Arts

Help Your Bowl get that GOLD!!! America’s Best Restroom Contest!

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Loo

 

Forget any of the singers on The Voice – click HERE and vote for something important in The Battle of the Bowls: Cintas’ America’s Best Restroom Contest.

 

www.bestrestroom.com/us

 

Whether it’s where you work, where you leave the building you work in to “think and take a call” or whether you proudly strut down the hall like the pimp that you are in your office with a newspaper proudly tucked under your arm – we all have a favorite Throne. I have a 24/7 IV drip permanently attached and pumping a steady supply of Imodium AD into my bloodstream, but just in case – even I have a spot laid out if an emergency strikes!

 

This is one game of poker where the flush always wins!!!

cards

 

Forget Washington D.C., real change happens when we come together and vote on important issues like these, so please go and do something important today – vote for your bowl to rock and roll!

For all my homies to get to know mes

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hearye hearye

 

I posted this a few months ago for all the newbies – and it appears the time is ripe for it again. I’ve gotten a ton of new followers since then and I want to make them feel right at home and steer them down the right path. With so many posts on here, it’s hard to know where to start and unless you’re dedicated like Crazy-Annie-Smack-that-Fannie, you might not go back and start at the beginning to read them all…

Click here to start the ride and get caught up!

I Hate Birds Part Four – No love from the dove: It wasn’t a pisser when that bird popped me in the kisser!

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As I have bemoaned many times – I hate birds. Indulge me as I share another example why…

I used to do event planning and would attend many trade shows to meet prospective clients, but just as importantly, to meet new vendors. If you’ve never been to one of these trade shows, picture a huge hotel ballroom with rows and rows and rows of booths full of everything from cakes and flowers to event venues to Yiddish poets and strolling minstrels.

The person that was supposed to go with me bailed at the last-minute, so my wife filled in to help me out running the booth. It wasn’t a big setup, but there was a huge crowd and one person can easily get overwhelmed by it. We got set up and were meeting a ton of people – everything was going great…

All of a sudden, I see this really tall glimmer of red sparkles through the crowd…The crowd parts and then this magician struts up to our booth in a bright red sparkly jacket and top hat. He was covered in sparkles and definitely not blending subtlety into the crowd. I’ve dealt with a lot of entertainers, so I was used to “eccentric” but I’ve seen showgirls with less razzle-dazzle than this guy…He stepped up to me and thrust out his hand to present his business card, but I was so distracted by all the sparkles that I dropped his card on the ground.

I bent down to pick it up and was on one knee facing the floor to see where the card landed so that I could pick it up. All of a sudden I hear the magician scream “Huzzah!!!” which caught me off guard and I looked up to see what had happened…

Once he thrust the card at me, he reached back in his waistcoat where a dove was waiting (I get it you’re a magician it’s normal, but who keeps a bird in his pants? That’s just disgusting and weird!) and then he thrust that bird forward. I guess it was supposed to be impressive or a trick to be like “WOW, here’s a bird.” That was the intention anyway – what happened was a different story altogether.

I heard him scream “Huzzah!” and thrust my head up to see why this wacko was screaming only to have him and the dove connect with my face – He punched me right in the eye with that bird! HE PUNCHED ME RIGHT IN THE EYE WITH THE BIRD! I was so taken off guard and frankly, almost blinded by that filthy beak, that I toppled backwards onto the floor screaming like a lunatic “WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU? WHY WOULD YOU PUNCH ME IN THE EYE WITH THAT FILTHY BIRD? WHO DOES THAT? WHY WAS IT IN YOUR PANTS?”

At this point, with me screaming at the top of my lungs and sprawled out on the floor of our booth, you’d think that at least someone would at the very least ask if I was OK…Not there…there were tons of people staring at the commotion asking if the bird was OK, saying “Oh, that poor bird” as if I wasn’t the victim here. Where was the magician you might ask? He was also on the ground – not checking if I was OK, but trying to see if the God damn bird was OK…that sweaty thing was hobbling around cooing in some sort of fowl distress code cocking it’s head from side to side like Stevie Wonder. Magic Mike (not the Magician’s real name) was like “It’s OK; you’re OK…It’s OK.” To the bird, mind you, not to me…Granted, the bird was probably brain-dead because it took a pounding to the head like it was fighting Iron Mike Tyson!

