Chairperson Bitsy Harrison: This meeting of the South Park Symphonettes will come to order, y’all. Y’all know why we’re here — we all agreed to Vi’s idea to expand our mission statement beyond the Summer Pops series and start checking out things going on outside South Park — even though Vi was a little over the top calling our part of town “the SUV ghetto.”
Vi Carola: That’s not what I said!
Bitsy: We all heard you, Vi. Don’t dig yourself in any deeper. OK, now let’s report on our first “exploration” last weekend at Ballantyne’s new Village Theatre. I have to say I enjoyed our stroll around the shopping center, except I didn’t see anybody wearing even one outfit I’d want to wear myself.
Janet Kessler: No kidding. How many kids wearing hoodies can you take?
Bitsy: OK, so after our stroll we split up at the theater …
Cha-Cha Templeton: Don’t forget, we had sushi and wine first — who’d-a thought you’d ever do that in a movie theater?
Bitsy: Cha-Cha, please. OK, after the sushi and wine, we split up and went to separate movies. Who wants to talk about the movies they saw? Cindy, why don’t you get started, um’kay?
Cindy Myers: A’ight. I just want to say I should have had more wine (laughs). I went by myself to see a South African movie, Tsotsi. What a dreadful film! This cute black kid turns out to be a thug who helps kill people, but you can tell you’re supposed to think he’s OK. At least I think so — the whole thing was in some weird Zulu language or something, with subtitles, so I couldn’t keep up. You’d think people would speak English in Ballantyne, of all places.
Janet: For God’s sake, Cindy, it won the Oscar for “Best Foreign Language Film” — didn’t that tell you something?
Cindy: Thank you so much, Mrs. I-Parked-the-Hummer-When-Gas-Prices-Went-Up.
Janet: Bite me.
Vi and Cha-Cha: (giggle)
Bitsy: Settle down, y’all, come on.
Cindy: Well, I’ll just say I was very disappointed — especially considering it was in Ballantyne and all.
Mandy Barringer: I know what you mean. Janet and I saw Tristram Shandy and that was the weirdest thing I’ve ever seen.
Janet: Amen. It was about these people making a movie called Tristram Shandy, and as far as I could tell they never got around to finishing it.
Cha-Cha: The movie wasn’t finished?
Janet: I mean the movie they were making in the movie. They all just piddled around and flirted and fought and they never got much done. It was just stupid. Plus, the back of my legs stuck to the leather seat — not a happy camper.
Cha-Cha: Hey, it couldn’t have been any worse than the movie Vi and I saw — Confederate States of America. It was supposed to be this kind of fake history film where the South had won the Civil War? And now the whole country had slavery? There was even a Slave Shopping Network (giggles).
Vi: That was the only part I liked, really. I bet my great-great-granddaddy would have loved it — a lot easier than going to the slave market in Charleston, I bet.
Bitsy: (laughing) Oh, Vi, you are so bad.
Cha-Cha: Anyhow, it was just a bunch of liberal malarkey if you ask me.
Bitsy: Well, you wanna talk about liberals — you should see the movie I sat through, Why We Fight. I’m not kidding, it makes that gross Michael Moore look like Sean Hannity.
Mandy: He wishes.
Bitsy: I’m serious, this was like some kind of communists had made it or something. All about America being out to rule the world, and we have too many weapons, and nonsense like that. You’d think with a war on terror going on, they wouldn’t let people make that kind of movie. I’m just happy I didn’t see anybody I knew. What I want to know is, what’s up with Ballantyne having this kind of crappy movie theater?
Cha-Cha: I was shocked. It’s a cute shopping center and all, but I thought Ballantyne would be too classy to show that kind of junk. You can bet you won’t see that kind of trash at Philips Place.
Mandy: And I got pretty uneasy when that group of kids followed us to the parking lot, saying stuff about “Stepford wives.” What was that all about?
Vi: I couldn’t figure it out, but I couldn’t wait to get out of there.
Bitsy: Well, I guess our first exploration wasn’t too successful. What do y’all think? You want to try again at some other place?
Cha-Cha: Let’s give it another shot. You know what my neighbor Shirley told me? You know, the one with the beat-up Volvo? She says there’s plenty of good restaurants outside of South Park. Why don’t we try some of them out?
Bitsy: That sounds more like it. At least we’d all be together and we’d feel safer. So is everyone OK with that?
All together: OK!
Bitsy: All right, then, our next exploration will be restaurants. Maybe this time we’ll find something that meets our higher South Park standards. Anything else, gals? No? Then this meeting is adjourned. Drink up!
This article appears in Mar 22-28, 2006.
