AlisonsBoomstick Profile

Latest Blog Posts

• Mad Marraige? Why Mad Men Does Not Show Weddings
  on Jul 6, 2016 in Mad Men T.V.
  (This post contains spoilers. Because, duh, Mad Men has been over for a year.)Have you ever noticed we don't see any of the weddings in Mad Men? Well, we get to see one: the wreckage of Margaret Sterling's disastrous reception on the evening of JFK's...
• Mad Marriage? Why Mad Men Doesn't Show Weddings
  on Jul 6, 2016 in Mad Men T.V.
  (This post contains spoilers. Because, duh, Mad Men has been over for a year.)Have you ever noticed we don't see any of the weddings in Mad Men? Well, we get to see one: the wreckage of Margaret Sterling's disastrous reception on the evening of JFK's...
• Bloodline: The Best Netflix Show You Are Not Watching
  on May 24, 2016 in T.V.
  Everyone who told me to watch Bloodline started with the same apologizing preface: "It starts out really slow, but stay with it."I disagree. Not with the instruction to watch it — I'm here to tell you why Bloodline is one of my favorite Netflix s...
• HBOs "Vinyl" Glams Out
  on May 15, 2016 in Boardwalk Empire Gangsters Mad Men Music T.V.
  Vinyl is exactly what you would think it would be: one great big shag carpet of television, all plush and vulgar and teased and dated.  It's drugs and cleavage and pantsuits and lapels as big as Texas and hair as wild as horses and so much shall...
• The Defeat of The Donald
  on Mar 6, 2016 in Politics Scary Old Men
  Certainly I'm not the most qualified or the best-positioned person to argue against Donald Trump. The Internet is awash (aflame?) with loud, fervent, deep commentary on this issue, from the niche to the nuanced to the banging of pots and pans. And...
• Merry Christmas, You Old Misogynists!
  on Dec 25, 2015 in Christmas Music Video
  I'm a big sucker for nostalgia and Christmastime delivers me no shortage of it. Part of that nostalgia makes it easy to overlook and forgive otherwise-terrible cultural moments because they tap into that sweet, innocent childhood familiarity. But man...
• An Ode to "Desk Set:" the Christmas Classic You've Never Heard Of
  on Dec 9, 2015 in Classic Hollywood Law Movies Netflix
  Certainly, every old movie is its own little time capsule, a relic of antiquated clothes or currency or vernacular. But maybe no classic movie so perfectly epitomizes how very far we've come than 1957's Desk Set. (Available for streaming on Netflix!
• An Ode to "Desk Set," the Christmas Classic You've Never Heard Of
  on Dec 9, 2015 in Classic Hollywood Law Movies Netflix
  Certainly, every old movie is its own little time capsule, a relic of antiquated clothes or currency or vernacular. But maybe no classic movie so perfectly epitomizes how very far we've come than 1957's Desk Set. (Available for streaming on Netflix!
• An Ode to "Desk Set," the Christmas Classic You Never Heard Of
  on Dec 9, 2015 in Classic Hollywood Law Movies Netflix
  Certainly, every old movie is its own little time capsule, a relic of antiquated clothes or currency or vernacular. But maybe no classic movie so perfectly epitomizes how very far we've come than 1957's Desk Set. (Available for streaming on Netflix!
• Feed Your Need to Read
  on Dec 5, 2015
  All: it may have been a slight hiatus from my Boomstick, but you poor people don't have to suffer this withdrawal! Check out my other writings on this fabulous literary site called "Feed Your Need to Read." (Y'all know I'm a sucker for a good rhyme.)...
• My New TV Round-Up
  on Oct 18, 2015 in Netflix T.V.
  How the world has changed! The last time I did a TV round-up of my favorite new shows, I told you the networks they aired on and the times of day that you could find them. How cute; how quaint! Today, television is a mish-mash of new and hidden sho...
• Sex Ed: Abstinence-Only Education Gets a Failing Grade (and STDs!)
  on Sep 4, 2015 in Sex
  Earlier this year,  I discussed a point that Freakonomic's author and economist Steven Levitt made: it's difficult to persuade people to change their minds by showing them contradictory data, because everyone thinks that their opinions are alrea...
• I Hate Macklemore Haterz
  on Aug 30, 2015 in Badass Music Music Video
  Y'all: I love Macklemore. Like, really LOVE Macklemore. I find him so charming, so funny, self-effacing, so absurd, and yes, so talented. When his songs come on, I can run a little farther, a little faster. His incongruous, charismatic, outrageous vi...
• True Detective Season 2: What Went Wrong, Whose Fault is it, and is it Worth Fixing?
  on Aug 23, 2015 in T.V. Vanity Fair Writing
  I always thought True Detective was a stupid name.It sounds like it would be your average, cliché, takes-itself-too-seriously cop drama, doesn't it? But, of course, it wasn't. True Detective: Season 1 exploded the buddy cop murder mystery trope into...
• Air Travel, Have You No Shame?
  on Jul 22, 2015 in People I Want to Punch in the Face
  Ah, air travel -- remember when you used to be America's collective hard on? Shiny planes and beautiful women serving indulgent meals high in the sky? All sparkly and futuristic -- a polite, intelligent colonizing of that vast, silly unused space: ai...
• Caitlyn Jenner's Reality: the Baggage of Transitioning, Family, and Doing it on TV
  on Jun 17, 2015 in Gaytastic Sex Vanity Fair
  So. Caitlyn Jenner.Caitlyn Jenner -- the post-surgical* female identity of former Olympic gold-medal decathlete and begrudging-September-of-life reality star -- is all over the place right now. The media coverage has been overwhelmingly positive -- s...
• Caitlyn Jenner and Reality: Baggage, Transitioning, and Doing it on TV
  on Jun 17, 2015 in Gaytastic Sex Vanity Fair
  So. Caitlyn Jenner.Caitlyn Jenner -- the post-surgical* female identity of former Olympic gold-medal decathlete and begrudging-September-of-life reality star -- is all over the place right now. The media coverage has been overwhelmingly positive -- s...
• F-ing History of Curse Words
  on Jun 8, 2015 in Badass Bloggers Grammar Writing
  What I'm about to say will shock you: I try not to gratuitously curse on this blog. I know, I know, you don't believe me. But, I swear (pun) I do.  It's not because I have a problem with cursing or that I've learned any lessons in my pseudo-adu...
• The Dangerous Duggars: How Fundamentalism Begets Abuse
  on May 28, 2015 in People I Want to Punch in the Face Sex T.V.
  I hope that very few of my readers have been following this sex scandal about the Duggars, the bloated, backwards family from TLC's 19 Kids and Counting. I hope you haven't followed it because you don't have the time or inclination to gawk at their p...
• The Dangerous Duggars: How Fundamentalism Begets Abuse
  on May 28, 2015 in People I Want to Punch in the Face Sex T.V.
  I hope that very few of my readers have been following this sex scandal about the Duggars, the bloated, backwards family from TLC's 19 Kids and Counting. I hope you haven't followed it because you don't have the time or inclination to gawk at their p...