Halloween on Acid: Why I Love American Horror Story

American Horror Story (FX) This is Ryan Murphy's twisted show that feeds off classic horror movie themes. It's campy, revolting, creepy, but lots of fun to watch. It's the type of show where you will scream "WHAT!!", because you can't even believe what you're seeing. He goes THERE. Murphy always crosses over that line of decency. If you are easily offended, this is not the show for you. He loves anything taboo.

This is the third season of the series: Each season has featured a completely different plot and characters. Although, the majority of the actors appear in every season. Jessica Lange is the queen: That's all you need to know and don't forget it. She always portrays an evil bitch and does it flawlessly. She is your classic Shakespearean, morally bankrupt woman.

Murphy obviously has an appreciation for the art of acting, because most of his actors are well-known from Broadway and television: Denis O'Hare, Lily Rabe, Frances Conroy, Dylan McDermott, Patti LuPone, Kathy Bates, and Angela Bassett, just to name a few. The acting is always superb. The show vacillates between scary and bizarre. Sometimes you are legitimately freaked out, and other times it feels like you're watching a parody.

The first season takes place in a haunted house. Your typical white family moves into a new house, and everything goes haywire. There's also a creeptastic entity wearing a rubber S&M suit roaming around, which makes life in that house uncomfortably WEIRD. If you are going to watch any of the seasons, this is the one. It's my favorite, and the ending pulls the entire season together. It's a real M. Night Shyamalan moment. It's worth watching this season for the ending alone.

The second season's depravities occur in an insane asylum in the 1950s where Jessica Lange is a NUN. And she's nasty. Big surprise there. If you are scared of the dark, do not watch this season by yourself. Some of the featured actors are: James Cromwell, Chloe Sevigny, Joseph Fiennes, Ian McShane as a demented Santa that will haunt your dreams for life. This season has demonic possession, aliens, a serial killer, and Nazis. It has one of the most surreal, over-the-top campy musical sequences you will ever see.

This third season involves a coven of witches, headed by Jessica Lange. She is known as "The Supreme." You don't want to mess with this witch. She's a bad person. However, she is not as horrific a human being as Delphine LaLaurie, played brilliantly by Kathy Bates, who tortures and keeps her black slaves in a dungeon, doing unspeakable things to their bodies. When these scenes play, do not attempt to eat anything. Put the snacks down and wait until the show is over. Apparently she is based on a real person in the 1800s. Angela Bassett plays a voodoo queen. Angela Bassett DOES NOT AGE. She needs to put out an anti-aging skin care line. She's in her 50s, and she looks better than most 30 year-olds. This season is my least favorite. Don't get me wrong, I still watch it every week religiously, but it's not as solid as the other two.

I'm in Love

This is Preston from The Greatest American Dog. He's one of the cutest things I've ever seen, and I want one just like him. He's a white Pomeranian, but he's groomed like a little wolf, aww. And, how frigging adorable is his little turquoise mohawk! I'm pretty sure once we get our own place, this is going to be the dog I get.

Speaking of dogs, J and I are watching my mom's dog named Pandy on Sunday thru Monday. He's really cute. He's a Shih-Tzu Bichon Frise mix. We're very excited to have him because he's a total sweetheart. I just hope he gets along with our cat, Peter. They're about the same size, so hopefully, they'll befriend each other. One can only hope...

Things I Watched This Weekend

Now that I have cable again (don't get me started...we still don't have DVR because Comcast is the worst fucking company ever), I'm able to watch all my shows again.

Million Dollar Listing was entertaining as always. I'm starting to like Josh Flagg more and more, not because I like him as a person, but he's so funny to watch. He walks like a butler; it's the strangest thing. He's so stiff and awkward. There's a scene where he's celebrating his birthday with "150 acquaintances", and then the next scene, he is back in his hotel room, in an oversized robe, blowing out the candles on his birthday cake by himself. He's so strange and weirdly robotic, but I love him just the same.

The Soup was really funny this week. They featured a Spaghetti Cat puppet.


I saw last week's I Love Money :The Spit Olympics, and it was great. The Entertainer ended up as Paymaster, and even though Meghan was on the chopping block, he sent the 30-something stripper, Heather packing because he thought after 12 Pack left, she had turned on him. Heather is looking rough these days. She needs to lay off the cigarettes and booze and go for a moisturizing facial ASAP. She always looks permanently hungover and dehydrated.

