The Chrome Plated Megaphone of Destiny

It’s time to put the fucking phone down.  There’s a whole world of interesting shit out there, and it’s not inside a screen held in your hand.  

There are so many interesting people to talk to.  Some of them are your friends, some of them are your family.  They might be total strangers.  They might be your kids.  Talking to them while looking at your phone doesn’t work.  It’s separating you from the people you’re supposed to be connecting with.  And no, the people inside your phone don't need your attention more than the people you’re standing next to.  The people in the phone can wait.  

I’m as guilty as anyone.  Well, not as guilty as that dad at the park staring at his phone ignoring his little 3 year old girl who was trying to climb up a play structure repeatedly asking “daddy, help me” in the cutest little voice that should not be ignored because IT'S YOUR DAUGHTER AND YOU’RE THERE TO SPEND SOME QUALITY TIME WITH HER.  To this I say.. Put the fucking phone down.

(There’s probably some monetizing opportunity to post pictures of parents staring at phones at parks with kids, so please take this idea and run with it and make zillions of dollars selling that picture site to some tired old web company looking for a few more hits before they go the way of the dinosaur.  But after taking that picture, put the fucking phone down.)

I try to remind myself to put the fucking phone down when I think of people like that dad at the park.  Or that couple at the restaurant who sits there not looking at each other but looking at their own phones instead.  Is that where we’re at?  Might as well go completely virtual at the table and pull some oculus rift bullshit and be with the naked person of your dreams… dining at a table at the fanciest fucking restaurant in the universe on a ridge overlooking some sunset Lord of the Rings type waterfall on the side of a glorious mountain.  But instead of looking at that, you’re looking at Facebook on your phone.  Put the fucking phone down.

A couple weeks ago I had the pleasure of running into a guy that I hadn’t seen in years.  He told me all about his wonderful business and his little family, and when he finished and it was my turn to talk about what I’ve been up to the past few years, he dug into his pocket, pulled out his phone and started typing who knows what.  Is that where we’re at?  "Okay now that I’m done speaking, perhaps there’s someone in my phone who needs my attention more than you, the person I’m right next to."  And in case you, guy I hadn’t seen in years, are reading this:  Put the fucking phone down.

I repeat, I’m as guilty as anyone, but knowing that this is a really stupid state we’re in, I’m usually reminding myself to put the phone down.  The quickest way to do that is to think “what did we do before smartphones?” and the answer is always to put the phone down.  We didn’t need it before, and we don’t need it now.  And to the generation of kids who don’t know life without smartphones:  Put the fucking phone down.

Cuts Like a Knife

Bronchitis.  It's what's for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.  At least it was for me when I returned from my business trip a couple weeks ago.  I was laid up in bed for days, coughing up a lung, shivering, sweating, and generally feeling run down.  A few days later my head started to clear up, I took a look in the mirror and noticed that the stubble on my face had taken over.  I reached for my travel bag and searched for my razor.  No dice.  Looked through my suitcase.  Not there.  So I called the friend I stayed with on the road, and he confirmed the razor was at their house.  Damn.

So I ventured out to find the identical razor so my existing cartridges would fit.  I went to my local RiteAid, which seemed like a good candidate to carry the Gillette Sensor Excel razor.  But after navigating my way through the labyrinth of aisles to the men's grooming section, I found only bare shelves.  All the razors were piled high into two nearby blue RiteAid shopping carts next to a RiteAid employee who was spraying some fragrantly toxic cleaning solution over the shelves.  She looked up from her spraying and said "Oh I'm so sorry, all the razors are here", pointing at the full carts.  The toxic aroma didn't allow me a moment to think of digging through the bins, and I high-tailed it out of there.

I continued on to Vons, CVS, and Walgreens in search of the elusive Gillette Sensor Excel razor.  None of these stores carried it. What they did carry were those razors that have no fewer than 5 blades in a cartridge.  Which reminded me of every SNL/MADtv skit ever created mocking 14 & 20 blade razors.  No need to be shaving with something the size of a hockey puck. Besides, every store put every single razor and box of cartridges behind a security barrier, so that a customer would then have to summon an employee just to ask questions.  No thanks.

