Author Archives: Thesaltyju

Salty Stories

Hydration Is For Suckers

There’s a whole lot of annoying people in this world. Believe me, I live in a constant state of annoyance and if you give me about thirty seconds I could fire off a list of things currently grinding my gears and point out everyone’s obnoxious qualities. See? That’s MY obnoxious quality. Near the top of that list are people who tell you to drink more water. These people are usually females, and they will always promise that drinking more water will CHANGE 👏🏼 YOUR 👏🏼 LIFE 👏🏼 GURL! In addition to being as irritable as a small baby with colic, I’ve also lived my entire life in a constant state of dehydration. I’m very aware of the fact that I don’t drink enough water. I drink water with my three meals a day, toss in a coffee every morning (which basically deducts that first water) and that pretty much sums up my day. Way, WAY back when I had a desk job, I’d keep a tumbler of water at my desk to sip during snacktime, but often didn’t finish more than one cup a day. Water washed my food down my gullet and that’s pretty much the sole purpose it has served in my life. Here’s a few other fun facts about me though: I have heavy digestive issues with an emphasis on the D for Diarrhea, I get horrifically crippling hangovers and sometimes my foot will seize off of my body at stupid times of the day in Charlie-horse style cramps—usually when I’m exercising or in the middle of the night when I’m just trying to catch some Z’s. You don’t need to be a doctor to assume that all of these ailments could probably be cured by having a few more glasses of water a day. But I’ve just never been able to bring myself to do it. Obviously counterpoint number one to drinking more water is the inconvenience of needing to pee every few minutes. As someone who has performance anxiety when it comes to peeing in a public bathroom–why are bathrooms a thousand times quieter when there are other people in the stalls?–I never felt the need to create even more stressful situations just by drinking more water. Plus, water just doesn’t taste that great. I mean, be honest with yourself, water is a pretty trash drink. Oh, just continuously sip something that tastes like NOTHING all day long? Get outta here.

So I carried on living my life like the H2O-lacking heathen that I am. Whenever someone brought it up and was like GIRL, just drink eight glasses a day and you’ll NOTICE a difference. I just nodded my head and smiled like you do when someone yaps about a show on Netflix you MUST watch that you 100% know you will never watch. These water worshippers would RAVE that drinking more water will make you lose weight, and clear up your skin, and help your digestion and overall just make you feel like a QUEEN. Ya, ya whatevs. I’m just going to keep destroying my body at an alarming rate. But then, something changed. On my 9th month of unemployment, I was listening to the Token CEO Podcast where someone else was being interviewed about being laid off as well. She pointed out that since it was her second time around on unemployment, it didn’t feel as bad…plus with a national pandemic, there are a lot of people in the same spot. And I thought to myself PREACH. I’m on my third bout of unemployment since graduating college and subsequently my LONGEST one and yet I think I’m the least phased. It’s just a way of life now to never have a G-D job–not for lack of trying of course. I felt connected to this podcast soul sister. At the end of her interview she gave out a tip of advice and it was “drink more water” immediately followed by, “I know everyone says that and shit and I always ignored it but I’ve been doing it lately and honestly I do feel better.” And once again, I felt a kindred spirit in this asshole who was equally as unemployed and also scoffed at people bragging about the health benefits of the plainest drink in the world. And I thought, well what the fuck else am I doing? Now seems like a great time to finally succeed at something rather than fail for once. Clearly I had reached the point where I’d do anything for a win. So the next day, I downloaded a water tracking app for accountability and because my Type A ass NEEDS to check off boxes. Did I really DRINK water if I didn’t log it? Nope. Obviously not.

After testing one app for about 30 seconds and immediately getting annoyed by the ads crowding up my eyesight—no I will not pay for a water tracking app, I don’t even know if I’m going to keep up with this for more than one week. The next free app I downloaded had a lovely percentage bar graphic that was pleasing to the eye and made me feel like I had something to work toward each day. I entered my weight and height and this almighty app told me that 76 oz was my recommended dose per day. It seemed low to the naked eye but seemed even lower when I realized that I own a water bottle that’s 28 oz and I was slurping several of those a day. My first day of tracking I logged 138 oz without even trying. I was ALREADY crushing it. And true to my fantasy life, I was already envisioning eradicating all my tummy probs, having glowing skin, a model bod, and never getting hungover again. The next morning, a reminder to drink water alerted me at 6AM and I quickly turned off the annoying notifications. I was lapping this app, I didn’t need to be told before my eyes even opened that I should be drinking water. LET ME HAVE MY REST TIME. Plus I was reaching my goal by 12pm every day and this app needed to learn to respect my water-drinking hustle during waking hours only. I continued my waterboarding for weeks. I wanted to kill myself with the constant dribble of pee that was threatening to burst out of my urethra every time I breathed, but I assumed much like breaking the seal, this was something my body would get used to and would lessen over time. To distract myself, I took to bragging to everyone around me that my water intake was off the charts and therefore I was superior to them. This made me feel a whole lot better about the fact that I was spending roughly all of my day in the bathroom and dedicating all of my efforts to tracking my bevs like it was my full-time job–to be fair, it kinda was.

And yet, all these days of basically drowning myself and I was still constipated. So much so, that I had to take a laxative to create some movement. I paused to feel confused about the fact that I was basically on a liquid diet and yet my intestines were still like nah, we’re at capacity and we don’t really care. I also was expecting to basically never see a zit again and I was getting chest acne like nobody’s biz from working out and generally being sweaty 24/7 (cause summer, duh.) Another red flag that caused me to wonder if this water thing is really all it’s cracked up to be. Finally, I reached my breaking point. On a particularly sunny Wednesday, I ate a full lunch and then saw a beer sitting in the fridge leftover from a beach day. The beer was a Pina Colada Wheat and I had chosen it specifically for the sun and sand because I wanted to also be drinking alcoholic sunscreen, obviously. I never got around to it and it got pushed to the back of the fridge. I was feeling rather frisky from the nice weather and I decided to give it a try. It was a craft beer of 7.4% alcohol—something I would certainly not find on my trusty water tracking app, and knowing the lightweight that I am, I took it nice and slow. I drank that bad boy over the course of almost two hours. And when I finished it, I kid you not, I was trashed. Kinda a low point for me if we’re being honest. Rather than pass out for a midday buzzed siesta at 4pm on a weekday, I decided to power through the buzz and chug another 28 oz water. I was obviously well above my “goal” at this point in the day and thought surely this magically-powered drink that is supposed to change your life would bring me down from this buzz and also eliminate any bad feelings that would come my way by dinner time. NOPE. By dinner I had a full blown hangover. FROM ONE BEER, FOLKS. And that’s precisely when I called bullshit on this whole drink more water to become your best self philosophy. I ranted to my mom as loud as my headache would allow. How is it that I am THE MOST hydrated, and yet got hungover from one lousy sunscreen tastin’ beer? HOW?! Riddle me that, WATER DICK SUCKERS. After months of drinking over 100 oz of water per day, not a thing about me had changed. My skin was still pre-teen zitty garbage. My flabby muffin top was ever-present. My intestines constantly reminded me that I’m no better than a nursing home resident. I either needed a healthy dose of Prune Juice or an adult diaper and there was no in between. And ya know what? Why don’t you just go ahead and saw my brain in half every time I indulge in an alcoholic beverage. I’m over it. Water worshippers go back to being the most annoying people alive that I’ll ignore for the rest of my life. Nope, that’s a lie. I won’t ignore them. I’ll tell them point blank that they sit on a fountain of lies. AND I HAVE THE APP AND CONSTANT STATE OF DETERIORATION TO PROVE IT.

Editors Note: Due to the fact that this was originally written in August 2020 and it is now February 2021, I wanted to give you all an update on the watering process. Despite my untethered rage toward hydration, I have maintained tracking my agua intake so that I may continue to poke holes in the theory that being hydrated does anything for your body other than giving you bragging rights for drinking the recommended dose of water daily. I appreciate your concern for how much I have to pee in a regular day and I can confirm that I have adjusted, but as I sit here with a sizable zit on my neck, I can also confirm that nothing good has come from my great H2O hustle. Therefore I will continue to shout from the rooftops that WATER IS STUPID. I look forward to the day when I have health insurance again and can boom roast my PCP with my well-researched findings that hydration is for wieners. No further questions at this time.

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JUice

Weekly JUice

Week of 2/15/2021

1. An Ex-Royal Bebe.

Screen Shot 2021-02-18 at 9.26.02 PM

These two may not be royals anymore but they are the King and Queen of photogenic. Every milestone they’ve absolutely nailed the photo. Also important to note, the photographer who took this is in London and “captured it via iPad.” HOW. So you Facetimed them and took a screenshot? Like at what point are we going to cut the shit with the ‘we can do everything the same remotely as we do in person’ trend. Photography over an iPad is just TAKING A PHOTO ON AN iPAD. If you told me this was taken with a self timer propped up on some books I would’ve believed you. What does that say about this photographer? I just bought a ring light for 14 bucks at Homegoods and I have a tripod, so I guess that makes me a photographer too. Also let it be noted that the first time I saw my face in that ring light I gasped at how old I looked. That shit really illuminates every nook and cranny…it’s like the dressing room lights at TJMaxx. #Unforgiving. ANYWAY, professional iPad photography aside, Congrats to these two beauts on another beeebz. The gossip in me would LOVE to know if they shared the news with the Queen first or just announced it to the world now that they’ve quit the palace and moved to the US. No protocols here! Get knocked up and share it on Insta if you like…don’t need an official scroll from the Palace with the Queen’s crest to make the statement. Basically what I’m getting at here is that I’ve read enough books and watched enough shows about how the Royal Family is really a big ole shitshow full of lies and scandal, so any sneak peek into that I’ll eat right up. Give us a tell-all about how this royal family breakup went down. Celeb news has been a little dry lately and I just finished 12 seasons of the Real Housewives of NY so I need this BTS scoop like I need air to breathe. HIT US WITH A DOC, NETFLIX. Oprah’s trying to help us out with a full televised interview on CBS March 7th but something tells me this will be full of softballs.

2. Paris is Engaged…again.

proposal

I had to google this for accuracy but this is Paris’ FOURTH engagement. Girl gets a diamond ring every few years just for shits and giggs. This one’s gonna stick though. Well, let me put it this way, Paris claims this is the first time she’s actually been in love. So I guess that makes it a better shot than the previous 3? But also, this is Hollywood…so I’ll either be reporting that she’s pregnant or that they’re broken up in about 5 weeks time. Mark ya calendars. I think my favorite part about this engagement is that she directed everyone on Instagram to her website for the full story and when I landed on her website there were SEVERAL photo galleries of the proposal, including a YOUTUBE VIDEO ON THE DESIGN OF HER ENGAGEMENT RING. I guess when you get proposed to four times, you start to really monetize the occasion. If you want a good belly laugh – check it out here. Otherwise, peep below for her big ole honkin diamond appropriately named “Paris”, accented by bedazzled fingerless gloves and an early 2000’s gel french mani. That’s hot.

ringparisandcarter

3. I AM GETTING VERY EXCITED.

Demi dropped the full trailer for her upcoming doc that will give all of the dirty deets of her overdose. Here are my kneejerk reactions in watching order: Demi announcing she’s just gonna say it all and then they can take out whatever they don’t want to use. Oh, honey. That’s how documentaries work. Give the whole story then they edit it to create a narrative. Thank you for that Ted Talk. ELTON JOHN?! Her friends (I’m assuming) who were like THIS IS CRAZY, YOU DON’T WANT THE REAL STORY, OH ARE WE TALKING ABOUT HEROIN??… ummmm ARE YA NEW? I get that we’re trying to create a “real and honest” vibe here, but we understand how movies get made. We don’t need to see a bunch of idiots act surprised that they’re filming a doc and telling a story. Just spit it out. Hit us with some hard truths. Like for instance, this song, which is an absolute bangpiece. Someone telling her, “It’s only going to get better from here” one month before overdose hits REAL hard. So does her announcing her engagement. Yikes on bikes. Three strokes and a heart attack. Daaaaaaammmnnnnn. March 23rd can’t come fast enough, yo. (You know I’ll basically recap every moment of this doc the minute it comes out so just come on back for the deets afterward.)

4. Cruella.

Oh, ok Emma Stone, we see you! I guess we just take every animated movie Disney has ever made and remake it with actors now–even though this one was technically done already with Glen Close. That’s the phase of Hollywood we’re at now. Sequels and live action Disney films. Normally I wouldn’t give this a second look because I like my Disney classics right where we left them, in the Disney vault and occasionally played all weekend on ABC Family (I’ll never call it Freeform.) In fact ABC Fam decided Valentine’s Day was a perfect theme for childhood movies and did a marathon this past weekend. I made myself a pan of cinnamon buns and caught Tarzan–because nothing says day of love like filthy humans going into forests and killing gorillas for no reason. Tarzan’s a tough one for me because Phil Collins went hard in the paint on the soundtrack. Just bop after bop. Even the sad songs have a little pep in their step. And so I get excited when I hear the music and then immediately remember that Tarzan is one of the more depressing Disney flicks. Animal cruelty just isn’t for me. Kill off a parent or two, fine. We’ll get through it. Kill off a parent that is ALSO A GORILLA for absolutely no reason? SAVAGE. That’s a can’t watch for me. My favorite Disney movies are: Aladdin, The Little Mermaid, Mulan, Anastasia and Beauty and the Beast. My LEAST favorites are: Lady and the Tramp, Bambi, The Fox and the Hound & 101 Dalmatians. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist for you to figure out that anytime an animal gets hurt in a movie, I hate it. So this rant brought me back to the original topic, which is telling you that that I’ve seen 101 Dalmatians exactly one time and I was so horrified that I never watched it again. This new version seems like more of a “how did this bitch turn into a real puppy kicker” kind of perspective. I’m down for that. I’m mostly intrigued by watching Emma Stone play something other than adorable. But let me be the first to say if she so much as looks at a dog wrong in this movie, I’m walking out (of my living room because theaters are cancelled forever basically.) Dalmatians are kind of a-hole dogs but that doesn’t mean they deserve to be skinned for a fur coat. Can we make it a rule going forward that all Disney movies love and respect animals? Even if they’re cats. That’s big of me to say, so please give me all the credit in the world. Disney is supposed to be wholesome and for children. No more animals dying, plz. Now let Phil play us out.

