It’s not just snot
In your bag of tricks
Ahem some phlegm
Into the mix
Mucoshave
Category: humor
West Wing Story
Washington DC, January 2001. George Bush takes the oath of office. Several hundred Republicans converge on the inaugural ball.
Republicans:
When you’re with Bush
You’re with Bush thoroughly
From your first cute nickname
To your last “not guilty”
When you’re with Bush
Let the liberals scream
We’ve got Congress, the White House, and
The Court Supreme
With grownups in charge
We’ll make Bush our Augustus
Our crimes will be large
The bureau now called Justice
Will be called “just us”
Now here comes Bush
Yeah! And he’s gonna say
Some nonsensical stuff
And a mangled cliché
And a botched, mangled, graceless slang
Cliché!
Some months later, Bush is on vacation in Texas.
Bush:
Can’t be
Hell no
Bin Laden’s due any day
So says my CIA
What do they know?
“He may come cannonballin’ down through the sky”
I don’t know why
They’re saying so
Hell no
It’s all in the PDB
Condi just gave to me
But, man alive
That thing is full of seven syllable words!
That’s for the birds!
Now watch this drive
Will it be?
No it won’t
Need I function?
No I don’t
Them are the facts
Nothing’s coming
That’s for sure
So I can
Keep to plan:
Wipe out all tax
Make a speech, sign a bill
Big state dinner in Brazil
This job’s a snap
Nothing’s coming
I don’t care
What they say
Go away
Time for a nap
Bad news that’s offered
While clearing brush in Crawford
Do not deliver to me
There’ll be no hijacked plane
Nor a big hurricane
Not on my watch
Not on my watch
Not on my watch!
Well guess what: terrorists fly planes into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and a Pennsylvania field.
Bush:
The most beautiful sound I ever heard
Bin Laden!
Bin Laden! Bin Laden! Bin Laden!
All the beautiful sounds of the world in a pair of words
Bin Laden!
Bin Laden! Bin Laden! Bin Laden!
Bin Laden! Bin Laden!
Bin Laden!
I’ve just been attacked by Bin Laden!
And suddenly that name
Will take all of the blame
From me!
Bin Laden!
I’ll pin everything on Bin Laden!
And suddenly that sound
Will be heard all around
You’ll see
Bin Laden
Say it once and you’re done persuading
Say it three thousand four hundred and sixty-seven times
And Iraq you’re invading
Bin Laden
I’ll never stop blaming Bin Laden
Bin Laden!
Bin Laden!
Bin Laden! Bin Laden!
Bin Laden!
Bin Laden!
Bin Laden!
Bin Laden! Bin Laden!
Say it once and you’re done persuading
Say it three thousand four hundred and sixty-seven times
And Iraq you’re invading
Bin Laden
I’ll never stop blaming Bin Laden
The right loves the way things are going. The left doesn’t.
Neocons:
Check and balance
Peculiar notion
Tends to impede any motion
Always the Congress grandstanding
Always judicial branch demanding
And the factions banding
And the public meeting
And ideas competing
I want enlightened dictator!
Have your democracy later!
I want to reshape America
Let the elite rape America
“Act like a big ape” America
Liberals:
Then will it still be America?
Neocons:
Land of the free and of the brave
Liberals:
Free just as long as you behave!
Neocons:
No man is higher than the law
Liberals:
Except those who feed us that old saw!
Rights disappear in America
Ruling with fear in America
Year after year in America
Neocons:
That’s because we’re in America
Liberals:
I think I’ll vacate the U.S.
Neocons:
No place is in less of a mess!
Liberals:
Maybe in France I can get laid
Neocons:
Maybe in France we will invade!
The administration hustles the world toward war with Afghanistan Iraq to capture Osama Bin Laden Saddam Hussein.
Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld:
Last month, last month
The war began last month
We shocked
And then we awed
And we won
Last month, last month
It only took a month
War is hell —
Hell of a
Lot of fun!
Today, the mission is accomplished
Saddam is out of power
These last throes soon are done
We’ve just begun
There’s more wars to begin
And be won
Next month!
