Kathleen From The Bronx
09-13-2007, 12:20 AM
Dear Ron and Fez Shooow,
Hey :0) Today's show really started off with one crazy story a la East Side Dave....The latest we learned, was of his life on the streets as a twenty-three year old runaway....Wow..I mean.... I have to admit.... I laughed at first at the age on him when he concluded this was the path he'd have to take at that time...
You don't run away at twenty-three, I believe that's usually also know as ,"moving out," but I tell yez....I kinda felt bad for him, ya know...Did not dig thinkin that he was too rattled at the thought of having to tell his parents that he'd fucked up again in school and had lost another job, that he instead decided to drive into the city and live in his car and in a homeless shelter for days... What did he say, he was homeless for seventeen days? Awww man, that's somethin! To me it was odd that of all places in Manhattan he ended up in the Bowery, too.... Well, not even odd....It felt almost expected, or almost cliche to hear it....hmmm... a little hard to explain....I don't know if that's because The Bowery was featured so particularly in many stories I heard growin up....like that's where you'd end up if bad shit went down...
See, my family came over from Ireland in the 20's and when they first came here they lived on The Lower East Side....moved up to Hell's Kitchen.... and then up to the South Bronx.... but so often when my grandmother and great aunts were sittin around talking about the old days, and they probably didn't even know we were listening, as we were sitting there playing go-fish...or war....or old-maid...or whatever, now and then a chronicle would emerge about people they knew from years ago.....Somebody's husband went missing for days and days on a bender and, "they found him down in The Bowery..." or, some guy named Clancy, his daughter went crazy.....or... they'd remember when their father was lost for almost two weeks.... before they knew what Alzheimer's was.... For some reason they'd call it, "hardening of the arteries," and they looked all over and finally found him, "down in The Bowery." Much later I'd wonder if it was one of those things where with the deterioration of the mind and memory there was still a little piece of remembrance from a time so long ago, that would bring someone bewildered back to such a place....Did that area remained lodged in some corner of his mind from the time that he first had arrived here...not far from the Bowery...or something?? Ahhh anyway...
Sooo...it's like....when I was a kid, I had this concept in my little head that the Bowery was just this frightening mental-hospital-land of lost, confused souls and wandering drunks... The Bowery equaled really scary to me... I guess that is not so idiotic to conceive when it really did exist as New York's, "Skid Row," through the 70's...... The dumbest thing though, was that when I was a teenager in the 90's hanging out in The Village with my friends, so many times we hung out in what was pretty much the very place.....on mean on BOWERY STREET of all places, for God's sakes......and I don't even think that I was aware of that so much.......but still...
To this day, literally...today..... if I hear, "down in the Bowery," I'll still get that, "Oooh, YIKES!" feeling even though it is not what it once was, what with gentrification and everything........ Anyway!!! So with Dave recalling his time there in a shelter, that response of mine was right there again... The Bowery??! It felt quite familiar..... and I wondered....People who are bottoming out still end up THERE??? Times get tough and you end up in the Bowery instinctively, like how old elephants, when their end is near, resort to their storied,"graveyards??" Is it like some retentive, subconscious memory that leads people in trouble down to the Bowery??? Whaddya got some kinda homing device?
Anyway, I didn't mean to go on and on about that.....Just something I was thinkin about Roan and Fez Show... It was really funny to me that you painted the scene as if Dave was an almost modern-day Joe Buck, from Midnight Cowboy......Dave said, "....but I'm NOT gay!" Ron said, "Yeah.... you are!" HAHA...I dug how yez played the music from that film as he told of his sorted tale that ended up with him finally entering a shelter to take a shower, to watch the Super Bowl....with homeless characters named, "Bugsy," and, "Max." Now, if those aren't movie-like names for street-people characters, I don't know what are....but I believe ya, I believe ya....... I believe Dave's story though there were so many references pointing to the number seventeen, as one caller pointed out? I'm with ya..... but it was just like a movie.....His parents eventually found him, he spent one week in the, "nut-hut...." and then shit turned around...
