Small Revenge

Years ago, my pal Chris and I were in a Pizzeria Uno in Pennsylvania that was just god-awful. Bad food, bad service, unfriendly staff, etc. Just a hellhole of a place. Before we left, we went to the jukebox, and as a parting gift, set it to play "Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner" five times in a row. Just so they knew what something was like if it wasn't served cold.



Roll out the headless thompson gunner! We'll have a headless thompson gunner of fun!

Rob

Five Boro

I learned as a child not to trust in my body.

I’ve carried that burden through my life.

But there’s a day when we all have to be pried loose.

-Bruce Cockburn

Yesterday, I rode 40 miles on my bike through New York City, along with 32,000 other people, including my wife Kathy and my pals Andrew and Jay. Forty miles sounds like a lot, and I was nervous. I wasn’t kicking and screaming, but I can’t say I was wholeheartedly looking forward to it, either.

Kathy & Andrew set out first, with an earlier start time, necessitating a wake-up time for her that could only be described as “god-awful.” After riding down Victory Blvd. to St. George Terminal on our bikes, Jay and I made it onto the ferry and over to Battery Park in time for our ride to begin at 9:15.

From the start, I felt much better on the bike than I had on Friday. I was still recovering from being sick during the week, but my main problem was that my knees – the left on in particular – were in no mood to take me up a hill, and complained via explosions of pain on the first part of my training ride. But on the real thing, the knees were up for it. I still hadn’t had much of my morning coffee, but a banana and jelly donut were fuel for me to ride with Jay (and some 12,000 others) up 6^th Avenue up past Herald Square and Radio City and into Central Park. And very quickly as we rode, I realized I wasn’t nervous at all. I was having fun.

In Central Park, we rode alongside an older rider with a tiny boom box strapped to a rear rack. It was blasting cycling related tunes; Queen’s “Bicycle” was the one that caught our ears, but there were others. I thanked him as we passed.

We stopped for a restroom break in Harlem, while gospel singers were belting music to inspire us on a corner stage. We emerged from that area into a blocks-long traffic jam where we inched forward, our bikes at our sides. Had we fully known how long the line would have been, I’d have given in to my impulse to stop at Doug E.’s Fried Chicken and Waffles. I’m sure I somehow could have managed a few bites with my bike resting on my hip.

After the jam turned a corner and finally dispersed, we rode a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it trip into and out of the Bronx, and made it to the first big rest stop…which we were told would be closing in 15 minutes. We scarfed down a banana, a bagel, and a box of raisins, and hit the road again, fueled and rested enough to skip stop #2.

People say the toughest bridge is the Verrazano, but the Queensborough seems steeper, if not as long, and it was brutal pedaling up it, but I refused to walk. Once over the hump and into Queens, I was able to stop and take some pictures from the freeway. It was a good day for skyline shots.

After a shorter jam-up in Queens, we made it over to Brooklyn. Somewhere along the ride, a woman in front of me dropped her sunglasses. I stopped to pick them up, and was lightly rear-ended by another rider—nothing major, just a slight bump. And when I rode up ahead and was able to hand the woman her (unbroken) glasses, it was worth it.

Throughout it all, the ride was easy and for the most part, flat. It just felt like a casual day, riding at pretty much our own pace. Jay and I were always passing people, and it’s not like we were fast ourselves. After a few minutes at the third rest stop—a sizeable parking lot that was bordered by a fantastic overlook—we got back to the ride.

Here’s where it started getting slowly more difficult. The Brooklyn Queens Expressway isn’t quite flat, and we were following its slight uphill grade for several miles. We passed a rider in a homemade Captain America costume, complete with a shield on his back. Also a guy with a bunch of Superman figurines on his helmet, one of them flying and planting the flag. Eventually, we stopped at the final water station before the Verrazano Bridge.

The bridge itself is long, and high, and chilly, because on the lower level you’re riding in the shade. But Jay and I didn’t have any trouble clearing it, and from everything I’d heard, I was expecting this bridge to do its best to break us. We climbed it in one go, shot some pictures at the apex, and then glided down into the festival at the foot of the bridge.

