So anyhow, Chubb just turned 68 and his wife just turned 17. We know this because all the women at the reunion badgered the poor girl so they could go around saying: "He's FOURTIMES her age! He's FOURTIMES her age!"
And what's really remarkable is that, if you figure it out, he's exactly four times her age. But who would automatically think to do that? Who would start doing long division in their heads before they even meet the girl? WOMEN, that's who. It was only the women who were going around doing computer logarithms in their heads. All the men were thinking, "Way to go, Chubb! Does she have any sisters over there?"
Course, we weren't saying that. You can't actually say things like that. You're obligated by law to stand around saying: "Oh, yes, yes; you're right. The novelty will probably wear off. They'll run out of things to talk about. Yes, it's said that she has such low self-esteem."
When, meanwhile, this gal looks incredibly HAPPY and, more important to the gawking male Briggses at the reunion, incredibly sexy in her little muumuu draped over all 90 pounds of her curvy miniature-doll body.
Not that I NOTICED, of course.
I sauntered over to this gal at one point and said, "Soooo, what kinda stuff were you into back in the Philippines?" I had to repeat it a couple of times because her main language is something only spoken on an island in the South China Sea. But I finally got my answer: "Sewing, cooking, reading, and making a cozy home for my husband."
BINGO! I walked over to Chubb, who was grinnin' like a cheetah, and I said, " I gotta hand it to you, man. This is WHY we fought Guadalcanal, you know? I'll never be able to look at that Iwo Jima statue again without a giant tear coming to my eye."
And Chubb was looking at least 20 years younger, too. I asked him how he even got the idea to do this.
"Saw an ad in the back of Guns and Ammo. It said Filipina wives love you forever and don't talk too much. It sounded good to me."
It sounded good to ALL of us. So, as I rejoined Wanda Bodine at the buffet table, I said:"Chubb is already a miserable man. He's realizing that he married a child and that they have nothing in common. It's soooo sad."
Wanda just glared at the little Filipina doll-wife, and MAYBE it's my imagination, but I saw something flash behind her eyeballs that looked like homicide.
I'm not gonna think about it, OK?
And speaking of brutal politics, this week's movie is Virus, starring Brian Bosworth, one of my all-time favorite football-player-turned-actors. In fact, I never did understand why The Boz's career didn't take off like a rocket after the great action flick Stone Cold, in which he went undercover to nail Lance Henriksen's motorcycle gang.
But now he's back, looking cooler that a crate of refrigerated popsicles, as the head of the president's Secret Service detail. The Boz gets sent out to a national park in Oregon to do advance security for a presidential visit, and he happens to get there right at the moment when a boozed-up, pill-poppin' truck driver noses an 18-wheeler over a mountain cliff and dumps some biological warfare nerve gas into the river that feeds the geyser system.
We've got the possibility of Old Faithful spraying instant paralysis into the ozone here, but fortunately The Boz hooks up with a cutie-pie cowgirl and outruns a gang of machine-gun-toting chemical-company goons dressed up as forest rangers, determined to gun down anybody who's been exposed to the nerve gas and feed 'em to a portable incinerator.
Obviously we've got way too much plot getting in the way of the story, but we've also got one of the greatest action stunts ever filmed, when the 18-wheeler nosedives one piece at a time into a waterfall canyon. The Boz has to stretch those acting muscles as an ex-University of Oklahoma football player who had to end his career early because of an injury, and the supporting cast is pretty dang decent, too--especially Chuck Shamata as the cigar-chompin' investigative reporter with his nose to the Yellowstone.
Thirty dead bodies. One dead horse (unbeaten). Two dead fish.
No breasts. Clumsy lab-employee immolation. Egg to the face.
Man hit by a car, with hood flip.
Civilian-smothering.
Emergency tracheotomy. Syringe to the shoulder. Character-actor incineration. Canyon death plunge. Bullet to the brain.
One gun-battle, with mushroom cloud. Four motor-vehicle chases, with four crashes, two explosions. Gratuitous seaplane footage.
Three kung fu scenes. Geyser fu.
Drive-In Academy Award nominations for:
*Patrick Galligan, as the disgruntled military whistle-blower who sulks around New York pay phones, going, "The project must be stopped!"
*Stephen Markle, as the weak, waffling Prez who says, "I never sanctioned any such program!"
*Eric Peterson as the oily presidential advisor who says, "We want complete containment."
*The Boz, as the sensitive Secret Service man who says, "He's what's wrong with this country, sir."
*Leah Pinsent, as the Nebraska cowgirl who screams, "My horse is dead!"
*And Allan Al Goldstein, the director, for doing things the drive-in way.
Joe Bob's Find That Flick
This week's head-shredder comes from Nels Norene of Camarillo, California:
"This one goes back to to about the Kennedy Administration. I was about seven years old and saw it on TV. Mountains of New Mexico, flying saucers, a man and a woman, eventually a dead alien, an old Mexican man and his burro...I don't remember the plot (if there was one), but the flying saucers flying over them in the night sky scared the crap out of me.
A video will be awarded to the correct answer. In the event of a tie, a drawing will be held. Send "Find That Flick" questions and solutions to Joe Bob Briggs, P.O. Box 2002, Dallas, Texas 75221. You can also fax them to 213-462-5982 or e-mail them to Joe Bob on the Internet: [email protected]. (E-mail entries must include a postal mailing address.)