It was so interesting to me, that during his time on the streets, staying in his car, that's when he started listening to you guys on the radio....... It was especially gripping when you fast-forward the story to see how it all turned out!!! As Ronnie said, "Wait a minute..You were homeless...You were listening to this radio show....and now you are part of this very same radio show.....and because of it....you marry this beautiful woman.....This can't be true... This can't be true....Maybe you are still in the nut-hut!!!"
What a plot twist! Dave seemed pretty shaken by that possibility...... What if this all wasn't real...??? Could it be as if, just maybe, he was sitting in some booby-hatch somewhere, catching The Ron and Fez Show on the radio....Had none of the last few years ever happened..?? Maybe it was all in his head, not unlike the way that autistic child shaking a snow globe imagined all that appeared on the 80's hospital drama, St. Elsewhere! That's some trippin shit dudes...
I mean, according to Dave's story today, things could have totally turned out way different...had he not been momentarily homeless and had he not chanced to listen to your show......He coulda turned out to be the real-life version of Chris Elliot's role, another goofy redhead, like in the 90's sitcom, "Get A Life!" There might very well have been a real-life, genuine Chris Peterson living with his parents as a thirty-year-old paper boy having all kinds of misadventures....but that ain't how it all transpired......
When Ronnie proposed that all of the last few years could conceivably all be in Dave's head.... Dave nervously uttered, "Ohhh boy....scary....scary..." and his reaction could have been all for effect, but I tend to believe that maybe he might have been struck with a flash of fear at the thought..... That idea could just be me reflecting my own similar uneasiness at the thought of, "Oh my God, do you mean this all isn't real!??!" That happens to be sometimes....but that might plausibly be due to the fact that my mind is like a squishy peach....and people who are supposed to, "love," me, enjoy taking advantage of that!
One time a good friend of mine laughed, after I told him of how my Brian likes to toy with my sense of reality, and said, "Ohh he must have a ball with you! You're brain is like a squishy peach!!!" Yeah, so that's where I got that from... I can't take credit fer that one.... Of course I cackled in reply... but I wondered, "Squishy peach??! Why?? Like rotten fruit???" Upon thinking of it further though, I could see his point...I could comprehend the analogy...
My mind is like a squishy peach because once you squeeze it in a certain way, a thumb print will remain....My fuzzy, fruity brain will not return to its original shape....The imprint will endure..... Here's what I mean..... I don't think that I'm particularly gullible, but I CAN be easilly tripped out...Sometimes my grasp on reality is not so concrete...If I'm in an already altered state, such chicanery is even easier to enact..... Even after I realize that everything is actually OK...I think it's OK....We have NOT been sucked into some portal into the past.... Right?? No...We are real... I think soo....The effects of such freaking-out experiences still linger on....The peach has been bruised....It shan't bounce back! You want an example of this? Why, gladly!! Have I told you this one before?? Maybe I have....OH! I have? Well I'ma tell you again, cause that's what grandma do... Rockin by the fire with my needlepoint, I'll tell you the same stories you've heard again and again, Ron and Fez Show....... Now where was I...?? Ahhh yes...Picture it, 2005, South Jersey.........
Brian and I were in South Jersey at this Italian restaurant....We were waiting to meet his mother who was coming down from Philly, and we had been at the beach so we decided to meet half way at this place that she liked to go to sometimes....I'd never been there.....We arrived somewhat early, which is always quite rare for us to be so much better than prompt and punctual...a.k.a...to no be the late ones. So we sat at the bar to have us a drink...It gave us an opportunity to soak in the place and the atmosphere.....
We walked into this joint and it was seriously like entering into the 70's or some place that had not been redecorated since that era....It was this old style Italian restaurant-bar....The place was all dark-wood-paneled...and dimly lit...and they had those stained glass lookin lamps hung over each table... It was pretty cozy like that; it reminded me of places that we'd go to eat when we visited my grandmother out in Brooklyn when I was a kid.... On the walls surrounding the bar there were many, many back and white photos of scenes from the old country like The Leaning Tower of Pisa, pictures of old peasant women with handkerchiefs on their heads, immigrant faces......and Frank Sinatra....and Mario Lanza, the opera singer...and boats...
