This used to be one of my Favorite Mother's favorite anecdotes, but with the changing of social mores it has totally lost the punch it used to have. I was reminded of it recently on FaceBook when I happened to bring up my Favorite Parental Units' 52nd wedding anniversary. And it goes like this:

Somehow, somewhere, some well intentioned person who had NO IDEA who they were dealing with or what they were getting into befriended my Favorite Mother and her slavering pack of abominable children (ahem--that would be US, minus the Favorite Younger Sister who came along later). Or, probably more accurately, befriended my Favorite Mother and barely tolerated the beastly little rugrats she was legally obligated to have with her at all times. And at some point made the suggestion--or made some calls, or pulled some strings, or whatever--to have the eldest child appear on the television show, Romper Room.

Naturally everyone who is even casually acquainted with anyone even remotely related to Mojo is already shouting, "No! NO! NOOO!!!" at their computer screens, but what can I say? It was a simpler, innocent, pre-reality television time. And my Favorite Older Sister could look and behave in a most cherubic fashion when it suited her. The fact that it RARELY suited her did not come into play, here, for some inexplicable reason. Mojo's family and mass media DO NOT MIX, we have since learned. Media professionals know it is for the best to leave well enough alone. But back then, with Conformity and Decorum as a way of life, we were ESPECIALLY ill-suited to be presented to the rest of society as Examples to Strive For.  MORE Mojo! »

So Mojo is one of those poor misinformed people who has never had the opportunity to see certain movie classics. Like Taxi Driver. Sure, I've seen enough clips and parodies you'd SWEAR I've seen it all the way through, but I haven't. (Ditto The Godfather until I was somewhere in my thirties.)

No, this isn't about seeing Taxi Driver, although that's on my to-do list. This is about another movie I've heard so much about most of my life, and I finally got the chance to see it. Midnight Express, the Turkish prison "horror" movie that pretty much everyone my age saw when it first came out and were traumatized for life by it, and then didn't have to have things Explained To Them when scenes were parodied in other movies or TV shows.

Anyway, after twenty years or so of people TALKING INCESSANTLY about it, I finally saw it this weekend.  MORE Mojo! »