Nothing much heavy today. Admittedly, the prupose of this post is (hopefully) a fun test to see if anyone out there is reading this silly thing.
So here it is: food. And not just any food, either. We all know the (supposed) benefits of a healthy diet,a diet that's high in fiber and low in cholesterol. I'm told such a diet will make one virile and handsome and able to lift a Chrysler. One-handed. Yipee. Let us leave such people to their grazing.
What I'm talking about is a bit more...elemental. Earthy. Sensual. Specifically, junk food.
What constitutes junk food? Is it food that's by definition bad for your health? Sure, that helps, but not neccessarily. For instance, I grew up in the South. For years I daily ate such fare as country ham (containing salt content on par with the Dead Sea), green beans with fatback, cathead biscuits, fried corn, spoonbread, chocolate pie, iced tea so strong and sweet a guy could chop a cord of wood after just a glass...all manner of things that I'm sure would cause Richard Simmons to roll over in his grave (he is dead, isn't he?).
In my college days, my standard favorite dish, owing to extreme poverty (not to mention congenital bad taste) was cheap Winn-Dixie chili mounded on top of cooked Minute Rice, all heated in a Mirro popcorn popper, and washed down with grape Tang. Even now, my mouth waters.
Today my favorites include such varied fare as chili dogs, vienna sausage out of a can (don't wipe the jelly off; it's good), bags of beef jerky (or if I'm flush, kippered beef strips), salted peanuts in the shell, boiled eggs, and Breyer's Mint Chocolate Chip ice cream. Yowza. As the thread title says, darn fine eatin'.
So what say you all? Anybody like to tell what your secret ba-a-a-d foods are? Come on, spill. We're all friends here. Far be it from me to tell your wife...
...to be lies..." So said Gracie Slick in Jefferson Airplane's 1967 hit, "Somebody To Love." (Of course, you have to consider she named her kid "God", so I wouldn't tend to believe she has a lot of brain cells still firing in sequence).
Anyway, the above line refers to the DaVinci Code movie...and what appears to be a train wreck in the making. The first tremors became known when Opie appeared on late-night TV (I don't remember if it was Letterman or Leno), and the guy looked very nervous. As in, "oh, Lord, I've stepped in it now." This was followed by Tom Hanks' appearance on Saturday Night Live, where he tanked like the Titanic.
And then, we come to the movie's unveiling at the Cannes Film Festival. Cannes...you have to wonder what Sony Pictures was thinking, giving the world its first taste of an admittedly large-scale slam against the Catholic church, at a town in Europe, where Catholicism is the dominant religion. The Homer Simpson phrase "D'OH!" come to mind.
Anyway, the movie's big "reveal" appeared to be just that...although not what Opie and Crew probably had in mind. The audience laughed. Yep, at the highly-charged, climatic, "criminey, Margaret, I sure didn't see that coming!" moment...the crowd titters and hoots. Not the result I'd be looking for, if I was Sony and had sunk $125 million into an adventure pic, and that's the result. Of course, it still remains to be seen what Mr. and Mrs. Joe Lunchbucket will think of it when they plop down their hard-earned ticket money this weekend.
But if I was Mr. Howard (to whom I hold no ill will, I assure you), I'd be looking for an Andy Griffith reunion special. Like now.