As we sat there at the bar we watched older couples dance on the mini dance floor, a disco ball sparkling above them... Every single song that played as we waited seemed to be by Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons.......or something very similar...from that time...of that period...... As we sat there at the bar waiting, I began to notice that like every single solitary person in this joint had to be in their late sixties and older...Every single person except us...even the bartender and all the waiters! This observation, I leaned over and whispered to Brian in a, "Hey isn't this weeeird??!" kinda way.... At first this realization was kinda funny to me....We sat there kinda quietly laughin.. like, "How did we fall into this time warp?? What a crazy scene," and "This is like outta some kinda movie..." It was all kinda preciously absurd and amusing to me that we'd be in such a place...sticking out like sore thumbs amid the golden oldies... It was all kinda funny to me until Brian started suggesting to me that maybe we had died...
He began to theorize that perhaps we had died on the way to meet his mother....and this was Heaven....or Hell....or Limbo.....or something.... He asked, "Why else would there be so many old people here....All old people.... What is this place!?" I mean... it of course, seems quite ridiculous now....but somehow.... watching these elderly people dance to the sounds of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons..... It really, really, scarily seemed possible.....It became deeply eerie.... "What if we're dead and we don't even realize it!!??" My mind raced.... I started to sense that this all could be true....
Again I will acknowledge that I was, from the start of this outing, probably not even close to being in the right frame of mind suitable for leaving the house...but..... during those minutes there waiting at the bar, then it all seemed too entirely possible.... It almost seemed LIKELY that we had somehow entered into a twilight zone-esque situation....I would not, at any point,as Brian egged me on, have been surprised to see Dean Martin or somebody like that come out of the back room to tell me he was God or something... and that all the ideas Brian had been feedin me were true....We were dead. I almost started to fuckin cry.... I was so freaked.... I mean, we have never been early ANYWHERE... It seemed to add up....We had never made it to meet his mother at all!!! It all seemed to add up except... why would our final destination be so old-school Italian American themed? ....but this place, this place......
.......and then Brian's mother walked in and I was like.... "Oooh. OK. So... We're alive then right???" Ahhh stooopit mind! Senseless... Even after I was pretty much certain that we were still among the living, as I pointed out earlier, the dent was left in my gray matter... It kinda took me a while to believe myself that everything was actually....real? I mean, I was comforted slightly by the presence of Brian's mom....but it did occur to me multiple times... "Well....she COULD have died too!! She's even too young for this scene...." I dunno..... Ya know what I mean?? Too easily convinced sometimes over here!!
Hmmm... I hope that all made sense! It's just that as Dave seemed for a moment to be flustered by the thought that none of his life since his stint in the mental hospital had been real..... and I can understand that.... I get messed with like that somewhat often..... I mean, I even find myself freaked when Ronnie conducts some of his patented guided meditations with Fezzie that lead to places like, "None of us are real....we are all your stuffed animals!" Fergetit! I'll scream, "AHHHHHHH!!! Whaaaaat??!!?" Right along wit yez.....
Ohhh man, I'm goin on and on here and it's not like this tale of Dave's was the bulk of the show today!! There was so much more......OK! Here's somethin....You guys were talking about this... What is the best Christopher Guest film....or mockumentary...or rockumentay?
Weeell, you see.... I have had many a debate with myself and others about this query, and though I look up at all of em there on my DVD holder thingy like, "OOooh my lil children, I love you all EQUALLY," but I know that this is not the case..... As I said, I have argued, but I know that I love Waiting For Guffman the best! That's what Ron and Fez said as well..... Dave said that this choice was, "arty-farty!" Hmmm.... Nooo.... I'd call this assessment, that Guffman is the best,"WORD-nerd...?" Fuck...I wanted to have a rhymey phrase to back up my opinion...Not really workin..... All I could think of before was, "sensible-bodensible.." and unfortunately bodensible is not a real word.... Damn...... I find myself agreeing with what Ronnie said though.... that seeing Waiting For Guffman was the first born greatness.... It's the one that, "introduced you to the Christopher Guest style." I think that's a big part of it for me.... That's what got me all obsessed in the first place..... and led me to check out each of his films on down the line... all of which are so funny and great..... oh.... Oh.. but erm.... yeah...except for that last one... After seeing For Your Consideration I tried to talk myself into loving it too...since I loved all the others...... It was a sad scene....sitting there after seeing it in the theater...the credits had already rolled....talking to myself in the dark....like, "Maybe you'll like it more and not feel so disappointed when you watch it again...pick up some intricacies that maybe you missed????" Aww...but no.... For that reason that last flick cannot come home to live with Mommy and the other babies.... You stay here and live at Best Buy, For Your Consideration... I'm sorry...
