I'm not a big fan of Broadway musicals but I just couldn't resist an airy new soufflé of a play: "On Your Feet: The Story of Emilio and Gloria Estefan." I had such a wonderful evening that my only regret is I couldn't find anyone to go along.

"It's the story of Gloria Estefan told in song and dance?" asked my friend Margo excitedly.

"Not just Gloria Estefan!" I replied. "Emilio too!"

She cocked her head and shot me a funny look and suddenly remembered that she had to wash her dog. Her loss! Because I give this fabulous little musical two thumbs up.

I have to admit I probably would have stayed away if Emilio hadn't been so visibly included. I don't know about you, but I'd see an ad for "On Your Feet: The Story of Gloria Estefan" and I'd think, "Well, she's fun and all, but I'd really like to see her interact with an accordion player who works at the Bacardi distillery."

After all, what is the showgirl without the businessman? Leaving him out would be like an Oscars broadcast without a mention of Price Waterhouse. He discovered her, so naturally we're dying to hear his story. After all, didn't we flock to "This I Promise You: The Enchanted Life of Lou Pearlman"?

I don't think I'm alone in this, either. Everyone's fascinated by the man behind the woman, which is why the Carl&Dollywood theme park is such a massive hit. I swear, the last time I went there I must have waited in line three hours for the "Basics of Accounting" ride.

And Emilio Estefan is so much more than just a businessman. He mentored Marc Antony, Jennifer Lopez and Ricky Martin, though due to the high cost of getting rights to celebrity names they're called Mike Kasminski, Jackie Pachinko and Fred Mertz in the musical. Permanently burned into my brain is a particularly intense scene where Estefan is determined to make a star of the bumbling Mertz. His voice cracks from strain as he repeatedly prods the young man that it's "la vida lo-CA. La vida lo-CA."

I'm not saying the show would have been unwatchable without Emilio, but it would have suffered. Sure, we would have been delighted by "The Rhythm is Going To Get You," but it wouldn't have resonated half as much without the emotional counterpoint of "Creating A Strategic Marketing Platform With Latin-Oriented Businesses." The kids and the women in the crowd absolutely adored "Conga," but the men didn't really come alive until Emilio's showstopper, "Promoting Trade Diversity in the Miami-Dade Community."

Still, my favorite scene had to be where Emilio and Gloria show each other that their half of the partnership is very hard work. Gloria forces Emilio to sing and dance while wearing bolero shorts, and Emilio makes Gloria sort through her receipts. Is dining in a foreign city ENTERTAINMENT or TRAVEL? I was in hysterics as she tried to decide.

Anyway, I highly recommend this musical. If you've ever wondered about the struggle that comes before success, you should go. If you've ever wanted a deeper explanation of a Gloria Estefan song, you have to go. And if you've ever watched women's gymnastics on TV and thought, "The pommel horse routines are interesting, but I'd really like to know more about that Hungarian guy who pats them on the head afterward," then 1-2-3 get your tickets NOW!

As everybody who doesn't live under a rock knows, a blockbuster new movie just opened. A certain colorful character might call it Star Wars: It Awakens, The Force, Yes It Does, Hmm? but grandma hasn't been the same since her stroke. I'm the series' number-one fan so needless to say I'd been waiting in line at Mann's Chinese since the day Cameron Diaz's movie Sex Bloat opened and closed. Star Wars films aren't just state-of-the-art spectacles: they're an experience shared by virtually everyone alive. Americans adopt Star Wars slang into their lexicon, Europeans debate the metaphorical characters, and Asian kids get the same thrill sewing their four-thousandth R2D2 t-shirt as they did sewing the first.

A lot of people appreciate Star Wars because it doesn't demand a Ph.D. of its audience. It's not asking hard questions like, "Is gender identity more fluid in a post-apocalyptic world?" or "Is this constant violence a result of nature or nurture?," but instead leaves us wondering simple things like, "Wait, so the villain is the only character who's BLACK?"

