Happy National Nurses Day!

 May 6th is National Nurses Day!  Nurses provide vital tasks in keeping us healthy and living but also take an inordinate amount of crap in return.  What better way to celebrate nurses than with a movie and an actual nurse answering questions- my wife Alison.  An occasional topic of conversation in this blog, she now gets to be heard too.  As for the movie, it’s Bubba Ho-Tep!  When an escaped mummy wreaks havoc in a nursing home it falls to an aging Elvis Presley and an equally aged and black John F. Kennedy.  Can these two aging icons of American History defeat a mummy on their own?  Thank a nurse, watch Bubba Ho-Tep and read the blog to find out.

Questions

Jon: Remember when we met Don Coscarelli?

Alison: I do, and he was one of the nicest people I have ever met, famous or no. Why is this documentary in German?

Jon: Germans love mummies and mummy documentaries.  In the rankings of movie monsters, where do you rank mummies?

Alison: If we are going outside Universal Monsters, I would say zombie, vampire, werewolf. I’m not a mummy or swamp thing girl. Where do mummies rank for you?

Jon: Mummies are at the bottom.  Bubba Ho-Tep is easily my favorite mummy movie.  Is life without a hard on really life?

Alison:I guess since you need a hard on to create life, no.  Worst roommate ever?

Jon: Not even close.  All that guy did was cough and die.  A roommate who babbled endlessly would be much worse.  Is there more to life than food, shit and sex?

Alison: Once you’re in a nursing home, that’s probably all there is. If you’re doing it right anyway.

Jon: Do thieving old ladies deserve to meet angry mummies?

Alison: I think her kleptomania has something to do with dementia, but it is pretty messed up to steal someone’s glasses off their face while they’re sleeping. Remember when we had a giant beetle in our house? That thing was the size of a sedan.

Jon: It was a sedan.  Larger than a Volkswagen.  With beetles that big, doesn’t this place need better sanitation and exterminators?

Alison: Their contract probably doesn’t cover scarab infestation. If you were given the opportunity to switch lives with your doppleganger, would you?

Jon: No, that guy is a bigger asshole than I am.  Everyone hates him.  Do women go to nursing homes dressed that way?

Alison: I never did. See below.

Jon: Is Callie a bitch?

Alison: She seems like a very disrespectful person. She threw out a purple heart for shits sake.

Jon: How fast would being as big as Elvis wear you down?

Alison: Pretty quick. Is a leather vest and a fedora a good look? How about sequins?

Jon: It better be a good look because I just ordered a wardrobe full of sequinned fedoras and vests.  Is The Nurse even remotely professional?

Alison: She seems strangely typical, unfortunately. Also, is she the only nurse?

Jon:  Budget cuts hit and she was the only one willing to rub cream on old man peckers.  Was Bruce Campbell born to play Elvis?

Alison: Bruce Campbell was born to do whatever Bruce Campbell damn well pleases. He’s on both our bucket lists I believe. To meet, that is. Nothing weird.

Jon: Was Ossie Davis born to play JFK?

Alison: Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee were the best. Wow, I’m really going full-on starfucker in this blog huh?

Jon: If that’s how you want to introduce yourself, then so be it.  Were you at all surprised that he grabbed the spoon instead of the fork?

Alison: I think it’s a super nice detail. There’s a lot of that in this movie, little choices that seem to have a bigger meaning. Is Bruce Campbell the king of fighting animatronic assailants?

Jon: Bruce Campbell is the king of everything especially when he plays The King.  Should cockroaches know to never fuck with The King?

Aliosn: Apparently they should. Given what happened to his trailer, were you intensely concerned about that heater? What does burning beetle smell like?

Jon: The smell of a burning beetle depends on the type.  Dung beetles smell like shit.  Ladybugs smell like lady parts.  Scarabs smell like falafel.  Clearly this is a cheap nursing home but shouldn’t there be some level of counseling?

Alison: This place seems like it’s one level above storage unit.

Jon: “Hey man. You’re on the floor.” is such an underrated line. What lines do you love?

Alison: There are so many. “I trusted them back in Dallas and look where that got my brain and me,” “what do I look like an icky-ologist? A big damn bug the size of a peanut butter and banana sandwich.”  Would you like a chocolate ding dong?

Jon: No I’ll pass.  “What do I care? I gotta growth on my pecker/” Even better?

Alison: The repeated imagery of that ailment haunts my nightmares.

Jon: Should Elvis be ashamed that he got a boner while The Nurse was rubbing cream on him?

Alison: Not at all. What does this treatment consist of anyway? That routine seems far more than just a dab of corticosteroid.

Jon: Seriously, are there no mental health workers in this home?

Alison: Like I said, I think there’s only one nurse and maybe three administrators. And they seem to have a ridiculously abundant population of residents who think they are someone else. What famous person could you see yourself thinking you are in your later years?

Jon: Probably Margaret Thatcher.  What’s with the 2 pronged forks?

Alison: According to Smithsonian Magazine, two-pronged forks were the norm in ancient Egypt. And I would have never known that if it were not for this blog.

Jon: Did Elvis know Lee Harvey Oswald or Jack Ruby?

Alison: Apparently he definitely did not.

Jon: Is it reasonable for JFK to be worried that Elvis was involved in the assassination attempt?

Alison: After the reality since 2016 and the reality inside this movie, it seems absolutely reasonable for JFK to assume that Elvis was involved.

Jon: Is hieroglyphic sex talk on a bathroom stall proof that there’s a mummy?

Alison: I’m still stuck on the fact that Ossie Davis JFK randomly keeps books on Egyptian hieroglyphics in his nursing home bedroom.

Jon: Can you get someone’s soul out of their asshole?

Alison: They say the eyes are the window to the soul. Maybe the asshole is the door?

Jon: No I don’t think that’s true.  If I told you that much of Joe Lansdale’s work is this good, would you read? Ever?

Alison: Probably not.

Jon: So the mummy is raiding the nursing home because the residents are easy targets?

Alison: Yep, There’s a deep commentary throughout this book/movie on aging and vulnerability. Brilliantly done by both Lansdale and Coscarelli.

Jon: A mummy shithouse philosopher?

Alison: Perhaps you’ve missed your calling, Jon.

Jon:Look at how much nicer his room is. Is JFK really JFK?

Alison: I think they let him decorate like that to keep him immersed in his fantasy and subsequently calm.

Jon: Who drives a bus through a bridge out sign?

Alison: A drunk or asleep person.

Jon: Is there a better historical duo to fight a mummy? If so, who?

Alison: I’d like to see Jay and Silent Bob fight a mummy, but historical duo? Maybe Abraham Lincoln and Harriet Tubman. They were not fans of slavery and the ancient Egyptians certainly were.

Jon: Would Elvis be caught dead in those pajamas and that jacket?

Alison: I think he, in fact, was.

Jon: How badass is jumping into a moving motorized wheelchair?

Alison:  The next time I see a motorized wheelchair I will hijack it and report back on how badass it feels.

Jon: Is this the best mummy movie ever made?

Alison: I would say yes, except Boris Karloff existed. But this is definitely up there. How about you?

Jon: This is the best by a lot.  I’d probably take the Brendan Fraser Mummy movies over the Boris Karloff mummy.  I found that to be boring as fuck. Klaatu Verada Nikto?

Alison: I did not know that that line is originally from The Day the Earth Stood Still. Now I want to watch that.

Jon: How great is hieroglyphic trash talk?

Alison: It is definitely direct, that’s for sure.