Guilty pleasures!

ralphinlaos · Posted: Fri May 02, 2008 12:39 pm Post subject: Guilty pleasures!

What do you do when you are not in search of enlightenment? When you just want some junk-food for the soul? Are you secretly a V.C. Andrews reader? Are you addicted to American Idol? A Reverend Wright believer? What, in your heart of hearts, are some of your guilty pleasures?

I'll start.

I watch Survivor and yell at the stupid antics of the participants. (I just watched it tonight and my blood pressure went up ten points).

I'd rather have a pizza (with extra cheese) than a good, wholesome five-course meal anytime (this is probably because I can't get the pizza and I can always make a good, wholesome meal).

I'd rather watch Gray's Anatomy than read a book - I love this show.

Just a start. What's yours?

Ralph

Saffron · Posted: Fri May 02, 2008 1:14 pm Post subject:

Guilty pleasures......A Starbucks chai latte. Only once in a great while, when I'm feeling off. It's the steamed milk I like. All TV feels like a guilty pleasure. When I do watch, it's Ugly Betty (most weeks) and Gray's Anatomy.

Penelope · Posted: Fri May 02, 2008 2:33 pm Post subject:

I like watching repeats of old TV Series - especially period drama.

So all the repeats are on our ITV3. I watch 'Agatha Christies Poirot' because I love Mr.Suchet - and I love the art deco background, especially the lamps, and I love the costumes. So I am usually looking at the beautiful art deco lamps - and losing track of the plot entirely.

I watch Sherlock Holmes with the same results. Miss Marple. Anything that is set more than fifty years ago. In fact, I will make another confession. When I watched 'Titanic' on a video with my friends....they were really appalled with me because....when the ship was sinking and it showed the ballroom all aslant - said, 'Oh no!!!!! Those Lovely Chairs'. Embarassed

DWill · Posted: Fri May 02, 2008 11:02 pm Post subject:

I like "Desperate Housewives" and "The Office." Those are the ones I watch regularly now. I watch "ER" still, too, but it really hasn't been that good for several years. "Lost" is a huge obsession with the daughters, so I usually go along for the ride...but it's gotten too ridiculous for me.

I don't really read any junky stuff, which is too bad. I think a "real" reader does. Every now and then I sit down and watch a golf tournament on TV; it shows a world so far removed from mine and some amazing skills, too. I like basketball and was glued to the TV during the NCAA Tournament. But now there are no sports on I really like to watch. If I had cable TV, I would watch the Tour de France bike race from start to finish in July. I do a lot of things outside, but don't consider that to be slumming, like these others are. Good topic.
Will

ralphinlaos · Posted: Sat May 03, 2008 7:03 am Post subject:

I've never seen a Starbucks, but that sounds wonderful, Saffron. I make a mix of instant coffee, ovaltine, sugar and milk - that's probably as close as I'll ever get to a latte. And it tastes pretty good, too - they're big ovaltine drinkers over here.

I enjoy the old Miss Marple movies with Margaret Rutherford. They do show a lot of classic oldies on Turner Classic Movies.

DWill, I like The Office (have you seen the British version?), but can't get into Desperate Housewives. My niece, in Michigan, e-mailed me that I must watch Desperate Housewives, she'd even gotten her husband hooked. I tried, watched a couple of episodes, and just couldn't get interested. I've never seen Lost. My real favorite (along with Gray's Anatomy) is Boston Legal - I just like the entire cast (and some of the stories are outrageous).

And peanut butter and jam sandwiches.

Cigarettes (I know, I know).

Ralph

Saffron · Posted: Sat May 03, 2008 7:18 am Post subject:

Ralph:

Penelope · Posted: Sat May 03, 2008 9:01 am Post subject:

I am waiting for the President to post something very rude on this thread. I feel like I can read his thoughts!!!! Wink

I am going to give him a karma point for restraining himself!!! Wink

Saffron · Posted: Sat May 03, 2008 4:57 pm Post subject:

The Office....one of my daughters really likes the show very much (British version also). I like it, but it is a little weird for me. I went to college with Steve Carell. He was good friends with my roommate. I see him and just think, Steve, rather than the character....with the exception of Little Miss Sunshine. I was able to forget who he was while watching it.

