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G
History Has A Short Memory
My best friend Jamie and I were ready to do some
heavy duty shopping in San Francisco, ready to sacrifice ourselves to
the black hole of consumer debt in the name of saving the jobs of our
fellow Americans. However, the moment we entered the first store, our
red, white and blue-blooded intentions were immediately threatened when
we spied the unthinkable.
Jamie couldn’t help but gasp as she came to a chilling stop. “It
can’t be!” she cried in a panic. “I don’t understand!
The world hasn’t seen an outbreak of this kind for years, decades!
It’s impossible, we had eradicated every last trace of this kind
of plague! It simply can’t be!”
I shook my head slowly, unable to fully process the horror that I, too,
saw with my own eyes. It was ghastly. It was repugnant. But it was true.
There, on the headless mannequin, in plain and shocking sight, was a pair
of gauchos, two, big, blooming, legs full of horror with a hem that fluttered
right below the plastic knee. That’s right. Culottes.
“No one but a MADMAN would bring those things back!” Jamie protested.
“It HAS to be a man! No woman would unleash this kind of evil on
the world again, we all had to live through it the first time! I once
read a story in Time Magazine that said gauchos were easily the shame
of the Seventies! They beat out herpes and Mackenzie Phillips!”
I had no choice but to agree. The reemergence of gauchos struck fear into
my heart. In 1976, my mother wanted me to see the school counselor of
Larkspur Elementary because I insisted on wearing the same pair of gauchos,
knee socks and sneakers for nearly 276 days in a row. And I wasn’t
the only one. Jamie was bit by the gaucho bug, too, but tragically, hers
were equipped with rainbow suspenders ala Mork and Mindy. According
to us, we were as hot as nine-year olds with oily hair and big, buck donkey
teeth could be, because, hey, we were wearing knickers! They were so mod!
But how wrong we all were. When real pants came back in style, every woman
on the planet realized how guilty she was of fashion crimes against humanity.
Restitution was attempted with the introduction of
terrycloth towels as an acceptable couture fabric, but it was too late.
The damage had been done, and it was just easier to forget.
In fact, it would be an archeological marvel if a single Polaroid of a
woman donning gauchos was ever unearthed, because all evidence was gladly
destroyed. We didn’t want to be reminded. Have you ever wondered
why you never saw one of the Eight is Enough girls in another role,
not even in an infomercial? Mystery no more, mystery no more.
“I’ll tell you right now,” Jamie sternly asserted through
her now watery eyes, “if legwarmers stage a coup comeback, I’m
leaving the country. You’ll see me in a burka before I become a Flashdancer
again!”
“You know what this means,” I whimpered. “Crimped hair.
Earth shoes. Combs in back pockets. Oh God, sundresses! Flip-flops
with the one-inch rubber sole. And maaaa...”
“Don’t say it!” Jamie shouted. “It’s
like conjuring the devil! If you say it, it will appear in all of its
hideous physical form!”
“.....aaaacrame!” finished tumbling out of my mouth, despite
my best efforts to keep it in.
“I hope you’re happy!” Jamie shrugged. “It’s
now unleashed. By the time you get home, every corner of your house will
be contaminated with a pythos plant hanging in a nest of woven hemp and
orange wooden beads from your ceiling. Congratulations, it’s 1974,
the Age of Harvest Gold and Avocado.”
Just then, a salesgirl headed for the gauchoed dummy, produced a little
suede patchwork purse framed by a maze of intricate knots, and placed
it gingerly into the lifeless, plastic hand.
R
Addicted to Mary Jane
They were the cutest darn shoes I’ve ever seen.
As I admired them from the catalog page, I wondered aloud how I had been
able to sustain my life to its current point without having them in my
shoe stable.
They were so entirely cute that I was almost sure that they would even
make me appear 20 pounds thinner, give me a better complexion and possibly
make me more likable!
Oh, I wanted those shoes, those little brown mary janes with the funky,
square heels.
Circumstances, however, weren’t ideal. The brown
mary janes were unfortunately not cheap, and as I was in between paychecks
with a very late cable bill on my hands because I simply cannot be trusted
to buy stamps in order to mail the bill on time. I am an incredibly bad
stamp buyer, but had I known that this personality defect would prevent
me from completing my destiny as a cute, little brown mary jane wearer,
I would have tattooed “Ask Me if I Need Stamps” across my forehead
long ago.
