"Joe Bob Goes to the
Drive-In" for 3/4/94
cutline:
By Joe Bob Briggs
Drive-In Movie Critic of Grapevine,
Texas
Never
before has there been such intense competition to win a Hubby.
The
1993 Drive-In Academy Award nominations were marred by a nasty incident in
which Traci Lords had her knee bashed in by an attacker hired by the creepy
boyfriend of . . . well, we're not sure just who it was. But the Drive-In
Awards Committee met and decided that the injury would not affect Traci's acting
anyway, and so it was an ESPECIALLY stupid thing to do.
Don't
let that spoil it for you.
Get
out your pencil.
Send
in those ballots NOW.
And
the nominees are . . .
BEST FLICK
"Dark Tide," about a bimbo scuba
diver who goes to a tropical island paradise to meet her boyfriend, who's on a
mission to find deadly poisonous sea snakes and sell their venom for medical
research, only she doesn't realize that she's entered a country dedicated to
the ancient religion of Woman-Hating, and she's liable to be fresh meat for the
local creepolas.
"Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story,"
about a little boy who has nightmares all the time about a giant demon in a
spiked helmet, but learns kung fu, beats up some drunk Australian sailors at
the high school dance, flees Hong Kong so he won't have to go to jail, washes
dishes in San Francisco's Chinatown, fights a HELLACIOUS comedy fight with four
cleaver-throwing fellow dishwashers, beats up four muscle-builders at the WASP
college, starts teaching jujitsu to white people, gets in trouble with the Kung
Fu Supreme Court for giving away ancient Chinese kung-fu secrets, falls in
love, goes to the movies and gets very sad when he sees Mickey Rooney doing the
Chinese guy in "Breakfast at Tiffany's," writes papers on Hegel, gets
married, fights with his mother-in-law, fights a giant Kung Fu master who
cheats and injures Bruce's spine, wakes up in the hospital, writes his book,
goes to Ed Parker's first big karate tournament in Long Beach and gets booed
for his theories, gets a job as Cato on "The Green Hornet," becomes a
movie star in Hong Kong, makes "Enter the Dragon," and then his head
explodes.
"Fit To Kill," the classic story
of beach-bunny spies taking a bath in a waterfall when they're suddenly
interrupted by a paint-ball attack, strafed by miniature-helicopter artillery,
then sent to a meeting with a nude disc jockey, her hot-tubbing assistant and a
topless lounge singer who are all, of course, crack undercover agents trying to
foil R.J. (son of Roger) Moore's play to steal the Alexa diamond, which is
being given by the Russians to the United States because it was stolen by the
Nazis.
"Running Cool," the first
environmentalist handicapped-rights biker movie, where all the Harley-riding
tattoo freaks band together to save the swamps of South Carolina and the honor
of the local crippled-girl waitress.
"To Sleep With a Vampire," about
a guy who takes a topless dancer home on his motorcycle, confesses he's a
vampire, and asks her to "tell me about the day," reminds her that,
yes, at dawn he'll be required by legend and his nature to digest her like a
Swanson's TV dinner--but meanwhile, "Let's party!" Pretty soon we've
got Duelling Fashion-Model Bloodsuckers in a REAL nineties relationship. It's
not pretty.
BEST FOREIGN FLICK
"Day of Atonement" (France), the
finest movie ever made about the true inner workings of the French-speaking
Jewish Miami Mafia, and the reasons they hate the Spanish-speaking Chilean-born
German gangsters who don't respect their heritage.
"The Killer" (Hong Kong), the
story of hitmen trying to murder hitmen trying to murder other hitmen, with
shootout scenes that would make Sam Peckinpah feel like a total wimp. One
hundred twenty-seven dead bodies, and 47 million rounds of automatic-weapons
fire.
"Prison Heat" (Israel), the
bimbos-behind-bars flick about four college friends who decide to rent a van
and drive to Turkey while singing "O, Susanna," but get framed on
cocaine charges instead and sold into a white-slavery operation.
