What are five movies you love far more than you probably should?
(Citizen Kane, The Godfather, Casablanca, et al, are on lots of people's favorites. Name five movies that just work for you, even if critics hate it and your friends roll their eyes)
1) Brighton Beach Memoirs. My ex-Jenny and I watched this one about 500,000 times. It has so many great lines--"Where am I going, to a nightclub?" "THERE ARE NO BONES IN LIVER!" "The whole world whacks off."--and I always end up laughing before they say them.
2) Tommy Boy. Critics hate this one, but I laugh my ass off every time, especially the scene with "Superstar". Total guilty pleasure movie.
3) Tombstone. Kurt Russell is okay as Wyatt Earp, but it's Val Kilmer as Doc Holliday that steals the movie. Powers Boothe, Sam Elliot, and Michael Biehn are also fantastic. And I love Dana Delaney.
4) The Cotton Club. I love the music, the tap-dancing, the 19 year-old Diane Lane, and some really well-drawn characters: Dutch Schultz, Bumpy the gangster, and Owny and Frenchy.
5) tie: South Park: Bigger, Longer, and Uncut, and Monty Python's Meaning of Life. SP just killed me, especially the songs ("Uncle F*cker", eg) and Cartman's exultant torrent of profanity that zapped Saddam Hussein back to hell. MPMoL had some great songs as well ("The Penis Song", eg), but it was just so wonderfully silly as it made fun of everybody that it cracks me up, regardless of my mood or blood-chemistry.
Sure, I love the "classics," too. But I'll watch these five (six, actually) whenever they're on, and love every minute.
(Thanks to Kelly the Culture Maven for the inspiration)
I know it's not nice of me, but I can't help it. I laughed my ass off when I saw the following sign: "Amputee Support Group: Monday 730."
I know it's a great thing, but my snarky-ass mind provided me with images of one-legged people being propped up by members of the "support group." At 8:30, do they just let everyone fall down? I'm going straight to Edie McClurgatory, a waiting room sort of place where everyone talks in the loud shrill voice of the secretary on "Ferris Bueller."
Jill had surgery early last month, and for the past few weeks she's had major abdominal pain (abominable abdominal pain?). To try and get relief, we've made more than a dozen different visits to different types of health professionals: nutritionists, acupuncturists, an emergency room at 0300 last Sunday morning, a handful of doctors, et cetera ad nauseam.
Friday afternoon, we visited her OB/GYN, who'd performed the original surgery. She determined that Jill's condition warranted further attention, so she ordered a CAT scan. The way the health care system is set up, she could order any damn thing she wants, but it'll only happen if steps are followed to appease the insurance gods. So the hospital her doctor sent us to sent us back to Morton Plant, which is fine. Gorgeous. She got through triage fairly quickly, and we were taken to a rather nice, large treatment room. I don't freak out in hospitals--not anymore--but I'm still not 100% comfortable. Thus, I wanted to wander around and look through the all the drawers. Jill seemed to think my role should be more of the holding her hand and saying reassuring things because she was scared shitless variety.
I even made what I thought was a good joke--a bin in one of the cabinets was labeled "Fem Caths," and I wondered if there was another bin for "Butch Caths."
I should mention that Jill is one of my absolute, bar-none favorite people on earth, and I love her to pieces, but she has this way of arching her eyebrows that conveys, "Oh, TOM!" wordlessly. I still grinned.
The ER doc came in and took Jill's history. He was very kind, and very competent. Off to X-ray for Jill. Then back. Then the doc ordered a naso-gastric tube to be inserted.
During my little holiday in hell, I had a foley catheter, which was unpleasant, but I'd take a foley any day of the week rather than have a tube crammed up my nose, then down my esophagus and into my stomach. Yuck. Tube inserted, contrast solution for CAT scan poured into it like so much antifreeze into a radiator, and a nice IV for good measure.
Saturday afternoon, Jill had two procedures done to alleviate her abdominal swelling. In the process, the doctor removed over a gallon of fluid from her abdomen. She'd looked six months pregnant, and now she's on her way back to normal.
She'll be in the hospital for another few days, and she's doing really well. They have to perform one more surgery before she's completely repaired, but she feels so much better than she did Friday morning.
It was a hot night, still in the 80's after midnight when I finally left. I walked from the treatment room, through a maze of corridors, then through the waiting room, and across an acre of parking lot. When I got to my truck, I realized I hadn't been limping, nor was I breathing heavily. I'm getting stronger and stronger over the passing months. No limp. No shit.
It was steamy, like it gets here in the summer. On my way home, I passed the rehab place I went a lifetime ago. I could see my old room, and the trees edging the "smokers porch," where everyone congregated during free moments. That was nearly three years ago, and my life has been rich since. I'd just spent six hours in a hospital emergency room, and I realized how well I felt physically. Passing the nutbin, I realized how happy I am just to be moderately happy--away from the the foggy Abyss that plagued me.
Tonight, my back and knee hurt. Between work yesterday and today, and hours of sitting in waiting rooms, I'm absolutely drained. Even in my current discomfort, I realize how blessed my life is. Jill will be perfectly fine--the remaining procedure is amazingly routine--and she'll probably be back going 110% in no time. Maybe in a few years, she'll visit a friend of hers in the hospital. I can only hope she feels the same
I declare SHENANIGYNS on my friend Jill's OB/GYN. I drove Jill to an appointment Friday, and I was shocked by what I saw in the waiting room. Ten very pregnant women waited in a reception area with a very loud, very splashy fountain, and one small bathroom. Lines formed, daggers were stared, and there was much shifting uncomfortably in many chairs. Thanks a lot for the reminder, Dr McWaterboard. Like late-term pregnant women don't have to pee enough of their own volition.
