4/15/2005 11:08:00 AM by Rob

The pathetic, twisted mind of the Sloth

Or, Why does the .38 Special song “Caught Up In You” always gives the Sloth warm memories of the Sears Catalog?

Hell, if yer under 25, you might not even recollect the Sears catalog. In one of a million brilliant marketing moves Sears has pulled over the years, sometime in the nineties, they stopped producing the Fall/Winter (which would arrive around the time school let out for the summer), the Big Wish Book (their Christmas xtravaganza, which would arrive on the hottest day of the year) and the Spring/Summer, which usually required snow shoveling to retrieve.

Hell, most of my mom’s shopping was done over the phone from the Sears catalog, since my brother and I hated shopping more than anything on earth, and made it completely unbearable for her to take us anywhere in Person. The biggest problem? The Sears’ Substitution, where they would take it upon themselves to substitute a “like” item for the one you ordered. Like the time my mom ordered me a gray shirt, size 12. They didn’t have the grey shirt in size 12, presumably, so they would be expected to send a grey shirt, size 10. Or a red shirt, size 12. Or perhaps grey pants, size 12. Or, on this particular occasion, a quart of grey PAINT!! I guess we were expected to paint over another shirt, and hope nobody would notice.

But I digress significantly.


As I heard the first few chords of “Caught Up In You” today, it brought me back to the outstanding teen exploitation flick Spring Break, in which the song was prominently featured during a scene when the “hero”, a rich dorky guy, was running to and fro through a Daytona Beach hotel trying to hook up with the hottie played by one Miss Jayne Modean.

So what? Well, this was Jayne’s first (of what I figured to be many, many) starring role in a movie. She was always cast as the “clean” girl alongside Penthouse Pets and Playboy Playmates in whatever she did, and as somebody pointed out in one of her movie reviews, she looked just like Jenilee Harrison (Suzanne Somers’ replacement on “Three’s Company) except she was an even worse actress. Gulp.

Anyway, before “Spring Break”, though, Jayne was fairly famous amongst the pubescent set as the lead model in first JC Penney, then Sears catalogs. (In fact, the pic of her from a mid-70’s JCP is the only known pic of her on the net). You see, back in the day, before the Sloth could obtain and maintain any kind of porn presence, whenever I was stuck with the urge to splurge, I would just lock myself into our single bathroom with my Sears catalog, and whale away to pics of ol’ Jayne Modean in a two-piece bathing suit, or maybe even bra-n-panties. Ahhhh, Good Times.

One more thing: during the arduous research behind today’s essay, I found out that Jayne was briefly married to, and bore a child with….Dave Coulier!!! Oh, My Fucking Gawd!!! This means two things, besides the fact that, ugh, she fucked Dave Coulier:

1) She gave up show biz, because she blamed it for the breakup of her marriage, and
2) SHE was the person of whom Alanis Morrisette sang about in her infamous ode to a lover scorned, “You Oughta Know“, on “Jagged Little Pill”, since she was the woman Dave dumped Alanis for. “Does she go DOWN on you in the…theater?” Amazing.

---