I love how the filmmakers stay a step ahead of us in knowing what we want. Somehow they've deduced that right after we've met the first woman in a cast of thousands, she should don a bikini in an intergalactic Victoria's Secret fashion show. (Though I'm somewhat relieved they edited out that show's slightly-stereotypical emcee, Gay Gay Bonks.) Even before The Danish Girl hit movie theaters, the Star Wars folks realized they needed to ramp up their feminist punch: finally Leia is promoted to General and given a one-piece.

I also appreciate how intelligent the series is. Think of how much research they must have done, how many scientists and philosopher they must have queried, to finally decide that in the year 45,617 A.D. we'll be bombing everyone who doesn't look like us. How many strange new characters did they invent? How many times did they have to Google "Armenian baby names"? They've populated an entire galaxy with alien races and invented distinct hand-held weapons to kill them all. I think we all remember the iconic cantina scene in the original Star Wars, though it's faded a bit in my memory:

HAN SOLO: Look, Luke! Isn't it incredible here? Fifteen million light years in the future every creature is still a variation on the two-legs, two-arms, central-head rule we saw in The Mummy in 1952. That there is Mando Palrithian. Over there is Mongo Salrathian. That guy is Mingo Casbashian.

LUKE: This is amazing. Look, there's a fish-headed creature in a blue velour bathrobe!

HAN SOLO: Huh. Let's go chop his head off with a buzzing flashlight.

LUKE: Okay!

Imagine being a fly on the wall during those creative brainstorms:

FUTURIST #1: Technology has advanced in quantum leaps. Robots not only have self-awareness and sentience, but they contain all the knowledge of the world. Robots built for different functions will have distinct looks and personalities.

FUTURIST #2: But we'll still need an aggressive white guy to destroy anything really big!

I was on the edge of my seat throughout the entire film. Every time a new character appeared my mind raced. Who would they end up being related to? Is this Chewbacca's nephew? Princess Leia's half-sister? The turd emoticon's father-in-law? And what new weapon would they produce? A gamma ray umbrella? A quantum pine cone? I don't want to sound like a hopeless fanboy but eighty billion years in the future I hope fart cannons become a thing.

Needless to say, I ran straight from the theater to Toys R Us. I ordinarily wouldn't spend $3,500 on needless stuff, but these are investments that can't lose money like my Wumpo Labdabian coin purse. I knew they created toys to exploit every segment of the marketplace, but even I was surprised at the endless rows of action figures. They were big, small, fat, thin, and every shade of the rainbow. There's a little girl action figure who has a single mom and early-onset asthma, and a little boy with a bad lisp and a briefcase he carries to school. I've always gone for the really obscure merchandise, because that's what becomes really valuable, but evidently the Star Wars marketing folks have caught on to this strategy. One figure I bought wasn't even in the movie, but fingers crossed we see more of plucky little Chango Klaptrapian, the home-schooled Christian in the iron lung with the photon cream pies.

Guy Who Got Wartime Medical Deferment Is Absolutely Perfect Now

Meat or Tree?

We've all been there: wandered the twisty streets of some foreign city for hours on end, until our legs ached and our head spun. We try to recover: we duck into an exotic restaurant, grab a table and hope a tasty repast will help. The waiter approaches and he points off in the distance. Our eyes focus and refocus but it doesn't clear up the mystery: is that meat, or a tree?

1.

2.

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4.

5.

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7.

ANSWERS 1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

How It Must Have Happened

The Reverend Roy Herberger, pastor of St. Columbia-Brigid Roman Catholic Church in Buffalo, New York, wanted to put up a funny sign. "Everybody likes funny church signs," he thought, so he went to Google where he found a lot:

DO YOU KNOW WHAT HELL IS?
COME MEET OUR PREACHER

GOD SHOWS NO FAVORITISM
BUT OUR SIGN GUY DOES
GO CUBS!

