Grease 3 - This Time It's French!

As a fan of Grease 2 on Facebook (What, you're not?!) I was informed that yesterday was film's 30th anniversary. My sister in-law asked me if I really liked it better than the original. For me, that's like asking if you prefer Star Wars or Spaceballs. One is a beloved classic, the other a silly, over-the-top spoof. Of course that's not what the creators of Grease 2 intended, but it's what they ended up with.

I'll admit I love the sequel more. Way more. Grease shows high school kids in an idealized light. The T-Birds are cool, smooth and perfect, with the bravado of teenagers who have it all figured out. Compare that to Grease 2's T-Birds who try to be cool but are dorky, insecure and mess up a lot. I appreciate the more realistic depiction of immature teenagers over the fantasy that an immature teenager would hold - that anyone in high school has a clue what they are doing. Plus, Michelle Pfeiffer straddles a ladder. While singing.

But enough social analysis of a cheesy flopped sequel. On to the greatest movie never made: Grease 3: A T-Bird for France. In the early 1990s my high school friend Michelle introduced me to the wonders of Grease 2.  We loved that movie. We even convinced our sophomore class to perform "Girl for All Seasons" in the school talent show. Serious love. So of course we wrote our own sequel. These days you'd call it "fan fiction" and maybe get a book deal. Back then we were just dorks with too much free time.

This screenplay combines our love of French (we were Madame Takala's favorite students) with our passion for watching and re-watching Grease 2. Our tale has Dolores Rebchuck, the tough little sister from Grease 2, running the Pink Ladies just as she predicted. There is one spot open and the Ladies are holding try-outs to see who's pink enough. Pinky has dreamed her whole life of being a Pink Lady but starts falling for Jean-Pierre, the new French foreign exchange student. Trouble! Pink Ladies can only date T-Birds, so this causes a dilemma of epic proportions. For a teenager anyway. To complicate matters there is also a female French exchange student, the sultry and sophisticated Brigette. She's caught the eye of all boys at Rydell - including the T-Birds - and she wants JP all for herself!

We penned a few songs, intending to have Michelle's boyfriend Brian set them to music. We started picking friends for the cast, though never actually mentioned it to them. I was to play Dolores and Michelle would be Pinky. We had Parissa, now an international tango star, in mind for the part Brigette - it could have been her first big break! We scouted out filming locations at local schools. I remember a playground painting of the USA was to serve as the backdrop for a number called "Coming to America."

For all this planning, we only tapped out seven pages on Michelle's Macintosh Classic before the project stalled out and we went back to the concerns of normal high school nerds, like studying for the PSAT and joining library club.

But the time has come. The world needs..... A T-Bird for France!

You're welcome.

Chameleon: A Guide for Girls

 Wrote this in 2004. Feeling moody today so letting it resurface. 

The first thing you learn is to keep your eyes to yourself. You learn see without looking.  Never raise your eyes, or if you must, keep them focused away from your subject, away from the action at hand.  Listening also needs to be mastered, but that's easy to practice without being noticed.  Seeing, now that's tricky. Eye contact attracts attention, and attention is what you avoid at all costs.

The importance of absorbing the scene around you cannot be underestimated. The fatal flaw of the outcast is complete withdrawal. When you are completely detached from your surroundings, you stand out.  You are alone, but you must not appear to be.  You need to blend, and that means participating in the most minimal way to whatever is happening.  You see and you hear, then you determine the average expression, movement, reaction, and that is what you do. If everyone is watching the kickball game, you watch the kickball game.  If everyone cheers, you cheer. If the girls squeal with horror when the team captain is hit in the nose with the ball, you squeal, even if inside you are grinning and imaging he will be permanently disfigured. You do not laugh, unless laughter is around you.

Over time you will get to be so good at seeing and hearing that being unnoticed becomes effortless.  It helps if you come from a quiet family, a humble one that doesn't fawn over accomplishments. You must avoid developing talents that could bring attention.  Become adept at being unremarkable.  If you have nice hair,  keep it short or pulled back. If you develop breasts, hid them under a baggy sweatshirt.  If you're smart, make sure it doesn’t show. You need to be smart in order for this to work.

Your goal is simple: to survive. You aren't pretty enough to be popular, confident enough to be different or edgy enough to be cool.  So you must blend, head down, eyes averted.  Avoid being hurt. Don't mimic the beautiful girls and become a target of their mocking.  Don't pull away completely and brand yourself an oddball. Don't get angry and end up a troublemaker.  Simply blend.  After a while you won't remember who you really are. In exchange for your individuality, you'll survive.  You'll bury your soul to keep it safe. You aren't proud, but you're intact. You aren't much, but you're alive.