But the Iraq war goes into extra innings. Detainees accumulate in Guantánamo Bay.
Detainees:
My dear Attorney Gen’ral
Ya gotta understand
It’s been a hundred hours
You’ve made us have to stand
We’re cold and wet and naked
We keep on getting dunked
Gen’ral, at politeness you have flunked
Dear Gen’ral Gonzales, we’re very upset
Not habeas nor corpus can our advocates get
Geneva Conventions say what you should do
You should not run this like a zoo
Like a zoo!
Like a zoo, like a zoo
Like a filthy zoo
We’re like animals in some big zoo
My deity is Allah
My skin’s a sandy brown
My uncle is a mullah
In some Mideastern town
I said once Bush was crazy
They came for me that day
Golly gee! They carried me away
Yes, Gen’ral Gonzales, you’re being a jerk
Your experts in the CIA say torture won’t work
It’s simply sadistic and doesn’t make sense
You’re jeopardizing your defense
Your defense!
Your defense, your defense
Your homeland defense
This offense is not the best defense
The trouble is he’s sour
The trouble is he’s smart
The trouble is his power
And that he has no heart
The trouble’s his assistants’
The trouble is his own
Gen’ral, you should leave us all alone!
Gee, Gen’ral Gonzales, we’re hanging by thumbs
And bleeding from our ears because of punctured eardrums
Gee, Gen’ral Gonzales, what are we to do?
Gee, Gen’ral Gonzales,
[waterboarding sounds]!
Everything is going Bush’s way.
Bush:
I feel petty
Oh so petty
I feel petty
And heady
And big
And I’m ready
To imprison every dirty Whig
I feel scary
I feel saucy
And contrary and bossy and smug
It’s amazing
That America is run by thugs
See “commander guy” in that mirror there
Who can that important guy be?
Such a petty face
Such a petty suit
Such a petty smirk
Such a petty me!
I feel spiteful
And vindictive
It is frightful addictive to be
What I am:
Dictatorial, petty me!
Neocons:
Have you met our friend the Decider?
The craziest guy on the earth
Divider and not a uniter
He’s the one who’s your friend if you have some net worth
He thinks he’s in charge
He thinks that he rules
He isn’t in charge
He’s merely a tool
It must be the desk
Or “Hail to the Chief”
Or all the free press
And their false belief
Pay no mind to him
Send for Cheney
He’s the one who is
Really brainy
Simple, unsure
Confused and inbred
Uncouth, immature
And over his head!
At last the Democrats retake control of Congress. They vow a showdown with Bush over funding for the war.
Democrats:
We Democrats won’t have our way tonight!
We Democrats won’t have our say tonight!
Constituents they grumble: go fight
Republicans say “boo” and
They give us a fright
Republicans:
We’re gonna use ad hominems tonight!
We’re gonna make a fool of them tonight!
We’ll make insinuations, then watch
Those saviors of the nation grow wet at the crotch
Tonight!
Democrats and Republicans:
We’re gonna de-bate tonight
But dog-and-pony shows cannot change our course
We’re gonna make clear tonight
Our poor constituents have backed the wrong horse
Republicans:
Well we won’t stop it!
Democrats:
And we can’t stop it!
Democrats and Republicans:
The whole damn country will have buyer’s remorse
Tonight!
The press:
The press is gonna get its kicks tonight!
The press is gonna get last licks tonight!
The Democrats may talk tough. So what?
The status quo’s not threatened. They’re stuck in a rut
The left:
Tonight, tonight
We’ll end this war tonight
Tonight our side at last has its day
Tonight, tonight
They’ll hear us roar tonight
And we’ll make George Bush do what we say
The past six years have seemed forever
Our setbacks have seemed endless
Although our cause is right
Oh pols, hang tight
And into the abyss shine some light
Tonight!
Democrats:
The Democrats will lose the vote tonight!
We do not want to rock the boat tonight!
The press might say we’re causing gridlock
So let’s just help the Bushies to run out the clock
The left:
Tonight, tonight
We’ll end this war tonight
Republicans:
We’ll paint ’em soft on defense!
We’ll make ’em sit on the fence!