"Split Second" (England), the
sci-fi flick set in the year 2008, when "global warming" has turned
the whole world into one giant sauna, and where all the streets are knee-deep
in water, and where some kind of genetic DNA mutant with the brain of a rat is
out there ripping out human hearts and chewing on em like Reese's Peanut Butter
Cups while topless dancers dress up like Hannibal Lecter in underground
nightclubs.
"Tokyo Decadence" (Japan), the
story of a little sad-sack call girl who will do ANYTHING she's asked to do in
the finer hotels of Tokyo. The only thing creepier than what the men want to do
to her is what the men want her to do to THEM.
BEST ACTOR
Red Buttons, "The Ambulance," as
a cantankerous 74-year-old New York Post reporter with indigestion and a heart
problem who's convinced he's gonna win the Pulitzer Prize if he can help Eric
Roberts figure out why an evil ambulance is terrorizing the streets of the
Apple, picking up diabetics and taking them away to some place where they're
Never Seen Again.
Andrew Divoff, "Running Cool," as
the sensitive, misunderstood biker who thinks the way to solve the world's
problems is to "put on a run" with wet T-shirt contests and
greased-pig chases.
Rutger Hauer, "Split Second," as
the coffee-swilling, chocolate-chewing cop who descends into the sewers of
London in search of a genetic DNA mutant creature who enjoys human-heart
burgers.
Tim Matheson, "Sometimes They Come
Back," as the tortured school teacher who returns to his hometown 27 years
after his brother is killed in an accident that he feels incredibly guilty
about, and finds out the four cackling goons who caused the accident are now
hot-rodding zombies who want to enroll in his class.
Vince Murdocco, "Flesh Gordon 2: Flesh
Gordon Meets the Cosmic Cheerleaders," as the oversexed superhero in
purple tights and a penis-shaped rocket who gets kidnapped by cheerleaders,
taken to the Ice Planet, subjected to sensory-overload Busby Berkeley swimsuit
aerobics dancing, captured by Robunda Hooters, and kept for scientific research
because a deadly impotence ray has knocked out all the men of the world.
Andrew Stevens, "Eyewitness To
Murder," as the sensitive El Lay cop who falls in love with a beautiful
blind artist he's protecting from the evil drug dealer who's coming back to
finish her off, but not before Andrew can teach her to ride horses and steal
some nookie under a tree and whine about his failed jazz-clarinet career.
D.B. Sweeney, "Fire in the Sky,"
as the tree-cutter who gets zapped by an alien space ship into a giant brown
fetus pad, and then floats around like a circus midget, chasing his car keys,
until he falls into some kind of alien animal-research laboratory where HE'S
the animal, and then gets dragged, gouged, poked, punctured, and SHRINK-WRAPPED
so the aliens can do eyeball surgery with a drill, until he's found five days
later, nekkid and scared out of his jock strap.
BEST ACTRESS
Brigitte Bako, "Dark Tide," as
the hot scuba-diving French-bikini-wearing heroine who aardvarks in the sacred
pool of the Cave of the Snake, where insane women wander around raving about
the "spirit of the goddess."
Ghetty Chasun, "Gorotica," as a
corpse-loving, bustier-wearing party girl who happens onto a dead diamond thief
while he's still fresh, takes him home, washes him off, shaves his head, and
begs his punk friend to let her sell him to a sleazeball with AIDS.
Lori Jo Hendrix, "Prison Heat,"
as the naive little girl with the body of a woman who gets beat up, abused, and
repeatedly treated like an old dirty dishrag, but lives to get her revenge.
Diane Ladd, "Carnosaur," as the
Looney Tunes scientist who has figured out a way to put dinosaur genes in
chicken eggs, sell them to unsuspecting American housewives, and watch all the
women of America start getting pregnant and spitting out slimy green Jello
molds with baby dinosaurs inside.
