GIGI GOES GAGA

SCENE FROM A MARRIAGE

Me: (Watching The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants on TV this afternoon.)

He: What time do you wanna get going?

Me: (Not taking eyes off screen. Getting teary-eyed but trying to hide it. A bit embarrassed about crying over a teen flick.) Around 3? I'll just finish this and then we can go.

He: (Glancing at the TV to see what I'm watching.) BLAKE LIVELY!!! (he says it the same way Gene Wilder exclaimed "It's Alive!" to Marty Feldman in Young Frankenstein.) What an annoying name.

Me: (Still not taking moist eyes off the screen.) Every time I hear her name I think "Rock Lobster."

He: That's Amber Tamblyn. (Pause.) And that's Alexis Bledel, the one from that chatty show you like so much.

Me: (At this point I'm staring at him. He knows who Amber Tamblyn is???)

He: (Sees the incredulous expression on my face and realizes what he's been saying.) What? Will you please stop leaving your magazines in the bathroom? I know WAY too much about these things I shouldn't know anything about! (Turns around and starts walking away.)

Me: (Eyes back on TV.) And America Ferrera is from what show?

He: (Without a pause or breaking his step.) Ugly Betty.

THE BEST THINGS IN LIFE ARE FREE

My friend Stacy sent me a note and this link today. She wrote:

This lovely Australian gentleman was on Oprah today. I hope his wonderful short film puts a big smile on your face. There are those days when the human race amazes me in a good way! Just try not grin from ear to ear, I dare you.

People tend to tell me lots of things, much of it sad and painful. I wish this guy could travel around around these parts sometime soon; they can certainly use what he offers for free. And if you're feeling a bit down right about now, I'm sending you a virtual one from me as well.

Hey Stacy, thanks for the smile today and for brightening up my day yesterday. I'm still trying to find a way to lure you down south because everything's a gazillion times more fun when you're around.

Oh -- and speaking of free wonderful things. Stacy and I spent hours at the South Coast Plaza yesterday doing some heavyweight shopping; we were actually tired and sore by the time we limped our way back to the car. But something we saw revived our spirits, gave us our second wind, so to speak.

We walked by Abercrombie & Fitch and espied a gorgeous man standing inside by the store entrance. Now although this might not sound unusual at all (since everyone knows good looks are an unwritten but universally understood prerequisite to getting a job as a salesperson at any of their stores), this man actually made us stop right in our tracks. He was the usual tall, blonde, tanned, ruggedly handsome sort of fellow you might see ringing up your jeans at A&F -- but he was completely shirtless. He wore a fur-lined hoodie jacket and possibly jeans (both our eyes stopped at his impossibly defined six-pack so we really can't say what he looked like from waist down), and he stood pretty much immobile like he was a mannequin. Which, I suppose, was his raison d’être that day.

Stacy and I stood outside looking in, took a minute to catch our collective breath and admire the view a bit more. And then she looked at me, her eyes dancing wildly, and with the naughtiest smile, announced her brilliant idea.

"I think I'm going to go up there and tip him," she said. There wasn't a trace of sarcasm in her voice, just sincere gratitude. I only wish he were holding up the same sign the Australian guy did in his short film. Now THAT would have definitely made me happy.

A NIGHT OF FIRSTS

WARNING: ADULT CONTENT

A friend just revealed to me the first time she ever watched porn -- her experience was similar to that of many of my other girlfriends, who have shared high school memories of slipping a forbidden tape into the machine at someone's home and watching agape amid alternating fits of gasping and giggling.

And although I'd much prefer to watch my porn solo or with just one other person -- preferably someone I'd like to replicate onscreen action with so as to test for authenticity -- doing so with friends can be fun, but up to a certain point in my opinion. For instance, I know a guy with an extensive collection of bukkake titles who watches them regularly with his sisters and their boyfriends. Only recently my husband told me about how he'd freak out when he'd drop by a (former) friend's house and find a large group of the guy's siblings, relatives, and friends congregated in the living room watching hardcore porn while eating lumpia and pancit. Now, I'm hardly a prude but the thought of watching hardcore with family creeps me out (I can barely imagine what I would do if I sensed a relative getting turned on. Would that be just steps away from an incestuous experience? Are there any legal repercussions in all this?).

During my latter college years, I frequently tiptoed through the living room while my male roomies silently watched adult videos. I didn't interrupt their version of male bonding much less join them -- not because I was prudish but because I was prudent; I just didn't think it was a good idea to be the sole female in the midst of several hormonally-charged, sexually revved-up males, even those I trusted.

I don't remember the first time I watched hardcore porn, but I remember the first time I did so with a group of friends. It took place inside an adult theater -- my first time in one, where I also had a couple of other first-time experiences on the same night.

My memory is a bit fuzzy now (almost as hazy, in fact, as the grainy images of the first XXX films I ever saw -- which unsurprisingly were hardly known for their superior filmmaking qualities), but it happened sometime during my early college years here in the U.S. During that time there was a fairly run-down midnight art house across from the UCLA campus, which was especially popular among students on Friday nights. Why exactly that was I've since forgotten -- but it was during one such evening that my friend Ted took me and a few of his other friends to a screening of a '70s porn flick -- in 3D -- featuring the magnificent John Holmes.

After producing our photo IDs and paying for tickets, we were given rectangular cardboard glasses with red and blue lenses. I'd never been to a 3D movie before, and the prospect of finally seeing my first one and watching Holmes (whose legend I'd been aware of though sight unseen) promised an orgasmic feast for the senses.

