Campy Teen Soaps and Other Mysteries

by Jillian Butler, Ampersandology

Did you celebrate 90210 Day yesterday? That's right: September 2nd, 2010 = 9/02/10 Day. There's no day when the human race wouldn't be better served flouting a long-dead campy teenage hot mess. What a glorious age we live in!

My own memories of Beverly Hills 90210 begin and end with one item of clothing: a relative had purchased a nightdress for me with Luke Perry's face on it, under the mistaken impression that being both a girl and often awake meant that I like looooooooved OMG Beverly Hills 90210. Sadly, this was untrue; being 10 meant that I was usually in bed . For one thing, I had no idea who Luke Perry was, and I thought he was funny looking; I do not yet disagree with my younger self. Anyway, I figured that as long as I had the nightdress (emblazoned, as it was, with all the neons of the rainbow) I might as well watch the show. I was unimpressed, but now look back on that

To celebrate the just-passed 90210 Day, let's revisit this delicious old nugget from Aught '08, re-imagining the credits of the Citizen Kane of Our Time in the vein of precious early 1990s teen-y soap operas.



However, if all this confuses you, you clearly weren't watching television by 1992, and you will kindly leave this blog. Leave it now. If you missed the Berlin Wall, we just can't be friends.

But on another note, Chuck Bass, ladies and gentlemen.

Have a suggestion for a future Ampersandology topic? Got something you’d like to say? All feedback welcome! Shoot us an email at ampersandology@gmail.com, or follow Ampersandology on Facebook. 

My fingers are choosy and will only write on overpriced paper.

by Jillian Leigh, Ampersandology


So. Moleskine is cruelly trying to bankrupt me. CRUELLY. I thought they loved me. First, they started making their standard notebooks in new, EXCITING colours. Then, they changed their dayplanner, almost DARING me to buy a new one. Then they made...they made... THE FOLIO. 

From Swipe.com: 

Moleskine recently launched the Folio Collection, a new series of large format notebooks, sketchbooks and accordion portfolios. Aimed at the fine art and design communities, the line simply scales up the classic  hardcover Moleskine to either the standard A4 format (8.25″ x 11.75″) or to an impressive A3 format (11.75″ x 16.5″). Both sizes feature the traditional rounded corners, back pocket, elastic closure, and internal bookmark of the familiar pocket and A5 lines and the paper used in all Folio Collection products is FSC (Forest Stewardship Council)-certified.

And quite frankly, they are beautiful. I was in the market for a bigger notebook to supplement my research, and I saw this and...it's $32, which I'm fairly certain, no matter how thoughtfully I explain to Irene, my accountant, is NOT tax-deductible (she recently figured out that I use colorful pictures and loud noises to distract her, and our professional relationship went downhill from there: the trust is gone). My usual model is the unruled, 5" x 8" plain notebook, so indulging in this folio would be a happy new adventure. 


SIDENOTE! A friend of mine who lives in England knows a guy who works with Moleskine. This was surprising to me: until that point, I had no idea that Moleskine had to be manufactured. I thought they just emerged from the foaming sea on a conch shell, surrounded by angels. Or some near approximation. If I disappear one day without explanation, it may be to make this man my bride, thus gaining the inheritance of unlimited lifetime Moleskines. 


Stuff White People Like can make fun of them all they like, but the Moleskine is a different creature altogether (also, Stuff White People Like, we're still totally feuding, so your opinion is stupid anyway). HEMINGWAY USED THEM! ...probably. Use a pencil on their delicate, acid-free pages, and the friction they illicit is something near holistic. Also, they feel good in your hands. Also, it's my money and my children aren't starving (thanks to the fact that abstract figments cannot starve --that proviso has saved my conscience more than once, let me tell you!) so shut up I'm going to buy overpriced notebooks all I want. 


LOOK. I take notebooks very seriously. It's an occupational hazard, as I end up with a lot of notebooks. When it comes time to give me gifts, people assume that one thing a writer will definitely need is more paper to write on. And some of my collection have great stories attached to them: one was bound by an old esoteric boyfriend, and another (one of my favourites) was a gift from an charming older artist I used to pose for. I have convinced myself, the same way I convince myself that Gossip Girl is a modern retelling of Edith Wharton, that you can never have too many. 