Begrudgingly, I put the catalog down and left for work. As I was walking
to my desk, I thought, “I am so proud of myself for not picking up
the phone and ordering those adorable, life-changing shoes, even though
I bet if I was wearing those shoes, Melissa in marketing would have returned
my wave just now instead of rolling her eyes, the burrito guy in the cafeteria
would engagingly lop an extra dollop of sour cream on my lunch and the
skinny girl with the pierced lip on the third floor who snickered at my
knee fat the other day would completely retract her scorn and then ask
me to take her shopping so that she may learn from my fashion forte. I
wonder if those shoes are in the online catalog...”
Just in case the mary janes weren’t as cute as I remembered them
being, or contained some fatal flaw like vinyl, elastic, Velcro or any
type of appliqué whatsoever (particularly an appalling daisy or
ghastly butterfly), I pulled up the online catalog on my computer and
carefully scanned the photo with my eyes. Then I sighed in pitiful disappointment.
I had discovered the flaw.
They were absolutely perfect.
But I deserve those shoes, my brain argued. I DO. I deserve them because...because...well,
because by buying them, not only do I get pair of shoes so completely
adorable that when I wear them, it may even appear that I’ve had
a butt lift, but also that I AM DOING MY PART TO AID THE U.S. ECONOMY.
As a matter of fact, if I didn’t have stupid things like my cable
bill to pay, I do solemnly believe I could energize the fiscal state of
the nation if I was left to my own devices and had caller ID to avoid
phone calls from creditors.
Not only do I need to fulfill my patriotic duty as a minuteman shopper,
I told myself, but despite what looks like a high retail price, those
shoes are an incredibly good value. Seriously, <i>they are! <I>
Brown goes with everything, not only is it found in nature, it’s
nature’s favorite hue! Look at dirt, dirt matches with everything!
I could feasibly wear these shoes every single day for an entire year,
which averages out to a cost of 30 cents a day. Thirty cents a day! Ask
Sally Struthers, you can’t even feed a child on that much each day,
THAT’s how much of a value these shoes are. Basically, they’re
almost free.
These are free shoes. The cable bill could definitely wait. I mean, FREE
SHOES!
“Only an idiot would pass up free shoes,” I declared as I printed
out the order form and then filled in all of the blanks, wrote out the
check and stuffed it all into an envelope. Then I got up and walked it
over to the mail bin, picturing all of my outfits that would now be immeasurably
enhanced to “glorious” status by the purchase of my new utterly
charming shoes. That’s right, Melissa in marketing, you’ll be
rushing over to hi-five me when I show up in the cutest shoes known to
man, I thought as she rolled her eyes at me again and I waved the envelope
at her.
And that’s when I noticed it.
No stamp.
P
Dear Ellen,
Dear Ellen DeGeneres;
You don't know me, but I was wondering if you would be my girlfriend.
Now, I know you're thinking, "Whoa, chickie, hold on a sappho minute!
Ellen's Training School for Sisters has closed its doors!"
Well, ha ha, that's why they call you funny lady!! Anyway, I used to watch
your show, "Ellen," remember that show? I'm sure you do, like
every time someone says, "Hey, Ellen!" because then, you're
like, "Oh My God, my show used to be called that!" But anyway,
I always thought it was a really good show, but my mom would freak out
when I watched it because then she'd say, "Oh, I suppose you're going
to stop shaving your legs now," and I'd be like, "Whatever,
Mom, I already stopped doing that like two weeks ago, I am LIBERATED!"
OK, so anyway, I was just thinking that if you were
free sometime, that maybe we could hook up and go on a date or two or
I could move in with you. I'm totally sure it would work out, at least
for a little while, because I have, like, SEVEN pairs of Hush Puppies!
Because, see, I saw Anne Heche on Barbara Walters' show, and, I mean,
she has that book coming out and everything about how crazy she is, and
stuff. Did you know she got a six-figure advance for that book? I guess
when you break up with your girlfriend Ellen (also the name of your show!)
and end up running loose in a cornfield wearing nothing but a bra, telling
people that you're God and that they need to get on your spaceship, well,
what other kind of credentials do you need to get a book deal?