Now I couldn't tell you what the movie was about. There may have been a scientist, there might have been aliens, possibly dwarfs, but definitely and inexplicably there was a giant pink bunny. Much later on during the movie there was also Holmes in a cameo role (his billing was overrated, as I remember thinking his performance was, too), inside a boat on the water with a naked woman and a third major character, albeit one that was connected to his body (and in a way, hers too). They were conducting offshore drilling, as someone then wryly put it (the wit might have even been an environmentalist, although he didn't seem to disapprove of this particular instance of it).

By the time the scene was over I was a bit dizzy and befuddled, not only due to motion sickness from the shaky camera work and cloudy picture quality, but mostly as a result of confusing sequences and a bizarre cast of characters that served no reason at all except to provide filler between sex scenes. And also, let me tell you, watching Holmes in action -- and especially in 3D -- can be quite daunting for the uninitiated. Seeing him do so on a sea vessel only filled my mind with quips about the old adage regarding "size of the boat" and "motion of the ocean" and proved to be quite distracting as well (especially when I started thinking that a tugboat might not get one to England, but Holmes could certainly bore his way through to China. Thoughts containing mixed metaphors can be quite annoying, really).

I think the movie was later released as a softcore video, with all the actual sex scenes edited out. I simply can't imagine how viewing it this way could prove remotely gratifying. I'd take a guess that the 3D effects still don't work well and that the aliens, dwarfs, and yes, the giant pink bunny would no longer be mere fillers but provide much of the main storyline. But also, like another friend with us that night constantly swears that "softcore is just a whole lot of tease with absolutely no please," putting John Holmes onscreen without featuring his humongous homey is just missing the point completely.

Especially since the only thing I still remember vividly about the movie was precisely his point. In 3D at that.

RELAX IT'S JUST A MOVIE

I never read the book -- the runaway bestseller that spawned a dizzying array of products in countless varied forms -- the one that also gave birth to a movie.

I never read the book The Da Vinci Code simply because I'd asked myself at the time if I'd feel an urgent need to do so if it weren't such a phenomenon -- and my honest answer was No. Or perhaps Not Yet. But I also figured there were so many (free) copies I could simply borrow from people (who were already through reading and were now using them as coasters) when I finally felt like seeing what the fuss was all about.

But more than anything else, I'd already read so much about the shocking theories connected to the novel's main premise. I was reading this stuff way back in grade school, when books claiming Jesus had offspring or siblings or that he never really died and resurrected were buried deep in a library's recesses reserved only for kooks like me. And these books for kooks were filed in the Non-Fiction section; they claimed to reveal truth. Still, there was no outrage expressed by the Pope, no efforts by the government to ban them -- none, nothing, nada. I could read them if I wanted to and decide for myself if the facts were solid or if all these books were just plain hogwash.

I decided a long time ago that there just wasn't enough evidence to prove the claims either way, but that for the believer it didn't matter because Christianity is based on faith, not history. Take it from someone who no longer considers herself Catholic: my decision had nothing to do with Christ's family tree.

So now I'm thinking of watching the movie.

I'm thinking of watching the movie even if critics are almost unanimous in panning it as a most disappointing dud -- even if there's a good chance paying for my ticket might only afford me a chance to snooze comfortably in a reclining chair inside an air-conditioned movie theater -- because there are people in high places who should know better than to try to stop other, less powerful, people from watching a movie based on, for crissakes, a work of FICTION.

A movie -- not a documentary -- based on a book that doesn't purport to tell the truth. Let's just get that straight. A movie that is merely a litmus test of one's views and ideas about Jesus. If you believe Jesus and Mary Magdalene hooked up and had a baby, you will feel comforted to know others like you exist. And if you don't -- if everything has been said and done to shake your belief that Jesus never married and had children or that he may have been a virgin just like his mother, Mary, and you still haven't budged -- then this movie won't change your mind. Especially since it may not be a very good movie anyway, just as the literary merits of the book are debatable.

If you say you're Christian or Catholic and you're still more concerned about historical details that may never be proven instead of Christ's message (which is supposed to be real and personal to YOU), then you really have more to fear than just a movie.

Apparently, some of the country's leaders -- of all people -- are frightened.

"In the name of many like you who love and revere the Son of God made Man, I strongly appeal to you that the showing of the film 'Da Vinci Code' be banned throughout our land," said a Roman Catholic archbishop in a letter to the chief censor this week.

Ramon Arguelles of the archdiocese of Lipa, south of Manila, said the movie was an affront to Christianity, reminding the censors that the government had imposed a ban on another movie, "The Last Temptation of Christ" in the 1980s.

(Eduardo Ermita, executive secretary to President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo) said Arroyo, also a devout Roman Catholic, has not made any statement on the issue. She is due to return from a four-day state visit to Saudi Arabia on Thursday.

"It's something that we should not be talking about," he said, referring to the movie's storyline. "We might get struck by lightning."

So I'm thinking of watching this stupid movie. I shouldn't even be thinking about it, not only because I didn't care to read the book in the first place but because paying for a ticket only makes it possible for a bunch of suits at Columbia Pictures to buy even more expensive suits yet not promise me anything in return.

I'm thinking of it anyway because I can't stomach the idea of censorship and of thought control. When people take away your option of watching and thinking and -- according to Ermita -- talking, then all you have left is what they want you to watch, think, and talk about. This scenario promises more possibilities for evil than any movie or work of fiction can ever deliver, and scares the bejesus out of me.

I'm thinking about it because there are people with power who don't want other people to think for fear of losing their hold if we do so. So I'm thinking.