Now, in this sense, 'too many' is abstract enough to excuse any manner of sins, including the fact that I purchase replacement Moleskines approximately 16 pages before I need them. Someone, please help me. Help me before it's too late. Because I think I might buy the Folio. I buy them because I use them up, and I use them up because I keep buying them. VICIOUS CIRCLE! 

The Lady's Pen

An interesting Q&A with Elaine Showalter, author of A Jury of Her Peers: American Women Writers From Anne Bradstreet to Annie Proulx (published with Knopf). The book is a chronicle of women writers starting waaaaaay back in Colonial America, right up until Gertrude Stein and beyond (who, hilariously enough, she finds overrated. HA!). The whole thing is worth reading, but one slice in particular caught my imagination. The most interesting bit I've excerpted here (emphasis mine): 

Q. What is distinctly American in this tradition [of women's writings]?

From the beginning, women writers were interested in the interactions of race and culture — romance with Native Americans, abolition, and slavery. And more than male writers, they engaged with those issues in terms of their everyday lives: What did it mean — for domestic life, for children, for relationships — to live at the juncture of cultures?

There's also a real difference from the British literary tradition that I wrote about some time ago. There, the women writers had servants or some kind of household help. In the United States, women did the housework, or at least they were expected to know how it should be done. That gets transformed into questions about how the house imprisons women. And you get complaints. American women hated housework.

I imagine that, given that many of the concerns articulated in these novels would eventually drip down to be relegated to the proud, if limping banner of Harlequin romances (or worse-- chick lit), this little observation becomes downright fascinating. Making an affair with a Native into a profound social commentary on cultural interactions in the New World is one of those unflaggingly academic habits which I use pretty much everyday. FOR FUNSIES! Observe. 

EXHIBIT A: 

Ah, is that the musical stylings of Franz Ferdinand I hear? Or is the echo of the mod sounds of the long ago 1960s, richly informed with the gentle irony and hispter chic of the Millenniasl? This ego-pop retro feel is boldly evocative of a post-war German aesthetic to transform into a modern day fairy tale about the myriad tangles of living in a postmodern world. See also: Kapranos, Alex; dreamboat. 

EXHIBIT B: 

Gossip Girl is not simply a trashy show with story lines that threaten plausibility and devalue mature reactions to what are essentially adolescent situations. It's a stirring re-imagining of the drawing room morality tales of Edith Wharton, touching on the same eternal concerns that have always plagued the rich, the beautiful and the young. Can I marry for love? Will money truly grant me happiness? And now that leggings are back in, can I pull them off without everyone thinking I'm just being trendy? 

EXHIBIT C: 

Much more than a simple dance fable, Footloose proves a poignant coming of age tale that draws on a classically structured hero myth as well as Biblical allusions to revive the importance of self-expression (in this case, through dance). To watch Ren's final plea to the Town Council is to see a young man's conviction to boogie solidifying into a moral center, with the growing acceptance that life is rarely as finite as the dance floor. 

What does this mean? Maybe "specialized generalizations" (TM me 2009!) like these are best only if they're entertaining. But let's not think about that. Instead, in the honor of our subject, let's watch Paul Rudd and Seth Rogen read aloud to us from some choice Harlequin passages: 

Skip to 3:54 for the good stuff. Oh, Paul Rudd. Where did you come from, and are there more of your kind there? 

Jovi Punch: Full Recovery.

Okay. Finally, some good news, against the rampage kidnapping of childhood memories and White Person Identity Theft. Looks like my mixed feelings towards the Footloose can continue undisturbed, because the perfectly chiseled hole that Zac Efron left in the project might already be filled! 

Apparently, Chace Crawford (of Gossip Girl) fame is in the running to replace Efron on Footloose remake. Outstanding. 

 

A canny substitute, if only because if Kevin Bacon was looking to adopt a younger, slightly hotter version of himself, Chace Crawford would be a solid rebound when that too-big-for-his-britches Efron turned him down. 

Seriously, Efron. There is traditionally a K on the end of your name, everyone knows that! Stop acting like you are too good for it, "Zack"! Is this what happens when you get your own board game? Looks like success has, indeed, spoiled Rock Hunter.

So, I breathe a long sigh of relief, which will be quickly replaced with the joyous dread with which I await this remake. I mean, not that I'm familiar with Crawford's work. That would involve watching Gossip Girl, which is most certainly something I do not find myself doing. And definately not every Monday at 8pm (7pm central), including reruns. Nope! Not me! 

The End of Year Tally

2008: nice knowin' ya. Here's what your saucy trails left behind.  

