Kathy Evans already has earned a small bit of Jabootu immortality; she was the last person I ripped off using my ‘sponsored’ review scam. She sent me some money and asked me to review Voyage to the World of Prehistoric Women. Easy enough, except that I learned it was one of two movies Roger Corman fashioned out of stock footage taken from a Russian sci-fier called Planeta Bur. Being basically like Rain Man, I then insisted (on a paid review, I again emphasize) that I would review all three films. Kathy was such a good sport she even bumped up my compensation to pay for a gray market copy of the original film.
Anyway, that would have all be fine, but then I typically didn’t get around to actually writing and posting the reviews for like a year or something. At that point it was clear I was far too feckless to ever ask anyone to sponsor a review again, and thus have subsided on Amazon links, which I guess some may feel clutter up the site, but which glean me a little cash without costing anybody anything extra. More important, they don’t lay on onus on me that I’m clearly too moronic to see through in an expedient fashion…or at all.
Anyway, Kathy recently informed me she was going to be visiting her aunt in West Chicago, and we made plans to get together for some pizza. Fulfilling another woefully tardy promise, I brought her the copy of Planeta Bur she had bought for the review. I’d like to think it was just because I thought it would be nice, although in the back of my mind I may have been hoping it would making her less likely to deck me for hijacking her review.
So I drove out to West Chicago, which is weird because a) it meant I actually left my house to voluntarily hang out with another human being instead of staying home, standing around naked and crying like Harvey Kietel in Bad Lieutenant, which is usually how I spend my evenings (unless I instead watch a Cubs game on TV, although the effect is entirely the same), and b) actually drove somewhere, even though I break out in a sweat if I’ve driving five miles away from my house, and avoid highways like the plague. Luckily, the route basically involved driving down stretches of only two streets, so it wasn’t that bad.
Anyway, I went to the home of Kathy’s aunt Louise, who is quite a pistol (and who supposedly is 90, although I find that extremely hard to believe). We all yakked a bit about the road tripping she and Kathy had just been doing, stories that involved cops and fresh baked pies, and then Kathy and I headed out to the St. Charles Gino’s East pizzeria.
There followed a very convivial meal accented by some great deep dish pizza and interesting conversation. Kathy had spent the day in Chicago doing touristy things (such as overpaying for parking), and we yakked about family and, unsurprisingly, movies now and then. I can’t say the success of the evening has turned me into a rampaging social animal, but it certainly wasn’t the Sartrean horror I had instincitvely feared. And I managed not to spend too much time looking at the TV monitor behind Kathy’s head, which was a triumph of sorts, as it was telecasting what turned out to be a very rare Cubs victory.
Anyway, thanks again to Kathy for a pleasant evening. And if any of the rest of you get to the area, drop me a note and we’ll see if we can’t throw something together.
