"Joe Bob Goes to the
Drive-In" for 9/20/91
cutline: Once you realize that the
textbook uses Playboy Playmates, the lessons in "Secrets of Making
Love" are easier to understand. (Lingerie not included.)
By Joe Bob Briggs
Drive-In Movie Critic of Grapevine,
Texas
You
know what burns my bacon? It's when they release the movie to the video store
BEFORE it ever plays at the drive-in. I was wandering through Zeke's Bait &
Video a couple weeks ago, and I came across this flick called "Playboy's
Secrets of Making Love to the Same Person Forever," and I went "Whoa!
Which person are they talking about?" And Zeke didn't know diddly squat
about it, and so I ended up taking it home, thinking that it might ENHANCE my
performance, if you know what I mean and I think you do.
Not
that I'm worried.
And
it did. It changed my life. I've watched this movie four times now. It's hard
to follow, cause it has this psychiatrist woman with a breathy voice COMMENTING
on the proper way to do the old El Flagrante Aardvarkus. But, as near as I can
tell, there are six rules for keeping the permanent zip in your zipper. And
I'll tell you about while describing exactly how they applied to my own life.
Problem
Numero Uno: "When Love Making Has Become a Time Management
Problem." This reminded me of the time when I called up Wanda Bodine and
asked her if she wanted to buy a six-pack or go OUT for dinner? And she
replied, "My life has become one big six-pack." And this was too
heavy for me, but I knew what she was getting at: she had NO TIME to be
responsible for the six-pack all the time.
The
video solved this problem. Dr. Joy Davidson, the Marilyn Monroe soundalike
psychiatrist, said that all we had to do was "plan a day together,"
somewhere out in the boonies, where we could relax and eat food "that
reminds you of your honeymoon trip to Maui." I knew they didn't mean us to
take that part literally, so I bought two giant mustard pretzels to remind us
of a convention I went to in Philadelphia.
One
thing I need to point out right here is that every romantic tip on the video is
ILLUSTRATED by a Playboy Playmate with enormous dinglebobbers. So when this
lady shrink is saying stuff like "Focus closely" and "Allow all
of your senses to flourish" and "Be here, right now--live in the
moment," you're going "Yeah! Move a little to the left! Yes! I'm with
you! Yeehaw!" But then, when you apply it to real life, it's never quite
the same. For example, in the video, this particular section ends with hot sex
in a rowboat.
We
tried the same thing out at Lake Grapevine, and Wanda got cited for
"disrupting a bass tournament." Also, we had to pick three fishing
lures out of her butt. Other than that, it was pretty exciting.
So
we moved on to tip number two: "Putting the Spice Back Into a Routine Love
Life." I told Wanda this one was gonna be tough, because what they suggest
is you go out to your backyard pool, put suntan lotion on each other, and
"let the child in you emerge." First they want you doing it ON the
water, now they want you doing it IN the water.
I
went to Target and got a pool for $24.95, but while I was blowing it up, Wanda
decided she didn't want to get romantic in my backyard, because both sides of
the pool would be touching the concrete steps on two other trailer houses. I
didn't see how this mattered--it wasn't really covered in the video--but
fortunately they had a second option. Just stop somewhere and wrestle around in
the backseat of the car. THIS we could do.
"Appreciate
each other like it's the first time," the video says. So I thought real
hard about what it was like my very first time, and I did it exactly the same
way.
Wanda
was FURIOUS.
We
went on to number three: "Recreating Romance." This is a good one.
The video says you should set aside every Wednesday night, call each other up
and plan a meeting in some strange bar where you pretend like you're strangers.
You hire a black man to play the saxophone while you do pick-up lines on each
other, go home in a limo, and get a massage from a Chinese lady with long red
fingernails, then "bare yourself emotionally."
This
one was GREAT for me. I set it all up. We agreed to act like we were strangers.
So when Wanda got there, I was using all my best "What's your sign?"
stuff on her--when in walks this strawberry blonde with a couple of Fuji blimps
under her blouse, and so I said, "Nice talking to you, babe. I'll call
you." And I picked up the strawberry blonde, took her home in the limo. It
was great.
After
I got out of the hospital, Wanda and I watched the rest of the video. Part Four
is "Gaining Positive Sexual Power." This is where the woman is
supposed to act like a stripper. We skipped this part. It didn't seem to apply
to our situation, ever since Wanda got the night job at Baby Doll's Topless on
Northwest Highway.
Next
we did "Recapturing Spontaneity," where you have sex while you're
riding a Ferris wheel. That would have worked, if we hadn't have chosen the
Ferris wheel at Kiddieland. They just don't go up quite HIGH enough. I think
Mrs. Smithson is gonna drop most of the charges, though.