I was trying to remember that I was in a work setting and regain composure, but I had just been the victim of a drive by shooting courtesy of that filthy foul assassin and was legitimately almost blinded! And did I mention that filthy bird touched my face? I got up and made a run for the bathroom to wash myself and Magic Mike was like “Hey, you forgot my card…” Obviously, I got your number buddy and even if he was the best magician in the world I could never call him after that. Needless to say I spent the next twenty minutes scrubbing my face in the hotel bathroom sink…My face was red and irritated and I had to go to the Front Desk to get a real bar of soap because that dispenser soap just wasn’t cutting it.

After I finally emerged, pretending nothing had happened and hoping there weren’t any other magicians positioned to attack or member of PETA mobilizing, it was pretty hard to be professional. As is to be expected when one has just been assaulted, I was a little jittery. My wife was standing by the whole time – laughing at me really – thinking “who else would that ever happen to?”… Another day at the mill for me though…Note to all trade show exhibitors:  helmets are not crazy – better to be safe than sorry.

The Legend of Weeva the Diva

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Get Well Soon Weeva!

My friend Weeva is recuperating from surgery, so I thought that I’d tell you a little about her so you can send lots of Imodium love her way. As a note to my other friends: Don’t go and get hospitalized so I’ll write about you too! This is a one-time only,  isolated occurrence!

Weeva and I used to work together and we always had a blast. She’s twice as old as me but three times as crazy as and ten times more fun than almost anyone else I have ever worked with. The rearview mirror in her car is about three inches shorter than the Hubble Telescope but can see just as far. She has been known to rock a neck brace for no apparent reason, created her own hands free cell phone with duct tape on her steering wheel, and she’s a Dunkin Junkie that goes there multiple times a day for her fix.

At least she isn't texting while she drives...

When I say multiple times a day, I mean it. She lives in the building across the street and is in there more than some of the employees. She reads her morning paper there and one time a homeless guy took pity on her because he thought she was homeless too when he saw her there in a paint-splattered baseball hat and sweatpants.

If you think remembering the correct lyrics to REM’s “It’s The End of the World As We Know It” is tough – try remembering Weeva’s coffee order. She gets this humungous jug filled with half coffee, a quarter espresso, one part wolf tears, two parts parsnip, a half ounce of Columbian sugar cane, two hits of patchouli extract and a drop of kerosene. That isn’t the exact combo she orders, but it’s fairly close.

I am not a coffee drinker (need I remind you of my stomach and the reason this site is called Immodiumabuser? Me drinking coffee is like someone pulling the pin off a grenade!) so I’d get tea or Diet Pepsi. One time I went and forgot my note with her secret formula scratched on it and was about to turn around and go back when I randomly thought to ask the cashier. “On the off chance, do you know how to make the weird mixture for the crazy lady I work with…?” “You mean Weeva? Of course I know what she gets” and then she made it correctly. That was when I realized exactly how much time she spends in there.

Should be required reading for any movie lover!

Our local movie theatre was showing The Graduate and having a talk and signing with the writer Mark Harris, who was there to present his brilliant book Pictures at a Revolution: Five Movies and the Birth of a New Hollywood after the screening. It was a great book (If you’re a movie lover – this is a must read!) about the back stories of the five Best Picture nominees from the 1968 Academy Awards (of which The Graduate was one) and we both love The Graduate, so it was a no brainer. Mid-way through the question and answer section, a look of realization comes over her and Weeva nudge me and says (A little bit too loudly) “Oh my God, these people here probably think I’m your Ms. Robinson!” Picture me crying with laughter.

I'm all for trying a new look Weeva, but this is ridiculous!

