Herbie. Rides. Again. (!!!!!!!!)

The sequel's rarely better than the original. That said, everybody likes a triumphal return.

"Herbie Rides Again" isn't a very good movie, in spite of some admirable performances by Ken Berry and dame of stage and film, Helen Hayes. The sparkle and charm of the original movie, though, is gone. The A-list celebs are nowhere to be seen: Dean Jones, Michelle Lee, Buddy Hackett, and David Tomlinson all said, "Thanks, but no thanks," to once again co-starring beside a 1963 Volkswagen Beetle. As sequels go, it's about average, but, much unlike the original, it's nothing special. But there's something about the title that indicates that the film, or at least its namesake, aspires to greatness. There is something valorous that we all like about an underdog getting up to fight again, to shake off dirt and failure that threatens to be permanent, but is really momentary to emerge hopefully victorious.

In 2009, Mrs. Apron and I miscarried, and we were heartbroken. We had told people we were pregnant, and we had told them far too early, and then we had to untell. Fortunately, with most people we knew, we only had to untell them with our eyes. One look at us and they knew. My director of "Pirates of Penzance" knew. We were staging "I am the Very Model of a Modern Major-General" and, when the piano tinkled, I doddered and fuddled appropriately, but, during the downtime, while choreography was hammered out, or choral notes were finessed with the assistant music director, the director, a close friend of mine, watched me. During a break, she took me out in the hall and held me for what seemed like a very long time.

"I love you," Julie said as she ran her hands along my back and I stifled sobs in the hallway. Years ago, she'd lost her son-- all but 19-- in a car accident while he was on his way back to college after winter break. She knew all about loss. It doesn't go away.

"Sometimes," she said to me, "I get in the shower, run the water at full blast, and I just scream and scream and scream."

I never screamed about our miscarriage, not in the shower or anywhere else. That's not to say that I didn't grieve-- it's just not how I grieve, I suppose. I wanted to scream, and rage, and throw things, but I didn't. What I think I might have done, looking back on it, was displace a fair amount of my grief and I probably morphed a significant portion of it into worry and despondency for my wife. In that respect, one might say I didn't exactly "own" the loss, and one could definitely make that argument. And I wouldn't argue.

I think one of my greatest fears is dying before I get a chance to do the things in life at which I will excel. Fortunately, I've acted in a fair number of plays, musicals, and operettas, and I've been appreciated by audience members. I've written a lot that has been seen, and I've written a lot that has never been seen. I've been an efficient friend and confidant to probably enough people, and I've been a loving son and brother. Not gonna lie: as a husband, I think I'm pretty much the shit. The only thing, really, that I haven't had the chance to do that I think I'd be good at is being a father, and so, when the miscarriage happened to us, I think I focused on the fact that I might not get the chance to, well, do that.

Well, this is my sequel.

We're twelve weeks pregnant. And, yeah-- there's two of them in there.


And that's scary, and that's amazing, and that's actually maybe a little dramatic for my taste, which is an admittedly funny thing for a former theatre major to say, but it's overwhelming, almost like I'm pushing the shock-factor a little too hard.

But it's true. There's two.

1

and

2

Come to me, my little love bugs. Let's dim the lights and start the sequel.

My Love Bug

On the fucking amazing police drama "SouthLAnd" (only two more episodes left this season! TNT! Tuesdays at 10EST!) Cooper, the hard-headed, square-jawed FTO (Field Training Officer) kicks ass and takes names during his shift in the ubiquitous black-and-white Crown Vic. At day's end, he kicks back and opens up the throttle on a black Dodge Challenger.

As Mrs. Apron and I were on our way back from this weekend's ski trip, a black Dodge Challenger with pro-police bumper and window stickers passed us by at a high rate of speed. As it came up on my rearview, I noticed that it bore the Thin Blue Line license plate, favored by the po-po for their civilian vehicles.

"Now, we're assuming that's being driven by a cop," my wife said to me, out of the blue.

"Mm-hmm. Most definitely."

