a once weekly open mike
because I hate spelling it ‘open mic’
Let’s see what happens when your host (me) has nothing to say. Step right up, speak your mind, tell a story, sing a song, whatever.
11/8/2025
Anything goes #53
14 responses to “Anything goes #53”
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Covid Era Hugging
My young friend was going to come by and visit last night. I texted her that I really needed a hug but it could be suicidal. Then I joked that I could wrap her in saran wrap first. “So kinky!” I said. She didn’t get the joke and admonished me for hitting on her.
When she arrived I said, “Could I just wrap a sheet around you and hug you?”
“No,” she said.
“C’mon,” I said. “It’s a clean sheet.” I motioned to the closet.
“No,” she said. “I don’t have it.”
“Well, maybe I do.” She laughed. I’m actually the safest person in SoHum as I’ve been quarantined for a month rehabbing a hip replacement.
When our visit was over, after she lectured me about all the herbs that could fight the virus, I couldn’t resist and took her in my arms for a healthy hug.
As soon as she walked out the door I stripped out of my clean clothes and threw them in the laundry basket. Then I washed my hands.
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Tsk tsk, COVID or no COVID, no hugs without permission.
2020 was a crazy time. I had no family or friends nearby, so for me it was fairly easy, but I remember the existential angst when a clerk at a grocery store gave me change, and another human’s finger touched my palm for a tenth of a second.
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Toxic Perfume
With my bullshit detector always full-on any questionable thing someone says is ripe for challenge. For example, the other day a friend said, “Yeah, I had to break up with her, I just couldn’t stand her strong perfume anymore.”
“C’mon,” I said. “If you really liked her you’d figure out a way around the aroma issue.”
“Yeah, you’re right,” he said.
Would I rather be an inauthentic phony, a happy liar with lots of fun friends? Definitely. This open and honest thing is way overrated, but it’s too late now.
(But if you dish it out you’ve got to be able to take it also, si? Once I was anticipating a date with the hot chick and I told the guy with perfume issues that I was getting nervous.
“Don’t worry,” he said. “Just don’t be yourself and everything will be fine.”)-
Heh heh…
Mostly I was always what’s called pussywhipped, spent my life showing great consideration & gratitude toward any woman who allowed me within touching distance, but I do remember the odd joy of dating a few woman without having much feeling for them. I could leave my filter off, pick my nose, prattle on about how hot Anita Ekberg was long after the movie was over, all with no worries, because if she dumped me so what?
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Make-out Party
When I was in 8th grade I was invited to a make-out party. Linda invited one girl, one other boy, and me. She and Mike made out on one end of the couch and Janne and I on the other. How did we break the ice, start kissing? I don’t remember. She was a 7th grader with longish blond hair and wore a road sign round her neck that said Soft Shoulders. She sent me many notes after that and I responded in kind. Her notes became elaborate, she was in love, the last one was written on a piece of rawhide. Finally I’d had enough and burned all her notes, very unlike me, I’ve saved everything else—I wish I had them today. I never played spin-the-bottle, doctor, or any other harmless dirty game when I was a kid—I was deprived! I wonder if they play spin-the-bottle at adult retro parties today? Probably. I want to. I want to play spin-the-bottle before I die! And what about The Prom, I never went, is it too late? These are the things I think about on Sunday morning getting ready to go to church.-
As always, I enjoy your memories. You could still go to the prom, Eel, but chances are you’d be arrested.
I very vaguely remember playing Spin-the-Bottle once, at a party where I hated everything else going on and wished I wasn’t there. Never went to a make-out party, or any event where there was underage drinking, never played Seven Minutes in Heaven, never went to the prom, never wanted to. That’s a lot of nevers, and I’m never again wasting a Sunday morning in church.
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Got a chuckle out of getting arrested at the prom
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You watch any of Vince Gilligan’s new show, Pluribus? Looks to be his take on an Invasion of the Body Snatchers type situation. First episode was good.
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From Gilligan, I’d be surprised if it wasn’t excellent, but I hate the hour-at-a-time shtick. Binge it when the season is over, is my plan.
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Edgar Wright has never disappointed me — A Fistful of Fingers, Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz, Scott Pilgrim vs the World, The World’s End, Baby Driver, The Sparks Brothers. He’s literally undefeated, 7-for-7. But gotta say, this preview for his remake of The Running Man looks like an utterly ordinary action movie.
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Yikes. There seems to be a genre of action film reboots that are probably profitable but are instantly forgettable, and within a few years nobody even remembers they came out (Tron, Death Wish, The Crow, I can go on but it’s causing cerebral pain to remember them).
I’m sure this isn’t new but I didn’t understand that making a couple bucks without tarnishing the original TOO bad is the entire point.
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I’ll still wager Edger’s Running Man has something clever and interesting going on. It just didn’t make it into the preview.
As for remakes “making a couple bucks without tarnishing the original TOO bad,” I just saw The Italian Job (1969) and the remake (2003) back-to-back, which is depressing and I don’t recommend it to anyone.
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Haven’t done that to myself with The Italian Job, thanks for the warning.
The Running Man hinged on casting. Nobody could deliver the cornball jokes after snapping a man’s spine like Schwarzenegger, and Killian is a compelling villain rather than just some mustache-twirling evil boss because Richard Dawson’s performance was mirroring what the audience knew of him in his on-screen TV persona (which implied that him being a bloodthirsty, amoral ratings-obsessed asshole behind the scenes might be true too.)
So if you’re not going to have Arnold doing Arnold ’80s stuff and the whole idea of a game show host that kisses grandmas and calls people “darlin’” is kind of impossible to convey and you purge out the rest of the ’80s stuff with aerobics dancers and etc. because it makes no sense without that context… you just have a different movie. So just make that movie! Why don’t they just make that movie?! It can be kinda like the other movie, in the way The Running Man was like other movies! But it can still be its own movie!
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Richard Dawson came across as a lovable annoyance on TV, at least for me. I thought his performance in The Running Man was parodying his nice guy image, more than mirroring it, but I never met the guy and being rich and famous he probably *was* a bloodthirsty, amoral ratings-obsessed asshole. So, yup.
Somewhere I read that Edgar’s TRM will be closer to the book than the original was, but I never read the book so that’s moot to me. It’s Edgar, that’s all. It’s not enough to sell me a ticket, but it’s enough for an illegal download.
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