Fiddley Gomme - Marathon Of Weird

What The Hell?

Pete — Fri, 29 Dec 2006 18:01:32 -0500

Ok, you asked for it. Here's the clip of me on Touched By An Angel.

I admit now, having watched it again for the first time in almost ten years, that my reaction is not as dramatic as I recall it being. It seems now that my "what the hell?" take was not much more than an overacted shrug. Though I do recall clearly doing a "what the hell?" version of the scene, I guess it was not what made it into the final version.

Also, It was not the old lady who interrupted the ceremony. As you'll see, it was Roma Downey who pissed on the festivities with a dove-delivered message straight from Gawd Himself. I wonder if he signed it Himself or if he used an autopen. Linda Kelsey was the actress having trouble with her very short line... the one about the gas company.

You'll have to watch all five minutes of the clip to see the infamous reaction. It comes at the end of the wedding as the wedding party rushes out after the sobbing bride. I include the entire wedding for a couple of reasons.

1. The chicks who played the bride, Brigid Brannagh, and her would-be sister-in-law, Holly Fields are hot, hot, hot. You never know when you might find yourself overboard and in need of something buoyant.

2. You'll recognize me at the very beginning of the clip as the groomsman to whom Della Reese first cues to begin the ceremony.

3. Note the uncanny moment when the preacher says, "God... and these witnesses". The pause he leaves for the Mormon viewer to fill in the word "angels" is almost too blatant to be a coincidence on the part of the writer or actor. "Touched" was very frequently and obviously written by a team of Salt Lake-based writers. I happen to recall that the actor who played the role was, at the time, an LDS Bishop and a very, very funny guy.

4. If anybody recognized the bridesmaid with the short, dark hair, and knows her name, phone number and current favorite flower, let me know. I've dreamed of running off with her for some years now.

And now, on with the show.

Marathon Of Weird: Day 6

Pete — Fri, 22 Dec 2006 18:35:36 -0500

In our final installment of The Marathon Of Weird, I take you back to the days of yesteryear. Way back to 1996.

In November of that year, I appeared as an extra on the hit CBS show, Touched By An Angel. Hey, don't judge me. As an aspiring young actor living in Salt Lake City one did what one had to do.

My big break... Episode #308, "Something Blue". The entire episode revolved around the events on the day of a big wedding.

Extras always arrive early and spend lots of time doing very little. Hurry up and wait, as they say in the biz. Having little to do makes for a lot of mingling on the set though. I spent a fair amount of time the first day (I spent a total of three days on set) chatting with Richard Gilliland about football, Shakespeare in Cedar City and how much he really looks just like my father.

I was no ordinary extra however. I had been specially selected (by a game of rock, paper, scissors I think) to be not the best man at the wedding but the guy next to him. The next best man, I think they call it.

In the wedding ceremony scene, the wedding is interrupted for some reason or another and the bride storms off in tears. The cast is told to react silently but with emotion. The wedding party's reaction is to be a featured shot so we are to pay special attention.

The actress whose job it was to disrupt the ceremony had quite a bit of trouble with her lines and we feigned our surprise to her troubling news somewhere between twenty and twenty-five times. It got a little old. On the next-to-last time, the actor who played the best man turned to me and said, "This time, do a HUGE double-take and mouth the words 'what the hell' really exaggerated."

"You know I will."

"Aaaannnnd. Action!"

Head turn... head turn... (silently) "What... The... Hell?!?"

"Perfect take. Cut and print!"

My twenty-four perfect, serious and inconspicuous reactions went on the editing room floor. My impersonation of a street mime with Tourettes Syndrome ended up as a featured close-up broadcast into 25 million households a few Sunday's later.

A less-lazy man would dig up the video tape and post a clip up here. Since this is me, you'll just have to take my word for it.

That concludes The Marathon. We now return you to your regularly scheduled bullshit.

Oh... the final tagee is Sideon, the bastard who tagged me in the first place. (Hey, you never said no tag-backs) It will be you assignment to write an essay about a topic of your choosing. The essay should be no less than 700 words and must contain the words "gizmo", "pelt", "smuggle", "monkey" and "troll".

Marathon Of Weird: Day 5

Pete — Thu, 21 Dec 2006 23:19:30 -0500

Even weirder than the squinkie pinkie toe with the broken nail, even weirder than the complete compulsion to share the details of the lives of relatives to people who have never met them and weirder than the inability to buy anything more than the least expensive of anything... ever... there is one weirdest thing I inherited from my mother.

If I stop talking, just like my mother, my heart will stop. As a result, I talk, pretty well constantly. All the time. What I mean is.... always. There are plenty of times when it would be better to keep my mouth closed and enjoy the moment. Do I? Nope. too much to say, not enough time to say it.