The left:
Tonight our side at last has its day
Democrats:
Let’s hope this all goes away
The left:
Tonight, tonight
They’ll hear us roar tonight
And we’ll make George Bush do what we say
The press:
We’ll gonna snark it tonight!
The left:
The past six years have seemed forever
Our setbacks have seemed endless
Republicans:
They can’t stop us
Democrats:
We can’t stop them
The left:
Although our cause is right
The press:
We’ll keep our narrative whole tonight
The left:
Oh pols, hang tight
And into the abyss shine some light
Democrats:
We’ll disappoint them tonight
Republicans:
We’ll give no quarter tonight
The press:
Bread and circus tonight
All:
Tonight!
The Democrats fold like a wet taco. The left is deeply dejected.
The left:
There’s a place for us
Online, a place for us
Point your browser and log in on
Dailykos.com
There’s a place where we
Commiserate and we
Try to picture how things should be
Try to take down the GOP
Online
Online
We’ll find a new way of leading
We’ll find a way of succeeding
Online
The left sees one hope remaining.
The left:
Gore, Gore
Albert Gore
Please run, Gore!
Gotta do it
Step up to it
Hear us implore, Gore!
Don’t sit out
‘Cause there’s no doubt
You’d come out ahead
Join the fray
‘Cause that’s the way
The Republicans will fill with dread
Gore, Gore
Albert Gore
Jump in, Gore!
Throw your hat in
Rivals flatten
Do not ignore, Gore!
Run, man, run
So that we can stop the war, Gore!
We’re crying out for
Al Gore
As Bush’s poll numbers sink, the complicit press finds itself on the ropes.
The press:
A man like that who’d wreck the nation
Provides reporters with sensation
We must be spoon-fed
Please keep us spoon-fed
A man like that makes our job easy
And even though you think it’s sleazy
We must be spoon-fed
Please keep us spoon-fed
He tells us what we are to write
He tells us what we are to think
So we can spend
Less time on work
More time on drink!
With a wink and nod, boys!
With a wink!
A man like that wants only one thing:
To leave the rest of you with nothing
“If you can’t beat them, you’d better join”
We could not win
And so we joined him
And so we joined…
The left:
Oh, mainstream media, no
Oh, media, no
That is a craven policy
It’s bad for our democracy
You hear my words
And know they’re true
There’s no excuse
You’re obtuse!
You media are obtuse!
Tell the truth!
You should know better
You went to school, or so you said
You should know better
We have this land and it’s all that we have
That, and laws that we must cleave to
We live here, we vote
We’re all in the same boat
We and you
We have this land and it’s all that we need
That, and laws, but they need us too
They’re only as good
As they are understood
And that’s why we need you
Inform, inform the elect’rate
With real facts
And nuance
And truth!
With the truth!
The press:
The press is
Old news
Now bloggers fill our shoes
The press and the left:
The blogs are our life!
All these worlds are yours except Earth
Once upon a time, there lived a magnificent race of animals that dominated the world through age after age. They ran, they swam, and they fought and they flew, until suddenly, quite recently, they disappeared. Nature just gave up and started again. We weren’t even apes then. We were just these smart little rodents hiding in the rocks. And when we go, nature will start over. With the bees, probably.
The bees are not dead. They are hiding. (Possibly in my chimney.) They are organizing. They are flexing their tiny but oh-so-busy bee muscles. This is a little show of power they’re putting on to demonstrate how dependent we are on them. If we disappeared tomorrow, what would they care? But if they disappear, we’re screwed, and they want us to know it. Who’s in charge of whom?
I, for one, welcome our new insect overlords.
Andrea-woman!
One of her lesser superpowers was demonstrated a couple of years ago when I bought the DVD set of HBO’s Harold and the Purple Crayon series for my kids. The day it arrived from Amazon I unwrapped it and played the first episode. The kids were delighted. When the end credits rolled, I was mildly surprised to see Sharon Stone’s name as the narrator.
A little later, while we were watching another episode, Andrea came home. I asked her, “Can you guess whose voice that is doing the narration?”
Andrea listened for a few moments and thought, then said, “Sharon Stone?”
