Make Mine Mike

Thank heaven the weekend’s almost here. I’ve already started taking my mind off that evil vixen called the day-job, and went to an early screening of Spider-Man 2. It’s gonna be huge--delivers on the action and the characters are actually fleshed out, unlike Daredevil or Hulk and other disappointments. The villain is just as stupidly psychotic as in the first Spidey film, but Doctor Octopus, like in the Marvel Comics, is an awesome foe for the Web-Head. The best line was when Aunt May tells Peter Parker she got rid of his comic book collection. Every guy in the audience, including me, groaned in sympathy. Man, if I kept some of the ones I had as a kid, I coulda financed this movie myself. Actually, worse was when my mom would threaten to tear up my MAD magazines if I didn’t do my chores. No, Mom-- I’ll rake the yard, just don’t ruin my Super Special! How am I gonna memorize all the Snappy Answers to Stupid Questions? I didn’t even get to do the Fold-In yet!

Speaking of family, my aunt and uncle are coming to town this weekend. They’re only in their 60s, but they’ve retired, living in Mexico and travelling the world. Coupla aging hippies, God bless ‘em. They came to LA around the time of my birthday last year, so they joined my little b-day gathering. I had a long table at the Belmont, filled on one side with my runner friends, the other with my writer friends. In the middle was me, my sister, and the ol’ relatives. Unk would introduce himself to everyone as "Mike’s Crazy Uncle Barry". Then he’d comb out his long gray hair and wipe the beer off his bushy gray mustache and belch.

I idolized this man when I was a kid. He was a swinging bachelor who let me stay up all hours of the night, took me to R-rated movies, and... he had a dog! (I didn’t get to get my beloved Golden Retriever ‘til I was older.) Once when I was staying over at Barry’s place, he did tell me to go bed, wouldn’t let me stay up. He was pretty adamant about it, which wasn’t like him. So a little later, curiosity getting the best of me, I got up, snuck over to his room, tiptoeing.... He was a-rollin’ and tumblin’ with some hot lady. I was sufficiently grossed out, but even at that age, I had to give the man props for scoring on a weekend he had the kid (I later found out he used his li’l nephew Mikey as babe bait, and I guess it worked.) This was before he got married. Now he’s still all right, but, I dunno, just not as cool as I thought when I was a kid.

But hey, there’s still Spider-Man.