What Happened to Wayward Pines?????

I have been watching the trailer for the upcoming season of FOX's addictive and creepy Wayward Pines 2nd season (coming May 25th). I cannot make sense of most the things I'm seeing. The only things I know for sure is that:

  1. Matt Dillon's sheriff/FBI agent Ethan Burke was killed in the season finale, sacrificing himself to save the group from the terrifying "Abbeys."
2.  Ethan's teenage son Ben was tended to at a hospital after the incident and was told by his girlfriend Amy that all the adults were put to sleep and the teens (called the First Generation)  took over the town.
3. There are new people discovering Wayward Pines, and this time we know more about what's going on there.

SPOILERS AND MORE FROM SEASON 1:  It's the future (the year 3,000-something) and there was a zombie apocalypse. One town in Idaho is left. People didn't know how they got there ("an accident" for many) and they cannot leave the town. Why can't they leave? NBD,  because the people/zombie mutants have destroyed everything outside of the town. Each towns-person is awakened over time and given a new job and family, and the children are the only ones who are taught the truth. That's it in a nutshell.

How did they arrive in the future that is not at all like the Jonas Brothers song, sadly? Random people were  chosen and plucked out of their lives in the mid 20-teens. Then they were knocked unconscious and never recovered in their present time and sealed into sleeping chambers for about 1,000 years by a crazy scientist, who is now dead from the Abbey uprising.

2016: The "In Memoriam Section" is Going to Be Long

"A legend has died," is a phrase that has been uttered way too many times for only being 4 months through 2016. At an alarming rate, music greats have been dying, leading to what many have called "the end of a generation of music." They come from different walks of life and died for a variety of reasons, but we all remember where we were the first time we heard them... and the last. I attribute today's blog title to my friend Teresa. She eloquently summed up the fan response to the growing number of music legends dying this year. 

Merle Haggard (I looked, but there are no GIFS for him)
Haggard eerily died on his 79th birthday (April 6th) this year. I didn't know too much about him because his era of country was well before my time. Most of my knowledge comes from seeing an exhibit about him at the Country Music Hall of Fame in Nashville a few years ago titled, "The Bakersfield Sound." Haggard was a man of the people, taking on the persona of the "Okie from Muskogee."

GIF from Gfycat.com

 Prince
 For Prince (or The Artist Formerly Known As) as he was called when I was kid, the 57 year old man seemed to die gradually. I was scrolling through some music to listen to at work the morning of his death, hearing he was found unresponsive in his elevator by lunchtime, and pronounced dead by the evening. It was a bone chilling moment when I heard the news. While I enjoyed "Kiss" and "Little Red Corvette", police were responding to a 911 call at his Minneapolis compound, where Prince would later be pronounced dead. Stadiums were lit up purple and people held all night dance parties to celebrate his passing. Prince was not just a fashion icon, but an ambassador of a way of life. My favorite moment of the artist is not one of his well known ones. It's a clip from Muppets Tonight (the 1997 show on the Disney Channel) and "the artist formerly known as" Prince is writing songs about cafeteria food. Rizzo the Rat keeps addressing "the artist" by turning around and showing the symbol on the back of his jacket. 

GIF from Tumblr. 

David Bowie
In January, another 80's legend, David Bowie, passed away quietly. Unbeknownst to fans and the public, the singer succumbed to liver cancer days two days after his new album Blackstar was released. My most memorable Bowie moment is from the 1980's (also Muppets) movie, Labriynth. I thank my parents every day that I never saw this movie as a child, because I had enough things to be creeped out about (mostly the song "Season of the Witch" by the band Donovan). While there was talk of  the movie being re-booted after Bowie's death, that got shut down quickly.
     This movie would have also made me afraid of baby napping, David Bowie, mazes, and cats. Just look at the guy, he's a spandex-wearing man cat! I first saw the movie at the beginning of college, where I was able to laugh at the 80's graphics and strange songs, like Bowie's "You remind me of the babe" song and dance with the kidnapped baby Toby. 

