ohbloodyhell8

Okay, it wasn’t lunch.  It was about five minutes.  I went to Chiller Fest and Andrew was tops on my list.  Yes, I did gush a wee bit, but after all I was meeting BLANE! “His name is Blane? Oh! That’s a major appliance, that’s not a name!”  He looks absolutely beautiful.  He was very friendly and jovial.  He seemed a little surprised when I brought up The Beniker Gang.   I’m guessing no one else had mentioned that flick yet.

If you haven’t seen The Beniker Gang, try to find it.  It’s like an after-school special type movie.  There are five orphans and they make their own family, and Andrew is the head of the family.  There’s drama of course as to whether they will be able to stick together.  I don’t know that the rest of the cast has done much since (well, there was a young Danny Pintauro as one of the children), and the girl in the movie has done some movies since and a bunch of theater (a Jules Feiffer play!).

It was lovely to thank Mr. McCarthy for the many films that filled my teen years.  Pretty in Pink, St. Elmo’s Fire, of course.  I also love Weekend at Bernie’s.  It’s aged just a bit over the years, but remains very funny.  Isn’t it funny how the films from your teen years stick with you?  They seem to remain clear in my memory, clearer than movies I’ve seen in the past few years.  For example, supposedly Hubby and I watched the Spiderman movies together (the ones with Tobey Maguire).  I have NO recollection of this at all.  But feed me a cue line from Pretty in Pink and I’ll recite the whole scene.

Perhaps it’s because we are shaping our futures.  Creating our dreams and planning how to make them come true.  We see possibilities in those movies, ideas of what we can do with the rest of our lives.  I always invoked the spirit of Annie Potts’ character, Iona, when I worked in retail.  I loved doing the displays and when I had created an interesting one, the line would come “Applause, applause, applause.”  Sometimes I miss retail, but retail from the 80s and 90s.  Those were the days to work behind a counter.  Now I wouldn’t want to face the public.

It was white hot to meet Andrew McCarthy.  A nice fellow.  I would like to read his travel book.  See where he’s traveled to and what he’s discovered through visiting these places and continuing the journey.