Boop-Oop-A-Doop: Why Didn't Anybody Tell Me about Betty Boop

Old cartoons are usually pretty much awesome- I for one love old Mickey Mouse shorts, Silly Symphonies, and the like- I've even grown to like a lot of the Loony Tunes stuff, which I had an unreasonable distaste for when I was younger (get exposed to enough Disney at an early age and you feel compelled to take sides). It's a wealth of great ideas and (mostly) kid-friendly gags- slapstick with enough clever humor and erudite references to draw in my enormous galumphing adult brain.

For the most part, though, it's kid's stuff. Even when I drag in all the experimental animation I've been exposed to (Begone Dull Care springs to mind) I can't help but imagine a rather sanitary set of cartoons inhabiting the dawn and expansion of hand-drawn animation in the early 20th century.

If only someone had given me the proper rundown on Betty Boop.

Girls are allowed now!

Huzzah! So I guess with this post, I hope to balance out what appears to be a copious amount of boobies on this blog... In the eloquent words of Khoa, mandatory initiation is to write about "who wood u do"... my answer to that is:

Look at how cute he is (without the ridiculous stache) ! I don't know him very well (er, at all) so I can't really comment on important personality traits such as general intelligence or kindness... for all I know he could be a real douchebag. But he was hilarious in Freaks and Geeks (the greatest show ever, aside from Arrested), Pineapple Express, and in this. We'll all ignore the General Hospital nonsense and call it creative artistic expression.

This is irrelevant, but for the record, if the question was, "Who would you want to be your best friend forever" I would answer with this kid... who doesn't love him?

And the winner isn't

I'll admit, this whole sleeping with a celebrity has me flummoxed. I'll also admit that I only wrote the previous sentence to transmit to all of you the universal joy of pronouncing the word "flummoxed" in your pop-culture addled brains (yes, a universal pleasure-screw your cultural relativism).

Honestly, though, there is only one celebrity I've ever had a crush on deep emotional connection to. It carried me through puberty, and he's still the only celebrity I want to critique architecture and parking ramp placement with (yeah I'm gay). Unfortunately though, I hope to be entering into a business relationship with this, my one true celebrity, in the not too distant future. I'd hate for explicit sexual details to stated on this blog to make their way to his desk and sour the deal.

This love, which is best described thusly: close your eyes. Pick up the cheeseburger. Enjoy its warmth, the weight in your hand. Oops, that bit of stout sauce and onion on your hand. Move it closer to your mouth. Feel the saliva flood your mouth, the aroma assault your nostrils. Take a bite. WHAM. Punch in the face. Yep, someone just full on punched you. Right in the face. That's love, and that joy right there is mine alone, ladies and gentleman.

But, after much deliberation, there are a number of obvious and largely uninspired (but extremely attractive) celebrities I would certainly have meaningful one-night stands or 3-day-weekends with. Just to be clear, we'd warm up with some gay pornography and press banter, follow with blow jobs (which I definitely did not learn how to perform by reading a dictionary) and proceed to the main course. These lucky men are: Leonardo DiCaprio, for his panache and ability to pull off facial hair no one else can; Clive Owen, for the his inhuman ability to wear a suit; Daniel Craig, for his panache and Chris Pine, because he is the hottest white man I've ever seen.

Enough. Get me a glass of scotchka.

Also, photo copyright Jana Voigt

Celebrity Obsession

I'll admit, everyone's choices are uniquely adorable and I can see how one could develop affection for any of them (perhaps aside from Lady Gaga and especially in the case of President Lincoln). However, when I analyze my own choice, I realize that I don't achieve the same visceral welling of desire or the same complexity of emotion that I do towards the ever beguiling, voluptuous Patricia Arquette.

While beginning to write this post, I discovered that I had two (or three, but we'll get to that later) competing aspects of Patricia Arquette I am enamored by: her charming, naive exuding of sexuality and her powerful, devious exuding of sexuality. Not to form any dualism or whatever, but these two components of what Patricia Arquette represents have solidified in my heart based on two of her acting roles: that of her in Lost Highway and True Romance. I realize that these are roles in films and not actually parts of her personality, but my perception of her acting in her roles in inextricably linked to my attraction to her.