The Eagles (Frey on left) from GIPHY

Glenn Frey
The legendary Eagles guitarist passed away in January from multiple issues, including pneumonia, rheumatoid arthritis, colitis and inflammatory bowel disease. He was 67 at the time and had retired from touring with the band about a year before being hospitalized for the above issues. My favorite Frey moment has got to be his music video for "You Belong to the City." There is some beautiful acting going on and some "Baker Street" style saxophone solos. The song was written for the show Miami Vice, but oddly the promotional music video features Frey clearly in New York.  

Natalie Cole
This charming jazz singer passed away at age 65 on new year's eve. If that wasn't bad enough, she suffered from heart failure as a result of lung disease. While I'm torn to choose a favorite Natalie Cole moment, I have to go with her 1992 Grammy Awards duet with her dead father (jazz singer Nat King Cole) in 1992. With the magic of video screens and good audio quality, both Coles were able to sing "Unforgettable."

Boy Bands + Zombies - Music = Dead 7

     I thought it was a joke when I first heard it, but there was going to be a movie starring members of boy bands.  It was going to be on SyFy on April Fools Day, and this is the same network that green-lit the Sharknado trilogy. Even better than that, it was going to be a western... written by Nick Cater from The Backstreet Boys.  It was not the highest of cinematic fare, but I loved seeing the 90's pinups (BSB, N*SYNC, 98 Degrees, O-Town) fighting zombies. There was also the interesting (and somehow perfect casting of bay boy A.J. McLean as the head zombie's crazy henchman. What can I say, I'm easily amused.

Here are 10 important things I learned from watching Dead 7:

Chris Kirkpatrick sans eye
(Photo courtesy of Mashable)

10. Chris Kirkpatrick is still the last one picked. The N*SYNC guy played the town sheriff, not a member of the 7, and he somehow managed to lose an eye to the evil zombie queen, Apocolypta.

9. Jeff Timmons (98 Degrees) still looks dam good covered in dirt. He may be the hottest member of the 98. But what confused me greatly about Jeff's place  in general in this movie is his motive. Something terrible caused a rift between Jeff's character Billy and his brother Jack (Nick Carter) before the zombie apocalypse, and it had to do with "can't make up my mind" Daisy Jane. This was a fairly big plot point that was never explained. More importantly, where are people still getting hair gel after the zombie apocalypse?

8. Joey Fatone (N*SYNC) will never be a mustache guy. He can absolutely be a goatee guy, or  a  5 o'clock shadow guy, but his Yosemite Sam 'stache makes him look like a civil war general.

7. Nobody in the costume department knows what a ninja looks like. Erik-Michael Estrada's (O-Town) character was a ninja with a man bun, a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles shell, two swords, cargo pants, and sneakers.

The Men of Dead 7 (Photo from of Zap2It)
Jeff, Chris, Howie, Nick, A.J., Erik, Joey

6. Faced with too many Latinos in the cast, Howie Dorough (BSB) became The Vaquero and Erik-Michael became the ninja known as Kimodo. Somehow A.J. McLean (BSB) looks like a bloody clown.

5. Zombie henchmen look a lot like... a vampire slayer. Compare A.J. (as Johnny Vermillion, not his early 2000's solo alter ego Johnny Suede) on the left with with the first vampire slayer Sineya (from Buffy the Vampire Slayer). Maybe there was something missing from the very confusing exposition about all of the vampires being wiped off the earth before "the plague"? Maybe A.J. was actually a vampire, or more likely, an insane clown posse fan (a.k.a. Juggalo).

     Both characters talked in a similar manner, mostly growling. Sineya the slayer's words translated to the following:
"I have no speech. No name. I live in the action of death, the blood cry, the penetrating wound. I am destruction. Absolute... Alone." 
     Sounds like a zombie to me. Also important to note, evil zombie queen Apocolypta had a Jamaican accent when she spoke, sometimes. What was that all about?

4. O-Town sticks together. Almost the entire band appeared in the movie. Erik was one of the 7, Jacob Underwood was in a card game with Joey, and Dan Miller was holding it down as a bartender. Even Trevor Penick made a cameo as another more legitimate sheriff than Chris Kirkpatrick. Who was missing? Everyone's favorite teen heartthrob and occasional diva  Ashley Parker Angel. (I once waited three hours at the mall to meet him, only to be told I could take a photo of Ashley but couldn't be in the photo...)

