After a busy night out and then a late summer’s night writing session I managed to fall asleep on the hardwood floor watching an old Marlene Dietrich movie (she fit into her dress like most women fit into their epidermis) and woke up to The Flying Nun. Sally Fields, flailing about attached to a visible wire like the flying saucers in Plan 9 From Outer Space. I was utterly traumatized. God that show was stupid. I remember being a Roman Catholic child thinking that show was really stupid. I never asked the sisters what they thought. I looked up at the TV again and Sally Fields was flying and flailing and giggling. It held a sort of vast and limitless stupidity. Did it sink in as I slept? Will I be a giggling idiot all day? Or high as a kite? I hope not, I have things to do.
I think I slept through an hour of Gomer Pyle too. Golly. I remember watching that in elementary school and thinking it was stupid. It was. And then more childhood memories, with Jim Neighbors on the Mike Douglas Show, and me not understanding why Goober’s brother (cousin?) sang so funny. Rock Hudson never came into the picture. At that age I thought Liberace just liked frilly clothes. Then again so did America. They laughed and asked about his brother George.
There goes Sally Fields into the wind again, clutching her habit. Sometimes I hate TV.
Did I mention taking a leak at a restaurant as a piped in George Jones sang He Stopped Loving Her Today? Caught myself singing the chorus one handed. They hung a wreath upon her door. Those letters with the mushy parts underlined in red. The woman ruined him, he drank his life way. You can’t blame her for leaving him, though, the guy sounds like a nut. Still, I nearly cry every time I hear it. Even in a cramped restroom in Whittier. And I never would have remembered that later if I hadn’t written it down. Now it’s part of my legacy.
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