You could have knocked me over with a feather.
Now, Sharon Stone is a beautiful woman and a fine actress. But I think even her most ardent fans would agree that her voice, while pleasant, even attractive, is not particularly distinctive. It’s generically feminine, with no unique accent or timbre or phrasing. To my ears, the voice reading that narration in a soothing, maternal fashion could be anyone’s. Furthermore, Andrea — unlike me — is conspicuously inattentive to the world of Hollywood and celebrities. Movies, to her, are to be watched, hopefully enjoyed, and then largely forgotten. Movie stars mean almost nothing to her, and with the hoopla surrounding Basic Instinct and Casino more than a decade in the past, Sharon Stone in particular was not readily brought to mind. (Sorry, Sharon.)
If I hadn’t known it was Sharon Stone, and someone had asked me to guess whose voice it was (indicating, by the very asking, that the answer must be a surprising celebrity), I would have said Meryl Streep or Madonna or somebody. But in under ten seconds Andrea came back with, “Sharon Stone.”
I have satisfied myself that Andrea had no secret foreknowledge of the answer, and that no ordinary human (who’s not a friend or a devoted fan of Sharon Stone) could have gotten the right answer so quickly, and on the first try. The only remaining explanation: it’s a superpower.
Now all that remains is figuring out what possible application this power can have in the fight against supervillainy.
Indiana Jones and the Rolling Roles
Since Harrison Ford has visibly aged in that time, it’s reasonable to expect that a comparable interval has elapsed in story time between Indy 3 and Indy 4. Let’s say that the story interval is not 19 years but 24. That opens up a pretty interesting story possibility.
It’s 1962. An aging Indiana Jones has made a discovery of tremendous personal importance to himself, something he’s been looking for all over the world for thirty years. And for some reason, the first thing he does is to make his way to a small city in California to track down an obnoxious loudmouth with a fast car and a taste for Stetson cowboy hats — Bob Falfa.
Jones tries to convince Falfa to accompany him on a highly unique project. Mysteriously, Jones tells Falfa that he can divulge no details (“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you”) but, knowing Falfa’s love of fast cars, promises him the chance to drive something faster than anyone’s ever seen.
This was the wrong thing to say. Bob Falfa’s pride is hurt; his own car, he asserts, is the fastest thing on wheels. “And I’ll prove it to you!” Falfa storms off before Jones can get another word in and, almost at once, he goads a local hood, John Milner, into a drag race — which Falfa loses, spectacularly, trashing his car in the process.
Humiliated, Falfa leaves town that very day and changes his identity, swearing off hot rods and Stetson hats in a bid to be untraceable. (But he can’t completely break with the past. His new name, Martin Stett, commemorates his preferred hatmaker.) Stett kicks around for a few years and ends up with a gig in San Francisco as the personal assistant to a wealthy and unsavory businessman known as The Director.
Late one night Stett finds himself in a high-stakes poker game with some hardcore gamblers, including one charming out-of-towner (“I’m just passing through”) who’s losing badly. Out of funds on a big hand, the stranger puts his pink slip in the pot, assuring everyone that it’s for “the fastest hunk of junk in the galaxy.” Stett wins the hand — and learns to his astonishment that he’s the new owner of a spaceship called the Millennium Falcon. The stranger, Lando Calrissian, is devastated but gracious in defeat. He offers to give piloting lessons to Stett in return for a lift back to his home galaxy far, far away.
After dropping off Calrissian at a bustling spaceport, Stett flies around this new galaxy for several years, picking up odd jobs where he’s able and enjoying his new solitude so much that he changes his name again, this time to Solo. Over time he befriends a Wookiee, a Jedi, and a princess, and plays a role in reforming galactic politics.
Feeling nostalgic one day, Solo takes a long flight back to Earth and is a little puzzled to discover that, due to the time-distorting effects of faster-than-light travel, he has arrived years before he left. Thus unable to visit his old stomping grounds — they don’t exist yet! — he makes to leave immediately but the Falcon’s hyperdrive, which has always been finicky, gives out altogether. Solo is stranded on a planet where there are no spare hyperdrive parts for thousands of light years in every direction.