Traci Lords, "Intent To Kill," as
a cop who trolls Hollywood Boulevard as an undercover hooker, gets lured into the limo of a Colombian drug
dealer, threatened with a knife, flung out on the pavement, led on a high-speed
chase with multiple crashes and burns, then blamed by her captain for killing
too many people. She kicks off the spiked heels for some stunning kung fu work,
squeezes off a few semi-automatic rounds, drives like a bat out of Hong Kong,
and roams around El Lay, throwing rapists off balconies to make herself feel
better.
Miho Nikaido, "Tokyo Decadence,"
as the 22-year-old girl who studies sign language so she can work at a deaf
orphanage, goes to a fortune teller, wears a good-luck ring, pines for a
married man who left her three years ago, and spends several hours a day
running around town with a purse full of sex gizmos, turning $3,000 tricks
where she does everything except get down on the floor and bark like a dog.
Charlie Spradling, "To Sleep With a
Vampire," as a lonely topless dancer who gets taken home by a vampire and
ends up thinking it's kinda kinky.
Stacey Travis, "Dracula Rising,"
as an art restoration expert who suddenly gets summoned to Romania to repair a
painting in an abandoned monastery owned by two vampires and finds out she's
actually returning to the village where she lived 500 years before and
aardvarked in the local lagoon with Christopher Atkins and was burned at the
stake for being a slut.
BREAST ACTRESS
Brigitte Bako, "Red Shoe
Diaries," as the pouty-lipped brunette who has a nice boyfriend who wants
to marry her, but she gets a chance to have wild animal sex with a construction
worker and part-time ladies shoe salesman, and so, of course, who can resist
that?
Sandahl Bergman, "Body of
Influence," as the sensitive confused young housewife who has hot sex with
Nick Cassavetes on his shrink couch and then says, "You know what? This
might qualify as sexual harassment."
Sabryn Gene't, "Illegal Entry,"
as the blonde bimbo fleeing from the people who executed her parents while they
were IN FLAGRANTE AARDVARKUS, because her father controlled a secret formula
that would solve world hunger.
Florence Guerin, "The Turn-On,"
as the bimbo who JUST CAN'T WAIT to slough that slinky black evening gown off
her creamy white shoulders, frolic nekkid through the woods, and say
"Since when do YOU call me Claudia?"
Jessica Hahn, "Bikini Summer 2,"
as the nymphomaniac Home Shopping Network addict who rolls around her bed all
day dressed in Victoria's Secret lingerie, fantasizing about Jeff Conaway.
Toni Naples, "Prison Heat," as
the tattooed lesbo evil bad-girl gang leader.
Brigitte Nielsen, "Chained Heat
2," as the evil, kinky warden of the meanest women's prison in
Czechoslovakia. Her hair is cropped, her abs are toned, her thunder thighs are
rippling beneath her Dacron bodystocking, and she has this mean whiskey-voiced
laugh that begs to be slapped by her sadistic lesbo lover.
Elena Sahagun, "Intent To Kill," as
the hooker with a heart of lead, who dances around nekkid to amuse herself,
works Hollywood Boulevard for the fun of it, pours three pounds of cocaine down
her throat, and says "I'm gonna tell him how you treat me!" right
before "he" shoots her.
Dona Speir, "Fit To Kill," as the
undercover federal agent who dresses up in a sexy party dress and goes to a
reception where she ends up dancing with R.J. Moore, then gets knocked out,
drugged, and TAKEN ADVANTAGE OF until she gets her dander up and says
"Kane! That bastard tried to have us killed!"
Stephanie Spencer, "Satan Place,"
as the beautiful bleach-blonde who fields a series of crude remarks from
belching, T-shirt-wearing, pickup-driving character actors, then watches them
die in grisly blood-spurting closeups after being visited by zombies, so that
in the big final story of the video, she can dress up in black lingerie, tie
her weenie boyfriend to the bed, summons a demon into her body, and screams
"You are a vile sub-creature of God!"