Oh... something on the Waiting for Guffman tip was when Ron reported that Casey said that, "Fez was Corky St. Clair..." Fez responded, "I'll take that as a compliment Caseyelan!" I would too... I would too..... Call me a kook if you must, but I'd call Corky St. Clair a bigger than life character.....as was later discussed in the show.... Have you people seen him sing and dance?? Have you run into him shopping for pantsuits for his wife, Bonnie?? They happen to wear the same size........I'd love to own and operate a memorabilia shop in the middle of Times Square like he does.... a wonderful store that offers gems like, My Dinner With Andre action figures and The Remains of the Day lunchboxes.... I would KILL to be able to rock a Judy Tenuta t-shirt like Corky.... If you think that I haven't scoured ebay for one just like his you got another thought comin.... Cause I have!! Please...if only there were more people like that dear, dear, brilliant man..... "CORKY!!!!!!!!!!!" Ohhh.... but before Fezzie could feel too good about that comparison, Ron informed him that, "She meant Corky, your brother." A despondent Fez muttered, "Oh. The retard..." That shit made me cackle!!!
Hey, you know who's definitley smaller than life? Kathy Griffin... Hey, that's her name right? Shit... I do that same thing where I call her Griffith and Griffen interchangeably... and yet, oddly, I never exactly take the time to figure it out... hmm... I'll go with Griffin today...Man, I had not even heard about that whole Kathy Griffin controversy..... You know, I've never found her to be funny....I think that's her greatest insult to the world as far as I am concerned..... Her acceptance speech for that Emmy was pretty dumb, but I tend to believe that if her free speech is obstructed, then that means trouble for everyone..... though... it would be nice to never have to chance hear her talk about the D-List again or how supposedly gay people love her...... I haven't met a one! Arrrrgh... One caller chimed in, asking, "What ever happened to sticks and stones can break my bones, but words can never hurt me? Have people forgotten about that?" Yeah.. I dunno... but I did laugh a lot when Ron said right after that,"Well one thing I won't forget is it's a Styx and Stones Weekend!!!! That's where we'll play the best of Styx and the best of the Stones all weekend long..." Indeed...... :0)
What an only half-good weekend that would be!
Oh yeah, but back to the larger than life characters conversation that came up today after the interview with Toots Shor's granddaughter, Kristi Jacobson....... I definitely want to see her film..... I love all that stuff about old New York.... and to hear stories about this famed, "bigger than life," saloon-keeper and his pals like Jackie Gleason... Yeah... I'm down.... I dug the conversation that arose about who are other such characters...Babe Ruth, Bogart, Hemingway.....Hunter S. Thompson.... Man, I think that it would be like the best thing ever to be known as someone like those who really, really were known for having a great time....who lived life like it was absolutely a blast.... who enjoyed themselves and their fame... Sounds pretty good to me...Dave brought up Bruce Springsteen as in, but don't you think that it's kinda cool that he doesn't flaunt his success and his money.... Ronnie said, "I don't even understand it, why don't you get yourself a diamond hat??" I laughed so hard at that...
I didn't even know that diamond hats existed! I tell you what though, the next time I have to be time-warped into some nightspot of the past... I would love it if it could be Toots Shor's ole place insteada that 70's restaurant in South Jersey! I would most definitely try to score me a diamond hat.... :0) Anyway.... Once again a great show-listening was had by me.... Thanks fer that Ron and Fez Show!!
