The dinner conversation is likely to go like this.
You say, "That's a beautiful dress you're wearing."
She says, "If you think it's sexy, perhaps you'd like to fertilize my ovum tonight."
These women think they have to have a baby within the next five minutes or their life will be over. Even the ones who already HAVE babies. So if you happen to be caught in their cross hairs, you could all of a sudden find yourself waking up the next morning next to the teddy bear on her bedspread, screaming, "Oh my God, what did we DO!"
If she's calm, be worried. Be very worried.
And if she says, "Don't worry--I stay on the pill, for MEDICAL REASONS," then you KNOW you're a goner.
What's really sick about it is, some of 'em DON'T EVEN WANT A HUSBAND. If they could get away with it, they'd get you to plant the seed, then they'd catch a Greyhound to Alaska and raise the kid among the Eskimos. And if he ever grew up and started asking about his father, she'd say something like, "Oh, he was this guy in Texas who didn't love you."
Well, of COURSE he didn't love you. He didn't know you EXISTED.
What is this deal where, on the one hand, women don't wanna get married, or they don't wanna get married till they're well into their 30s, or they don't wanna get RE-married, or they don't wanna get remarried until they can put some guy through the National Organization for Women Sensitivity Examination, but on the other hand, they're desperate to start spewing out babies?
The federal government thinks it's poor women who are doing this. They think we've got a bunch of welfare mothers who are having babies JUST TO GET MORE MOOLAH. But we've got women all over the LOT pulling a Madonna and deciding that "I want a little human being in my life."
Of course, that doesn't mean that six years from now, when those car payments start piling up and the little booger is enrolled in Montessori Day School, she might not miraculously FIND YOUR PHONE NUMBER and suggest you're a worthless scumdog for not sending $9,000 a month for your son's education. But that's later. Right now she thinks she's gonna go Amazon with this kid, raise him to be a kid who doesn't even believe fathers exist.
I've got a better idea. Why don't we find ONE GUY, preferably a dimwitted hunk named Enzio who likes women who are 37 to 41, and just HIRE HIM to impregnate ALL of these ladies.
The meanest judge in the world is not gonna make him pay child support for 700 kids, and, meanwhile, it'll be fun for the guy. We can make the ladies give him plenty of orange juice, buy him a little Vitamin E from time to time, take him to dinner on the night before they start ovulating. That way the rest of us would be OUT OF DANGER, you know what I mean?
I'm still not ready for the '90s, and they're almost over.
And speaking of people who appear to be acting under the influence of radioactive green slime, this week's flick is Polymorph, the story of four oversexed teenagers who go into the woods but don't come OUT.
This is a very dark Spam-in-a-cabin flick by Ohio filmmaker J.R. Bookwalter about camping biologist interns who team up with bloodthirsty cocaine dealers to pursue a shape-changing slime creature that likes to leap into open wounds and take over bodies, turning them into man-eating, head-bashing zombies with supernatural strength.
This may be the finest movie ever filmed in Mineral City, Ohio. And it has two features that make it rise above the run-of- the-mill shish-kebabbed-campers flick. One, the dialogue is inspired. And two, the innocent suffer--right up until the final frame. It's sick. It turns you off.
My kinda movie.
Ten dead bodies. Coke-sniffing. Four gun barrages.
Swampland body-dumping. Close-up razor-blade self-surgery.
One fistfight. Six zombies. Gunshot to the back of the head.
Catfight. Kung fu. Grenade fu.
Drive-In Academy Award nominations for:
*Ariauna Albright, as the feisty redhead who makes conversation around the campfire by saying, "So, how's your wiener?"
*Joseph A. Daw, as the ringleader who watches slime jumping in the swamp and says, "Probably just a fish or something."
*James L. Edwards, as the dorky hero, for writing the script and saying, "Every time I get close to somebody, they disappear on me."
*Pam Zitelli, as the murderous gun moll who likes to LICK her victims, for saying, "Call your boyfriend!"
*And Sasha Graham, as the battle-fatigue-wearing, coke-sniffing, gun-crazy lookout.
Two and a half stars.
Joe Bob says check it out.
Letters to Joe Bob
Dear Joe Bob:
It's my contention that Ator, The Fighting Eagle is one of the worst movies ever.
Miles O'Keeffe's performance is as bad as his perm, and Plan 9 From Outer Space looks like Gandhi compared to this masterpiece.
Have you had the pleasure of sitting through this film?
Sincerely,
Jesse Hilsenrad, Sebastapol, Calif.
Dear Jesse:
I not only saw Ator, I saw it back when it was playing in real live theaters, on the big screen.
After Miles O'Keeffe made Tarzan with Bo Derek, he was much in demand as a piece of beefcake, but he had no experience in movies, so he went to Italy for several years to learn how to act.
The first movie they made with him was Ator, in an effort to establish a continuing character. (In fact, there's a sequel to Ator, but, fortunately, that's the last one they made.)
Miles now admits it was prob'ly a mistake to think he could learn much making low-budget movies for Italian slimeballs, and if you mention Ator in his presence, he'll KILL you.
I'm not kidding. I've tried it.
1997 Joe Bob Briggs.(Distributed by NYT Special Features).
To discuss the meaning of life with Joe Bob, write Joe Bob Briggs, P.O. Box 2002, Dallas, Texas 75221 or fax him at 213-462- 5982. Joe Bob even hangs out on the Internet: [email protected].)
