Defrost: The Saga of Pudge Gazelle

It's Halloween.  And to be honest, I truly dislike handing out candy.

I like buying candy.  I like eating candy.  And if we were at the movies together (and we totally should go, by the way), I wouldn't mind sharing my candy with you.

I just don't like handing it out on Halloween.  And because of that, this year I simply dumped my candy in an orange plastic bowl and set it on a plant stand on my front porch.  Come n get it, kiddos!

So it's 8:00 p.m. and I'm crouching in my dark upstairs bedroom alone, watching the same ridiculously bad "Ghost Adventures" special I watched last year and eating a mini box of Milk Duds because I apparently really like my dentist and want to buy him a place in Aspen.  And I think it's about time that I used the bully pulpit of my blog to rip on the "Twilight" series.

Don't get me wrong, I've never read any of the books or seen any of the movies.  But this will not stop me from mocking them.  Oh, no.  I do this in the grand tradition of my Dad dismissing "Sex & The City" (which he has never seen) with a disgusted wave of his hand and the horribly inaccurate statement:  "Single women in their 30's don't have sex with that many men or talk about it like that."  In fact, SATC is among life's most repugnant things to my Dad...and I know this because he refers to it as "that Sex & The City."  In the way that he refers to its star as "that Sarah Jessica Parker," or to any black actor other than Morgan Freeman as "that Will Smith."

So, that "Twilight." 

Look, I totally get that pre-pubescent schoolgirls are going to get breathlessly caught up in the idea of loving a handsome and misunderstood outcast who can and will love them forever.  What I don't get is how sophisticated and normally rational women that I respect fall for it.  I once found myself sitting at a table with four female colleagues, all very accomplished, successful women.  At some point, the conversation turned to "Twilight" and these ladies spent the next twenty minutes arguing the merits of vampire over werewolf and werewolf over vampire as boyfriend material.  I was aghast.  When I had heard enough, I simply asked "Why not a leprechaun?  I mean, there would always be gold."  And they all laughed, of course, and then politely informed me that there aren't any leprechauns.  To which I replied, "For God's sake, there aren't any vampires or werewolves either!"

Which brings me to the actress cast as Bella:  Kristen Stewart. 

Was this some kind of brother-in-law deal?  Is she the Director's niece?  Does she have naked photos of Spielberg and she's not afraid to use them?

She's a somewhat pretty girl...but good GOD, she has negative charisma. It's like watching a young and less homely Barefoot Contessa trying to emote.  Take, for example, this comparison of her emotions to that of the much-superior Emma Watson:

And seriously... the dude that plays Edward...Is this that whole "we like him because his masculinity doesn't frighten us" thing?  I personally could never be with a man (alive, dead or undead) who spends more time on his hair than I do.  And how does he do it if he has no reflection??

And the neanderthal that plays Jacob-- with that massively protuding brow, wouldn't he be better suited for Frankenstein?

And really?  Bella Swan?  Jacob Black?  I can't even mock these names because they are such phenomenally delightful examples of character names that will get you kicked out of the Creative Writing program down at the local JuCo.  Or leisure learning annex.  Or daycare.

Which actually got me to thinking:  With all the new ghost hunting shows popping up on TV, I think ghosts are the new vampires.  And now that food shows have surpassed design shows in popularity, I think I'm on to something.  I'm going to write a book called "Defrost" about a ghost chef.  I'll name him Christopher Phantom and give him a chubby but preternaturally graceful heroine named Pudge Gazelle. 

I'm going to be a gazillionaire.  And you can say you knew me when I came up with the idea while hiding from candy-seeking missiles on Halloween.

And for the record, it's now 8:35 p.m. and those greedy little candy-grubbing bastards have cleaned me out. 

Ugh, I hate giving out that candy.