3. Nobody likes the guys that flunked out of O-Town. Yes, during the groundbreaking reality series Making the Band, there were about 8 guys going through training to eventually form O-Town. The guys that were not chosen (and Ikaika Kahoano, who quit for some ridiculous reason) formed a group called LMNT. They were not cool enough to be be involved in this movie. Also important to note, Matthew Morrison (the teacher from Glee) was briefly in this boy band.

2. All the women left in the world are regarded as whores. Literally some of the guys end up in a whorehouse. All of the other women (the zombie queen, caught-between-two-brothers Daisy Jane and tribal priestess and guide Sirene (Lauren Kitt Carter) all are dressed similar to Laura Croft. I take that back, Laura Croft is dresses classier than all of these women as she raids tombs. At least the women were all wearing sensible and flat soled boots when they were running, no stilettos in sight.

1. Zombies are called copperheads????
I've got nothing to offer on this one. I am not sure why they were called copperheads. In conclusion,  SPOILER: Sirene is the only one who survived so my moral of the story is that men should not be left in charge of a post-apocalyptic world. (DROPS MIC).

Fashion or Foe: Do Not Buy...

     Do not buy clothes that are advertised on social networking sites. I came close to doing this recently and I am glad I didn't. As I mentioned in a recent blog post, I has to part with a beloved pair of Black, just under the knee, suede, non-heeled boots. They were in a word- perfect. I wore them to work, out with friends, and even a few times unexpectedly into a surprise snow flurry. I became crazed over the last 6 weeks looking for a replacement pair for next Fall, hoping to score a deal as Winter boots made their way out of stores for summer stock. But, I struggled. I found "The perfect" boots a few times only to have my hopes dashed. One pair seemed great except for a 2 1/2" platform built inside the boot while another seemed promising but it only came in a Tan suede fabric. A third pair were ideal but the boot shaft height came way over my knees, making it impossible to wear unless I went full Barbie and stopped bending my legs.

One pair of my new boots
(c) SeeHearReadPop

     To make this long story short, I ended up with two different sets of boots one from Sears and another via 6pm.com, Both of which do not fully meet my needs but due to their discounted pieces will work until I find "The Boots." In my brief desperation, I considered ordering boots from an advertisement I saw on Facebook. It seemed too good to be true. A recent Buzzfeed investigative article confirmed my fears, it was clearly some kind of scam when boots are available for $9.99 from a company you've never heard of in China. At first you might think it's just cheap because it's straight from the manufacturer. But the article goes in-depth about customers ordering boots, dresses, tops etc.. from a variety of these sites advertised on social media sites and nearly all of the cheap clothing arrived in a much different condition (color was off, fabric was different, items smelled horrible) than the seller claimed. Of course, trying to reach their customer service is near impossible and many clients have not been successful in trying to get their money back. I recommend reading their in-depth piece before your next online shopping trip.

I'm Going to Graceland.... Memphis Tennessee

(c) 2016 SeeHearReadPop

"I'm going to Graceland, Graceland... Memphis, Tennessee." -- Paul Simon (Graceland)

"I followed him up to the gates of Graceland, and I watched him walk right through." -- Marc Cohn (Walking in Memphis) 

(c) 2016 SeeHearReadPop

     Last week, I had the pleasure of visiting Elvis Presley's Graceland in Memphis, Tennessee. This place has been long-revered in the public consciousness through pop songs (mentioned above) and legendary photos. When my friend and I pulled up at the Graceland tourism center, we were completely confused as to what we were seeing. A series of Elvis-themed shops and the Heartbreak Hotel greeted us on one side of the road. We didn't see the house, but there is a hotel for "lonely people to dwell" right across the street. We came to the ticket center, and I thought this must be it. Wrong again! We bought tickets and were given headphones and iPads for the guided tour. Then we queued in line for a bus. We did a double take when we saw there were buses involved. Just how big was this property? I had already heard there was room for horses to run around, but this seemed extreme.

