SJP seconds before New York brings her back to earth (X)
Don’t ever use the sidewalk:
Sidewalks are for tourists, and walking signs don’t exist
Don’t smile, ever:
Smiling implies that you have a soul which is a dead give away of your transplant status.The only acceptable emotions are annoyance and disdain.
Push an old lady on the subway:
Seats on the subway are prime real estate, and you have to stake your land regardless of who you need to trample over to do so. Mercy is weakness, which you can't afford to show in a city that considers sardine cans as adequate transportation.
Don’t look up:
If you wanted to look at skycrapers you should have moved to Long Island
Don’t stop moving:
Every day is like the running of the bulls in Pamplona, Spain. But in this lazy metaphor, NYC is the bull and you are the idiot who thought wearing red was a good idea.
Empathy is the best policy:
NYC is pretty much a screaming child that fights for your attention 24/7. So do what any great parent or camp counselor would do and just ignore it and hopefully it won't kill you in your sleep.
This coming Friday marks the season 2 premiere of my favorite Australian series, Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries. This is pretty much the best Australian TV import since that mermaid show (don't pretend you didn't watch it). Here's a couple of reasons to start watching the most faboluos show to date.
Miss Phryne Fisher (other than having an awesome name) is the kind of plucky heroine that reminds me of a grown up version of Harriet the Spy. This wealthy socialite spends her time solving murders while looking fabulous. She embodies the kind of fearless modern woman that actual 1920's flappers wished they were. Can you feel my jealousy seething through the screen?
This show is set in the roaring 1920's, an era I can't seem to get enough of lately. Prohibition, the Charleston, the appropriation of Jazz music. This show romanticizes the time as much as I do, which is probably why I like it so much
My romantization of this era is made worse with the ridiculously gorgeous fashion that permeates this show.
While this show is hardly the Australian version of Boardwalk Empire (which I actually like), each case is filled with intrigue and fun, two things that I have never really found in BW since I spent half the tie worrying about which of my favorite characters would be killed of during the episode.
The rest of the ensemble cast is great as well. For someone as scandalous and modern as Miss Fisher , she somehow manages to surround herself with the most adorable people that look like something out of an L.M. Montgomery novel. There's her sidekick Dot that's terrified of the phone (oh to have 20's problems), the butler called Mr. Butler, a young orphan girl who pops up everyone once and a while called Jane, and clumsy policemen that are more cute than annoying.
Did I forget to mention she's best friends with a lesbian doctor named Dr. Mac. And yeah, she dresses like that ^^^
The soundtrack to this show is also amazing. Each episode is chalk full of vintage hits that are a staple for any modern Flapper girls Ipod playlist.
If nothing else has won you over, just think of the clothes!!!!
Not many people know this, but I was actually born and raised in the small Caribbean island of Puerto Rico, La Isla Del Encanto. I lived in PR until my 7th birthday, when my family moved to the US to start my 2nd year in elementary school.
You might ask "But Nina, you don't have an exotic accent that we can later make fun of in Superbowl commercials?"
This is sadly true, somewhere between charting my process on the Hooked on Phonics Board and 10 years in the US public school system I lost any trace of a Latin accent the permeates the second half of Florida.
Pre-Ke$ha
I like to think of myself as having a TV accent (also known as the Sitcom Accent), which my dad likes to call the Long Island Shiksa accent. When we first moved, since my parents didn't have the time nor the energy to teach their abnormally gangly daughter a language they didn't really understand themselves, television became my after hours education with Fran Drescher and Rosie O'Donnell as my tutors.
I give it four Knishes!!
The Rosie O'Donell show was perfect because it was right after school, so it quickly became part of my weekday routine; right after catching the bus and before practicing NSYNC dance routines. I mean come one! She had her own cartoon! How was I not suppose to know this wasn't mean to be a kids show? To be honest, I don't even remember being at all interested in what guests were on, Rosie was always the main attraction. I even dreamed about going to her show and being the person who introduced the show and what I would wear and say.
I would wear my favorite pink overall dress with big purple buttons and yellow ducks on the hem, and I would say:
"Hi! My name is Nina from Ft. Lauderdale, Florida and this is the Rosie O'Connell Show. Today's guests are Bette Midler, Barbara Streisand and Scarlett Johansson. HIT IT JOHN!!!"
My butterfly clip (or maybe clips) would twinkle in the spotlight when I yelled and pointed to the stage "AND HERE'S ROSIE!!!!!"
I think we can all agree lesbians are the best talk show hosts. AMIRIGHT?!
I thought she was the funniest woman alive, until I met Fran Drescher.
Queens of Long Island
If you haven't seen it already (though I find that pretty hard to believe), instead of staying up late watching reruns of Nashville on Huluplus, switch the channel to Nick at Nite and watch The Nanny. This sitcom was TV gold and is still hilarious decades after it stopped airing. Here was another cartoon opening, with another Long Island beauty that made me want to be best friends with her. This woman had style, class and the sharpest wit made even better by her two foot beehive and two inch miniskirts.
There are seriously too many funny scenes to choose from but this is pretty solid.
Not long after we moved, I started sounding more like a Jewish grandmother than a Latina immigrant. It seems while my meek Spanish accent was overtaken by the Long Island accent of a girl who preferred to stay inside and watch Funny Girl. Even though I wish I still had some fragment of my Spanish accent left, I'm glad it was just another thing I inherited from the Long Island Goddesses who taught me everything I know about being a bad ass funny lady.
Welcome to Totally Tubular Tuesdays!!! The day I gush about all things TV because if there's one thing I'm good it's procrastinating.
Spending my formative years in a small town in North Carolina before getting my ass hauled all the way back to the Sunshine State meant I was no stranger to the trailer house favorite, Blue Collar TV (and I can say that because my best friend lives in a trailer and it's AWESOME). Bill Engvall, Jeff Foxworthy and Larry the Cable Guy were household names and my friends and I spent many a night (yes, sometimes in said trailer) making up slogans for "You Might Be a Redneck".
Though it only lasted two seasons, these thickly accented comedians stole my pseudo small town girl heart. This love for redneck jokes and blue collar blues led me to a small gem called The Bill Engvall Show, which led to an even more precious gem, Jennifer Lawrence.
The opening credits are a pair of jeans for goodness sake, this is country comedy gold!!!
That's right!! Our Oscar winning Jenny was part of the Blue Collar family, and I was mesmerized by her blonde curls and sharp humor before you hipsters can summarize the plot of Winter's Bone. Talk about a star in the making, in some scenes she even outshines Bill, and his name is in the gosh darn title!
Can you imagine a time when Jennifer's character's biggest worry was finding a date to the semi-formal and not trying to survive getting killed by 23 other tributes or searching the Appalachian wilderness for her meth-junkie father?
Personally, I think Jennifer Lawrence was made for comedy (just check out any interview she's ever had... ever) and I would love to see her make a return to the genre that first put her on the spotlight. But then again, I"m graduating with a B.A. in Creative Writing and she already has an Oscar, so one of us is doing something right (and it isn't the one writing in a hilariously titled blog). You go Jennifer Lawrence, keep making us Blue Collar fans proud!!!
