Jack The Bulldog Returns: Julia -- The Wonder Years, Continued

Cupcakes, I confess that I’ve been AWOL and suffering from chronic JA fatigue. The weariness has zapped Baugher in the past and has also afflicted the original RBNS, although she remains the watchful overlord here. That fatigue sets in when one realizes that, like a leopard, Julia Allison will never change her spots, or her pink tutu from The Limited. She simply becomes more indefensible, more morally bankrupt, more self-defeating, more childish, and more blatantly unlikable as she heads into her 30s.

Not surprising that while I was away, our lady made public her desire for some very married men, made a fool out of herself at various conferences, attended a birthday party allegedly for herself in which her name was left off the cake, posed with a sleazebag celebrity professor, and found an ex-Doobie Brother to chase her across Manhattan in the hopes of hard cash. What a fool believes!

Since I am most tired of cleavage-struck males running to the former Ms. Baugher’s defense, whether they be “angry somewhat young man” Ian Spiegelman or the misguided jackass from the Davos piano bar who invited her to speak at Parsons because “women really want to hear Julia,” it’s time for another instalment from Julia’s Wonder Years. And yes, she makes a complete fool out of herself. Again. Sit back, cupcakes, have some juice — I know you don’t drink! — and enjoy.

It’s spring semester, 2004. I’ve now endured three classes with the most loathsome creature at the university, but she’s away a lot this term, turning in papers weeks late while allowing the level of classroom discourse to noticeably rise. Today, we’re not so fortunate. My media studies class and two classes from the history department are gathered together to hear Jim Bouton speak. I only know who Bouton is because I saw him the previous semester in my film noir class playing the villain in Robert Altman’s The Long Goodbye. Now, I don’t expect Julia to know what film noir is or why Robert Altman is important, but I did expect that she’d be courteous around a genuine baseball legend. Being no baseball fan myself, I learned from my dad that Bouton had played professionally and written an infamous memoir entitled Ball Four back in the early 1970s. Forgive the terrible pun, but this man had been a heavy hitter.

There must have been about 200 students and faculty members crowded into a large classroom for Bouton’s talk. He spoke of baseball, working in film and television, the steroid scandal, and his political causes. The man was articulate, smart, never boring, and the room was most interested.

About 20 minutes into Bouton’s talk, I heard movement and tittering around Julia, who was seated two rows directly in front of me. I moved up to see what the minor commotion was and had to suppress a laugh. Julia was cutting pictures of banal celebrities out of supermarket rags and pasting them into a scrapbook. Like an 11-year-old back in Dubuque. And unlike her then-idol, Paris Hilton, Bouton had never fucked on videotape and could form a sentence using more than three words. But why bother listening when it was cut-and-paste time?!

The looks of shock and finger-pointing were priceless, and one of the history professors moved in to discover what the commotion was about. When the prof saw Julia, seemingly oblivious, in her heavily made-up face, her age-inappropriate clothing, and cutting the likes of Demi Moore out of Us Magazine, a look of recognition appeared in his eyes. He must have realized that this creature wasn’t a student at Georgetown at all. Perhaps she had come with Bouton or one of the other students had brought her to classes for the day, for Julia was clearly “special” in this professor’s eyes. And he backed away, shaking his head sadly.

Next time: Julia ruins children’s literature for the entire class!

Contributed by Jack The Bulldog