THE GREAT GADFLY:

It's Too Damn Sultry In Here

So they're saying 93 degrees today. WhooooooDOGGIE. What a strange summer it is already, at least here in the 'Cago of Chi. The weather here has been mostly dreary and rainy for the past two or three months, then smack dab on June 20 - BOOM! - summer sets in with all the subtlety of a Marilyn Manson cameo in a David Lynch movie.

That might have been the most awkward metaphor I've ever written. Glad you guys were here to share in the moment.

Today I am in the mood to watch dreary '70s dramas featuring sulky Southern vixens languishing in the summer sun, wiping their foreheads with cold glasses of ice water as they splay themselves out in their gazebos and plot ways to ruin their families. And if no movies of that ilk are readily available, I'd gladly settle for Ringo Starr, Shelley Long and Barbara Bach in "Caveman". I'm a sucker for a good dinosaur poo gag.

I saw "Love, Liza" last night. It's the best movie in which Crispin Glover should have starred but didn't, and also the best movie that should make one weep like a drunken piglet but doesn't. Still and all, Phillip Seymour Hoffman gives a commendable Klaus Kinski impersonation, huffing gasoline and screaming at hapless gas station attendants when they won't sell him his precious fix. "MY MODEL AIRPLANE RUNS ON GASOLINE!!! IT'S IN MY CAR!!! I WANT TWO DOLLARS WORTH OF GAS!!! NOW!!! TWO DOLLARS!!!" And Cathy Bates is in it, scaring small children and screaming a lot. I thought it was going to be a tender-yet-intense weepie, but it turned out to be the "Showgirls" of psychodramas. Eeeyow.

I think it's time to mix up some lemonade and go stretch out on the porch now. Y'all come back now, y'hear?