A Bit About Me

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Along with my daily duties as founder and head writer of HumorMeOnline.com, in 2003, I took the Grand Prize in the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest (also known as the "It Was a Dark and Stormy Night" competition). I've also been a contributor to "The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson" and the web's "The Late Show with David Letterman". I also occupy my time writing three blogs, "Blogged Down at the Moment", "Brit Word of the Day" and "Production Numbers"...and my off-time is spent contemplating in an "on again/off again" fashion...my feable attempts at writing any one of a dozen books. I would love to write professionally one day...and by that I mean "actually get a paycheck".

10 October 2010

Champagne Wishes and Caveat Dreams

Did I ever mention I love alcohol?

Seriously...I love this stuff. I'm tiny and as they would say back in Jersey "I'm a cheap date".

While this brings up connotations of things most untoward, I'm not even going there. I'm a little person and my alcohol tolerance, i.e., "buzz level", doesn't take much alcohol for it to kick in.

Let me be perfectly frank here...I'm not an alcoholic, a lush, or a drunkard. I don't need to be interventioned and I don't need the number to AA.

I am a responsible drinker.

That might sound like a lesson in contradiction, but I am.

I never drive after I drink and I've never have fallen face-down in front of my kids and I don't "worship the porcelain god".

I have what people back in the 1960s would refer to as "The Bewitched Syndrome". (Okay, maybe only I would refer to it as that as I'm the one who coined the phrase.)


Do you not have a clue?

Let me help you out.

Did you ever watch the television show, "Bewitched"?

Darrin always had a Martini waiting for him when he got home. Sure, Samantha and Endora might have been bar-hopping on Saturn (they liked to say "Saturn" a lot back then - I was too little to know if it was an in-joke...and I'm too old now to care) with Dr. Bombay, but by the time the "going home whistle" blew at the advertising firm of McMann & Tate - Samantha was back on Earth being the dutiful wife...and Darrin was on his way home to wet his own whistle.

Honestly, I don't think there was an episode which didn't extol the virtues of alcohol. It's a wonder anyone growing up the 60s didn't have a monkey of sorts on their back...and I'm not counting any shows where Endora actually put one ON Darrin's back. Oh, c'mon the plot was always the same: Darrin does something to piss off Endora - Endora, in turn, casts a spell on Darrin, Darrin learns a lesson, Larry and Louise come over and down copious amounts of alcohol...something "witchy" happens and Samantha always weaves her way out of it.

This was way before Christine O'Donnell came on the political scene. Plus Samantha always tried NOT to be a witch...which was always central to the plot line...and everyone knows when Samantha twitched her nose... there was nothing really political going on. Unless, of course, you count the warlock council and that coven of witches...who weren't so much coveting votes as they were just trying to have a little fun messing with mortals.

Enter again - alcohol.

Every single one of them drank like a fish. The only one I never saw drink was their nosy neighbour, Gladys. She was probably too busy taking psychotropic drugs I guess. She always saw things and no one ever believed her. She was the poster child for Xanax if there ever was one, poor lady. And then there was Mrs. Stephens (Darrin's mother), who always had a "sick headache" -- not to be confused with a "regular one", because long before WebMD was invented she was the most neurotic person on television until Howie Mandel came along.

But, I digress.

As W.C Fields (who drank a lot) always said, "All things being equal I'd rather be in Philadelphia."

And, as Jimmy Stewart said to Cary Grant in "The Philadelphia Story" (and did I mention I grew up in Jersey -- and Jersey was very close in proximity to Philadelphia)..."Champagne is a great leveleler... leveleler. It makes you my equal." If you've never seen the movie - do so...it's better than the sum total of Bewitched episodes...and has its share of other champagne moments that anyone inside and outside of Bryn Mawr can relate to.

And, boy oh boy, can I relate to alcohol -- and if I would have been around during Prohibition - I would have shed my inhibitions to imbibe the 'nectar of the gods'. Did I mention I was a "cheap date"?

Oh well.

God knows I need a drink just to follow what I just wrote.

So, Cheers! Which, by the way, was a much, much, much better show than anything on the air today. Plus, ironically, it centered around alcohol.

Did I happen to mention I love alcohol?


8 comments:

  1. Bewitched and Cheers were two great comedy shows. I never really noticed the alcohol that much. Why on earth did Samantha marry that nincompoop Darrin?

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  2. I love alcohol, too! But, I want to make sure I'm able to keep enjoying it, so I only drink it a couple times a month, at most. I'm quite the lightweight as well, and I like it that way because I don't want to have to down $30 worth of alcohol just to get buzzed.

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  3. Mariann; All the news commentators would be in deep stuff if O'Donnell was a witch, like say, Endora.

    Gorilla.. they were great shows.. the drinking was there, but until Mariann brought it up,

    Destiny, wasn't as smart as you, so now I'm down to a couple times a year...

    Another very good blog Marianne

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  4. I like booze too. Mostly good wines, so I really can't afford to be a lush at $40 a bottle. Too bad. If I was rich, I'd start right about noon sipping a wonderful little pinot or cab. Such is life!

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  5. Samantha was kinda hot, but she was no Jeannie.

    That has nothing whatsoever to do with your post here, but it needed to be said.

    And I haven't even been drinking.

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  6. Linda - I have tasted very expensive wine and champagne...and many of the very reasonable ones taste better in my opinion.

    Chris - I agree - Jeannie was so much hotter than Samantha. And what guy wouldn't have wanted some woman to walk around the house in that outfit?? Well, you know, perhaps not if they were Roseanne...but you know - if they looked like Barbara Eden.

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  7. Ah, yes, and the ubiquitous smoking scenes, too. Such an informal and non-litigious time :-)

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  8. You got that right, Sully. There's something very mysterious and sexy about old black and white films and the beautiful ethereal lines of the cigarette smoke.

    Could you imagine Bette Davis in "All About Eve" not being able to wave that cigarette around like she did?

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