IPOD? IPAD?
TRY IPRAY
GOD IS LISTENING

One sign in particular, though, struck close to home. He prided himself on keeping tabs on his congregation, and he knew it included a lot of remarried parents. Weren't some of those kids struggling with stepparents? he wondered. Shouldn't he show some support? "I sure as heck will!" he declared, and he went outside and put up this sign:

Within seconds the church's phone was ringing off the hook. Catholics don't support gay marriage! the callers screamed. This is blasphemy! Are you crazy? Are you saying it's okay for gay couples to raise kids?

Naturally Rev. Herberger was shocked. He didn't mean anything like that! He was just providing encouragement to the children in his congregation who had, say, a regular dad along with a new stepdad.

Embarrassed, he raced outside and added a clarifying line:

JESUS HAD 2 DADS
AND HE TURNED OUT JUST FINE
BUT THEY WEREN'T MARRIED TO EACH OTHER

Still, the phone didn't stop ringing. "Are you saying God and Joseph were dating?" Old Lady Blandings screamed. "I'm trying to come up with a reason why you think Jesus' two dads should have gotten married," yelled Willie Grimshaw, a local plumber. "But all I can come up with is YOU'RE A MORON."

Rev. Herberger quickly jogged outside, and he changed the message to this:

JESUS HAD 2 DADS
WHO DIDN'T HAVE SEX WITH EACH OTHER
AND HE TURNED OUT JUST FINE

"I'm a little confused," said "Tiny" Mike Gastrudo. "Are you saying the two dads never had sex with each other, or stopped having sex with each other?" "So everything's cool if the two dads don't have sex with each other?" asked a furtive, anonymous voice. "Can they still, like, come on each other's chests?

This time Rev. Herberger sprinted outside, and he rewrote the message to say this:

JESUS WAS CO-PARENTED BY OUR HOLY FATHER
AND SOME RANDOM GUY WHO HUNG AROUND MARY
AND HE TURNED OUT JUST FINE

The first phone call he answered was supportive. "Thank you so much for the comforting message, Reverend," said parishioner Ida Rae Thompson. "I thought the church would frown on it if they knew I left my Cremona for weeks at a time with a guy I met at Skunky Junk's." The fifty-odd calls that followed, though, used words like "heretic" and "burned at the stake."

Rev. Herberger was at his wits' end. "I'M LOST!" he yelled to God. "I'M CONFUSED! PLEASE, GOD, HELP ME! GIVE ME A MESSAGE! SEND ME A SIGN!"

A parishioner walking by heard the plea and decided to get back at the Reverend. In his most booming voice he shouted, "I can't! I'm too busy having sex with some random guy who used to hang around with Mary!"

Rev. Herberger freaked out. Was that really God? he asked himself. Or had the flap driven him nuts? Had he gone stark, raving mad? It didn't matter. He was finished. He'd been broken in two, flattened, humbled. The previous Rev. Herberger didn't exist any more. But then it hit him like a bolt of lightning: wasn't that what religion was all about? Letting go of one's ego so Our Lord can take charge? He took down the message and replaced it with this:

The Reverend admired his handiwork and put the spare letters away. Just as he was locking up the church for the evening, the phone started to ring, and he thought, "Wait."

Movie Review: The 33 (SPOILERS)

I wasn't looking forward to The 33, the new film about 33 Chilean gold and silver miners trapped by a cave-in starring Antonio Banderas. Set almost entirely underground, how could the film not be claustrophobic? With an all-male cast, how could it explore humanity? And with the ending already known, how could there be any suspense?

I needn't have worried. Director Patricia Riggen has shown a masterful hand in alternating the bleaker scenes with lighter stories that oftentimes elicit more about the human condition than the times that try men's souls. While some may quibble with the liberties Ms. Riggen has taken with the story, one can hardly argue with the result.