Penelope · Posted: Sun May 04, 2008 6:38 am Post subject:

I have watched a few of the American version of 'The Office' and enjoyed them.

The English version with Ricky Gervais, I found quite painful. Quite a few times Ricky Gervais made me cry.....It hurt me to see him in the episode where he got fired......and just sometimes....that look passed across his face where you knew he realised what a moron he was......brilliant acting.

Isn't it wonderful how a good actor can say so much just with a facial expression.

Having said that 'The Full Monty' was meant to be a comedy....but I cried all the way throough that. Loved it though.

When my Mum lived in Brighton - we went to see 'A Voyage Round my Father' with Sir Alec Guiness playing father. At the point where they are sitting in a summer garden on the grass - and the Father is batting at the wasps, and he says, 'When you are being pestered by a wasp.....don't you just love flies?'. Sir Alec, hadn't got much going for him the the 'good looks' department. But my, what stage presence. He hypnotised us. Mum and I were sitting high up in the Gods at the Dome in Brighton and we could see the wooden floorboards of the stage. But Sir Alec was sitting on a lawn, picking at the grass........and that is where we thought we were. I think this is my most memorable experience of the theatre. What is yours? Don't say Beckett, please.......

Saffron · Posted: Sun May 04, 2008 7:35 am Post subject: Spring Awakening

Well, Penelope, most memorable theater experience....I've several. As a kid, I saw Ben Vereen in Pippin (1975 or so). He opens the show singing Magic to Do. He gave a stunning performance.

This is really my most memorable; as much for the circumstances of the day, as for the play itself. Last summer I took my 3 daughters and mother to see Spring Awakening (don't think it's made it across the Atlantic yet). It is a play about teenage angst, sexual awakening and first love. We got to NYC early in the morning so we could stand in line for cheap tickets ($25 as apposed to $89). Well, we got the last 3 cheap tickets and splurged for the 2 full price. It was 11:30AM and the show we got tickets for was at 8PM. We now had about 7 hours to ramble around NYC. We had a packed lunch, train tickets home and a small amount of spending money. It was a very long day. We each took turns alternately complaining and jollying our little troop along. Okay, the play. One of my daughters had an on stage seat (there are about 30 for this show - lined up on each end of the stage). I know this play, but had not really thought about what we would be seeing. Just before the intermission there is a very explicit sex scene. The young actress' breast are exposed and the actor pulls down his pants and bares almost all. My 17 year old was sitting just about 15 feet away with a perfect view of his derrière. My 14 year old, sitting with her 20 year old sister, was mortified. At least that is what she claimed. Everyone loved the show, but to this day the girls tease me about bring them to a show about sex with their grandmother in tow. All this and I haven't even mentioned there is a song in the play called, "Totally F@%#*ed", in which the F word is sung repeatedly. As for the play, it is one of my all time favorites. I've seen it twice!
http://www.springawakening.com/

Penelope · Posted: Sun May 04, 2008 8:19 am Post subject:

Fantastic story Saffron!! How wonderful to be free to wander NYC too.

I have never been to the USA. I would love to visit New York though because I have been told that there is loads to do for free. Boat rides and etc. My friend has told me that I would hate Washington and Chicago because one is not safe to walk the streets and must take taxis everywhere. Not so NY I believe.

I would like the show you describe too....because I love the F-word. I don't use it out loud.....because I am a sweet old lady.......and it would not be appropriate. My mother in law who was 98 when she died looked like a little white haired angel......and it was great when she swore. For instance:- The OAP's in this country get a £10 heating allowance if the temperature falls below a certain level. She got her £10 one year and she said to me....'Well, Penny I wasn't at home when that cold weather was on....I was at your house.' 'Oh, well' says I, ' you had better send it back then with an explanatory covering letter'. She looked at me with her lovely bright blue eyes and said, ' I will buggery....bugger off'. Laughing

We went to see a new production of 'A Midsummer Night's Dream' at the Royal Shakespeare company in Stratord. It was the first night and it had the most beautiful black girl playing Titania. There was a fabulous scene with Titania and Oberon on a large four-poster bed, hoisted above the stage - very bawdy....and we thought it was terrific.

