Heather Barton

There are some things you own because you just love them.  And everyone has favorites.  But the most joyous thing in the world is to share your favorite with others and watch them either say, “Wow!”  or “I KNOW… I love that too!”

So in the interest of communal bonding over favorites, here are mine.

Top of the list of movies I will re-watch over and over again in glee is GalaxyQuest.   As a science fiction fan, who not only watched the Star Trek originals as a child and all its followings spin offs, this in the best genre parady I’ve ever seen.  (I’m watching it right now as I write this!  And laughing my ass off.)

I was never a “Trekkie” and I didn’t go to conventions until I was in my 40’s but I’ve always love the “if it was real and we got there” scenarios.    The shock of their arrival and seeing all the good guys and tentacled monsters with probing tools!  OMG and when Tony Shaloub arrives, stoned and unaffected, while the others scream in shock!  

The writing is excellent and the acting is suberb.  Add to it the comic timing and ocasional pratfall and this is a movie for popcorn, alcohol and adults!  I really love it most when the conventions show it in the movie rooms.   In a whole room of fans, priceless!

Best movie on religion… Dogma hands down.  Again with Alan Rickman and OMG is he funny in this film.  I adore the writing of Kevin Smith (although you have to adjust to his over use of cuss words.)  And with Matt Damon and Ben Affleck, Salma Hayak and Chris Rock it is wonderful to watch.  It hits you right of with George Carlin as a Catholic Priest pitching the new, hip image of Jesus… Buddy Christ!   I have a Buddy Christ figure it was sooo funny. 

Favorite musical (and I don’t really like musicals but I love this film and it needs a category) is Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog.   Joss Whedon’s project during the writer’s strike is a short little hysterical film about a good guy becoming an evil genius to join the Evil League of Evil.  It’s incredibly crafted, amazingly sung and outright funny!  It might still be on the internet but I know the DVD is available.

I’ll recommend a kids movie with the best message ever.  Meet the Robinsons is a typical Disney flick but the message is unique.  It celebrates the glory of mistakes.  Because mistakes mean you tried and now you have something to learn from.   I try to get the kids to watch it once a year.

I will recommend my favorite Christmas film.  The Santa Clause (sense the theme, Tim Allen & Alan Rickman).  Again the lovely sentiment that somehow it’s real.   Nice slapstick, funny lines and I love the way he “grows” into Santa Clause.  I really wanted to see the second movie have his girlfriend “grow” into Mrs. Clause, but they botched it.

So those are the ones I love to share.    Aah but those are just the movies!  Next will be television series!

For the longest time my favorite cuss word was Dammit.  This was due to certain family objections to my over use of the word F*ck when telling my humorous stories.  And Dammit seemed innocuous enough yet still express a level of emotion.

Until my 2 year old said it for the first time.  Shock, pleasure and embarrassment all went through me.   It was both adorable and horrifying and I knew my days of cussing were over.   Knowing I still needed a some sort of cuss word, I chose Crap as my staple.

But as I age and my children age, certain cuss words seem to try to leak back into my vocabulary.  First they leaked into my emails and then into my writing and now they’re trying for a foothold in my vocabulary.  And I took a look at them from a parenting perspective.

When I was growing up we all knew the words and we said the words and we knew the meaning of the words, we just never did it in front of adults.  As teens we were bolder and said them freely even in front of adults… as long as they didn’t know us.  Then when I became an adult it was “F*ck that!  I get to say whatever I want!”

As a parent, if you’re child is cussing you’re a bad parent.  Funny as it may be… you’re still a bad parent who obviously cusses in front of his kids and now your little evil spawn is spreading it around to the other angels.  Like the cold virus. 

And yet, one day I got a report that one of my children had said the “F” word.   I was surprised and frankly thought there had to be a misunderstanding.  Cussing was gone from the household, even when the tykes were fast asleep or not even around!  And we never went anywhere else, so other than school, explain to me how he’d said THAT word. 

So I question the little kindergartner about how I heard he’d said a bad word and the conversation goes like this…

Me:  I heard you said a very bad word. 

Conor (a little regretful):  Yeah, I lost my self control, I’m sorry.

Me:   What was the word?  They didn’t tell me?

Conor:   Probably, I said Stupid

Me:   I think they said it started with an “F”

Conor:   Oh, yeah, I remember now.  I said “Fine”

I smiled and dropped the subject, knowing how much attitude he can put into that one little word.  (Admittedly he learned that from me!)  And remembering the day I could have sworn I’d heard my kids once accidentally utter F*^k in the sentence they were saying.  I just imagined someone else misheard something out of his little mouth and since he loses his temper a lot, he took the punishment picking something he’d already done as the reason for it.  The punishment being the school calling me and telling me to come pick up Conor.

So I started wondering if it wouldn’t be completely advisable to list out ALL the cuss or taboo words, how to pronounce them and why to never say them.  And then lay out the severe consequences should I ever hear them or it EVER get back to me that your saying them. 

After all, this way the little lawyers won’t have any loopholes.   And if they are using them… well at least I’ve made sure they damn well better be using them correctly!

I love Comedy Central.  Yes, there’s a lot of silly crap on it but THAT is the place to go when your in the mood to laugh.  And in today’s world of recordable TV cable (and I’m not talking VCRs here) it is easy to weed out what you don’t want to watch.

And comedians work hard at their craft.  When you watch them, be aware they tested this joke out.  Delivered it a hundred different ways to maximize the humor and still get the point across.  Chosen their slang, their nuance, their words and practiced it until it was so well known to them it was a “routine.”  Well, except for the ones who do their routines drunk!  