I started with a quote from one of my favorite Bruce Cockburn songs, “Last Night of the World.” As a kid, I was never very good at sports, and never much interested besides. I preferred not to trust in my body; it’s always tended to let me down. I’ve let it down, too.

But every now and then, we get pried loose.

Rob

I Write These Down So I Can Read Them Years Later and Blow My Mind

A brief description of a dream that I had the other night. I was down in Delaware, for a combination book fair and theater festival. Friends of mine from my college theater group were there -- Sharon, Bill, Karen, and Sharon's husband, Drew -- and we were all staying in various dorms. I was in a room with a cot squeezed between two twin beds, but I don't know who my roommates were.

Anyway, because this was Delaware, everyone spoke French. And I kept on having to go to the Delaware embassy to get my passport, because I had forgotten it, and just had an old, photocopied ID. I wouldn't be able to get back into New Jersey with that! So every day, I would float down to the embassy and ask if my passport had arrived.

That's right: because I didn't have my passport, I could fly. My understanding is, once I got my passport, I'd have to walk around like everyone else. But as it was, I was learning to fly, more of a floaty bobbing in air than anything directed, often overshooting the balcony I was trying to land on and setting down on the one above or below. And then having to use the stairs.

So I get back from my trip to the embassy, and float into my room, and everyone is there, having beers because it's 11am and I just missed the last performance of their play. So we had a little cast party in my borrowed dorm.

I don't have the slightest idea what any of this means, particularly since we were speaking French. When in Delaware, after all...

Rob
ETA: Photo copyright John Neel.

In Which My Behavior Is Used as an Object Lesson

...and for once, in a good way.

What's more, pal Beth even draws what could be a very illuminating thought experiment from the incident, whereas the whole of my lesson would be:

a) Go to Cafe du Monde at approximately 4:20 am on a weeknight.
b) Wait as long as you have to.

Which is why she's a professional counselor, and why I'm overweight.

Rob

One Fine Saturday

Well, I played hooky from my niece’s first birthday party this weekend, and my nephew’s third. With fourteen (soon to be fifteen) nieces and nephews, it’s inevitable that sooner or later I’m going to fall short on the uncling duties every now and then. On the other hand, I had the best excuse ever: boobies.

Yes, it was once again time for the New York Burlesque Festival, and like last year, we went to the Saturday Night Extravaganza at BB King’s. More on that in a moment.

We spent the first part of the day at Manhattan Theatre Source, enjoying the first week of the Estrogenius festival, which has grown into a sprawling, five-week celebration of women-produced, women-centric theater. (That isn’t to say that there are no men involved; there are, at every level. But there are women central to every short play; the Bechdel Rule wins the day here.)

(Incidentally, this seems to be a habit for us. Each year, before we go the the NYBF -- which, while a woman-centric art form, has at its core an admitted amount of objectifying -- we've gone to see other woman-powered art. Last year was a collection of short films by Chick Strand at the New York Film Festival.)

This week’s plays were produced by TheatreSource’s executive director (and my good friend and first—albeit fictional—wife) Jen Thatcher. Five short plays that ranged from two older women rather testily discussing the college dean that bound them together to a zombie attack in the land of fairytales. Quite a range, and every play in the show really hit the mark. For the fifth week of the festival, one show from each of the four weeks will get an encore, as determined by audience demand. Me, well… as much as I loved Olivia Rorick’s performance in Katherine Clark Gray’s “Pussycat,” I’m hoping for more zombies. (That play, by the way, was called “Snow White Zombie,” written by Brenton Lengel, directed by Lita Tremblay.) Estrogenius continues through October 30.

Then, after a stop for crepes, we were off to the Burlesque Festival, meeting our friends Mike and Maria in the line outside of B.B. King’s. And oh, what a show! There was a little something for everybody, as the show began with Mimi First dressed like a cross between Zatanna and a magician’s rabbit, stepping (one leg at a time) out of a giant top hat. There were classic peels, as done by Miss Indigo Blue and Adora Derriere (who used sound effects to great advantage, following the advice of animal sounds telling her to remove fur, feathers, and eventually, a whalebone corset). There were sillier moments—such as Delilah’s attempt to climb into a giant pint glass of PBR, but her tight dress was simply too constricting to get the job done properly, Dr. Lucky’s portrayal of Marie Antoillette, or when the Evil Hate Monkey, well… peeled his banana. There was room for a little geekout: witness Lux La Croix’s energetic robot dance, or Gigi La Femme’s transformation from Episode IV’s diaphanous Princess Leia to the Leia costume Jabba prefers. And there were a few social statements as well: Ms Tickle made a thought-provoking transformation from blow-up doll to a Live Nude Girl, still trapped in the same station; later, Tigger took on the persona of a merman in the oil-choked Gulf of Mexico to a lounge version of “Black Hole Sun.”