With no other options, he conceals the Falcon in the New Mexico desert and begins researching ways to rebuild the hyperdrive from raw materials available on Earth. His research reveals the existence of ancient Etruscan mineral-smithing techniques that produced artifacts suitable for use in the hyperdrive motivator.
Solo begins hunting for Etruscan artifacts all over the world and is soon drawn into the world of archaeology, for which he has adopted yet another new alias — Indiana Jones — and reindulged his old love of broad-brimmed headwear. Along the way he has numerous new adventures and his repair of the still-concealed Millennium Falcon is sidetracked into an on-again, off-again project whose highlight is a dramatic near-crash during a test flight in 1947.
Finally, by 1962, Jones/Solo/Stett/Falfa has accumulated enough Etruscan jewelry and pottery and so on to build a hyperdrive motivator and complete the Falcon’s repair. However, he is by now old enough that his arthritis robs him of the agility needed to crawl in and among the parts of the Falcon’s engine machinery. What he needs is someone younger, mechanically inclined, and trustworthy. He knows just the person: an aimless young hot-rodder named Bob Falfa. And this time he won’t insult his car…
What’s the problem?
In Open Water, a young couple is accidentally stranded afloat in the middle of the ocean when their diving-tour boat fails to account for their return and leaves the dive site without them. There is nothing in sight but water from horizon to horizon. After a while, night falls. The sharks begin circling. What will they do? What would you do?
Though opinions are divided, I thought the film was outstanding — deeply unsettling and very real. The stranded couple tried everything I thought of to try and cycled through every emotion I imagined it was possible to have. It has a thought-provoking ending that is guaranteed to stay with you — it affected my mood for days. It was based on a true story. And they used real sharks — take that, Steven Spielberg!
In 2003, Open Water was the breakout success story of various indie film festivals. It was inevitable that someone would try to cash in by making a sequel, and now Open Water 2: Adrift has been released direct to video (in the US). In this one, also based on a true story, all the passengers on a pleasure yacht jump into the water — and none of them has thought to lower the dive ladder. It proves impossible to climb back aboard the boat. No one is wearing flotation gear. And a helpless baby is still aboard the yacht! What will they do? What would you do?
Easy. Everyone strips off their swimwear, knotting it all together to make a rope. Someone throws it across a narrow part of the yacht’s prow, holding on to one end; everyone else catches it on the other side; and then they all hoist the first person up on board to lower the dive ladder. Rope’s not long enough to pass clear across the yacht? (Swimwear can be pretty skimpy in horror movies.) It should still be possible for someone to hook one end onto one of the yacht’s cleats with a lucky toss and pull him or herself up. What’s the problem?
Yes, they’d end up all back aboard the yacht naked and embarrassed. I’m guessing that’s not what happens in the film. Doesn’t make much of a horror movie, I suppose. …Unless they are so embarrassed that they make a pact never to speak of the day’s events to anyone — until someone starts hunting them down and slaughtering them one by one in gruesome ways that recall the secret they’re keeping. I’d call it I Know What You Stupidly Forgot To Do Last Summer.
Tom Swifties
For several years, my friend Steve and I have been making one another groan with our “Tom Swifties,” puns with a distinctive form that I won’t bother to explain; you’ll get the drift pretty quickly from the numerous examples below.
Most of these are from our most fertile period during the mid- to late-nineties. I no longer remember which ones I wrote and which ones he wrote. Occasionally one or the other of us will still come up with a new one and mail it to the other under the subject heading, “Do not read.”
- “A thousand dollars!” Tom said grandly.
- “I’ll make coffee,” Tom said perkily.
- “I’m going to the bathroom,” Tom said peevishly.
- “Where’s my dog?” Tom said uncannily.
- “I just came back from Kansas,” Tom explained.
- “I’m a plumber,” Tom piped in.
- “Give me another hit off that roach,” Tom said dubiously.
- “You turkeys,” Tom groused.
- “This thesis begins well,” Tom said abstractly.
- “I almost got the bronze,” Tom held forth.