Signed,
kathleen from the bronx :):):)
Hey :0) Today's show really started off with one crazy story a la East Side Dave....The latest we learned, was of his life on the streets as a twenty-three year old runaway....Wow..I mean.... I have to admit.... I laughed at first at the age on him when he concluded this was the path he'd have to take at that time...
You don't run away at twenty-three, I believe that's usually also know as ,"moving out," but I tell yez....I kinda felt bad for him, ya know...Did not dig thinkin that he was too rattled at the thought of having to tell his parents that he'd fucked up again in school and had lost another job, that he instead decided to drive into the city and live in his car and in a homeless shelter for days... What did he say, he was homeless for seventeen days? Awww man, that's somethin! To me it was odd that of all places in Manhattan he ended up in the Bowery, too.... Well, not even odd....It felt almost expected, or almost cliche to hear it....hmmm... a little hard to explain....I don't know if that's because The Bowery was featured so particularly in many stories I heard growin up....like that's where you'd end up if bad shit went down...
See, my family came over from Ireland in the 20's and when they first came here they lived on The Lower East Side....moved up to Hell's Kitchen.... and then up to the South Bronx.... but so often when my grandmother and great aunts were sittin around talking about the old days, and they probably didn't even know we were listening, as we were sitting there playing go-fish...or war....or old-maid...or whatever, now and then a chronicle would emerge about people they knew from years ago.....Somebody's husband went missing for days and days on a bender and, "they found him down in The Bowery..." or, some guy named Clancy, his daughter went crazy.....or... they'd remember when their father was lost for almost two weeks.... before they knew what Alzheimer's was.... For some reason they'd call it, "hardening of the arteries," and they looked all over and finally found him, "down in The Bowery." Much later I'd wonder if it was one of those things where with the deterioration of the mind and memory there was still a little piece of remembrance from a time so long ago, that would bring someone bewildered back to such a place....Did that area remained lodged in some corner of his mind from the time that he first had arrived here...not far from the Bowery...or something?? Ahhh anyway...
Sooo...it's like....when I was a kid, I had this concept in my little head that the Bowery was just this frightening mental-hospital-land of lost, confused souls and wandering drunks... The Bowery equaled really scary to me... I guess that is not so idiotic to conceive when it really did exist as New York's, "Skid Row," through the 70's...... The dumbest thing though, was that when I was a teenager in the 90's hanging out in The Village with my friends, so many times we hung out in what was pretty much the very place.....on mean on BOWERY STREET of all places, for God's sakes......and I don't even think that I was aware of that so much.......but still...
To this day, literally...today..... if I hear, "down in the Bowery," I'll still get that, "Oooh, YIKES!" feeling even though it is not what it once was, what with gentrification and everything........ Anyway!!! So with Dave recalling his time there in a shelter, that response of mine was right there again... The Bowery??! It felt quite familiar..... and I wondered....People who are bottoming out still end up THERE??? Times get tough and you end up in the Bowery instinctively, like how old elephants, when their end is near, resort to their storied,"graveyards??" Is it like some retentive, subconscious memory that leads people in trouble down to the Bowery??? Whaddya got some kinda homing device?
Anyway, I didn't mean to go on and on about that.....Just something I was thinkin about Roan and Fez Show... It was really funny to me that you painted the scene as if Dave was an almost modern-day Joe Buck, from Midnight Cowboy......Dave said, "....but I'm NOT gay!" Ron said, "Yeah.... you are!" HAHA...I dug how yez played the music from that film as he told of his sorted tale that ended up with him finally entering a shelter to take a shower, to watch the Super Bowl....with homeless characters named, "Bugsy," and, "Max." Now, if those aren't movie-like names for street-people characters, I don't know what are....but I believe ya, I believe ya....... I believe Dave's story though there were so many references pointing to the number seventeen, as one caller pointed out? I'm with ya..... but it was just like a movie.....His parents eventually found him, he spent one week in the, "nut-hut...." and then shit turned around...