As Lyle Lovett sings, there’s more I remember, and more I could mention —and hell, let me tip my hat to the amazing Miss Saturn, who managed to disrobe whilst twirling hula hoops!—but description to a certain extent diminishes these acts. These were amazing, eye-popping performances that pasted a smile of disbelief on my face and kept it there all night.

And there’s only one word for that, as emcee Murray Hill well knows: Showbiz!

Rob

The 8 Ball Knows

At Folk Fest, there's a lot of hanging around at night, wandering through camp, or sitting around a campfire. And since you're on a field full of strangers (or best friends you don't know yet), well, it's a good idea to have an icebreaker. Hence: The Magic 8-Ball.

Jay started bringing a Magic 8-Ball to the campsite a few years ago, and we've used it to start conversations, settle disputes, and find our way around the camp so we can encounter secret bars(!). The 8-Ball is invaluable. Mostly, we ask people if they have questions for the 8-Ball. We hear lots of questions, dish out lots of billiard-style wisdom, and everybody's happy -- although more often than not, the answer hedges a bit, such as "Signs point to Yes" or "Outcome hazy. Ask again later."

We prefer that they ask the question aloud, but if they don't, we just assume the question is about whether they'll finish the night with a little naked wrasslin'.

We're always right about this, by the way. It's the only thing people are shy about -- usually because their prospective wrassle-mate is standing right next to them.


(Oh, wait - one last order of business. Mom, this might be a good time to stop reading. Just pretend I end this story with something you'll find really funny.)

But I just related this story to a friend in an e-mail, and I thought I'd share it with you, too. Because the World Must Know.

Sometimes they're not shy. A woman came up to our campsite, shook the 8-Ball and asked, "Will I get head tonight?"

The Magic 8-Ball for once did not equivocate. "YES." That's it. No hedging, no weaseling -- just Yes. She was going to get the headiest head in the camp.

She was very pleased. "That's right," she agreed, making a circular scrubbing motion around her midsection before she walked off: "It's 'cause I baby-wipe that shit!"

Ah, camping! Hope the 8-Ball got that one right, since she put in the effort.

Rob

Comings and Goings In Delaware County

For your viewing and learning pleasure, here's the Forbes chart of the 2008 migrations to and from Delaware County, Pennsylvania, that I couldn't figure out how to grab the other day. Courtesy of Scott Neely, Scooby-Doo artist extraordinare, who certainly knows his way around a graphic. Thanks, Scott!

Rob

Extended Shellfish Break

Regular posting will resume tomorrow, as it's my honey's birthday today and I've got crab cakes to fry up for her.

So here's a video from the closing act of yesterday's Crawfish Fest, Galactic. That's Cyril Neville on vocals, and Stanton Moore blasting away on the drums. I'm glad I finally got to see this song; I was heading back to the chairs with bowls of crawfish etouffee and shrimp creole at the time.

Pal Jay, who could only make Day 1 of the fest, asked us to make him feel better by telling him that Galactic sucked. No can do, buddy.

Rob

It's Shade Day!

Jeri Smith-Ready's new novel, Shade -- her first young-adult book -- is available in bookstores and online today, and it's a hell of a read. Picture this: Ghosts are real, and suddenly, they're commonplace and visible... but only to kids aged 16 and younger -- people born after a mysterious moment dubbed "the Shift." For this new generation, the world is very different, and immeasurably more complicated. Especially when your boyfriend dies and comes back as a ghost. Is it okay to start seeing other flesh-and-blood people?

