Loud Opinionated Queen Speaks Up

As I perused the selection at Tower Records, one person was hard to escape: an opinionated, earring-bedecked man in his 60's, with a quintessential queen-like manner. He decided to purchase the "Brokeback Mountain" DVD, and, by virtue of his loud, one-sided discussions with the store clerk, his decision was made known to all - I'm sure even the head-banging punkers listening to music samples on the store-provided headphones knew of it.

"That's quite a package you've assembled there," the man boomed longingly, as I bellied up to the checkout counter. Momentarily confused, I realized he meant my eclectic product selection, which included the movie "Rent", which is apparently now on DVD. The man then began expounding on the state of the movie musical.

He said "I haven't seen the movie 'Rent.' I saw the stage show, and I was sold!!! But I missed the movie." I said, "I don't think 'Rent' was in the theaters very long," and he began sipping the bitter venom in that injustice.

He continued, "They just stopped trying with movie musicals. I mean, the critics just don't give them a chance. I saw 'Phantom of the Opera, and I LOVED it, but the critics completely tore it apart. All because they made the Phantom handsome! Come on, people, it isn't a horror movie, IT'S A MUSICAL!!! When I was young, there were so many musicals. It was the Golden Age of movie musicals - 'Oklahoma!'; 'Sound of Music'; 'King and I'. Then they did 'Oliver!' in 1969, and then the 70's came, and THEN THEY JUST STOPPED TRYING!!!"

The clerk piped up, "there were some musicals in the 70's - 'Godspell'...," but the man was unpersuaded. Beginning again in the 60's, he continued "They gave Audrey Hepburn the role of Liza Doolittle in 'My Fair Lady', but what was that all about? - Julie Andrews OWNS that role!!! Then they started making mistakes - Barbara Streisand as 'Funny Girl': BOY WAS THAT EVER A MISTAKE! THEY STOPPED TRYING, and they hit a brick road (I think he meant a brick wall, but the stress of multitasking, talking and completing his credit card purchase, was leading him to start mixing metaphors).

Both him and the clerk wished me good luck as I left with my purchase, but I wondered later, what would the Loud Opinionated Queen be like, if inebriated? Or, say, in a court of law? Frankness can be funny: just ask my cousin, who took my recently-deceased nonagenarian aunt to the doctor, and she made the waiting room erupt in laughter, as she observed 'the girl behind the desk isn't doing any work at all!'

Everyone needs a Loud Opinionated Queen, if for nothing else, but to bounce decisions off of.