el Monstruo

Stumbled on this while looking for something else. The sequel to this thing was filmed in my home town of Jacksonville, and environs. A classic Beauty and the Beast tale. I vaguely remember my grandfather taking me to watch part of the filming. If you are familiar with it, you'll remember the scene where the monster grabs the girl in a restaurant, runs out carrying her (she fainted, of course), breaks through a chain and dives into the river (St. Johns). I was quite disappointed to realized that the prop guys sawed the chain so that it just barely held. So much for the suspension of disbelief...and at such an early age.

Funky to the extreme. I particularly love the girl's melodramatic gestures when confronted by the rubber-suited creature on the boat. Lots of scenes of Richard Denning and Richard Carlson sans shirts, ladies, or guys, if you are so inclined, for that matter.

Not sure this is worth a post, but here it is.

Franchness Award

By unpopular request, I have taken it upon myself to create an award to end all awards here in bloggerville.

There was an entire gaggle of bloggers who were in the running. So many, that I simply don't have space to mention them all. For those of you who may be scratching there in that nonpublic place and wondering,"what's a gaggle, and does it have anything to do with Google?"...I have an answer, in my usual informative and highly succinct, educational way. A gaggle is, a whole lot. A Google is the entire Universe...somewhat more than a whole lot, but less than the girth of say...oh...Rush Limbaugh---who has been know to take a double gaggle of pain pills on occasion. But, that's another post.

OK, so maybe there weren't that many candidates. A half gaggle, perhaps...which is more than a bunch, and certainly a smidgen, or iota, which has nothing to do with the ancient Classical Grecian Column...that would be Ionic. Speaking of Ouzo...we weren't? Tell it to the Chaplin...or, ameer (sp? so sue me, I'm not Muslim.)

Ouzo: Did I ever relate the fact that I grew up two doors down/up from a Greek Family. The daughter, who was two years younger than moi, was a nice young lady...except that she had a crush on me. The fact that I didn't respond in kind, disqualified her from a life of misery and introspection, and what-the-fuck-was-I-thinkingness. She married a stable, sane, other non-Greek person in the neighborhood. I went to their wedding. And a helluva wedding it was...not fat...just helluva. It was at this function that I was introduced to Ouzo. Ouzo from the freezer...that's where they kept it...and that's where I spent the entire reception...next to the freezer. My advice to you regards Ouzo is...if your car's valves are tapping...dump a pint of Ouzo in the gas tank and...no more tapping. Do NOT drink it!

Back to the subject at Mano (don't you love my bi-lingualness?). I struggled with a name for the award. It had to reflect the classiness of the thought behind the award, and yet not appear pretentious. After wasting an entire evening and bottle of fine Merlot, I hit upon the idea of something Frenchy...something pretentious...such as, du Jeor Award, or Sock Day Blue Award, or Merlot pour Jaded Award (pulease, French speaking peoples out there---do not, DO NOT, correct my French. You may pardon it, but don't correct it. I KNOW it is correctable. And besides---I used to live with a bitch...oops...lady, who spent many years in Franch (Merlot for France) and spoke Franch Ouzoly fluent. She used to correct my Franch constantly. What the bitch...er, lady didn't know was...I DON'T SPEAK FRANCH. Ha!

But, I digress, and duress. The award.

The first, Merlot inspired, non-Grecian, uncorrected Franchy, classy, tres coveted Award entitled, "Moi Blog Award" goes to...

Moi (translation to you non-Franch speakers: Me).

As I said, I struggled with this and the only conclusion can be, I, me, moi, am about blogging. Bloggin' in the self-serving sense. A displaced Southerner, living in the Mid-west, driving a Korean van, and a Japanese car...giving my children Chinese toys, and using a German camera for auto-biographical purposes...who else could be more AMURICAN...and self-centered? Except of course, Sarah whatsher...but she doesn't have a blog...that I would want to visit (you should take note that over there on the right in my blogs I follow...there is no Sarah...Palin...Alaskan...or, Bear blog.)

Sorry all of you followers, I considered each and every, but none of you met the ultimate test: complete self-centered adoration...Narcissusness. Moi do.

Bon jour soup de day.

Oops, forgot...here's the thingy thing award graphicness:



Feel free to steal it, copy it, eat it, award it to yourself...or just go to sleep...with the help of a glass of Merlot...DO NOT DRINK OUZO! Well, maybe just a snort.

The Love Goddesss

An old favorite of mine revisited. Judy Tenuta. I love you Judy in your Judyness. Jaded.



A couple of other notes regards Judy:

Other monikers include "Aphrodite of the Accordion," "Fashion Saint," "Princess of Panty Shields," and "Empress of Elvis Impersonators."

Tenuta's persona encourages fans to convert to her own personal religion, "Judyism."

She married Emo Philips in 1988, but they've since divorced and remarried again in 2000.