Best in Show

 DRAMA

Mad Men.

Oh, Mad Men. How do I love thee? Let me inappropriately hit on the ways. In its second season, everything about Mad Men I loved was warped and rendered impotent: the changing times made youth the new buzzword and the old guard looked rigidly traditional, the excessive drinking got once-ballyhooed employees quietly fired, and his wicked ways nearly cost Don his home, his wife and his suit as he went on a bizarre pilgrimage to California (actually, the part where he was kind of naked was pretty awesome; also awesome was all that completely hot!bad!wrong! sex he found himself having. Oh, I am a fan in so many, many ways). And in the end, we were back at the beginning- with Betty and Don together, Pete without Peggy or a prayer and those things left unsaid loudly exposed- but it had changed imperceptively yet distinctly, like a party dress worn the next day. The end of season two was a quiet riot that'll ripple into the next. 

 Dexter

In other news, Michael C. Hall continued to confuse my delicate sensibilities as the inexplicably attractive sociopath Though, I suppose next to the overbearing Jimmy Smits, a potted plant would be sexy (future note, Jimmy: “yelling” is not a synonym for “acting.”). Its third season had an excruciatingly slow start, but once it took off, it went running. But once again, it does tend to fall back on its own worn-in tropes: Dexter is given a seeming soul mate only to be forced to exterminate them; La Guerta has poor taste in friends and feels betrayed; Harry Morgan is a douchebag. 

For the win: Mad Men, because at least its sociopaths have an attractively human veneer.

COMEDY

How I Met Your Mother

I remember the announcement of How I Met Your Mother in the din of other sitcoms that would ultimately prove a disappointment. It sounded stupid: a father relays the entire story of how he met the mother of his children to said kids. But check this out: How I Met Your Mother is, dare I say it, amazing, sweet, hilarious and heart-rending. It only gets funnier with time and repeat watching. It corners that nebulous period in between leaving your natural family and starting your own, when your friends and lovers are the only family you need, and pinpoints the exact bittersweet tinge of this gradually evolving lifestyle. It’s a show that blows continuity out of the water (a gag set up in one episode may not pay off for three) and doesn’t waste one of its considerably talented cast members.

30 Rock

30 Rock, on the other hand, corners a far more specific 30 something: the neurosis-fuelled, post-Oprahfied single woman. Skimming the footsteps left by her more obvious ancestors (from Mary Tyler Moore to That Girl--which yes, I remember despite being a ‘maybe someday’ in my mother’s vocabulary at the time of its release), Tina Fey rocks the single girl instability with more candor and honesty than her spiritual foremothers. Plus, here’s Alec Baldwin at his most sexually confusing to tide you over! (WHY AM I ATTRACTED TO HIM?!?)

For the win: How I Met Your Mother. Anything that puts money directly into the bank account of the ridiculously talented comeback kid Neil Patrick Harris is the winner of basically everything.

Best in Suit: Um, even having a category suggests there's anyone other than Don Draper who could take this distinct honor. And I’m insulted by the possibility.

Best in Buff: Is it just me, or should Daniel Craig, Robert Downey Jr. and Kate Winslet just never wear clothes again? It seems like such a waste of effort on their part. Or at least wear as little as possible.  OR! Just make a series of 1930s throwback pictures where they lie around smoking and bantering in various states of undress. NOTE: this is probably one of my better ideas. 

Honorable mention: Chace Crawford, if you’re not going to take off your shirt, at least help your friend and co-star Ed Westwick do so. Honestly. Do I have to do everything around here? Because I’m okay with that.

 Most Bittersweet Inevitability: 

 Best in Film

 The Dark Knight: Hype that’s well-earned, for once. Bless the socks of anyone in this film whose name doesn’t rhyme with “wreath,” because they were overshadowed by his powerhouse, celluloid-shaking turn as the Joker. There’s not much to say that hasn’t been said already.

 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days: Nuanced, gripping and tedious in a way that feels like friendship, this little film about repressed liberties haunted my synapses for way too long.

 Frost/Nixon: I just…I just can’t deal with the fact I’ve placed a Ron Howard film on any list of mine, so I’ll leave it at this: YAY SAM ROCKWELL. 

 Vicky Cristina Barcelona: Charming, frothy and still thought-provoking, Woody Allen granted me the mercy of making Javier Bardem attractive again. Woody: thank you for this. No, seriously.

