Guilty Pleasures 2

The first and only time I previously wrote about guilty pleasures, I swore that I would expunge this phrase from my vocabulary.

So much for that. It's crept its way back. It happens, I think, every time I have coffee with Jeff and Michael and Margaret, three of my closest friends and fellow English instructors at Lane Community College.

I love listening to them talk about what they love in movies and music and books. I love a lot of what they love, too.

But, there are songs and movies and other things I love that triggers a huge, "WHAT?" in them and I feel guilty that such things bring me pleasure.

So, I decided to resurrect my guilty pleasure list. I hope it brings you some guilty pleasure, but you might find yourself yelling "WHAT?" at my blog. It's probably true. How could an Episcopalian-Buddhist teaching-Shakespeare obssessed-minor actor says he enjoys this stuff....I'm not sure there's an explanation!

*Some time back, the self-proclaimed "Ultimate Guide to Music and More", Blender Magazine
named the top 50 worst songs of all time. Number one? Jefferson Starship, "We Built this City." I love this song. Every time it comes on the radio I turn it up. I rock at the steering wheel. It's one of my top shelf guilty pleasures. And the video: well, if enjoying this slice of cheese on a buttery Ritz cracker doesn't make you feel guilty, you have no capacity for guilty pleasure!



*And so is Britney Spears. Not the singer. I don't enjoy her music. No. I can't seem to take my eyes off the train wreck that is her life and I can't seem to stop saying inside myself, "Go, girl! Go, Britney! You show 'em. You'll be all right! You are strong! I love you Britney!" Every day, I check in with another guilty pleasure, PerezHilton.com, a hilarious gossip/photo site on the www and see if Hilton (Mario Lavandeira) has posted any new pictures of Britney drunk, wearing tacky clothes, carrying one of her children, or in some other way embarrassing herself. But, underneath this tacky exterior of poor decisions and bad publicity, I always see a fighter, a survivor underneath and so I can't take my eyes off of Britney and can't get enough news about her and pictures of her. It was the same with Tonya Harding. Tonya seemed like a Kellogg girl fighter to me and I always wanted to see her succeed. (Sorry Nancy.)

*My last coffee get together with Michael, Jeff, and Margaret, their collective recoiling at the fact that I enjoyed "Rocky Balboa" helped me see that the Rocky movies are a guilty pleasure of mine. What the hell? Rocky Balboa moves me. I always tear up when he struggles with his fame in contrast to his humble origins and I'm all for him when he gets in the ring and battles it out. My guiltiest of guilty pleasures is Rocky v Clubber Lang. Clubber is played by my triple guilty pleasure, the irresistable Mr T. I genuinely pity the fool who can't surrender to the energy and pride of Mr. T and enjoy his strength of character. By the way, I posted the second Rocky v Clubber Lang fight and the end of my post, here.

That's enough guilty pleasure for now. I'll tell you, though, my guilty pleasures do have limits. I do not count the book, "The Bridges of Madison County" a guilty pleasure, or a pleasure at all. I did, however, love the movie. So there.