Rating: NNNNN
It’s saturday night, and my part ner, T, and I haven’t seen each other naked in a while. We’re active members of Club W.S.W.K. – Working Stiffs With Kids – and sleep deprivation is taking its toll. The dark circles under our eyes have been attracting the attention of some neighbourhood raccoons. Our turn to grab a piece of tail is long overdue.
We know there will be some horizontal action tonight, and vigorously clink our cranberry vodka cocktails together.
Saturday Night At The Movies has just started, and half a dozen film critics are being interviewed about the paranoia theme shared by many 1970s movies. My guy and I were kids in that much-maligned era, and as fate would have it, the mournful theme music of the film Taxi Driver, with Robert De Niro, fills the room. We put our gonads on ice, postpone our plaisir d’amour and hunker down in the easy chair to view this superb film.
Pretty soon Travis Bickle is driving his cab through Scumtown. Neon lights blink and illuminate hookers in short shorts. A parade of perverts, crazies and thugs march across the screen. Thoughts of the stinking state of the human race begin to enter my horny head.
I’m not sure what started the foreplay – the futile feeling that copulating is the only activity that doesn’t rely on government funding, can’t start a war and doesn’t damage the ozone layer? Perhaps it’s the muffled moaning sounds coming from the porno movie house where Travis unwinds after his 12- or 14-hour shift. A full frontal chest massage begins. Maybe we just want to get it on so we won’t miss the part where Harvey Keitel’s bad, long-haired pimp wig gets shot up real good.
At some point, T and I finally become the porno stars in the movie house. I’m Cybill Shepherd without her white dress, getting laid by Travis Bickle. What’s her name? Punks throw garbage at Travis’s cab. The jarring, disjointed music spews into the room and feeds my pent-up frustration with my life and disgust with society in general. Some kind of sexual cathartic response is happening. Frig the corrupt politicians, dope peddlers and pimps.
Then, displayed onscreen is a close-up of one of the X-topped bullets Travis is about to put into his gun. Whew! T and I barely acknowledge each other as we jockey for a new position at the same time, not wanting to miss Travis repeatedly pump the action on his weapon. Are you talking to me? How can I be talking to you when my mouth is occupied?
Screeching saxophones and pounding timpani accompany our wild humping. We watch Travis on television watching his television. Crash! Travis lets his idiot box smash to the ground, and at that moment we knock a lamp off the table…. Disturbed Joe Everyman has reached his boiling point, and the spit of humanity is going to hit the fan!
When our act is over, T and I lie panting in different parts of the room and continue watching. We’ve taken on the aloofness and disenfranchisement of the film’s characters. The credits roll. By the glow of the kitchen night light, we gobble up a midnight snack of toast with strawberry jam and a sprinkle of sugar on top – an act of homage to Iris, the young prostitute.
Our pillow talk concludes with the idea that a well-crafted movie has the power to transport people into the story and back out again. Deep thought had ended in hot sex. The political implications for this troubled world are marvellous. If art can truly save the human race, we’ll need to do more research. T and I are going to test our theory next Saturday. The Matrix is playing.