Perhaps I'm just dim enough to not be able to pay attention to what others have to say but I just can't manage to realize that someone else may have something else to say.

Good idea? Tough. I'm talking.

Want to enjoy a quiet moment to think? Sorry. If I don't tell you what I think how can you possibly know what you should think?

If you don't always know what I'm talking about or why I'm talking, don't worry. It's very likely I'm having a conversation of my own. I don't need your input anyway. I have everything all taken care of. I'm doing all the talking and all the listening.

Of course, if my mother is around, it's a little like a pack of hyenas. Hyenas carrying on two separate conversations.

I'm sorry... were you saying something?

I guess I'll let Sarah Bellum say something. In fact, she is today's tag. I'm not assigning a topic, just a post title. "It takes one to know one"

Marathon Of Weird: Day 4

Pete — Wed, 20 Dec 2006 19:14:39 -0500

Have you ever wanted to see me vomit? No, seriously. There's an easy way. Feed me peas.

I can't figure out if this is some kind of odd allergy or simply a mental thing but peas are, without a doubt, the worst food on the planet.

I have an early memory of peas and throwing up. My brother and I were attending the Adventureland Daycare and Pre-School. The walls of which I spent a fair amount of time licking while I stood with my nose in the corner.

This particular day there were peas served with lunch. I didn't eat the peas. The teacher insisted that I would not be allowed to play with the other kids until I had eaten every last one of the vile orbs.

"He'll throw up if you make him eat those", my brother warned.

"He will not. Now eat your peas, Pete."

"OK, fine." I really wanted to climb the pear tree, so I complied.

It was on the long walk back to the playground that I fulfilled my brother's prophecy. All over the teacher's shoes.

Fast-forward to 1995. Donna and I were in line at the buffet at a ward party of some kind or another. Smithmas or some crap like that. Donna thought it would be polite of me to take some of the peas that had been prepared by our landlords, since they would be sitting at the same table we were.

"Just eat the peas."

"If I do, I'll throw up. Just ask my brother."

"You will not. Now eat your peas, Pete."

It was less-than-polite that not 20 minutes later, I was throwing up all over the table.

Please, no peas.

I now, hereby tag Freckle Face Girl to write on the topic of "Living Outside The Corridor".

Marathon Of Weird: Day 3

Pete — Tue, 19 Dec 2006 13:14:52 -0500

As I write this, the house is filled with the sound of proof of my next weirdness. The phone is ringing but I'm not answering. Lot's of people hate talking on the phone, that's nothing unique or strange.

What makes me weird is that I simply do not answer the phone. Even at work, I usually let the voice mail screen my calls. The reason is simple. I hate my clients and think they are all stupid. Well, not all, but a high enough percentage that I don't dare risk the odds.

At home is another story. At home no one ever calls for me. I have a wife, a mother and four daughters living at my home. The home phone is never for me and I'm simply just not nice enough to want to take messages from, say, my daughter's LDS Young Women's advisor about the trip to the Temple to baptize dead Jews. "Make sure she doesn't wear colored panties!" Sheesh, enough with the underwear fetish, Mormons.

Also, I just don't have the attention span required to have a decent conversation on the phone. This makes me seem like a real jerk to whomever bothered to call. Even on my cell phone, when I know the call is from a wanted party, I tend to zone out. Take the call I just took from my Mother (Didn't she know I was blogging? Ferrude!).

"Pete, your brother's car isn't big enough to pick up the present he ... blah, blah, blah."

"OK, Mom. Whatever he needs... I can help."

I have no idea what I just agreed to. If I'm not smart enough to pay attention, I guess it's my own fault.

Seriously though. If you call and I don't answer, don't take offense, it's just that I've got things I'm doing that are more important that you. If you really need something from me. Come visit. I'm the guy in the garage with the coveralls and rubber gloves on.

OK, we're halfway through the Marathon. Today's tag is Sister Mary Lisa. SML, you are called to write on the topic of The BYU Honor Code.

Marathon Of Weird: Day 2

Pete — Mon, 18 Dec 2006 16:03:07 -0500

I'm not above telling you. I like public restrooms. I'm not weirded out by sitting on a public seat and I don't have any trouble touching the handle. Oh, sure, I wash my hands right after and I don't have any interest in sitting in anyone else's filth but really, for the most part, I find the bathroom to be a safe place.

I say that because, at one point, I had a bad habit of passing out in new or stressful places. It started out as just doctors' offices and dentists but eventually I was passing out at amusement parks, clients' offices, ski lifts and other much less convenient places. After a while I found that I felt a little better if I took a moment to catch my breath and gather my wits before submerging myself in the new environment.

Now, as a habit, when visiting a client or taking the kids to the emergency room, I will excuse myself to the restroom. During my trip, I plan my escape route. If I know where the bathroom is, I always have a safe place to go in case the room starts to get dark and spinny.