"Do you think he watches SouthLAnd, and do you think that, if he does, the fact that uber-cop John Cooper drives that car influenced his car-buying decision in some small way?"

"No, not at all," I replied, "I think it dictated it in a huge, Hemi-powered way."

We're so susceptible, some of us, when it comes to mass media and cars that it's not even funny. Look at my sister. An ardent football lover, she takes her automotive cues from what the big, bad sumbitches on the field drive away from practice in: huge, black SUVs. Is it any accident that her last car was a huge, black Chevy Tahoe? With a $1,000 auxiliary deer guard? I think not.

Is it any accident that my first car was a 1966 Volkswagen Beetle?

No. That purchase was fated since 1984, when my aunt, visiting from Israel, babysat us and decided to pop "The Love Bug" into the Betamax player. She might as well have surgically implanted the VW logo into the very center of my heart and branded the number 53 onto my forehead.


I'm glad she didn't really do that, though. High school was awkward enough for me.

The Oscars are coming up this weekend. I won't be watching (I admit that I'll be quietly rooting in my heart of hearts for "The King's Speech") but I thought it would be a fun time to recognize and celebrate the film that changed my life forever. The film that spawned the longest-lasting obsession of my life (sorry, Mrs. A, you're a relative newcomer to the scene when compared to Herbie-- and you know it, too), the film that is more responsible for who I am than Gilbert & Sullivan combined (as they usually are), Monty Python, or any of my other fetishes/hobbies/interests.

What?! "The Love Bug" in the same breath as "The King's Speech"? Don't forget, Herbie didn't just rake in good mile-per-gallon ratings. He grossed the highest of any film in 1969.

When planning the film, the Disney folk didn't know they were going to rock and roll with a Pearl White 1963 sunroof edition Volkswagen Beetle. They set up a "casting call" and lined up a dozen vehicles, which were summarily inspected by officials involved in the planning of the film. How did they settle on the Beetle? It was the only car that grown men approached, and pet.


Wouldn't you just eat it up, if German engineering wasn't so bad for your teeth?

The car is undeniably adorable. The film, if you give it a chance, is charming, deftly acted by the, *ahem* human participants-- a first-rate cast of humanoid actors including Dean Jones, Michelle Lee, Buddy Hackett, and the fantastically dastardly David Tomlinson. The script is taut and clever. The racing sequences are convincing-- and why not? After all, they did substitute the 1963 Beetle's stock 40bhp engine with one liberated from a Porsche.


Zoom Zoom.

I don't know that there are too many people out there who can legitimately say they don't know who they'd be if they hadn't seen a certain film when they were four. I don't know who I'd be. I don't know what I'd pine for on ebaymotors. I don't know what I'd dream about gracing my driveway once I'm retired. I don't know what chrome and paint mystery I'd be lusting after if my heart hadn't been set so firmly aflame way back when. I don't know what movie I'd show to potential mates to judge their reaction to me-- to see if they'd accept loving a man who is in love with a child's film, and who has been so badly bitten by the Bug that it may very well one day consume him, and his bank account.

Mrs. Apron clearly passed the test.

"One day," she said, "you will have it, and I will help you get there. I just want you to learn how to fix it yourself first."

I thought about that for a little while.

"Fair enough," I said.

And, for one special occasion, she bought me the immense tome, "How to Keep Your Volkswagen Alive: A Manual of Step-by-Step Procedures for the Compleat Idiot."

And, at once, I knew instantly that the love of a boy and the love of a man had intersected and would live forever in perfect, air-cooled harmony.

Fearless Fifty-Three

There's a very sweet song in the musical "Wicked," a show I really like in spite of not being a twelve-year-old girl, and it's not a popular song either, like "Defying Gravity" or, well, "Popular." It's a one-minute ballad that the Wizard sings called "I am a Sentimental Man." Though I come off a bit bold and brash, I am a sentimental man, and if there's a number in the world I get all soft and squishy about, it's the number "53." Here's the reason why:

My heart belongs to that car, and that number. Ever since I can remember, and I can remember pretty far back, 53 has been my favorite number. It hasn't been especially lucky, and maybe it would be if I ever played the lottery, but it's always been my favorite. Don't ask me how, but I hit 53 followers this weekend, and so I thought, in honor of this historic event, I'd spend a little time talking about my favorite number, my favorite car, and my favorite Disney live-action movie.

