Bullock, Baseball, Limbaugh

You ever have one of those dreams that’s so delicious and fun that you hate to wake up, and when you do, you think to yourself, “wow, that was GREAT! I want to finish that dream! I want to videotape that dream, so I can dream it again!”

I had such a dream – just awoke from it (yeah, okay, I was sleeping in the middle of the day. My work was done, my insomnia never lets me get a good night’s sleep and my husband was off on an adventure, so I took a nap! Sue me!)

Anyway – this dream – I don’t have all of it, because you know what happens – you wake up and immediately start to lose pieces of it – but I still want to have it again. I want to see it made into a movie – one of those genial comedies that is not Young Frankenstein, but not Spaceballs, either – kind of “Miss Congeniality” good; formulaic and cute, and you can slip into it whenever you happen to be channel-surfing, and sit back and watch with only a bit of guilty pleasure.

It starts with a flashback of a big game – it’s 10-12 years earlier. Don’t remember the team or the stadium; it’s not important, say it’s the Mets. A guy like Jimmy Fallon is in the outfield making a great, game-saving catch. The crowd goes wild! It’s a glory-moment. The last one of his career. After that he tries too hard to replicate the moment, gets the yips and ends up disgraced and done while still pretty young – like Chuck Knoblauch. Now, he’s depressed and promotes sports memorabilia shows. He dreams of redeeming himself, but can’t bring himself to even watch baseball, much less play it.

Another flashback – this time Sandra Bullock. It’s 10-12 years earlier and she is a smart reporter trying to get out of the shadow of a dumb-but-perky American Sweetheart NewsDitz. Gets a line on a way to infiltrate Rush Limbaugh’s workplace (which, being ten years ago, my brain put in NY) and figures an “insider” expose detailing Limbaugh’s maniacal management and dubious empire will get her noticed and make her America’s New “SMART” Sweetheart NewsDitz. Like the baseball player, she tries too hard to find the dirt, comes face-to-face with a genial and pleasant Limbaugh who humorously has her walked outside and left, storyless and disgraced. We see her in present times, divorced, Mommy-tracked – she encounters a thug she once helped put behind bars, and he doesn’t even remember her enough to hate her. She’s depressed. She dreams of redeeming herself, especially since the Sweetheart AnchorDitz is now Press Secretary to the President, but just looking at current news programs activates the gag-reflex.

The dream was formulaic. Bullock sets her sights on finally getting that Limbaugh story (she’s been driving and listening to him and sneering at his “talent on loan from GAWD” bit) and needs a way in. Her condo neighbor is none-other than Fallon, who knows all these sports-figures. Who loves to hang with athletes? Limbaugh! Here, I lost some of the dream, but a merry (and platonic) partnership is being formed over lasagna and cabernet, while her daughter watches a Muppet-type of program where various celebs, like Bruce Willis and Yo-You Ma are interspersed with furry creatures and they’re all talking about how bad America is compared to Europe. So, I figure, this is taking place during the Bush era, definitely pre-Obama. There is no Obama in this scenario.

Limbaugh broadcasts in Florida, now. Hey, Fallon was going to Florida to talk up some athletes for a card-signing gig! They decide they can help each other. Fallon may find a way to get her near Limbaugh, she – as a “reporter” – may get him close to those superstitious baseball players who are afraid catching his yips (no one is more superstitious than a ball player).

I don’t remember the rest of it, except that Fallon – watching the daughter – ends up getting a sandlot game going with a bunch of kids and their fathers, and it is great and fun, and funny and redemptive. It’s where I woke up, and I thought…I want more. More baseball! More Bullock. Hell, even more Limbaugh – in my dream he was cigar-smoking, ironic and funny!

But man, it was a great dream. I was charmed. That’s a movie I want to see again!

Now, of course, you know what this is about. It’s my annual longing for baseball to begin. My yearly fever. My other passion.

Hurry baseball! And hurry a light-but-charming popcorn summer movie! (Great poster by reader Brian, see here)