Lerlenes*! There were lots of happy Christmas posts I was planning for you before the entire world got horribly sad. By the way, stop posting pictures of Santa crying. It’s not helping. Speaking of helping…here I am with a Goldblumism for anyone who is waging a battle on Facebook right now.
Oh, I’m just not ready for a full-on Big Chill post. Sorry. When that movie came out I was barely a teenager. It was about old people and old people problems. Now I am seven years older than the characters in that movie. (Except for Jennifer Tilly’s character of course.) I’m going to need one hell of a rationalization to get through that!
*When I picture my audience, there are four of you and you are all named Lerlene.
Happy December 10th! Today is my birthday, but I didn’t even need to click on over to the Dlisted Birthday Sluts to know who my top sluts were. No! Not that slut Kenneth Branaugh. He barely cracks the top five. He falls somewhere between Raven Symone and Meg White. Susan Dey is my number two slut because she is pretty and because she was so bad on The Partridge Family that I kind of worship her for it. How did she stay employed? She barely knew her lines.
Nia “Bangs” Peeples straddles a chair like a boss.
But, sorry Susan, My number one birthday slut is, and has been since 1984, Miss Nia Peeples. Nia Peeples. She was on Fame. No. Not the movie. The TV show. It was like Glee, but with less money. Here watch:
Click Here, Sluts!
First of all, no one rocked a high-cut leotard with a wide belt like Nia. Second, I take it back. Fame was not Glee. It was better than Glee. Glee uses real songs by real professionals. These kids had to shake their leg warmers to original songs written by an eighth grade music class they kept chained in the supply closet at the studio. And they had to make it look good. Not easy.
I know what you’re wondering. You are wondering whatever happened to Nia Peeples. … Because you are stupid. Come on! What do you think happened to her? She’s on a stupid basic cable drama and she’s still hot. Check it.
Back off, beyatch. You aren’t fit to carry my satin duffle bag.
…And that’s the truth, and not just a ploy to get a hit off every Google search ever (but I’m on my way!).
Night Shift is an 80s comedy starring Henry Winkler, Micheal Keaton and Shelley Long and set in New York in December. And it is Christmasy!
Wow! I can’t believe I’ll be giving a hand job at a swank joint like this!
Very, very Christmasy, but in a pants-off kind of way.
Aren’t you cold? No! I’ve got a baked potato in my pants. Wait…. Where are my pants?
It’s about a wild and crazy satin-jacket-wearing guy named Bill who makes it his mission in life to make a man out of fellow morgue employee, Chuck. He pulls this off with a massive prostitution ring, keggers, hookers, booze, weed, sex clubs, fist fights, shoot outs, threatened prison rape, the Rolling Stones and erratic driving.
Can you hear this?
I know it sounds complicated, but it is actually quite simple. Here. I’ll let Bill explain it.
Got it? Anyways…so our Chuck and Bill run a successful prostitution ring out of a morgue, Chuck becomes a man, and at Christmas time, all the prostitutes pool their hooking money together and they buy Chuck a sweet pimp hat.
Does this hat make me look pimpy enough?
I know it all seems strange, but you need to understand one thing. It was the 80s. How 80s? It was 82. We didn’t give a shit. The trailer that advertised this movie featured Shelley Long smoking an enormous roach.
Yesterday morning, I awoke at 7 AM, wide awake, and realized something profound: for the third day in a row, no toddlers had awoken me in the night. And I’d gone to sleep at 10 PM. This meant one of two things: either I could get up and go to work early, or I could actually use the gym membership that had been languishing for two months.
Oh, sure: I’d been to the JCC once a week, to get Eliza swimming with other kids. And we’d used it a few times for the playroom. But I had yet to utilize the $35-a-month CenterFit Platinum membership I bought for myself, which allowed me into the 18-and-over locker room. It’s like first class for gym-goers.
On this morning, I had no more excuses, and opted for the gym. And, it turns out, the gym has just been waiting for me to show up. It’s been just sitting there, looking at the door every time it opens, thinking, “Dang it! That’s not Jody! I have all these THINGS just for her, and she’s not coming!”
I have a labral tear in my hip, which sounds much worse and much dirtier than it actually is. My physical therapist prescribed the exercise bike to me, which instantly made me think, “Oh, yippee. The best aerobic exercise for me is the one that’s lobe-splittingly boring.” But… the JCC knew this about me. And it was waiting with an exercise bike that has a built-in video game. Like with steering and gear changes and other cyclists, and a landscape that could be Cambodia, or maybe Peru, and every once in awhile the geeks that wrote the software–because, let’s face it, if it’s got a computer chip it crossed the desk of a geek at some point–programmed in little supportive messages. Like “Keep going!” and “You’re doing great!” and also “Never give up! Never surrender!” and “Do or do not. There is no try!”
My exercise bike quoted “Galaxy Quest” and Yoda to me.
Never give up. Never surrender.
After working up a good sweat on the bike, I headed downstairs to the weight room. Allow me to interrupt myself and say that the median age of JCC clientele is about 58, and that’s including all the toddlers taking classes. It’s kind of demoralizing for a 37-year-old woman who once ran a half marathon: dude, she’s in better shape than me, and she probably only has one unreplaced joint in her body. That said, I think I fit right in, as the coffee I’d had pre-workout was now beginning to repeat on me in a rather painful way.
So I figured, at this point, I’ll do my hip exercises, lift a few dumbbells to work my biceps and triceps, and head back. “Only in My Dreams” played during my hip exercises, which cracked me up, especially because the two guys under 50 were totally big tattooed dudes spotting each other on the benches, and I just know one of them was silently jamming in his head.
Then, halfway through a tricep exercise, this song came on.
The music couldn’t have motivated me more had it been “You’re the Best Around.” I’d never heard any song from “Barry Gordy’s The Last Dragon” in the gym, no less the “The Glow,” which, in a brilliant 80s twist, is a preparation montage including montages from other movies. (FYI, this clip is a montage of clips from the movie, but the actual song starts the way it shows here.)
It’s a meta-montage, powered by Bruce Lee, Daddy Green’s Pizza, and Barry Gordy, and as a result, I now feel pleasantly sore, endorphins are high, and I could totally kick Shonuff’s ass.
** Yes, I will be doing an in-depth “Barry Gordy’s The Last Dragon” post.
slumber party movies 