Quite often, y'all know I steal completely from my friends in the on-line world....here, I'm gonna steal a little, and write a little of my own....

Last week, this world lost a beautiful soul.... a woman I had never met, but yet know with every fiber of my being that I would have enjoyed hanging out with, talking about obnoxious movies, books, TV, etc. Like me, she was not a "girly girl" but a tomboy...a zombie killer, a fighter in ways I cannot even imagine. Her name was Amanda Amos, but most of us in cyber-space knew her as Alabama Pink.

She was a frequent commenter on my favorite addiction, Pajiba. She also had her own blog, Whoa! Camel. A year or so ago, she was diagnosed with leukemia. Instead of hiding her pain from the world, she blogged about it. She was amazingly open about it...the pain, the fear, the hope, the treatments, the loneliness. She talked about her husband and young son. She talked about her parents. She talked about EVERYTHING. And that drew us all in. She was so eloquent in her ravings that we all fell in love with her. We listened, we talked to her, we sent her gifts, we sent money, we laughed, we cried, and mostly, we prayed.

But, last week, all that came to naught. Valiant though she was, the disease got the upper hand and Amanda's fight was over. Pajiba posted a wonderful picture of Patricia Arquette as Alabama in "True Romance" on their banner stating, "In Loving Memory, Alabama Pink" and ran what amounted to a sort of obit column. It was one of the most heartfelt things I have ever read. Then, following that column, the readers of Pajiba took over.....hundreds of us....ordinary schmucks who had never actually met this woman.....told stories about how she had touched us and how we would miss her. It was, to quote Tom Cruise in "Taps" ...."Beautiful, man, BEAUTIFUL!!!""

Several other columns followed, as did many other blogs. It's funny how one person, in the day and age of the internet, can touch so many people's hearts and lives. I am going to copy Pajiba's article from today, because there is some important information in it. But, before I do, I just want to say...Alabama....you were so cool.......

This site has been around for five years in June, and we’ve never been so proud to be a part of it as we were last Thursday. It was the worst of circumstances, but we were completely overwhelmed and touched by what transpired. The outpouring of grief and tears and affection and … fuck it … *love* that you all displayed after hearing about the passing of AlabamaPink — a woman none of you have ever met — was nothing short of magical. It was as though we were witness to a virtual, worldwide slow clap that built and built over the course of the day (and night) celebrating the wonderful life of Amanda Amos. It was the classiest thing we’ve ever seen on the Internet or otherwise. And it wasn’t just on the pages of Pajiba — there were tributes to AlabamaPink on blogs too countless to link, and all over Facebook; Skitz’s AlabamaPink seal began popping up in lots of profile pages. We were so moved by it all, we were tempted to change the site’s tagline to Scathing Reviews, Spectacular People.
We’ve all had a few days now to process Amanda’s passing, and if you haven’t read them yet, I’d like to point you to her husband’s most recent posts: The Last 24 Hours of Amanda’s life and Adrian’s own thoughts about the passing of Amanda. I’ll warn you: They may crush you. They are heartbreaking, and we can’t thank Adrian enough for sharing his thoughts so openly. It takes a lot of strength and courage to open your life up to thousands of friends and strangers. We can’t possibly put into words the amount of respect and admiration we have for Adrian. Really, they are just an amazing, wonderful family.
Over the last few days, we’ve also received a lot of suggestions. There are a lot of you out there who want to do something for Amanda’s family, to channel your sadness into something positive. Something tangible. We weighed a lot of the ideas, and what we’d really like to do is focus it in one place. Their church is putting together a Scholarship Fund for Amanda’s son, Alastair. And if you have anything to spare — $5, $10, $20 — it’d mean a lot to making a lasting contribution to her son’s future. Checks can be made out to the United Christian Church. Write “Alastair Amos” in the memo line. Those checks can be sent to P.O. Box 70759, Richmond, VA 23255.
We can’t thank you enough.
If you’re not in a position to contribute financially, we encourage you all to donate blood to the American Red Cross or put yourself on a bone marrow list. Hopefully, somebody out there can help prevent this happening to someone else. We think that would’ve meant a lot to Amanda.
Amanda’s New Orleans style service will take place this Sunday. There is a remote possibility that Adrian can get it webcast, but in any respect, please do send all your good vibes to Richmond this Sunday.
And finally, Adrian sent us the picture below of Amanda, writing: “The background swallows up the ginormity of her hand-cannon, but here’s Amanda in her 2006 Halloween costume. I was Ash that year, and together we kicked some zombie butt. Unfortunately the movies get it wrong: Zombie apocalypses always end in the total destruction of the human race. But we never lost heart, and I stood by her with my boomstick to the bitter end.”
Like we said: Amazing family.

The lovely Amanda....