And -- well, look, Jeri's put up a description on her website that says it better than I could, and, more importantly, gives away only the plot points she wants given away. So  let me just say that the premise of the book, where no one over a certain age can see ghosts -- is a deft allegory for how all generations see the world differently from the ones that precede them. The story isn't about this generation gap -- it's a more personal story than that -- but it takes place in a world with a chasm that separates young from old more efficiently than technology, the way we do it in our world. (No, I don't have a Tumblr account.) In Shade, nature has made that divide crystal clear, and, as ever, parents just don't understand.

I've read all of Jeri's books, and this is my favorite. Jeri writes with confidence and charm, and opens a new world to us where death is not the end, but only teens can see what's next. (Shade also got a fantastic review from Publisher's Weekly. I don't think a direct link to the review is available online, so Jeri's reprinted it on her site. If you need a convincer, it'll do the job nicely.)

Rob
P.S. Had a great time at Lady Jane's Salon last night, where Jeri read from Shade, along with Christina Britton Conroy, who read from One Man's Music, and Leanna Renee Heiber, who gave a delightful reading of The Darkly Luminous Fight for Persephone Parker, a Victorian haunted romance that promises a lot of spooky, proper fun. Also, we hung out in a glass room full of comfyness, including leopard-print beanbag chairs, with some of Jeri's other friends -- one of whom I'm blanking on her name* (beer was involved, and it's best not to guess), and the other of whom a check of Twitter reveals is Kate Milford, whose debut novel The Boneshaker hits the shelves in three weeks, and looks phenomenal. Congratulations to you, too, Kate.

*UPDATE: Thanks to Twitter, I was able to find out/confirm her name, too, and it's what I'd have guessed -- Julie! Although there's no reason for you to believe me. But the fact is, I has considered doing a little parenthetical John Edwardy type thing (not schtupping a woman who's not my wife, that's John Edwards with an S; I mean the cold-reader phony-baloney "psychic"). So I would have been all, like, "I'm getting a "J" and hope that someone would chime in with Julie, and then I'd say "Yes, Julie, I knew it all along." I was like 85% Julie, 12% Judy. And 3% Yuengling, but that was the beer talkin'.

Particle Fiction

A few days ago, my online pal David Wynne debuted his new comic, Particle Fiction, online. Well. it's available both online and as a printed comic -- and if you decide you'd like a copy (or one of his other books) and order before April 4th, he'll throw in a free sketch. Which is a damn good deal, because his art is terrific.

But regardless, this is a cool done-in-one story, with a beginning, middle and an end, and you can download it as a pdf or read it online in your browser.

So go! Enjoy!

Rob
(And next week, Ami will have a podcast interview with him!)

Dead Eye

Here’s a photo of a target I punched a few holes in the other day, with a Sig Sauer 9mm.

Burglars beware! I’m getting better with a handgun! So, if I ever get one:

a) you’ll be sorry,
and b) we’ll finally have an excuse to replace the carpet.

On the other hand, I have literally forgotten how to aim a shotgun. Big Dutt and I split a box of clays at the range, but between last year and this, I’d forgotten the one lesson I have to relearn each time: Which eye to close when looking down the barrel at the bead. While looking out the wrong eye, I couldn’t line up the bead to the target, so I naturally couldn’t follow it as it flew. A good six clays flew by, with no interference from shot at all, before my instructor caught my problem. I think I pegged a couple after that, but I was trounced by Dutton, who really blasted the hell out of them.

Rob

Abusement Park

Last weekend, Kathy and I headed south to the Monster-Mania horror convention, hooking up with a friend we hadn't seen in years, and eventually sharing an elevator with Gary & Jake Busey. (I get the feeling that if Gary Busey crosses your path, you're jinxed, but I crossed paths with him a second time, hopefully nixing the jinx.)

While we were there, we went to the premiere screening of an as-yet-unreleased film, Closed for the Season. It wasn't remotely good. Which is fine -- sometimes (especially with horror films) "good" isn't precisely what you're looking for.

But what you're looking for is usually better than this.