(c) 2016 SeeHearReadPop

     The bus took us across the street to what a modern day person would recognize as an average -sized colonial in the suburbs. But in the 1950's this house would be on a grand scale to other houses in the area, and it was majestic. Who runs the place now? Despite their divorce many years ago, Elvis's ex-wife Priscilla actively is involved in the property and keeping her former husband's legacy available to the public. The building opened to the common folks back in 1992.

      The tour included the first floor and basement of the house, excluding the 2nd floor due to privacy of the Presley family. Per the tour, "The King" died in a second floor bathroom. We were told by our wonderful iPad tour guide John Stamos (Haaave Merrrcy!) that daughter Lisa Marie and her family visit from time to time. During these occasions, the property is closed so the family can enjoy dinner in the house. The first floor held Mr. (Vernon) and Mrs. Presley's bedroom, the grand living room and music room, dining room, kitchen, and the infamous jungle room. A tour of the basement included a media room (with three T.V'.s on one wall) and a pool room covered from ceiling to floor in upholstered fabric.

(c) 2016 SeeHearReadPop

 "Priscilla, Priscilla, how'd you keep him to yourself?"
 -- Miranda Lambert (Priscilla)

        The garage, former home to the pink Cadillac, also held  Vernon's office. Hold on Kris Jenner, but Vernon Presley  could give you a run for your money as the original dad-ager.  We caught news footage there of a just-returned from service  (circa 1957) Elvis shaking off the notion that he found love  while her was serving overseas. He casually mentioned an  American girl he met there and it was "nothing serious." Her  name was Priscilla Beaulieu, and she would become  Presley's wife in 1967.

     The pool house was turned into a hall of records. Literally  there was a wall of gold and platinum records, Grammys, and  other awards. There was a ton of memorabilia (Elvis lipstick)  and displays and clips from Elvis's movie days. The former  fitness center housed a tribute in Elvis's later years, mostly the Las Vegas time. In the same racquetball court where Elvis stood hours before his death, I took in videos of his T.V, special from Hawaii, Las Vegas shows, and about a dozen different jumpsuits. There was also a tribute and display to the Elvis commemorative postage stamp, first introduced in 1993 and reintroduced in 2015.

(c) 2016 SeeHearReadPop

  It was unreal to walk in the same space where legends of music had also walked. While some reports have called the design of the house ostentatious and gaudy, I found it very true to the style of Elvis. It was regal, like a king, but still pretty homey. The kitchen (sorry photos didn't come out) was nearly untouched since Elvis passed away in August of 1977. A simple television sit on the counter and stools sat next to a refrigerator, with a shopping list that noted peanut butter and bananas, an Elvis special sandwich.

(c) 2016 SeeHearReadPop

   
    The final stop on the tour before heading back to the visitor's center was the memorial garden. There were graves for the King, his parent,s his grandmother Minnie Presley, who outlived almost the entire family, and Elvis' twin brother Jesse  (like Uncle Jesse from Full House), who was stillborn. It's a very beautiful place on the property. On August 16th, there is a candlelight vigil held in honor of Elvis's death. My birthday falls on the anniversary of Elvis' death, and I enjoy a movie marathon each year. My favorite movie is Clambake, but I still have many to see. 

I Came Here to... Make a Scene

     Blake Shelton's recent performance at the ACM Awards left me wondering whaaaat?

     I'll be the first to admit, I like the musical styling of Blake Shelton.  I really want to like The Voice too, but I find it difficult to devote two hours in one night to a singing competition show. When it comes to choosing a side in Blake and Miranda Lambert's split, I am completely on #TeamMiranda. I liked Blake's new squeeze Gwen Stefani in the past, but I formally at odds in this situation. It's driven a lot of conversation at my book club.

     Allegedly, Blake and Gwen became friends on The Voice and things heated up in December after Gwen left "cheating" husband Gavin Rossdale.  Miranda and Blake also amicably called it quits around the same time. Possibly it was from all of the negative press surrounding their relationship from the beginning. We've all taken some time to heal and with spring being sprung, B & G have been out and about, taking in Grammy after parties and Oscar parties as a pair. So what changed at the Academy of Country Music Awards?  Blake was not asked back co-host the event with Luke Bryan this year, and squeaky-clean and sexy dad Dierks Bentley was called up to the big leagues. Blake still managed to walk out and crash Luke's party for his show-opening performance of  Huntin' Fishin' and Lovin' Everyday despite cameras hovering on Dierks Backstage, preparing to join Luke on stage.