 

One day she came in with a new short do and everyone was complimenting, but I knew. The next day, her hair was three times as long and more compliments. It made me realize that I work with the most polite people in the world or the most oblivious. After Weeva walked by, I looked over and said to Christine “You know that she’s wearing a weave, right? “What makes you think that?” she replied. “Are you kidding, her hair was shorter than mine yesterday and today it’s hanging past her ass…that’s not a sign?” “Really? Are you sure?”

My favorite Weeva story happened one day while they were renovating our building. They got us pink and blue hardhats embossed with the company logo for our client appointments during the construction and no one loved their pink hardhat more than Weeva. All of the Spanish guys on the crew used to always point and giggle as she pranced around because she rocked that plastic lid like a mini Donald Trump surveying the land.

As I was sitting at my desk in my god-awful cubicle, Weeva walked up and was standing next to me as I turned around. She had on slacks and a blazer and we were chatting as Renee walked up and said “Weeva, what’s that hanging out of the back of your pants?” Weeva turned to look and there it was – half a roll of toilet paper overflowing out the back of her pants and hanging well past her knees. She ran to the restroom grabbing at the mounds of paper and it actually took a few tries before she got it all out – while we were rolling on the floor hysterical laughing.

She came out of the bathroom laughing harder than any of us were and she was mortified, but not from us seeing it. “Oh my god, I haven’t been in the bathroom for over two hours – how long has that been like that? I had a client appointment and I went to Dunkin Donuts like that! No wonder all the guys on the construction team were laughing and pointing – this time it wasn’t the hardhat!” I can still see all that paper flying by me like a tail as she ran off…

This is similar to how much paper was hanging out the back.

Weeva – you rock it like no one else can and your weave always look good! Keep it up! If Scheherazade had 1,000 tales, you are my Supreme Princess of a thousand hairpieces, get better soon and remember CYA! Always cover your ass – you never know what’s hanging out of it!

Phoenix Schmeenix! It wasn’t breast trip I’ve ever been on!

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In case you can’t read this, the car window says “A WHOLE LOTTA BREASTS UP AHEAD! Who doesn’t love Coachella?

I couldn’t even escape the lunatics at the hotel bar. All of a sudden this random guy sits down cheery as can be because he has had the best sales day of his career. Apparently, he’s a paint salesman and had sold 33,000 gallons that day. He didn’t get my joke when I asked if he had to lug each paint can door to door…and then he proceeded to tell me that he was “The right guy, selling the right paint, to the right people at the right time.” I busted out laughing at that and he got annoyed because I accidentally laughed in his face.  I said “‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to laugh, I just thought you were kidding.” Apparently, the paint industry is very serious.  I couldn’t be that mean either because it was an airport property and there weren’t that many people in the bar. I had very limited conversation choices: it was either talk with him about paint in all it’s glory or talk to the 20ish girl tending bar who said she was trying to get something “heartfelt” for her boyfriend’s graduation at Walmart. She gave me a dirty look when I laughed out loud but I couldn’t tell if he was graduating from Walmart or what she thought might be “heartfelt” there anyway.

Start to finish, this was the worst trip I’ve ever been on. I started out almost knocking myself unconscious in the driveway when I hit my head with the trunk while trying to close it after loading luggage in which resulted in a big red gash on my forehead, I ended up delayed seven hours at various airports, getting bumped from two flights and missing a connecting flight, had a full-on anxiety attack because they didn’t send my luggage with the flight for some reason but still charged me to check the bag, then I found out that I was charged for two airline tickets instead of one and then they proceeded to tell me that it was my fault, the boxes with presentation giveaways for my clients that I had shipped to my hotel didn’t arrive on time, and did I mention the heat and the sweating?

 

That’s not even to talk about the old lady on the security line who was holding everything up because security had to come over. Apparently, she thought it was a good idea to bring two cans of tuna fish, a plastic squeeze bottle of mayonnaise, slices of bread, and a plastic knife in her carry-on bag. She was gonna make a little snack mid-flight. What is wrong with people that they think they can make stinky tuna sandwich on a plane? The stink alone is reason not to do it even if it was allowed – but seriously, where was she planning on draining that tuna? Why wouldn’t you make the sandwich before-hand?

