07/13/98
Born Again Devil

I'm wearing my new pink oxford shirt I got at Old Navy. My friend Jen showed it to me when we were there one day, stating that she had to have it. Now I have it. Fear not, Jen, there was another one just like it on the rack. Extra large and only $16.99. I love Old Navy - not cheap clothes, but good clothes at a low price.

Jen, Old Navy and I have a weird connection, too. Before we'd ever met each other we both bought two shirts that were exactly alike. Same price, same size, off the same sale rack. Weird, huh?

As my mother once said when I was in high school: "It takes a real man to wear a pink shirt." Amen. Mothers do indeed know best.

I used to have to wear pink shirts for a living. My senior year in high school I worked at Baskin-Robbins. My uniform consisted of a little brown sun visor (with the B-R logo prominently displayed), some ratty khaki cut-offs (and ratty khakis when the weather turned cold), a lovely brown apron, my Converse All-Stars and a medium knit polo shirt in Baskin-Robbins pink.

Now, I have put on a few pounds since high school, but even then I had a quite magnificent bod that could not be adequately (or flatteringly) contained in a medium shirt. I spent most of my time at that job tugging at the damn shirt, trying to make it stop clinging so seductively. It didn't work - I've never been hit on so much as I was then and I actually met my wife (the lovely and talented Sonya, who is down with a migraine this morning - get better, baby, hubby loves you!) while I was working there. That story is available elsewhere.




The weekend was fun. Friday night we did go see Saturday Night Fever and it was a hoot, as advertised. John Travolta used to be skinny, you know? Then again, he wore that horrible white suit, too. Personally, I like him better as the chunky Vincent Vega. Far more realistic.

After the movie they turned the stage of the Orpheum into a dance floor, complete with a disco ball and '70s music. Sonya, Jen, James and I wandered up to check out the stage. Jen is a theatre person, but I still trust her. I used to work in a theatre, so I thought it was nifty to look around and see all the fly and walkways and ladders and what-not.

The crowd, though, was seriously frightening. Mixed into the dancers were middle-aged folks in from the suburbs, teenagers wearing a thick coat of attitude, scenesters from 616 and Amnesia slumming, and more than a few children - apparently the offspring of the folks from the suburbs. Lots of white-man dancing. We left in a hurry.

After that we had a lovely night of cable-surfing and beer drinking. Memphis has seventy-two cable channels, and Sonya and I have damn near all of them.

I just love Jen and James. They're the cutest damn couple - they might as well just get married and be done with it. But I'm not pushing.

And it's neat to see a reverse-image version of the Aquarius/Leo relationship. Now I'm not a big astrology fan - or believer, for that matter. But Sonya IS an Aquarius, and I AM a Leo, and all the astrology books say that don't work 'cause the Leo needs a great deal of ego stroking and the Aquarius loves nothing better than to bring inflated egos down in a Hindenburg-like explosion of hurt feelings and bitter recriminations. Also, the Aquarian habit of endlessly analyzing things annoys the hell out of the Leo. Leo's believe things are what they are and can be dealt with as they come along because Leos are the nobility of the world, after all, and how could thing go wrong for us? Meanwhile the Aquarians are standing near the door, chewing their nails and counting the ways things could go wrong.

I like to think Sonya and I are the exceptions that prove the rule, but a lot of our problems do come from the friction created by my regal, laid-back self-image and her cool, calculated, and outspoken ways. But hell, we love each other. I've learned to let her slings and arrows slide by harmlessly and she's learned to pat my grossly swollen ego on the head without having to stick a hat pin in it.

Anyway, Jen and James are going through stuff that Sonya and I had resolved by the end of our freshman year in college, so it's neat - kind of like seeing reruns of a show you really like. Only this time the girl is the Leo and the boy is the Aquarius. I can't count the times James has stormed into our apartment, pointed at me and said to Sonya, "are they all like that?" or something to that effect.

"Yes they are," Sonya will nod wearily.

"Why?" James would implore.