I mean, it's Anne Heche, a woman who babbles in a dumb-dumb language and
thought she was channeling JESUS CHRIST. She can't get a movie role to
save her life, but she got a book deal.
And you know why? Because she slept with YOU.
And now her book is number seven on the bestseller list. Not because she's
a writer. Not because she's a great actress. Not because people even like
her. But because she slept with YOU.
So I was thinking that it couldn't hurt to ask if you could fall in love
with me. Just for a little while, or until my book got to number seven
on the bestseller list. I'm hoping it wouldn't take that long, actually,
I only have two weeks of vacation to devote to our relationship. Besides,
anything longer than that and my husband might get suspicious.
When would a good time be for you? I already asked for the next two weeks
off, so I could come out tomorrow. Is that cool? I'm on United Airlines,
flight 6798, arriving at 10:07 a.m.
Say yes, Ellen, say yes!! I'm crossing my fingers, number seven here I
come!
Thanks, Laurie
PS: Do you know how to get to that cornfield?
K
It's Not All Good:
The Death of a Catch
Phrase
Last Saturday night, at approximately 8:23 pm, the
term “It’s All Good,” quietly passed away while appearing
in a prime-time commercial for Buick. The cause of death was officially
determined as “over exposure,” though the phrase had indeed
lived an extended and prosperous life, having a long-standing returning
role on The Jerry Springer Showand The View.
Survived by his wife, “You Go Girl!” and his children, “Don’t
Go There” and “Talk to the Hand!”, the slang star was born
in a school yard when several third-graders were fighting over a piece
of Laffy Taffy and it fell onto the ground. Kenny Moses, a grammatically-challenged
fat child, scraped the dirt off of the taffy with a popsicle stick and
proclaimed, “It’s All Good!” After spreading through the
school like wildfire, it was apparent that the term showed promise of
a future in slang when several adults repeatedly asked, “Will you
please stop saying that! What does that mean?” Soon, “It’s
All Good” found a home in the hallways of middle and high schools.
It was just a matter of time before someone noticed that “It’s
All Good” had a star quality with a potential for greatness.
Spotted soon after in a nightclub by agent and retired slang star “Dy-NO-mite!”,
“It’s All Good” immediately signed with the once-household
name and found himself trudging to cattle calls.
“It was hard on him,” said “Dy-NO-mite!”. “You
go to these auditions, you give them all you got. You’re spit and
polished. And for what? They come back and say, ‘Sorry, we need something
with more pizzazz,’ or ‘Thanks, but we’re really looking
for a noun.’ That gets to you man, that can really eat you up. There
were a couple of auditions when I thought, ‘This is it!’ but
later, we’d find out that it went to ‘Hasta la vista, baby,’
or ‘Run, Forest, Run!’ Those were hard times, I tell you, hard
times.”
Finally, however, “It’s All Good” got his first big break
into slang when he played a brief, and nearly unnoticeable part on “Prince
of Bel Air.” Star Will Smith decided to use him at the last minute,
replacing “No Way, Jose,” who had just checked into drug rehab
for a third time. Within weeks, “It’s All Good” was appearing
on every episode and soon became a regular, which led to guest spots on
Dawson’s Creek, Felicity, and Dharma and Greg.
“All of a sudden, ‘It’s All Good’ was every where,”
remembered his wife, “You Go Girl,” who met her future husband
on the set of The Ricki Lake Show. “It was over night, it
seemed. People couldn’t get enough. He was on the tip of everyone’s
tongue.”
His star was riding high. Jay Leno, Letterman, Conan were calling. There
was talk of an HBO special, a record deal, an opening slot on the Britney
Spears tour, and rumors were flying like gunfire about a possible Budweiser
campaign. Things were looking great. And then disaster struck.
Negotiations with the beer giant crumbled when “It’s All Good”
insisted that his younger brother, “It’s All Aight,” (more
commonly known simply as “Aight”) be included in the campaign
as well. Worried that “Aight’s” troubled past and affiliation
to Puff Daddy would negatively affect the campaign, Budweiser pulled its
offer when “It’s All Good” refused to budge. Word got around
that he was difficult to deal with, and the phone stopped ringing.