 Iron Man: Look. Ain’t no better time onscreen than watching Robert get his Downey Jr. on. The marriage of superhero and cool have never blended so logically; in the past, it was a relationship that needed work and a lot of special effects, but in Downey’s hands it becomes an afterthought. His Tony Stark is snickering at us the whole time: “You thought that was cool? Give me two seconds. Ha. See? I know. I’m awesome.”

  

The Spielberg Award for Artistic Echo 2008

 An award that goes out every year to the filmmaker that most clearly exhibits a trademark fascination with a certain subject, movie after movie. Named for Steven Spielberg, who likes to fall back on his artistic themes like a junkie falls behind on the rent, this award commemorates those in filmmaking who, though they do it well, do it often.

 Previous winners include Adrian Lyne (“Hey everyone! I like adultery! Ask me why!”), Sam Mendes (“The suburbs blow—permit me to demonstrate.”), and Stanley Kubrick (“Dear human race: FUCK YOU.”).

 This year’s winner is…

Steven Spielberg, for a stunning return to extraterrestrials! Just when you thought he got it out of his system, folks, it crops up again in the latest ode to B-movie serials, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (sidenote: did someone get paid by the letter for that title?). All those madcap caper flicks and serious dramas couldn’t distract him forever: Steven has a serious thing for the otherworldly, the unexplained, the big-headed and eight-fingered. Steven, darling—I love you. But you really need to get over this little fixation on outer space. It’s beginning to embarrass us all. Out of his entire filmography (both as director and producer) I counted no less than 12 films with either explicit or implicit connections to aliens. Steven, this is too many. Admit it--deep down, if you could have found a way to blame Jaws on little green men? You would have.

 Oh my God. You did, didn’t you? Oh, Steven.

 Extra points awarded because  The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull  managed to straddle at least two more of Spielberg’s old standbys. First up, the unresolved daddy issues: Shiiiiiiiia LeBeouf (goddamn, I love that kid) shows up to give Indy a chance to muse on the disappointed daddy syndrome left dangling by The Last Crusade. Marion is such a whore. Anyway, it’s a big thing with Spielberg: guys and their dads. Never growing up. Etc, etc.

 That being said, Shia LeBeouf is awesome. The fact that his entire character is a thinly veiled attempt to piss off Marlon Brando’s already pissed off ghost made my decade (ps. The Wild One called—it wants its DVD cover back).

 Which leads me to item two: pop culturbation. Steven knows his pop culture, that’s for sure. Between the ode to 1950s greasers (the only time I actually enjoyed myself in the entire running time) and the thwarted attempt to capture the golden age of campy sci-fi, Spielberg had the outlines of something real good. Which brings us back to the insertion of aliens, and the unfortunate fixation therein. Oh Steven. You may be a broken record, but it’s one I like to listen to. 

The Pop Culture Unfortunates

Don’t let the brows fool you: every Ibsen-reading, wine-drinking, Truffant-quoting fancy pants has a store of Pop Culture Unfortunates in their past: those little blemishes on the hull of any perfectly cultivated intellectual inner life. It happens to the best of us: the five-star restaurant foodie who secretly devours Doritos; the opera connoisseur who watches Two and a Half Men; the hipster poet who digs Phil Collins without a trace of irony (he’s got two ears and a heart, doesn’t he?). They’re all alike. And I happen to have it on good authority. What’s that good authority, you may ask? Well, my own sordid past, of course. Full disclosure, kids. That’s what I’m all about.  

 I know all the words to Hungry Like the Wolf. On purpose.

Look, you can’t help love, right? And I happen to love Duran Duran. More than a little. Actually, more than a lot. I think that not only are they great artists, they also constantly redefine the word ‘awesome.’ Also? Their poetics put a tear in my eye, yet a song remains in my heart. Look no further than the exotic seduction found in Hungry Like the Wolf, the stylish yearning of Rio, the tense, moody staccato of Wild Boys, and you’ll see why Duran Duran is the word. . True science fact: Simon Le Bon is a dreamboat.

Nearly everything on the list of Stuff White People Like applies to me.

No, like, everything. Brunches, girls with bangs, gentrification--I am guilty, guilty, guilty. And I accept this accomplishment with equal parts pride, shame and resignation. But, like most White People, it’s mostly pride.

Stayin’ Alive.