- “I’m a metal worker specializing in phrenology,” Tom forged ahead.
- “With with with with,” Tom said forthwith.
- “Turn right,” Tom said adroitly.
- “Don’t erase it this time,” Tom remarked.
- “I lost them in the war,” Tom said defeatedly.
- “And over here is the tomb of Elmer Fudd,” Tom quipped.
- “It was the year that I almost won the election,” Tom recounted.
- “Here!” Tom said presently.
- “I’m celibate,” Tom said inscrutably.
- “That dragon almost got me,” Tom said under his breath.
- “‘Ere, I done the bleedin’ lawn,” Tom emoted.
- “I belong,” Tom said at length.
- “I’m done cooking,” Tom fired off.
- “I’ll not stand for it!” Tom lied.
- “This is my hotel,” Tom intended to say.
- “I’m the keystone of this operation,” Tom said archly.
- “Have more wine,” Tom replied.
- “I’m getting another lawyer,” Tom retorted.
- “All right, I was a prostitute,” Tom exhorted.
- “How gauche,” Tom said, and left.
- “You have to use caulk. Caulk!” Tom crowed.
- “I can’t stop this horse,” Tom said woefully.
- “I am too,” Tom said evenly.
- “I sprained my ankle during the race,” Tom finished lamely.
- “But let me tell you about myself,” Tom resumed.
- “I love shaving insects,” Tom blathered.
- “You look good in mink,” Tom inferred.
- “This hive’s empty,” Tom believed.
- “A-yup, that’s a donkey alright,” Tom assured.
- “Draw,” Tom drawled.
- “I better walk in front,” Tom decided.
- “I think it’s in the closet,” Tom came out with gaily.
- “He stopped breathing,” Tom said, exasperated.
- “It’s either a big puddle or a small lake,” Tom said ponderously.
- “You thieving knave,” Tom said tartly.
- “Goodness!” Tom said graciously.
- “The power went out!” said Tom, delighted.
- “22/7 is close enough,” Tom rationalized.
- “Boy, it sure is hot these days,” Tom summarized.
- “Crooked, off-center, and inclined,” Tom listed.
- “Thar she blows!” Tom wailed.
- “You call it,” Tom said flippantly.
- “I didn’t want to be in their rotten club anyway,” Tom said, dismembered.
- “Does your society really consist of soldiers, workers, and a queen?” Tom said askance.
- “It’s exactly twelve ounces of soda,” Tom fantasized.
- “Boy, that tree’s bent in a complete circle,” Tom opined.
- “I enjoyed that French bread,” Tom said painfully.
- “Where’s the cat box?” Tom said literally.
- “Again,” Tom said again.
- “It’s somewhere in South America,” Tom perused.
- “Nice hair,” Tom brayed.
- “This is mine,” Tom disclaimed.
- “No, not San Francisco, I meant that other city down south,” Tom lamented.
- “A booby-trap!” Tom tittered.
- “Look at all those politicians,” Tom said by convention.
- “Dammit,” Tom stonewalled.
- “You fellas are all expert shots,” Tom said with acumen.
- “I am a nun,” Tom said out of habit.
- “Nice slacks,” Tom panted.
- “I work in bog repair,” Tom repeated.
- “Get ready to go really fast!” Tom presumed.
- “I have to unfreeze this steak,” Tom thought.
- “Him,” Tom pronounced.
- “I can see up your skirt,” Tom misunderstood.
- “Get lost,” Tom pointed out.
- “There’s my street,” Tom said ruefully.
- “I’m moved,” Tom translated.
- “I think I’m developing cataracts,” Tom said with denial.
- “Who let the fire go out!” Tom bellowed.
And then there’s this very dated one:
- “I approve of our new vice president,” Tom said allegorically.
(Maybe soon we can rewrite it to say “I approve of our new president.”)
To Andrea
A love poem for my wife, in Shakespearean sonnet form.
An anniversary comes once a year
But we prefer to celebrate our love
More often than those other days appear
It’s menseversaries that I speak ofOne menseversary each year bestrides
A day already all about sweethearts
It’s Valentine’s and monthly fête besides
And so we need a name that has both partsSo: “Valentersary”? No, that’s no good
For where’s the “mense” in that made-up word?