@marz.gif

phil collins was in is bag every damn time and no one can convince me otherwise. don’t get me STARTED on what he did for Tarzan #fyp #foryou

♬ original sound – marz 🤠

5. REEEALLLY Stretching Here.

This is just overflow from last week because the second I smashed publish on last week’s JUice, JT released an official apology. Also, I have nothing else to report on this week so midas whale tell you what I think about this turd coming out of the woodwork for a 20 years too late iPhone note. Obviously the people demanded JT speak up after revisiting his total butthole actions from the early 2000’s stomping out Britney to create his solo success. Then he released this and everyone was like you’re trash go away. Teaching us the evergreen lesson that you’ll never please the masses so maybe just quit while you’re ahead. For PR purposes, JT definitely had to make a statement here but I would most certainly hope that the real apology was given to Britney and Janet personally as well. It’s a little late to be like oopsie sorry I was a total dick forever ago, as a white male I want to grow. K, bud. We got it. It’s also timely that Justin is promoting his new flick on Apple TV+ that has heavy themes around gender and learning how to handle things the right way so naturally it’s a necessary PR move to speak out–kinda like when he got caught cheating on his wife while filming the aforementioned movie. I don’t hate JT (I can’t, he was my first love) but I don’t really like him lately either. If he’d like to get back in my good graces he can either #FreeBritney or he can drop another album. Also, everyone reporting that Jessica Biel responded to his apology can kick rocks. She commented on his instagram “I Love You <3” WHAT A RESPONSE!!!!!!!! So as my eyes pop directly out of my skull and roll down the block, let’s take a trip down memory lane to the last time JT publicly had to apologize and how super smooth that went.

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JUice

Weekly JUice

Week of 2/8/2021

1. Surprise, Bitch.

Anyone who knows me personally and/or has read even one sentence of this blog knows that I’m a Taylor stan but what some of you might not know is that I keep it real with Tay. I love her music, I love her genius marketing and I love her dramatics. But I can also call her on her shit. And when the word was making the rounds that she was appearing on GMA Thursday morning for a surprise announcement, my immediate reaction was no more surprises, plz. Like enough is enough Taylor. There’s only so much a girl can take. Folklore was amazing, Evermore was not and I put it on record that if her next surprise was a third album of wrist-slitters, I was OUT.

I completely forgot that while she was writing the most depressing music of her life, she was also re-recording her life’s work up until Lover. Taylor Swift is 9 trillion percent the type of person that goes on vacation, sits on the beach for exactly 3 seconds and then says she needs to do something else because she’s bored. Never one to take a chill pill of course her surprise announcement was the re-release of Fearless…but WAIT THERE’S MORE…she added 6 songs FROM THE VAULT like she’s Walt Disney up in this bitch. LISTEN TO THEM NOW OR THEY’LL GO BACK INTO THE VAULT….FOREVER.

Also gurl couldn’t even actually be live for the “SECRET ANNOUNCEMENT”?! Next time just post the scripted marketing video right to your socials. What’s the point of even including GMA in this bullshit? Obviously I’m not holding back anymore. I’m all for her re-recording her old stuff to feel empowered and feel ownership over her songs. I’ve obviously talked everyone’s ear off about this issue at this point so you should know that I see both sides of the coin here. Taylor is an artist who writes her own songs and has a massive amount of creative control over what she puts out into the universe (which is rare these days) and yet she also signed a contract giving those rights away to a record company. Real Catch-22. Scooter’s obviously a dick for selling the rights to her music and not even allowing her the opportunity to buy them back. So do it up girlfran, re-record old songs, release shit from the mysterious Taylor vault (especially that uncut All Too Well) but ALSO don’t expect me to be emptying my pockets for 100 new songs from you. I am THE MOST unemployed. I cannot handle any more of this. Every time she drops a record she drops 6 weeks of new merch with it, and guess what? I want it all. But I’M NOT MADE OF MONEY. And that’s where I start to get REAL annoyed. It’s one thing to take back your rights and #Feminism and all, it’s another thing to expect your fans to not listen to 10+ years of your music ever again because you no longer own it. That ain’t our fault.

Obviously Taylor loves her surprises and clues so she just had to code April 9th into the above message, which is when we’ll get the whole album. Again. I will not be re-buying each and every album, especially if they’re going to ALL SOUND EXACTLY THE SAME AS THE MUSIC SHE ALREADY SOLD US 10 YEARS AGO. WHAT IS DIFFERENT ABOUT THIS “VERSION?”

2. Say It Louder for the People in the Back…FREE BRITNEY

Paparazzi are the SCUM of the earth. Unless of course they’re taking pictures of Ben Affleck dropping his Amazon packages and Dunks.

The NY Times dropped a doc about Britney Spears last weekend and it has been ALL THE RAGE on social media. As I am a pop culture expert and a self-proclaimed doc aficionado (look no further than my doc rundown from quarantine) it’s almost as if this one was made just for me. For those of you who don’t remember, the #FreeBritney movement sparked up over the summer after superfans of Brit declared that she was using her social media to throw smoke signals that she is being held against her will in a conservatorship. For close to 15 years, her dad has run her life and her finances, claiming she’s mentally unfit to do so. And something about this is A LOT fishy, and yet we literally have NO proof of foul play here. So this doc is essentially an hour and fifteen minutes of assumptions and hearsay that Britney needs our help to set her free. And for that reason, and many more that I will detail for you at length because this is my platform and I can say whatever I want, I will tell you that the doc is interesting and I recommend watching it if you’re intrigued by the topic, but I wouldn’t say it’s a well-done, critically acclaimed doc. First and foremost, we’ve got one of the BIGGEST media sources in the world making a documentary about how the media is bad. And that is R I C H. The narrative that they’ve formed is that Britney has been treated like garbage by the media for her entire career and essentially that’s what got her in this current jail-type situation. Are the NY Times feeling a little guilty for playing a part in her demise and making this doc as penance? Perhaps. Or are they feeding right into their own story by using their platform to tell a story that maybe isn’t true….KINDA MAKES YOU THINK, NO? In response to this, the media has been demanding apologies left and right, trying to cancel anyone who shit on Britney during her breakdown…which again has turned out to be top notch entertainment. Pot, meet Kettle. (I say this with the MOST self awareness in the world because this very blog is 100% a part of the problem and I wholeheartedly accept that. I find celebrities and pop culture fascinating and I’m going to spout my opinions about it all–salacious or not. But I’m also never going to hop right up on my high horse and be like YOU ARE ALL WRONG, WHAT I’M DOING DOESN’T COUNT, YOU BETTER APOLOGIZE OR ELSE!!)

Other than me critiquing the big bad Media for being a bunch of big booty big ole hypocrites, the parts that I found most interesting about this doc were the flashbacks to OG interview clips. Watching those as an adult was a real eye opener. I loved Brit and I loved N*SYNC and my pre-teen ass never gave a second thought to creepy old men reporters asking about her boobs and her sex life or GASP Justin Timberlake doing her DIRTY by trampling her to boost his solo career. My guy JT did NOT look good in this doc, I’ll tell you that. Not sure how I missed him announcing on a radio interview that he banged Britney but YOIKES that was rough. You know what else was rough? How creeptastic Brit’s fans are. Doing podcasts dissecting her instagram photos, showing up at the courtroom to picket, I mean these guys are really giving the Taylor stans who have WHITEBOARDS full of clues to guess what surprise is next a run for their money. And last bu certainly not least in my hot takes…a pro tip: including certified creep Matt Lauer in any capacity is a HUGE strike here. How are we supposed to be on your side when you’re giving a rapist air time? You can get back to me on that one, NY Times. Anyway, got carried away there. Basically just transcribed the whole doc (spoiler alert lololol.) The point is, watch this doc if you want to see how maybe the LEAVE BRITNEY ALONE guy wasn’t so crazy after all, but also keep in mind that absolutely no one in the Spears family sanctioned this doc or contributed to it and therefore it’s about as reliable as a fan TikTok. But still, #FreeBritney.

@thesaltyju

The only reason I purchased this shirt. #itsbritneybitch #graphictees #90skids #gimmemore #hallwayrunway #fyp

♬ original sound – The Salty Ju

PS: There was another trial for her conservatorship this week and in a minor victory, Brit was able to secure a bank as co-conservator of her finances so that her dad doesn’t have his greasy hands on it solo dolo. This is good news but what would be GREAT news is if that rat Jamie Spears was banished from this country and stopped pilfering all of his daughter’s money and controlling her every move, allegedly.

3. A Drunk Goat.

Tom Brady won the Super Bowl…for the seventh time. The parade was this week in Florida where if you haven’t been keeping up, Covid doesn’t exist so IT’S PARTY TIME, BAYBAY! And Tommy Football let looose. They had a boat parade, which if you ask me is the best kind of parade. Nothing tops day drinking ON THE PONTOON in the sun. After this video of Tom being walked off the boat surfaced, the drunk content just started piling in and it brought me immense joy. This guy is a specimen. He is in his 40’s and looks better now than he did when he was 20. He is on a strict diet and workout plan so that he can continue to dominate on the football field and you know what? HE DESERVES TO GET WHITE GIRL WASTED ON A BOAT. Before you chirp me, I’ve already heard the stories that he wasn’t actually drunk or that he was faking it for lolz and I will hear none of it. Sloshed Tom Brady makes me happy and YOU CAN’T TAKE THAT FROM ME. LET US HAVE IT. He’s stumbling around with that goofy shit-eating grin, tossing the Lombardi trophy over open water like it’s one of his kid’s toys and posing for the ‘gram with his goon squad. He is an American treasure.

And the above video begs the question…how many times was my dad carrying me as a small child while also absolutely trashed. LMK, Den. Over/Under 10?

4. Roast City, Population: Wendy’s.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A1wouOel0kk

Since I rambled real hard above, I’ll close out the JUice this week with fun things on the internet that gave me a case of the giggles. Since we typically hear about social media blunders and people who run big brand accounts getting fired for being racist or inapprops, I thought it would be nice to spotlight the opposite. The team or individual that runs the Wendy’s Twitter is killin it as they kicked off #NationalRoastDay with a bunch of sick burns to big brands and nobodies alike. If you wanted to get twitter bitch slapped, all you had to do was tweet at Wendy’s yesterday to take yourself down a peg. Here’s a collection of some of my favorites. Feel free to search #NationalRoastDay on Twitter for them all. Wendy’s: known for their Frosty’s, nuggs & brutal zingers. That little redhead is a FIRECRACKER.

5. I Am Not a Cat.

The only Zoom faux pa that had me laughing out loud and that is 1. because of those dramatically sad cat eyes roaming all over the joint and 2. because this guy had to LITERALLY say he’s not a cat. WELL GOLLY GEE WILLIKERS ROD, I THOUGHT THE PANDEMIC HAD TRANSFORMED YOU INTO A CAT WITH VERY MOIST CARTOON EYES. How Jerry and H. Gibbs (what a rich professional name) didn’t hysterically laugh at this is beyond me. I cannot for a second hold my facial expressions, which is why I can’t stand the Zoom life but these two put on a CLINIC of keeping their faces neutral while ole Rod dug himself deeper into the kitty litter box. Not so funny, meow is it?!

Thanks for the chuckles this week, internet. It was much appreciated. Actually, thanks for the chuckles this week, world. Cause my trip to Hobby Lobby yesterday beCAME very eventful when I stumbled upon this treasure and snickered my face off in the aisle like the immature 12 year old boy that I am. Why anyone would choose to hang this in their home is beyond me but hope you all COME without warning this weekend. Happy Valentine’s Day. ❤

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JUice

Weekly JUice

Week of 1/25/2021

1. No Sweet Dream.

Well this was an unwelcome surprise. My gurl Halsey is the latest to join the celebrity baby train in total oops fashion. Even though I salivate at the thought of breaking a shocking pregnancy and screenshotted the announcement to several people in hopes of scooping, I do not approve. At the time of announcement, it wasn’t public info if she even had a boyfriend. Then via this instagram, her boyfriend commented and suddenly within hours there were 900 articles deep diving into who Halsey’s baby daddy is. Here’s what I learned and I’m happy to share with you. His name is Alev Aydin, he’s 37 (Halsey is 26), he’s a Turkish screenwriter, they got matching tattoos of the word “seeds” on their feet, and according to sources “they’ve been dating for a few months.” According to sources or ACCORDING TO THE ANNOUNCEMENT THAT HE PUT A BABY IN HER? Like come on with this lazy journalism. Ya gotta be a real detective to understand that women typically announce they’re pregnant 3 months along but BREAKING NEWS they’ve been dating for three months. Anyway, here’s a picture of these two getting their rando tats together, which will last infinitely longer than this relationship. You know what’s forever? A baby. You know what’s not? A couple that makes a baby on their first date. #Science.

It may sound like I’m being a little harsh and let me make this crystal clear…I think Halsey has one of the most beautiful raspy voices of all time. I love her music, I think she’s wildly talented. I also think she’s naturally beautiful. Take all the junk away and she’s stunning. (Unfortunately she adds a lot of junk…between the tats, zany hair & makeup and trashy outfits.) That being said, I will never be on board with the ‘have babies because it’s trendy’ movement that seems to take young Hollywood by storm. You’re young and at the peak of your career, just like do your twenties and have a ball and then do the mom thing a little bit later. You have time! You can still wear matching designer duds with your child when you’re in your 30’s. I’ve been watching Real Housewives of NY from the start. These ladies were popping out kids in their 50’s (lookin at you, Cindy) and parading them around for looks then handing them off to the nannies. YOU HAVE TIME! Anyway, that’s my rant about that, which should be enough but then I saw this photo and got RE-TRIGGERED.