It was so interesting to me, that during his time on the streets, staying in his car, that's when he started listening to you guys on the radio....... It was especially gripping when you fast-forward the story to see how it all turned out!!! As Ronnie said, "Wait a minute..You were homeless...You were listening to this radio show....and now you are part of this very same radio show.....and because of it....you marry this beautiful woman.....This can't be true... This can't be true....Maybe you are still in the nut-hut!!!"
What a plot twist! Dave seemed pretty shaken by that possibility...... What if this all wasn't real...??? Could it be as if, just maybe, he was sitting in some booby-hatch somewhere, catching The Ron and Fez Show on the radio....Had none of the last few years ever happened..?? Maybe it was all in his head, not unlike the way that autistic child shaking a snow globe imagined all that appeared on the 80's hospital drama, St. Elsewhere! That's some trippin shit dudes...
I mean, according to Dave's story today, things could have totally turned out way different...had he not been momentarily homeless and had he not chanced to listen to your show......He coulda turned out to be the real-life version of Chris Elliot's role, another goofy redhead, like in the 90's sitcom, "Get A Life!" There might very well have been a real-life, genuine Chris Peterson living with his parents as a thirty-year-old paper boy having all kinds of misadventures....but that ain't how it all transpired......
When Ronnie proposed that all of the last few years could conceivably all be in Dave's head.... Dave nervously uttered, "Ohhh boy....scary....scary..." and his reaction could have been all for effect, but I tend to believe that maybe he might have been struck with a flash of fear at the thought..... That idea could just be me reflecting my own similar uneasiness at the thought of, "Oh my God, do you mean this all isn't real!??!" That happens to be sometimes....but that might plausibly be due to the fact that my mind is like a squishy peach....and people who are supposed to, "love," me, enjoy taking advantage of that!
One time a good friend of mine laughed, after I told him of how my Brian likes to toy with my sense of reality, and said, "Ohh he must have a ball with you! You're brain is like a squishy peach!!!" Yeah, so that's where I got that from... I can't take credit fer that one.... Of course I cackled in reply... but I wondered, "Squishy peach??! Why?? Like rotten fruit???" Upon thinking of it further though, I could see his point...I could comprehend the analogy...
My mind is like a squishy peach because once you squeeze it in a certain way, a thumb print will remain....My fuzzy, fruity brain will not return to its original shape....The imprint will endure..... Here's what I mean..... I don't think that I'm particularly gullible, but I CAN be easilly tripped out...Sometimes my grasp on reality is not so concrete...If I'm in an already altered state, such chicanery is even easier to enact..... Even after I realize that everything is actually OK...I think it's OK....We have NOT been sucked into some portal into the past.... Right?? No...We are real... I think soo....The effects of such freaking-out experiences still linger on....The peach has been bruised....It shan't bounce back! You want an example of this? Why, gladly!! Have I told you this one before?? Maybe I have....OH! I have? Well I'ma tell you again, cause that's what grandma do... Rockin by the fire with my needlepoint, I'll tell you the same stories you've heard again and again, Ron and Fez Show....... Now where was I...?? Ahhh yes...Picture it, 2005, South Jersey.........
Brian and I were in South Jersey at this Italian restaurant....We were waiting to meet his mother who was coming down from Philly, and we had been at the beach so we decided to meet half way at this place that she liked to go to sometimes....I'd never been there.....We arrived somewhat early, which is always quite rare for us to be so much better than prompt and punctual...a.k.a...to no be the late ones. So we sat at the bar to have us a drink...It gave us an opportunity to soak in the place and the atmosphere.....
We walked into this joint and it was seriously like entering into the 70's or some place that had not been redecorated since that era....It was this old style Italian restaurant-bar....The place was all dark-wood-paneled...and dimly lit...and they had those stained glass lookin lamps hung over each table... It was pretty cozy like that; it reminded me of places that we'd go to eat when we visited my grandmother out in Brooklyn when I was a kid.... On the walls surrounding the bar there were many, many back and white photos of scenes from the old country like The Leaning Tower of Pisa, pictures of old peasant women with handkerchiefs on their heads, immigrant faces......and Frank Sinatra....and Mario Lanza, the opera singer...and boats...