A MAN WAS WALKING HOME....
A man was walking home alone late one foggy night, when behind him he hears:
!
BUMP...
BUMP...
BUMP...
Walking faster, he looks back and through the fog he makes out the image of an upright casket banging its way down the middle of the street toward him.
BUMP...
BUMP...
BUMP...
Terrified, the man begins to run toward his home, the casket bouncing quickly behind him.
BUMP...
BUMP...
BUMP...
FASTER...
BUMP...
BUMP...
BUMP...
He runs up to his door, fumbles with his keys, opens the door, rushes in, slams and locks the door behind him.
However, the casket crashes through his door, with the lid of the casket clapping
Clappity-BUMP...
Clappity-BUMP...
Clappity-BUMP...on his heels, the terrified man runs. Rushing upstairs to the bathroom, the man locks himself in. His heart is pounding; his head is reeling; his breath is coming in sobbing gasps.
With a loud CRASH the casket breaks down the door.
Bumping and clapping toward him.
The man screams and reaches for something, anything, but all he can find is a bottle of cough syrup!
Desperate, he throws the cough syrup at the casket...
And, (hopefully you're ready for this!!!)
The coffin stops
snoringKatZ had a good one, and it's going around like chicken pox at a preschool, so here is the simple rule:
Rule: Summarize your life in a six word memoir, with optional photo illustration. Then tag six others
Ten fingers; ten toes; steady pulse.
I keep it simple. Consider yourself tagged, if you so desire. (thx sKZ!)
Name three words or phrases you wish you'd coined:
1) Prosti-tot (when parents dress their little girls like whores)
2) Muffin top (the abdominal flesh that squeezes out over the waistband of too-tight hip hugger jeans)
3) Borborygmus (a wonderfully onomatopoeic word for intestinal rumblings and grumblings)
The guy was not my favorite candidate, but at least he's a relatively good sport about losing:
April 17, 2008
Posted: 03:10 PM ET
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- At Wednesday night's Radio and Television Correspondents Dinner in Washington, D.C., former Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney gave his "Top 10 Reasons for Dropping Out of the Race":
10. There weren't as many Osmonds as I thought.
9. I got tired of corkscrew landings under sniper fire.
8. As a lifelong hunter, I didn't want to miss the start of the varmint season.
7. There wasn't room for two Christian leaders.
6. I was upset that no one had bothered to search my passport files.
5. I needed an excuse to get fat, grow a beard and win the Nobel prize.
4. I took a bad fall at a campaign rally and broke my hair.
3. I wanted to finally take off that dark suit and tie, and kick back in a light-colored suit and tie.
2. Once my wife Ann realized I couldn't win, my fundraising dried up.
1. There was a miscalculation in our theory: "As Utah goes, so goes the nation."
I should admit that I'm not especially fond of little kids. They're loud, unpredictable, fast, and very low to the ground, which compromises my balance and hanging-by-a-thread sanity.
So Doll Baby and I went out tonight to our favorite steakhouse. As luck would have it, there were kids everywhere. A family sat down next to us with an infant and a little boy of about a year old. I was scared. There was another family with two little boys--maybe seven and nine. Then another family sat down next to us, and it turns out two of them had been in Doll Baby's class. (note: DB is an elementary school teacher, not a student.)
Amazingly, all of the kids in the joint were pretty well behaved. The two brothers and their family were done eating, and they were a little bored. The parents had cocktails to finish, so they gave each of the boys a dollar to donate to the Claw machine. Lo and behold, one of them won a Superman doll.
Again, I couldn't hear what they were saying during this little exchange. Doll Baby was chatting with her former students, and I was definitely busy chewing. But I'm a good judge of body language, and these two young boys--in their cute little private school uniforms--weren't giving Superman away because their parents made them. It looked like their idea.
The kid in the high chair was ecstatic with his new Superman doll; the two brothers were happy; the parents were all happy, and Doll Baby's alumni were happy.
Maybe I shouldn't have been so surprised. Maybe I'm overly cynical because I've run into so many little demon-kids in my travels. I'd say this little scene restored my faith in humanity, but that would imply that I had some once and lost it.
Today was gorgeous here in Gomorrah--lots of sunshine and warm. Doll Baby and I had a lovely dinner--one of those sick, happy, holding hands sorts of things. It was a great night. Amazing what a nice steak can do, when mixed with a pretty woman and two kids giving away a stuffed Superman to a little kid they didn't even know.
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Recent Comments
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Brown Suga' said:
[this is good]I love these! Prostitot and borborygmous are wonderful! read more
on The Tom Zone Question of the Day -
Brown Suga' said:
[this is good]I'm with you on South Park! read more
on The Tom Zone Question of the Day -
Kelly said:
I was thinking you had got me seriously wrong for a minute but, aaah, you have another Kelly friend!!!Ok, 5... read more
on The Tom Zone Question of the Day -
Kelly said:
Thanks for the shout-out, but I just took my question from one of the QOTDs. :) I haven't seen all... read more
on The Tom Zone Question of the Day
hrm... boondock saints!uhm. seriously. do i have to think of 4 more? i can't do these things under pressure! damn... read more
on The Tom Zone Question of the Day