     Soon after, Blake too the stage to debut his new song Came Here to Forget. This song more or less says "I'm getting over her, you're getting over him etc..." and is a slow-burning kiss-off song. Blake performed the song in the presence of his ex-wife with a cool camera effect, showing Blake in a totally black-and-white image. It's all very meta here and frankly I thought it was finally a statement on the state of affairs. Blake is saying here that he is totally over Miranda...and poor Miranda came here to be honored with some trophies, not to be insulted by her ex. It came off as rude.

4/19 UPDATED: Blake and Gwen will release a new duet Go Ahead and Break My Heart on his upcoming album, If I'm Honest.

Vampires, Babies, and Another Day in Mystic Falls, V.A.

     I am hopelessly behind on The Vampire Diaries. Truth be told, I was over a season behind a few times for the first 4 seasons. We're only talking about 5-6 episodes now, which really isn't too bad. First, I  have to back up to comment on the end of last season. It's fine with me that the lead character Elena (Nina Dovarev) the very girl who kept the vampire diary, decided to leave. I'm not going to lose any sleep over it except that she is the main conflict of the show. Through each of the seasons, it has always come back to Elena. We need to protect her, we need to save her from herself, we need her to choose who she loves more... They have managed to move the season 7 story along dealing with the with the Salvatore brothers' family issues while also jumping forward three years so we have no clue what's going on.

Photo from "I Just Hate Everything" website*

     Where we left off. Elena died under magical circumstances  (like everyone else on the show) and she can't come back to vampire life until her witchy human friend Bonnie (Kat Graham) dies. Of course Elena wasn't the only one who died at that season finale wedding. Her pseudo father Ric (he dated Elena's aunt and he was married to her birth mom) lost the bride, his wife Jo, that same night. She was killed while pregnant with twins, and somehow their witch baby twins were placed in Caroline's womb. I learned a few weeks ago that Candice Accola (Caroline) is pregnant and gave birth in January.  Suddenly this plot twist gave the gang a new person to protect! Let's be clear, Caroline is way more of a badass than the whiny, needy Elena will ever be, so she won't be a victim for long. The real issue I'm facing is how Stefan could be so in love with Elena for years (they had multiple doppelgangers and Stefan was in lover with doppelganger ancestor Katherine since the civil war) and then he just jumped in bed with her BEST FRIEND. It's a little more nuanced than that, (he saved Caroline from her dark side after her mom died. Plus Elena went through a dark phase and chose Stefan's brother over him because she was going through something (a case of bad boy-itis). But in the simplest terms, Stefan basically put his life-altering love affair aside.

     Why did I tag this post as frustrated? I started watching episode 713 a few weeks ago and my on demand freaked out and wouldn't playback the episode. I tried again to bring it up and it didn't last. Finally I went back this week to catch up on episodes and I couldn't find 713 anywhere. This is crucially important because this is the episode where Caroline must give birth to the witch baby twins that are siphoning her magic. (Spoiler from the flash forward scene, the twins turn out fine!) My cable company On demand, Hulu and the CW website/app were all missing this episode. They had combinations of episodes 712, 714, 715, 716 but the vampire baby birth episode was oddly missing. I finally located it on Amazon and paid $1.99 to download and view the episode because jumping into 714 left me puzzled after a minute. Why were they getting the spun-off villainous Originals re-involved in their story. Why is  Cranky the vampire slayer  (new hunter Rayna) chasing Stefan Salvatore on a motorcycle? We will have so see how this unfolds now, but it's finally clear how Caroline ends up with Ric in the jump-ahead future. Once you have someone's baby for their dead wife, an unspeakable bond forms that just has to lead to love!

*For the record ANGEL only went into season 3 until it brought us a vampire pregnancy. #Darla