“He got a fat head,” “Dy-NO-mite!” recalled. “But
then another brother team was hired for the campaign, ‘Wasssup?’
and ‘What Are YOU Doing?’ That was the nail in the coffin, man.
Punks!”
“It’s All Good” dropped out of sight, and it seemed that
his once brilliant career was over. Younger, more splashier slang terms
such as “I’m All That” and “Word Up!” started
to fill his spots, and most people, with the exception of teenage, truck-driving
males in Yuma, Arizona and Mudlick, Idaho, began to forget their once
favorite expression.
Despite the production of bumper stickers, T-shirts and Post-It notes
with his image, “It’s All Good” was on his way to has-been
status. But one day last fall, it looked as if his luck was about to change.
“Dy-NO-Mite!” received a call from Buick, who was looking to
create “trendy and dope” ad campaign. And they wanted “It’s
All Good” for their slogan.
“I found him in a seedy slang bar, sitting in between ‘Keep
On Truckin’’ and ‘I’m With Stupid,’” the
agent recalled. “It was pitiful. He had begun selling some of his
letters, even vowels, to pay for the booze. I almost didn’t recognize
him. ‘’s All Goo, ’s All Goo,’ is what he said to
me. He was a broken term, just broken.”
His agent cleaned and sobered him up and took him to the shoot. According
to people on the set, the talent of “It’s All Good” had
not faded, and he produced what some say was his best work to date. It
was a glorious comeback. Tragically, however, it wasn’t to last.
When the first Buick commercial aired last Saturday, “It’s All
Good” uttered his last breath and quietly faded away to the other
side.
“He’ll live in our hearts forever,” “You Go Girl!”
said as she wiped away a tear, “or at least on that Buick commercial
until the 2002 models come out. I heard ‘No Way, Jose’ got that
part.”
B
Peas Off!
Standing there, with a bag of frozen peas in my hand
and several different people yelling at me, I understood that I had bitten
off far too much. At the self-serve check out lanes at the grocery store,
everything had blossomed into a complete disaster.
Okay, maybe I had gotten too cocky, maybe I was simply just too full of
myself due to my outstanding skill with ATM’s and credit card terminals.
It took practice and dedication, but I can work an ATM faster than coroprate
executive hooked on cocaine and can swipe through any termainal, get authorized,
cash back and start loading my groceries into my car before most people
have selected debit or credit.
I guess it was that kind of bravado that drew me toward the self-service
lanes, that and the fact that every other open check-out lane had lines
longer than the box office selling Madonna tickets for the extra-naked
version of her show. Personally, I can’t really deal with that much
jockeying for place in line with the possibility I might have to touch
strangers, and honestly, I had ice cream to think about. Because you can’t
refreeze those, you know. Once ice cream melts, that’s it. As it
turns into a puddle, it’s fluffiness slips away and it’s life
force goes with it. I believe when that happens, it’s ice cream’s
soul moving on. It’s already run into the light, and there’s
no bringing it back. You can put in the freezer, but good luck trying
to eat it in an hour. You might as well try to spoon your way through
pint of Chubby Hubby cement. If there’s something sadder than dead
ice cream, I’d sure like to know what it is.
And that’s what I was thinking when I felt myself drawn to the self-service
lane like a magnet.
My local store had set up two self-serve stations on either side of a
special cashier stand, which was positioned at the head like the host
of a game show. I stepped up to the only unoccupied station and pressed
the button that said “START.”
The machine greeted me, so far, so good, and a computerized voice instructed
me to “SCAN FIRST ITEM.” I picked up the eggs in my basket,
found the UPC code and held it above the scanning screen.
BLEEP! I heard as the code was scanned.
“PUT ITEM IN BAG,” the machine suggested.
I put the eggs in the bag and turned and smiled at the man now in line
behind me, as if to say, “WATCH ME. I WILL AMAZE YOU.”
I positioned the next item, a frozen bag of peas, right over the scanner,
but I couldn’t get it to BLEEP, so I did it again and again.
BLEEP BLEEP BLEEP! the machine suddenly belched, charging me for three
bags of peas.
“HEY!” I said as jerked the bag of peas away from the scanner,
which produced another BLEEP!
