DTH Omnibus Page 3
Thursday March 22, 1990
-TxS5:.:.-
WHAT?
Val Holley-Dennis, my lust
nowhere to be foundbut
"I pi i gang! I can't stay and chat
J right now, because I'm
cleaning my room, but I just
I I wanted to let you know that
ml Li Less Filling" will return as
normal (?) next week.
While I'm here, I might as well
let you know how this "spring clean
ing" is progressing. We moved the
bulldozers in about half an hour ago,
and right now the men are getting in
place with their shovels to start dig
ging. Channel 28 is here, but I'm not
talking to them because they didn't
send Val Holley-Dennis, my lust fan
tasy, so it looks like media coverage
will be limited to this. Which is okay,
because about as many people read
this as watch Channel 28 news.
As you can see (I know; just let
your imagination roam freely), that
huge pile in the center of the room is
my dirty clothes. The men are start
ing to shovel some of it out the win-
- on - a
and,
gly-on-a-Stick's mutant baby
is due any day now. We've
already been to the hospital
three times on dry runs, but
it turned out the baby wasn't
coming out, something else was about
to ... I really don't wanna talk about
that part of it. But anyhow, the prob
lem with a person like Ugly, who's
six-foot-nine and weighs 38 pounds,
is that the baby, or Whatever It Is
inside there, has more strength than
she does. The baby's in there record
ing rap albums or something. Some
times Ugly-on-a-Stick just starts shak
ing, and her whole body starts to
vibrate, for no reason. And when that
happens, I've got to actually lift up
her T-shirt and look under there, and,
well, there are some things too dis
gusting to put in the newspaper.
See, I been going to Le Mans
Babymaking Classes with Ugly-on-a-Stick
, learning how to press my
thumbs up under her ribcage and
grunt so the little E.T.-head space
alien baby will slide out of there in
less than 16 hours. We're in a class
with a bunch of guys named Stefan
and women named Heather, and we
sit around on blankets learning about
what smells to expect when the fetus
starts demanding his Supreme Court
rights.
But the problem with having Ugly
as a Le Mans Babymaking Partner is
that, first of all, I am definitely not
the little booger's daddy. We know
it's either Jimmy Bohannon or one
of the Gonzalez brothers, but that's
as far as we can narrow it down. The
John Bland
1 km (fifai)&
dow. Dave, the foreman, told me he
had worked on the Charleston
cleanup in the aftermath of Hurri
cane Hugo, and that this job was
much more challenging. I have to
admit I was proud.
Well, if you saw the earth move
right then, don't worry: they just got
under the covering layer of oxford
cloth shirts and have now hit the
second level denim. Since this
requires much more effort on their
part, they've moved one of those big
Caterpillar earth-movers in here to
slide those 501's right out.
You're probably wondering why
I've decided to clean my room. Well,
first off, I was having financial diffi
- Stick's mutant
hev, we've also
Joe Bob Briggs
-Vft lit! (PMtoHH
only way you could ever get Jimmy
Bohannon to look at a baby is to
glue a Budweiser label on the baby's
stomach. And the Gonzalez brothers
have a mariachi gig every other
Thursday at Juanita's Quartz Chess
Sets and Disco Palace in Matamo
ros. So they're not exactly what you
would call your nuturing types.
The second thing that's wrong is
that Ugly is so skinny that her stom
ach looks like an ice sculpture. I only
have to look at her twice a week, but
that thing is looking like a relief map
of Uganda that's been turned inside
out with a Hoover vacuum cleaner.
She's got lumps on her that you could
sell as souvenir paperweights.
"Oh, Joe Bob, that's just cellulite,"
she says to me.
"Only if they started making cel
lulite in the shape of giant sea-horses."
And, frankly, I'm ready for the
little Loch Ness Fetus to go ahead
and pop out of there before we have
to perform Caucasian Section on
Ugly. 'Cause she's been whining a
lot about how she's not too fond of
looking like a coat hanger after it's
been used to break into a Toyota.
Ugly is hard enough to look at when
she's just plain ugly. But if you can
imagine a pipe cleaner with legs that
has a cow intestine growing out of
the middle of it, then you get some
culties. Instead of just washing my
clothes like everybody else, I was
running out and buying new ones.
Secondly, 1 had begun mistaking the
pile for my bed. Thirdly, my house
mates were starting to get a little
perturbed; they began leaving me
subtle hints, like notes that read
"Clean up your room or we'll kill
you." Fourthly, and most importantly,
I realized that if I applied for federal
relief funds I could make a fortune.
Well, they've got the denim out
of the wait! What's that!
Something's moving down there!
Quick, get that pair of khakis up!
What ARTHUR! So that's where
you've been hiding all this time! And
we thought you'd run out and been
hit by a bus! And it's someone
else! Who hey, wait a minute.
Didn't I pick you up at Bub's last
September? Er ... Tracy? No? Wanda?
No? Okay, anyway, just go talk to
idea of the sacrifice I'm making.
Dr. Leo Fedora, who's gonna de
liver the little mutant, is bringing in
a podiatrist just to deal with Ugly's
splayed feet. She's carrying around
so much weight that she looks like a
duck from the ankle down.
