Suds Away!

Now in a "new hunky aroma"!

Snack Mash

Old timey packaging? Check.
Maraschino cherry preserves? Check.
"An American favorite since 1918"? You know it.
Cop with baton caricature? But, of course!

Caricature-iffic!

Head on over here to get your very own M*A*S*H* mural!


Or, a Regis and Kathie Lee commemoration:


Or, a blazing hot Eddie Murphy portrait:


A question for the ages: Does Kathie Lee manage to out-mash M*A*S*H*?

UPDATE: Check out this vintage clip of Jon Stewart doing a Kathie Lee impersonation!

Mash for Lovers

A friend recently alerted me to the extreme mashiness of romance self-help guides. As noted elsewhere, words like "lover" and "intimate" are already off-limits, and I'd like to extend that prohibition to "keep that spark alive" how-to's.

Case-in-point: Lovetripper.com's How to Make Every Trip a Honeymoon.
WARNING: This list of "do's" is not for the faint of heart!

How to create that loving feeling, the highlight reel:

• Watch for falling stars. Don’t forget to make a wish!
• Splurge with a helicopter or a submarine tour to take your love to new heights—or depths.
• Buy sleeping bags that zip together.
• Find a daisy—or a hibiscus or sunflower or any other local flower—and play “he loves me, he loves me not.” Each positive answer gets a kiss.
• Find a hayride and hop aboard.
• Gather seashells, pine cones or tiny pebbles. Create a heart at your door’s threshold.
• Go for a walk in the rain—wearing nothing but raincoats.
• Hop aboard a ferry. Kiss every time the ship’s horn sounds.
• If a rain shower arises, don’t let it dampen your day—go for a sensuous stroll.
• Pick flowers to match your partner’s eyes.
• Play hide and seek in a fragrant garden.
• Roll up your pants and wade along the water’s edge as you hold hands.
• See how long you can kiss underwater.
• Sit in a spring field and see how many wildflowers you can count together.
• Take a romantic rock or leaf hunt as you stroll or hike. Search for heart—or more risqué—shapes.
• Visit a marina and “window shop” to select your favorite vessels. Daydream about charting a course around the world, just the two of you.
• Take a hike and pick up small items along the way like a twig, a dried leaf, a feather, or a smooth pebble. That night, blindfold your partner and sensuously stroke the items across his or her bare skin. See if your lover can identify the item.
• Watch the clouds and imagine shapes in their puffy forms. Feeling naughty? The two of you can point out your own R—or X—rated shapes.

Yachts are always romantic, much like fragrant gardens, hayrides, and, of course, the sensuous stroke of a dirty feather across a lover's chest.

Très romantique!

Weekend Recipe: Grilled Pizza on the BBQ

This little recipe combines two of my favorite things: pizza and grilling. Plus, it's super easy, which totally rules. Plus Pizza Hut is totally mash.

Ingredients:
- Pizza dough (I buy the ready-to-go whole wheat dough from Trader Joe's)
- Pizza sauce (I get the kind in a jar, also from TJ's, but you can use tomato paste and add herbs)
- Assorted veggie toppings
- Shredded mozzarella cheese

Roll the dough into a ball and cut it into four equal sections.
Flatten each section (with hands or a rolling pin) into a pizza shape, maybe 1/4" to 1/2" thick.
Brush each side with olive oil.
Toss onto a pre-heated grill and grill each side a couple of minutes until there are grill marks. Don't worry - it won't seep through the grills.
Meanwhile, you should also be grilling your veggies and toppings.
Remove pizza crusts and add sauce, (pre-cooked) toppings, and cheese.
Put pizzas back on the grill for 3-5 minutes or until desired crispness.

Enjoy!


My family loves it! (Just kidding. That's someone else's family.)

It's All in a Name

You know you'll get a great hairdo at this place!

Let's kick it up a notch

M*A*S*H* in caricature form!