WHY WOULD YOU GET A TATTOO THERE?! WHy WHY WHYWHy. Halsey. Please. JUST BE NORMAL. Tattooing baby directly where your baby is living IS NOT NORMAL. Is that even legal? Can you literally buzz a needle into your skin while your baby is in there beeboppin around in fluids? Even if it is legal, I feel like the tattoo artist has a moral obligation to be like sweetie, this is going to stretch out until it’s unreadable and then shrivel back down with lumpy dumpy stretch marks. Maybe just write it in pen instead, mmmk? I double dog dare Halsey to give us an after-birth shot of this tat. Obviously I have a lot of anger about the pending oops baby (and life in general) and before I heard the news, I happened to be driving along when Nightmare came on shuffle and I’ve never performed a song harder while driving. There was head banging and screaming. So if anyone is working through some stuff like I am, might I direct you to this little ditty because nothing feels more rewarding than unbottling your rage into the “I waited a while for a moment to say I DON’T OWE YOU A G-D THING” build-up.

2. Mighty Sucks.

I debated not even doing a blog this week because it’s been the actual worst and typically when I’m real down in the dumps I can’t be funny because everything just blows. But then I started writing and went off on a tangent and now I’m basically just writing this blog so I can get my untethered rage out. This very quickly became my second therapy sesh of the week. If you’re a generally positive and upbeat person, please see yourself out. This week’s blog is not for you. If you like to scream at inanimate objects or watch the world burn, WELCOME, MY FRIEND. In my second rant of this week, this little teaseroni for the Mighty Ducks reboot came out and it SUUUUUUUUUUUCKKKKKS. MIGHTY. SUCKZ. (Good one, Julia. OMG I KNOW RIGHT?!) We knew it was going to suck anyway because Disney + reboots are for infants and therefore the actual generation that grew up on the Ducks flying together will not appreciate this very kid-centric series. On top of that we have Lauren Graham which seems random as hell and just from this little snippet, I was already bored with her character. I guess her son sucks at hockey and she supports him enough to start a band of yellow-bellied losers led by the biggest loser of them all, Coach Bombay. Don’t get me wrong, Coach Bombay used to be cool as hell snatchin up all the ladies, skating in a flying V and coaching a bunch of misfits to victory. But did you see him in this trailer? WOOF, DUDE. Clean it up. There’s absolutely no hope for this reboot unless we get OG cameos from Goldberg, Charlie, The Bash Bros, Kenny Wu Wu, Julie the Cat Gaffney, even stupid rich boy Adam Banks. You toss a knuckle puck and a few appearances into this and we’ll talk but otherwise I’m OUT.

3. Robin Williams is a Gem.

That weird bird Rami Malek was on the Tonight show this week and shared this tidbit about working with Robin Williams at the end of his life. Although this story did not give me chills, it did make me miss Robin Williams. I was just carrying on with my garb life not thinking about how we tragically lost Robin Williams too soon and then Jimmy and Rami have to DRUM THOSE SADS UP AGAIN. Thanks, guys. I love that Robin was the guy on set telling everyone to get off their damn phones. That checks out. Classic dad move. Hey everyone, BE PRESENT. Bet they all feel like a buncha dicks now. Anyway, related to celebrity deaths but unrelated to this story, I’ve been rewatching How I Met Your Mother as my sleepytime show and last week I hit the episode where Marshall is trying to find the best burger in NYC and Regis is featured and as soon as I saw his cherub face I remembered once again that he’s gone and it made me miss him too. I’M TOO FRAGILE FOR THIS SHIT. Miss u Robin, Miss u Rege.

4. Disney Love Triangle.

I debated about covering this for the past few weeks but it’s still playing out and now it’s just downright hilarious so since I’ve already come in hot this week with the judgment, let’s learn about the latest love triangle rocking the world of Disney. Here’s the backstory, use the above photo for visual reference. Olivia (brunette) and Josh (JT wannabe in the middle) both starred in Disney’s show “High School Musical: The Musical — The Series” (sick name – insert deep eye roll here) and it was rumored that they had a little co-star fling. Tale as old as time, duetting leads to love. Then this past summer, Josh was publicly attached to Sabrina Carpenter (known by me as the female Shawn Hunter of Girl Meets World.) This probably would’ve gone quietly into the night as nothing but Olivia dropped a song a few weeks ago called “drivers license” and the world lost their minds. Not only is it a classic breakup song that will be the “All Too Well” of her teenie bopper fans, but she has a killer voice oh and no big deal but Taylor Swift gave it a stamp of approval. Apparently inspired by Taylor, Olivia also writes her own songs drawn from personal experiences. It became very clear that this song was about Josh dropping her ass for Sabrina. Except nothing about it was malicious. There was one little line about how he left her for a blonde. That’s it. The rest was just about how much is blows to be heartbroken. Here’s the song:

If we were dealing with adults, everyone would’ve been like kewl good song. Happy 4 u. But we’re dealing with children. So a week later, that curly-headed f*ck Josh releases “Lie Lie Lie” and declares it’s about getting close to someone and then they spread lies about you. COME ON, DUDE. It’s 2021. The WERST thing you can do for your image/career/life right now is publicly call a girl a liar when all she did was write a song about how sad and heartbroken she is. Whaaaaaat a douchenozzle. I hate this guy already.

AND THEN as if that wasn’t enough… a week or two later, Sabrina releases HER response track. CLASSIC case of hitting back harder for literally no reason. Here it is:

SABRINA. You got the guy AND you were never dragged in Olivia’s song, WHY YOU GOTTA BE LIKE THAT?! Sh-Sh-Shut your mouth. Now you look threatened & insecure as hell. “You can try to get under my skin while he’s on mine” WHAT A BITCH MOVE. I gotta go #TeamOlivia here. What a bad play. Not only is she releasing a song 100% knowing it’ll get more publicity because she’s in this little HSM threesome, but the song is rude as hell. Also important to note: it’s pretty damn catchy. I’ll give her that. Obviously there was dramatic backlash, Olivia immediately posted a video looking casj listening to Taylor Swift’s “Are You Ready For It”, Josh tried to promote both songs on his social media saying they were great but lookin like a real two-timing wiener and Sabrina released this statement:

Obviously she got under your skin, dumbass, you wrote a whole song trying to prove that you were unbothered. All teen drama aside, the biggest takeaway here is that music is 9 trillion times better when there’s drama behind it, which is why Taylor Swift is a powerhouse of writing bangpiece songs about real life things that have happened to her. Also, out of all three songs, Josh’s song is most obviously the worst. #GirlPower Did they all just play us by creating this Disney drama to get more attention to their music? It’s possible. If so, hats off to that Mickey Mouse marketing machine. But knowing how dramatic youths are these days, there’s a large probability that we just saw high school “she stole my boyfriend and I’m going to cry and write in my diary about it” play out via song IRL. And that’s your weekly installment of The Salty Ju reports what 15 year olds are talkin about this week. You’re welcome. *puts drivers license on and slowly circles the block with it blasting out the windows & tears rolling down my face*

5. DID WE MAKE THE RIGHT DECISION?!

I didn’t want to include this but being that it’s my bitchy week and there’s literally nothing else going on, why not pile on these turds as well. WHAT AN ART FORM IT IS TO PRETEND LIKE THE KARDASHIANS DO. The waterworks, the sappy Harry Styles song, the nostalgia and flashbacks and ending it with a dramatic as hell Kris Jenner saying “Did we make the right decision by walking away?” GOD, this family knows how to lay it on thick. I mean claps for them because that’s why they’re bajillionaires and I am not. But what a dog and pony show this LESS THAN A MINUTE teaser is. Now that we all know that the Kardashians will never go away and they just decided to move their 24/7 broadcast of their lives over to a paid subscription on Hulu, you can’t put the toothpaste back in the tube and make it seem like you came to this heart-wrenching decision to shut the cameras off forever. Cut the shit. You’ll ETERNALLY be milking your rich and fabulous lives on camera for paychecks. Dry those crocodile tears because I bet 5 minutes after this season wrapped you were bringing in a new camera crew for the reboot. AND THAT’S THE MOTHAF*CKIN’ TEA.

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JUice

Weekly JUice

Week of 1/18/2021

1. Don’t F With Cats, Tesla.

Listen, we’ve been on the Free Britney tirade for such a long period of time that I feel like maybe no one was paying any attention to Jamie-Lynn…and that’s on us. We took our eyes off of one Spears to focus on getting Brit off the drugs and give her some independence back and the younger one started killin a bunch of cats. That’s one way to act out and take the heat off your sister, JL. In one of the most outrageous celeb stories I’ve ever heard, Jamie-Lynn Spears came from the clouds with this video calling out Elon Musk for killing not one cat but MULTIPLE cats. I would assume that when your cat gets hit by a car, you immediately take it to the vet to see what you can do to save it. It’s gotta be on that vet to intervene, not the inventor of the silent car, no? On the second or third (dare I say fourth or fifth?) cat that you rush into the vet for emergency revival due to being flattened by a sneaky vehicle rolling in reverse I FEEL LIKE THERE NEEDS TO BE SOME SORT OF INTERVENTION. At the very least the Spears family should be on a universal no-fly list for adopting or purchasing any future cats or kittens. God, just typing that sentence immediately put that psychopants Carol Baskin saying “Hey all you cool cats and kittens” at the forefront of my brain and hot damn do I hate Tiger King for continuing to punish us almost a full year later. Anyway, from husband murderer back to cat murderer, we simply cannot allow this to slide under the radar that A) Jamie-Lynn is just killing cats left and right and 2) Rather than looking internally at how she can prevent it, like I don’t know, say CHECKING BEHIND THE CAR BEFORE HITTING THE GAS, she immediately takes to the web to call out Elon Musk for making such a quiet bajillion dollar car. Yup. This checks out. Elon must be stopped. He’s OUT OF CONTROL. FOR THE LOVE OF CATS, ELON, REDESIGN YOUR CAR. Obviously as soon as she posted this video and everyone called her a straight do-do brain and laughed directly in her face for how ridiculous and irrational this is, she deleted the video and tried to backpedal saying there might’ve been some user error, then tried to say no cats have been harmed. Girlfriend….you don’t say “we have now lost I don’t even want to tell you how many cats” if NO CATS HAVE BEEN HARMED. You say that when you’re covering up a pile of dead cats from you burning rubber out of your garage. And honestly, we all know how I feel about cats and I’m the first to blame them for everything because they’re all straight a-holes. But for once I’m on #TeamCat here. IT’S NOT THEIR FAULT! SAVE THE CATS! SAVE BRITNEY! SAVE JAMIE-LYNN! But seriously though, do a wellness check on the entire Spears family (and maybe change their social passwords for a trial period) cause shit’s getting out of control over there. Lock it up, guys. PS I think we all learned from the best true crime doc Netflix ever made, Don’t F*** With Cats TO NOT F WITH CATS…I assume Baudi Moovan and John Green are already on the case.

2. Tough Break For Ben.

First we all end 2020 razzing HOARD on Ben for his Dunks and his packages and then not even two weeks later we learn he got dumped by this babe soda. Obviously Ben is no schlub in the looks department but I think we can all agree he was really outkicking his coverage with Ana de Armas whose career is just starting to blow up, plus she’s a Cuban-Spanish tamale. I mean, if that didn’t sell you…let me just remind you of this:

Case closed. As much as I feel sorry for Ben to lose his girl (after losing perfect angel Jennifer Garner) and have to live with that COLORFUL back art for the rest of his life…I can’t help but laugh my face off at this paps shot post-breakup:

Only in Hollywood do you have to THROW OUT A LIFE SIZE CUTOUT AFTER A BREAKUP. Let it also be known, “It took two people to stuff the cutout into the trash.” Good to know. It would be embarrassing as hell if the next time I went through a breakup I only had one hired help to take the cutout of my sig other to the dumpster when clearly it’s a job for two. No one wants to get caught by the papz struggling to throw out the ex. BREAKUPS ARE HARD ENOUGH.

3. Secret Child Confirmed.

You know there are few things I hate more than a hidden Hollywood baby. Justin Timberlake and Jessica Biel are mega superstars and they’re gonna try and sneak a baby out? Get the hell out of my face with that fresh garbage. You in Hollywood for life or you not in it at all. Babies, cheating scandals, what have you. You can’t pick and choose what you want us to hear about. SORRY CHARLIE. Dem’s da breaks. You get enough perks for us to know when you’re popping out kiddies. Obviously the news was leaked that Jessica had a baby during quarantine while they were holed up in Montana. And since I’m a bitter bitch who has wanted to be married to JT since I first laid eyes on him in the 90’s, I obviously pointed out that the timing of baby #2 coming after JT got caught with his hand in the cookie jar was preeettyyyy obviously a “let’s save the marriage with a baby” situation. Might’ve also been why they decided to keep it a big ole secret but maybe they should’ve told Lance Bass because he blabbed that shit almost immediately. God Lance, JT is never going to allow an N*SYNC reunion if you don’t shut your trap. Anyway, Justin confirmed the arrival of his second son, Phineas. How do a Jessica and a Justin make a Silas and a Phineas? I mean come on. Also, don’t think I was going to let Ellen’s flex slide either. She’s all, oh silly me I forgot you’re a dad again because when we were Facetiming forever ago you told me personally that Jess was pregnant because we’re BFF’s. You’re not Jimmy Fallon, Ellen. Take a seat. My eyes rolled down the block when JT told her she was one of the first to know. Ellen doesn’t need any more of an ego. So major lessons to take away here are 1/Tell Lance Bass nothing, 2/Next time you debut the news of your secret baby, do it on the Tonight Show with your real BFF J.Fall, and 3/I’m prettier than Jessica Biel. Case closed.

4. Khai Hadid-Malik.

Let’s keep the train rolling with baby names I don’t like, shall we? Gigi announced this week via her Instagram bio (she’s so Gen Z it hurts) that her and Zayn’s daughter is named Khai. Immediately I assumed it was pronounced like Cobra Kai (shoutout Netflix) but when I sent it to my friend to razz on it, and she asked how we think it’s pronounced I realized that it is one of those names that you don’t immediately feel confident saying out loud. And let me just state for the record, I hate those kind of names. I need a nice straightforward name. I can see this name going either K-EYE or K-AYY and it’s a no for me, dawg. My friend had a much more diplomatic response saying she doesn’t love it but doesn’t hate it, it’s just not her cup of tea. And that’s why she’s a better person than me. I will never ever be diplomatic about a celebrity baby name. At least with parents like Gigi and Zayn, we knew we were in for a zany (wordplay intended) name rather than Jess and Justin trying to act out their frustrations at growing up with white wholesome American names. I also have no idea what Khai’s legal last name will be, which I feel like could make a difference about how much I hate it or not. Anyway, Geeg, if you’re reading this, hit us with a phonetic spelling, por favor. Also a picture of her face to see if she is on the fast track to being a model. TYSM.