It's a haunted amusement park story, with Aimee Brooks as The Girl, Damien Maffei as The Guy, and Joe Unger as The Carny. (The character's names are actually Kristy, James, and...  well, the Carny, but they're hardly names you need to know.) Apparently the amusement park is angry at being abandoned after a kid flew off a roller coaster 20 years ago and impaled himself on a tree and just lay there with a severed spine for hours (days?), and years ago Kristy lost a stuffed teddy bear there, and... hell, there's no way to explain this. The movie tries, every now and then, and when it does, it becomes impossible to focus. If you try too hard, your brain will turn into Mike and Ikes.

What's happening is that the amusement part is making Kristy and James hallucinate horrible things that they were afraid of in the amusement park when they were kids. There's the Lake Monster, the alligator wrestler, the notion that mobsters buried people under the rides. There's the giant Civil War soldier who hung people high up in trees until their flesh was picked clean and they became just bones, bleaching in the sun. And there's the creepy carny, dressed like a (creepy) clown. Sometimes he has a backup band.

All the hallucinations give the filmmaker (writer-directer Jay Woelfel) an opportunity to film all the gore scenes he wants (such as, say, an alligator ripping off someone's leg) without having to deal with any of the consequences. Problem is, when these events have no consequences, they also lose any of their effect on the audience. What's the point of watching, if nothing that happens matters? Furthermore, with all the emphasis on disorientation -- the characters are always trying to escape the park, but it never lets them -- it would be good to have some sort of handle on what the baseline reality is. Without that, the action becomes a confusing, muddled mess.

Complicating matters, at some point the characters split off into their own evil selves (in evil clown makeup, natch). In a completely unnecessary scene , we get to see Good Kristy getting raped by Bad James and the Carny, while Bad Kristy (and later, Good Kristy, because it's a hallucination) look on. (Also, her beloved stuffed bear gets kinda rape-y, as well.) This scene only exists--like most scenes in Closed for the Season, it has no bearing on the plot--because the writer/director thought it would be awesome. It's not. It's simply a gratuitous and ugly scene in what is otherwise a nonsensical, unentertaining trifle.

Plus: It's two hours long. It goes on and on, and every ending is a false one. Just when you think they've ridden all the rides and visited all the attractions, there's one more thing they have to check off their haunted to-do list. Their ride on the Ferris wheel -- earlier described as "the world's fastest" -- had all the excitement of cleaning the gutters, but none of the danger. If I'd had a box of Sno-Caps with me, I would have used the nonpareils to saw away at my own wrists.

Rob

Coffee Shop Time Machine

Another low-content day for me, here at LATP central. But just so I don't totally check out, I should mention I bumped into an old friend at the coffee shop this morning, which was a great surprise. After having some breakfast with him and his daughter, I opened up my laptop at my usual table and listened to a crowd of eight old men talk about what would win in a fight: an alligator, a crocodile, or a panther. Passionate arguments were made; it got quite heated.

So: a visit from my past, and a glimpse of my future.

Anyway, here's something funny for you to watch, as the Onion once again deconstructs TV news.

I'm an old guy, so you know you can trust me.

Rob

A Dame By Any Other Name

I just read on Mark Evanier's blog that a friend of mine from college theater, Scott Mason, has won a contest and been named Dame Edna's honorary understudy for the new show All About Me. Scott's been impersonating the Dame for a while now, but this is taking it to a new level. Congratulations, Scott!

Rob

BananaGram

Old friends of mine know this story, but I thought I'd set it down.

Years ago -- circa 1992, I think -- a couple friends and I were in a bar in Newark, Delaware, listening to a band that I believe was called Grinch. (If you're interested, here's their Facebook page. This story's not about them.)

Between sets, we ended up talking to this other guy in the bar, who was just starting up a local independent newspaper.There'd be comics, and band reviews, and that sort of thing. And my friends and I, writers all, were hooked. He needed writers, and we needed to get published. Win-win, right? So after regaling us with his plans for his paper, he invited us back to his place to check the thing out. We skipped the second set (sorry, Grinch!) and followed him a block or so to his apartment. Eager young writers were we.

And there, he showed us his fine publication -- an orange tabloid with a demented yellow fruit on the cover, called The Powerful Banana. Which was an odd name, but Newark's a college town. It sees odd every day.

