Fry Is The Eggman!

SO ONCE AGAIN, THIS is not today's lunch. I was totally going to blog about this yesterday, but I let the day get away from me. We have slipped gently into Fall, here in sunny North Carolina, and so yesterday I just had to make an excuse to go traipsing across the Piedmont with the top down. I ended up at the local grocery chain, where I bought some stuff. An apple, a can of crap, a loaf of bread, and thou. (And I actually spent more time kibitzing with the staff than I did shopping, which is usual for me.) So I didn't get back to the notion of blogging about my happy little egg man, sticking his happy little tongue out, daring me to eat him. Which I did. with a couple of locally produced, decidedly lackluster IPAs. (And it would have been doubly serendipitous: at the time, Comedy Central was running the Futurama episode "Frye Is The Eggman." Not that that means anything.

This was not, and probably never will be, the movie of the day. Or the night, or the weekend, or ever. Not because it isn't a good movie, but rather because it asks a great deal of the audience. While it is impossible not to admire Gilliam's scope and ambition, and the movie has more than its share of humorous moments, gasp-out-loud effects, and existential revelations, after all, really, the thing is just a fuckin' slog.

Which is really a cryin' ass shame, because there is an awful lot to like about it. (I was gonna just go ahead and lead with "Midgets." But that seemed a little too obvious.) Sean Connery. John Cleese. Vivid imagery. Time travel. Tightly woven metaphors and deep allusiveness. And, well, yeah, midgets. But it just keeps going and going and going. It's like taking a long road trip with a relative who keeps telling stories about people you used to know that never quite seem to end before the next story begins. (And that poster is damned misleading. This is in no way a Monty Python joint. Even remotely suggesting that it might be is to do great disservice to both the troupe and the film.)

Today's lunch was a chili cheese melt, which any reader of this space should be well acquainted with. I am clearly well acquainted with it. Perhaps even more than is physically comfortable. This is gonna sound forced, but it's kind of like I felt after I watched Time Bandits all the way through the first time. I knew what I was getting into, rode it out all the way to the end, and then began wondering if that was the smartest thing I could have done.

But I do recommend it. So long as you like eggs, midgets and chili. And not necessarily in that order or combination. Which isn't so much a recommendation, after all, as it is an affirmation of a few key elements. I firmly believe that having eggs, potatoes and beer is good for the soul, the same way I believe that watching a challenging movie now and then is a way of broadening the mind and the spirit. And if you have the temerity to make something as ridiculous as a chili cheese melt, then you by God oughta keep eating it until you literally can't stuff down another bite.