5. Remember Ricky Martin?

Well he really wants us to remember him. I saw this photo and nearly puked in my hands. When bored, literally never ever ever bleach. No times a million, trillion, Ricky. Looks like someone’s having a hard time coming to terms with inching closer and closer to his 50th birthday. Let’s just take a trip in our time machines back to a time when if you were bored, you bleached just the tip instead. Cause nothing gets a weekend started more than a spicy horn section and some spiked tips.

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Salty Stories

Let The Creatures Take Me.

I don’t do creatures. You’re probably wondering, what are creatures? Oh wow, great question, thanks for asking! This is my all-encompassing term to describe anything that creeps me out and thus should not be allowed in my vicinity, let alone sharing a home with me. In middle school one of my friends told me that you’re always within three feet of a spider while we were camping out in her backyard and I almost didn’t walk in the grass back to her house for fear of how many spiders my feet would come in contact with in the grass. I would’ve become a permanent resident of that tent just to avoid being NEAR a spider. There have been multiple incidents since then where I have considered torching my car upon finding webs INSIDE the vehicle but the culprit was missing. It’s like it couldn’t help spinning that home with it’s butt and then going into hiding, knowing what a psychological mind fuck it is for me to find a new cob web every time I go to drive somewhere but the architect was still at large. In fact, now that I really stop and think about it, I’ve been taunted by creatures my whole life.

There was a very significant stink bug phase of my adult life where every apartment that I lived in had an infestation of stink bugs during peak season and I just had to fight them off as they took over my home, knowing that if I squashed them, they would FURTHER punish me AFTER THEY HAVE PASSED by releasing their stink into the atmosphere. And that’s not even my biggest complaint about stink bugs because a little bit of smell is overshadowed by the comfort of knowing they are done haunting me. My biggest issue with them is that they fly. WHY OH WHY did we let these insects grow wings? If they were just stationary bugs I would have no issue stomping on them, but instead they turn into freaking pterodactyls and buzz all over the joint making them ten times more terrifying. The first time I learned that they can take to the sky was in my first solo apartment. I was making dinner when I heard a buzzing so loud I could only assume I was being swarmed by locusts and then it was INCREDIBLY close to my ear and I went to touch my hair and felt a hard shell. A stink bug had flown directly into my head and gotten stuck there. Naturally I screamed and flailed and then it fell to the back of my sweater and got stuck there. As I stripped down throwing clothes and contemplating shaving my head, I knew that this was just the beginning of my story with stink bugs. My hate for them reached its peak in 2017 when I was working at a new job and they were RAINING FROM A VENT IN THE CEILING ONTO MY DESK FOR WEEKS. So obviously the stinks and the spiders have always had a personal vendetta against me, see below for a journey through the years of definitely not at all dramatic live tweetings of each insectual encounter.

Although spiders, centipedes (WHY DO THEY HAVE SO MANY LEGS?!), stink bugs, bees (if they didn’t have a needle as an ass they wouldn’t be so horrifying), bed bugs, cockroaches and ants (one time I had carpenter ants in my wall and I could hear them building an empire at night) all fall into the creature category, we move up the chain of scary the bigger that the animal is. For example, I’m more afraid of bats than I am of spiders. Bats are creepy as hell with their red beady eyes and the fact that they swoop down without a sound and drink your blood and turn you into a vampire. As you’ve probably gathered by now, I’m a very impressionable girl. Someone will tell me a fact that may not even be true and I’ll carry it with me for the rest of my life, repeating it to everyone I meet. Back in my teen years when I held a cashier job at Wegmans, there was a bat loose in the store one day and a fellow cashier informed me that bats LOVE curly hair and tend to be drawn to it because it reminds them of their nest. Again, I immediately considered shaving my head. All I could think of was having a bat go after my luscious ringlets and then someone capturing it on my head with a bag, Dwight style. 

For the rest of my life, whenever I heard a bat story I relayed this fact to whoever would listen and told them I was deathly afraid. During a night of debauchery a few years ago, I was walking into a friend’s apt for a little pregame and as we were going up her back steps in the dark, something hit my head with such force that I obviously screamed. Without missing a beat, my friend goes oh that’s the bat that lives underneath our porch. HOW CASUAL. MY FEAR HAD BECOME REALIZED. THE BAT WANTED TO NEST IN MY CURLS AND RICOCHETED OFF OF MY DOME. I may or may not have rabies. I was never tested.

As if the 20 years of insects and bats preying on me WASN’T ENOUGH, we’ve arrived at DEFCON level 1 of creatures: Rodents. To be perfectly clear, even though people keep hamsters, guinea pigs and rabbits as pets, they fall into the creature category for me. Ever since my childhood trauma of a friend who knew that I was afraid of hamsters PUT HER HAMSTERS—YES MORE THAN ONE— ON TOP OF ME, I’m OUT on both domesticated and wild rodents. I don’t care if it lives in a cage and you feed it and name it, get it the hell out of my life. My family learned just how a small furry critter could cripple my life in my teen years when I would spend hours upon hours in my basement in front of the family computer on AIM. Each night I would go down there at 10PM with a can of Pepsi and a snack and not re-emerge until 2 or 3AM. Who was I talking to? Realistically no one. I was probably updating my profile to highlight my 3 BFF’s initials or create a dramatic lyric with the right word italicized or just waiting for my crush to log on with that open door squeak while I blasted emo music and refreshed my Myspace page. I was “cool” in that basement. Until one night a tiny little mouse scampered across the carpet near me and I almost fell out of my chair and beat it up the stairs. To be clear, I did beat it up the stairs every single time I turned those lights off at the end of the night and if you didn’t also do the same to escape a possible serial killer then I don’t want to know you as a human. But anyway, after I ran from the furry foe, I declared that I wouldn’t return back downstairs until there was definitive proof that the mouse was gone and it did not have any remaining relatives or friends also kicking it rent-free in our basement. Do you know how much of a commitment it was for a teenager in the AIM days to boycott the computer?! It’d be like giving up your cell phone today. And I stuck to it! My dad caught the mouse almost immediately, shamed me for being afraid of it claiming it was the smallest mouse he’s ever seen and yet I still doubled down that it might have homies and didn’t return to my desktop throne for almost a month afterward. That’s when my family learned that I don’t F around when it comes to mice. 

My co-workers unfortunately had to learn this lesson many years later when I was pretty fresh on a job and was asked to help unload theatrical sets off a truck into a warehouse. I’m not sure of how someone could take one look at my bitch ass and think that I would EVER be helpful in this situation, but as I was new, I was on my best behavior and put on some sneakers to get to work. I quickly learned that not only was I useless because the set was made from steel and I’ve never lifted a weight in my life, but when we picked up a flat and uncovered A MOUSE GIVING BIRTH AT MY FEET, I solidified my role as top asshole by dropping the heavy set, squealing and nearly Kool Aid man running a hole in the wall to get the hell out of there. I’m sorry but once you VIEW A BLOODY MOUSE BIRTH CENTIMETERS FROM YOUR FEET, it’s curtains. I refused to even go on that side of the warehouse for the rest of my residency at this job. Luckily my soon to be boyfriend worked with me at the warehouse and I would regularly bat my eyes and tell him to go do my job if it required going into mousy territory. I’m not saying I’m a flirting expert but we DID date for three years after that so…I obv know how to reel ‘em in. I knew he’d be a ride or die when he went so far as to hide another Mickey on the loose situation from me a few months later knowing I would full on kill myself if I saw it. Also important note to any future suitors: clearly my only standard is can you deal with creatures so I don’t have to. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, the only reason to get married is to have a full-time hubs to kill all the spiders and build all the things. 

Jumping for joy or away from mice? We may never know.

Here’s the thing, what I don’t know won’t hurt me. Seeing a mommy mouse with bloody baby mice hanging off of her scurry away (just wanted to give you that visual again because if I had to see it so do you) or finding a shredded marshmallow Santa in my overnight bag and putting the pieces together that a rodent joined the slumber party IS NOT SOMETHING I CAN HANDLE. I want to just exist in a bubble where creatures are not.

I feel like I needed to give you a full history of my creature interactions for you to understand why me finding mouse droppings on my kitchen counter the other night was THE END OF THE WORLD. I’ve been #blessed enough to never have a mouse-infested apartment…even when I lived in dirty water Boston. Well, the streak of luck has abruptly ended. I wanted to tell myself that it was just a little chocolate on the counter but I knew I had an uninvited guest and obviously texted everyone I know to alert them on the matter. I avoided my kitchen for the rest of the night, googled the best mouse traps to buy (and if renters insurance covers exterminators…it does not) and then promptly had 9000 nightmares about the mice crawling all over me in my sleep that evening. Everyone told me that would never happen and that they were more afraid of me than I am of them. UM. EXSQUEEZE ME?! I think we can all agree after reading this, that could not be further from the truth. Also, it’s an open apartment, these little fuckers are gonna go wherever they want and you know what’s super warm and cozy? MY BED. Jus sayin. As much as everyone tried to talk me down, shout out to my therapist who’s a real one and told me point blank that when she was living in Boston she woke up to find a mouse crawling up her arm and into her shirt where it then GOT STUCK IN HER HAIR. Nope. NOPE TIMES A MILLION TRILLION. ERASE ME FROM THIS PLANET IF THAT EVER HAPPENS TO ME. So IN YOUR FACE to everyone who told me I was overreacting. Obviously, I’m satisfied that I’ve proven everyone wrong with a real life incident but also I will now never sleep a wink again. The next morning I bought traps then FaceTimed my dad to learn how to set one. As my dad is telling me to hold the end down when putting the peanut butter in, I’m motioning to the spot where it goes and said, “Oh you mean right here?” And the trap snaps shut and OBLITERATES my finger. Immediate red mark, tears and permanent damage to my psyche when it comes to mouse traps. My dad rolled his eyes and told me that was exactly what he was saying. SORRY I’M NOT SMARTER THAN A MOUSE, DAD. 

That was right around the time when I gave up on this whole endeavor. If I moved out that day maybe I could find enough generous friends who allow me to couch surf until I’ve found a mouse-free living establishment. Instead, what I did was text my landlord with my uninjured hand and beg him to come over and set the traps for me. If you’ll recall, my landlord is a real baller having already dealt with me blowing a fuse for my Celine Dion Tiktok and clearly has a high tolerance for my bullshit and doesn’t just tell me to find a husband like my dad does. As he set the trap, I lowkey relayed to him that creatures terrify me and I was not doing well in this scenario so that he understood that in no way would I be dealing with these traps should they catch something. I think he picked up what I was putting down. I did not divulge that I refused to put the traps down because I was scared to get any closer to the crevices where I assumed the mouse was kicked back in a La-Z-Boy feasting on popcorn kernels. I had already been blowing in and out of my kitchen with hurricane force when hunger strikes, banging cabinets and talking out loud since I had found the droppings. I needed to remind my new roomie who was paying the rent here and more importantly, the heat bill. 

Needless to say, the next morning when I woke up, speedwalked through the kitchen to get in the shower and saw one of the traps on its side with a dark shadow, I had a full-on seizure of terror and almost knocked the door off its hinges trying to get into the bathroom. I slowly peered out of a crack in the bathroom door to confirm that the trap had a resident. I mean what if this thing was just playing dead or had somehow figured out a way to lap up that PB and not get caught? There was no way I was getting any closer to scope out the scene. I kept my eyes up and immediately texted my landlord to handle the disposal. And by that I mean I texted him (and everyone I know) “DEAD MOUSE ALERT sobbing emoji, puking emoji, skull emoji” and hoped that my colorful text would convey my crippling fear. It did. He got Mickey out of there REAL QUICK and just as I was feeling relieved that we were dealing with a dumbass who walked right into the trap on night one, he shared with me that mice are like rabbits and love to procreate. AKA THIS IS NOW A SAGA OF WAITING FOR THOSE TRAPS TO SNAP ON THE REMAINING TROOPS. So it was nice knowing you all. Thank you for your moral support and for laughing with me or at me through my struggles but this is it for me. I’ll just continue leading the great American bandstand through my kitchen when I need something and quickly retreating back to safety on my side of the apartment crippled by fear when I’m done. I’m no Snow White. I’m not equipped to handle living in the forest with the woodland creatures. We had quite a run. UhhhhBUHBYE.

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JUice

Weekly JUice

Week of 1/11/2021

1. I Couldn’t Help But Wonder…

satc

…If Sex and the City would keep coming back until they’re all in their graves. It was announced this week that Sex and the City is making a comeback to HBO and honestly the timing could not have been more perfect. I had just finished re-watching the whole series right at the same time. Big showed up and rescued Carrie from the garbage Russian and just like that this video hits social media.

