Mothers Who Think
It is that time of year, folks, Holiday Hell
bbudke - 10:34 pm Pacific Time - Nov 7, 2004 - #1419 of 1581
I am going to get in so much trouble this Christmas.
My sister is not fond of Christmas, as it is an institution of "The Man" and "so commercial" and "detracts from my spirituality." She is, however, fond of receiving Christmas presents, so she generally manages to make it home a couple days after the family celebration in order to collect her loot. You know, as long as my mom will pony up for a plane ticket.
This year is different, though. Sis will be bringing her newest boyfriend with her. His name is Rain. Which, hey. My parents lived through the '60s, too, and given some of their stories, I think it's a freakin' miracle that I'm not walking around burdened with Mossy Treebark Budke or somesuch. So Rain. Fine.
Except when my mom was getting ready to purchase plane tickets, she called Rain and asked him if she should put "Rain" on the tickets, as the name on the ticket generally needs to match that on your I.D.
"Oh. Well, um. Actually ... maybe you'd better put down Wayne."
For some reason, this has hit my funny bone with the impact of a sledgehammer. It doesn't help that my sister's name has a number of "r's" in it. (Let's say "Brittany." It's not, but it amuses me.) Because Mongo keeps sticking his hand out toward me and saying, "Wayne! It's weawwy nice to meet you! Bwittany has towd me so much about you!"
Two lessons we can learn from this story: One, I am not a very nice person. And two? I am going to get in so much trouble this Christmas.
Movies
Lisa Jean - 07:12 pm Pacific Time - Nov 18, 2004 - #1 of 19
I'll throw some favorites out to get things started ...
Well, "Showgirls" will always be pretty high on the list. Anything Joe Eszterhas has anything to do with is gonna be dependably, delightfully crappy.
"Prey for Rock'n'Roll" with Gina Gershon and Lori Petty as bad-girl rockers in the mean streets of L.A. Bad script, bad acting, AND bad music -- the bad movie trifecta!
The ABC TV remake of "The Miracle Worker" (2000) -- I didn't recognize the Ann Sullivan actress, but Helen Keller was played by none other than Hallie Kate Eisenberg (little Pepsi girl). Hoo, that was bad.
My favorite bad horror movie is "Children of the Night" (ca. 1990), starring my favorite B-movie actress, Miss Karen Black! She and, um, Ami Dolenz are a mother & daughter vampire duo who have to sleep underwater instead of in coffins, so they have to literally hack up their lungs and trachea every night to sleep. Just floats around distended from their mouths. Peter DeLuise and Garrett Morris make appearances here, too.
TV biopics are great terrible movies. Two all-time favorites are:
"Summer Dreams: The Story of the Beach Boys," starring a couple of familiar-looking character actors whose names escape me, and Mike Love is played by that guy who was Wade on "Grace Under Fire."
And then there's "Elvis and the Beauty Queen." 1981, I think. Jaw-dropping in its sheer awfulness. It tells the tawdry true story of Elvis, post-Priscilla, hooking up with virginal former Miss Tennessee Linda Thompson, played by Stephanie Zimbalist. Elvis is played by -- I shit you not -- none other than Don Johnson in a black wig. And he doesn't even try the infamous Elvis accent. (Isn't that like the easiest imitation ever and he can't even do that? Jeez, even I can slur "Thankyavermuch" fairly well.) Especially priceless is the scene where he's detoxing in the hospital and clutches Linda/Stephanie, moaning, "Mommy, hold me, Mommy, I'm just your little newborn baby, Mommy." Then when he's feeling better, he freely roams the hospital and pays a visit to the maternity ward, where he comforts a woman in labor, who ecstatically vows to name the baby Elvis, boy or girl ... I mean, phew!
And there's plenty more where that came from.
Posts of the week is an ongoing feature of Table Talk, Salon's vibrant community forum. Older posts of the week may be found here in TT. Want to join the discussion? Sign up here.
Shares