Most are story tellers more than actual jokesters.  Few are telling “A man walks into the bar…” jokes anymore as in the bygone days of Vaudeville.  Today’s comedian is connecting with the audience by making fun of themselves or all of us along with him.   It’s their oddball view of the world they share with us in a way that makes us laugh.  What greater gift to the masses than that.

Its what used to piss me off about Shakespeare.  THAT was his idea of comedy?  Don’t get me started on his idea of Romance!  (Romeo: Yes darling I love you so much let’s die.  My Juliet:  excuse me what did you say!)  And I’m aware seeing Shakespeare being performed, if you’ve been COMPLETELY educated on what the hell that old English word actually meant, can be a very different experience than when I was forced to read his shitty plays in English class.

Crap… I got sidetracked.

The point being, comedy at its best moves your mind into thinking beyond the joke to the next level.  At least for me that’s when its best.  When their humor spawns humor from me.  As happened today…

The comedian was complaining about the fact once he got married he seemed to have started a new business in “shipping.”  It was, get this… take this here… haul this FROM the car, TO the car, over to the neighbors.  He complained and mumbled about how he was going to have to talk to his Union Rep about this.

And I could just envision it.  The Husband’s Union.   The Union meetings would most likely be held in a bar, and always just before or after the game to have a reason to be in the bar during the game but not actually disturb the game.   Dues =  food at the meetings.

Oh the delicate negotiations with Management!  Legal breaks, lunch hours… overtime!!!   Of course Management has an edge.  We own the keys to the Company bedroom.  And if you go on strike what are you going to do.  NOT take out the trash?  Your not doing that anyway!

Sometimes I think that’s the subconscious reason to have children.  They’re Management’s Scabs*

*slang term for replacement workers who cross the picket lines.

Today the gym’s hot water system was broken.  So after my workout I got to take the mother of all cold showers.  Why did I work out anyway?  Or why didn’t I just go home to shower?  Because I’m OCD enough not to want to break my routine.  Oh, and I’m an idiot!

That cold shower reminded me of the River trip I did one year with my brother who taught me the Zen of Vacationing.  Which is basically… it’s your vacation, spend it the way YOU want.

Because while I wanted to go with him and his group on the trip, I’m not a water skier, don’t do “ganja” or much alcohol and I was almost the only “single” going.  I like to relax and read on vacation, yet still hang out and party with the crowd.  He said, “So what.  It’s your vacation.  We won’t care if you sit in the tent the entire time or come on the boat or whatever.  We’ll be having fun and as long as you are too, it’s all good.”

So I followed them in their Suburban, packed with people and stuff, which pulled the boat, also packed with stuff.  And our several groups of vacationers met up at the docks of Lake Havasu.   We would load the boat up with stuff and people and boat out to a campsite on the Colorado River.  Ah, sweet seclusion.  It took several trips to get all of us and the stuff out there.  But worth it.

Tents went up and the vacation began.  Most of the guys would get up at the crack of dawn… literally… to catch the ‘glass’ for water skiing.  Sometimes the girls went too but mostly we drifted awake and out of the tent drawn by the smell of coffee.  The guys would come back after a couple of hours and we’d blink sleepy at them knowing if we did so they’d cook breakfast.  Because by then they were starving!  Worked every time.  Although us girls did do our share in clean up and lunch. 

I love vacationing with this group because they cook a lot (because weed makes you hungry!) and so we had pancakes and eggs and bacon or 3 different kinds of sandwiches for lunch and wonderfully huge dinners as a great base for the Tequila drinking!   I distinctly heard one guy crawl out of his tent one night, dig a hole in the sand and hurl.  Ah, good times!

But us girls would read books or magazines, occasionally go out in the boat to ski or do the Rock Jump or just cruise down the Colorado River which is so beautiful.  Or we’d do our nails or decide we were disgusting enough and wash in the River.  Today’s cold shower reminded me of that, except when we did it the air was about 85 degrees and it was very refreshing!

A couple of years later I went on a camping vacation with a boyfriend and I took a book with me.  I’d been waiting for this book for months and I’d set aside this quiet time to thoroughly enjoy it.  The guys were going “hunting” which in the desert is just an excuse to shoot tin cans and drink, not necessarily in that order… or any order!  So I figured they wouldn’t care and it was my vacation too.

Oh the hell I got.  “You’re being rude and antisocial, sitting there reading and ignoring us.”

And I realized my brother had achieved the Zen of Vacationing as had all his friends but these guys had not.  And no amount of me talking was ever going to explain it to them.  Was it their background?  Their age? (I was about 8 years their senior)   Or was it the fact that my brother lived a lifestyle not everyone approved of and his response to that was… “if I’m going to expect you to respect my life choices, I should respect yours”.

I admire that man to this day.  (And he no longer does the evil Ganja… but boy can he cook!)

Picture A

Hello all,

Since I cannot figure out how to get a permanent picture into the Sidebar of the Blog page, I am left with just one on the About Me page.  (Truly a Narcissist’s nightmare.) 

So, if ALL (and I can use both hands to count now) of  the crazies I’ve handed my website address to  my interested readers could tell me which of the three they think should be the permanent fixture on the About Me page, I would be thankful. 

Picture B

Just a quick reply of “Top, Middle or Bottom” will do.   Even though all comments on this post will stay strictly confidential, unless otherwise requested, try not to be too brutal!

Also try to remember how much the camera just CANNOT capture the whole effect of the walk, look and talk that is me. 

Or the fact the blog is supposed to end up as a marketing tool for my writing or practice for stand up someday. 

Picture C