And
finally, my favorite one was "Renewing Sensuality and Trust," where
you take a bath, blindfold each other, rub a strawberry all over the other
person's body, blow bubbles in their face, put an ice cube on em, tie their
hands to the bedposts and paint their legs.
Well,
now that I think about it, who HASN'T done that? I was hoping there would be
some KINKY stuff in there.
Also,
they should have pointed this out on the video, but it helps if your partner
UNTIES the ropes after you're finished. I was in there for 14 hours before
Rhett Beavers came by and released me.
We're
talking 34 breasts. Multiple aardvarking. Rowboat sex. Underwear Fu. Suntan oil
Fu. Backseat Fu. Limo Fu. Massage Fu. And, of course, Toulouse Latrec Fu.
Drive-In Academy Award nomination for Dr. Joy Davidson, for saying "You
may discover your romance has ONLY begun"; and for Rhonda Miller, who gets
a credit on this movie as "choreographer." Talk about your dream
jobs.
Two
stars.
Joe
Bob says check it out.
JOE BOB'S ADVICE TO THE
HOPELESS
Republican Alert! The Latham Drive-In in
Latham, N.Y., is up for sale, causing Margot Zamboni of Buffalo to wail
ceaselessly through the nights and to remind us that, without eternal
vigilance, it could happen here. To discuss the meaning of life with Joe Bob,
or to get free junk in the mail and his world-famous "We Are the
Weird" newsletter, write Joe Bob, P.O. Box 2002, Dallas, TX 75221, or Fax
him at 214-368-2310.
Editor (San Francisco
Chronicle):
I am writing to complain about the Joe Bob
Briggs column carried in the Pink Section on June 16, and to request that the
feature be dropped from The Chronicle. Particularly after reading his section
on the National Lesbian Conference, I am insulted by his racist, sexist,
homophobic and anti-Semitic opinions.
As a Jewish lesbian who attended the
conference, I was outraged at [his] attack on lesbians. Has it become
acceptable, in 1991, for straight white men to refer to lesbians in print as
"lesbos" and "women who look like men"? Perhaps you allow
this column to go to print without reading it first, so you didn't catch the
fact that Joe Bob says he ran into a lesbian called "Mumbles the
Molester." He chooses to ignore the fact that at least 90 per cent of
child molesters are men (mostly heterosexual men).
Equally disturbing to me is the
anti-Semitism promoted by his belittling of Jewish customs. He refers to
yarmulkes as "those little black beanies" and
"yammakullers." He tries to pass as a Jew, he says, by using the word
"schlemiel." He probably hears that word a lot any time he comes into
contact with Jewish people. No surprise. Perhaps Joe Bob Briggs thinks that it
is safe to attack Jews under cover of an attack on lesbians; perhaps he thinks
it will be lost under cover of his more socially acceptable prejudice. He is
wrong.
Some may argue that dropping the Joe Bob
Briggs feature from your paper is censorship. I argue that, by running his
column, The Chronicle is promoting his anti-Semitic, lesbophobic, sexist,
racist, classist, ableist views. I hope that promoting prejudice is not one of
The Chronicle's objectives.
I realize that Joe Bob Briggs did not
really crash the National Lesbian Conference and that he did not really end up
in the hospital with broken ribs because of it. The whole column was a joke and
I know that, but I'm not amused. Lots of things make me laugh; white
heterosexual men using their privilege to ridicule lesbians and Jews isn't one
of them.
Laura McCamy
San Francisco
Dear Laura:
I had to ask somebody what
"lesbophobic" was. They said it means "fear of lesbians."
You're right.
Dear Joe Bob,
I think you are so funny and talented. I
love to read your reviews. I write to entertain people too but my writing is
more creative writing than journalism. My ex-boyfriend is in a band and I write
lyrics for them. My poems are sparked by deep emotion. It feels wonderful to
get that emotion down on paper.
The reason I'm writing to you is because I
have a question. This may seem strange, but are you really that interested in
breasts? I know I'm not. In fact, it makes me depressed that almost every movie
I see shows naked women. I don't see the need for it. People are always saying
that men have big egos and their pride can be easily hurt. The way women are
portrayed in so many arenas really hurts my pride.
I've sent you a poem I wrote a year or two
ago. I'm not sure why I chose this one.
Believers search for material ectasy
Reflections of fantasies blinding
But believers are only dreaming
And dreamers are only effigies
Let them drift away.
There's too many of them.
I'll lay in the sun and never
I won't ever wonder
Why we falsify with attire
And hide behind common acceptance
To reduce individuality is a task
That should never be abandoned.
Take care!
Theresa Marsh
Winter Park, Fla.
Dear Theresa:
Am I "interested" in breasts?