One somewhat-fanciful subplot involves Gonzalo, a frustrated chef who'd turned to mining to support his family. Faced with mutiny in the face of yet another day of dehydrated food, he breaks out his knives and hits the burners. Working day and night -- and alienating friends and family in the process -- he discovers his true self in the face of adversity and leaves us on the edge of our seats as we wonder if he could possibly succeed in his quest for that elusive third Michelin star.

Though the mature souls in the audience chafed, the teens cheered wildly when some of the men started a cappella singing groups and made it all the way to the Underground Grand Nationals. It certainly added a light note to an otherwise dark tale, but I personally could not have cared less when the Cave-in Canaries finally bested their rivals, the Slowly Asphyxiating Swingles.

Those worried that the film would be a cold-blooded study of mortality will be heartened to hear of a recurring thread where Montanares, an aloof, confident miner, ties the other thirty-two to a bed to explore the thin line between pleasure and pain. Is S&M still fun when it's a rough working man who's submissive? Don't ask: just look at the cat o'nine tails fashioned from battered workboots and the grin on Coquimbo's face.

My favorite character may also prove to be the most controversial. Valdivieso, a withdrawn bachelor from the slums of Antofagasta, barely said a word before the cave-in. In the face of death, though, he blossomed. He worked day and night chiseling out a vein of rhinestone to transform his overalls into a glamorous gown, then entertained the men at night by lipsyncing to disco classics. Sure, some stalwarts in the audience will grumble that hitting a rock can't actually sound like cowbell, but there were definitely tears in my row when the drill broke through the wall of mud and sunlight hit those sparkles. Even the most macho of the miners resisted the urge to rush out to his anxious loved ones long enough to share those final, redemptive lines of "We Are Family."

In the end, the film's brilliance is in taking what could have been a claustrophobic caveat and transforming it into a life-affirming epic. When you finally see sunlight again, the film's lessons will stay with you: family comes where you find it, real homes don't need front doors, and even when you're facing silicosis you can still be fabulous.

The easiest way to describe my childhood is to list everything it lacked, which was basically everything. You know how if you had disgusting sex with some dude who smelled of Paco Rabanne you'd hate that scent for the rest of your life? If that was your only odd neurosis, well, it would be manageable: there just aren't that many guys who wear Paco Rabanne. But if you had gross sex with a guy who wore Levis, another who loved the outdoors and a third who loved rock music, then here's a hard fact you need to face: you're going to have to deal with it or go live in a box in the yard.

My mother had a different, perfectly rational explanation behind everything I never had. I didn't have fish until I was sixteen years old because she gave me fish when I was a toddler and I spit it out. Onto my high chair. "That showed me!" Mom crowed proudly for the next fifteen years. "You sure didn't like fish!"

That struck me as a weird little pick-and-choose decision. She continued to serve us Rancho Chucko -- a family invention of french bread topped with ground beef, canned mushrooms and Velveeta -- every Sunday without weighing my disgust.

"OH HOLY GOD!" I screamed. "NOT THIS CRAP AGAIN!!!"

I could have vomited it all over our shag carpeting and it wouldn't have made any difference. "You must have a touch of the stomach flu," Mom would have said. "I'll make a double batch next week."

There's a simple explanation for this conundrum: my sister Barbara Ann loved the shit. That was all that mattered. She was the oldest, and somehow before Sue and I were born she'd managed to wrangle control of our family.

I looked to Sue for backup, futilely believing that two votes against one might provoke some kind of change. "The bread is crunchy," she said, blithely ignoring the greasy meat, neon cheese and mushroom juice. "I like crunchy bread."

I have to preface the next story with a disclaimer: I'm not particularly thrilled that my mother was tied to a chair. I'm no big fan of kids, though, so it's not awfully difficult to justify it to me, whether or not violin practice is involved. Yes, it was simply abominable that her parents forced her to do something that promoted dexterity and creativity. Reprehensible! Child abuse! Somebody should have intervened so that poor girl could have watched game shows for thirty hours a week like the rest of us.