Then we flipped the paper open and paged through it. I can honestly say, I don't recall any of the articles in the paper, if there were any. (There had to be, I guess, but they've faded from my memory. You'll see why in a moment.) I remember seeing some bar calendar advertisements, too, and later wondered if the Stone Balloon had any idea what it was paying for, and was happy with what it got. Because the main thing that caught my eye were the comics.

There were three comics strips, and only one had a punchline. And I have to admit that I remember it to this day. I don't think that's a testament to the humor (it couldn't be), but simply my brain's recognition that there are some elements of shock it wants to remember forever, as a defense mechanism against similar situations in the future.

The strip with the punchline was called "The Gassy Guru." This featured a lotus-sitting guru held aloft by his own farts, who eventually pees on one of his followers, saying "urine lightened!"

Ha!

This was the punchline.

Of the other two comic strips, one was called "Runny & Spooge," about a cat and his hairball (I don't know which was which, but really, does it matter?), and the other one was called "The Violent Pervert," which, well... it had truth in advertising going for it, at least. It was vile. Its only saving grace that it was so crudely drawn that you couldn't really see what was going on.

And my two friends and I just deflated. This guy wanted us to write for his newspaper, and until a few moments before, we'd been absolutely giddy. And then we saw the damn thing, and it was clear to each one of us that not being published anywhere, ever, would be better than even once getting published next to "The Violent Pervert." We made some polite noises about sending him some material, maybe, someday, although things are really hectic right now, and oh, look at the time! And we hightailed it out of there as soon as we could.

Somewhere, I think I still have my copy of The Powerful Banana. It later served as a prop in a short film one of those two friends made, and became such a strange artifact that I couldn't bear to throw it away. But it's followed me through a couple moves by this point, and I'm not entirely sure where in the house it is. Which is probably for the best.

Still, for some reason the other day, I was curious about The Powerful Banana, and decided to look it up online, just in case any vestige of this pre-Internet publication survived online. As far as I can tell, it hasn't. But the name lives on! A Japanese band has been playing under that name since 2001, from what I can find out. You can hear some of their music on their myspace page.

The Powerful Banana is dead. Long live the Powerful Banana.

Rob
(photo from Blobby's Blog.)

Dreamin' My Life Away

So I dreamed that my friends from the ol’ gun mag and I were trying to kill each other. Specifically, Jim the Bastard and I were engaged in some sort of road-rally deathmatch down I-95. And somewhere in Maryland, I had to pull over to get more gas, and I made the mistake of sitting down where I thought I was safe.

Now, the Bastard and I were both wounded… it had been a hell of a fight up to that point. And at the time I thought I was safe, I knew Jim was a few miles behind me. So I sat down in the rest stop, and out of nowhere, Chicago Jerkface (another mag friend) sits down right behind me and bap. bap. bap. Shoots me in the back of the head, three times with a .22.

Which, under normal circumstances, would kill me. But it being a dream, all I could feel were these three bb-like bullets in the back of my head, right around where my skull meets my spine. I knew I didn’t have long... and I knew I couldn’t trust myself to drive, because I could black out and endanger people. (Yes… I didn’t want to hurt anyone during my Interstate Murder Race.)

I spotted a cab, and asked him where the nearest hospital was. He said “3.2 miles,” and I said, “Good, because I’ve been shot in the back of the head.”

So I got in the cab, and we got back onto I-95. And there were horrific, horrific accidents wherever I looked. And yet my cabbie was able to skirt them or run over them, and at one point actually plowed through the flaming wreckage of a school bus. At some point, the cab changed from a normal taxi to a three-wheeled ATV towing a yellow motorcycle-like thing with wings, which I rode. The ATV couldn’t fly, but the passenger area could get a few feet in the air to hop over bodies and such.

At this point, the cabbie says, “Where to?” and I say, “The hospital in 3.2 miles, remember? I’ve been shot in the head?”

Turns out we’ve been going the wrong direction. But he knows another hospital nearby. We take some back roads to get there, and I start to think going to this other hospital is probably a good idea, because the Bastard and Jerkface won’t look for me there – they’ll be going to the closer hospital to finish me off. By the time the cabbie pulls up to this new hospital, however, I notice my family and some of my friends clustered outside the emergency room. I stumble off the back of the cab and onto a gurney. My old buddy Jeff opens his wallet and pulls out enough money to pay the cabbie… at least a fifty, and some other bills. I look up at him as I’m being wheeled into the ER and say, “Thanks, man. I had no idea how I was gonna pay him. You saved my life.”