First thing’s first, let’s address the drama in the room. Kim Cattrall AKA Samantha is OUT. After years of dumping on all the other girls, claiming they bullied her, claiming she never wanted to do the movies to begin with, rumors swirling that she only did them if the production company promised to move forward with her solo projects as well….in summary Kim’s kind of an a-hole and had been holding up the process. So they kicked her to the curb. And as the most inappropriate part of the foursome, can we really call it SEX and the City without Samantha? I gotta be honest, I’ve always seen re-runs of SATC on E! and had never seen the original unedited episodes until these past few months when I finally got HBO and decided to start from the top. OH BABY did this show make me blush. I had no idea what I was missing with all the editing. It’s a completely different show and Samantha is basically a soft-core porn star in it. It was definitely risque for the time period and let’s just quickly recall that by the end of the series, the characters were in their late 30’s and early to mid forties (I don’t know if we ever pinned down Samantha’s age.) Which brings me to my point about this revival. I think it’s time to call it quits. It was time to call it quits in the the second movie when a 50-60 year old woman was kicked out of Abu Dhabi for giving a blowie on the beach. I’m a fan of the show, the first movie was phenomenal because we got our Carrie wedding (and also epic wedding fail) but the second movie was trash and that’s typically when you let things go to die. This revival is a show or maybe short series I’m guessing because every streaming service needs a hot new thing to get people to sign up and empty their pockets but WHY. We’re missing 1/4 of the gal pals, they’re now older than dirt and we’re supposed to still want to hear them talk about sex? What is this Golden Girls After Dark? No thanks. I’m not sure how this appeals to the core audience of SATC other than to pull the nostalgia factor like EVERY OTHER UNWANTED REUNION ON THIS PLANET. I’m still going to watch it obviously but I will be VERY UNCOMFY with it. I mean…come on….

carriethenandnow

2. 100% A Cannibal.

armie

While we’re on the topic of sex, maybe Carrie and the girls can incorporate this hot topic in the reboot. Armie Hammer, actor and smoldering babe soda has recently created a wee bit of a riff in the interwebs for some DM’s of his that have been released. This is where things might get a little weird on The Salty Ju. Although I sat around a table at Wegmans when the Fappening occurred and passed celeb nudes around with my family members and I’ve covered a few of those nudes on here and become the go-to person my friends text for the uncensored version (proud of that one), I’ve never taken a face first dive into kinky DM’s. So this will be a first. Congrats to you all for being witness. So apparently there’s been some hints before to Armie being a real freak in the sheets. He’s recently divorced with two kids so I guess he’s full blown getting after it and one of his lady friends released these DM’s which according to many sources are legit:

armietexts

I’ve got real mixed feelings here. You know when he says “that just made me so hard and it makes me confused as to why”? That’s what “thinking of holding your heart in my hand and controlling when it beats” did to me. Is it weird? YUP. But would you not even BAT an EYELASH at this in a red hot read or a sexy Netflix movie? YUP TIMES A THOUSAND. CHICKS EAT THIS SHIT UP. There’s a reason 50 Shades of Grey was a freaking phenomenon. Hot and bothered women everywhere just want to be freed and get freaky with a hot guy. If it came out that Dustin Diamond was sending these DM’s to someone everyone would be like lock him TF up, but a Winkelvoss Twin? Now you’ve got a bunch of horned up and confused ladies. Do we like cannibals now? Is this a thing? The answer of course is no because cutting the heart out of living animal and eating it while it’s still warm is pre-crime shit and that’s when we come back down to earth and say mmm better not. Armie had us going for a moment there, though. I briefly considered what it would be like for his strong hands to control my heartbeat. Armie did not immediately respond to the whirlwind of DM’s that were sneaking out but unfortunately had to make a statement once the movie he was about to film cut him from the roster. Apparently JLo’s latest flick was NOT down with the cannibalism (what a bunch of prudes) and he was released and said the following:

Screen Shot 2021-01-14 at 11.18.16 PM

So I guess he just has more time on his hands to eat people and shit. #Don’tKinkShame

3. Sorry, Buuuuuuuuuuddy.

It’s unfortunate that I used the previous example of Dustin Diamond and then 8 hours after I wrote it, Screech’s team declares that he has cancer and is going through chemotherapy. Sorry I used you as an example of someone no one would ever want to have sex with, D Squared. Hope you can forgive me. Tough break to have cancer but on top of that Dustin also has shingles so he’s really been smited by disease. As another child star who went WAY off the rails, it sucks that he’s going through this but also he’s the type of guy that was CONSTANTLY trying to get headlines ever since the SBTB days so it’s kind of hard to feel like this is coming from a genuine place. He was the ONLY one not included in the woke reboot on Peacock probably due to the fact that he forayed into porn and bashed every single actor he ever worked with on the show. That’s neither here nor there to stand-up gent Mario Lopez who already made a statement:

What a guy. Does this mean all is forgiven and Screech will find his way back to the reboot? Only time will tell. PS: I burst out laughing when I read this exchange in the replies. Apparently real fans know who has stayed in touch and why…credit to Joe for keeping us all in check.

4. This Goes Out…This Goes Out to all the One Tree Hill Fans.

Former OTH heartthrobs James Lafferty and Stephen Colletti (LOL to refer to him as an OTH star when we all know where he got his start) created this show like 5 years ago and have been yapping about it constantly and trying to get it crowd-source funded to even shoot the damn thing. It’s concerning as hell that male leads for a primetime TV show that was on the air for 9 seasons can’t afford to shoot a few episodes of TV, but whatever, rabid fans made their tv show happen and after FOR-EV-ER it finally got picked up by Hulu. Add this to your watch list this weekend if you ever bought a Duke sweatshirt after Nathan Scott committed to playing basketball there only to wear it with MUCH disappointment while watching the end of season 4 where Duke rescinded the offer because he was point shaving…oh…was that just me? Whatever. I support this show but not enough to have given my own hard-earned dollars to a bunch of MUCH wealthier than me actors to get it made. So I’m glad we can now view it for free. This is what happens when there’s not a lot to report each week, I just make new show rec’s for your weekend of winter binging. You’re welcome.

5. The Demi Doc We ALL Need.

The minute I saw this I texted it to my friend with just YUSSSSSSSSSSSS, which really sums up my feelings on the matter. This is what we’ve been waiting for. I blogged about her first YouTube doc and how I loved every minute of it and learned so much about Demi being a total badass in the Disney days and obviously it’s no secret that I’m obsessed with her and spend a fair amount of time on this blog pretending I’m her BFF who likes to give unsolicited advice about her dating life. Honestly I’m so rabid for gossip and behind the scene deets about her life that March seems WAY too far away to wait for this. To get right to the elephant in the room, she obviously addresses her near death overdose.

Love that she’s using her platform to open up about her struggles but also keeping my fingers crossed that she drags that ex-fiance fame whore a little bit as well. It’s all about balance and sometimes you don’t always need to take the high road, Demi. Would love to hear what she thinks about him staging a cryfest photoshoot at the beach where he proposed after they broke up. Will report back in March when I 100% have a solo watch party with my girl Demi.

BONUS: Even the Olsen Twins Zoom.

Apparently MK had to do zoom court for her divorce and having a screenshot of her divorce proceedings over Zoom was easily the funniest thing I saw this week. You know I love to giggle at any current Olsen twins appearance because it’s like conjuring up dark magic. Who would’ve thought the girls who wore matching colored bandannas and sunglasses would turn into grim reapers but shout out to MK for giving us a GENUINE smile. Things are looking up for her post-divorce it seems. Her black turtleneck says I’m mourning this marriage but her face says I’M FREEEEEE!

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JUice

Weekly JUice

Week of 1/4/2021

We made it to 2021. Are you one of those people who thinks when the clock strikes midnight on January 1st the world resets and everything changes… or are you rational? New year, same everything baybay, which of COURSE includes me razzing celebrities for their life choices…don’t matter what the numbers on the cal say. LET’S GET TO IT.

1. When Harry Met Wilde.

Olivia-Wilde-Harry-Styles

My friend scooped me on this new Hollywood item. I always feel like I need to be honest with my readers when I’ve gotten got. Mostly because I rub it directly in everyone’s faces when I scoop them. It’s only fair to play both sides. At first when she broke the news I was thinking it was Olivia Culpo and I was like oh yeah duh. Hot young twenty-something’s dating, checks out. Then I stopped myself and said WILDE. As in freshly broken up with Baby Daddy Jason Sudeikis with two kiddies running around at home. And this does not check out. I mean obviously Harry has always had a thing for older women but here’s where I have a bone to pick. Harry is livin the damn dream. He’s got a wildly successful solo career, he’s become somewhat of a fashion icon (controversially so, plz reference the Vogue cover where he cross-dressed and everyone lost their G-D minds), and he’s known for having a solid sense of humor. Basically he’s the whole package and now is NOT the time for him to be playing daddy to someone else’s kids in a messy entanglement. It’s obviously a rebound–one that I’m sure Jason wants to drill his eyes out seeing unfold as he is 45 years old and his baby momma is smooching with a 26 year old. Most importantly, I wanted to drill my eyes out at the sight of this new fling’s debut. They’re attending a wedding together, so before I even opened the picture I expected to see a real outlandish getup from Mr. Styles. What I saw instead was him in a plain bagel black tux and Olivia wearing a turban and a nightgown to someone’s formal affair. Coming from someone who rotates through an impressive collection of loungewear and sweats on a weekly basis, I get that I have no leg to stand on judging fashion HOWEVER if I were invited to a wedding (especially now) you bet your ass I’d be showing up the bride or I wouldn’t be attending at all. What a wasted opportunity for Olivia to get red carpet ready. Seems like SOMEONE has been listening to a little too much folklore/evermore. Here’s some more gratuitous shots of the new coups gallivanting around town, masked. As I imagine this will be short-lived, get it while it’s hot. I’m gonna toss it out there these two won’t make it to Spring. Sorry not sorry.

harry-styles-olivia-wildeharry-olivia

Also here’s Harry’s latest music video that’s real weird but he does a lot of dancing, if you’re into that sort of thing. I thought I was going to be but apparently my boner for Harry Styles went away in 2016 when everyone in my family made fun of me for having a crush on him.

2. The Wests Go South.

2016 MTV Video Music Awards - Arrivals

Shocking to absolutely no one and yet everyone at once, the two biggest narcissistic a-holes on this earth might actually officially end things. WHAT?! A perfect pairing! WHY 2021…WHYYYYYYYYYY?! COULD THIS YEAR GET ANY WORSE?! Gawd, cue the CANCEL MY SUBSCRIPTION TO 2021 MEMES. After Kanye ran for president, publicly declared he wanted to abort their firstborn because he was still banging other chicks at the time, going on manic raves on Twitter comparing Kris Jenner to a dictator…I think we pretty much all called curtains on this relashe. But even a tone deaf Kardashian knew that post-mental health breakdown was not an approps time to serve someone divorce papers. So I assume they went on living their lives separately in the 900 mansions that they own and honestly I thought they might carry on like that forever. Why get a messy divorce when you’ve got a mastermind like Kris Jenner in the mix? Bitch could probably snap her fingers and hide this whole thing, banishing Kanye to Wyoming and Kim could be free to live her life and fly her closest 100 friends out to a private island for her 40th birthday party. It seemed like the perfect agreement. Except not anymore! Apparently now it’s time to cut the ties officially, which probably means there’s a scandal waiting to come out and I’m salivating at the prospect. LET KANYE BACK ON TWITTER AND OPEN THE FLOODGATES, YO! Give us the dirt. And speaking of Kim’s #ThisIs40 douchebaggery, apparently Kanye only showed up for one day of it to drop that WEIRD hologram bomb and then peace tf out. I find that hilarious. Probably the creepiest gift of all time to bring back someone’s dead dad as a hologram to overly compliment your husband but even more hilarious to do it on the verge of divorce and then roll out. Clearly it worked as Kim shared that moment with the world to rave about her AMAHZING husband and the perfect gift. Which leads me to my favorite tweet of this whole scandal:

Rumors have surfaced that Kanye was cheating on Kim with Jeffree Star, a Youtube makeup guy…but like 5 mins after that one started swirling, the girl who started it on Tiktok admitted to doing it for clout and is now being sued by Kim Kardashian and using it to get more followers. The deeeeeeepest of eye rolls. Either way, I’ll keep my ear to the ground (Twitter) in anticipation of the guaranteed scandal that will come of this divorce. By the end of 2021 the I don’t need no stinkin man for world domination Kardashians will be on THE PROWL. Can’t hold no mans down when you’re running an empire. 

3. New Binge Alert.

If you know ANYTHING about me, you know that I suffer from the most severe form of FOMO. If people are talking about something, I need to consume it as well. I had heard about Bridgerton coming to Netflix from my book club (yeah that’s right, I’m now a middle class divorcee) based on a series of books that are equal parts red hot read and historical. I checked out the trailer and my sister and I both decided that this show wasn’t for us. We love a good sexy book or show (and unfortunately even delved into 365 days long enough to learn that stealing a woman and forcing her to have sex with you is what the kids are into these days) but we’ve never been much into the historical colonial times. And for that reason we were out. Then I spent roughly 3 more days on Twitter with everyone popping off about Bridgerton before I finally caved. Last weekend I took the deep dive. 8 episodes of “the season” in Regency England, which essentially is a Gossip Girl of the 1800’s. It was interesting enough for me to commit to it but also as I warned my sister when I told her she probably wouldn’t tolerate it–the sex doesn’t really start to happen until about halfway through. It’s a real snoozy lead-up to be honest. In addition to being a slow build to climax, there’s also the super weird factor that girls (yes, girls, I’m guessing 16 was the marrying age) didn’t know what sex was until they were married. That was a BIT of a turnoff for me while watching scandalous romps. I mean the main character didn’t understand how babies were made. And that’s VERY CONCERNING to me. Other than that… the music slapped, everyone was hot (minus the unfortunate bangs) and there was enough juicy gossip intrigue to keep me hooked. So in conclusion, if you have a short attention span–this is a skip. If you have a little time on your hands like myself, give it a watch because you KNOW there will be a season 2. It’s Shonda Rhimes. That bitch don’t know how to NOT make a hit TV show. (Last pro tip: put the subtitles on…you’re going to need it with the 1,2 punch of British accents AND old English phrases.)