But the worst of it is when she
wants to talk about it.
"Joe Bob," she'll say, "you know
how they say women get pretty when
they're pregnant V
"Is that what they say?"
"Well, I know I look like a burrito
pie that's been dumped on the lino
leum ..."
"Yes, you do."
"... but in spite of all that, do you
think that maybe I look just a little
"" "A little what?"
"I mean, since I'm pregnant, do
you think maybe you might say I was
pretty r
"No."
"I didn't think so."
"That wouldn't make sense, would
it?"
"No, I guess not."
"I wouldn't worry about it, Chlo
ris. Think of it this way. Would you
worry about putting a new layer of
makeup on Tammy Faye Bakker?"
"No."
"Same thing."
"Wouldn't work, would it?"
"Wouldn't work."
"Oh, Joe Bob, you always know
just what to say. I was starting to feel
sorry for myself."
Please, God, make the baby come.
fantasy, is
ah! here's Arthur
those paramedics over there, they'll
help you. No, I haven't seen your
pocketbook.
I'll have to ask you to stand back
now, for your own safety they're
getting to the last layer: the under
wear. The police have evacuated the
neighborhood, and Dave the fore
man is trying to find a couple of guys
to go down there. As you can see,
he's having a little difficulty getting
some volunteers, but that crowbar
he's picking up now ought to help
him. Ah, yes, two men have gra
ciously agreed to do the job. When
they regain consciousness, they'll be
put into pressurized suits and low
ered into the dark cavernous abyss.
Ah, they're waking up. I'd like to,
if I could, get a word with them be
fore they attempt this most danger
ous of jobs.
Hi, I'm John, the owner. And you
guys are the brave volunteers who
. Speaking of people who should
live in a jar, Brain Dead is this flick
made from an old Charles Beaumont
script (remember the guy who wrote
all the Twilight Zone episodes), and
it's the story of what would happen if
a man decided to keep a whole lab
full of pickled brains that used to
belong to paranoid schizophrenics,
so he can figure out how to stick
incredibly long needles into the brains
and turn looney people into Wall
Street bankers. Sorry, bad example.
So he can turn looney people into
perfectly respectable gameshow hosts.
Unfortunately, Dr. Martin be
comes too attached to his brains. And
so, when his old college chum asks
him to go out to the insane asylum
and "run some tests" on a real live
paranoid schizophrenic named Halsey
who's convinced he's being pursued
by a guy named Conklin who owns
Conklin Mattress Company and bru
tally murdered Halsey's wife and kids,
only Conklin is now Halsey's doctor
in the hospital, then Dr. Martin rigs
up this giant open-brain-surgery Erec
tor set where he screws some scaf
folding all up and down the side of
Halsey's head and starts are you
following this? he starts slicing
open Halsey's head and poking into
his memories so that all these corpo
rate weirdbeards can watch.
And then later, after they don't
find diddley squat inside Halsey's
head, Dr. Martin is leaving the build
ing carrying a brain under his arm,
and a homeless street person sees him
and starts screaming "That's my brain!
will risk everything for minimum wage
and the thrill of adventure?
"You own this?"
Why, yes.
"I got a wife, man! And two kids!
Two! Juan and Juanita! I may never
see them again! I oughta kill you,
muthaf "
Well, there they go. God, they're
brave. It brings a patriotic tear to my
eye, just watching them. No, I'm sorry,
it's a piece of lint.
Anyway, I hope you have a pleas
ant week, and I promise lots more
fun next time, when I plan to ex
plore the topic "Human Sexuality
and You: Fun with Tofu "
I'm sorry, they've found some
thing! What is it? Is it oil? Am I rich,
am I rich, am I faaaaaabulously
wealthy? What the Let me see,
let me see!
Oh my god! It's it's THE
LOST MONET!
You stole my brain!" and they get
into a scuffle and the brain goes flying
and splatters all over the pavement
and Dr. Martin is trying to reach for
it and he gets plastered by a car, and
before you know it the doctor is in
surgery and they're opening up his
brain and he thinks he is being pur
sued by Conklin, and sometimes he
thinks he's Halsey, except for the
times when Halsey is chasing him or
he and Halsey are both being chased
by Conklin, or else they're swimming
around in Halsey's brain ... In other
words, Twilight Zone kind of deal, to
the point where you don't know what's
going on.
Great movie, though.
One breast. Five dead bodies.
Splattered brains. Disembodied face.
Icepick stabbing. Brain swimming.
Looney Fu. Electro-shock Fu. Lobot
omy Fu. Drive-In Academy Award
nominations for Bud Cort, as Halsey,
for saying "We can't all do good, but
at least do no harm"; Bill Pullman,
as the chief brain doctor, for saying
"My brains are individuals they're
special they're unique," and for
talking about "the kinder, gentler
lobotomy"; Bill Paxton, as the mar
keting genius who comes up with
the idea of "plastic brain surgery: 'Had
a a bad childhood? We can fix it!'";
George Kennedy, for making yet
another drive-in movie where he has
nothing to do; and Adam Simon,
the director, for doing it the drive-in
way in his very first flick.
Four stars. Joe Bob says check it
out.