"Suicide is Painless" is quite painful, actually

The M*A*S*H* theme song, "Suicide is Painless," is literally the affective kernel that spawned the mash theory phenomenon. It embodies that depressing, creepy strain of nostalgia that sends young children (me) running to hide in closets and under beds at the knell of even the first three notes.

Stereogum has compiled three covers of the timeless tune.

Now you can relive those memories on demand!

(Merci, Mephisto!)

Word 'em up

You know how there are certain words that gross you out? Particular words that spawn a distinct twinge of mash and/or squeamishness when uttered?

I'd like to share a few of my most shuddery words. I think, for many of them, you'll concur:

• moist
• ointment
• supple
• pudding
• tender
• lover (in conversational use, not in the case of the musical smash hit, "Easy Lover")
• juicy
• creamy
• yoghurt (when spelled with an "h")
• crust (except when referring to pizza)

Are you sufficiently grossed out? Feel free to add your own dirty words in the comments.

Not Mash: Campus Ladies

As the theme song chimes, "Little misfits, gonna be a big hit."

I've got a fever for the Campus Ladies!

It's rare that the Oxygen Network gets it right but this little comedy gem is on the money if you love raunchy hilarity... which I definitely do. Joan and Barri are forty-somethings who become party-hopping, dorm-living college freshmen, navigating the ways of buying beer for minors, the technicalities of pube grooming, and the trickiness of casual sex. It's funny, I swear.

Curb Your Enthusiasm's Cheryl Hines executive produces and episodes regularly feature ridiculous guest spots like...

- Maya Rudolph as a lesbian feminist women's studies professor who tries to imagine "woman" without the "man" (hint: say "wo" really slow and with feeling)
- Paul Reubens as a long-haired, new-age (of course) drama teacher who helps the ladies get in touch with their "inner spirit"
- Best of all is the "Outrageous Outtakes" episode. Okay, I completely hate those super lame blooper shows. Thankfully, this is not one of those. These outtakes are mostly dirty, dirty adlibbing that didn't make it to air. So freaking spray-milk-out-of-your-nose funny.

8ish-minute versions of all video episodes are available for FREE in the iTunes Music Store.

Please enjoy. Joan and Barri really really want you to.

Mashionalism!

What could be more Mash or more American than patriotic clowns? Happy 4th!

I love Clowny Uncle Sam!

USA clown toys and pillows: Fun for the whole family!

Heck, get Mom and Aunt Sue in on the fun!

One part clown + One part flag + One part Christmas ornament
= TOTAL FUCKING MASHIONALIST DOMINATION!

A New Level of Internet Stalking

Much like the losers from this Onion article, I'm obsessed with examining the minutiae of mash theory visitors.

And my research has paid off. I'm pleased to announce that this little old blog is google's #1 search result for the phrase "cody matherson can i borrow a feeling." Woo hoo! It feels good at the top.

Other searches that have brought strangers far and wide to my little corner of the world?
"mash theme song scary"
"worst album covers can i borrow a feeling"
"who is voice of lady elaine fairchild"
"puppet lady creepy"
"puppet lady scary feelings"

and my personal fave:
"swimming in oil and vinegar simpsons"

Happy Friday!

rad, creepy, mashy image by machine

Also Mash: Discount Furniture Stores

You walk into the showroom to peruse multiple pre-fabricated living rooms, family rooms, bedrooms, and dining rooms in miniature.

There's lots and lots of plaid. Also, lots of stained wood. Also, it's a sunny Sunday afternoon and all you want to do is go home and watch your damn cartoons.

What is it about Sunday afternoons that makes things so much mashier?

Word of the Day

I'm a big dork - for many reasons - but one of them is my love for word of the day from dictionary websites. Lots of days I barely look, and when I do I barely care. But some days, a real treasure pops up.

Case-in-point, word of the day for Saturday, June 24:
Brobdingnagian: gigantic; enormous.

What a great frickin' word!

