"Cuddles, I am an alcoholic!"

And as we all know, admitting it is the first step to recovery. And shopping with Cuddles is the next step. Francine Fishpaw starts to turn her life around in this touching scene from Polyester.

Those ladies, they so funny!

After watching that clip of Cheaters that I posted yesterday I got nostalgic. Seeing that little man with the hat being run through the parking lot reminded me of the most memorable scene of the John Water’s masterpiece, Polyester.

Polyester was the first John Water’s movie I ever saw, and I think of it as a coming of age movie. I had taken the train to New York City in the summer of my 18th year, to celebrate my graduation from high school and enter into the adult world with my brother Tony (for more information on him, visit TonyWhitfield.com) . There’s not a whole lot I can remember about that Independence Day weekend, except drinking white wine in bars in Soho, in an effort to be sophisticated. (The next day I realized that drinking Chablis is kind of like sipping clarified, watered down stomach bile. Only chilled, and bile probably wouldn’t give me a headache.)

I also remember some pretty good food all weekend, including homemade Gazpacho, and returning to Philadelphia wearing a yellow and black tiger striped t-shirt and some wrap-around shades. The thing that I thought made it even cooler was that I was all lumpy with itchy purple welts from mosquito bites, with one bite that made it look like I’d been punched in the eye. That fashion statement was a part of a new look (without the mosquito bites) that stayed with me for a year. Later in the summer I would add my dog’s studded collar and wearing safety-pins for earrings.

As an aside, this is what probably led my mother to believe for a few weeks that I was gay. Sometimes my mom could be so stupid. The correct thing to worry about was not whether I was a lesbian. The proper parental concern when your child sneaks out to see Iggy Pop and Sex Pistol movies looking like that is: “are you taking drugs?” But, I wasn’t gay or on drugs.

But back to the July 4th of my 18th year. The one thing that I remember fondly was the sheer comedic brilliance of Polyester. This is a movie that came with a scratch and sniff card, with smells like fart and throw-up. Can you imagine, the whole theater lit up with the smell of vomit? Awesome!

This is a scene from early in the movie. I will always remember this scene because it was so funny I laughed until my stomach hurt, and it let me know that this was going to be a comedy like nothing I had seen before.

Occassional bottom-feeding is good

I was channel surfing this morning, and came upon the end of an episode of Cheaters. I only caught the end of this segment, but it was so special that I had to track it down online and share it with you.

Gwen Verdon

When I was a kid, there was a period in our family’s entertainment that I think of as “the play phase”. This was a period that started when I was 7 or so and ended when I was 12.

The play phase began for me when my parents and my brother went to see my brother perform in his school’s version of Street Scene. Aside from my grandmother’s complaining, it was a pretty good time for me. For weeks I would pull the program out of the drawer in our dining room and sing all the songs I could remember.

In the years that led up to Street Scene, aside from The Sound of Music, I hated musicals. Still do. If we had a lifelong friendship, and you gave me a DVD of a musical, I would begin to reconsider the depth of our relationship. But if you took my to see a Broadway musical, I would be deeply moved because it would mean that you truly understand me.

There is hardly any reason for a musical to be on film. Films are for real stories, and there is no damn reason to sign and dance to get your point across.

Anyway, one of the musicals that my parents took me to see on Broadway was Chicago. I was 11 or 12 so the plot was totally lost on me. But I studied the Playbill and knew the cast and the songs. And one of the actresses in Chicago was Gwen Verdon, who played the murderess Roxie Hart. She has won four Tony awards, and was a star of stage and film.

Gwen Verdon died of natural causes in 2000, but she is a viral video star on YouTube. Here she is in a video that has gotten almost 7,000 hits. The song in this mashup is Walk It Out by Unk.