Yeah. The real shame from this admission comes from the fact that not only do I like it better than its predecessor (Saturday Night Fever, and I don’t know WHY you would not know that already). It’s from the fact that I…what’s the word? Like it at all. No, I’m sorry. Like isn’t strong enough. I kind of love it. I just…man, when he puts that snooty British lady in her place by letting her fall during the big dance number? I’m all , “LAWYERED, baby. Outstanding.” In fact…

Just say three words: bad. Dance. Movies.

There’s like my Achilles heel, but instead of leaving me dead on a Greek island, these “films” leave me soaring on clouds of rhythm and joy. Ain’t a terribly crafted, shoddily plotted dance movie that I don’t love with the fire of a teenage poet. Bad dance movies teach me how to live my life (Fight for your dreams, says Flashdance. Never give up, says Step Up. Kevin Bacon should have a place in your heart forever, says Footloose). Do you demand more proof? HAVE IT: I paid money to see Take the Lead. In theatres. WHERE OTHER PEOPLE COULD SEE ME.

(UPDATE! On December 29th, I was in a store that had cruelly placed Footloose and Stayin' Alive next to each other, both for seven dollars and ninety nine cents. Seven dollars and ninety nine cents! I don't know how this store stayed in business, charging next to nothing for the greatest films of my whole life. Y'all, it was like Sophie's Choice up in here. I left empty handed becuase the weight of that choice would haunt me like, for at least twenty minutes.) 

Gossip Girl.

Do I need to say any more? Of course not. Because I still totally don’t watch it. (BLAIR + CHUCK 4EVAH!!!1!!)

 More like The Rules of the LAME.

Okay. I know The Rules of the Game (or La Règle du jeu, 1939) is supposed to be this amazing, benchmark film. But um. Okay. It kind of…sucks. Like, not a lot: it’s not like Showgirls or anything. But I don’t really get the big deal. It seems pretty standard to me. Madcap servants, delusional rich people. Isn’t that, like, the whole point of European cinema? Also, I detest Christine, the quasi-protagonist: I fail to understand how one man would be interested in a stale, boring old prune like her, let alone three (that was the final tally, wasn’t it?). I don’t want to say hackneyed but…okay, I kind of do want to say hackneyed. But I won’t! Because I’m pretty sure they’d take away my White Person membership (see above).

She may be the Man, but I AM THE SHAME.

Okay, this one is hard to admit. But DAMN IT. I have to say it. She’s the Man (starring Amanda Bynes and Channing Tatum) is a good movie and a clever adaptation of Shakespeare! I won’t stop there: Amanda Bynes is charming in it and Channing Tatum actually comes close to emoting. Also, I’ve seen it more than once. There. I said it. Okay? Stop LOOKING AT ME LIKE THAT!

Clint Eastwood? No thank you.

For some reason, I made up my mind to never, ever willingly watch a Clint Eastwood film. Not that ones he’s in, mind you, only the ones he directs. It has something to do with the fact that he makes the most depressing, life-sucking movies of all time. It’s like the feud between the Capulets and the Montagues: it goes back so far I don’t even remember what started it (OH WAIT. I do. Unforgiven. Do you know who emerges from that stupid film unforgiven? Clint Eastwood.) So that means I haven’t seen any of his blasted critical darlings—a list that includes Mystic River, Million Dollar Baby and Letters from Iwo Jima. And God-willing, I never will. I REALIZE THE ERROR OF MY WAYS. I just refuse to change, that’s all. Isn’t that the best possible way of ensuring personal growth?

 I just saw The Shawshank Redemption for the first time.

No, yeah. I know.   

The subtext is rapidly becoming text.

Wow. 

So. Pretend it’s 1915 again, and the Shubert Theater just got pissed when New York Times drama critic Alexander Woollcott calls a production “quite tedious” (oooh. Scathing.) So from there, Woollcott gets the Lindsey Lohan treatment at the door of Shubert productions; Shubert is forbidden to run their ads in the Times. It’s all very intense, and then the whole thing is resolved with a box of cigars. Top notch, right?

Remember how fun petty feuding was? How much easier it was to devote energy to bourgeoisie rivalries that didn’t really mean anything?  Okay. Then I have the BEST news.

Amidst the pallid news that more and more publishing houses are either condensing or collapsing their divisions, stories like these almost make me believe in things like hope!

Only time will tell how awesome this gets. 

