First of all, I want to wish George Carlin a happy afterlife. He was an amazingly great comedian and an amazingly bad Catholic, and probably helped influence my thinking more than Ill ever know. Now, on to the bad advice. (NOTE: My brain is on summer vacation this week, so the column is a harmless bit of fluff calculated to amuse, not move.)
Dear Drew,
Is it too late in the year to plant tulips? My husband brought some home yesterday and I wanted to know whether I should bother planting them, or save my energy for yelling at my husband.
Tulip Gardener in Fury
Well, TGIF, it looks like it might not be time to call up that marriage counselor just yet, because tulips are best planted in the fall. If you wait a couple of more months before planting those puppies, you can watch your tulips blossom, just like your husbands self-esteem! That is, once you stop yelling at him.
Dear Drew,
My parents and I have been having an argument about the movie Get Smart. I say that its a pretty good movie, but my parents say that it was terrible. What do you think?
Confused and Torn, Someone Can Ask Nobody
CAT SCAN, the movie version of Get Smart and the television series Get Smart are very different. In the original series which I suspect your parents have seen secret agent Maxwell Smart is a bumbling spy who always solves the case in spite of his own ineptitude, sometimes but not always aided by the overly competent Agent 99. However, in the movie, Maxwell Smart is a highly proficient spy who just so happens to be sporadically clumsy enough to prohibit himself from being taken seriously, and Agent 99 is just a pretty face who Max inevitably must save. See the difference? My explanation of why you and your parents took such differing views away from the same movie is because you approached it from different perspectives. You probably came into the theater expecting a forgettable, pleasant enough popcorn flick of a movie with lots of action and explosions, while your parents came into the theater hoping for a love letter to the stylish, silly series of the 1960s and instead saw an action comedy (emphasis on action) that happened to feature the same title and characters as their beloved series.
Dear Drew,
What advice would you give to a mother who is nervous about sending her oldest daughter off to a wild music festival with a bunch of college boys?
Dont Offer No Ugly Truths
Ms. DONUT, I would offer you this advice: your daughter though I definitely do not under any circumstances have even the slightest idea of who your daughter might possibly be or have any prior knowledge of which music festival your daughter might be going to is probably a smart, responsible girl who knows how to handle herself in unfamiliar situations, and you should probably trust her judgment. Plus, the music festival has already happened as of the printing of this column, so theres not much you can do about it at this point.
And on that note, look for the Epic Bonnaroo Column to run in the next couple of weeks, just as soon as I write it, pick out the right photos, and allow my anger about sitting in a field until 4:30 a.m. waiting for Kanye West to come on stage and play half a set to subside. If you have any more questions that need answering or grievances that need airing, feel free to e-mail me at texmex00@gmail.com.