BEST SLIMEBALL
Eric Braeden, "The Ambulance," as
the creepola doctor who abducts diabetics and uses them as guinea pigs for his
experiments with pig-pancreas transplants, and says things like "Yes, I
will eventually kill you, but I assure you you'll be in perfect health when you
die."
Nick Cassavetes, "Body of
Influence," as a Beverly Hills psychiatrist who videotapes all his
sessions with bored housewives, even the ones he has sex with.
Uri Gavriel, "Prison Heat," as
the sadistic warden who runs a white-slavery operation and grins a lot while
he's raping the inmates and saying "Soon you will come to enjoy
this."
Lance Henriksen, "Hard Target," a
sadistic piano-playing killer who charges rich guys $500,000 to play a
"game" where a homeless guy is given $10,000 and told that, if he
makes it ten miles to the Mississippi River, he gets to keep the money. If he
doesn't make it, the hunters kill him with a gut-ripping laser arrow.
Jack Ramey, "The Age of Insects,"
as the insect-worshipping scientist in Manhattan who lures people to his
laboratory with newspaper ads offering "personality changes," then
drugs them, rubs gooey juice all over their bodies, chants demonic slogans, and
forces them to mate with his East Indian lab assistant cleaning woman,
"the mantis queen" who will bring on the "final march toward
ento-socialism" in which we will all be descended from grasshoppers.
John Saxon, "Hellmaster," as a
psycho biochemist who lives under the streets perfecting a drug that turns your
body into a drooling slimy zombie shape, but you don't care, because it gives
you the ultimate high and makes you more intelligent than Jerry Lewis thinks he
is after six beers.
Richard Tyson, "Dark Tide," the
stringy-haired beefcake Michael Bolton-looking Beach Bum From Hell.
Christopher Walken, "Day of
Atonement," as the arrogant Chilean-German drug trafficker with vicious
attack dogs who agrees to accept a ton of cocaine that's coming in on a
mattress barge and says "I should have known--never work with Jews."
Doug Wert, "Dracula Rising," as
the evil vampire who says "She has very sweet blood--I can smell it--it's
what we vampires call Blood Lite."
BEST FEMME FATALE
Drew Barrymore, "Doppelganger,"
in a dual role as a Psycho Bitch From Hell busting out of her skin-tight body
stocking, dancing like Madonna at Hollywood parties on the one hand, and a
"nice girl" who likes to tidy up on the other. She's mentally
disturbed, nubile, and looking for a new apartment--a deadly combination as the
members of her family die horribly from multiple butcher-knife wounds.
Morgan Fox, "Flesh Gordon 2: Flesh
Gordon Meets the Cosmic Cheerleaders," as the enormously-talented Robunda
Hooters, who says "We don't want your money, just your virility."
Kathleen Kinmont, "C.I.A.: Code Name
Alexa," as the head-butting, machine-gunning ninja agent and sensitive
foreign terrorist killer who doesn't mind murdering ten or twelve of her fellow
hoods, but crumples into a little whimpering pile of pancake makeup when they
show her Crayola drawings by her daughter.
Sally Kirkland, "Double Threat,"
as an aging actress trying to make a comeback while making the sign of the
four-winged heliotrope with her live-in boytoy. (Are they real, or are they
Mammarex?)
Tracy Scoggins, "Alien Intruder,"
as the evil alien in lipstick, spiked high heels, and a red mini-dress, vamping
around the spaceship, saying things like "Violence makes me soooo
horny" and "Enjoy your meat" and "Tell me you don't like
nasty," until all the guys are blowing one another away.
Shannon Whirry, "Body of Influence,"
as the wildwoman who shows up one day in a shrink's office, rips off all her
clothes, and basically twists his body into a pretzel until he agrees to do
anything, including murder people.
BEST DIALOGUE
Barbara Lee Alexander, "Illegal
Entry," comforting a girl who has just lost both her parents: "Well,
what's done is done."
Brigitte Bako, "Red Shoe
Diaries": "He made love like he worked on the street--tender as a
jackhammer."