Surrender was imminent when I pulled in to another CVS to buy whichever razor seemed the least ridiculous.  But this magical CVS stocked the Gillette Sensor Excel!  The search was over.  Except the razor was barricaded behind some security contraption.  Fortunately CVS had the good sense to place a big red button the size of a Staples EASY button nearby which read "REQUEST CUSTOMER ASSISTANCE".  I pressed the button, which momentarily interrupted the Bryan Adams song blaring throughout the store to announce "CUSTOMER ASSISTANCE REQUESTED IN SHAVING".  I had inadvertently pressed it twice, so it delivered the message two times in a row.  And then Bryan Adams came back on.  

I waited.  I didn't want to press the big red button again, but nobody was coming around to unlock my razor.  Another Bryan Adams song came on.  I pressed the red button.  "CUSTOMER ASSISTANCE REQUESTED IN SHAVING" boomed over the PA.  I began to feel like the test rat who presses a button repeatedly in order to get the cheese, or the chocolate, or the cocaine, or whatever.  I briefly thought about breaking the anti-theft device so I could get the hell out of there.  But an employee poked her head around the corner to tell me "I'll be right there, I just have to get the key."

She returned with the key and fumbled with the lock for a few moments before handing over the razor.  I told her "I had no idea these were such high-theft items."  She replied "Yep.  Gotta keep the homeless people from stealing them."  I nodded my head.  "Or else we'll have a lot of clean shaven homeless around" she joked.  I told her "Thank you" and walked toward the registers to make my purchase. 

On the way to the registers, I thought about how ironic it would be if I just walked out of there with the razor.  But I noticed the magnetic security sticker on the packaging, and I compulsively began peeling it away until a voice at the self-checkout startled me: "You can checkout over here."  I looked up and a CVS employee was waving at me, smiling.  I asked her "But this has a security thingy on it.  Can you take care of that?"  She waved me over, and swiped the razor over the scanner and put it in a bag.  Didn't even demagnetize it.  Those security swindlers.  And I was on my merry way to a clean face.

Lust for Life

A couple weeks ago I had a tough decision to make when my bag of coffee beans reached its untimely end:  Buy more now or wait to buy more?  I realize that's not a tough decision at all, and it probably sounds really stupid.  You run out of coffee beans, you buy more coffee beans right now because if tomorrow morning comes and there's no coffee in the house, you'll be frantically scrambling for a way to avoid the dreaded caffeine-withdrawl headache at all costs.

But as I stared down the barrel of the empty coffee bag, the consideration of my impending business trip made me think twice about being mindlessly drawn as if through a tractor beam to my local bean provider to secure coffee for another couple weeks.  I'd be gone for 11 days - plus the 4 days until I departed.  For a coffee purist like myself (don't get any wise ideas about calling me a coffee snob), that's a little too long to let good beans sit around.  So I decided to put off the bean purchase until I returned from the trip.

It started off simply enough.  The first morning I just looked to our box of teas in the pantry to fill the caffeine void.  Because the wifey only drinks decaf teas, there should be plenty of remaining caffeinated options.  And there were.  Options like tea labeled "Best consumed before 2012".  I grabbed a caramel vanilla black tea and steeped it for as long as I could take before needing a fix.  It was tasty, but not satisfying, and an hour later I could sense the subtle notes of a headache creeping in.  Fortunately I knew we needed groceries from Trader Joe's, and TJ's always has the pot of complimentary coffee in the middle of our neighborhood store.  Caffeine-withdrawl headache day one averted.

Now that I had the Trader Joe's option in my back pocket, the next two mornings were crafted around visits to TJ's to buy one or two items.  All the while sneaking back to the coffee pot to fill up those little tiny dixie-sized cups that don't amount to the volume in a regular ceramic mug.  Unless you go back several times trying not to draw the attention of the employee making samples of gluten-free vanilla granola submerged in whipped cream and organic strawberries.  Hello again!  Slurp.  I told a co-worker of mine about my borderline homeless person behavior, and he said I displayed traits more like a junkie.

