I used to find that when a hard decision needed to be made, there was no one better to turn to for advice than our good old 19-inch wood framed Zenith TV (measured diagonally). Back in ’89, on that faithful old set, I first encountered the afternoon special. I learned some of life’s toughest lessons, such as Ben Affleck doing steroids was wrong and dressing up as Kristy McNichol to mask the pain of alcohol is just plain stupid. As the years have gone by and my problems have gotten bigger, I can't say television has always provided that shoulder to cry on. It may be the fact that kids nowadays have extracurricular activites or maybe the Lifetime network has sucked all the fun out of showing what happens when you get your high school girlfriend pregnant, I really don't know. I spent a long time wandering aimlessly. That is until I found 'Strangers with Candy.' Some have said that 'Strangers with Candy' is the greatest after school special ever made, and whom am I to argue? The show focused on Jerri Blank, a 46-year-old ex-prostitute, runaway who was trying to get her life back on track. Without her I wouldn't know how to tie off a heroin balloon for smuggling out of Turkey. Jerri helped me define myself during the TV season of 1999. Sadly, though, she left the airwaves in 2000 with some of life's biggest mysteries still unanswered.
Just when I thought I hit rock bottom, Jerri came to my rescue again. 'Strangers with Candy' the movie has finally been released. I just got out of the theater and there is nothing I can say that my tears haven't said already. The years that have gone by where I thought burning a boatload of Haitians was wrong were truly a waste. Short of me bringing the video camera that was used to tape my Bar Mitzvah into the theater, there is no way for me to really relate how good this movie is, was, and will always be. I leave you with this, as I must go to sleep:
"Jerri, you thinking about the science fair?"
"No, I am thinking about pussy."
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