Say Say Oh Playmate

Today as I was having my coffee, I found myself humming a strange yet not completely unfamiliar tune. Before I knew it, words had swum out of my murky subconscious and joined the tune. It really took me back. The words went something like this:
Say say oh playmate
Come out and play with me
And bring your dollies three
Climb up my apple tree
Slide down my rainbow
Into my cellar door
And we'll be jolly friends
Forever more 1-2-3-4

There was a strange fourth grade subculture when I was growing up that involved the ability to remember these phrases and combine them with intricate hand moves, always with a partner. Faster and faster the rhyme would go, the clumsy person's double dutch. It seemed back then that if you didn't know all the rhymes and hand gestures, you were a social pariah. What's even weirder than this is the complete and utter transformation that the fourth grade culture seems to have undergone since I was there. I can no more see kids gathered around this kind of innocent activity at recess than I can see an elephant do the Watusi. These days fourth graders are more likely smoking cigarettes, guzzling Boone's Strawberry wine and discussing their latest sexual conquests. This is a scary image for me, the true picture of Childhood's End.

Childhood's End always seemed to me like a place rather than a time. It seemed like you walked along in your childhood until you reached a door marked Childhood's End, and you passed through it, and you were a child no more. For every child this passage was different, happened at different times and under different circumstances, but these days it seems that the door might as well be erected at the end of the birthing canal, so the infant can slide right through childhood and into adult neuroses.

Say say oh enemy
Come out and fight with me
And bring your soldiers three
Climb up my poison tree
Slide down my thornbush
Into my dungeon door
And we'll be enemies
Forever more 1-2-3-4

It's amazing how they all come flooding back to you once you start to remember. Complete with complicated hand claps and little snaps. My personal favorite of the day was the "Great Pepsi Taste" hand clappy-thingie that went along with the ad for Diet Pepsi at the time. "That great pepsi taste, means Diet Pepsi won't go to your waste, now you see it, now you don't, oh Diet Pepsi, one small calorie, now you see it, now you don't" And when did Diet Pepsi have a calorie in it anyway? I guess that's something for another time.

This is not a post of great significance, only insomuch as it illustrates to me the difference between the world when I was growing up and the world as it is today. And as idiotic as those little jingles were, I somehow miss a world when all we could think about at recess was laughing and rhyming and slapping hands with our classmates. The world has moved on.

I leave you with this...
Hello operator, give me number 9
And if you disconnect me, I'll kick you right
Behind the 'frigerator, there was a piece of glass
Miss Susie slipped and fell on it and broke her little
Ask me no more questions, tell me no more lies
The boys are in the bathroom, zipping up their
Flies are in the meadow, the bees are in the park
Miss Susie and her boyfriend are kissing in the
d a r k d a r k d a r k dark dark dark

I guess it's true that we never really forget anything. Not ever.

Defending "Boston Rob"

I'll admit it. I am a cheesy reality tv addict. I have watched some of the most unfathomable programming that one can ever, well, fathom. But amidst the "Littlest Grooms" and "Mr. Personalitys", there are some reality shows that are fascinating from a sociological standpoint. Or at least this is what I tell myself.

Enter Survivor. I had not seen a single episode of Survivor until the "Pearl Islands" edition came out, and being the addict that I am, immediately tuned in to the next edition, "All Stars". It is here that I "met" a man that I fell in love with, in typical Scarlett O'Hara style, by first despising, then grudgingly admiring, then full out adoring.

His name is Rob Mariano, otherwise known to devotees of the program as "Boston Rob", or "The Robfather". When I first started viewing Survivor All-Stars, I despised the smug SOB, with his drawling Bahston accent and his seeming complete disregard for others. What a schmuck, I thought. Let's get this guy out of here. But then a strange thing happened. As weeks went on, I started to pay attention, and I realized, this guy is really shrewd.