And “mensevalentine,” it’s understood
Omits the “versary,” which must be heardBut “mensevalentersariney” has
Precision and colloquial pizzazz
OK, so it’s long on cleverness and short on romance. But she knew what she was getting into when she married me.
The fame vampire
We rented an old favorite from Netflix the other day: Bugsy Malone, a canonical Chicago gangland story with some great musical numbers and one big twist: no performer in the film is over the age of 12. Instead of knives, rival mobsters eliminate each other with a pie in the face. Instead of bullets, the tommy guns fire creampuffs.
After watching it, I grew curious about the kids who starred in it. Where are they now? I went to the Internet Movie Database to look them up one by one.
To my surprise, nearly all of the cast had zero, one, or two additional film credits after Bugsy Malone, and that’s all. Scott Baio played the title role, and he of course enjoyed a steady trickle of fame for a while in the 70’s. Other than that, no one appears to have emerged from Bugsy Malone with any sort of acting career intact…
…except for four-time Oscar nominee (and two-time winner) Jodie Foster.
Reet! Reet! Reet! Reet!
Jodie Foster is a huge star. Her Bugsy Malone co-stars are shriveled husks. Coincidence — or did she have something to do with the premature depletion of their careers? Has her fame been nourished by (what should rightly have been) theirs? Some of the kids in that movie were quite good, a fact that couldn’t have escaped young Foster’s notice. Did she gorge herself on their star potential and make it her own? We report, you decide.
(Incidentally, there is a new Coca-Cola ad [I saw it in the movie theater before the very-good-but-not-as-great-as-they’re-saying Children of Men] that uses the finale from Bugsy Malone as its jingle — “You give a little love and it all comes back to you, la la la la la la la.”)
My Civic duty
My car, the Nimble Imp, is a nine-year-old Honda Civic hatchback. On Thursday it wouldn’t start, so we towed it to a garage. On Friday we learned that it had a dead battery ($100) and a leaky clutch master cylinder ($600) — and that according to Edmunds, it’s worth $767, or $67 more than the cost of the repairs I’m facing.
On Saturday I began car shopping.
Fuel efficiency is my main criterion. I’m intrigued by the Toyota Prius — I’ve driven one and liked it — but the car I’m really after is the new Honda Fit. I have some lingering doubts about the Prius’s hybrid drive — just how long do those batteries last, anyway, and what is their true environmental impact? — whereas the Fit’s gas mileage is almost as good, its price is right, and it doesn’t have a distracting video display in the center of the dashboard. Only the name is a little off-putting. (I like its European name better: “Jazz.”) Yes, it’s tiny. No, I don’t have a problem with that. So I ordered the Consumer Reports price report and started calling Honda dealers to find one where I could test-drive a Fit.
Marin Honda didn’t have any. Neither did Honda of El Cerrito. Nor did the San Francisco, Berkeley, or Oakland Honda dealers. I called Walnut Creek Honda — no luck. I called Concord Honda — no. San Leandro, Burlingame, Hayward, Redwood City — no, no, no, no. At Vacaville Honda (42.7 miles distant) they thought they might have one or two on the lot and promised to check and call me back in five minutes. Mmmmmmmmmmno. I began to feel like I was living in the Cheese Shop sketch.
Glickstein: You do have some Hondas, don’t you?
Element: Certainly sir! This is a Honda shop, sir. We’ve got–
Glickstein: No, no, don’t tell me. I’m keen to guess.
Element: Fair enough.
Glickstein: Element?
Element: Yes.
Glickstein: Ah! Well I’ll buy one of those then.
Element: Oh, I thought you were talking to me, sir. Mr. Element, that’s my name.
It took a not-inconsiderable effort of will to psych myself into buying a car this weekend, but psych myself I did, and for a couple of hours on the phone Saturday morning I persisted in spite of the best efforts of Bay Area Honda salespeople uncharacteristically to prevent me giving them my money. But they finally wore me down, with the result that I authorized the $700 repair of my $767 car. I am “Fit” to be tied.