Unfortunately, the side effect was that my mother just couldn't stand to hear violins being played. While we probably wouldn't have gone to Italian restaurants otherwise, we might have listened to classical music. Which was now off the table, because Rachmaninoff didn't spend huge amounts of time on his Marimba Symphony.

I was flipping the TV channel one night when I stumbled on the opera Samson et Delila on PBS. I was instantly transfixed. I'd never seen or heard anything like it, and it was like a whole new beautiful world opened up in front of my eyes. Right around the time Delila started to dance, though, B.A. appeared and spun the channel to Family Feud.

"I was watching that," I protested.

"Forget it," B.A. countered. "Nobody wants to watch fat people sing."

I looked to Sue for support. "I'm going to go read a book," she said.

We had a lot of salad when I was a child. "Cool," you say, picturing kale and dried cranberries and balsamic vinaigrette, without realizing that until just a few short years ago "salad" meant a quarter of a head of lettuce plopped onto a plate. I wasn't a fan until Mom suddenly, inexplicably made friends with another single mother and we went to her house for dinner. We stared awestruck at the lazy Susan in the center of the table festooned with dozens of multicolored bottles of various shapes and sizes.

"What is that?" Sue whispered.

We watched as one of the other kids opened a bottle and poured some of the contents on his lettuce wedge. "It's some kind of salad lubricant," I guessed.

The other kids noticed our reluctance to partake, and soon a curious look had spread across the family. "You've had salad dressing before, right?" one of the kids asked.

"We have it all the time," B.A. lied. She twisted off the cap of one bottle and watched in amazement as a half-cup of Thousand Island glopped onto her lettuce wedge. She tried a bite and then, still trying to feign disinterest, shoveled it into her mouth at blinding speed.

The other kids looked to me for confirmation. "We eat plain lettuce with nothing on it," I said. "I have never seen this before in my life."

And then all eyes turned to Sue. "We've eaten something very similar," she said.

That's it, I think. I'm alone. Sue smiles innocently; it's another compromise. She's good at it, and she's proud of it. She's the middle child, and that's her job. I don't say much throughout the rest of the meal, and quiz her for details later. She didn't want to make trouble. She didn't want to embarrass Mom.

And really, is it all that different from mayonnaise?

Rancho Chucko
     1 pound ground beef
     1 can sliced mushrooms
     1 package Velveeta processed cheese
     1 loaf french bread, sliced horizontally

Brown the ground beef in a frying pan. Spoon onto the bread along with the mushrooms and the cheese. Broil until bubbly and somebody screams, "OH HOLY GOD, NOT THIS CRAP AGAIN!!!"

I've never understood religious people. Not just the whole "believing in something that doesn't exist" part, but the "reaction to atheism" part.

See, whenever I tell people I'm an atheist, they always ask one of three very predictable questions:

"If you don't believe in God, why do you go on living?"

Well, for a few reasons:

• It doesn't leave as many stains on the sheets.


• I'm actually enjoying my life. It makes me wonder what's going on in the brains of religious people. When they're driving to Montauk in a convertible, or having a drunken dinner with good friends, or riding a roller coaster at Six Flags Over A Culturally-Starved Dustbowl do they think, "Well, this is enjoyable, but what's really great is knowing I have eternal life in Jesus"?


• If I killed myself, my parents wouldn't exactly be thrilled.
  

  MOM: OH NO! IT CAN'T BE! Roman's landlord called from New York and said Roman is DEAD!
  

  DAD: WHAT? NOOooo -- Wait. He didn't believe in God so why was he alive anyway?
  

  MOM: Yes, I guess you're right. Hey, are there any more bear claws?

"If you don't believe in God, what's to stop you from buying a submachine gun and shooting everybody?"