Like, it’s TOTALLY an 80’s show!

Director Chante Wells, and Producer Bonnie Locchetta are pleased to announce auditions for Rush County Players long-awaited 80’s musicale, “Video Killed the Radio Star!” Auditions will be held at the Playhouse, 201 N. Morgan Rushville, on Monday, March 16, Tuesday, March 17, and Wednesday, March 18, from 6:30 pm to 8:30 pm. Music and scripts will be provided for those auditioning.

“Video Killed the Radio Star!” is a scripted musicale, celebrating the hits of the MTV generation. Artists from Duran Duran to Tina Turner will be represented as the Montridge High Class of 1989 hold their final prom of the ‘80’s. Roles include students attending the prom, as well as teachers acting as chaperones! Those auditioning must be at least high school age. Thirty roles have been scripted, but “extras” may be needed to attend the prom as well! And, yes, there will be some dancing, but it’s 80’s dancing! How hard can that be?

Rehearsals will begin on Monday March 30, and will be held on Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays at the Playhouse, also from 6:30-8:30 pm. This production will be held in a more “dance” oriented venue---the Rushville Elks Ballroom. The performances will be “in-the-round”, to put the audience closer to the show. And, audience members will be chaperones for the “dance” as well! Show-dates are May 1 at 8:00 pm, May 2 at 8:00 pm, and May 3 at 2:00 pm..

If you want to be totally rad and cool, come and revisit the years when MTV actually showed music videos! For more information, call 938-1711, or visit www.rushcountyplayers.org. And, like, it’ll be EXCELLENT!

We waited.....in anticipation.....of the GREATEST CINEMATIC TRIUMPH OF THE 21ST CENTURY!!! Was this it? Was it worth the hype, the money, the wait.......ummm, sorta, kinda....not really.

Yeah, we've been waiting for months upon months for "Watchmen" to finally open. I don't know a lot about the source material (GOTTA read it now) but it looked awesome, and any time there are copious amounts of violence and gore, and super-hero-y-ness thrown in, I'm good to go. So, the kids and head out Saturday afternoon, ready for an exciting afternoon.

We get to the theatre before the doors are even open, and for the first time in my life, we are the FIRST people in to buy our tickets!!! It's a whole 1/2 hour before the show starts, but thats ok. More time to get snacks, snag our fave seats (middle of the back row, baby!) and make fun of the ads before the previews. Get our 5 gallon drums of pop and head up to the seats. People filter in, but not as many as I expected. Of course, it was a beautiful, 70-some degree Saturday afternoon, so many people are out and about. I do notice, however, that someone way down front has what appears to be at least one small child (definitely under 10). Hmmm, dunno if this is a real small kid friendly movie.....yet.

Trailers....."Wolverine" looks good (the world needs more shirtless Hugh Jackman, I say!! And Ryan Reynolds is pretty), "Observe and Report" looks funny, a funny take on "Paul Blart". Is it wrong that I'm a little in love with Seth Rogan? Anywho, on to the show.....

It opens with a bang, that's for sure....then, into the opening credits which were FANTASTIC!!! Brilliantly staged, lit, everything. Beautiful.....and.......wtf???? All this anticipation, and ....meh. It was ...ok. I wondered, when you first got a GOOD look, after thinking, "Did I really just see that? No, I couldn't have..." of Dr. Manhattan's blue wang, if the folks with the little kiddies started to regret their decision.

Yeah, I wasn't prepared for almost 3 hours of azure weiner. As I said, I'm not that familiar with the source material, so, umm, didn't know there was gonna be a naked blue guy in most of the movie. I also didn't know there was gonna be some fairly graphic sex, for an R-rated action movie. The violence?? LOTS of it, with LOTS of blood, and bones popping thru the skin, and hanging bones and meat....but I LOVE that kinda stuff. But, having a scene where it looked like the Blue Man Group was gettin' it on with Laurie Jupiter? Kinda...wrong.

Overall? AWESOME effects, truly awesome. Lots of pretty colors. LOTS of violence, and sex. Jackie Earl Haley as Rorschach was out of this world, and Jeffrey Dean Morgan (who my kids and I thought was the bigger, meaner, slightly less attractive RDJ) did a great job. The other actors? You could pretty much replace them with cardboard cut-outs.....even my beloved Matt Frewer was wasted. Seriously, my absolute favorite part of the movie was the opening credits, with the live-action photos showing the history of the "Watchmen." Had the whole movie been more like that, it might have been a little better.

Don't get me wrong...I didn't hate it. It was good. It just.....wasn't what I expected. I assume that true, loyal fans of the comic are beside themselves. I'll get it on dvd, but ..... I guess "Iron Man" and "The Dark Knight" just set the bar a little too high......