Monday, November 18, 2013

THE FINAL MEMBER

Some 40 years ago someone gave Sigurdur 'Siggi' Hjartarson a School Head Teacher in Iceland, a bull's penis as a joke.  It kicked started what turned out to become a lifetime obsession of collecting any mammalian phallus's he could lay his hands on ..... it evidently pass those the long dark dismal days and nights of Arctic winters. Soon his jars of organs in formaldehyde filled ever nook and cranny Of his home and his frustrated wife cracked another yet joke (even though she must have known by now that Siggi took them too seriously). 'Why' she asked 'don't you open a Museum?'

Thus the World's first ever Penis Museum was started  ... although it is officially known The Icelandic Phallological Museum  ... and the world flocked too it.  Siggi, a very likable and seemingly sane man, continued to expand his vast collection of phallus's that had ranged in size from tiny (hamster) to outsize (sperm whale) but he was always aware that it could never ever be considered complete until he got a specimen to put into the empty jar labelled 'Homo Sapien'.  Now that he is nearing retirement and in poor health, the pressure is on to insure that the dream of his legacy will be fulfilled. 

According to an hilarious piece of Icelandic folklore concerning an old married woman who demanded the Sheriff permit her to divorce her husband because she wasn't satisfied with the size of his john thomas'.  It was only 3" long and legend has that she insisted that it should be at least 5" to keep her happy, and over the years this has evolved into what the Icelanders now call 'a legal 5'!  ( Who ever said they had no sense of humor in the frozen wastes of the North?)

Siggi located two possible donors who were prepared to give their all (i.e. scrotum, testes and penis...) so that he could die a happy man.  One was an Icelandic explorer and eccentric local hero Pall Arason who at aged 96 years old had documented proof that he had slept with over 300 women.  He initially claimed that he was more than adequately sized to qualify for the exhibit, but then he and Siggi started to panic as, like most body parts when you are that old, it started to shrink drastically.

Meanwhile in California native sixtysomething  year old American Tom Mitchell, who sports a full seven inches (nicknamed 'Elmo' by his first wife), is so determined to be the chosen one for the exhibit. What he can boast of in size in his pants, he seriously lacks in other body parts, as he not only gets the thing tattooed with the stars and stripes, but he seriously starts to investigate having it surgically removed before he dies.

Its Mitchell's obsessive determination to be the first donor regardless of how he achieves it that makes this whole story becoming side-splitting hilarious. He has this totally deadpan expression and irrational annoyance, and he completely lacks any humility or a sense of humor.

Full credit to newbie directors Jonah Bekhor and Zach Math for pitching this wee joyous story so perfectly.  There is no titillation, or eroticism at all, but a great deal to laugh about  .... and most importantly for Siggi at least, a very happy ending.

★★★