As we sat there at the bar we watched older couples dance on the mini dance floor, a disco ball sparkling above them... Every single song that played as we waited seemed to be by Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons.......or something very similar...from that time...of that period...... As we sat there at the bar waiting, I began to notice that like every single solitary person in this joint had to be in their late sixties and older...Every single person except us...even the bartender and all the waiters! This observation, I leaned over and whispered to Brian in a, "Hey isn't this weeeird??!" kinda way.... At first this realization was kinda funny to me....We sat there kinda quietly laughin.. like, "How did we fall into this time warp?? What a crazy scene," and "This is like outta some kinda movie..." It was all kinda preciously absurd and amusing to me that we'd be in such a place...sticking out like sore thumbs amid the golden oldies... It was all kinda funny to me until Brian started suggesting to me that maybe we had died...
He began to theorize that perhaps we had died on the way to meet his mother....and this was Heaven....or Hell....or Limbo.....or something.... He asked, "Why else would there be so many old people here....All old people.... What is this place!?" I mean... it of course, seems quite ridiculous now....but somehow.... watching these elderly people dance to the sounds of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons..... It really, really, scarily seemed possible.....It became deeply eerie.... "What if we're dead and we don't even realize it!!??" My mind raced.... I started to sense that this all could be true....
Again I will acknowledge that I was, from the start of this outing, probably not even close to being in the right frame of mind suitable for leaving the house...but..... during those minutes there waiting at the bar, then it all seemed too entirely possible.... It almost seemed LIKELY that we had somehow entered into a twilight zone-esque situation....I would not, at any point,as Brian egged me on, have been surprised to see Dean Martin or somebody like that come out of the back room to tell me he was God or something... and that all the ideas Brian had been feedin me were true....We were dead. I almost started to fuckin cry.... I was so freaked.... I mean, we have never been early ANYWHERE... It seemed to add up....We had never made it to meet his mother at all!!! It all seemed to add up except... why would our final destination be so old-school Italian American themed? ....but this place, this place......
.......and then Brian's mother walked in and I was like.... "Oooh. OK. So... We're alive then right???" Ahhh stooopit mind! Senseless... Even after I was pretty much certain that we were still among the living, as I pointed out earlier, the dent was left in my gray matter... It kinda took me a while to believe myself that everything was actually....real? I mean, I was comforted slightly by the presence of Brian's mom....but it did occur to me multiple times... "Well....she COULD have died too!! She's even too young for this scene...." I dunno..... Ya know what I mean?? Too easily convinced sometimes over here!!
Hmmm... I hope that all made sense! It's just that as Dave seemed for a moment to be flustered by the thought that none of his life since his stint in the mental hospital had been real..... and I can understand that.... I get messed with like that somewhat often..... I mean, I even find myself freaked when Ronnie conducts some of his patented guided meditations with Fezzie that lead to places like, "None of us are real....we are all your stuffed animals!" Fergetit! I'll scream, "AHHHHHHH!!! Whaaaaat??!!?" Right along wit yez.....
Ohhh man, I'm goin on and on here and it's not like this tale of Dave's was the bulk of the show today!! There was so much more......OK! Here's somethin....You guys were talking about this... What is the best Christopher Guest film....or mockumentary...or rockumentay?
Weeell, you see.... I have had many a debate with myself and others about this query, and though I look up at all of em there on my DVD holder thingy like, "OOooh my lil children, I love you all EQUALLY," but I know that this is not the case..... As I said, I have argued, but I know that I love Waiting For Guffman the best! That's what Ron and Fez said as well..... Dave said that this choice was, "arty-farty!" Hmmm.... Nooo.... I'd call this assessment, that Guffman is the best,"WORD-nerd...?" Fuck...I wanted to have a rhymey phrase to back up my opinion...Not really workin..... All I could think of before was, "sensible-bodensible.." and unfortunately bodensible is not a real word.... Damn...... I find myself agreeing with what Ronnie said though.... that seeing Waiting For Guffman was the first born greatness.... It's the one that, "introduced you to the Christopher Guest style." I think that's a big part of it for me.... That's what got me all obsessed in the first place..... and led me to check out each of his films on down the line... all of which are so funny and great..... oh.... Oh.. but erm.... yeah...except for that last one... After seeing For Your Consideration I tried to talk myself into loving it too...since I loved all the others...... It was a sad scene....sitting there after seeing it in the theater...the credits had already rolled....talking to myself in the dark....like, "Maybe you'll like it more and not feel so disappointed when you watch it again...pick up some intricacies that maybe you missed????" Aww...but no.... For that reason that last flick cannot come home to live with Mommy and the other babies.... You stay here and live at Best Buy, For Your Consideration... I'm sorry...