Public restrooms work particularly well because no matter how sick, disoriented or hurried you seem, you never seem out of place in a bathroom. You can retire to a stall and feel however you need to without fear that others will mock you for it. It is a safe place.

There you have it. Another leg of The Marathon is complete.

Now for the tag:

Gluby, your topic is Jesus Christ vs. Lance Burton. Enjoy!

Marathon Of Weird: Day 1

Pete — Fri, 15 Dec 2006 16:30:45 -0500

Though I mentioned this, very briefly, in passing the other day, it is weird enough to kick off the Marathon of Weird.

I can speak backwards. One friend and I do it so fluently that we regularly slip in and out of backspeak without noticing. We started doing it sometime around 1987 or so.

This all started when a few of us got the bright idea that we wanted to be able to talk to each other about girls without the girls in our Mormon ward knowing what we were saying. It doesn't take much thinking to understand now why I never developed any skill for speaking to women in a way that they could understand.

There were three rules for speaking backwards.

No translating out loud. Ever.
No farting. Ever.
Never teach a girl how to backspeak. Ever.

At one point or another, everyone breaks rule 1. It is too easy to do. Someone will say, "Evig em a llac worromot". Instinctively, you'll say, "Worromot? Worromot? Oh! Tomorrow... Give me a call tomorrow! Ooops".

Rule number 2 isn't really practical. It seemed smart at the time though.

Now, for the first time ever, I will publicly violate rule number 3.

The basic concepts for backspeak are pretty simple.

Only words are spoken backwards. Sentences remain in their regular English order.

To make reversing complex words simpler, prefixes are reversed first and kept at the start of the word. Then the root is reversed. The root is followed by the suffix, which remains in tact. So, the word "unenviable" becomes "nu-yvne-able". Some words are, obviously, more straightforward than others.

There's some debate about whether words are reversed phonetically or by their actual spelling. As a result, some words are pronounced a little bit differently depending on who is doing the speaking. This is what most frequently leads to a Rule 1 violation.

"ee-calp"

"ee-calp?"

"Place."

"Oh, you mean, saylp".

The only hard and fast rule on this issue is to do whatever is easiest. Hey, we were like 13. What do you expect, Esperanto?

After not too much work, we had it down pretty well. We were saying things like, "Ainrofilac si ym emoh etats. Ti si eth looc-est ecalp ni eth dlrow" and "Asil Yelckub si eth toh-est lrig I wonk. I tnaw ot regnif gnab reh... niaga."

The problem, as obvious as it seems to me now, wasn't so obvious then. The girls didn't think we were cool or clever. They thought we were excluding them. See, what I didn't know was that women are social. If you want them to like you, you have to include them, share your feelings with them, and actually show them that you are more interested in them than you are in, say, programming your Commodore 64 or blowing things up with firecrackers.

If you're reading this, Sherry Casper, Aimee Hackett, Tiffany Geurts, Annette Wilde, the Borden Twins and all the rest of you Quail Hollow Ward girls... we really, really liked you. I swear we did.

Now, I can only hope that you can understand me a little bit better.

OK, as promised, I will tag Danny, a fellow back-speaker, with the challenge to tell his story about "humping the T". Along with your personal experience, I expect illustrations and examples about both the possible ways the T can be humped.

Fucking Tagged

Pete — Thu, 14 Dec 2006 19:17:05 -0500

Regular reader, poster and masturbator (I'm only playing the odds on that last one. I have no actual first-ahem-hand knowledge of anything specifically), Sideon "tagged" me over on his blog. In case you aren't familiar with tagging, allow me to explain.

Basically, tagging is like a chain letter... only worse. Worse because not only are you expected to forward the tag onto others or your toenails will fall off or something, but you also have to do something too. In this case, name six weird things about myself.

Pff... only six? Have you been reading my blog long?

My first instinct is to ignore the tag. Not because I don't like Sideon. Quite the contrary. I love my readers and I love people who link to me even more. I love you all so much that I deliberate and think about the content of my posts. I shudder at the idea of my posts becoming nothing more than another note passed around a seventh-grade homeroom class.

Rather than tell Sideon to piss up a rope, which I would be completely justified in doing, I decided to go one-up on the whole tag thing and fulfill my obligation to post when tagged but I will do so in a way that meets my requirement for depth of content.

Starting tomorrow I will post ONE weird thing about myself in the form of an actual full-length post, each day for the next SIX. Plus, each day I will tag ONE other blogger with a challenge to post about a topic of my choosing. This keeps the whole tagging thing from becoming a puss out where you just make a list and call it a post instead of writing an actual post that day. It also keeps me from propagating the silliness and, I hope, presents a challenge for me and a few other people.

See you tomorrow. Same bat time, same bat channel.