After her I was at my gate (before the first delay and then de-planing) and the lady scanning the boarding passes had to call security on the guy in front of me. After being told his carry on bag was too big, he took all of his clothes out and carried them under his arm and abandoned the suitcase at her counter and tried to walk around her and board the plane with an armful of shirts, boxers, pants, and socks. She was yelling at him not to leave his bag there unattended and he tried to ignore her so she called security. I never did see him get on the plane, so who knows what happened to him after that…

Am I the only one who goes through the airport security line scanning the crowd to see who I would be friends with if we crashed onto an island like Oceanic 815 did on LOST? Obviously, I’m not looking for Kate, Hurley, or Jack, but I give the people a once-over and see who’s gonna be dead-weight if a boar comes charging at us, who’s most likely a fugitive, who has a drug problem…and It helps me realize that as crazy as I may be, there are quite a few more nuts than me!!!

The only A A that I care about stands for Academy Awards!!!

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I’m going to be like all the other hacks and take this time to talk with you about the Oscars coming up this weekend. I’m not presumptuous enough to believe that any of you are actually out there waiting around for me to tell you who to pick for your office Oscar pool, but here goes. OK, maybe Weezie is actually waiting for me to tell her, but with my picks she has been undefeated and actually shut down her company Oscar Pool. They got pissed off that she kept winning yet hadn’t seen any of the nominated films so they stopped doing it. Way to go Weezie – work that system!

A little history about me, if you will. I will say it loud and clear: I am a movie lover. New ones, old ones, musicals, foreign, Black and White, documentaries, I love all types. Well OK, I actually detest 3D movies, but come on – Why would I want things flying at my face while I’m watching a movie?

Now that's how you make an entrance!

 Before we go any further, a little respect needs to be paid. February 27th is not only the 83rd Academy Awards Ceremony, but the birthday of my very first love, Elizabeth Taylor. Cleopatra was the first movie that I ever saw and let me tell you – this little boy was just blown away. I sat there transfixed as I watched her arrival into Rome on that enormous barge (no I am not referring to Richard Burton) and I could tell even then that this feeling was something special. It instilled an insatiable desire that still burns in me to this day. I didn’t realize it at the time, but I had experienced the unmistakable power that movies can have over you. To be drawn in and be so completely enraptured is the ultimate experience. Such emotion gets so intertwined into a great movie that you remember that feeling every time you see it again. That’s power.     

With Cleopatra, I dove head-first into the movie pile devouring everything that I could get my hands on, and I haven’t been out since. I learned what being cool was from James Dean, what it meant to be a man from Paul Newman, and what funny really was from Cary Grant. I saw in these amazing films other worlds that just sucked me in and, somehow, resonated with me. Who didn’t want their very own Auntie Mame? Whose family doesn’t resemble Claudia Larson’s in Home for the Holidays and who didn’t want a friend like E.T.? I laughed with Arsenic and Old Lace, I was terrified of Whatever Happened to Baby Jane, I was enchanted by A Place in the Sun, and I cried like a baby with Life is Beautiful.  On the downside, that painted an almost unrealistic picture of what the perfect woman should be for me. I never could have guessed back then that I would somehow manage to find the ideal mix of Vivien Leigh’s feistiness, Audrey Hepburn’s elegance, Rosalind Russell’s sense of humor, and Jayne Mansfield’s rack – but somehow I did. And she loves movies as much as me if that’s even possible!!!

One of my favorite movies - EVER!

 I tell you this to reinforce how personally I take these movies. Just like with a great book, I love that feeling of getting swept up in a story and just transported – there‘s absolutely nothing like that. I am also OCD compulsive and cannot control my need to see every single film nominated for the Oscars. Every single film. My wife was pregnant and tired, but I still dragged her almost two hours each way to see August Rush because it was nominated for Best Song. Suck it up Honey, its Oscar Season!

