Stuff I'm Listening To (8/23/23 -- Bette Midler)

This morning I listened to Bette Midler’s cover of “Is That All There Is” and then Spotify read the room correctly, again, and showed me her album No Frills from 1983. I’m as surprised as the next guy but I think her covers of “Favorite Waste of Time” and “Beast of Burden” are really fun. 

I have loved Bette Midler the actor since I was a little kid because Big Business was one of 100 movies I watched over and over again at my dad’s house. I did not love Bette Midler the singer because the songs of hers that I knew like “The Rose” or “Wind Beneath My Wings” were much too big, emotionally. I was too insecure and world-weary to give anything sentimental a fair shot. To be fair, though, I was already 6 when Beaches came out. 

Big Business is also from 1988 but it was 100% for me. It has everything: rich people and poor people; country people and city people; a slapstick baby switching scene; mistaken identities; and the best part, surprise twins. 

Surprise twins was one of my favorite movie and TV tropes. 

Of course Twins was another movie I watched 100 times that came out in 1988. In Twins, some scientists Frankenstein sperm from 6 geniuses and use it to impregnate 18 year old Heather Graham. She gives birth to the genetically flawless Julius (Arnold Schwartzenegger) and an extra dud baby, Vincent (Danny DeVito). Vincent is so obviously awful right out of the womb that they send him to an orphanage in New York. Julius grows up on a beautiful island that has a lot of enrichment opportunities. 

I’m trying to wrap this up. I’m trying to get back to Bette. Music is so slippery and lately all I want to do is rewatch and recap all the movies I was obsessed with when I was little. I’ll crawl through any tiny window to get there.