Grandma's Mojo is the Best!

For those of you who don't know, my grandmother (who made MANY guest appearances in my comedy monologues) passed away a few weeks ago. So what you're about to read is my occasionally rambling, always inappropriate online tribute to her - to be followed immediately by the picture of an adorable puppy (what assuages grief better than baby animals? NOTHING. Except maybe baby animals in costume.)

Commence tribute:

My grandma was an old-school broad - seemingly unsinkable, like Molly Brown. Back in the day, she took care of (what seemed like) an impossible number of Morrises - whether cooking daily meals filled with love and chicken ("everyday with the goddamn Chicken!") and far too much Paprika, providing those homeless among us with lodging, or perhaps issuing unwanted social commentary - she was always the family gate-keeper (which I suppose makes my grandfather the family Key Master? Minus the coming of Gozer and turning into a Doberman thing? Or do I just relate way too many unrelated situations to Ivan Reitman films?) Or, actually, perhaps a better analogy is Grandma as ring-master - or that creepy guy who runs the sideshow at the traveling carnival - minus the handlebar moustache and tophat. You get what I'm saying.

That she's gone now is bizarre to me - as if Bev could be susceptible to something as pedestrian as cancer; that's like Chuck Norris dying in his sleep instead of in an underwater boxing match with Satan, God and eight killer sharks like the prophecy of course always promised. (Or like how Lost turned out to be a bad metaphor trapped beneath an ancient wine cork. Really, Lost? The island is just a bottle of Sutter Home? THERE'S A REASON NOBODY BUYS THAT CRAP AT WHOLE FOODS, LINDELOFF!)

(Tribute-interuptus!:)

(Dear Lost, You shredded my heart like so much emotional pornography and then you answered none of my questions, and then, tragically, you died. Yet, I still love you. So. Please bring back Sayid's naked chest and Sawyer's wind-swept floppy hair. Maybe in a spinoff? Sayid and Sawyer: Wet, Half-Naked and Awesome. Okay? Call me, Lindeloff!)

(Finis-tribute-interuptus! - sorry, dudes. A shit ton happened in the past month and I am all over the place trying to catch up.)

Anyway.

My grandma was supposed to live forever (no offense to all of you out there with mere mortal grandparents) - after 88 years of perfect health, a smoker's Brooklyn accent (somewhere between Coffee Talk's Linda Richman and The Exorcist's Linda Blair), not to mention 6 packs of Marlboros a day since the mid 1930s. Seriously, you guys? Anyone who consumes that much nicotine and makes it to 88 should outlive the Earth.

Beyond this, my grandma was always the shit to hang out with - even during those painful months before she died - mainly because she never once felt sorry for herself, never once made apologies, and had an excellent memory and an endless capacity for stories about everyone else's fucked up, retarded bullshit. (Sidenote: "fucked up retarded bullshit" is, I believe, a phrase I first learned from her when I was two.) Basically, you could ask her what she ate for breakfast and instead of an answer, she'd give you every assinine offense any Morris had ever perpetrated against the act of breakfast over a span of at least forty years.

Once, right after I joined J-date (a Jewish dating disaster deserving of its own entry) I called her up and asked her what she thought about romantic relationships. What makes them work, what compells folks to stay together, that sort of thing. And instead of giving me the usual grandmotherly speech about love and all its nauseating granduer, she launched into a seemingly unrelated diatribe about how, to save a bit of money right before the war, my grandfather bought himself a car with no floor; literally, it was just seats and cardboard on a metal foundation - what she called his "quaintly stupid piece of shit."

"Sure, nobody had money during the Depression, but who buys a goddamn floorless car? I was Wilma Flintstone for a year, and I swear, we might as well have been driving a cardboard box with a windshield. And god forbid it rained. I just... can't. even. tell you. But that idiot was adorable in his Navy uniform with his short little legs and those awful jokes. And God, that assinine car. But he made me laugh. If he hadn't, I would have smacked him in the face and gone off in search of Frank Sinatra and been done with it."

we were both adorable in the 80s...

After the war, my grandparents moved to the subburbs and bought a card store - and put my Dad to work at the register as soon as he was old enough, and then my cousins and I as soon as we were old enough - and by old enough, I mean potty-trained and able to form simple sentences. Actually, my cousins and I were (I am proud to say) the best employees no paycheck could buy: by the time we were six we ran the register and the lotto machine; we also sold ugly fake jewelry to anyone stupid enough to buy it, and peddled homemade goods from my grandmother's beloved assembly line of inappropriate nonsense - a random assortment of homemade bags, screened t-shirts with sayings like "I found the keys now where the fuck is the car?!" and chocolate molded candies - Valentines hearts, birthday lollies, Christmas wreaths, naked breasts and assorted novelty penises (which also meant we frequently nibbled on chocolate pornsicles as we rode our bikes around Hewlett Harbor. Of course, years later, when I brought up the weirdness of that - admittedly a source of both pain and hilarity - my grandma, instead of directly answering the question, extended to me a traditional Jewish Guilt Branch - an offering of homemade noodle kugle, matzoh ball soup, and/or barbeque brisket. This is how Jewish grandmothers get away with everything, guys:)