Sonya would answer, "we do not yet understand that."

Or the times that Jen has looked at me and rolled her eyes theatrically, giving me her best "oh, the horrors we must endure" look.

So they're real cute.

Saturday night was interesting. Initially, Sonya wanted me to take her to the Horseshoe Casino to see America. That's right, America. The horse-with-no-name band. We figured we'd invite James and Jen, and shortly thereafter we were zipping along the newly refurbished Memphis-to-Tunica-County leg of Highway 61 in James' sparkling, luxurious Pontiac Grand Prix. We were stylin'.

First we went to the Hollywood Casino, a movie-themed gambling palace. We went purely for tourist reasons - they had some new props from Titanic that we just had to see. The coolest? A scale model - probably thirty feet high or so - of the ass end of the boat as it was going down. Now it will forever be sinking in its own custom-built pool of dyed water. It was way impressive. Also impressive: the batmobile, a facehugger from Alien, one of Indiana Jones' suits, a camera crane from Gone With The Wind and a good bit of Elvis paraphernalia. We wandered around gawking like a bunch of rubes from the hills.

Then we drove over to Sam's Town (theme: old west town) for two things. James and I had paychecks which we wanted to cash. Many casinos have little promotions where you can cash your paycheck and possibly win billions of dollars. Usually, though, you win a free beer and the right to stand in the middle of the casino with a fist full of cash. You know what happens then, don't you? That's right - alcoholism, child neglect, homelessness and debt up to your hoohoodilly. I've seen it happen. Also, Sam's Town was having an $8.95 steak and lobster special.

Well, they wouldn't cash our checks and there was a forty-five minute wait for the dinner. So we went to Fitzgerald's (theme: Irish castle). They cashed my check, but not James'. It was cool, though, 'cause Jen had some money, so James didn't starve or anything. I'm sure she took it out in trade later.

I got to play the little check-cashing game: a big plastic thing full of pingpong balls blows the balls around. If you get six colored pingpong balls you win immortality and a solid gold Cadillac, I believe. Out of forty balls, though, only six are colored. So your chances aren't that good. I got one colored ball. Prize: two bucks. Then we ate their scrumptious buffet. Everyone felt bloated after that, so we drove down to the Sheraton (theme: English manor) to do some actual gambling. Everyone lost quickly, except Sonya. She had a moderately warm streak at the roulette table, but in the end we left about $50 down. Most folks see that as a pretty good night in Tunica. I have to agree.

Sunday was uneventful, except that ABC is rerunning The Stand, my all-time favorite Stephen King book and a mini-series I didn't get to see the first time around. So that's cool.




Cute Harold-As-A-Kid Story

Okay, when I was little (we're talking two or three here) I had a little wading pool on the back porch. In the summer my mom would fill it with water and let me splash about. She would put me in wearing my diaper. We all know what happens to diapers that get wet, so after a while I took it off.

(I should note here for the record that I don't actually remember doing this. However, I've heard my mom gleefully (and consistently) recite this story so many times that I'm sure it's true.)

So one day I shucked off my diaper and decided to take a stroll through the neighborhood. My mom's back was turned, so she didn't miss me for a minute or two. She turned around, saw the pool was empty, searched the back yard, and then went to the front yard.

And saw me streaking down the sidewalk, blond curls flying, naked in the breeze.

She came after me, but didn't catch up with me until I had shit on our neighbor's front porch. I just ran up to it, squatted, and dropped a load.

True story.

Aren't kids cute?




Now Playing: Ghost of a Dog, Edie Brickell and New Bohemians. Their massively unappreciated second album. It's better than the first one, in my humble opinion - the girl can really write a song. It always kind of upsets me that her career fizzled the way it did...though she did marry Paul Simon, so it's not like she's washing dishes at some burger joint in Austin. Still, Edie is so much better then these little alterna-chicks runnin' around. Jewel? Fiona Apple? The apostasy that is Natalie Imbruglia? Imani Coppola? None of them can hold a candle to Edie.





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