And then I woke up for a couple minutes, and then I went back to sleep and dreamed that my grandfather was finally being released from prison. So a big night for dreaming, all around.

Rob

Celluloid Heroes Never Really Die

My favorite podcast, Filmspotting, recently offered up a Top 5 list of favorite “nostalgia” movies—movies that they, personally, felt nostalgic about. I’ve given it some thought, and come up with a list of my own. It’s tough to narrow it down to just five.

I figure it’s best to start with the runners-up. The most recent film on the list, The Breakfast Club was the first R-Rated movie I ever saw in the theater, and while I can’t say I know how well it speaks to high-schoolers today, I know that when I was in the theater watching that movie, I know that when I was watching it that first time (and every time thereafter) I was struck with one feeling: This gets us.

Then there’s the Jason & the Argonauts/Clash of the Titans twofer – movies I remember more for scenes than for the entire throughline. Jason seemed to be on every Thanksgiving or Christmas at my Aunt & Uncle’s house, and somehow there’d be a TV with it on that I could watch while other people were crowded around a football game. There is nothing more spectacular than that skeleton fight. As for Clash, it’s not so much for the movie itself (though the bow-wielding Medusa was terrifying), but instead the fact that my pal Jeff and I stayed up all night in a tent in his backyard so we could go back into his house at 3 a.m. to watch it on HBO.

Another cable classic was The Man With Bogart’s Face, a movie about a private eye (Bogie-lookalike Robert Sacchi) who loved old movies so much that he got plastic surgery to look like Humphey Bogart… and who, of course, gets involved with a Maltese Falcon-like mystery. I’d never even seen any Bogart movies at that point (I was probably 12 when it was in heavy rotation on Prism, the Philly-area pay-movie/sports station we subscribed to), but this light mystery drew me into the mystique completely. I found it on VHS a few years ago, and enjoyed watching it even as an adult. (The cable-overkill comedy Scavenger Hunt might be on this list, except I rented that a decade or so back, and good grief, it was bad.)

And one more cable classic: Airplane. Absurd humor for every angle. There’s a new gag with every line, and I ate it up, watching this movie again and again when I was a kid. I just picked it up on DVD, and really can’t wait until I’m in a silly enough mood to pop it in and relax.

Now onto the top 5:

History of the World, Part 1: I actually think Airplane is a better movie than this (though no doubt about it, History is screamingly funny). But I might have watched this every day for a year on my friend John’s VCR. And as I look for a job as a stand-up philospher, Bea Arthur’s words at the unemployment office ring truer than ever: “Oh, a Bullshit Artist! Did you bullshit today? Did you try to bullshit today?” Each and every day, Bea.

The Poseidon Adventure. High Drama on the High Seas – I probably know this movie better from the Mad Magazine parody (“The Poopsidedown Adventure”) than the movie itself, but boy did I watch it on its yearly TV rotation. There are certain movies that, when they came on TV, it was an event. The Poseidon Adventure was one, at least at our house.

The Wizard of Oz. This might be higher on the list, except it feels less personal, and more universal to me. It’s a great movie (and another TV event), but I realize there are scenes that are larger in my imagination than they were on screen. For instance, I can picture the Cowardly Lion jumping through a window in the palace in Emerald City: a slow-mo, head-on shot with green glass shards flying everywhere. No such shot exists; he just ducks off to the side. But in my head: Whoa. We’re talking Michael Bay effects, but with characters that I’ve known so long that they’re nestled in my heart.

Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid. This Steve Martin movie was the counterpoint to The Man with Bogart’s Face –at the very least, it’s part of what gave me my appreciation for old crime movies. It’s kind of crazy how a send-up of those movies was so accessible to a kid who’d never really seen them before, but the private eye tropes were all around our culture (including The Electric Company: Remember “Fargo North: Decoder”?) and the editing trickery (intercutting Martin with films of yesteryear) and the silly spy story really got to me. Plus: Cleaning Woman!?!?!?