I rented the first season of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. It's such a funny show, and I'm sure not many people know about it. It's warped, politically incorrect, but the whole ensemble cast works really well together. The show is one of the funniest on TV right now, and I wonder how they come up with the scripts they do because they're so out there. Also, watch for Brittany Daniels as a tranny named Carmen. You will be shocked, horrified, but I guarantee you won't stop laughing.


Oh, and the piece de resistance of my weekend viewing: Mad Men. Each episode tops the next. As my good friend Al said: "This was a brutal episode." Don got called out on his affair with Bobbie Barrett by her husband, Jimmy, but not before Jimmy made the "Look at us at the kids' table," comment to Betty, and then said, "I wonder what happened between the two of them." Betty acted all shocked, but she knew it was true. "The Gold Violin" was such a pitch-perfect name for this episode. What did you think the "gold violin" was a metaphor for?

The VMAs were god-awful. Russell Brand was not funny, and at times, he didn't seem to even try to be funny. He was just hosting. J called it. He was terrible. The show was boring.

I've Been Dying a Slow Death

We moved last Saturday, and we just got cable installed yesterday because Comcast is probably one of the worst companies I've ever had the intense displeasure to ever come in contact with. They screwed up our installation appointment, and then blamed us (saying we cancelled - we didn't), and then we were able to reschedule, but they could only fit us in yesterday. The guy shows up, and he doesn't have the DVR we ordered. He said it's not on the work order. J tries to get another one today at the Comcast store near his work, and the woman was a total bitch to him, so he left. They have the worst customer service out there. There's an actual website out there called Comcast Sucks, ha.

I've been without cable for a few days. We had been stuck watching the basic channels, and it was rough. There is NOTHING on at night. How many times can you watch Dr. Phil confront a hoarder or a pedophile who may or may not be molesting his son? I'm thrilled to have cable again. I watched the last episode of Mad Men last night - so good! I feel as if all is right again in my little pop culture world. If only we could get Direct TV and cancel Comcast, then things would be perfect.

Mad Men Recap

I watched the most recent episode of Mad Men last night when I came home from work. I have to say: it was the best episode of this season, so far. Don and Betty are going through some kind of honeymoon phase. They're all over each other! Although, it could have something to do with how hammered they are in that household. Don has little Sally making the drinks, and stiff ones at that! Whoa, did you see how much vodka was poured into Don's Bloody Mary! It's no wonder he started dancing with Betty in the middle of the living room. They got so drunk that by evening, they had forgotten to feed dinner to their kids!

Then, there's Peggy making nice with some tall, dark, and handsome priest, played by Colin Hanks. What is up with Peggy always going after the forbidden fruit? There was definitely an attraction between the two of them, until her bitchy and mean-spirited sister told him in the confessional how Peggy had seduced an "innocent" married man and had a child out of wedlock. Innocent? C'mon! She acts as if Peggy tied Peter to a chair and had her way with him, as he protested over and over. Yeah Sis, it didn't go down like that.

Betty is trying to get Don to discipline the children, but he refuses. Something told me that Don was not into reprimanding his children, especially hitting them. He had a pretty bad childhood, and his father seemed like a real jerk (see The Hobo Code episode). After a fight with Betty where she pushed him, so he pushed her back, he told her that his father used to beat him, and then he made some comment about how it made him fantasize about the day when he would kill him. Okay, hold the phone! Did Don kill his father?!! It's not clear, and Betty kind of takes it like he's just come from a bad home. She doesn't seem to focus on the whole "I may have killed my father" thing.

The American Airlines deal falls through, and I'm sure Don is pissed off at Duck (nice name!)because he was the one who made Sterling Cooper drop Mohawk Airlines and put this whole meeting together. This makes Duck look really bad. Peter was wearing teeny-tiny tennis shorts, ha. Joan's boobs looked like torpedoes under her purple sheath dress, to which little Sally Draper, who had been brought to the office by Don, made a comment that she had "big ones". Kids are so perceptive! She also asked Paul if she "lays down" with his black girlfriend. Geez, Sally is a little perv! She must've gotten that trait from her father. She's going to end up a nymphomaniac with a drinking problem who smokes 2 packs a day. Oh, and Roger had sex with a prostitute, and then took her out for a nice dinner. He's such a gentleman.

The hot priest meets Peggy after Mass, and hands her an Easter egg, and tells her to "Give it to the little one." Oh, no he didn't! Peggy is left standing there, looking stunned and really disappointed that there won't be any hope of some steamy Thorn Birds action between the two of them.