The Dharma Bum

"Life is what happens when you're too busy making other plans" - John Lennon

Me and my big mouth, well in this case, me and my big pen. And for those three people who have the Speak Out line on speed dial, before you prepare to launch your hour-long crusading barrage vilifying my use of clandestine content in this column, as David Carradine said, "Patience grasshopper". No boys and girls, "my big pen" is not a deviant colloquialism or sexual euphemism, at least not this time. Last time I was writing about my ever-vacillating luck - one day I have less than a fortnight to prepare for the GRE, the next I discover that I have free cable and HBO. As the luck of the Irish would have it, later that week my free cable was disconnected faster than Walt Flanagan's dog, I'm guessing because whoever was getting the bill finally became cognizant of the fact. Of course, the damnable part of it all is that I can't even call and complain about it, because, as my girlfriend pointed out; I wasn't paying for it to begin with. All I'm saying is bunch of savages in this town.

On a lighter note, I think I shall use the rest of this column in shameless promotion and gratuitously plug some very good friends of mine, at least until my train of thought derails. Dear readers, there is a band out there who has gained more notoriety, fame, and dedicated fans thru the evil invention of Mr. Gore's Internet than the Tommy and Pamela Lee video could've ever dared to dream. These compatriots of mine go by the moniker of Fisher, and without a doubt, they are the bee's knees, and I'm not just saying that because they're my friends, or because they pay me to run their official website - www.thefisherkingdom.com - hey, I told you it was shameless promotion. Seriously though, their debut album comes out on Interscope Records on November 14th and I guarantee once you hear it, it will lift whatever fog you may have in your life. These are rocking good tunes, and this cd, "True North" will help you to see the top of the mountain, help you win friends and influence people, and trust me, will provide a veritable resource for all those mix tapes you make for that special someone.

There now, that wasn't so bad was it? I was rather amazed though to find out that a Fisher song had been licensed to be in a CBS Sunday night movie by that movie's star, Valerie Bertinelli. (In case your Gen-X memory isn't as perspicacious as it should be, Valerie Bertinelli was the younger, cuter sister on One Day at a Time & she's also married to Eddie Van Halen -enough said). The movie, cozily titled "Personally Yours", was a fitting vehicle for such a romantic dulcet. I'm a romantic at heart anyway, and this movie was absolutely fabulous. Obviously taking into account it's a CBS Sunday night movie you know it's going to have a happy ending, but in a desensitised and inundated world of blow-em up, shoot-em up, rock-em sock-em, big boobs on fake girls, and more gratuitous sex scenes that Cinemax on a Friday night, it's nice to watch a movie that just makes you feel good.

Of course, to play my own devil's advocate, I do enjoy action flicks, but there's a point when all three of the original ideas in the Hollywood action genre become a bit too stagnant. Maybe things just seemed simpler when I was a younger lad; I mean action flicks for me, when I was a kid were Star Wars, Conan, fun stuff like that. Of course one of the best by-products of the 80's cinematic industry has to be the comedies. I choose now to extend a personal thank you to John Hughes and John Landis for providing me with the fodder and banter that helped me to become the gent I am today. Countless times during my youth I always wanted to go to Shermer, IL, but regretfully as two prophets found out, it doesn't exist. And I don't think there's any self-respecting male who grew up during the 80's who doesn't remember who Kelly LeBrock is. C'mon guys, your girlfriends aren't looking, Kelly LeBrock - remember she was in Weird Science, Woman in Red, that silly Steven Seagal movie -yeah I know that helps, that "one" silly Steven Seagal movie. My point is, well, at this point I've completely forgotten what I was talking about, so I'll do as my dearest mother taught me - no, not that insomnia and junk-food diets are a viable alternative to all this "live healthy jive, but that when I get lost to go back to the beginning, so...

They turned off my cable, bunch of savages in this town.

As I write this superfriends I'm preparing for my first sabbatical back to Cape Girardeau, which as I've been informed, is coinciding with Homecoming weekend, imagine my rapture. I just hope I get voted Homecoming King, or Queen, whichever I'm not picky. So to encapsulate and summarise: sexual euphemisms are healthy; don't ever advertise that you have free cable; on Nov. 14th hop, skip and jump over to your favourite record store for the Fisher cd "True North"; big boobs on fake girls are bad (Sorry Barbie); Shermer, IL is my big-bang-big buck-1,000 points of light-voodoo economics Mecca governed by Mr. John Hughes and Kelly LeBrock serving as its matriarch. Really, would the world be the same if it weren't for that 80's adolescent pseudo-coital chicanery coupled with latent to mild profanity and the sight of a virtual cornucopia of white suburbia's horny teenagers running around in their underwear, or even less than that? Such a capriciously flamboyant era to come to puberty in - sex, drugs and rock and roll, chips, dips, chains and whips. I mean we're not talking candle wax on the nipples or witchcraft or anything, just a generation of adolescents trying to come to terms in a world where all the good themes were used up and turned into theme parks. So as the sun sets slowly in the West, I bid you a fond farewell from my own little Shermer, IL without cable, rock stars for great friends living the life, and little old me with my caffeine salvation keeping my big mouth, well, in this case pen, shut.