Friday, October 24, 2008

Entrance To Paradise


I was born in the little mountain town of Pago Pago, North Carolina just 24 years ago. Yeah, that's right, you heard me, twenty four freakin' years ago(stop laughing, damn it). Darlene “Busty” McGill, my mother and also a budding starlet(hence my artistic flair) had just finished shooting Buxom Bimbo Trucker Babes Meet Biblezilla, a grand, full scale epic about a bunch of hot, big-boobed trucker chicks that turned many, many, many, tricks at assorted rest- stops throughout the US with either an Elvis or a John Holmes impersonator. And during all this they still found time to run illegal aliens across the border in their hot pink big rigs that each had a cutesy saying of the moment emblazoned across the trailer in giant four foot letters (really,just hot-glued marbles that had been dipped in glow in the dark paint). Mom had fought for sequins but the somewhat meager shooting budget wouldn't allow for anything so ritzy. Darlene had even offered to go to all the local Goodwill stores and pick the sequins off old prom dresses, but no dice). So, mom's rig just plainly said, Foxy Lady. I was disappointed that she didn't get Bessie Mae LaRue’s rig that proudly stated: Ass, Grass or Gas: Nobody Rides For Free. The girls go along their merry way that is until they meet Biblezilla, a solid white, bible-wielding pterodactyl that suffered from a porn addiction. Lotta Lace(mom's character)finally sees the error of her ways in the final 15 minutes of the film after a near fight to the death with Biblezilla and releases her truckload of aliens in east LA as the joyful music swells. JoJo Morales, a hunky Latino priest pulls a bloody,scratched-up (but still hot) Lotta into a nearby church, kisses her rather roughly and asks her to please help him serve soup to the winos in the church basement. Darlene dons a hairnet, reaches for a big metal spoon, looks heavenward and says, "God, you're more than outta sight, you're dyn-o-mite!" I always have tears of pride in my eyes when mom utters those final words and the film ends. Check your local listings, sometimes you can still catch one of mom's movies on TBS, usually around 2:30 am right after that infomercial for Life Alert(remember: "Help, I've fallen and I can't get up !"). Yes, they still show it in certain markets.

Darlene met my father when she came home to Pago Pago to tend to her dying (yet again) mother. Darlene soon bored of playing the dutiful daughter to Dulsene and began to look daily for excuses to get away from the bouts of explosive flatulence that usually accompanied granny’s various pretend illnesses. One Friday evening, Darlene painted up; filled granny’s Pacer with regular and headed to town for a night of honky-tonking. It was there that fateful night at one of the local BBQ retaurants that Darlene and Hal first set eyes on each other. Dad was a returning ex-navy chaplain and had never seen the likes of Darlene. The ocean and troubles of sailors had not prepared him for this wild, red-headed woman. Mom smiled at him over a mound of cole slaw and that was all she wrote. They married the next week in York, South Carolina (the Vegas of the South at that time). Mom got "saved" again and swore off Hollywood forever unless it was to make a film about Jesus. Hal started preaching on the sidewalk in front of the tattoo parlor. Soon Pago Pago was fairly crawling with tattooed Christians. Darlene took up his example and decided to do something uplifting as well so she opened up Darlene’s Hair Hut and Prayer-Meeting Room. All of mom’s advertising of the time asked the probing question: Does Your Hair Glorify The Lord? If Not, Let Us Save You And Your Hair! Somewhere amongst all this, Darlene managed to pop me and my brother out. All was well until I decided to come out at the tender age of 7. I blame it on an old copy of Tiger Beat magazine I found in the trash can outside of the girls bathroom at school. When I saw a shirtless Scott Bio on the cover, I knew I'd be leaving heel marks in someone's ceiling one day( and boy, did I).Stay tuned.

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