The actual Academy Awards Ceremony is the icing on the cake. Granted, it’s really good icing, but the reward for me is to see all of these movies that I possible might not have. I had heard of Animal Kingdom, but after seeing Jackie Weaver’s scary-good performance in it – Wow. Javier Bardem in Biutiful – Oh my God, just amazing! Restrepo – I dare you to watch that documentary and not feel something. Exit through the Gift Shop –one of the most fun films about a truly charmed and crazy individual; it’s like reality TV gone wild. Jeff Bridges in Tron: Legacy – OK, now that one I should have skipped because it was really awful. It reminded me of this one time in college after we ate mushrooms and I couldn’t get off the sidewalk. It was torture, but I physically couldn’t lift myself off the ground so I just stayed there – lying on the ground next to the Post Office for hours. That was Tron: Legacy for me. If you haven’t seen it – it’s basically an ultimate Frisbee game if the Frisbee were glow in the dark. And where was the warning label before that movie. Forget what rating it was, I was afraid I might stroke out right there from all those god damn flashing lights.  

While I’m up on my soapbox, let me also say that I don’t agree with ten films being nominated for Best Picture instead of five. It takes some of the cache away from being an “Oscar nominee” when there are now twice as many films. When Beauty and the Beast was nominated for Best Picture it was such an accomplishment for an animated film to make the cut and now for the past two years there have been animated films nominated (Up and Toy Story 3). I’m not saying they weren’t worthy or aren’t very good, but it’s less of an accomplishment in a way. And let’s be honest, neither really had/has a shot at actually winning Best Picture anyway. Best Animated Picture definitely (although I did personally love How to Train Your Dragon – which I was surprised to learn as the movie started – was not a porn film) To me, it just comes across as a way of the Academy trying to skewer younger to be inclusive of movies that they feel younger people want to see and will root for. My message to the Academy: The formula works, stop messing with it!     

What I love as much as a great film is when I see a movie that is nominated or gets rave reviews and I hate it. It reminds me that my perceptions and tastes aren’t universal but sometimes it shocks me too. Lord of the Rings – I absolutely despised it and want the movie gods to give me my time back. It’s not that I don’t like the fantasy movie genre, but it just did nothing for me and I just don’t get all the raves for it. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but there is absolutely no ring, or any piece of jewelry for that matter, that’s worth over ten hours of my time!

Another example of critical love/my hatred is True Grit, which I think is just awful and clowny. I know that people love the Coen’s and cozy up to shower praise on the Coen Alter, but once again I just don’t get it. I sat there watching it thinking A) I cannot understand half of what Jeff Bridges is saying and B) who thought that Matt Damon’s moustache and sideburns were a good idea? Don’t read into this and think that I am anti-Jeff Bridges either. He was outstanding in Crazy Heart and deserved to win Best Actor last year and I actually think that The Door in the Floor is the best movie he’s ever been in, but I am really surprised by this nomination. Speaking of last year, I am still offended that A Serious Man was nominated for Best Picture.  As I sat there watching it, I really thought that Netflix sent me the wrong disc because it was that bad. It doesn’t come across as quirky, just annoying. How ironic that A Serious Man was such a joke.

I want to talk about chemistry in the movies. People are annoyed at some of the nomination oversights and snubs this year, but which category has a snub where someone non-deserving took their place? Supporting Actor? I think The Social Network worked because of the dynamics between Andrew Garfield and Jesse Esienberg together, but I wasn’t surprised that Garfield didn’t get a nomination. The played off each other so well and that’s what made the betrayal in the story sting even harder. Garfield gave a great performance and was deserving of a nomination, but he was a victim of a foolish studio trying too hard to get three Supporting Actor nominations. Why would they campaign so hard for Garfield, Justin Timberlake and Armie Hammer? Timberlake had the least showy of the three and was the furthest chance for a nomination by any means and this is a movie that is seen as a writing triumph, not an acting triumph. They should have focused on Garfield and he might have edged out Mark Ruffalo. Don’t get me wrong, Mark Ruffalo is a great actor, but not in this role. He’s really good, but should have been nominated for You Can Count on Me.