Ned Bellamy, "Carnosaur":
"The last thing we need is a biotech panic about chickens."
Richard Berry, "Day of
Atonement": "There isn't a twenty-dollar bill in Miami that doesn't
have a little coke on it."
David Carradine, "Kill Zone":
"Send a message to Charley--the beast is in the bush, and he's
hungry!"
Raul Davila, "Day of Atonement":
"You and your guests stink!"
David Duchovny, "Red Shoe
Diaries": "I want to see the outline of your body through your
nightgown."
Neil Duncan, "Split Second":
"I think he's a psychotic with a psychopathic personality."
James Gammon, "Running Cool":
"I ain't gonna let em build no prefabricated paradise--I ain't gonna let
em kill those critters."
Sabryn Gene't, "Illegal Entry":
"What's wrong! What's wrong! My mother and father were killed in front of
me! My best friend and my aunt were shot because of this formula! It just
doesn't make any sense! Dad only wanted to do good, and now everybody's
dead!"
Rutger Hauer, "Split Second":
"The only thing we know for sure is that he's NOT a vegetarian!"
Lance Henriksen, "Hard Target":
"Careless and stupid and now you're sorry, too."
Louis Homyak, "The Age of
Insects": "You and your smelly lingerie, all over town!"
Leslie Hope, "Doppelganger":
"Okay, I'm a slut, you're a slut. Who wants coffee?"
William Dennis Hunt, "Flesh Gordon 2:
Flesh Gordon Meets the Cosmic Cheerleaders": "Stop your blubbering
and tie her up!"
Dingo Jones, "Gorotica":
"Look, he's my friend, and I say we cut him up."
James Earl Jones, "The
Ambulance": "One thing about women, they always turn up."
Diane Ladd, "Carnosaur":
"The earth was not made for us--the earth was made for the
dinosaurs."
Michael Learned, "Dragon: The Bruce
Lee Story": "The world needs hamburgers--it doesn't need judo."
Wendy MacDonald, "L.A. Goddess":
"You fire all the white trash off this movie or I'm walking!" and
"Get off that stage, you stupid bimbo, lemme show you how it's done!"
and, after she bumps into a waiter, "They should teach these people to
walk in English"
Brigitte Nielsen, "Chained Heat
2": "Dance for me, bitch!"
Margie Peterson, "Strike a Pose":
"Some guys know the difference between foreplay and four minutes!"
Jack Ramey, "The Age of Insects":
"Please restrain your neurotic dribble until afterwards!" and
"I'm sending you back to Calcutta to sleep on a dungheap with the rest of
your relatives!"
Gary Roberts, "Alien Intruder":
"Are we slipping into some black hole of hairless space?"
John Saxon, "Hellmaster":
"If God created this world in six days, and I can make hell of it in one
night, then God must be dead."
Raphael Sbarge, "Carnosaur":
"I hate wildlife!"
Bruce Scott, "Flesh Gordon 2: Flesh
Gordon Meets the Cosmic Cheerleaders": "We will export impotence
across the universe!"
Kathy Shower, "L.A. Goddess":
"If you keep feeding me like this, I'll no longer be a body double but a
DOUBLE BODY" and "Sorry, Mister Mogul, my script and my body are not
for sale!"
Christopher Walken, "Day of
Atonement": "I'm gonna give you three days, but if you don't bring me
the coke, I'll hand you your son's head in a plastic garbage bag."
Heather Woodbury, during a drug trip in
"The Age of Insects": "My diaphragm is stuck on the
ceiling."
BEST FU
Michael Dudikoff, "The Human
Shield," kickboxing his way through Iraq, trying to find his whiny weenie
diabetic brother, who's being held hostage by an evil general working for
Saddam Hussein.
Sam Jones, "Fist of Honor," as
the Irish kung-fu loan-shark collection agent who looks like Billy Ray Cyrus on
steroids and has a lot of sex with a lounge singer and has about 17 fights per
day and never collects from anybody without beating him senseless first.