This question kind of freaks me out. I mean, is God the only thing from keeping people from mass murder? I'm picturing a rather odd interior monologue:

"I'm gonna blast the hell out of this godforsaken town! I'm blowing it all to kingdom come! I'm wiping this shithole off the face of -- Wait. I can't. I would, like, seriously go to hell."

It may surprise religious people to learn I've never actually thought about killing anybody. But then again, I don't spend Sundays listening to a sanctimonious dude tell me how a sentient being created this whole shitshow and left us all totally fucked.

There are a few reasons why I'm not a mass murderer. One, I actually like the people around me, and our mutual enjoyment might be undermined by the fact that their internal organs are no longer satisfactorily contained by skin. Two, I enjoy my freedom. I'd like to decide on a case-by-case basis whether I want to blow gang members for cigarettes. And three, while spending $800 on a submachine gun might sound tempting to you, I'd rather buy a bucket full of enchiladas and Garnier Fructis For The Challenged Scalp.

It seems like religious people are saying they'd act differently if somebody all-powerful wasn't watching them. But I'm a law-abiding citizen because I'm a nice guy, not because I'm afraid of getting caught. If we lived in a world without police, the only thing I'd do differently is stop jacking off while thinking about policemen.

Which, strangely enough, makes me empathize with religious folk. In this case, the existence of a dominant, protective figure makes me act very differently. God knows what I'd invent to protect my sexual fantasies from undergoing this sad little paradigm shift:

FANTASY WITH POLICEMAN:

POLICEMAN: You know you were doing fifty miles an hour in a school zone, right?

ME: I'm really sorry, officer.

POLICEMAN: Get out of the car. I've got to search you for weapons and drugs. [PAUSE] It appears you have something in your crotch area. What's this? Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Oh yeah.

FANTASY WITHOUT POLICEMAN:

TSA GUARD: Are you giving me permission to search your luggage?

ME: Well, I'd rather not, because my flight leaves in twelve minutes. But if you have to.

TSA GUARD: I have to. [PAUSE] Hey, is that three ounces of toothpaste in your pants?

"If you don't believe in God, what's to stop you from slathering peanut butter on your taint and hanging around dog parks?"

Nothing. See you next week!

Hurricane "Three Times Worse Than Katrina" Has Dozens of Hispanics Angrily Sweeping Leaves

There are parties in New York for just about every holiday. On New Year's Eve we head to Times Square for live music and champagne. For Easter we put on crazy hats and parade down Fifth Avenue. And for Halloween we dress up our dogs and gather in Tompkins Square Park.

This is a gingerbread dog. Look, you can snap off a piece and -- oh shut up, Mrs. Wiggins.

This little pooch is dressed as the wad of hair you always find at the bottom of your Belgian fries.

This is that guy at the Guggenheim who always stares at your ass instead of the paintings.

Nice try but that fence was like 5,000 volts tops. The little "dinosaurs" eventually broke out and ran around aimlessly so it was pretty much like Jurassic Park 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and 8.

Surprisingly cute, right? If this mutt had three bucks and a cardboard box it'd be married to Melania Trump right now.

This dog is dressed as Princess Leia. It could barely hold up its head and waddle at the same time so it was pretty much a dead ringer for the real thing.

They say you start to resemble your dog after living with it for a few years, but I've been wearing my collar since I met my second husband in Myrtle Beach.

Non-experts say, "Whaaa? How can that be? Rich people can give some money to the government but still keep some money for themselves? My poor feeble mind cannot even begin to fathom what kind of witchcraft this is! 'Tax the rich' -- okay, got that. 'Raise revenue' -- fine so far. 'Wealthy take home majority of income' NO WAIT HOW CAN THAT BE?!?! Oh, bother, I am perplext! Well, all I can say is, it's certainly a wonderful world we live in where pie-in-the-sky schemes like this, way beyond the grasp of us average-brained people, can be dreamt up by those brainiacs at the New York Times! Kudos to them, and now I'll go back to trying to understand how my can opener works."