The Kids Are All Right is another example of this. Annette Bening and Julianne Moore were so realistic and their relationship made you care about the story and pushed it further. They should have been campaigning for Moore in the supporting category all along, not as a lead. I know she was as much if not more of a lead as Bening was, but her performance got lost due to so many great performances this year. She will win one of these days (as will Bening, but not this year) and we will look back at this as a side note in her illustrious career. I see her in so many performances and have this terrible thought in the back of my mind that she might turn out to be like Lauren Bacall and always be the bridesmaid…I hope I’m wrong about that though.  

Blue Valentine is such a powerfully realistic portrayal of a decaying marriage, but truthfully, it’s a bit of a downer. It pulls you in, makes you care about them so much, and then spits you out because your heart just breaks for Ryan Gosling and you want so badly for it to work out between them. Michelle Williams makes you forget all about Dawson’s Creek and the two of them are like magnets drawing each other in and then repelling each other. This is a movie that stays with you long after the credits and Gosling’s snub is a shocking omission because the two performances are brought to another level because of each other. They work as a whole and it is impossible to separate where one begins and the other ends in the equation. I knew in my heart he was going to be left off the nominations list, but he was the one I was hoping might sneak in.

I will make the exact same case for Aaron Eckhart in Rabbit Hole. As I said about Blue Valentine, people have a tendency of shying away from sad stories/downers no matter how good they are and this is one that just breaks your heart. Unimaginable loss drives him and Nicole Kidman and they both just give it their all. I saw this movie by myself and I am not embarrassed to say that I was sitting in the back, clutching my Twizzlers welling up and just thinking “Oh my God” because it was just so powerful. Maybe if I saw this a few years ago when I didn’t have a son it might have hit me a little differently, but wow. When the cell phone video of his son got accidentally deleted, I just lost it. That stayed with me for weeks and hit me like a ton of bricks because of the two of them intertwined into each other. It is not an overall great movie, but the two of them elevate it to a higher level.

Natalie Portman totally transformed herself and is utterly unrecognizable as The Black Swan

I bring up these deeply intertwined relationships to lead you to Natalie Portman. Black Swan (despite what I wrote about it earlier) is at times a psychological thriller and at times a little girl’s fairy tale crossed with a horror film. If Natalie Portman isn’t announced as the winner Sunday night, than the Academy Awards really have stopped being about the performances. Annette Bening is Hollywood royalty and should have won already for Being Julia (my favorite movie she’s been in) but she shouldn’t win for Kids. Sure, she is great and our heart aches along with her, but this is not her strongest performance. Nor is her performance stronger than Kidman’s or William’s and I will just omit Winter’s Bone entirely, because I was taught if you have nothing nice to say – blah blah blah…Bening winning this year would be a triumph for a deserving career, a political statement without saying a word about gay marriage and the recognition for a film that dared us to look at “unconventional” lives and show us what the new “normal” might be, but it would not be about rewarding the best performance. Portman gave her heart, body (literally) and soul and every ounce of it shows on the screen. This was a go-for-broke, give-it-your-all performance that carried the movie to another level. If you removed any of the other performances in the film (Kunis was great and looking good as always) Portman would have still been as effective. She gave an amazing stand-alone performance that was great because of what she brought to it, not what she played off of. I’m all for a good upset, but I will be shocked if another name is called in this category.  

The Fighter was absolutely amazing and one of my favorite films. Christian Bale is unrecognizable and surely a lock – unless Geoffrey Rush gets caught up in a sweep for The King’s Speech (which will win Best Picture). The Fighter has the best ensemble performances on screen this year. Mark Wahlberg was overlooked for a nomination, but should take solace in the fact that he is personally responsible for elevating Christian Bale, Melissa Leo and Amy Adams to nominations. His was a more subtle role, all the while driving the other three to go all out, but never over the top. Melissa Leo could have easily become a cartoon character with the big hair and multiple-daughter posse she rode with, but she brought it home like a champ. I think that she might have peaked early and given a little room for Adams to sneak through with the award because this is a movie you see more than once. The first time, Bale and Leo dominate your thoughts and conversation, but you go back for Wahlberg and Adams. Supporting Actress is the only category I allow myself to go against conventional wisdom every year, so I am backing Adams for the win. I will not even mention Melissa Leo running her own “consider me” ads either. Where are her people? She was a lock until she started getting all crazy. Not that one should ever use Monique as an example to follow, but she should have just let the performance speak for itself.     