4. Bean Dad.

A Twitter treasure occurred this week and so I must report on it for all of my followers (my family) who are not on Twitter. A guy who probably isn’t really famous but has a podcast with Jeopardy great Ken Jennings decided to hop on the ole Twitter machine and tell a funny story. Well, a story he thought was funny. And NO ONE ELSE AGREED. This 1 million tweet thread in summary is: his 9 year old was hungry, she wanted beans, she didn’t know how to open the can, so he used it as a teaching moment and wouldn’t let her eat until she learned how to use a can opener. He obviously drew it out and was clearly exaggerating several parts of the story. None of it made me laugh. Everyone PILED on him and told him he was a terrible dad and made fun of him and then eventually dug up old racist tweets of his until he deleted his account and went into hiding. An undoing of BEANS. I have SO many thoughts on this and probably the most prominent one is BEANS. WHAT HUMAN BEING EATS BEANS FROM A CAN FOR LUNCH? ARE YOU A 105 YEAR OLD HOMELESS PERSON? Like just the word BEANS grosses me out and makes me immediately think of farts. So sucks to be this guy who now will forever be known as Bean Dad. Bet he wishes it was a can of chicken noodle soup now. Second of all, it is well known within my family and a close trusted circle of friends that I physically cannot operate a can opener. So right off the bat this story hit home with me. If I grew up with Bean dad, I’d probably have starved to death. Instead, I grew up with bougie enablers who raised me on an electric can opener. You know what you do with an electric can opener? You plug it in and stick the can to the magnetic top and push down on the button. BOOM. Can opened. I wrongfully assumed that this was the time period we were living in and that *manual* can openers were extinct. I found out through living in a townhouse with a bunch of girls in college, this was not the case. I broke so many can openers in college attempting to learn how to use one that I finally had to admit my fault and purchase my own electric can opener. I also had a very jarring incident where I hacked at a can of olives one day, broke the can opener and then broke skin on my finger on the jagged half open can edge trying to strong arm it the rest of the way open. I almost had to go get a tetanus shot BECAUSE I AM A CAN OPENING MORON. Don’t show Bean Dad this. He’ll beat me to death with a can. Now that I have all of this off my chest I can say my life has been much more free owning the fact that I am an electric can opener gal and would NEVER survive in the wild. But also, let it be known that even with my fancy doodad that magically opens the cans, never under any circumstances would that can be BAKED BEANS. Also, obviously Bean Dad came back with an apology because that’s how the world works. Nowhere in there did he apologize for feeding his child beans. Shout out to my parents for never feeding me beans and also coddling me with an electric can opener since birth. YOU DA REAL ONES.

5. Is JB Hot?

Justin Bieber dropped a new song and a very theatrical music video based on him as a fighter and since it occurred in an era where men didn’t cover their bodies in tats, he airbrushed over all of his bod art. And seeing Biebs not covered head to toe in ink I had to take a long hard look at myself and ask, do I think Justin Bieber is HOT?! The jury’s still out on if I’d date a makeup covered Biebz, but regardless, this song is good and you KNOW I love a dramatic music video.

BONUS:

This picture was taken on New Years Eve and it gave me a deep belly chuckle. Of course everyone was like HOW 2020 OF BEN AFFLECK juggling packages and his Dunks order while wearing loungewear. And yeah, that’s true. But what’s more hilarious is how we have paparazzi who are hired to take pictures of Ben Affleck with his coffee. There are 9 zillion photos of Ben Affleck with a Dunks icey at your disposal at any moment’s notice. At what point do the paparazzi say you know what? I think we’re good on that type of content. The answer is obviously never. Honestly at this point I’m just surprised as to why Ben and Casey Affleck aren’t the TOP spokespeople for Dunks. Between their artfully crafted Boston accents, affinity for all Boston sports, constant Dunks in their hand and of course, the critically acclaimed Dunkin SNL sketch…WHAT IS CORPORATE DUNKS WAITING FOR?! Since I’m a creative mastermind and I am unemployed (get @ me Dunks Marketing) I’ll set the scene for you…Dunks sent out a branded TANDEM bike as part of their pre-holiday merch line and I was salivating at the thought of owning it.

Now I’m salivating at the thought of Ben and Casey Affleck riding this hot rod through downtown Boston, handing out glazed donuts and iced coffees. Make it happen Dunks or you’ll get a Vanilla Nut Tap.

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Movies, Television

Best of the Worst Hallmark Holiday Movies, 2020 Edition

Hallmark and Lifetime (mostly Hallmark) have been in the crosshairs in recent years as society has become more “woke” that they’re not really all about equal Christmas love representation. It’s funny that everyone has an issue with representation yet no one feels the need to question how two individuals can get interrupted right as their lips are about to touch MULTIPLE times in a two hour timeframe. Seriously WHERE DO THESE PEOPLE COME FROM?! At this point I wouldn’t be surprised if small town folk started popping out of the bushes to interrupt these dry ass kisses. Putting my almost-kiss outrage aside (for now), you’ll notice that the networks are really trying to branch out so they don’t get cancelled. This year we had our first gay Christmas love stories AND our first wheelchair badass rollin on up to the party. Really keeping things spicy here and despite the fact that I am the MOST unemployed, I can only stomach so many of these movies without alcohol and people to roast them with so I did not up my quota of movies consumed this year. I’m trying to live by the theory that you’re not an alcoholic if you wait until after dinner to start drinking by yourself, so that was the only time I could get down with these flicks. (If you’d like my Hallmark drinking game, inquire within.)

Also important to note: though they’re concerned with representation now, that does not include youths. This was the first time I’ve ever felt too young for these movies with the leads they’ve been trotting out from the grave. Or in my sister’s words “Hallmark really dipped into the olds this year.” There comes a point in time where it’s no longer believable that 44 year old Candace Cameron Bure is single, childless, never been married and looking for love at Christmas. And that was every movie this year. These movies should not exclusively be a reunion tour of 90’s child actors. If they don’t sprinkle in some younger leads next year I’ll be forced to permanently move my attention to Disney +. DON’T MAKE ME DO THAT. Anyway, let’s GET READY TO RUMBLE, AWFUL CHRISTMAS MOVIE STYLE.

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A Very Charming Christmas Town – Lifetime (Natalie Hall, Jon Prescott)

A Very Charming Christmas Town

This is your classic modern tale of Influencer or ASSHOLE?! Aubrey is an LA blogger and content creator who visits a charming town known for their Christmas tourism so she can review it for her blog. Obviously the second she gets there she’s out to shit on their “tourist trap schtick” and act like the kind of turd who stops in the middle of the street to take a picture for the gram and then gets mad when someone tells her to get out of the way. I hate Aubrey right from the start of this movie but what I hate even more is how creepy the male lead, Sawyer is. I’m not sure if I’ve ever seen this gent in rotation before but he IMMEDIATELY gave me the cringies and there was no going back. In fact, if not for him, this movie would’ve been fine. Apparently in addition to Aubrey being a blogger, she also used to write country music hits. The fact that she’s recognized as a songwriter is laugh out loud funny because songwriters are like the least recognized people on this earth. Anyway, there’s an incorporation of her “original” Christmas song that makes me want to saw my ears off. Obviously the movie ends with a musical because that’s the trend of TV holiday movies now. SO MUCH GROUP SINGING.

Bonus Points: Sawyer holds Aubrey close to a candle, which is a weird enough thing to do on its own–are you going to light her on fire, sir? BUT THEN he makes it 6 trillion times worse by quoting her own lyrics back to her. RAPE ALERT. I crawled out of my G-D skin during this scene.

Operation Christmas Drop – Netflix (Kat Graham, Alexander Ludwig)

Operation Christmas Drop

Erica is a tightwad workaholic who has been avoiding going home for Christmas since her mom died. She’s sent to this air force base to basically defund the military doing nice things at the holidays. Obviously it takes about 20 minutes for Erica to get on island time, swept up in Andrew’s beach bod and love for helping those in need. She’s got a raging charity lady boner for him. This was one of the first Christmas movies I watched this season and yet I declared in my notes that I’ve had enough of the impromptu Christmas music performances…followed by simply “STOP SINGING.” If only I had known that EVERY movie would feature all characters joining in song. Blow my brains out. There’s also a particularly outrageous CGI lizard that makes an appearance (really upping the production budget on these flicks) and the climax of the film is just people literally dropping shit in the ocean on Christmas Day. That’s it. 

Bonus Points: A holiday party on the beach where “Clause” AKA Andrew tries to loosen up that tight ass Erica and tells her to just let go and dance. She lets go a little too far and turns into Elaine from Seinfeld. Everyone is embarrassed on her behalf. Maybe go back to being lame, Erica. 

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Happiest Season – Hulu (Kristen Stewart, Mackenzie Davis, Dan Levy)

Happiest Season

This movie was a HUGE deal and was getting a lot of press leading up to its release for being the first gay relationship holiday movie with legit actors. Once I knew Dan Levy was in it, I was jazzed as hell to see what kind of snarky sarcasm we would be treated to. I had high hopes and they were obviously all dashed because we as humans should never have high hopes. Whoops did that get too dark for Christmastime? I’ll save it for New Years. Another night of ridiculous expectations that are never met. ANYWAY, if you’re wondering why I took a sharp left turn into the candy cane forest of heavy emotional trauma, it’s because that’s exactly what this movie did. What started out with a little casj reindeer cosplay with whips suddenly morphed into Harper bringing her live-in girlfriend Abby (who just bought an engagement ring) home for Christmas but telling her in the car ride there that she’s not out to her family yet and told them she was bringing her roomie home for the holidays. OUCH city. The remainder of the movie is basically just Harper being a total closeted doucheroni and treating Abby like she has gay cooties except for when she wanted to sneak into her room at night for a little scissoring of course. I hated Harper in this movie and it was obviously much more emotional and deep about secrets and coming out to your family than I was really expecting. Shouts to Dan Levy and Mary Holland for much-needed comic relief, and Mary Steenburgen for being an asshole mom who shoves her iPad in everyone’s face for Instagram photos. Who takes Insta photos with an iPad?

Bonus Points: Everyone blatantly asking Abby what it’s like to be an orphan. Also John killing a bunch of pets.

Candy Cane Christmas – Lifetime (Beverly Mitchell, Mark Ghanimé)

Candy Cane Christmas

Beverly lazy eye Mitchell is Phoebe and guy who can’t figure out if he has an accent or not is Eric (I’m guessing by that very foreign name he has an accent IRL and sucks at an American one.) These two drive me f*cking bonkers the entire movie. In fact, I had it on in the background more than once and still found myself getting fired up the few times I paid attention. After right off the bat declaring they were both single, they kept running into each other as only characters of a rom-com can do and still jumping to conclusions that the other one wasn’t interested or was with someone else. Just cut the shit, you MF’ers and go on a date. After they FINALLY start dating and are happy as clams, Phoebe overhears a conversation and still assumes Eric’s getting back together with his ex and overreacts her face off, crying and avoiding talking to him. Are you five?

Bonus Points: Phoebe’s friend thinks her and Eric aren’t happening so she forces her to date a bald lamewad who hates Christmas. Instead of just being like no thanks, Phoebe keeps giving this guy a chance FURTHER CONFUSING ERIC WHO ALREADY ASKED HER ON A DATE AND ALSO THIS FRIEND SUCKS FOR SETTING HER BFF UP ON A TERRIBLE DATE TO BEGIN WITh. Ok. I’m done being triggered by this movie.

Christmas By Starlight – Hallmark (Kimberley Sustad, Paul Campbell)

Christmas By Starlight

Annie is kind of a loser but Hallmark makes her into a cute & lovable loser because that’s what they do best. She wears pajamas a LOT, is suuuuper obsessed with her Terrier and lives in like a basement apartment at her parent’s house. Obviously greedy lawyers are trying to shut down her family’s diner and she takes it into her own hands to demand that the law office knocks it off. This turns into Annie and cute but maybe gay lawyer William working together so they each get something that they want out of the deal. My family watched this flick together which meant that we sat there pointing and laughing for the full two hours. The very first thing I noticed and couldn’t unsee was that Annie’s mom’s face doesn’t move ONE SINGLE time. It turned into a fun drinking game. Drink every time ole plastic ass face is on the screen! My dad also was NOT a fan of this female lead and was basically openly boo’ing her. Tough crowd. There were a lot of similarities that I saw between this flick and Two Week’s Notice..obviously a poor man’s version because that movie is top notch. But the comparison got me thinking, it would REALLY spice things up if they had a poop your pants scene in a Hally. Try to work that in next year, guys. Totally more relatable than these two eye banging the shit out of each other to Silent Night. Just saying. In the end, SPOILER ALERT, both of these jabronis were fat in high school so they’re meant to be. 

Bonus Points: Annie showing that she’s just SO down to earth because she eats a power bar at a fancy French restaurant after a Passport to Paris level spit take. She also wears ugly Christmas sweaters *unironically.*

Christmas Carousel – Hallmark (Rachel Boston, Neal Bledsoe)

Christmas Carousel

A royal storyline because princes celebrate Christmas too, I have to be honest my sister recommended this one because she had her DVR set up for it and the minute I saw the male lead I texted her “this guy is beat, you cannot watch this movie.” And I’m sorry to be the bearer of bad news but sometimes a guy turns you off so aggressively that you cannot possibly get into the storyline. I “watched” this whole movie as in it was on my TV as I wrote this blog but all I retained from it was that he was royal and there was a weird singing scene with a creepy song and child. Age was apparent in both leads and as much as I’ve had enough with the singing I had even more of enough with the cryptkeepers’ Christmas tales. If my journey includes me looking for love at Christmas when I’m middle-aged, end that journey right now. I’m sorry. I support anyone dating at any age if that’s what they want. Love that for you. What I don’t love is watching it. It’s not hopeful. I’d MUCH rather watch people in their young twenties fall in love in 5 minutes and get engaged so I can cackle and say WAIT UNTIL YOU TWO MOVE IN TOGETHER THEN WE’LL SEE HOW IN LOVE YOU ARE. That’s my happy place. My sweet spot. Not being the last standing single amongst friends and family and having to settle for the first guy who wishes you a Merry Christmas. And that’s my unwelcome rant on Hallmark only gearing toward the middle aged market this year. 

WATCH

Midnight at the Magnolia – Netflix (Natalie Hall, Evan Williams)

Midnight-at-the-Magnolia-

 

 

We’ve got a double feature from Natalie Hall this szn. And she really upgraded her mancandy for Netflix. At least this guy didn’t give me the heebie jeebies. Maggie and Jack are the kind of besties that everyone knows are going to end up together because they’re WAY TOO close to ever have other significant relationships and yet they’re the only two that can’t seem to figure it the F out. They host a radio show together and decide to fake date and plan a big reveal at New Years Eve because both of their sig oth’s dump them before meeting their families. As a former promotions coordinator in radio, this seems like an HR nightmare to manipulate a personal relationship for promo and marketing. But it really seemed to work out for these two personally and professionally because this is a movie and not real life. It’s totally one of those movies where there’s WAY too much family involvement (and an unwelcome fam group hug.) And of course, per this year’s trend, ends with an original song. Barf all over me.