Oh... something on the Waiting for Guffman tip was when Ron reported that Casey said that, "Fez was Corky St. Clair..." Fez responded, "I'll take that as a compliment Caseyelan!" I would too... I would too..... Call me a kook if you must, but I'd call Corky St. Clair a bigger than life character.....as was later discussed in the show.... Have you people seen him sing and dance?? Have you run into him shopping for pantsuits for his wife, Bonnie?? They happen to wear the same size........I'd love to own and operate a memorabilia shop in the middle of Times Square like he does.... a wonderful store that offers gems like, My Dinner With Andre action figures and The Remains of the Day lunchboxes.... I would KILL to be able to rock a Judy Tenuta t-shirt like Corky.... If you think that I haven't scoured ebay for one just like his you got another thought comin.... Cause I have!! Please...if only there were more people like that dear, dear, brilliant man..... "CORKY!!!!!!!!!!!" Ohhh.... but before Fezzie could feel too good about that comparison, Ron informed him that, "She meant Corky, your brother." A despondent Fez muttered, "Oh. The retard..." That shit made me cackle!!!
Hey, you know who's definitley smaller than life? Kathy Griffin... Hey, that's her name right? Shit... I do that same thing where I call her Griffith and Griffen interchangeably... and yet, oddly, I never exactly take the time to figure it out... hmm... I'll go with Griffin today...Man, I had not even heard about that whole Kathy Griffin controversy..... You know, I've never found her to be funny....I think that's her greatest insult to the world as far as I am concerned..... Her acceptance speech for that Emmy was pretty dumb, but I tend to believe that if her free speech is obstructed, then that means trouble for everyone..... though... it would be nice to never have to chance hear her talk about the D-List again or how supposedly gay people love her...... I haven't met a one! Arrrrgh... One caller chimed in, asking, "What ever happened to sticks and stones can break my bones, but words can never hurt me? Have people forgotten about that?" Yeah.. I dunno... but I did laugh a lot when Ron said right after that,"Well one thing I won't forget is it's a Styx and Stones Weekend!!!! That's where we'll play the best of Styx and the best of the Stones all weekend long..." Indeed...... :0)
What an only half-good weekend that would be!
Oh yeah, but back to the larger than life characters conversation that came up today after the interview with Toots Shor's granddaughter, Kristi Jacobson....... I definitely want to see her film..... I love all that stuff about old New York.... and to hear stories about this famed, "bigger than life," saloon-keeper and his pals like Jackie Gleason... Yeah... I'm down.... I dug the conversation that arose about who are other such characters...Babe Ruth, Bogart, Hemingway.....Hunter S. Thompson.... Man, I think that it would be like the best thing ever to be known as someone like those who really, really were known for having a great time....who lived life like it was absolutely a blast.... who enjoyed themselves and their fame... Sounds pretty good to me...Dave brought up Bruce Springsteen as in, but don't you think that it's kinda cool that he doesn't flaunt his success and his money.... Ronnie said, "I don't even understand it, why don't you get yourself a diamond hat??" I laughed so hard at that...
I didn't even know that diamond hats existed! I tell you what though, the next time I have to be time-warped into some nightspot of the past... I would love it if it could be Toots Shor's ole place insteada that 70's restaurant in South Jersey! I would most definitely try to score me a diamond hat.... :0) Anyway.... Once again a great show-listening was had by me.... Thanks fer that Ron and Fez Show!!
Signed,
kathleen from the bronx :):):)