We read in the paper the following week that a teacher had taken his junior school pupils to see it and marched them all out in a hurry!!!! Laughing

Saffron · Posted: Sun May 04, 2008 8:47 am Post subject:

Penelope · Posted: Sun May 04, 2008 9:01 am Post subject:

Well, then we must certainly make the USA our next big holiday destination. We do talk about it a lot....but want to see all of it....so it is difficult to know which area to choose.

We see so many US programmes on our TV that we feel as though we know it. I, being a big, big fan of 'Ally McBeal', would like to see Boston. We don't have Ally McBeal broadcast any more, but I have the videos and I watch them when I am left to myself. But I don't feel the least bit guilty about this!!!! Smile

Also my daughter bought us tickets (for my birthday) to see Vonda Shepherd at the Liverpool Empire. It was fabulous and I have all of her CD's I think. She must feel a bit cramped on that shelf with all my classical music!!!!

ralphinlaos · Posted: Sun May 04, 2008 2:04 pm Post subject:

These stories bring back memories.

Here's a couple of anecdotes about me and the theater.

I was living in New York City, going to school, and had a small apartment. My brother and his wife and sister and her husband decided to visit, so I got theater tickets. It was for a very funny play, which I had seen before and had laughed long and loud (I forget the name of it now - something about an Italian family living in the Bronx). And I had completely forgotten about what a prissy pair my sister and her husband were (are). Anyway, there's this big, buxom blonde in the play, and her first entrance is to come banging out the front door in her housecoat, screaming, "What the f----s going on around here?" at the top of her lungs. My sister almost fell off her seat and immediately got the hiccups. She hiccupped through most of the play and had no clue as to the plot when we discussed it later. My brother and his wife loved it. (The next morning, I went to school and my sister and sister-in-law decided to clean the apartment. They put all my rugs out on the fire escape, went back in to clean, and when they came back all my rugs had disappeared).

My favorite memory of seeing a show: Harvard University has a small theater on-campus which puts on professional productions with visiting actors and actresses. Eileen Heckert was doing "The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds" and she was brilliant - just mesmerizing in a role which demands everything an actress has to give (a terrible harrigan of a mother whose own life has passed her by and she is taking her wrath out on her daughters). When the curtain came down, you could literally hear a pin drop - and then the audience just exploded. A standing ovation that seemed to last forever. I've had a lot of theater-going experiences but I'll never forget that one.

New York City is a walking city - it's just the best way to see everything and, since it's not too big, you can walk it from one end to the other - from Central Park down to Chinatown and on to the Statue of Liberty. And always lots of freebies, things to do that don't cost an arm and a leg. And, really, I've found that it's as expensive (or inexpensive) as you want it to be (outside of hotels and theater tickets, that is). I always loved the city most during the period from Thanksgiving to November - all the music and decorations and ice-skating at Rockefeller Center. But, like Saffron, I'd always buy discount tickets at TKTS - they always had something I wanted to see.

I really don't know Chicago that well; I've been there (almost got tattooed on State Street one inebriated night), and saw some good theater there, but don't know much from a tourists point of view.

And I do like Washington, DC very much. Especially in the spring.

I like Ricky Gervais in "Extras" and have no idea who Vonda Shepherd is.

Oh, and speaking of nudity in the theater. A woman I knew at work in NYC asked me if I would like to see a play with her. Of course, so off we went. It was Joe Orton's "Entertaining Mr. Sloan" and neither one of us had known that the leading actor took all his clothes off in act one and didn't put them back on until act two (it was Juliette Mills' husband - I forget his name). It didn't bother me a bit, but she was rather strait-laced and really not comfortable with it - but she bought the tickets, I didn't!

I liked your story about "Spring Awakening," Saffron. I knew there was nudity and swearing involved and that they had a few-on stage seats with some spectacular views - I guess your children saw some of them.

Somehow, Penny, I doubt you are a sweet old lady. Is "buggery" a swear work in England? Is "bloody?"

Ralph

Penelope · Posted: Sun May 04, 2008 4:17 pm Post subject:

Buggery is a swearword in England Ralph.

All our swearwords are about sex.

The rest of Europe have swearwords about bodily functions......excrement and vomit.......but ours are about sex.....now what does that say about this nation????? Crying or Very sad

Still, my mother in law was a wonderful enigma. Smile


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