Other Stuff

The Essay That Never Was

Oh, I had this great essay all written and ready to go. Then I looked at it and deleted most of it. Then I tried writing it again. Still sucked. So I gave it up. There were parts of it that were pretty good. Like the observation that since being dragged into doing yoga it has gotten easier to trim my own toenails. I did write a small thing about how when they tell you that yoga is painless, it's horse shit. It hurts. It hurts for days after. Just giving torture a Sanskrit name doesn't mean it doesn't hurt. Get all newage-y on someone else's ass. I'll call it how it feels. And you know what really sucks? This stuff works. Yeah, parts of my body are moving again that I thought had turned to stone. (Hey, now.) I wrote a whole thing about how this pain is starting to pay off. Then I made some fun of yoga pose names. It was great.

Then I thought I better write about some of the movies we have playing. I think I started with PRODIGAL SONS. I mean, a film by and about a transsexual in Montana with an adopted brother whose biological linage is Hollywood royalty. You can't make this stuff up. It has to be a documentary.

I also had a few sentences about THE 2010 Oscar NOMINATED SHORTS. We have both the animated shorts and the live action narrative shorts. Hell, I even did a whole bold line about how these are a double feature. See the animated ones and then hang out for the live action. Cool, eh? I did think to mention that though the animated ones are cool for most kids, the last one, Logorama, is a hard R. It is crazy funny, but granny's ears will bleed.

Yeah, we all remember THE HURT LOCKER got Best Picture over that silly movie with blue people. We're still playing HURT LOCKER.

I was trying to find something to write about THE ROAD, but I've been too busy to watch it. Same with THE WHITE RIBBON.

As usual, I had to piss and moan about something. Good thing I can't quite remember what that was.

And there was that thing about us bringing opera and ballet to the big screen at the Darkside in High Definition. We'll have the details for you on that soon. Lainie is working out a press release and would have been really pissed if I had written something like I did above. Boy, that was close.

Oh! And I wrote a little bit about how the Darkside is coming up on its 5th anniversary. April Fools Day! No kiddin'. I wrote something about being all grateful and stuff. It was really moving. Not a dab of sarcasm-just unbridled affection for all of you who have supported us through this 1/20 of a century. I think I wrote something about asking you to reply with your favorite movie you've seen here. Hell, you can still do that!

Then I closed it all up by looping around to the opening paragraph. It's pretty standard writing style-because it works. It moves the beginning of the story into the end of the story painlessly...like a yoga pose.

Mouse Balls

I used to go through cell phones the way a bad writer goes through metaphors, like this: I seem to be getting better since the frequency of my phone destruction has abated-the way a garbage bag full of Chex Mix would slow down a screaming ninja lemur. But, if destruction is going to happen, mornings seem to be the time when bad things happen to perfectly good cell phones. "It was way too early to be up," is always a good sentence to use before describing the destruction of anything. For instance: "It was way too early to be up when I proceeded to run the wooden spoon through the juicer."

 Fiber? Anyone? 

I work about 25 hours a weekend. There is this warm fuzzy spot where I can get some sleep, which starts between the end of the Sunday shows and 8:00am Monday morning. Ah, Mondays--when the studios in NYC feel the need to call me for information I emailed them the night before. Mind you it's almost lunchtime in New York, but time zones seem a little irrelevant to some of those people.

 "What are you doing in bed? Are you sick? ... Oh! You're right, you did email that in last night ... Very well, then ... Anything else I should know? ... Never mind. I'll just read this email you sent last night." 

On one of these Mondays a buddy was in a bind and needed a quick electrical job done before 9:00am. Not too tough: flip some breakers, cut some wires, turn breakers back on, follow the smoke, blame the last guy, wash, rinse, repeat. I've done this so many times I can do it with my eyes closed--so that's the way I did it this time. When it was all over, I was still bordering on comatose. I returned to my car with a lukewarm coffee and tools in one hand and the keys in the other. Now, not being among the elite that have those key fob thingies that beep and unlock the car doors, I had to juggle everything to get into the car and keep the coffee in the cup. Once in the car with everything in its place, I closed the door of the car. It wouldn't latch. So I tried again. Then I tried again. Then I tried again. Finally I looked down to see that the car door was trying to close against my coat ... right on the coat pocket. The one with the phone in it ... hanging in the doorframe. If I had had a little more sleep, I might have considered there was a problem when the door wouldn't close the first time. 

How terribly unpleasant. 

Since Monday is movie booking day, it's a bad day of the week to destroy a phone. I drew the phone shards from my pocket. It looked like it had been run through the digestive track of a brontosaurus. This would not do. Nearby was a used cell phone store. I plucked the SIM chip out and interred the cell phone into the pocket in which it had died as I set out to find a new used cell phone. I felt like I was standing at the end of the breakfast cereal aisle looking down the walls of boxes. I had a simple phone known for its ruggedness. The new phones were like going from PC to Mac: I knew it wouldn't be a big deal, but I was still resistant. The kid working there showed me all the whiz-bang phones that do everything except wax my car and fetch my slippers. Nope. I wanted something a little less gadgety and a little more me. 

I ended up walking out of there with a Blackberry. The kid, a damned fine salesman I might add, showed me how most of the parts were easy to swap out and cheap to buy the next time I destroyed them. Turns out someone who uses their cell as a nutcracker can get new parts when the old ones get clogged with almond husks. 

I was good for a couple days. Then the trackball stopped working. Like with the old trackball mouse, if you take the thing apart, clean it, and reassemble it, all is well. Failing to see the difference between a computer mouse and a cell phone track ball, I proceeded to take the thing apart. I got the cover off with a careful flick of the fingernail. The whole trackball assembly came out in one piece. 

Then it exploded into parts so small, it took four hours with tweezers, a needle, and a toothpick to get it all assembled. Sure worked well when I was done, though. 

I emailed a buddy of mine, bragging of my prowess with fixing things tiny. (Shut up, Mimi.) He has the same phone and he emailed back: "Dude, you are an idiot. New trackball assemblies are $3.98. Just drop in a new one. You just paid yourself less than a dollar an hour to do a job that sucked." 

It struck me I might be due for some new friends. 

This is just the hardware end of this experience. The notepads and calendars and WiFi earn this thing's nickname: The Crackberry. I went from a cell phone to an addiction. Better living through technology!