For as long as I have known about Cindy Lauper, I have loved her.  In grade school, I owned a cassette tape of her first album, She’s So Unusual.  I played it OVER and OVER on my little silver boom box.   I remember asking my parents if I could buy tickets to her concert for my 8th grade or 9th grade birthday.  My mother agreed, but alas, they were sold out.  I remember a friend of mine telling me that She Bop was actually a euphemism for masturbating and being totally appalled, not truly understanding what masturbation was or is.  Little did I know, the song probably was just about that.  Girls really do just want to have fun, right?

So why do I bring up Cindy on a night like tonight?  Well, I was thinking about all the Hollywood crap that I hate, and Lena Dunham’s GIRLS, Forrest Gump, and The Bridges of Madison County all came to mind.

GIRLS.  I really want to hate this show — and I think I do.  But then I don’t.  I hate to watch it.  And then I love to watch it.  All at once. I mean, why is Lena Dunham’s life any more interesting than mine?  I would argue that mine is WAY more cooler and more interesting than hers.   So she has famous weirdo arty parents?  I had a brain explosion and a psychopath!!!  And I also know many famous people in the art world?????  I had four brain surgeries, and have some interesting and arguably popular friends.  I’m chubby-esque like her too.  I also live in NYC, but I’m like 8 generations older than her.  And I do know plenty of people who live in Brooklyn. Who the fuck cares, Lena Dunham?  My life is just as cool and easy to write about.  So if you or Judd Apatow are reading this now, I ask you to give me 10 good reasons why your life is more interesting than my totally crazy and totally fucked up, but good one, is?

That’s how I feel about GIRLS.  It airs every week, and I don’t want to watch it, but I do anyway.  And I can’t stop.  And I probably won’t. And I can’t imagine that I am admitting this to anyone. I am way too old to watch GIRLS and admit that I do.

On to Forrest Gump.  Run Forrest, Run!  Man — I hated that movie.  I really did. I hated everything about it.  How cheesy, how trite it was.  How cliche…. But after it came out, I could NOT escape it.  That damn Tom Hanks won the goddamn Academy Award for it!  Even after my idol Daniel Day Lewis played an AMAZING role in the movie In the Name of The Father. I mean, that was highway robbery.  And Tom Hanks got an award for playing a retard like my little cute cat Stevie?  Forrest.  Forrest Gump.  Forrest Gump loves shrimp and shrimp boats.  Who the fuck cares?  I was just so upset when he won.  It was a travesty. Yet still to this day, whenever it airs (which is pretty much daily on every major cable channel), I tune in to that stupid but addicting movie. I can’t stop watching it — even though I hate it. (And love it.)  The one thing that did make me like the movie a lot more than I thought was when my gay husband Cris told me he was running for the bus in NYC years and years ago and someone yelled out to him, “Run, Forrest, Run!!!!” I guess at the time, Cris was skinny and scrawny and looked like the little retarded Gump running for something.  That story has always made me laugh — and I now like Mr. Gump and the movie a little bit more. Cris really could have been him… But no, I can’t really accept it or go there with you.

The Bridges of Madison County.  To be honest, I had completely forgotten how much I hated this book and movie until I saw an ad for the new Broadway show of the same name.  And man, I really HATED it.  I couldn’t believe people actually read that book and thought it had any merit to it.  And then I saw the movie and remember trying not to laugh at how ridiculously lame it was.  My roommate at the time was so upset that I hated it, and she was sobbing uncontrollably during one of Meryl’s lame soliloquys aimed at Clint.  SO lame. So empty. And so vacuous.  What was that point of that? Was super sad and bummed to see it’s coming to Broadway — but why is this a shock? Rocky is also coming soon.

In conclusion, I have no conclusion.  Other than, I love to hate and hate to love many things including Girls and Forrest Gump. I think that I will concede that I just hate The Bridges of Madison County.  There is no love for that.  Nope, not any.

Thank you and namaste.