Bonus Points: Maggie looks cute and normal the whole movie with long locks and then all the sudden shows up to the big party at the end with helmet head. Whoever did that updo/whatever we call this hack job should be sued for character defamation. In fact it was so bad that my sister texted me when she finally viewed it (with no prompting from me first) “wtf is up with this chick’s hair at the nye party?” It’s almost as if we’re related or something.

Five Star Christmas – Hallmark (Bethany Joy Lenz, Victor Webster)

Five Star Christmas

I’m a diehard stan for Bethany Joy Lenz. I think she’s a total babe and typically her holiday movies are far more tolerable than others. This one features her family acting like they’re running a B&B with the home she grew up in because someone is coming to review it. So they all pretend they’re staff or guests which just turns into SO many hijinks. If by hijinks we mean them calling each other the wrong names a lot. SO SILLY. Anyway, there’s a grandma with a German accent that is ALMOST intolerable and lots of side stories happening with each member of the family. Even the dad is getting some lovin. Why? Cause it’s Christmas of course. Turns out the guy that Lucy is hot and heavy for is the reviewer that they were expecting. Classic mix-up. He wins her back after the family snafu by doing a weird Elvis impression in front of strangers. If someone breaks into song at the end of any movie I see for the rest of my life it will still be TOO SOON. 

Bonus Points: In the first five minutes when Lucy says she stopped dating someone because he chewed with his mouth open. YAS GURL. SAME. Also when the “B&B guests” aka Lucy’s entire family decorates the tree together and her sister-in-law overreacts when the tree is brought in with “IT’s BEEEEAAAAUUUUTIFFUUULLLL” and a dramatic hand flourish. I wonder if the people in Hally’s go to a specific over-acting class before they book the role.

Once Upon A Main Street – Lifetime (Vanessa Lachey, Ryan McPartlin)

Once Upon A Main Street

Amelia and Vic have both put an offer in on a storefront in the “perfect” spot on Main St so obviously they will battle to the death and try to bribe the owner of the shop to sell it to each of them. But the owner of the shop is Patrick Duffy and you can’t play him, he’s been around the block a time or two in the TV movie landscape. So instead these two will just fall in love and split the shop in the end, naturally. What lands this movie on the watch list is 1000% the side character of Rowena, aka “sassy pottery bitch” in my notes, who Amelia and Vic have to work with to win some Christmas award or something. In Rowena’s first scene, she refers to the local contest sourly and goes, “it’s not Jimmy Fallon or anything” and Vic says “what is?” and she replies dry as hell, “True, True.” It’s the first time I’ve genuinely laughed out loud at joke delivery in one of these movies and not at the person for their poor acting skills and cheesy dialogue. Sassy Pottery Bitch deserves an Emmy AND an Oscar for this role. The rest of the cast is just eh. If I had to venture a guess, Vanessa Lachey is pretty much playing herself.

Bonus Points: Amelia was a real annoying and over the top twat-asaurus in the first few minutes of this movie because she was overconfident about getting the building and pulled a sharpie out of her purse and WROTE SOLD ON THE BUILDING SIGN as IF THAT’S HOW THAT WORKS. To make matters worse she drew the O as a heart. Can you imagine if I put an offer in on a house and then just walked by and WROTE SOLD ON THE WINDOW? Then took a selfie?! 

A California Christmas – Netflix (Lauren & Josh Swickard)

A California Christmas

I started this movie and immediately texted my sister saying I feel like I’m in deja vu. Although this movie was brand new on Netflix, I felt like I had seen it before. Was I going crazy? Have I started to dream in shitty Christmas love stories? Have I just seen an ALMOST identical movie with these two “stars” somewhere else? As it turns out, yes. These two starred in “Roped” together which was another garbo movie on Amazon Prime about a rodeo coming to town and this bitch’s family trying to get it banned but plot twist she fell in love with the cowboy so that really threw a wrench in the horse shit. It was bad. Like embarrassingly bad. So bad I blocked it from my memory and leave it to my sister to make the connection and prove that we’re not going crazy, we’re just addicted to trash movies. ANYWAY, another fun fact is that these two probably met on that set, fell in love and got married because they weren’t married when that movie was made but they are now. Cue *we found love in a hopeless place*. Good for them.

Back to this movie, Joseph is Zac Efron Lite (give it a few minutes, but you’ll see it) who needs to prove his worth as a corporate hot shot in the family biz and goes to buy out a small family farm but pretends to be a ranch hand named Manny instead. This creates a whole side story of the real Manny who goes into hiding to teach Joseph how to do farm shit but also starts a bromance with Joseph’s driver. The real Manny is hilarious and I guess what I’m trying to say is the way to win my heart over with one of these movies is to put a silly side character in for comedic relief from all the sob stories. There are a lot of sob stories in this movie. It’ll go from the real Manny saying ““If you take a squat on a stump and take a dump does that make it a toilet-tree?” (Poop humor kills every time) to sad music and a graveyard. Real rollercoaster. But the most important factors are that both of the leads are babe sodas, plus it’s Netflix so there’s LOTS of kissing and none are interrupted. In fact we even get a S-E-X scene GASP. In a field! Netflix, we need more of your PG-13 activities each holiday season. 

Bonus Points: Within five mins we’ve got a whole ass calf being pulled out of a cow. I saw April the giraffe give birth and honestly that was enough firsthand nature to last a whole lifetime. No more fluids for me. 

The Christmas Listing – Lifetime (Lexi Giovagnoli, Travis Burns)

The Christmas Listing

I gotta be real up front with you here, one Sunday I planted myself on the couch and watched FIVE (5) Lifetime movies back to back to back to back to back. In fact, I got a work call during one of them and I was legitimately T’O’ed that I had to mute it and do something productive. It was truly what Sunday’s are for. Especially at Christmas time. I started out with a cheerful vigor that I was about to just watch one and move onto something with more substance. And then they just kept rolling on and I became one with the almost kiss. Jk it still enrages me to no end.

Spoiler alert: I definitely got dumber. This one was lucky number 5 and it was 11pm by the time it was in rotation. I watched about 10 minutes of it. Here’s what I wrote in my notes: Babe soda Aussie, the girl is named Julia, is this a sign?! It WAS a sign. A sign that it was time for me to go to bed because there was nothing good about this movie other than the fact that the guy was of an appropriate age for me and handsome as hell. Take your W’s where you can.

Bonus Points: There was probably some sort of zany explanation for this but they were clearly at a house they didn’t plan on being at for a long period of time so they had to borrow clothes from guests left behind. All of their clothes were matching couples outfits. Nothing brings two people closer together than wearing his and hers Christmas sets.

Dash & Lily – Netflix (Austin Abrams, Midori Francis)

Dash &amp; Lily

CURVEBALL! I figured since I tossed in a YA flick last year to keep things interesting, I’d add another newbie to this year’s list. It’s actually a series so it was 8 episodes, 30 mins. If you’re as much of a loser as I am, you banged this series out in an afternoon. Dash has a super messy family life which has turned him into a Grinch and he’s not even out of high school yet. Lily loves Christmas and also is JUST weird enough that she only hangs out with her family and has 0.0 friends. The two of them “meet” through a notebook and a scavenger hunt in a book store then basically become pen pals through said notebook because they’re in high school and they’re too insecure to meet in person. As someone who is still just as insecure now as she was in high school, I vibed with this. It was SUPER unrealistic of course, but after my obnoxious rant about Lifetime and Hallmark barking up the olds trees, I was happy to have some youthful spirit injected into my viewing szn. These two will probably break up by college but at least they’ll always have FALLING IN LOVE THROUGH A BOOK AT CHRISTMAS. Heartwarming.

Bonus Points: The Jonas Brothers. Not only did they make a cameo in concert form performing a Christmas banger, but Nick Jonas plays himself trying to give love advice to a bunch of high schoolers. It is perfection.

Cross Country Christmas – Hallmark (Rachel Leigh Cook, Greyston Holt)

crosscountrychristmas

Lena and Max are both heading home for Christmas and wouldn’t you know they’re from the same town and went to high school together and just bump into each other on the plane! But WHOOPS there’s a storm coming in and the plan has to land in Ohio and all of the buses are booked and the rental cars are gone and no planes are flying out so I GUESS THEY’LL JUST HAVE TO MAKE THEIR OWN WAY! What I liked about this movie immediately is that they didn’t give these characters the tried and true hate each other but are stuck traveling together energy. Of course, as soon as I made this note they started fighting after their truck broke down. But that was like halfway through. Lena has one of those made up jobs you see on the bachelor “creative solutions consultant” or something and she just wants to help everyone wherever they go. So they adventure across the country and stop and make new friends in each town. It’s not overly cheesy and I’ve digged Rachel Leigh Cook all the way since She’s All That HOWEVER…out of all the songbird scenes I consumed this year…this movie’s version was the most horrific trainwreck to watch. They’re asked to sing a carol together and unfortunately for all of us they don’t say “no thanks, we’re not really singers.” Instead, they tackle We Three Kings. They’re asked to sing a carol and instead of Jingle Bells or something equally as singalong worthy–these MF’ers pick WE THREE KINGS. And they butcher it loud and strong right up until the last line which they whisper. WHY NOT JUST WHISPER THE WHOLE THING YOU TONEDEAF BUTTHOLES? DO YOU WANT TO PUNISH US AS VIEWERS?! The answer is an obvious yes. UGH. Other than that scene, everything else was good. (You know, good for Hallmark.)

Bonus Points: They run into each other on the plane for the first time in what I would assume is 15 years and Lena goes the extra mile to bribe a flight attendant to get an eye mask for the flight. When Max asks if he can get one too Lena goes, oh I got these for you, I remember you being a big napper back in high school. CREEP CITY, POPULATION: LENA! Also when she plays Mary in the nativity play and comes onstage flailing her arms all over the joint was pretty cringe-licious.

Christmas Ever After – Lifetime (Ali Stroker, Daniel di Tomasso)

Christmas-Ever-After

I mean this in the most sincere way possible, this was my favorite movie this season. This was the one that was interrupted for a work call that I was FURIOUS about and I circled back to finish it so you KNOW I was committed. It’s no secret that one of my favorite episodes of the Saved by the Bell is the one where Zack dates a girl in a wheelchair and spends the entire episode drawing attention to the fact that she’s handicapped. Since this was the first time a movie had a wheelchair-bound lead, I assumed it would be the same sort of mildly offensive travesty. Lucky for girls on wheelz everywhere, it wasn’t. However, that didn’t stop them from making Izzie the most awkward bird of a human on this earth. And that’s where I thrive. Not only that, she is a trashy romance novelist and the lead man in her books is called Desmond. She goes to her favorite lodge that she spends the holidays at each year and lo and behold, she sees a guy who looks JUST LIKE the lead character in her erotica. Obviously she takes this as a sign to live out her books IRL and get inspiration for her re-write. About 30 seconds after laying eyes on Matt for the first time, she pants over him to each member of his family separately, including Matt’s daughter. Put it on ice, girl, his kid doesn’t want to hear that she has a DILF. She even gets caught trying to snap sneaky pics of him to send to her editor. What an embarrassing human and also relatable as hell. We’ve all been there. Izzy continues to be thirsty AF for Matt and at one point we see her waking up with a start and honest to God my first thought was oh she just had a wet dream. If this wasn’t a PG network, I would’ve really appreciated some red hot read scenes in this movie. It would’ve been a perfect match. Instead, when I googled the movie I was met with this image:

plexiglass

And boy do I love the internet. I NEVER would’ve known watching this movie that their kisses were plexiglass style due to COVID. Now that I can’t unsee this, I remember that they obstructed both of their smooches in the movie so we couldn’t see that there was a WHOLE ASS PIECE OF GLASS in between those lips. Jeeze these networks really take prude to the next level. Netflix would’ve been tongues out AWL day. 

Bonus Points: Izzy has quite the bond with Matt’s dad and I didn’t know how weird it was until he turns to her in a crowded room and goes “Izzy, what do you think?” And she replies, “Yeah, let’s do it, let’s sing” and slowly spins her wheelchair around and breaks into solo song as people are sitting and eating their dinner. Also anytime she calls going for a walk “a push” and when Matt kneels down in front of her so they’re eye to eye and she goes what are you proposing? And he says no, the view’s just better down here. SMOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOTH. 

 

 

Standard
Music

taylor swift – evermore.

Taylor Alison Swift looked 2020 directly in the eye and said I’m going to make you my bitch. Musically speaking, of course. She kicked things off with folklore in August, surprising us all with a real woodsy vibe and easily her best songwriting to date. Then she puts out a live performance on Disney + in a recording studio that is like an hour away from me and I’m mad as hell she didn’t notify me of her vicinity. And here we are, closing out 2020 with evermore because she “just couldn’t stop writing songs.” She calls it a birthday gift to us as she turns 31 but really the gift is that she rolled out back to back sadgirl albums in the WORST year of my life. I feel SEEN. Let’s dive in.

1. willow. I was very heated about the music video for this song. Mostly because Taylor typically adopts a specific look for each album era and the one she has chosen for this one is unfortunately bangs. Curls and bangs don’t go together. They just don’t. And now we’ve extended this era for double the time and WE MAY NEVER KNOW WHEN THE FLUFFY BANGS WILL GO AWAY. Plus she added pilgrim fashion on top of that for the video and it’s a statement I wasn’t in love with. HOWEVER, without the visual, I could focus much harder and this is definitely one of my favorite songs off this album. folklore had a kickass start with the 1 and now evermore has a solid opener with this enchanting ditty. Also I would be remiss to not include that one of her psycho fans went back in time to the “mean” era and found the word willow in the music video so apparently Taylor was calling her shot back in 2010, while wearing the same table linens your grandma uses on special occasions.

best lyric: But I come back stronger than a ’90s trend (she’s speaking directly to me with this.)