The man waiting in line behind me showed his amazement by putting his
hands on his hips and shaking his head.
“I can’t believe you did that!” I yelled at the machine
like it was my husband. “I’m not paying for four bags of peas!”
“PUT ITEM IN BAG,” the machine answered.
“No wonder this doesn’t work,” I heard the man mutter to
his much younger girlfriend. “Idiots like her can’t handle technology!
She scanned one bag of peas FOUR TIMES. I saw her!”
Somehow, I resisted the massive urge to rear up my leg and pitch the a
fastball bag of peas at his head and decided instead to try to attack
him on a personal level later when I had the opportunity for a clean get
away.
“PUT ITEM IN BAG,” the machine insisted again.
I guess it was then that my anxiety regulator shorted out in my brain.
ZZZZ! I froze up. I panicked. So I did the only thing any normal, freaked-out
person would just bought nine dollars of frozen peas would do.
Apparently pushing the CANCEL button in the area of 40 times is enough
to alert the cashier, who abandoned his game show host post and came to
my station.
“What are you doing?” he asked me angrily. “You can’t
cancel now!”
“PUT ITEM IN BAG,” the machine continued.
“Please help me!” I said. “I have lost control of the peas!”
“Then you shouldn’t have scanned them FOUR TIMES!” the
cashier snapped. “No one else is having problems! I saw you, you
know!”
“Fine!” I said as I stepped up and scanned the rest of my groceries—Chubby
Hubby, Cherry Garcia and Phish Food—tossed it all into the bag and
swiped my debit card through the terminal. “I am the weakest link
on this game show, OK? It’s me! It can’t be the machine!
It can’t be a machine that’s so stupid it can’t even use
articles! It’s ‘Put THE Item in THE Bag’! Your machine
can’t even form a complete sentence! PUT ITEM IN BAG! Your machine
is a baby talker! And my ice cream is dying!”
“Maybe you’d do better next time in a conventional check-out
lane,” the cashier suggested.
“Oh yeah? Peas off!” I replied angrily as I ran out of the store
with my car keys in hand.
When the man who was behind me in line came out of the store, both he
and his concubine were both shocked and disgusted when they experienced
the first drive-by pea-ing. But they should have known it was coming,
especially when they heard the driver scream, “One down and three
to go!”
F
Staying Power
I just read in a story by the Associated Press that
both Al-Qaida and the
Taliban are planning a "comeback." Apparently, up to 1,000 Taliban
and
al-Qaida leaders are hiding in Pakistan, protected by sympathetic clerics.
I think they're about to find out that although their friends may be
encouraging them to try it one more time, telling them that they still
"have it," I hate to be the brown cloud, but we all know the
public isn't
quite as forgiving. You can't just decide to make a "comeback"
and bink!
you're back.
If it was quite that easy, Joyce DeWitt would be pushing sugarless
candy for 30 bucks a box instead of Suzanne Somers. It took John Travolta
several times to get hot enough that he won't even call Hollywood Squares
back anymore. Patrick Swayze still keeps trying, although it didn't help
one bit that he was caught flying a plane higher than Robert Downey Jr.,
even though there's proof right there that addiction can get you a part
on
a Fox series.
Some comebacks aren't meant to be successful, deemed so by a higher
force than you or I can only minutely comprehend. Such examples of divine
resurgence intervention include the careers of the former Playboy
centerfolds Landers twins (Judy and Audrey, who can be seen in just about
any film on Blockbuster's "For Sale 4 $.99" rack as nightclub
singers/detectives who solve crimes the soft-core way) the and the entire
cast of "Facts of Life."
Planning a comeback isn't as easy as it looks, either. I mean, if the
Taliban think that they're just going to pop up on any old soccer field
and
start hanging people, guess again. You need to get a buzz going first,
any
maybe that means showing up at some supermarket openings, maybe pulling
the
winning balls out on Lotto night, filling in for Willard Scott every now
and then on the Today show. Wait, maybe The Early Show with
Bryant Gumbel, Today is probably shooting too high. Next, the
Taliban really needs to get some good PR going, like maybe saving a family
and their goats from a burning cave, or pulling a guy out (Tom Cruise
style!)from a wagon that's flipped over and is in danger of exploding,
or
more realistically, maybe just a wheel falling off or well, something.