Ask RomanHans

Dear RomanHans,

My grandparents recently came to live with us, and I noticed something odd. Roman, they don't seem to sleep. When I went to bed they were playing Scrabble, and when I woke up Granddad was mowing the lawn and Grandma was making meatballs. Why don't old people sleep?

Anissa Brown
Age eight

Dear Anissa,

Sleep performs an integral function for humans: it gives the body time to repair. During the day, your muscles break down, your brain overheats, your blood vessels swell. At night, then, all that damage has to be undone. All unnecessary movement is halted so the body can repair itself.

Think of it as your own personal NASCAR pit crew. The minute you fall asleep, dozens of guys are dispatched to perform specific functions integral to successful completion of your next lap. Some restock the shelves of the reproductive systems: if you're a girl, you might have lost an egg, and if you're a boy, there's the stress caused by thirty-eight hardons. Some rush needed nutrients to the hair follicles so hair will keep coming out in attractive colors. Some manufacture new brain cells so your reasoning and storage systems can continue to function. While your body isn't quite up to NASCAR speed, some eight hours later all the work will be finished, and you'll wake up refreshed while your pit crew settles down for a nap.

Once you get old, though, your body isn't quite so anxious to fix itself. Imagine if you had a shiny new Corvette: if a bird pooped on it, you'd clean it off, right? Well, now pretend you've got a Buick. You could drive through a tar pit and you still wouldn't wash it. You'd be like, "Yeah, well, it was already a piece of shit." You don't need to look at Grandma under a microscope to know that that's what her body is telling her.

Now when the lights turn off and the pit crew comes out, they took a quick look around and halt in their steps. They see the wrinkled skin, the straw-like mop of hair, the saggy sack of fat over the pubis. They recognize the futility. Even if they could temporarily shoot some brown into her hair, they couldn't force grandma to stop cutting it with pinking shears. Even if they could fine-tune her motor reflexes, she still couldn't remember where she put the car. Even if they could manufacture more collagen for her face, she'd still use a colored Sharpie instead of rouge.

"You know," they say to themselves, "this looks like a little bit of work. Maybe we'll hire a few more guys and give it a shot tomorrow." And they turn all systems back on and two minutes after she went to bed Grandma is up and making marinara sauce.

Will Grandma's body ever hire more workers? Will they ever buckle down and get the job done? Yes! Absolutely! And you have a magical goldfish that can change in size and color every few months. In the meantime, enjoy the spaghetti.

Considered an expert in some Southern states, your friend
RomanHans

Highlights of Amazon Movie Reviews

The Girl and the Motorcycle (aka Naked Under Leather) starring Marianne Faithfull and Alain Delon

A fun movie about a crazy girl that takes off on her Harley and rides way too fast on European roads to go find her old boyfriend.

I think this was made during the time when any movie that had the words girl and motorcycle in the title sold.

Most of the time she is on the bike and totally unbelievable because she is looking everywhere except where she is going.

it should be entitled "Girl on a Motorcycle Bolted to a Trailer" or "Girl on a motorcycle in front of a Movie Screen"

Note to Marianne: while grinding down the Autobahn on a motorbike at 95 miles an hour it's okay to flap your thighs and bounce your butt but by all means KEEP YOUR EYES OPEN!

She did seem to ride too fast, but that was only a result of her emotional anguish.

The helmet she was wearing wouldn't protect anything.

the Harley she is on sounds very much like a parallel twin rather than a V-twin

Her husband wasn't too bad, except modern orthodontics would have given him perhaps a half an inch more gum

I've not been able to take Delon seriously as an actor since his performance as a character named "Baldy" in Dean Martin's "Texas Across the River" in 1966. Plus I get him confused with Jorge Rivero and his almost identical character "Capt. Pierre Cordona aka Frenchy" in "Rio Lobo". Maybe they are the same person and used two names as a tax dodge.

