What Do Will & Grace, Star Wars And Booze All Have In Common? My Saturday Night With Dad

Yeah, I know, I know, I could be spending thousands of words talking about the Ellen and Portia wedding, but you know I am never going to do that unless Calista Flockhart was there and ate some food or something. Anyway, I would much rather talk about Saturday night. Dad fired up the mini-van and since he can't actually drive the thing anymore, he unlocked the basement door and told me to drive him to the ArcLight (movie theatre) so he could see Star Wars. Somehow mom got out of this. I don't know if she had to put out or what, but she got out of this horrible duty.

Saturday night. Sunset and Vine. 99 Dodge Caravan. With my dad. Good times.

Oh, it gets better. The movie he dragged me out to see was Star Wars. Yep. See, dad has been going to these things since the beginning. He even has one of those shirts that says May 25, 1977 Grauman's Chinese Theatre. First Day, First Show. He actually was there I think. Maybe. Or thinks he was. Anyway, he has a shirt, not that it proves anything.

So, at the ArcLight you have reserved seating for every show. What that means is that if you don't believe in computers like my dad, you have to go drag yourself down to the show very early in order to secure seats you like and that are together. In my dad's case that is like three hours early. 515pm arrival for an 815pm show.

Lucky for all parties involved, there is a bar at the ArcLight and nice, strong drinks. The kind that make you feel all warm and toasty inside and make those words your dad is saying just float over you like a cloud on a sunny day at the beach. Six drinks and 2 burgers later, we made our way to the screen. It is still 30 minutes before the show starts, but my dad wants popcorn (with real butter) and enough candy to give him another heart attack. Of course, I match him calorie for calorie. As we like to say, 1,000 pounds of loving.

Because we got there so early, and had consumed so many adult beverages we pretty much blitzed our way through a large popcorn each and some of the candy. So, being the good son, I offered to get some more before the movie started. So, I go and buy enough to feed a group of school children and as I am leaving I see Sean Hayes (Jack from Will & Grace) walking into the line with two other guys. I then made a classic mistake. I did a double take. Frankly, you have that much booze and have bad eyes, you do the double take. If you do the double take, the celebrity will catch it and so I waited for the look. It was there. He knew I knew and then it was like he was daring me to come talk to him or take his photo. Well, I had my hands full, and I wasn't about to let go of popcorn and chocolate to take a photo of some guy who has had a grand total of about one hour of television and film screen time in the past two years.

I just thought that by this time, he would be wanting people to recognize him, and to not be forgotten. Instead he was giving me the death look. Well, f**k him. I hope he got mobbed later by a bunch of 50 year old playing bingo women.

Anyway as for the movie, it sucked. Don't spend your money. It was like a video game. I kept turning around expecting the film operator to have a game controller in his hand and that each showing turned out differently depending on who was running the film.

Dad of course wanted to stay and see it again along with the other 30 people who manged to stick it out all the way through. I told him I was leaving and since he can't fit behind the steering wheel, it was either that or walking. Nothing my dad hates more than walking.