APPARENTLY—and remember, you didn’t hear it from me!—Anya Ulinich (author of the charming Petropolis) has published a new short story, entitled ‘The Nurse and the Novelist.” And it is wicked burn to post-post-postmodern scarf sporting golden boy Jonathan Safran Foer (who you know he’s hip because his name forgot the H). LISTEN TO THIS OPENING PARAGRAPH!

The entire book is set in two columns. The narrower one is in italics. It tells a story of a village woman who falls in love with a boy hiding in her cellar. The wider column is about a depressed young man. In his Manhattan apartment, the depressed young man keeps a jar of toenail clippings […] One day, the young man is summoned to his grandfather’s deathbed. The grandfather hands him a gold charm shaped like a wing of a butterfly. “Find Yevgeniya,” the grandfather whispers.

HAHAHAHAHA! OMFG! This is outstanding. It’s a story about a story about magical Soviet Jews! Why, that is exactly the sort of subject matter that Safran Foer writes about! For once, I support this completely transparent move. To quote NY Mag’s cultural blog Vulture (which has in recent years become the closest thing to Mecca my limping, sacra-licious soul-thing can hope for), it’s been too long since the New York publishing circle enjoyed “…the simple pleasures of a good, British-style literary feud.”

Word. Up. Truer words = never spoken.

Guys, if we hope REALLY HARD, and our hearts are PURE(ish), this could turn out better than the mythical Banville/McEwan smackdown of aught ’05. Or better yet, it might top the eternal bitchfest that surrounds the Amis clan like a thin haze of after dinner cigar smoke (the most recent being Terry Eagleton’s mince-free claims that the elder Kingsley was a bad, BAD news bear). 

Quite possibly the greatest, most wordlessly bitchy family portrait of all time: 
son Martin, stepmother Elizabeth and father Kingsley. I kind of want them to 
adopt me and raise me to be aloof and transparently vicious. They 
hate you for your weakness;  but they love you for your sin.

But this’ll be served up, American-style. Remember the sprightly, homoerotic Mailer/Vidal tussles of yesterday? If we play the cards right (and by ‘we’ I mean ‘those involved,’ and by ‘play the cards right’ I mean ‘make some bad decisions’), those golden days could be back!

I mean, I don’t know which is more awesome. The fact that Jonathan Safran Foer is at the center of this mockery, being a kind of innocuous, unintentional literary darling, like a smarter, hipper New York-y version of Keanu Reeves. OR the fact that I thought Anya Ulinich was like, nice and stuff. OR (and I think this wins) this is not the first time that the Jealous Writer Brigade step up shop on Safran Foer’s doorstep and settled in for winter. This is like Gossip Girl but better and moreover REAL! Not that I make that reference with any kind of personal familiarity.

I am actually on the edge of my seat. What will JonSafoer do NEXT? Clearly, Thumper the rabbit was a dope: if you don’t have anything nice to say, you should say it LOUDER. 

Fully Story @ Vulture: Is Anya Ulinich’s New Short Story an Attack on Jonathan Safran Foer?

Please don't forsake me; I know not what I do.

Gossip Girl's Chace Crawford (NAAATE!) took Grazia's Guy Fashion Quiz and failed like the adorable little manpie he is. He thinks beige is the in color for fall...and that it's dark! Well, I can't lie. That's...that's the most darling thing I've heard all day. Beige for fall! Oh, Chace. That's not right at all! Boys don't know clothes, you guys! Isn't that something?!? At the 2:13 mark, when he gets so happy about knowing the difference between a wedge and a stiletto? It's just too much adorableness for me to handle. Stop asking her to repeat the questions, Chace; you're not going to get them right plus she only wants to make out later behind the cafeteria (AND MAYBE MORE...?!?) so quite frankly you're wasting her time!

To be fair, the only fashion question he needs to know the answer to is "Will you please take off your shirt now, Chace?" And the correct answer is, "Yes." I can say that because in real life he's the same age as me, not like in the show, when he's like, sixteen. So it's not pervy. Oh yeah? Well, SO IS YOUR FACE. Anyway. I don't even know why I watched this clip in the first place; I was so confused because I still totally don't watch Gossip Girl (omgiloveyounaaate! butnotasmuchaschuuuuck!). 

Oooooohhhhh no. 

This combines everything that's wrong in the world with everything that's right.

My God. It's like a fever, but I cannot stop watching this. Hitting play is as natural as going home.

I don't even watch Gossip Girl. WHAT? I DON'T. Shut up.