The details of his tremendous manipulation are not the point. Suffice it to say that he pulled off one of the most brilliant manipulations in television history, and although it was his sweetie, Amber Brkich, that emerged the winner, anyone who watched knows that without Boston Rob, she would never have made it to the final three.

Then Boston Rob and Amber started on the Amazing Race, another reality program which is actually representative of the best in the genre. Now these individuals knew what Boston Rob had pulled off previously, and yet still managed to remain surprised when he continued to pull off devious and brilliant plans behind their backs which worked to his team's advantage. I shook my head in bemused amazement as he used his manipulative skills time and time again to give he and Amber an edge. It occurred to me as I watched that despite being extraordinarily attractive, this guy was smart, funny, disarming, and even though he often dominated situations, surprisingly self-effacing. I found myself during one episode smiling and saying "I love this guy." BTW, Rob, if you get tired of Amber, give me a call!

People say that Rob is snide, obnoxious, sneaky, and that he doesn't have a heart because he recently didn't stop at the scene of an accident during the race to determine the status of the accidentees. He simply drove by, saying, in typical Rob fashion, that this was "a competition". And you know what? He's absolutely right. Just because the guy already has a million in the bank doesn't mean that he's going to give an inch in a new competition for another million. People seem to expect him to almost be ashamed of his status, and give other teams an edge out of some misplaced guilt. Well, the boy doesn't give an inch. He's competitive bold, smart, gleeful in his experiences, and of course, it never hurts to be hotter than June at the Equator. He's sweet to Amber, and he never puts on airs. The teams that hate him the most ironically seem to be the teams that are most obsessed with themselves, more like caricatures than real people. Boston Rob's just a guy from Boston that happens to have found something he's great at and is pursuing it to the max, with his lovely fiancee at his side. Who could begrudge him that?

So here's a toast to Rob and Amber. Well, mainly just to Rob, but if I want to get in good with ol' Rob, I suppose I'll have to cherish Am-buh as well. Keep up the good work, I'll be watching you, shaking my head, smiling, and saying, "Damn, I love this guy!"

Rage Against the Audience

It may seem idiotic for me to shake my virtual little fist at certain groups of people for doing what might seem on the surface to be very trivial things. But the devil is in the details, and the devil also seems to be in these individuals as they quest to make my life a personal hell.

Sartre once said that "Hell is other people." Well, I can bet that Sartre never tried attending a showing of The Ring 2, but if he had, he would have been pleased that his feelings were affirmed. Now The Ring 2 is a pretty crappy movie, let's just get that part out of the way. It is in large part because of the crappiness of this film that the individuals I'm about to discuss are still alive. Who said Hollywood blockbusters are useless?

For some reason, there are people on this earth that will pay $10 and up to go and see a movie and then spend the *entire* time loudly discussing their relationships. When that gets old, these people will shout out messages to the characters on the screen, answer their cell phones, scream at inappropriate moments and laugh heartily at their own little jokes.

Forget road rage. I have movie theater rage.

It's gotten to the point that I attempt to see movies at the oddest hours possible. 12 noon on a Wednesday, for example. I'm thinking that the drunk people are still working on getting drunk, the giggly idiotic teenagers are either in school or drinking Boone's behind the gym, and the elderly hearing-impaired individuals are still in bed. Despite my best efforts, however, it never fails that not only will I be beset by the loudest, most self-centered, ridiculous people on the planet while I attempt to enjoy a movie, but they will sit *directly* behind or in front of me. I'm almost to the point of believing that I'm cursed. I go at odd hours. When there *are* other people in the theater I do a bit of "movie profiling". I will not sit anywhere near:
1. People who are already talking loudly although the movie has not yet begun
2. Teenagers
3. Parents with small children who are already asking "why", although there's nothing to inquire about as yet.
4. Very old people
5. More than one very overweight woman

Before you think that I'm a sizist, or an ageist, or whatever, let me tell you that I did not arrive at these qualifications without a hell of a lot of research. The abovementioned groups are people that have time and time again been rude, loud, or otherwise obnoxious during countless showings of films. I'm most baffled by the overweight woman phenomenon because there would seem to be no reason for their rudeness. Young kids are naturally loud, teenagers are naturally obnoxious, the elderly often have hearing problems that seem to require having every line in the movie repeated for them. I haven't figured out the large women's reasoning yet. But it happens, time and time and time again.