After that, it's important to be seen with the right people, so try
to work your way into P. Diddy's crew, or try to take a vacation with
the
Grace Kelly people from Monaco. Ask Liza Minelli out to lunch (she's out
of
rehab again, married what many believe to be an allegedly gay man and
she's
resurfaced more times than the whitehead on the side of my nose!) and
make
sure you call the Star to make sure they get the whole thing on film.
See, Taliban and Al-Qaida, you just can't rush into a comeback, you
have to play your cards right and be patient. Look at James Brolin! He
married ROYALTY and he's still C list at best. Comebacks can take a
while, but at least thank Allah that you didn't have to marry Barbara
Streisand to get into a decent party. Besides that, political comebacks
are
even more difficult. I mean, what is your platform going to be? "OK,
we'll
take it easy on the stoning and we promise to keep decapitation to a
minimum. It's going to be great, you guys! Really, you'll see!"?
Oh, and by the way, you have a little competition in the Afghan
fascist government department: Tootie and Mrs. Garret are on their way
to
the land of dust and daisy cutters right now after hearing a rumor that
they still
"had it."
S
Heavyweight Low Class
Boxing
Greta Van Susteren must be so proud.I know I would
be if I worked for the same network that was getting ready to air "Celebrity
Boxing," a Fox special scheduled for March 13 that is pimping the
heck out of notorious America D-list "stars."Take, for example,
the featured guests of the inaugural episode: Tonya Harding, whose recent
exploits included a plan to skate topless and an eviction from her rental
home last month for non-payment; and initially Amy Fisher, the Long Island
Lolita who shot the incredibly annoying wife of the skeevy old pedophile
she had been boinking. Then Amy dropped out and
Fox brought out it's longest muck raker with the extended handle to scrape
the bottom of its superstar barrel, and out dangled Paula Jones by the
left nostril of her brand new nose. Fox is using the term "celebrity"
as loosely
as the skin that's gathered like drapes around Elizabeth Taylor's head.
Apparently, "Celebrity Boxing" must be
the last pit stop on the downhill slide beforeyou go a little Pinky Tuscadero
and find yourself wrestling Margot Kidder, Paula Poundstone and Olga Corbit
for the bottom bunk and the last scrap of potty wipe using your metal
feeding tray as a weapon.True, I guess it beats selling plasma and hocking
your booty in the lamplight in the seedy part of town, but listen, it's
not that far off. Let me set the record straight right here and now in
my own personal interest: No matter where I go from here, no matter where
the hard, bad path of life takes me, if you hear my name mentioned on
a Celebrity Boxing promo on Fox, THAT IS A FLARE. That is a signal that
my time has come to be put down. Should my poor decision-making abilities
lead me to a point that I am taking a clocker in the jaw from Heidi Fliess,
PUT ME DOWN. I want out. Call the vet, find a nice tartan plaid blanket,
pet my head, tell me I've been a good girl and I will gladly scamper into
the light. Just get me outta here. I mean it. This stuff is so gruesome
it's almost Roman in nature. You don't even need lions for it, the horror
is already built-in.
I can't even figure out how Tonya and Amy and now
Paula agreed to this in the first place, but then again, I suppose we're
not dealing with the pillars of dignity, are we? What's the difference,
I guess, you attempt to cripple your competition with a tire iron, you
skate topless, you get evicted from your house, you fight a tramp on TV.
You file a lawsuit against the President for coming onto you in a Little
Rock motel room in a case you cannot prove, but get a settlement that
was enough to move yourrself and your kin out of the trailer park, you've
been riding the scandal wave for all it's worth ever since, you fight
a tramp on TV. You diddle a nasty old dude in dirty motel rooms, you shoot
his wife, you agree to fight a tramp on TV, then get some high falutin'
idea you're too fancy to bitch-slap another white trash chick and back
out.
But, you know, it might not be all bad if they play
their cards right. Sure, they're not Greta Van Sustern, but this IS Fox,
so althugh they probbly won’t qualify for a full face-lift, there
just might be a chance of some liposuction, and perhaps both Tonya and
Paula can do something about their mouths.
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