighting bonfires in an attempt to placate evil spirits that threatened the harvest. The specifics of this realization evolving into "so let's instead wear cheaply manufactured costumes that would fit my 12-year-old sister" I'm not sure. It might have something to do with the psychological need to embrace or acknowledge, and therefore release the fear of, one's "shadow aspect" -- those dark wants (e.g. to be OMG naughty) in our nature -- as Jung would say; or possibly as a way to gain control over others through shock, if someone felt she had very little power in her life. But I'm just taking a shot in the dark, here.

My point? Gorging on Twix, I love. Having Halloween being fashioned ever more surely into a holiday centered solely around skank wear, however, makes me cry a little in the dark. I miss the bed sheet ghosts and thrift store hobos of my childhood.

Mob Involvement on Wikipedia

Wikipedia are such Nazis. They didn't even give my revision to David Bowie's page two minutes to live.

(Click to enlarge. I'm gonna toot my own horn and say it's worth it.)

Stream of Consciousness

In which I unwrap and lay open my every thought to you across the screen:

Jim Morrison's head is very fat in comparison to his body. I DON'T WANT YOU TO TOUCH ME! I wonder why any parents would call their daughter "Stacee" instead of "Stacy." It's kind of a black thing to do. My French Professor is white. Why does the bottom of my chin itch? I faceplanted on a manhole covering when I was seven. Now my nose itches. I feel like a pervert watching Labyrinth. It makes my lips dry. I wonder how high Bowie was when he filmed The Man Who Fell to Earth? They're remaking that movie, but they shouldn't be. Don't they know the only reason it has a cult following is because DaBo flashed his birthday suit in it? I wish I hadn't missed Bandslam in theaters. I wonder what it would be like if I was a rockstar? Groupies would embarrass me. I hate Mick Jagger's lips. They could probably feed a whole village of starving African children. Ugh, I hate French verb conjugation. Everything sounds dirtier in European languages. Especially in an English accent. Why do the English like butts so much? The BBCA is amusing. I like watching them "work." "We must slow the frantic pace we set up yesterday, dear; I nearly broke a sweat. We can't get pimples now." Men would find it so much more convenient to wax their faces. Oh wait, that would probably hurt. Clouds surround your head -- cooling and suffocating. Cutains! I wish clocks mooed instead of ticked. Light, light, light, light, light. The little aliens are crawling through your head, pink and bigger than your thumb. My skin is very soft. I love cocoa butter lotion. Picture squirelly little chipmunks drinking Koolaid colored beige and maroon, with saltwater coming from their ears, but they don't notice because they're falling asleep. Whoa, no Labyrinth codpiece! Step right up and sha la la la kiss the girl. Duh duh duh duh. Duh. Duhduhduh duh. Duh. Duhduhduh duh. Duh. Duhduhduhduh. Why can't we all just get along and wear the leather masks? I love my neck. Cupcake shops are the shiz. Sprinkling, shifting, falling, and they're all mine! I have a box. The box is brown. I have a body. The body is dead. The body is in the box. Chase koala! The man walks from the house with a trench coat. But it isn't really a coat, it's a hat that he stole from a man named Ezekiel, who's actually a woman. We both like dresses. Woohoo! Ants, pants, dance -- whoops, the last one doesn't really rhyme. "If you want to, I can save you!" Not really, I lie. Just eat some ice cream and cry yourself to sleep.

Soul Reaper jammed with Weird and Gilly.

I went to Comic-Con (OHMIGOSH AMAZING *gaspsputterdie*) in San Diego the other week and raided one booth's collection of cheap and plentiful posters. I spent $21 dollars for three posters: The Clash's famous "London Calling" print, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and a gi-nor-mous picture David Bowie's face, circa 2003.

For you to understand why I dropped seven bucks for a print of a fifty-six-year-old man's visage, you must know that I am a . . . there really are not even words to describe how utterly enamored I am of Bowie -- I mean, to the point that my love of him can be socially debilitating. Yeah. I'm the premenstrual food addict and he's the German chocolate cake. On second thought, that's kind of a poor analogy, because it isn't that I want to devour him, per se, more that I want to trap his clone in my closet and intimidate it into singing Moonage Daydream 24/7 while wearing sequined tank tops and stretch leather pants.

But we've wandered far away from my original point, monkeybirds.

When I saw this print, all I could think was "Wowwowowowow -- OH. SWEET. NIBLETS. The man glows." So I bought it. Because I want him to stare me to sleep every night. However, now that the initial manic excitement has faded away, I'm starting to have second thoughts . . .

"Let's sway . . . as I drink your soul, feeble mortal, and force the hand of your last breath . . . While color lights up your face."

It's the manifested horror of combining his "Devil's Little Helper" period with a carjacking hobo.

Don't get me wrong: It's Bowie, so I'm going to keep it anyway. The man could dress up in a chicken suit and walk in a circle and I'd say it was the most marvelous thing since Swan Lake. I'm fairly certain that Bowie is incapable of disappointing me. Nonetheless, his expression makes me want to cross the street and get a handle on my bear mace.

Willy "Cookie" Sutton

"Me not take cookies, me eat the cookies." -- Cookie Monster

Quite a few years ago my family was looking to move, so every Sunday after church we would hit as many open houses as we could. I was just a wee sprog then, with the attention span of an autistic goldfish, so I was often subject to about an hour and a half of unadulterated boredom on these excursions. After all, how many times can a kid carve her name into the master bedroom's north wall before she gets fidgety? It seems that at every house we went to there was a plate of free chocolate chip cookies -- this, of course, was the homemade bribe used to get people to make a down payment on a $750,000 home. My dad took to allowing me and my brother a cookie at every house we visited to keep us pacified while he and my mom looked around.

A few months passed and we bought a home, but the now-ritualistic open house-visiting hadn't faded. At this point, it was no longer about the homes, but the cookies that were inevitably there. My parents would give them to me as a treat for behaving in the service that morning. A little piece of me withered and died every time we waltzed through a doorway, nodded to the realtor, and stole four cookies before quickly making our exit.

"Go on, take one," my mom would say as Mr. Homeseller looked on with a confused smile and my ten-year-old self alternated between the beet red of embarrassment and the pallor of imminent death.

I have a feeling this is the sort of thing I'll be bringing up in therapy forty years down the road -- "You have no idea what it was like. My family was like the Willy Sutton of real estate cookies: hitting up houses with a smile, in 'n out in forty-five seconds."