On the final day before departure, my coffee sneaking paranoia got the best of me after I had visited the last of the Trader Joe's in my area.  So I was struck by the brilliant idea of killing three birds with one stone by visiting a studio where I've freelanced in the past year. I could grab a cup of coffee while visiting with the Executive Producer, meanwhile giving my money to a betting pool surrounding a certain sporting event which happens mostly in March but continues into April.  It's a donation really.  There's no expectation of ever seeing that money again.  I finished my visit, put the coffee mug down and walked out with a caffeinated bounce in my step, knowing that I'd made it through the final morning at home without having bought a new bag of coffee beans.

The next cup of coffee landed at my tray on the airplane after my brief runway-wobbling induced nap.  I was traveling to the land of coffee, so I knew the next 11 days would be a snap.  As I reached the last day of the trip, I reminded myself several times that I needed to buy beans.  I stopped into my favorite coffee roaster away from home and requested the same bag of beans I bought last time I was in town:  Harar.  The barista said "Oh the light roast?"  The last time I bought Harar it was medium roast.  I said "Is it light?  I thought it was medium."  She replied "No it's light.  If you want medium you should buy the Sumatra."  So I bought a pound of it.  The next morning at home I opened the bag and it was dark roast.  The bulging bag of Sumatra makes me pine for the days of my junkie visits to Trader Joe's.

Le Voyage Dans La Lune

"You really whacked it off good" she blurted out emphatically.  I snapped out of my momentary spaceout to look back at her and say "Yeah, it doesn't look the same anymore when it's that long".  She handed me back my driver's license and said "Well your hair looks nice short, so it's all good".  And with that, I was through LAX airport security and on my way back home to the Pacific Northwest to see my folks.

My mom was recently diagnosed with breast cancer, and because my sister was already taking our mother to and from nearly all her doctor appointments, it was well beyond time for me to help carry some of the load.  I had spent the previous few days neurotically checking the Alaska Airlines website at hourly intervals in order to find a better seat than 26C in the back of the plane when I had initially purchased.  The day before the flight a lovely aisle seat became available forward of the wings and I pounced on it.  If clicking with a mouse could ever be considered pouncing.

After getting groped by airport security, I grabbed a cup of Major Dickason's from the cafe, showed my boarding pass to the boarding pass people and strolled onto the plane.  I always like to board the plane last because I don't enjoy sitting on a plane that's not in motion.  I did the usual countdown to my seat as I passed rows.  1D, 2D, 3D, and so on until I reached 7D, where the nice stewardess was standing.

"Oh hi, are you in 7D?  Would you like to exchange seats with the passenger in 11C so she can sit next to her husband?" the stewardess asked in her cordial stewardess tone.

I looked at the wife, then the husband next to the stewardess, raised my eyebrows and thought about it for approximately .5 seconds, during which the memories of every single time I checked on the Alaska Airlines website to get seat 7D rushed through my brain.  

"Does that seat recline?"  I asked.

"No, that seat is in front of the emergency exit, so it doesn't recline" she replied.

I told her "no", stuffed my laptop bag under the seat and sat down, knowing full well I'd get the stink eye from the husband for the rest of the two hour trip.  I didn't care.  I was going to sleep.

Little did I know that the husband had more than the stink eye as his weapon.  He had the stink breath.  His wife made it a point to camp out in the aisle next to my seat to speak to her husband in French.  I have no problem with the French in general, however I do have a problem with being on planes next to  them.

His garbage breath nearly made me puke or exchange seats with the wife, but the thought of the last time I had close quarters on an airplane with a Frenchman made me dig in my heels and persevere. I have to hand it to them, they really turned it up a notch what with the death breath and Frenchman husband getting up every 5 minutes to visit is wife who had just been standing next to us chatting for 5 minutes.  

Finally things calmed down and I was able to dig out one of two magazines I brought with me.  It struck me as odd that the cover of the magazine read "Mom, I Love You.  I Also Wish You Were Dead."  Not a magazine I'd be sharing with my mother when I arrived.  

I was able to collect about 3 minutes of shuteye before the beverage cart arrived at my aisle.  I ordered another coffee.  The stewardess turned to the other side of the aisle and began speaking the words "Sir, since you were so kind as to exchange your seat with another passenger..." and I swear she was turning her head toward me and speaking louder as she continued, "...we'd like to offer you a complimentary adult beverage of your choice."  By the end of this sentence I was revisiting my decision to stay in seat 7D.  I think Frenchman coughed up a hairball into my coffee and stewardess glared at me as I considered what I might have ordered.  A Bloody Mary?  A double?  Nah.  I closed my eyes and went back to sleep.

