Guilty Pleasures: White Girl Rappers

Hey everyone has their guilty pleasures, it's just hat some happen to be more politically incorrect than others.  Guess which one this playlist falls into.

Guilty Pleasure: White Girl Rappers from ninakguzman on 8tracks Radio.

How to Trick People Into Thinking You Are a New Yorker

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.

Totally Tubular Tuesday: Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries

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!!!!

Manic Pixie Monday: My Favorite Dance Sequences I Have Embarasingly Tried

You didn't need to be my 4th grade Jazz teacher to know that I have absolutely no skills in the high art of dance.  My Puerto Rican rhythm must have been stamped out by my Puritanical Spanish ancestors in the gene pool.  But my immovable hips couldn't stop me from at least trying out some of my favorite dance sequences, even if it was usually in the privacy of my own room.

1. Meet Me in St. Louise - "Bamboo Tree"

I played Judy and my little sister played Margaret O'Brein and we would prance around our living room for hours watching and re-watching  this movie.  Years later I would even use this movie to calm down rowdy boys at a summer camp. Judy works every time.

2.  The Breakfast Club - "We're not Alone"

The way I saw it, The Breakfast Club were teenagers and if I was a teenager, then I would need to learn how to dance like them.  I guess this is the reason I why I was never asked to dance, but also why I had so much fun.

3.  The Little Colonel - "Stairs Dance"

I can never walk up a pair of steps normally ever again.

4.  Smash - "Rumor Has It"

I heard a "Rumor" that people didn't like this show.  I don't get it.  How can someone not be hypnotized by the synchronized  snaps and claps?  My limbs automatically flail whenever this song comes on, which makes driving a bit difficult.

5.  Bring It On - "Intro"

My semester stint as a varsity football cheerleader was probably due to this short clip.  Though I was hardly a better dancer afterwards, at least I've never had to resort to Spirit Fingers.

Silent Sundays: Bluebeard 1901

For the first installment of Silent Sundays,  I"m posting one of my favorite short silent films, Bluebeard by the incredible mind of George Melies.

Wise Women Wednesday: Mary Pickford

"Failure is not the falling down, it's the staying down" - Mary Pickford

Today's wise word comes from the incomparable, Mary Pickford.  Known as the first movie star, America's Sweetheart was actually a Canadian born Gladys Marie Smith who began working the vaudeville circuit at a young age to help with the family's expenses.  After a fateful meeting with the director D. W. Griffith, Mary became world renowned for not only starring in some of the first silent films, but also for playing some of the strongest, most compelling female characters.

Far from just pretty face on screen,  Mary along with her husband Douglas Fairbanks and Charlie Chaplin founded United Artists which gave producers who joined sole control over their movies instead of the studios.  She was also the first woman to own her own studio (the next woman would be Lucille Ball with Desilu Productions) where she directed and produced movies even after she retired from acting in the 1930s.

American Experience - Mary Pickford


When you have the time, I would highly suggest watching the PBS documentary about Mary Pickford (above).  She's been one of my idols since I was a kid, I even had a poster of her hanging in my room (Dork Alert).  Here is a woman that came from nothing to the very cinematic revolution that would change our culture forever and yet no one knows who she is.  This is one Wise Woman  whose words and impact I wont soon forget.

(God, could I get any cheesier?)

Totally Tubular Tuesday: Long Island Goddesses

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.