Quirkee.com

Hollywood insiders are predicting a flat late-summer at the box office with an extremely uncertain crop of pictures being released in July and August. Among the higher-profile-and higher-risk-projects set to be premiered within the next two months:

Symphony of Fear Starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, Julia Roberts, Meg Ryan, Macaulay Culkin, Gene Hackman, Whoopi Goldberg, John Goodman; directed by Sally Struthers. Schwarzenegger has to keep conducting a symphony orchestra that will be blown up by Culkin's bomb if Arnold steps off the podium or the music stops; Hackman, Goldberg, and Goodman play the strife-ridden percussion section.

Buzz: Insiders say this all-star orchestra disaster pic, shockingly given to Struthers to direct, is fairly effective, but preview audience members asked for "bigger dinosaurs," a troubling sign.

Outlook: Could be "crescendo" b.o. with poignant breakout performance by Goodman as a sexually-conflicted triangle player.

Throughout the course of any particular day I am given to ponder. I do it often, sometimes to excess neglecting chores or forgetting to complete simple requested tasks. People might call it daydreaming. Others may call it attention-deficit. Still others might say that I'm manifesting some latent inner turmoil with my inability to accept things as they are, caught between a drive to change the world I see around me and just accepting things as they are . And of course there are those who would just call me lazy. What do I think? Well, I just told you--I ponder. Sometimes things just need to be thunk.

Enough with the superheroes already. Sheesh. They're everywhere. We just get over Spidey and Batman, Ironman, The Hulk, and Hellboy muscle their way onto the big screen. Sure the fifteen year-old geeky boys are wetting themselves, but speaking for the rest of us, PLEASE STOP!

I don't want to take away anyone's fun, but it's hard to get other kinds of movies made with Hollywood investing all its money in nonsense involving klutzy, slow-thinking men who accidentally irradiate themselves or get bitten by irradiated spiders or run out in front of a gamma bomb to save klutzy, slow-thinking teenage boys. Then they have to spend the rest of their lives rescuing the world from evil villains while getting in and out of Spandex. Come on, no man on the planet is going to wear Spandex. Well, except Richard Simmons, but his are not the kind of superpowers that usually make it to the big screen.

There’s a line from an old movie that goes…

“Love means never having to say you’re sorry.”

While that may be true, it’s not necessarily a good thing.

When two people are first dating, they tend to put their best feet forward and try to make themselves appear as desirable as possible. This means that they would never do anything as gauche as belching in front of the other person or wiping snot onto their own shirtsleeves.

But when love comes to town everything changes.

It's early Thursday morning, July 3rd and I am wide awake. It's day three here in Cuba. I'm staying in what are known as Visitors Quarters, or VQ. I am the only one up so far, I'm pretty sure. I know my co-resident is crashed on the couch downstairs because I can hear him snore through two walls. The other two comics are probably still asleep, too. Yes, I'm sure they are all tucked in after staying up late with members of the Atlanta rock band, "State Of Man." The band is also on tour with us here in Guantanamo Bay, and judging from the post-show party we had at their condo last night, I'd bet they're still sleeping too. I partied right along with everyone, so why am I up so early?

Not to jinx anything, but it appears that I've finally encountered viable employment here on the West coast.

After months embroiled in a finance- and morale-sapping job search, I can say with due humility and not a little disbelief that I now have an office to report to in the morning, co-workers who know my name and invite me out to the usual lunch joint, and... a business card.

In what world do I have a business card? This feels like I've been propelled into an alternate universe. And that's not the only thing that's changed.

To lend some context, I should mention that my employment history thus far has been - how do you say - unconventional.

Finally the government has done something right. Due to a sharp decline in the number of people with "bathing suit bodies," the FCC (Fashion Crime Commission) has called off this year's swimsuit season. According to a size 14 spokesperson who wished to remain anonymous, "There's a distinct chance that the size 0-2 woman, for whom the average swimsuit is typically designed, may be facing extinction. And although we can't pinpoint a single factor, it does appear that 40 oz. triple caramel lattes and bagels the size of Volkswagen Beetles may be partially to blame. It is our hope that by allowing Americans to sit out this swimsuit season and giving them an extra year to get in shape, we can turn those numbers around before the end of the decade. "

I am personally thrilled with the news! Not just from a personal perspective either. Just think of all the energy we can save this summer by not sucking in our stomachs for hours and spending days trying to dig too small swimsuit bottoms out from locations they shouldn't be in the first place. Not to mention how much we can reduce foreign oil imports by foregoing slathering ourselves with sunscreen and not having to apply Vaseline to our inner thighs to keep them from singing like crickets as we walk along the beach hoping no one we know spots us.

I went for the heavy thread count when I bought my fitted sheet at Higbee's last week. I needed a sheet that I didn't have to break in, a sheet so buttery soft it might have been manufactured by Land O'Lakes or Chiffon. So I got the highest thread count I could find-230 per inch-threw that bad boy in the washer and dryer, put it on my mattress, and prayed I wouldn't squiggle around in agony on it for three hours like on that 180-count, $7.50 dog of a new sheet I'd used the past two nights. I thought I could handle a 180-count, and in my younger, grittier days I could. But my body is a sensitive instrument now, and it's not going to put up with low thread counts anymore.

I'm desperate. I can't sleep, can't sleep, can't sleep, like that poor guy on the TV commercial several years back. It's just a phase, but it's driving me crazy. That's why I'm buying the fancy sheets-I need all the help I can get. I use to drink myself into a mini-coma every night, but that's no good, is it? Then I took the infamous L-Tryptophan amino acid pills, recently pulled from the drug store shelves because it gave some people a terrible blood disease. I also recommended L-Tryptophan to my friends, so they all could get blood disease and whisper to me from their hospital beds, "You told me to take those pills." Now I don't use anything, except for the three cigarettes I smoke (the only ones I have all day) in the bathroom before I hit the sack. The cigarettes make me nauseated and dizzy, which helps me conk out quicker. Or so I believe. I can't tell you how stupid I think this is, but I keep doing it anyway.