And finally:

Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. I’m not as candy-centric as my wife, but I know a wonderland when I see one. But the thing this movie gets so right (and so much so-called “children’s entertainment” gets wrong) is that it accentuates the sweet with a large dollop of bitter. Slugworth is terrifying, Wonka is worn down, cruel and defeated, and all the kids (save Charlie) are horrible brats. This gets to be my number one nostalgia movie in large part because it doesn’t seem nostalgic for childhood at all. It’s nostalgic for goodness, wherever it can find it, and knows it's scarce. But the film also shows that goodness sometimes can inspire goodness in others, even when they don’t expect it. It’s almost a Scrooge story, and it’s a surefooted delight.

So that’s my list. What are your nostalgia movies?

Rob
(Because I fascinate me: More here.)

Showbiz!

I saw a sweet country girl reveal her biker-chick side, and a donut-munching cop turn into a crook. A woman turned into an angel, and girls defied gravity. I learned there's more than one way to make lemonade. And I saw Goldfinger, which isn't something you soon forget.


The New York Burlesque Festival's Saturday Spectacular was eye-popping, jaw-dropping fun.. and a hell of a way to turn almost forty. Thanks to my pals, and my glorious wife, for coming out and having this kind of a crazy good time with me. And thanks to everyone involved in making this amazing show happen!

Rob

Rob's Getting Old! Everybody Shimmy!

In a few weeks, my friends, I will be 40. And before that happens, I want to celebrate. Because I could very well bust a hip or something if I wait until afterward.

So, on October 3rd, five days before the clock strikes old, Kathy & I are going to the New York Burlesque Festival at BB Kings. We're buying $25 general admission tickets. The doors open at 6:30 p.m., and the show begins at 7:30. Meet us in line (we'll probably line up around 5:30 for good seats), and we'll all go in together!


If you haven't been to a burlesque show before, let me tell you what it isn't: It's not some sleazy strip club. There ain't no lap dances, ain't no "champagne room." What it is is a bunch of grownups putting on a sexy, funny show, full of bawdy jokes, risque dancing, and maybe even a little carnival sideshow thrown in for good measure. It's so much better than stripping: It's what you thought stripping was when you were a little kid. You'll have a blast.

So check out the link above, and this video preview. Or read this review of a Starshine Burlesque show from a few years ago. And join us as I get old before your very eyes!

Rob
(P.S. No gifts, please -- tickets are 25 bucks apiece, plus service charges, so go easy on yerselves!)

(Also: I realize this *is* an expensive night out. If you can't make it, I totally understand.)

High School Reunions

Sunday morning, bleary-eyed and half awake, I stopped into the neighborhood Wawa to buy some coffee for a drive to Atlantic City for a writer's conference. Not my neighborhood, to be clear--Wawa doesn't reach this far. Kathy and I had stayed over at my mom's place the night before, so we were in my hometown Wawa.

And as I walked in, someone already in line said my name. I looked over, and for a moment, my first thought was "who's this man?" Because while I've seen my old friend John now and then since high school, it always takes a moment for me to connect our grown-up avatars with the kids I used to know.

Anyway, John, Kathy and I had a brief little chat, then he was on his way and soon we were on ours.

I think the encounter prepared my brain for later in the day. I was in a memoir-writing workshop that I was quickly realizing wasn't really for me, when i noticed a guy in the front row, and thought, "That's how Anthony looks his Facebook profile picture..." And the more I looked at him, the more I thought he was my old high school buddy Anthony -- someone I might've bumped into twice in the last twenty years. And as he turned around as the instructor was wandering the aisle, I caught his eye and was about to write his name and a question mark on a pad of paper. When he saw me, he said, "Holy shit! Rob?" and moved back next to me for the rest of the workshop, and we hung out for the rest of the conference.

With close friends--even long-lost ones--sometimes it's easy to fall into the same conversational cadences you've always had. At one point, during a discussion of the reasons and pitfalls of using pen names, Anthony said sotto voce, "I'm going to use your name as my pseudonym." I shrugged, and said it was only fair: "I leave your name on all my victims."

Ah, good times.

Rob