I heard of Roy Scheider's death this morning from a tinny sounding bathroom radio as I was showering this morning (Monday) at my lady friend's apartment. As I was just about to soap up my crotch, I heard, "And the actor Roy Scheider has passed away at the age of 75," which caused a long frown to blanket my face as my forearm braced my forehead on the shower stall's tile. Hours later, as I sat in the teachers' lounge at work grading papers that I've been holding onto for several months too long, a coworker of mine walked up to me and exclaimed, "Hey, did you hear that SCHNEIDER died?" Immediately, I thought of Pat Harrington, ONE DAY AT A TIME's loveable handyman Schneider; I asked, "Schneider died? Pat Harrington?" All my coworker could utter was "No, the guy from JAWS," as if I was the crazy one. I didn't even bother to tell him that he didn't say the name correctly, but his faux pas got me thinking about the many idiots who've made this mistake over the years, pronouncing the legendary star's surname as if it were the more common SCHNEIDER. Now I was raised in a good Christian household, reared by a mother who always told me to refer to a person by his or her proper name (first or last); if I tried to call my best buddy Anthony by the name "A.J." or Mrs. Hoover, my second grade teacher, "Mrs. H," my mom would smack me from here to kingdom come. I know that the former SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE alum Rob Schneider didn't help Mr. Roy Scheider's cause any, but that doesn't excuse such mistakes. Here's my advice to all of you mispronouncers: Take a deep breath before speaking, conjure up an image of JAWS's Chief Brody, and remember that Scheider is like no other; therefore, his last name does not include an "N."
* Mr. Sweatin' to the Oldies himself, Richard Simmons, looks strikingly similar to Three's Company actress Audra Lindley. Perhaps the impotent Mr. Roper (Norman Fell) would have preferred Helen if she swapped her housecoat for Simmons' rhinestoned red tank tops and red short shorts.
I thought I wasn't going to be irritated this week because I received a prescription for a new medication from my doctor. This pill was supposed to make me less irate, but when I went to pick up the prescription, I noticed that the plastic cap on the medication--the easy-off cap I've come to know for the past couple of decades--was usurped by an inferior topper that was covered with instructions on how to open it. "It's not like I got any kids at home," I told my pharmacist when he sold me the whole safety song. Apparently, the old caps are hard to come by because of pharmacies' fears of being sued, but that doesn't help me! I've never procreated (not to my knowledge) or adopted for that matter; since I won't know the comfort of having my own loving, biological brood doting on me in my old age, I think I've earned the right to having comfort in the form of an easy-to-open cap on a prescription vial.
* For a woman who had so much money, the deceased Leona Helmsley (a.k.a. "The Queen of Mean") wore her make-up much like Jack Nicholson's Joker from the memorable Batman film. Helmsley, who dropped out of Brooklyn's Abraham Lincoln High School, looked more like a beauty school dropout with her clownish lips, heavily arched eyebrows, and abundant eyeshadow.
I was watching the SAG Awards last night (That's right . . . the awards show that became popular because the Golden Globes were cancelled), and I WAS angered over these cackling queens and failed models who fawned over each celebrity, asking, "Who are you wearing?" When did it become popular to word a question in this manner? Unless someone, like THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE's Leatherface, is wearing a designer's flesh, this question shouldn't be asked. What the heck's wrong with the simply inquiring, "Who designed your outfit?"
