koo koo ka choo, Mrs. Andrews

It's become entirely too hot to sleep in the realm of Eastern Massachusetts. Where once cold harsh winter held sway, we now must suffer the indignities of hot, sticky, humid nights where even the slightest breeze is welcome but quite rare. As our electric bill is already incredibly expensive and the lovely Victorian duplex just ain't airtight, we have to forego air conditioning and instead make do with electric fans and open window/door strategies to make the best out of "creating drafts". It's too damn hot, and I can't sleep.

Thankfully, the nice people at the Disney Channel have prepared for my insomnia by treating me to the 1977 "Freaky Friday", a movie I haven't seen in at least 15 years and a wonderful book I haven't read in at least 10. As with many Disney live-action movies in this period, there's a delightful adult subtext to many of the scenes that most kids just won't even notice. I know I sure didn't Way Back When.

Case in point: There's a scene late in the film where Jodie Foster visits her dad's office and runs smack dab into daddy's new secretary, a leggy woman in a slinky red dress that must have been daring and scandalous for 1977. Keep in mind that it's actually Barbara Harris in Jodie Foster's body at this point (keep those comments to yourselves, lads) so naturally she assumes the worst. Dear hubby has a new young plaything to chase around the office. This being Disney, however, it is never brought out into the open, just merely alluded to by a jealous interior monologue and some choice words on the part of Foster Via Harris. The secretary is sufficiently unnerved by Foster's statements that her dad is a "loving family man" and her mom is "not one to be trifled with" that she only appears in two subsequent scenes -- first in a long, gray overcoat, and the second with her hair in an asexual bun and large, round glasses that only serve two purposes in life, and they accomplish them here in fine form. (The two purposes, in case you're wondering, are to completely de-sensualize the wearer, as well as give them lemur-like eyes, all the better to not comprehend reading, my dear.)

The running joke is inherently obvious to adults, especially those who still work in these kinds of offices or think that Beetle Bailey is a hilariously true slice of office life. But to a kid? Who knows? All I remembered from my (repeated) viewings as a kid was that a blender full of chocolate explodes in the kitchen, and a cop car that's chasing Jodie Foster gets split in half right down the middle and boy, was it funny! But I don't remember the odd sub-subplot about the housekeeper drinking (and blaming the missing booze on Jodie -- that lying bitch!) I do seem to recall that I first heard the phrase "male chauvinist pig" in Freaky Friday, but my reaction was exactly that of little Benjy, who asks "Mommy, what's a maleshovinist pig?"

But what surprised me the most was the little tiny bout of chemistry between Barbara Harris and the boy who plays Boris, the kid across the street for whom Foster's character has a mad desire (or at least one of those lovely teenage crushes, more an innocent obsession than desire.) Now in a grown-up body, she makes an effort to woo Boris (who is, conveniently, home from school due to adenoid troubles) with the blissful ignorance of the fact that she's not exactly herself at the moment. What follows could very well have used a Simon & Garfunkel soundtrack, except that since it's Disney and the late 70s they do not romantically intertwine. They don't even kiss. They end up throwing a boomerang through a window and running like crazy down the street. But the dialogue before and after the boomerang-throwing suggested, at least to me, that this movie was toeing a fine line between amusing adolescent comedy and a story you'd find on Usenet involving a cryptic subject line of "mf rom older woman". It got downright eerie watching Barbara Harris mooning, goony-eyed, over an adenoidally-challenged man young enough to be her son. I'm only glad my sleep-deprived state kept me from further extrapolating and making some real scandalous parallels. Wait, I already have.

Probably the most disturbing thing I noticed while in Las Vegas, City That
Disturbs Me Nontheless, was a small casino situated quite a bit away from the
regularly glitzy and tacky Strip. In a town full of themed casinos where you can
experience facsimiles of everything from New York City to Paris to a pirate battle,
a stuck-in-the-corner bastard cousin of this glitz lay the Ellis Island Casino.

I mean, now, really. What possible appeal could Ellis Island hold to those
wishing to gamble? Do they delouse you before you enter, mark your clothes with
chalk based on how much money you've brought with you? And before you
leave, do they give you a new Americanized name?

"Thank you for visiting Ellis Island Casino, Mr. ... Norris. Enjoy your stay here in Las Vegas."

Just what I'd need. An identity crisis in a town that can't make up its mind what it
wants to be when it grows up.

Take care, and don't eat anything you shouldn't.