I am sorry i could only give this movie 4 stars because she is supposed to be totally nude under that leather suit but I observed panty lines

The movie by the way was OK, the ending sucked, she just all of a sudden gets killed.

I buy Chinese Chicken Salad at Whole Foods and have my Subaru tuned up every 15,000 miles. Why do I have a rash shaped like Ethiopia in my pubic hair?

Two Conversations

IN AMERICA:

LOGAN: I'm going to the supermarket. Do you need anything?

MINDY: A dozen eggs. And toilet paper.

LOGAN: Okay. Hey, when was the last time you saw the doctor?

MINDY: In January, why?

LOGAN: I thought maybe you were looking a little pale.

MINDY: In that case, bring back ice cream.

LOGAN: Ha! Okay. Back in ten.

IN ENGLAND:

STAN: I'm thinking of going to the supermarket. Do you need anything?

MAUREEN: Hmm. Oh, do you know what I really enjoyed? That cereal. The one with the berries in it. I don't remember where it was from but my, it was delicious.

STAN: I remember that. It certainly was good. Were there ... pecans in it?

MAUREEN: Yes, I believe there were.

STAN: I don't ordinarily like pecans but that cereal was quite a treat.

[THREE DAYS LATER]

STAN: Let's not bother cooking. Would you like to go to a restaurant?

MAUREEN: Yes! Let's go somewhere that serves crepes, and kreplach, and Chinese Chicken Salad. Where all the waiters are named Raoul, and the water has a thin slice of lime in it.

STAN: Oh, and the bill comes in a padded vinyl sleeve, and the parking lot has a separate entrance and exit!

MAUREEN: Ooh, that sounds really classy. Let's definitely do that.

[THREE DAYS LATER]

STAN: When was the last time we ate?

MAUREEN: Was it ... Thanksgiving? Oh golly but that was delicious. Mum's roast potatoes were just divine.

STAN: I don't know how she does it. Eighty-three and still going strong. I still dream about that sticky toffee pudding.

MAUREEN: And those sprouts. [PAUSE] That was the last time we saw your Uncle Reg.

[THREE MORE DAYS LATER]

STAN: Neither of us can get up out of our chairs. Should I call a doctor?

MAUREEN: I haven't been to the doctor in ages. Do you remember that nice Doctor Nash?

STAN: He had a bedside manner.

MAUREEN: Ooh, but the hands on him. You could call him for a sore throat and he'd have your knickers off.

[THREE MORE DAYS LATER]

BRITISH PARAMEDIC #1: Have you ever seen anything so horrible?

BRITISH PARAMEDIC #2: Only every Tuesday, when our Myra brings home Indian takeaway.

Had Me/Lost Me

HAD ME:

Earlier this year, the BBC reported the story of Gabi Mann, an 8-year-old Seattle girl who has a remarkable relationship with the neighborhood crows. In exchange for food, the birds gift Gabi with such things as earrings, bolts, paperclips, and polished rocks. The story attracted international attention, while also provoking interest into avian intelligence.

Unfortunately, the birds brought Gabi's family another gift. A $200,000 lawsuit filed by neighbors says “[l]arge numbers of birds swarm the feeding operation daily, leaving behind dirt, feathers, peanut particles and shells, feces and urine on the surrounding properties.”

LOST ME:

Allegedly, the parents have hired employees to fill the feeding troughs,

I spent half of last night uncontrollably laughing at this headline, but I yam what I yam.

Hershey's: We Sued To Stop Good Chocolate From Getting Into America So You'd Be Forced To Eat Ours

Story.

Conservatives Say Two Out Of A Hundred Men Are Gay, So Apparently Eleven Out Of This Hundred Gave A Guy Their Phone Number So They Could Drink Beer And Hit On Chicks

Seven-Year Lightbulbs Just Six Years Short Of Claim