Clearly, I am no expert and I’m not the go-to Oscar prognosticator for Entertainment Weekly like the genius Dave Karger but I hope you take my thoughts into account before you fill out your ballot for Sunday night. At the very least, maybe it will encourage you to see some of these extraordinary films. See you at the concession stand!   

Watching Dirty Movies with my Wife’s Mom

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My little Black Swan Natalie Portman was waking up and feeling a little bit frisky so she decided to follow that old yellow book slogan and let her fingers do the walking. It was dark in her bedroom and she went to work as the camera panned down slowly, but I couldn’t appreciate it. Don’t get me wrong – she’s a “Hit That” hottie, she was down to her skivvies, and the mood was right. All that was missing was some red wine and scented candles, but nothing. 

Looks like Padme has gone over to The Dark Side

Don’t get nervous, you’re not reading the start of my testimonial for a performance enhancer. And no, I have not traded up my Imodium for Viagra. I am all for independent women showing that they don’t need a partner for everything, but I’m not sure why this keeps happening. Black Swan was the THIRD time that I was at a movie where a woman on screen proved that she wasn’t the Queen of the Castle – while I was sitting next to my Wife’s Mother!!!

Three times! I know this might sound like the intro to an episode of The Maury Povich show, but it’s not like we’re going to a peep show to see these films. For God Sakes, it was an AMC Theatre!    

Mila munching makes many malapropos moments ...

Looking back on the first time that it happened, it almost seems like it was her fault and I’m not usually a finger pointer unless there’s a fart involved. Me, my wife, and her mother were at the movie theatre heading in to see Dinner Rush (a great movie with Danny Aiello that you should put at the top of your Netflix Que if you haven’t seen it yet.) It got great reviews but her mother heard that it was violent and doesn’t like those types of movies, so we got tickets instead for Innocence  and we headed in…

Seems innocent enough, but looks can be deceiving

None of us knew anything about the movie, but it was about a couple reuniting after many years apart, so we went for it. Who knew it would turn out to be geriatric porn? All of a sudden, the 70-something year old actress in the movie got naked on her couch after a phone call with her former lover and then gave herself a “touch up.” DID I MENTION THAT SHE WAS NAKED! AND IN HER MID 70’S!!! When I tell you that the old lady on that couch wasn’t the only one violated that day, I mean it. I squeezed my equally as repulsed wife’s hand and whispered in her ear “Oh my God, why did your mother choose this movie?” She had no idea that would happen, but I also couldn’t get that horrible sight out of my mind. I wasn’t so much embarrassed that I saw that in front of my mother-in-law but that I saw that at all. There are certain things that one should never be subjected to and trust me when I say that there is nothing more disturbing than the sight of a saggy, old, AARP tittie wiggling around while an old lady works it on her sofa…

If the first time was her fault, the second time was definitely mine. I have a well documented obsession with Nicole Kidman and Margot at the Wedding had just opened so my wife and I were on the way to see it. Her mother called and she was leaving lunch with her grandmother near where we were seeing it, so we invited them to go to the movie with us.

Not now - her Grandmother is watching!

Everything was going along swimmingly until Nicole got in bed and then started getting restless under the covers. Once again, I couldn’t fully enjoy the situation. I got a knot in my stomach and looked over at my wife, who looked over at her mother, who looked over at her grandmother, but Gran apparently had no idea what was going on. Thank God – she just thought Nicole Kidman was having trouble falling asleep. We all left the theatre quietly after the movie and all I could mutter was “I didn’t know…I didn’t know.” As weird as it was with my Mother-in-Law – it felt ten times stranger with her mother there too…   

Needless to say,  it doesn’t matter if me or my mother-in-law are both over 17 – I don’t need the MPAA ratings to tell me that it isn’t OK to see Blue Valentine with her – it’s off the list. Tangled, here we come! 

Blue Valentine - Absolutely Not!