Martin Kove, "To Be the Best," as
the tortured kickboxing brother who says "I sold my soul for a hundred
grand, and blew it straight up my nose."
Lorenzo Lamas, "C.I.A.: Code Name
Alexa," as the macho CIA agent who works in a sewage plant which is
actually the secret headquarters where killer kung-fu teams are trained and
luxurious concrete-bunker apartments are kept full of champagne in case beautiful
foreign agents are arrested and brought there and taken to fancy dinners until
they agree to go back and kill their terrorist bosses and retrieve microchips
that could end the world.
Jason Scott Lee, "Dragon: The Bruce
Lee Story," who becomes the man himself as he says "Be like
water" and "Emotion can be the enemy" and "It's not
strength that matters, it's focus" and "I'll beat any man in this
room in 60 seconds."
Melissa Moore, "Angelfist," as
the gal who gets tied up by terrorists, tortured, raped, and made to suffer a
LOT of lewd remarks, before she breaks loose, leaps onto a train, chokes a
ninja to death with her KNEES, and rushes into the kickboxing arena to warn Cat
Sassoon they're trying to assassinate the ambassador.
Cat Sassoon, "Angelfist," as a
pouty-lipped El Lay cop who busts into motel rooms and kung-fus Mexican drug
dealers, until her kickboxing topless dancer sister gets murdered by samurai
ninjas in the Philippines, causing her to fight her way through political
demonstrations, befriend a weenie named Alcatraz, and enter the big
"Kubate" women's kickboxing tournament.
BEST GROSSOUT
"Carnosaur": Clint Howard getting
his head eaten off by a dinosaur while chewing on a drumstick.
"Children of the Corn II: The Final
Sacrifice": Wheelchair Lady creamed by a dumptruck and launched through
the plate-glass window of a bingo parlor.
"Day of Atonement": When the guy
is pushed out of a helicopter.
"Doppelganger": The big
morph-a-rama finale of gooey Silly Putty skeleton mutants.
"Dracula Rising: Swarming, face-eating
bats.
"Flesh Gordon 2: Flesh Gordon Meets
the Cosmic Cheerleaders": The inter-galactic hemorrhoid field sequence,
and the place inhabited exclusively by excrement beings who sing the song
"When I Met You in the Bowl of Love."
"Hard Target":
Assault-rifle-blast-through-the-eye.
"Prison Heat": Live worm-eating.
"Satan Place": Intestine
force-feeding, closeup chest surgery, and projectile vomit.
BEST DIRECTOR
Luca Bercovici, "Dark Tide."
Larry Cohen, "The Ambulance."
Rob Cohen, "Dragon: The Bruce Lee
Story."
Ferd & Beverly Sebastian, "Running
Cool."
Andy Sidaris, "Fit To Kill."
John Woo, "The Killer" and
"Hard Target."
JOE BOB'S ADVICE TO THE
HOPELESS
Republican Alert! The Rose Bowl Drive-In,
on Route 1 in Atlee, Va., last remaining drive-in in the Richmond area, is
"down for the count," according to owner L.L. Duke, who blames bad
business this year on "too much rain." If anybody's interested, he'll
sell you all 12 acres for $950,000. I can't believe it. After all, this is the
capital of the Confederacy. Lorrie L. Taylor of Midlothian reminds 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 the world-famous newsletter,
"The Joe Bob Report," write Joe Bob Briggs, P.O. Box 2002, Dallas, TX
75221. Joe Bob's Fax line is always open: 214-368-2310.
Dear Joe Bob:
Somebody told me just the other day that
while I was on vacation this summer at the Grand Canyon you wrote up an article
about "Who gets the short end of the stick in the movies? Dad, that's
who!" or words to that effect. I'm sure sorry I missed that in the Sunday
paper. No doubt the version I got was probably even more inspiring than the
original, because I got to imagine the original, just like Lenny Bruce gave the
policeman's version of his act.