By the way, my favorite animated Disney movie is "Robin Hood," and if you've ever heard me lustily belting out "A Pox on the Phony King of England," well, you know not to expect too much from me. Mentally, at least.

My obsession with Herbie (the Love Bug) started many, many years ago, when I was around three years old. My father's sister was visiting from Israel and my parents took the extraordinarily rare opportunity to have an evening to themselves, leaving Rena in charge of the kids. My sisters were off doing whatever sisters did in the heady days of 1983-- probably decorating their bedroom walls with puff paint or whatever-- and Rena plopped me on the living room floor and slipped a film into the Betamax. From the opening title sequence featuring a good old-fashioned dirt-track demolition race, underscored with a sprightly, jaunty soundtrack, I was hooked. And, when the delicate, ovoid, off-white beauty, emblazoned with its patriotic stripes, red, white and royal blue, just off-set of center and its bold number square on the hood, engine cover and doors, I was in love.

"One day," I announced to my Mommy & Daddy, "I'm going to have a car, just like that."

And I've owned a Bahama Blue 1966 Volkswagen Beetle DeLuxe Sedan, and a white, 2001 New Beetle, which I painstakingly turned into Herbie with a custom vinyl graphics kit, ordered from California. One day, I know I'll put the two experiences together and create a precisely, pristinely accurate Herbie the Love Bug replica, and I hope to never part with it, as I regrettably and regretfully did with my other two friends.

I sometimes think about who I'd be if Rena had chosen a different movie to pacify me that night, so long ago. So much of my life is so intrinsically wrapped up in Herbiedom. When I get bored in front of the computer screen, I don't turn to porn (well, sometimes I do) but I turn to ebaymotors, where I stare longingly at vintage Beetles for sale, seeing each one of them as a blank canvas for my Herbie fetish. $3,200 barn find in Boise. $12,000 black plate original in Sacramento. $575 project car in Detroit. $2,700 daily driver in Englewood. They're all calling to me like a siren. Come save me. Paint me. Love me.

I'd take them all if I only could. I'm like a fucking cat lady. Left to my own devices, we'd have Beetles in the garage, on the street, on the lawn, in the basement. I'd be hoarding them in the attic. When I see one on the side of the road, its floorboards rusted and its front bumper hanging down in a palsied frown, I look at it like a child that has been slapped in the face by its mother and left outside the Pathmark. I want to sweep in like BPS (Beetle Protective Services) and take these cars away from those who would let the milkweed grow around them and swallow them whole. But I can't support the habit.

My aunt Rena killed herself six years ago, and I can't see a Beetle or watch "The Love Bug" without thinking about her, at least in passing. That time when I was three or so was probably the longest amount of time I'd ever spent with her. She moved from Israel to Australia to New York City as she moved in and out of sanity. An aunt who hears voices in her head and does battle with demons in the night wouldn't have been much good to me, even if she was around regularly, but I'll always be grateful to her for the German wheels she set in motion that babysitting night so long ago.

And so I'll close this little entry by thanking my 53 followers. And I'll thank Aunt Rena, too, for giving me my favorite number.

On Marriage

I haven't made nearly as many dumbfuck decisions as a married man as I did when I was single.

This could be attributed to the "two-heads-are-better-than-one" outlook, but I'm pretty sure there's more to it than that.

Marriage does a lot to temper idiocy, at least it does in my case. This is not to say that all the decisions I made pre-Mrs. Apron were to the left of retarded, but some of them certainly were.

I certainly never took a joyride in a SuperFresh shopping cart, nor have I ever tried to white water-raft naked, or intercourse a wall socket. But I've done dumb shit, like all dumbshits are wont to do.

Like that time I decided to enter the police academy-- yeah. That was obviously a pre-Mrs. Apron idea.