"You used to ask me, 'Grandma, can I do the boobies? Please can I do the boobies?' and it was adorable, Jaimala, and a little weird, except I kept thinking maybe you were really trying to say 'Bubbulah,' like you were confusing a sentiment, but then I realized you only had a smartass mouth. Where you picked that shit up from, I'll never know. But it's not like you had anything else going on at the time anyway... But you know Grandma loves you. Now, eat this kugel I made before it gets cold - I put in extra golden raisins. I know you love those."

(That's really how they get away with it, guys - offerings of delicious golden raisins.)

Nevertheless.

My Grandma was just a bad-ass broad; she took care of the books for the store, she sold her own erotic candy, she ran the family business as if it were both business and day care - and, awesomely enough, every once in awhile, she sold cards and assorted novelties to the entire Long Island mafia (one of her many, many stories - that the mob met in the office building across the street and we were their sole chocolate supplier - for what exactly, I have no idea. But can you imagine that meeting?)

"Tony, thank you for the comprehensive power-point on cement shoes vs. red hot pokers. I admit I was unaware of our extensive Instrument Of Death expenditures. But now, before Vinny goes over our quarterly budget by cracking open the wall safe behind the trick bookcase and disabling the array of protective security lasers, please enjoy some tea and sandwiches and some milk chocolate genitals on a stick, courtesy of Bev from Carl's Cards across the street."

(Grandma's special story cocktail: 1/2 gross exaggeration mixed with 1/4th shit learned from old timey movies, spritzed with 1/4th actual truth, but always served to us with such commitment. The more I think on it the more I realize she would have made one hell of a long-form improviser.)

I hear mob bosses are suckers for chicks in bathing suits...

Fast forward about twenty-five years.

Although it had been (I'm almost embarrassed to admit) several years since I'd asked my Grandma for anything - we Morris women are known for our pigheadedness, also for our creative use of both English and Yiddish curse words - I called her up a few months before she died, needing some advice - either her hard-nosed opinion or an old-school kick in the ass - whichever she was willing to offer. I was broken hearted and feeling sort of helpless - like a kid painting chocolate testicles only half-heartedly, wondering if this was all there would ever be to life (remember when y'all were six and wistfully painting pubes on chocolate penis molds? No?)

Basically, I was having what I've since lovingly (or frustratingly) nicknamed "The Old Maid Freakout" - paranoia that my window to find a non-crazy, non-gay, non-asshole had closed. And then who the hell would I have to make bad jokes with and push a floorless car with? Surely you single women out there know what I'm talking about - usually, it ends with a pint of Phish Food, six glasses of wine, an incoherent rant directed at the dog, and mispelled drunken sexts to every retarded horndog guy in my iphone address book.

"Love doesn't fucking exist," I'd said. "And who wants to be repeatedly hurt in some fruitless, crazy, Moby Dick search for something that doesn't fucking exist? That's like I might as well go looking for Jon Hamm to give me an engagement ring - or leprechauns with Lucky Charms or talking Pound Puppies or babies who can break-dance and do you see where I'm going with this? It's all make-believe, Grandma! Everyone goes on and on about how love is just like magic but you know what? Magic isn't real. So how can love be real when magic's not? It's all an illusion! Or a paradox! Maybe? I don't know, but it's something goddamn similar!"

Then, after I took a much-needed breath from Ye Old Maid Freakout, this is what my 88 year old Grandmother had to say - in a voice strained from chemo, and for once forgoing a story in favor of actual advice:

"Don't act retarded, Jaimala. Love isn't magic - it's just hard to find. And you have plenty of time. So I think I speak for both your Poppy and myself when I say that we were worried you might be a lesbian - not that you can't be whatever you want - but really, for years we thought you were a lesbian. At least it's a relief to know you'll be able to have babies someday. Not before I die, but someday. So make yourself happy now but then, definitely, have babies. Okay? Just look at it this way: if Grandma can quit smoking, surely you can marry this Jon Hamm you love so much. I can't imagine he wouldn't want to marry you, Jaimala. What's not to like? You're my granddaughter. Just don't worry so much - you'll be fine. You have plenty of time. Everything ends up the way it's supposed to."

Oh, Grandma. Wherever am I supposed to get these pearls of wisdom without you here?