Speaking of Lenny Bruce, I need to clarify
the part about Lenny and the therapist. You say we laugh at Lenny Bruce a
different way from the way you laugh at a comedian; he was like a therapist.
A therapist? You mean we laugh at Lenny
Bruce the way we laugh at a therapist, right? You're not suggesting that we sit
there (or lie there) and take a therapist seriously, are you? No. Say it ain't
so. Like you said about Evian and Perrier and Vittles, or whatever: Listen up,
it's water. Listen up about the therapy: It's talk. You don't have to go to
France or Calistoga for water, and you don't have to go to a therapist for
talk.
Lenny Bruce died for our sins.
Later,
Richard Katz
Point Richmond,
Calif.
Dear Richard:
I guess what I meant is that we laugh at
Lenny Bruce in the way you're supposed to respond to a GOOD therapist. You go,
"OH MY GOD, YOU NAILED ME!"
Dear Cuz,
Record low temperatures around the country
are making headlines, and I say you and me ought to get us a first class seat
on this gravy train before it pulls away from the station. Now is the time to write
a book about "The Icebox Effect"--global cooling in the coming
decades caused by furnace emissions which build up the ozone layer into a thick
carapace that blocks out sunlight and transforms the oceans back into glacial
ice. Think of it! Reporters all over the world will earnestly scribble down our
every pronouncement and translate them into headlines as we explain why
shorelines are receding with each drop in temperature, causing another sixty
square miles of glacial ice to form. We'll hit the mashed-potato circuit and
talk about the effect of receding shorelines on the value of real estate for
ten grand a pop. Congress will ask for our testimony before a joint
investigative committee convened to consider appropriate legislation to require
more human activity to thin out the ozone layer. Man, we'll be living high on
the hog from now on. Whaddayasay?
Your loyal local
reader,
Don Bob Ducke
[Tim Kattermann]
[Address Withheld]
Dear Don Bob:
What if we had global NON-cooling and
NON-warming at the same time? What if we had a PERMANENT room temperature? What
would happen? Would the Carrier Corporation go out of business?
Joe Bob,
Help. I'm stuck in my Tudor
"home" (house) with my stock broker wife, two kids, Volvo, Saab and a
law degree. I'd give it all up for a pick-up, a six-pack and one Drive-In
Academy role. Any hints on career changes would be appreciated.
Thanks,
J.T.H.
Wrightsville Beach,
N.C.
Dear J.T.:
Alcoholic actors who drive . . .
alcoholic actors who drive . . . let's see . . .
Nope. Dennis Hopper already has a lock
on the business.
Dear Fellow Citizen:
When you wrote that nobody really knows
what free speech is, I couldn't agree with you more.
The freedom that has to do with SPEAKING
has a history. Free speech meant--and still means--freedom (absolute) of
willing discourse about our self-created system of government. (Our English
forebears were not allowed to talk about or criticize government.)
What is free of governmental regulation
(absolute) is a process, not an individual "right." And the process
that is free is a process essential to democratic self-government--the sine qua
non of democracy.
Free speech as a process does not mean free
speaking, free expression or unregulated conduct. When our Bill of Rights was
written the word speech meant willing discourse, as in the then common phrase
"I wish to have speech with you."
I wish to engage you in speech about the
true meaning of the First Amendment. Are you willing? If so, your response will
be welcome and meaningful.
P.S. Question: When the Pennsylvania
governor was drowned out by pro-choice protesters, what about the "freedom" of these protesters to
speak (shout)? Does the First Amendment require listening?
Respectfully,
Louis Worth Jones
San Mateo, Calif.
Dear Louis:
I'm not sure exactly what you're asking
me, but if you're asking if there's a difference between shouting something you
wanna say, and shouting something so I can't HEAR what somebody ELSE is saying,
then yes, goldang it, there's a difference. The people who hate free speech so
much they don't want anyone to exercise it should be tossed out of the
building.
Dear Joe Bob,
Well, I got to tell you that I have up and
gone to Kansas City again, but with much better results this time than the last
time I wrote to you, and I knew you would want to know this.