Depends on what you mean by "interested." If you mean, like, would I
actually CHANGE MY LIFE because of a couple of . . . well, yes, I guess the
answer is Yes! Yes! I am!
Am I in trouble now?
It's not the ONLY thing important about
a woman. It's the only TWO things. (Only kidding.) Please don't turn me into
the feminists again, I can only take one or two of those fights a year.
Dear Sir,
First of all the law on divorce sucks! He
gets half, she gets half, that's a bunch of BULL----. (I believe you know the
word I am referring to).
Let me enlighten you just a little. I fell
in love with a man that I thought I knew and we decided to get married. He had
been divorced for five years and I had been divorced for three. I sold all of
my furniture and rented my house in the country out and I moved to town with
him. In the meantime my daughter wrecked my car, so we paid off the balance
with the insurance money and made a down payment on a new Lincoln. I thought
everything was fine until one day he came to me and said, "Honey, I think
I made a mistake in getting married so soon. Could we separate for awhile? I
don't think I love you enough to stay married, but I would like to try and see
if there is anything to salvage." He told me this while I was
wall-papering the living room, den and both bathrooms.
Now, Joe Bob, where was I supposed to go
and what was I supposed to do? I guess I was supposed to sleep in the car! So I
threw some clothes in my suitcase and dried my eyes and ended up at my parents'
house for a little while (or so I thought).
I have a good job, but Blytheville is a
small town, and it didn't take very long for the news to get around that we
were having trouble. Well, this little trial separation went on for a couple of
months when he told me he wanted me to file for divorce. I told him to go to
hell and that if he wanted a divorce he could file himself. Then the sorry son
of a bitch told me if I wanted to keep the Lincoln I would have to pay $365 a
month payment and $106 a month insurance. I bet you can guess what I told him
to do with the car. It was at this point that I decided my only recourse was to
murder the S.O.B.
To make a long boring story short, he kept
the Lincoln, bought a new Corvette and got a younger girlfriend, and as far as
I know they are very happy living in the house that I busted my ass to fix up.
So in other words, Joe Bob, if the sorry S.O.B. was on fire I would pour more
gasoline on him and stand there with a blowtorch just in case it went out.
So, is this simple?
Are you following me so far?
Anything hard to understand here?
On yeah, you may take your so called wisdom
of divorce and shove it up your ----!!!!!!!!
Sincerely yours,
P. Lynne
Blytheville, Ark.
Dear P.:
Well, I'm glad you were able to come to
some resolution about your feelings.
I think you should go with that
blowtorch thing. You can't go wrong with honesty.
Dear Joe Bob,
In reference to Tim Burns' query about that
awesome spectacle, "Switchblade Sisters," also called "The
Jezebels" sometimes: It is indeed a real movie (well, relatively anyway).
It was made in 1975 and starred Joanne Nail, famous action bohunk Asher
Browner, and the inimitable Robbie Tee as Lace, leader of the Jezebels. One
question has always haunted me about this flick. Is Robbie Lee really the
sister of "The Brady Bunch" brat Mike Lookingland? I swear she's a
ringer for him. Or maybe it was really Bobby Brady in drag. I figure if anybody
could find out about this, you could, Joe Bob. You really should check out the
movie (available on Raedon Video) and see the resemblance for yourself. I first
saw the thing in 1980 and I've wondered about it ever since. Thanks to Tim
Burns for reminding me of this unsolved mystery.
Debbie McCampbell
Marietta, Ga.
Dear Debbie:
Thanks for being ever-vigilant about
"Switchblade Sisters." Evidently I was the only guy on the planet who
hadn't seen it. As soon as Tim's letter was printed, the producers of the film
sent me a copy. A review is on the way.
You're asking ME for "Brady
Brunch" trivia? Please.
Dear Joe Bob:
You'll find with this letter, a form
supporting the federal judge Robert Sweet's position to support the
decriminalization of drugs. If someone there agrees with the position of the
judge, copy it first, sign your copy and mail it along with as many other
signature to the address of Judge Sweet. Then circulate the unsigned copy to
another person to do the same. Thank you for taking the time in this very
important issue.
[Letter enclosed
reads as follows:
"Honorable Judge Robert Sweet, United
State Courthouse, Foley Square, New York, NY 10007:
"In respect of your position,
gratitude is given for your strength to come forward and suggest the
decriminalization of drugs as an alternative to the escalating and never ending
use, as printed in the December 13, 1989 issue of the Los Angeles Daily
Journal. Your further continuance to support this issue is welcomed. Below are
names supporting this belief. Start with a hammer. Let's move a train."]
Douglas Marsh
Boron, Calif.
Dear Doug:
Would this bring down the price of wood
alcohol, too?
© 1991 Joe Bob Briggs All Rights Reserved