2. champagne problems. The start of this song is giving me MAJOR New Year’s Day vibes and I LOVE it. The simple piano and vocals together, I literally had to double check I was listening to the right album the first time it started playing. Except rather than singing about true love lasting long after the party’s over, this one is about true love being set ablaze. A rejected proposal, YOOOOIIIIIKES. Despite the fact that this starts out SUUUUUPER depressing and you feel for this imaginary character who proposes to a girl whose like nah, I’m good…when she changes tune with “one for the money, two for the show, I never was ready so I watch you go,” it’s catchy as hell and THEN we get a GLORIOUS F bomb. Taylor finally put on her big girl pants on folklore and gave us all the curses. It was like the girl in college who was sheltered in high school and never tried drinking then does a kegstand and blacks out at her first frat party. Once the floodgates opened after all these years being PG, Taylor was screaming F bombs from the rooftop and I’m beaming with pride to see that she’s still letting them fly. She’s 31 now. SHE’S ALL GROWN UP. Brings a tear to my eye. Plus, it’s cathartic AF to really hit home on a well-placed swear in these magical tunes.

best lyric: She would’ve made such a lovely bride / What a shame she’s fucked in the head,” they said (I don’t know how Taylor knew what everyone was saying about me but same.)

3. gold rush. Right away you can tell this is a Jack Antonoff song with the beat and the breathy wonder to it. My head was already bopping away and then she hits the speed round with “with your hair falling into place like dominoes.” Wooooo girl. Assumptions are that this is a Joe song because she’s constantly using gold in songs about him and also she thinks everyone’s obsessed with him and trying to steal him but I’m not really sure why. How these two aren’t married yet is the real surprise of 2020. Waiting for that news to drop, surprise style of course.

best lyric: My mind turns your life into folklore / I can’t dare to dream about you anymore

4. ’tis the damn season. It took me roughly 24 hours to abuse the shit out of this phrase. It’s not my fault it’s timely as hell and also sassy. I’ve already used it as an instagram caption and said it to several people. IN fact, I’m actually a little peeved I already sent out my Christmas cards this year because I would’ve 100% used it there too, it really would’ve fit my whole drinking wine solo in front of my Christmas tree mood that I forced into everyone’s homes. On top of just loving this title, the fact that she’s using it to justify hooking up with your ex/hometown love at the holidays makes it SUH much better. It’s like a Hallmark movie but without the lame kiss and happy ending. It’s for bad gurlz who just wanna bang their high school sweetheart on holiday break and wonder what it would be like to stay there and play out the Hally fantasy. No one ever does though because those movies are trash and don’t show what happens AFTER the city girl gives up her corporate job to pop out kids with the hometown guy who drives his truck around the 150 person town. Shot in the dark here, but I’m guessing that story ends in divorce 99% of the time. WOmpP WoooMppppp. Better off getting the nostalgia bang and then skidaddling back to your life in the big city if you ask me.

best lyric: And the heart I know I’m breakin’ is my own / To leave the warmest bed I’ve ever known (damn that one hit hard.)

5. tolerate it. In Swiftie dramatic fashion, there’s special meaning to the 5th track on each of her albums. It pretty much started with All Too Well because of the vulnerability and storytelling and from then on, Taylor made a point to put her most soul-baring songs as track fives. Or, in this case, soul-crushing failed relationship songs. This is a fun ditty about being more in love with someone than they are with you. Just kidding there’s nothing fun about it at all. Unless, like me, you laugh out loud at what a creep she is at the beginning of the song. There’s no non-creepy spin on “I sit and watch you.” It’s right in line with OG Taylor “so I’ll watch your life in pictures like I used to watch you sleep.” I get the sentiment. You love someone, you gaze at them a lot. But alllsoooooo hard not to have some peeping tom qualities to it. Let’s take a beat and put our binocs away on that one.

best lyric: I made you my temple, my mural, my sky / Now I’m begging for footnotes in the story of your life

6. no body, no crime (feat HAIM). This was a real spicy add to all these heartbreaking tales and I welcomed it with open arms and also took some notes. (Never know when you’re gonna need to know how to off a cheater and cover your tracks, yanno?!) Right off the bat I was like ooh baby we’ve got some big Pistol Annies Hell on Heels energy comin thru here. Don’t underestimate us ladies cause we will ERASE YOU FROM THIS PLANET. Jus sayin. You think it’s a coincidence that chicks love true crime? We’re storing all that info away in case we need it one day. Taylor and the Haim sisters may have just been kidding with this song, but I don’t for a second doubt that Taylor could get away with murder in real life. No body, no crime, man. Think about THAT next time you’re f’ing with Taylor’s life, Scooter.

best lyric: Good thing my daddy made me get a boating license when I was fifteen / And I’ve cleaned enough houses to know how to cover up a scene

7. happiness. Leave it to this tricky B to name a song happiness and have it be THE OPPOSITE of happiness. The conundrums are just never ending. During the Disney + special, Taylor talked about My Tears Ricochet and how she became fascinated with writing about divorce and this idea that the person who knows you best is now your enemy and therefore knows exactly how to attack your insecurities and tear you down. She compared it to how she felt with the Scooter/Scott Borchetta drama but also it’s clear she’s still very into this deep dive on the big D. Speaking of the Big D, leave it to me to hear this lyric: “And I pulled your body into mine / Every goddamn night, now I get fake niceties” and IMMEDIATELY assume she’s making a sex reference. Cause that’s how my brain works. Now that I re-read it, she probably just meant cuddling and here I am going right for the penetration comparisons. I guess I was just hoping in addition to all the swears, she might start dropping artfully crafted sexual innuendos as well. Either way, lyrics about getting D’ed down or not, this song is haunting as shit.

best lyric: But now my eyes leak acid rain on the pillow where you used to lay your head / After giving you the best I had / Tell me what to give after that (this entire song is a best lyric, but if I had to pick one…)

8. dorothea. I gotta be real with you guys, this song starts a little bit of a downward slump for me on the second half of this album. There’s a couple snoozy songs back to back in the middle before it picks back up again and I had a hard time staying into it. Right away with this one, we’re using a very old lady name and it’s not really a compelling storyline. It’s about a friend lost, and if you ask the psychos who analyze EVERY SINGLE DETAIL, they’ll tell you it’s about Selena Gomez. I read exactly one article to see where they’re getting this assumption from and it is VERY far fetched. Selena’s favorite movie is Wizard of Oz, and she doesn’t care about fame and she has a beauty line now. OPE, this song MUST be about her! God I’d love to live in a hardcore Swiftie’s mind for the first 12 hours of an album release. Whether this song is about Selena or not, it’s kinda meh.

best lyric: And if you’re ever tired of being known for who you know / You know, you’ll always know me, Dorothea

9. coney island (feat. The National). After drooling her face off about The National so much and writing Folklore with Aaron Dessner, Taylor finally got her long-awaited emo collab. Had a hard time connecting with this one, and not just because the coney (a white spicy hot dog for all you uneducated wieners) gives me diarrhea. JK, I know they’re talking about the trashy pier amusement park south of NYC. I think at one point in life, Coney Island was the belle of the ball. But from what I’ve seen, it’s pretty gross now. I wasn’t kidding about Hoffmann’s coney’s though, those dogs pack a punch. Only try one if you’re near a bathroom. These are the things I yap about when I don’t know what to say about a song because it’s just doesn’t knock my socks off. You’re welcome.

best lyric: If I can’t relate to you anymore / Then who am I related to? (love a good wordplay)

10. ivy. It’s important to note that not only is Taylor free flowing with the F bombz now, but clearly has also taken an affinity to G-D as well. I shorten G-D because it is the one swear that my dad does not tolerate, and he is one of my few loyal readers so I try not to T him off. Although, he did just send me a text to brag about how they were playing Friday Night Lights on TV this weekend knowing that I don’t have cable. So who is the real troutsniffer here?

Anyway, other than my dad taunting me with that babe soda Coach Taylor, this song picks things back up a bit. It makes me want to skip through a field but not in an outfit you would wear to a one room schoolhouse (jk I pull that shit OFF-see below.) Also noteworthy: another song about an affair. SCANDALOUS.

best lyric: My pain fits in the palm of your freezing hand

11. cowboy like me. I knew the first time I heard this song that it was going to be my insta-skip for this album. There’s one every time. A weird song that I don’t vibe with and I immediately want to get it out of my earholes. Last album was epiphany, before that it was nice to have a friend on Lover. This song is like sad 90’s country and honestly it just draaagggsss. Bonus points for another hard F though. GET IT, GURL. EARN that parental advisory.

best lyric: Forever is the sweetest con (daaaaaamn that has some stank on it.)

12. long story short. This was a much needed bopsicle after the cowboy ballad that preceded. Got some 80’s feels to it but I literally would’ve accepted anything to wake me from that heartbreak slumber. Even though this one is also about WAIT FOR IT a breakup. Or at least, a romantic history. Bad times and wrong guys, tale as old as time. Some say this is about Tom Hiddleston, and to that I say buuuuulllllshit. I still believe ole Tommy boy was a publicity stunt and she never actually dated him. WAY too many photographs in such a short period of time. That paparazzi snap of him in the ocean at her 4th of July bonanza wearing an I ❤ TS shirt still lives rent-free in my mind to this day. And also makes me cringe. A wifebeater in the ocean, woof.com. Long story short: Tom Hiddleston was a decoy. Convince me otherwise, I dare you.

best lyric: Your nemeses / Will defeat themselves before you get the chance to swing

13. marjorie. Another toss to the family lineage, Epiphany was about her grandfather’s military experience (also track thirteen on folklore) and Marjorie was her grandma’s name. So obviously her grandma visited her from beyond the grave and was like what am I? CHOPPED LIVER?! And Taylor was like I HAVE TO PUT OUT A SISTER ALBUM FOR GRAMS. Facts. It took me until looking up the lyrics to see that she was saying “what died didn’t stay dead” and not using a weird accent with WHAT I DIDN’T SAY IS. This song is fine. Like I said, I felt like things really went downhill after happiness (for me.) Kinda sounds like her grandma is haunting her and as someone who learned that spirits visit us at certain hours of the night and have been terrified of a post-grave visit ever since, I’m out on ghosts.

best lyric: Never be so politе You forget your power / Nevеr wield such power You forget to be polite (solid advice, Grams)

14. closure. Sassy Tay comin in hawt at the end PLUS a little backbeat to soundtrack this metaphorical FU. Take your letter and shove it up your b-hole cause Taylor don’t need your stinkin’ closure. Since we’re on the topic, closure is crap. No one will ever have closure. It’s one of those made up things we use as an excuse to see someone we fell out with and then you realize that no matter what they say or do, and no matter what you say or do, it doesn’t change things. Thus, CRAAAAAP. You’ll never feel settled about something ending in a way you didn’t want it to end, you’ll just have to get the hell over it. And that’s talkin’ closure from the most bitter ass bitch in the room. Thank you for reading because I feel SO MUCH BETTER NOW having said my peace. Nahhhhhhhht.

best lyric: I know I’m just a wrinkle in your new life / Staying friends would iron it out so nice

15. evermore (feat. Bon Iver). I guess I’m like a whole ass Bon Iver stan now because Exhile slaps and so does this. I’m really getting in touch with haunting piano and whiny vocals in my later years in life. If you ask me, that’s basically this past year in a nutshell so it’s not surprising that I’m getting my depression vibes on with these jams. Starting out with “Gray November, I’ve been down since July” really solidified that as well for me. If you know, we could sub out “July” and tap in “January” in its place. Cause yes November is grey and yes I’ve been down and out since January and probably will be EVERMORE. Another word no one will be able to stop me from using and abusing going forward. Saying something lasts forever? That’s so 2019 back when we had things to look forward to in life. Nah, now it’s EVERMORE. Soooo much more melodramatic. Can’t wait to drop it in everyone’s grillpiece. THIS PAIN WILL BE FOR EVERMORE.

best lyric: I rewind thе tape but all it does is pause / On thе very moment, all was lost

OVERALL album notes: Listen, you come to The Salty Ju, you’re gonna get brutal honesty. I’m a superfan (not a ‘read into signs and guess that Taylor is hiding the fact that she gave birth to triplets based on an obscure tree branch in the background of cover art’ kind of superfan) and yet I can also tell it like it is with Tay. Folklore was kind of a storytelling phenomenon for her. She’s always been a bitchin’ lyricist using highfalutin vocabulary, synesthesia (see? I know big words too), and in-depth imagery. Folklore brought that to the next level because it was no longer about what music will tour well or play on the radio, it was just about writing good shit that tells a compelling story. It seemed like she was trying the least to make a statement and yet all of those songs made a statement. And that’s why I love her. HOWEVER, I feel like there’s a reason artists pick a limited amount of songs to release on an album. If they released every song they ever wrote, we’d be real inundated with a lot of songs that were just ok and maybe there’s a reason they wouldn’t make the cut. And that’s how I feel about evermore. Are there some more great songs on here? Absolutely. But is there a lot of eh? Also yes. I love crying my face off to a breakup song as much as the next sad B, but it comes to a point after several hours of the sobsies that you have to mix a real uplifting bop in or you’ll be on suicide watch. And 32 slow songs about death, loss, divorce, addiction, love triangles, witches, women-haters can seem A WEE BIT OVERWHELMING. Which leads me to my next point: everyone is CONVINCED there’s a third “sister” album coming. Taylor loves a trilogy and there have been little clues here and there that this is actually going to be a three album story and to that I say

I truly can’t take anymore. I know I said before that I feel seen but maybe I feel a LITTLE TOO SEEN. I never thought I’d see the day when I want LESS sad music to smother me this year, but I think this era can comfortably end here. Let’s pep it up for 2021 and pretend things are getting better. So there you have it. evermore can’t top folklore–although I do appreciate it showing up to the party– and “woodvale” should sit this one out. Now excuse me while I continue to drown myself in lowercase letters, while my eyes leak acid rain, as I use these poetic lyrics to describe my own feelings in therapy until the new year. (My therapist will be a Swiftie by the time I’m through with her.)

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