Mood:
d'ohNow Playing: The Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Minefields
Last night, during a tavern debauch with miscellaneous friends, I placed a drunken bet on a Kentucky Derby horse. I don't really remember the circumstances which led to this, but a five dollar bill was handed over with instructions to "put it all on #3 to finish!" (I think the technical betting term is actually "win", isn't it?). I know as much about horse racing as I do about neurosurgery, maybe even less. I could probably tell which end of a patient is up, especially if it was inscribed on their forehead during surgery prep, but I'm not so sure with horses. They all look alike to me.
And thus, for the first time in ages, I found myself eagerly tuning into the Kentucky Derby to emit a lusty farrago of cheers for my randomly chosen horse. Before the race started, the field of 20 did an introductory lap around the muddy track, the jockeys in their crisp colors, the horses looking magnificent and eager, the crowd looking elegant, the mint looking julepped. One of the horses was named Line of David. I wish I could report that this was my horse, and that Line of David beat the rest of the field by a mile, and that I won $10,000 with which to start a foundation to introduce David films into developing nations. That would have made a swell story for today's Grove post. But no.
No, #3 turned out to be a horse called Noble's Promise, with odds that were approximately the same as a basset hound writing "Hamlet" in Yiddish. Since Denethor was played in the LOTR films by John Noble, I took this as a sign that the horse, rather than galloping along with the other charging warriors around the track, would have a natural inclination to hang back and nosh on cherry tomatoes.
But wrong again! This horse was a goer. When the bell went off, he sprang out to the front of the pack. Halfway through, he put on a little burst of speed, and was out in front with 75 yards to go. I was on my feet yelling COME ON NUMBER THREE COME ON COME ON COME ON when suddenly! a pack of other horses surged forward, swarmed past Noble's Promise, and pipped him at the tape. (See: Tragic Middle School Track Meet Story from the previous entry. You know what? I bet the trainers forgot to floss that horse.)
So, five dollars that could have gone towards, say, a movie ticket for Legend of the Guardians, instead spiraled down the drain in a counterclockwise fashion. But you know, it was worth those 45 seconds of excitement, and the brief fantasy of being a hundredaire.
*******
In the past month, Maine has had two separate topless protest marches by groups of women protesting the inequality of females not being able to take their shirts off on a hot day like men do. Yes, you read that right.
It's actually legal for women to go topless in public in this state. I guess the state legislators felt safe in passing that law, since most days of the year the temperature is about 83 degrees below freezing. Portland used to have a topless donut shop, but it closed down after a fire last summer. (Breakfast seems a tad early to be surrounded by ta-ta's, but maybe guys think differently. I would certainly avoid a bottomless donut shop, at least before lunch).
Anyway, the female protestors, in an attempt to draw attention to the cultural inequalities of shirtlessness, took off their tops and marched down the streets of the city. It is true that there's an imbalance in what's culturally acceptable. I can think of several roles where David went shirtless, but I'm trying to remember if any of his female co-stars bared it all. I guess Susie Porter did (from behind). In gym class, the boys get to be Shirts vs. Skins, but we girls have to put on those smelly mesh fungus-factory jerseys that never get washed. It can get pretty darn hot under a sports bra.
While I admire their bravery, it's not a right I feel the need to fight for tooth and claw. Without going into too much detail, I prefer my girls to remain snugly accounted for, in a supportive atmosphere. But, can you imagine sending a platoon of topless women into battle against the Spartans? I bet it would have totally freaked them out, not to mention confusing the producers of The Deadliest Warrior. Here the Spartans are, thinking their bare chests and leather Speedos are psyching out the enemy, when over the hill comes a jiggling army led by their titular ruler. Paralyzed by equal parts distraction and shock at their failure to keep abreast of this warfare tactic, the Spartans would end up feeling like the biggest boobs in recent mammary....
....whoa, I'm getting carried away here.
Sorry about all the puns. We've spoken firmly to our quality control department and nippled it in the bud.
Uh, that should read "nipped".
*******
Have you noticed that in virtually every article about Killing Time, Andrew Fraser is referred to as a "silvertail solicitor"? In fact, if you google "silvertail solicitor", you can see several articles that use this same phrase. It's like a little virus that infects every press update that comes into contact with it.
I don't even know what "silvertail" means. I'm guessing it's Aussie slang for a senior citizen with a mullet. Either that, or Andrew Fraser was in the habit of putting on pinstripe trousers and sitting in metallic paint.
Come to think of it, Silvertail Solicitor would be a great name for a Kentucky Derby horse. We'll get a topless jockey to ride it.
