In, oh, what was it, 1996? My friend Ed introduced me to Ben. It was a magical moment. And when I say introduced I don’t mean he said, hey listen to this CD. Oh NO. He gestured to the diminutive fellow to his right and said, “MJ,” (’cause we’re friends like that), “I’d like you to meet Ben,” and we shook hands and chatted awkwardly and I realized how freaking tall I am and then said, “Well, hey, you’ve got a show to do.” This was back in the Ben Folds Five days. I had been slavishly devoted to the band since I saw them the first time in 1995 and since then have seen Ben live oh, seven, eight times.
TONIGHT, yes, oh, yes, tonight, he’s here in Charlottesville for a FREE show at UVA. Angela will be seethingly jealous.
The girl and I are going to do our best imitation of UVA students and go. BECAUSE WE CAN. It’ll be good to see Ben again.
What’s this? A new Bond.
Darker, smarter, more complex than old
A buff Bond! He’ll keep.
Editor’s note: I’ve never been a big Bond fan. Not like my Granny, anyway. But this one, I liked.
Classic tale, style, look
Love a superhero flick
Reeve would have approved
We took the medical tour; eyes, ears, nose and throat. Today was Ear Day. The girl had a Volkswagon VW, a 1950s metallic Christmas tree and a reupholstered floral love seat removed from her ears. Oh, and an aging tube that didn’t come out on its own. I got to look through the giant lighted magnifying device and you know those caves with the giant stalactites and stalagmites, common in southern Missouri? Yeah, it looked like that. I loved the pediatric ENT so much I could have smooched him right then and there, even though we had to wait 45 minutes to see him. Wait, make that NINE YEARS and 45 minutes as it’s been that long since the girl has had ear woes and TODAY someone fixed them. Just. Like. That.
Anyway, in the waiting room between the audiologists’ and the ENT’s offices, the girl, peering over my shoulder, saw a photo of some dead star in the obit section.
“I’m donating to the buy her braces fund,” she said.
“Petunia!” (not her real name, but a name my mother used to call me and people’s fake names for their kids always crack me up. Once, a guy at Sears in the paint department created the color Petunia just for me.) I said, “that’s not very nice.”
“Hey, you said it first,” she said.
“I did?”
“Yeah, you said, ‘I’m donating to the Hannah Montana orthodontia fund,’” she said.
And she’s right. I did. Somebody get Billy Ray Cyrus’s kid some braces.
The Prestige
Distraction was good.
Illusionist was better.
Ick factor was high.
Greg rating of low on the chick flick scale. Chicks will not dig this movie. Oh! But Scarlett Johannsson’s in it. I almost forgot that.
The only real reason to watch this film is Michael Caine, who I love. He was never better than in The Cider House Rules: “Good night you princes of Maine, you kings of New England.”