Five syllables, all nearly unrecognizable. It sounds like it'd be fun to say with an Irish accent. It has "ding" as a syllable. It's capitalized for no apparent reason; I imagine it as an ironic name given to one of the thumb-sized Lilliputians from Gulliver's Travels. It totally sounds like it could be.
"Oh, that Brobdingnagian - his eyes are bigger than his stomach! He thinks he's the size of Gulliver, don't he?"

Not that appetizing, actually

Another treat from the UK:

Can food be mash?

Memory Lane: Not a Vacation Destination

If vacations can be mash, which I certainly think they can (ghost towns, anyone?), this little museum in Wales might just be at the top of the itinerary.


Looks fun, right?

Specializing in old mechanical toys, tin boxes, broken dolls, educational games, and early trains, cars, and airplanes, the Museum of Chilhood Memories sends chills down my spine... and not in a good way.

A few snippets of the reviews? Coming right up:

Every room, every exhibit, breathes the Magic of Childhood.

From Nursery and tin plate toys to teddy bears and arcade games, there is something for every age group to relate to. [by "every" they mean "none"]

From an historical angle, it illustrates visually the habits and interests that brought pleasure to families over the past 150 years. [hurray for the historical pleasures of the family! nope, not mash at all.]

God, so many great memories of these old friends.

Book your ticket today!

The Face of a Generation

Steve Aoki, aka DJ Kid Millionaire, aka everywhere's resident hipster, has moved beyond his role as music maestro, Benihana heir, and women's studies scholar (scroll down for that one) to become the future of fashion... or, at least, beauty.

It seems that MAC Cosmetics' new line, Boy Beauty, draws hefty inspiration from the DJ muse, methinks.

See for yourself!

MAC clues us in to the new Aoki-inspired look:

What does a boy want? Same as the girls. Flawless skin, immaculate brows, soft-to-kiss lips. All incorporated into a collection destined to define, condition, and add glowingly handsome "boy beauty" to your looks. Girls can try it too!

I'll take two of everything, stat!

The Horrors of Lady Elaine

My eyes!!!

A keen friend referred me to the unbelievable mashness of Lady Elaine Fairchilde from Mister Rogers' Neighborhood. This chardonnay-loving she-puppet exudes staggering amounts of mash from each and every enlarged pore on her frighteningly engorged nose (speaking of "ew").

A quick google search unearthed a treasure trove of commentary on the Lady. An entire message board details her mash-like qualities without quite knowing how to articulate that creepy, dirty feeling.

I'll let these folks speak for themselves:

i used to have nightmares about lady elaine, the woman who lived in that spinning thing... in my nightmares, [she] used to appear in my clothes inside of my closet. and if a kid's show can do that, it must be evil.

I hated all the puppets, especially that scary red-nosed Lady Elaine and her stupid rotating museum thing

... between the ages of 3 and 6 I kept confusing Lady Elaine and Nancy Regan. They were both scary middle aged women who dressed in red and lived in a house with ionic columns.

Lady Elaine Fairchild was creepy and mean in her Museum-Go-Round.

I really really loved this show when i was little but when [Mr. Rogers] went to puppet world and... to Lady Elaine's house i would have to shut my eyes and cover my ears...I was completely terrified by lady elaine i had to sleep with my dad for 5 years and i would have nightmare that she would be right out my window and i thought if I would get up at night she would grab my feet under the bed..I know its sounds stupid but this show scared me for life..DAMN YOU LADY ELAINE AND YOUR STUPID RED NOSE

Sure, kids love this kind of stuff!

I have to wonder, are all puppets scary-mash or do Lady Elaine and the Sleestaks uniquely possess mash's elusive je ne sais quoi?

UPDATE: Lady Elaine Fairchilde, the blog. Kinda awesome.

Mash Memories: Land of the Lost

This may be a controversial one, but Land of the Lost epitomizes Mash so fully and completely that I can't let it slide. The grainy, greenish film quality, the surreal timelessness, and the sci-fi pupeteering gave this young lassie nightmares for years.

Oh, and the Sleestaks... the absolutely terrifying Sleestaks.

[[[shudder]]]

Ya feel me?