No amount of dirty looks or irritated "shhss" will stop these individuals. And they always arrive late, still chatty, and sit, as I said, right in front of me. In fact, I was once the *only* person in a particular showing until right as the lights went down and a woman who was 95 if she was a day shuffled down the aisle of the large, empty auditorium and sat *directly* in front of me. I was astonished. I moved, of course, but she managed to disrupt my viewing pleasure anyway as she fell asleep shortly after the feature started and snored, loudly.

And I have not even mentioned some of my favorite, although rarer individuals...
1. The Cell Phone ghosties. These people may not talk, but they will text message through an entire movie, and the glow from those phones can be fierce in a dark theater. Especially when they're (say it with me now) right in front of you.
2. Mr. Wasted Man. I don't know why Mr. Wasted Man decides that it's a grand ol' idea to get plastered and then come to a movie and yell stuff at the characters, but he does. And he'll always be ... where? you guessed it. Right in front of me.
3. And my personal favorite. Mr. Sensitive Comedy Man. This guy is a real rarity but when he shows himself, you're in for a real treat, oh yeah. This is the guy in the comedy that thinks that every line is so hilarious that the rest of the audience should be treated to an echo of it. "And the priest said, nah, just one for me!" *laughter* Mr. Sensitive Comedy Man: "hohohoho, the priest said, nah, just one for me! hohohoh"

OK. There are people out there who would say that I overreact. Bollocks to them. This is ten bucks of my money, and I for one did not pay 10 bucks to hear Buffy and Amber discuss their crush on Brad, or to hear Ebenezer the Geezer get a running play by play from his lovely wife Fannie. I like films, and I want to see (and hear) the damn thing. I have even read message boards where people *defend* this idiotic behavior by claiming "it's what makes the movie fun". If that's what you need to make a movie fun, that's what Blockbuster is for, ya morons.

And that's all I've got to say about that. For now.

The Toothbrush

Is there anybody out there?
Welcome, if you can hear me.

This is the first post, and considering my nature I guess it's fitting that I want to talk about the toothbrush. The pink plastic Colgate toothbrush, still in its packaging, that I found in my brother's medicine cabinet, the toothbrush that made me cry.

I should explain. I was visiting my brother at his home during a time when his long distance girlfriend was visiting. Their easiness as a couple amazes me. It's still strange to me after all these years to see my little brother grown up and in love.

That wasn't much of an explanation, I know. Bear with me. I stood in the bathroom washing my hands, and there on the sink were two toothbrushes, side by side. It was an incredibly touching sight, probably made more touching by the joint that someone passed to me at the party earlier. I opened the medicine cabinet for whatever reason people open medicine cabinets at houses that aren't theirs, and that's when I saw the brand new toothbrush.

In my mind, there was a little story. My brother had obviously bought this toothbrush and put it in the cabinet for his girlfriend, in case she needed it. This little act of consideration brought tears to my eyes, because not only did it show my brother's tremendous tender side, but because it also showed me a vulnerability to him that I longed to protect. He's never loved a girl the way he loves this one. I don't know if he's ever had his heart broken the way that I have. I hope, hope, hope that he never does, but knowing that he might someday be as moved to tears by the sight of that brand new toothbrush as I now was made me feel... so much like a big sister. If his heart isn't broken by this girl, and they live a long and happy life together, the memory of that simple gesture will still stay with me, a memento of the consideration people give to those they truly love.

Toothbrushes. They're not just for dental hygiene anymore.