Saturday, August 7, 2010

Thoughts on Mary Poppins and Aerosmith

Earlier today (well, I guess technically it's yesterday now), I went to a Mary Poppins sing-along movie at the Tampa Theatre and then to an Aerosmith concert afterwards. Talk about extreme opposites. Anyway, as the title suggests, here are some of my thoughts on and observations of the two events.

Mary Poppins

1. Mary Poppins is kind of cocky. I never picked up on this as a kid, but watching it as an adult, it was the first thing I noticed. Girlfriend has an incredibly high opinion of herself. She constantly admires her image in the mirror throughout the movie and rigs that tape measure to say that she's "Practically Perfect in Every Way" when she measures herself. (C'mon--you know it was rigged. Who owns a tape measure that just so "happens" to say that one is perfect every time one measures him- or herself?) The really crazy thing is, even though she makes no effort to hide her love of self, everybody still loves her. In fact, their admiration is almost to the point of worship, and I include myself in the mix. I can't help it! Like the tape measure says--the bitch can do no wrong.

2. Dick Van Dyke was hot back in the day. Watching the movie resurrected my little girl crush I had on him, when I would watch that movie over and over again, just to see him. Even his incredibly fake Cockney accent didn't take away from his charm. Like my friend AA said: "Bert, take me away!"

3. Speaking of Bert, what was the deal with him and Mary Poppins? Were they lovers? Good friends? Was it unrequited love on Bert's part? I spent the entire movie trying to figure it out. On the one hand, you could infer from that song Bert sings about it being a jolly holiday with Mary that they're dating, but then at the end of the movie, as she flies away on the wind, he tells her not to stay gone for too long, which could mean that they're not. Personally, I think their situation is like this: Bert is head-over-heels for Mary Poppins. She likes him too, but she won't admit it, because, let's face it, she's practically perfect in every way and he's a chimney sweep, a guy who draws murals on the sidewalk and a street performer. He's blue collar all the way, and that doesn't exactly make enough tuppence to wine and dine a woman like Mary Poppins. She needs a guy who can fill that carpet bag with Rolex watches and high-end furniture, and the best Bert can do is a couple of coppers he got for one of his chalk drawings. But that's okay--Bert can come over here to the land of the free and home of the brave and spend the rest of his days with me. I like his chalk drawings.

4. Where does Mary Poppins live? At the very beginning of the movie, it shows her chillin' out in the clouds, and at the end, she flies away, presumably to another family in need of her magical nanny touch. But where does she go in between jobs? One of the girls in our group suggested that maybe she just goes from house to house, which makes sense, but doesn't explain what she's doing up in the clouds at the beginning of the movie. Who knows. Maybe she does live up in the clouds. With the Care Bears. She and Love-a-Lot Bear are roommates. Bert stops by once in awhile.

5. Apparently all you need to do to unite a family that's falling apart is sing songs and do magic. Who knew?! Mary Poppins needs to ride that umbrella of hers across the pond and fix the sky-high divorce rate and help families communicate with each other better. Better yet, she can team up with Dr. Phil! With his no-nonsense approach and her penchant for musical numbers and playing around in chalk drawings, together they would be unstoppable!

Aerosmith

1. They can still rock for a bunch of old dudes. Let's not beat around the bush here: the members of Aerosmith are no spring chickens. According to Wikipedia, Steven Tyler is 62 years old, but watching him perform, you'd never know it. On stage, he and the rest of his crew have the energy of men half their ages, and they put on one hell of a good show.

2. With that said, Steven Tyler needs to lay off the spandex. Like, lay off it completely. Look, I know spandex pants and scarves are his thing, but he really really needs to retire those spandex pants (the scarves are still cool, though, he can keep rocking those). During tonight's show he was sporting a pair of silver metallic ones, and it was blatant that he was suffering from a condition that I believe the medical community calls Old Man Ass (OMA). (It also manifests itself in women as Old Lady Ass, or OLA.) It happens to all of us: after a certain age, no matter how skinny you are, or how good a shape you are in, things start to sag. Gravity is a vindictive bitch, and she screws us all over in the end. I'm sure that back in the seventies and eighties, when Steve was a much younger sprite of a man, his rear end probably looked amazing in spandex pants. But it's 2010, and homeboy should consider something more appropriate like jeans. I don't think he'd look bad in a pair of snug jeans (not ones that are so tight they look painted on, though) and a wife beater. He could even rip holes in the knees of his jeans to keep with his rock n' roll persona. Anything but those spandex pants.

Like I said at the beginning, this is just a list of my random thoughts about and observations on Mary Poppins and Aerosmith. You may go back to your regularly scheduled reading.

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