So wherever she is now, and perhaps it is outside of space and time (where a shirtless Sawyer and a shirtless Sayid are undoubtedly shuttling her around the Ever After - and come on, let's be serious - even Grandma appreciates the hottness of Sawyer and Sayid in their groovy VW van - and why can't that be the pilot of the spinoff, Lindeloff??) I hope she's watching over me. And I hope there are endless, heavenly cartons of cigarettes, and secret mob meetings, and inappropriate chocolate candy pornsicles, and of course, hot cars WITH floors (Cadillacs!) and lots of laughter (as there always was). But most of all, I hope she knows I'm grateful for all the bizarre experiences she contributed, which ultimately helped make me the awesome lunatic I am today. Thank you for everything, Grandma. I miss you.

And now, as promised, here's an adorable puppy. In costume. (That's right. I went there.)

Too Many Dead Celebrities, Too Little Time

Seriously, Universe. What is going on? First Natasha Richardson with that freak head injury and then Farrah Fawcett and Michael Jackson on the same day, and now Patrick Swayze? Are you there, God? It's me, Jaime. Please stop killing our celebrities before they can do Dancing With the Stars.

Before I continue, I should clarify that I don't normally sob into my popcorn when celebrities die, although I'm not completely hollowed out inside either (despite what my mother insists whenever we discuss my lack of husband and babies) and clearly, I realize the death of any human being is a terribly sad thing for the family and friends of that human being. I'm just saying, if I don't know you personally, it's kind of impossible for me to have an opinion one way or the other, and I'm definitely not going to your candlelight vigil. (Sidenote: I was once witness to a candlelight vigil for an actress who was still alive. No joke. Idina Menzel fell through the stage the day before her last performance of Wicked, a show I worked many moons ago, and bruised her ribs. The paramedics took her to Roosevelt hospital and gave her painkillers. Hours later, bawling fans were standing outside the theater in their freshly painted, neon green, puffy-paint OUR THOUGHTS ARE WITH YOU and DEFY SADNESS t-shirts, with their green roses and green witch-hats and green candles, and playing, from a lone boom box underneath the poster with Idina's photo and the Tony award stamp on it, an acoustic single from her album, unfortunately [or hilariously] titled, "It Only Hurts When I Breathe." Creepy? Ridiculous? Hysterical? I don't know. She was three blocks away, high on morphine and lying in bed with man-candy Taye Diggs, watching Access Hollywood. You make the call.)

That said, there's something so inherently strange to me about the passing of Patrick Swayze, even though we all unfortunately saw it coming for a long time. This is the guy who pulled Baby out of the corner and taught her how to get her groove on, 1989-version-of-1964 style. This is the guy who made sexual clay pots with Demi Moore. He was such an inherent part of my childhood love affair with the genius Cheese Whiz of late 80s/early 90s cinema that his death is like that of an old elementary school friend who kicked it before I could Facebook him. Vividly, I can still remember watching Dirty Dancing for the first time, my cousin Joelle and I spending at least fifteen minutes beforehand trying to get the blasted tape-deck door of the VCR to STAY THE HELL shut. (I feel like half of my TV-watching time in the 80s was spent yelling at that bastard VCR as it randomly opened and shut like some demon-bitch Jack in the Box.) Dirty Dancing was worth it. Dirty Dancing was just one of those movies. It made you want to put on an ugly, salmon-colored salsa skirt and hop into Doc Brown's Delorean and travel back in time to the fictional 60s so that you could go to Kellerman's vacation resort and do lifts in the ocean at sunset with Patrick Swayze. Because that mofo? was DREAMY. Right? I can still remember dancing like an uncoordinated white girl (some habits you never outgrow) in an attempt to reproduce Swayze's moves to The Time of My Life, except my dance partner was Joelle, who - although slightly more coordinated than me, in that way Autistic kids are slightly more coordinated than Down Syndrome kids - still hit her head on my grandmother's night-table during the chorus and bridge (which may or may not have been my fault as I may or may not have promised to catch her.) I can still remember the sounds of my grandmother clamoring around in the kitchen, making dinner. ("Carl, get the hell out of my way, and don't you dare change the channel, $25,000 Pyramid is on. Go find the girls - are they watching the fucking TV again? This floor isn't going to clean itself.")

Ah, memories.

That Patrick Swayze, such an intrinsic part of my childhood universe, could be gone forever, is so sobering - as if a chunk of the 80s was just killed and trampled by the high-stepping Marching Band of Time. (Shut up! It's a perfectly good band nerd metaphor.) This also means both guys from the SNL Chippendales Stripper sketch are now gone, which of course means I've been asking the universe those serious questions. Things like "What the hell?" and "Why the fuck?" The answer, sadly, is we're growing old, my fellow Gen-Xers, and we're apparently dragging a ton of random B-Celebrities down with us.

So in conclusion, God, I want to know when this madness is going to end. Don't you understand we need these people for our reality shows? THEY'RE STILL FILLED WITH PURPOSE! THEY STILL HAVE THINGS TO DO! HAVEN'T YOU EVER WATCHED I'M A CELEBRITY, GET ME OUT OF HERE?

Sigh.

Think on it awhile, God. That's all I ask.