Tuesday, March 04, 2008

You Guys...

I've come to a realization in the past few weeks. A terrible, yet inescapable, realization. It started out slowly... so slowly I thought maybe it wasn't true. It was a fluke, ya know? One of those... aberrations. It couldn't be true. I thought about going to church for the first time in years. Maybe try the whole Catholic thing - sit in the box, say the Hail Marys, and all would be forgiven. Or maybe Scientology! They have a knack for this sort of thing, I've heard. Well, if you ignore John Travolta that is. But something, anything - there had to be a way out of this! It can't be true. It's something I've fought my entire life, but now here it is, staring me in the face, and I don't know what to do.

So I'm just gonna come clean. Prepare to disown me, to throw vegetables and wield pitchforks. I'm laying it out here for the world to see. I hope you'll forgive me.

Here goes.

I like Bob Fosse.

Sigh.

You know, I thought that'd feel freeing; I thought I'd feel like a weight had been lifted from my shoulders after admitting that. But it didn't. I don't. I feel... sullied. I feel... wrong. This isn't who I am supposed to be! I wasn't raised to be this way. I went to church every Sunday growing up. I look both ways when I cross the street. I follow most... well, some... of the commandments to a tee.

This isn't supposed to happen to a person like me.

But there it is. it's true. I like... sigh... I like Bob Fosse. And there's no escaping it.

I thought maybe All That Jazz was the fluke. I thought, Hey, Roy Scheider just croaked, and you're feeling generous towards your Jaws hero. Golly look at him swish around. It's... it's hypnotic is what it is. So much... color. The way it swirls around... is that my toe tapping? Jazz hands!!!


No! No. Deep breaths. Go for a long walk; think about your life. Is this who you want to be? You know better. Pop in Bloodsucking Freaks, have a couple of drinks; it'll all be okay.

A week passed. Things slid back into place. I watched a woman's throat be slit with a pair of hedge-clippers and it just felt right, ya know? This is right. This is who I am. None of those... sexy slinky tights... for me, nosirreebob!

Then Sunday rolled around. I was sick with some sort of sinus infection. Dizzy with painkillers and a Nyquil hangover, I lay very still staring at the heap of DVDs awaiting my eyes. What's that I see? Cabaret. That stars... Liza Minelli, doesn't it? Even my brain has to whisper that name. Liza Minelli. But the boyfriend's out right now. I'm alone. I'm sick. I need something to make me feel less icky, and another gritty zombie movie is gonna make me barf.

What are those things called? A phantom sensation? Like a limb chopped off and you can still wiggle the fingertips. I felt those, only they were phantom jazz hands, working their way up my spine. Watch the movie, they said. I thought if I didn't these phantom jazz hands might smother me, so I acquiesced.

And there it was. There she was.


Liza Minelli.

And I liked it. I LIKED IT!!!

I thought I might be strong. I thought I might have the willpower to say no, to laugh it off, to point and snicker at the silly people in tights. Surely this Bob Fosse person wasn't going to get me twice, right?

Oh wrong. So wrong. There was no escaping it. It became a truth within myself. Something that'd lain buried like one of those people-incinerating tripods from War of the Worlds, simply waiting for that jolt of Fossian electricity from the sky to wake me up. I was a Fosse Sleeper Cell unto myself...

I was the Minellian Candidate!

So here it is. I've lain it all out here for you, the public, to sneer at. Throw your tomatoes and heads of cabbage. I have to be true to who I am now. Who I've always been, but can only now admit the truth of it.

My name is JA, and I am a Bob Fosse fan.
.

5 comments:

Joe Reid said...

I am so proud of you for this! Welcome to the first day of your new life!

J.D. said...

[sits awkwardly on the couch, fidgeting and unable to look you in the eye]

Jason... Jason... Jason...

[cries]

I THOUGHT WE RAISED YOU RIGHT!!!!

[jumps out window]

Ross said...

Now you have to see Pippin - it has Tommy Ross in the title role!

qta said...

Welcome to the club Jason. Now watch Lenny.... and then Sweet Charity and Damn Yankees and Star 80!

Many people have been fooled into thinking they love Fosse after ATJ and Cabaret... but it is the other films that will tell the real tell.

Glenn Dunks said...

YAY!!!