Not only was it not a mess of her own making, but, upon entering into a relationship and learning of this insane desire, she supported it, and me.

"This is who you are," she said.

(It wasn't really, though-- but we didn't know that at the time.)

I can remember going for a pre-academy run with my father at the track of my old high school, and he and I had a real heart-to-heart about my decision to become a police officer. His own objections were moot by this point, and he had long forsaken them and, instead, threw his support behind me-- helping me out at the track and at the gym-- even enlisting the help of a trainer who taught me a trick to "fake" the weight-lifting portion of the physical agility exam.

"Listen, mummy," he said, in between huffs and/or puffs, "you're living for two now." He was referencing my rapidly developing relationship with the future Mrs. Apron. "This isn't just you anymore. She's the one who's going to have to sit on her fuckin' ass and wait to see if you come home every night. She's the one who's gonna have to answer the door when it's the fuckin' priest or whatever if you get killed. This is something that you're gonna have to decide together, if you can do. You're two now."

He was right. When I made this decision, I was single. Now, as the start-date of the academy approached, I wasn't. I knew she was behind me and my decision, but I couldn't help but think, if I had started all this nonsense when we were together, would she think differently about it? And, whether she was on-board or not, was this a fair thing to put her through? To do to her?

It ended up not mattering a damn. I failed the weight-lifting portion of the physical agility test on the 2nd day of the academy. My ginglygangly armtwigs just couldn't lift that barbell, and no amount of "faking" it could raise that thing all the way. The commander called me into his office. He thought I should stay till the end. I left that day. It wasn't until long after Mrs. Apron & I said our wedding vows until the police ghosts came calling again.

Two months ago, I stumbled upon a notice that my hometown police department was hiring. This time, you had to get hired by them first, and then they would pay to put you through the police academy, as opposed to the ass-backwards way I tried to do it before, (pay to go through the academy, and then hope you get hired by a department). The salary was excellent, as were the benefits, and the probability of getting killed here is low, relatively speaking. I broached the topic with Mrs. Apron, summoning up all my bravery.

"You know," she said, "part of me wants to say, 'What the hell-- put in for it and see what happens...'" her voice trailed off. I imagined the second half of that sentence: "... and part of me wants to jab my fingernails into your jugular and stom on your fucking balls, you insane motherfuck."

I can't say I would have blamed her either. After all, I had just completed a Master of Education degree-- and the abandonment of such a valuable and, dare I say expensive degree would have been a questionable move. At the very least, it would have been a pre-Mrs. Apron move at best.

After all, we are two.

I met Mrs. Apron when I was twenty-three. From the time I was sixteen to the point where I met Mrs. Apron I had been the owner of seven cars:

1966 Volkswagen Beetle
1990 Ford Crown Victoria
1989 Volvo 240 DL
1994 Ford Taurus
1997 Ford Crown Victoria
2001 Chevrolet Impala
2001 Volkswagen Beetle

Call me fickle. When I met her, I was tooling around in the Beetle, which I had painstakingly painted and vinyl decaled in "53's" and red, white and blue stripes in honor of the best car in the world. I had to get rid of Herbie two years into our relationship because its reliability was basement-quality, and I could no longer afford the steep monthly payment coupled with the habitual repair bills. So I got a Ford Focus. It's predictable, boring and extremely reliable. Not only that, it gets 34mpg on the highway, and not terribly worse around town. The monthly payment isn't so bad, and it's actually kind of peppy if you've never driven a V-8 before. I've had it since brand new and now there's 65,000 miles on the clock and lots of bumper-stickers on its ass.

So, when I toyed briefly with the idea of getting rid of it for a fifteen-year-old used car to rid us of a monthly payment, Mrs. Apron rightfully freaked on me. Well, she didn't freak, but she rationally explained her objections and intelligently argued against my latest dumbfuck scheme, the development of which has not been totally ameliorated by marriage. Stunted, maybe. As I listened to her talk, I realized, "Wow-- you are saving me from myself."

And that, friends, is why marriage is better than Jesus.