To be honest, however, if I had only True Romance and her interviews through which to admire her, Patricia Arquette would not have nearly as deep an emotional impact on me that she does. It's not to say that she still isn't infinitely adorable and endearing. Her character in True Romance was nothing if not that, supremely naive in her concept of love (as well as the world) and almost sickeningly pure in her sexuality. In her talk-show appearances (especially now, as she has gotten older) she seems remarkably secure and her demeanor now betrays a marked self-confidence and a conceited effort to disparage pomp and ceremony (a rare quality in a celebrity). Also look how cute she is on Sesame Street:



But its Patricia Arquette's performance in Lost Highway by which she constantly comes to mind as the most seductive and alluring celebrity I can think of. Lost Highway is by no means an optimistic movie, not for the protagonist(s) or anyone, and in my mind, this all stems from Patrica Arquette's character, the epitome of the Lynchian femme-fatale. She exudes sex in this film, and has captured the minds and libidos of literally every male character she comes across. But the facet of this character that places her as the ultimate female in my mind is that while she seems submissive and postures herself in away that makes the men in her life need to own her, and think that they do, she is never powerless.


Her sexuality is her power, and she uses it without abandon. She is somehow able to make every man she comes across feel constantly emasculated up until the point at which she utterly annihilates them and their preconceptions of the world from the inside-out. At the core, it is the dark side to her sexuality that most intrigues me and most makes me want her. It is in part the danger, in part the fact that she goes as both a blond and a brunette in the film, but it is mostly the idea that she possess the ability to inflict such force on a man's existence that draws me to her above all else.

Oh right. I had a third thing. It is merely this: she is slammin'. She's cute and has a rockin' bod. Also check these out:


With all that said, this succinctly sums up my feelings on the matter:

Greetings and Salutations and Unfulfilled Desires

There are a lot of hot celebrities. Tons of them. Endless masses, really, if the progression of time and the regular realities of breeding and plastic surgery are anything to set your watch to. So who is it amongst these beauteous hordes that I would take as my own?

Though I don't think I can match his visual panache, I'd like to borrow McFadden's lovely concept of "famous girlfriend," because I don't think I could go on living if Amanda Palmer and I were only allowed a one night stand.

I'm going to tell you something very strange: it was she who seduced me. As leading lady of The Dresden Dolls, Ms. Palmer's been singing siren songs to me for years now. If you can give me the name of anyone writing music as brutal and emotionally honest as her, I'll eat my hat (I have several).

And of course, dare I forget her loveliness? The delicate arabesques or hasty scrawls of her inconstant eyebrows? Or more importantly, the guts and grin she shows on every album? Especially her new solo material, Who Killed Amanda Palmer? a double punch to my heart- musical and referential. There's more to her than I can possible name in this brief post, and to condense further would only be insulting.

Amanda! I'm free on Thursdays!

We welcome you to Scrabblegories with sex and celebrity and answers to a personal question regarding those two things

Who? Who would you do?

...

You knew there would be a catch, didn't you? Well, I won't disappoint.

On copping-out, I mean.

Honestly, it has to be Abe.

...

OK, look. There were no rules against dead people, and if this is creepier than macking on people who probably pay interns (think of the interns!) to Google themselves every three seconds for defamation but also dream of running away from their wives and E-meters to sex all their fans, I stand alone but proud in the crypt.

Obviously, the only serious answer to this question is Cary Grant. But while I'd like to think Ceege would never leave me, come on.

Abe, on the other hand: miserable, body-dysmorphic (why else would he hide in all that hair?), kind of racist and not-so-good on the civil liberties precedents, but generally wanted to make people happy. Also, by all accounts he desperately wanted a man, and his wife probably concurred. How could he say no?

The point is, Cary Grant only said witty things other people wrote. Abe wrote, said, did.

Abe Lincoln: the celebrity for the rest of us.