Quality Control

TV is dead.  It is.  I saw the proof just yesterday during the latest episode of 30 Rock playing from my DVR.  See for yourself:

See?  Told ya.  And for those of you who aren't fluent in the jargon of making television, that little screen will tell you only one thing:  TV is dead.  (It also means the pictures that were connected to that shot aren't connected anymore) Don't even watch any further, because we've now crossed a line that can't be backtracked on.  We've exposed the person behind the curtain.  And it's only a matter of time before all quality in television is completely erased.

There I was, watching 30 Rock, happily skipping through the commercials 30 seconds at a time like every other schmo with a DVR these days, and I caught that frame of MEDIA OFFLINE.  And if you've spent any amount of time with any form of editing system (like I have), it's a picture that screams out at you "SOMETHING IS VERY FUCKING WRONG HERE", and it's impossible to do anything but become alarmed.  

I said aloud "no fucking way" and rewound and fast-forwarded and frame-by-frame jogged until I landed on the picture of failure.  I shook my head.  I chuckled.  I couldn't believe my eyes.

There used to be a bunch of us huddled in a freezing cold room looking at monitors in weird cross-hatch blanking measuring interval world, or not even looking at the picture at all but instead getting green vector lines laser burned into our young eyes as we QC'd spots.  You'd definitely see a goddamn picture of something that only showed MEDIA OFFLINE if you were looking to make sure the VITC was on lines 14 and 16 or 16 and 18.

Or later there would be four of us in the film transfer room each choosing a quadrant of the 4 by 3 screen to stare at without blinking for 30 seconds to make sure there wasn't a piece of dirt for like one single frame out of 30 (not 24 you soft punks) per goddamn second.   If some frame came up that said MEDIA OFFLINE in some crazy-ass blood red, you think one of us would probably see that? Hell yes we would.

But now it's all over.  No need to care about quality I guess.  Maybe I'm taking things a little too far.  Yeah, it was only one frame, but this little tidbit showing itself during a hugely popular show like 30 Rock is a bad omen.  TV is dead.  I'm gonna go make some more TV.

Heartbreaker

The receptionist sauntered into my edit suite late yesterday afternoon and started straightening the pillows on the sofa.  And in a completely nonchalant and unexcited fashion mentioned "That's so sad what happened to Derek today."  Derek is the other editor at the place I'm working these days.  I spun my chair around toward her and asked "What happened to Derek?"

"Oh you didn't hear?" she asked in a shocked tone.

"No, what happened?" I replied in a shocked tone.

"He's in a heart-attack induced coma."

I was floored.  "What?  When did this happen?"

I couldn't believe it.  I had just had a conversation with Derek that morning.  The strange thing was I didn't remember any commotion or stress like someone having a heart-attack at work.  I thought "Why isn't everybody here freaking out like I am?"

"It happened this afternoon." she told me.

"Wait, where was he?  At work?"

"No" she said "He must have been out at lunch and his son called and said he was in a coma because of a heart-attack."

I was in complete shock.  The idea that it could happen to me made me forget all about work and think about my family, my friends, and the fact that I should probably change my diet.  Eating those chocolate chip cookies they bring into edit suite every day can't be good for preventing cardiac arrest.

The receptionist probably didn't know what else to say, so she left the room.  I needed more info so I walked into the producer's office to see what I could find out.  

She was zoned out on her e-mail, but her long face confirmed what the receptionist said.

I asked "What's this that happened to Derek?"

The producer turned away from her computer and paused.  "Oh did you hear?"

"Yeah, he had a heart-attack?  He's in a coma?  When did this happen?"

"No, it was his dad!  Who told you it was Derek?"

"Diana told me."  I felt totally stupid, but she was laughing at me, which felt kind of morbid because somebody was still in a coma even though it wasn't Derek.

"Oh wow.  That's a relief" I said.  Still felt morbid to be relieved that it was somebody other than Derek in a coma.

I walked out of the producer's office and went back to the edit suite.  I was still a little shaken, but luckily there was a chocolate chip cookie there to calm my nerves.  Yum.

Violent Femmes

I finally found the scarf I've been looking for! What do you think of it?