Seems I WON one of them random-drawing
deals right here in River City, and be darned if I didn't win the Grand El
Numero Uno Prize: a weekend in KC, including a free stay at A Residence Inn
(you know, one of them hotels where your room is very private and you get a
full kitchen to keep beer cold and pizza hot?), a carriage ride around the
snooty Plaza shopping area, and dinner for two at the overpriced but not snooty
Bristol Bar and Grill.
You probably recall my disastrous
experiment with Love By Mail that got me to write to ya in the first place.
This time, I did it right and hit the jackpot: a dark-haired little beauty
who--Lordy, Lordy--manages a bar & grill!!!
Well, this time was the make-good for the
last time! We warmed up for dinner by helpin' the Bon Ton Soul Accordion Band
celebrate their seventh anniversary of playin' every weekend at the Hurricane.
You'd like em, Joe Bob. They ain't country but they're a pretty good blend of
country, American rock, and blues. You can unnerstand their songs, almost all
of which are about getting nekkid and having a good time, if you know what I
mean and I think you do. This mail-order date even popped for a couple of
Samuel Adams Lager brewskis (voted best beer in America at the Great American
Beer Festival four years in a row, but that's another trip).
One of the surprises in the weekend turned
out to be that Mary--that's her name--was developing a head cold, so she said
she dint wanna go on no carriage ride in the night air--meaning I could take
the cash they gave me for it and do something more meaningful, like ordering
extra vino with my shrimp at the Bristol.
Which I did.
Joe Bob, they got these mashed potatoes
with garlic in 'em at this place, and I thought you would want to know because
not even in a drive-in movie would you expect anyone to come up with mashed
potatoes that taste good with beer or The Wrath of Grapes. But I want you to
know these boogers were jes' fine!
We are now approaching the Real Meaning of
this weekend trip.
To make sure I was, you know, rested up and
at full bore for Saturday night, I managed to score a little extra work and
squirrel away the cost of gas, a meal and an el cheapo room to get down the
night before. I asked the kid at the front desk where there was someplace to
get beer and somethin' to eat that was worthy, and this fine example of
American youth steered me to Hooters.
The Hooters story is told pretty much in
full by the enclosed menu I stole for you. Read it carefully, Joe Bob, and you
will see why you gotta go there next time you're near KC. They got five--count
em, five--el gigundo grease vats for fryin' stuff individually so the chicken
don't taste like French fries. As soon as you see em and hear the noise when
they drop a basketfull into one of em, you can't help but feel that you're
home. The wings and Coors I had were as close to Right as you'll ever find.
The grill they use is almost as huge and
had personality. I know you know that the best eatin' places have grills with
personality and this is one of them. And they don't use any computer timers or
goofball high-tech bullstuff--your food is undercooked, overdone, or just right,
the way God meant it to be.
The waitresses, in their hot orange shorts
and tied-in-the-back tee-shirts (Hooters don't mean owls, you know), whip the
orders to the fry cooks on a clip on a pulley like you useta see in a 1930's
movie! And they gotta reach and stretch to get to the clips. Russ Meyer would
be proud.
Oh, yeah, a great bumper sticker I saw, but
couldn't get to it for ya: "UGLY STRIKES 1 OUT OF 3," above the grill
at this place.
And what a classy crowd! Nobody had a tie
on, no screamin' kids runnin' around, neither. And get this: a jukebox filled
with music from the 1970's when Music was Music, and when Jimmy Buffet's
"Margaritaville" came on, nobody sang along with it!
Well, Joe Bob, this will do it for now. I
promise to keep on sending you all this good useful information and stuff for
the Museum of American Culture, and when you get to parts closeby, beer and
wings is on me at Hooters.
Four stars. Big George says check it out.
George Kaywood
Omaha, Neb.
Dear George:
So what happened Saturday night, George?
You blew it again, didn't you, you
rascal?
© 1994 Joe Bob Briggs All Rights Reserved