Overheard, Underhanded
by Your Diva, Robin Pastorio-Newman

Your Darling, Your Diva, Your One True Love is auntie to a small herd of nephews and one witty niece. Over the weekend, one of the three year old boys needed a haircut but didn't want to go to the barber. Your Italian Sandal overheard this conversation while on the phone with one of her myriad statuesque sisters.
 
Toddler: (sobbing) I don't want to go to the barber he sprays my head with water I don't want him to spray my head with water I don't want to go to the barber!
 
Sister: (doing two other things simultaneously) Tell Daddy to ask the barber not to spray you with water. Then the barber won't do it, okay?
 
Toddler: Okay! (Runs off to issue orders to Daddy.)
 
Sister: So you were saying...
 
Diva: I was talking about the savings bonds...
 
(Sounds of toddler crying loudly, and getting louder.)
 
Sister: Honey, what's the matter? Didn't Daddy say he'd tell the barber not to spray your head with water?
 
Toddler: (sobbing) Yes but I don't want to go to the barber I don't want to get a haircut I don't want to go!
 
Sister: (has determined he's not really upset) Okay, honey, could you keep it down until I get off the phone, hmm?
 
Toddler: (turning on his heel, pint-size Travolta) Hey! Crying over here!
 
Sometimes, one has to lie down to laugh hard enough. At that moment, Your Cowboy Boot was grateful for a carpeted floor and a deaf neighbor. Method acting aside, we make our points in our own individual ways. Since October, though possibly as long ago as four years, New York Times reporter Jayson Blair made his by making stuff up. Yes, darling: over the weekend the New York Times ran a four-page spread that tried to reestablish reader trust after it was learned that the Times had published stories that were at best inaccurate and at worst works of fiction. Suddenly, life is more exciting, isn't it? We are all aware that reporters often cite mysterious sources, some of which we vaguely understand are guys overheard in hallways discussing last Saturday night at Lucky Chang's, but if we can't trust reporters to feed us our news-related rumors who can we trust? It's so interesting to be suspicious!
 
Well, sure, that'll quicken the pulse, but it's more interesting to be genuinely interesting, and to this end, one might go to the movies. Our sizable landing party included a cruise director who wanted us to see A Mighty Wind. He'd already seen it, and wanted to see it again. Moviephone told us the wrong times. Upon our arrival at the theater, we discovered that the 7:30 show was actually a 9:00 show, so we had time to kill. Fortunately, we were at a mall and surrounded by 14 year olds trying to bum cigarettes, and their 18 year old babysitters, the security guards.
 
The movie theater at the Menlo Park Mall faces an arcade, and the entrances to both are outside the mall itself. This is the place where adults, presumably with their own cigarettes, go to smoke, and one can tell this is where one is supposed to stand outside and smoke because ashtrays stand along the walls. Unfortunately, the mall provides no seating and - no lie - Barry Manilow's Greatest Hits issued from the arcade at a soul-destroying decibel level. While we waited for a tardy friend, the security guards actually asked us to move on. We refused on three occasions. The overall impression: You with the disposable income! Get the hell into that mall and spend it!
 
Despite this ghastly set up, Your Square-Heeled Evening Boot offers her highest compliment to A Mighty Wind: I wish I'd written that. It's really smart, hysterically funny, the songs are perfect. The ensemble cast, familiar from Spinal Tap, Waiting For Guffman and Best in Show, is a joy to watch. Eugene Levy, paired with fellow Second City TV alumnus Catherine O'Hara, is fantastic as an aging, rage-addled folk musician on the verge of a full-blown mental collapse. Like the other films by Christopher Guest, audiences must be willing to really listen to lengthy dialogues, but the attention to detail pays off.
 
Of course, Your Open-Toed Pump could be making this all up. She makes up these columns weekly and she herself is something of a fiction, with the modest exception of pesky facts here and there. You can establish for yourself whether or not A Mighty Wind is very funny by plunking down your nine bucks and making your own determination. As proof goes, that's as solid as it gets.
 

 

©2003 Robin Pastorio-Newman