Roadhouse.
Some say it's a dog of a movie, others, movie buff types, that it was a bravura production rising above what seem like obvious script and character flaws via the camp way it was all played out, whatever that means.
Some pretty dry humour, especially from Sam Elliott, saves it for me, plus great fight scenes and of course, the strip scene in the bar featuring the drop dead delectable Julie Michaels who these days is apparently a born again Christian.
The tease to give Patrick Swayze's character Dalton the absolute shits 'cause he wants to run an honourable nightclub, is probably as implausible as anything else in the movie, but what the heck. Michaels has a great body and she takes off her gear with an élan not to be sneezed at. No doubt once the tits came into view, Jesus couldn't wait to save her.
I saved myself a few bucks when I found the Roadhouse DVD in the specials bin at the local record store. Yes I admit the only reason I bought it was for the strip scene, number 12 as you scroll through.
Our DVD can almost take you straight to it on its own these days when late at night, alcohol having flowed a fair bit, it comes out. I roll through the scenes quickly while Julie, my wife, not Michaels, seeing the early credits, heads off with a smirk to the bedroom to slip into something, well more comfortable is the cliché, though I am not sure the skyscraper heels fit that category.
She always appears in her slinkiest, skimpiest dresses just as the first Jeff Healey guitar riff goes DA DA DAAA DUUUUM.
And I've always managed to find her a chair and a white hat. Then while the action's taking place on the screen, Julie replicates it, occasionally taking a peek at the other Julie to make sure she's not going too fast, or too flow. My eyes too, go back and forwards between the live action and the DVD action.
At the end, my Julie's deliciously all but, or all butt, naked and we usually skedaddle off to bed for a pretty boisterous romp.
All good stuff.
And more so since this event.
One day not so long ago, the phone rings in my home office. It's Julie. My Julie, not Julie Michaels. Benny Edwards has missed his flight back to Canberra. He's staying over in town. Do we want to go out to dinner with him?
Benny is one of Julie's contacts in the capital. She uses him for inside information on Government policies, she keeps him up to date with what the real people are saying out in the trenches. Occasionally, like now, they work together on major projects, massive acronyms with equally ridiculous price tags involved. Don't ever tell the taxpayer! I don't know much else about them, and don't really care a lot either. Mutual disinterest in each other's careers, well the finer details, has been a successful part of our relationship. That and sex:)
"Of cause I want to go out to dinner," I say. Benny's always good company: provocative, intelligent and forever up on who's bonking who in Federal politics. Always get something fun out of the night. John Howard with her, you're kidding? That's a two-paper bag job, one for each of them.
Julie and Benny are funny together. I know they like each other enormously, but they are always at each other over anything. In a way she never is with me, she just has to top him on any subject. And he's the same with her. They both have PhDs and argue about whose university carries the greatest weight, thus giving one the apparent intellectual advantage over the other.
They argue over salaries and their relative values to the community. So what if I do get paid $10,000 a year less then you, what I do makes a difference!
They argue over just what is the real world, Canberra, or academe. They're just always challenging each other. Professionally it means their proposals are always the best. Privately, well wait and see.
Julie and I meet at Bernie's Bistro, a nice little place not far from our house. That's about all you could say about it, nice, and close but the beer's cold and the food consistent. I walk, she drives from her office. Julie duly announces she's taking tomorrow off and so is in a mood to relax.
"Nice if you'd given me some warning so I could be part of this fun-fest," I said.
"You work from home and run your own hours," she shoots back. True, I make good dough as a freelance private investigator. In between I want to be a writer. Fiction, faction, anything to get to that big pay cheque with an international publisher. Yeah we all dream. Stop dreaming and you stop living. In the mean-time it's a litany of crook backs that aren't so crook, with blokes double dipping on worker's comp and working at the same time. Thank goodness I just produce the evidence to the insurance companies and get out of the way. Wouldn't want to be the one to say hey fella you're nicked, some of them are pretty tough customers used to rorting the system and getting pretty dirty on people who try to stop them.
Occasionally I do a bit of husband following, and wife following. $100 an hour plus the odd expense or two makes it worth the tedium of sitting outside motel rooms drinking cardboard coffee and eating cellophane sandwiches while those inside are having a good time. Occasionally one or two of the wives are worth watching, but that's all. My old man told me you can always go window-shopping, you only get into strife when you put your fist through the window.
And Julie's my very own shop window. As well as being my meal ticket to greatness, she's got a bod you'd turn away from Julie Michaels to watch. And now I'm not the only proof of that, but I am getting ahead of myself again.
So, back at Bernie's, we've decided to relax, by which time Benny's arrived, full of himself as usual. Julie gets a kiss, I get a hug and a how you going brother?
"Three beers," says Benny, "premium." So out come the Crownies – and glasses, it's a decent drinking hole - as we chat. First Julie and Benny argue over which of them did the best job at the symposium that day. Julie says she wowed the councillors with her overheads. Benny says it all went over their heads and it was his efforts with the figures that won the day. I thought privately Julie's figure wins my day every day.
Then Benny delivers the gossip from Canberra. The Minister for Foreign Affairs is doing just that with the wife of the Portugese ambassador. Three cabinet ministers got caught on camera with a lap-dancer in a strip joint in Adelaide, the Crazy Horse, but it's been hushed up.
Benny then fills us in on the Crazy Horse: Fountain on stage, a bevy of naked beauties and full-on stripperama if you've got the dollars.
Julie asks him how many times he been "caught" there? "Not enough," he says. "I love a good strip joint, all care and no responsibility."
"You don't get arrested for window-shopping," I say, and Julie smiles at our in-joke
"Yeah, something like that," says Benny.
"Wouldn't know," says Julie. "You wouldn't catch me in those sorts of dens of inequity for inadequate people," she laughingly sneers at Benny. The put down probably puts her ahead for the moment in their eternal one-upmanship, or is that one-upwomanship, heck I don't know.
"Another beer," says I, noting near-empty glasses and my turn to shout.
Two affirmatives and three more Crownies.
Dinner comes and goes, nice, as expected, and Julie's turn to shout the beers is glossed over by Benny.
"Your presence is sufficient reward," he says. "She's a good sort your missus he turns to me and adds: If she wasn't married to you I reckon she could just about convince me to give up the single life ... and the strip clubs."
Julie smiles, embarrassed, pleased or maybe even peeved at the "just about" I can't tell.
"Yeah," I say, adding to myself: and you should see her strip.
Aloud though I say "coffee anyone?"
"Yeah, back at our place," says Julie, "I'll pay for dinner if you get the car." Love a woman with a good body and an expense account. Piss of Benny you're not getting anywhere this one.
