Grant had it all planned out. There were National Geographics on the coffee table, books without pictures on the bookshelf, and above the TV was a framed duplicate of a John Singer Sargent painting he borrowed from his art critic neighbor.
Unlike his recent string of online dates, Grant wasn’t gonna bone this first impression. Laura’s Eharmony profile had used words like “effervescent” and “specious” and “ingeminate.” Evidently she had traveled to Paris so many times she dubbed it her “second city.” He imagined she was one of those girls with a giant “Le chat noir” picture in her bedroom (a copy she bought on the Champs-Elysées, not from Target like those other philistine women).
And you know what? So far it was going well. He had taken her coat and hung it up in his closet next to his Xbox, a stack of ESPN magainzes, and a large fathead of Ben Roethlisberger. He poured her a glass of a moderately priced red that the guy at the wine store said would be “elegant without sounding pretentious.” At the present they were sitting on his couch, the TV turned to VH1 classics on a very low volume, and they were enjoying a conversation about Wheel of Fortune. They had both seen a clip of a kid who couldn’t guess “magic wand” despite having everything but the “I” and the “W.” In the middle of a shared uproarious laugh, Grant noticed something out of the corner of his eye that immediately killed his good spirits. An object sat atop his blu-ray player, and mocked him from 11 feet away. It was his DVD of Win a Date with Tad Hamilton that he had watched the night before. At that moment he felt like that criminal you read about in books. The one who commits murder, and cleans his entire house, only to spot a single piece of blood on the floor as he answers questions from detectives. This was worse.
In the lulls of the conversation and in between sips of wine, under his breath he would ingeminate, “stupid, stupid, stupid.”
Larry rummaged through his fridge and found the piece of cake he had brought home from work. He grabbed a plastic fork from the drawer (he had used the fork, cleaned it, and put it in with the other metal ones) and took his treat to the couch.
He strained to grab his Xbox controller without actually moving from where he was sitting. A few flicks with the very end of his middle finger, and he knocked it to where he could grab it with his whole hand. He pressed the button on the controller but nothing happened. It was another one of those times where his controller had randomly decided to unsync itself. He grunted and weighed the benefits of actually getting up to resync the controller and turn on the console. After 16 seconds he relented and put his piece of cake on the coffee table and knelt next to his Xbox. He turned it on, and then pressed the button with the wavy pattern symbol that reminded him of of something from “The Fifth Element.”
The TV all of the sudden was alight with a bright neon green that penetrated his cornea. And now, not but maybe 10 inches from his TV, a big zero stood out at him like a baby at a funeral. None of his friends were online. How could that be? It was 9pm on a Tuesday, this was prime gaming time. And then it hit him, it was obvious, they were all at his birthday party.
“Is it just me or is this date going really well?”
“It’s just you,” Jenny gave out a hearty laugh. “No it’s going great.” She placed her hand on Steve’s at the middle of the table.
They lingered in that moment, and for a minute the other patrons of the restaurant ceased to be.
“Do you like capers?”
Jenny was deliberate in her thought and then answered, “The food or like, a Nancy Drew book?”
“I wasn’t sure, so I bought you both.” Steve reached into a bag next to his feet and pulled out a jar with a bright red ribbon on the lid and a first edition copy of “The Secret of the Old Clock.”
Despite the title (which I’ll admit, has no bearing on what I am going to write about, but I’m wondering if I somehow can bring it home in the end), this is not gonna be a funny post.
When I graduated college (I originally had written “gotten out of college” - I am not sure which is more appropriate), I broke up with my girlfriend of 42 years. So I holed myself in my room in my parent’s house and did what most people don’t do. Nothing. Well that’s not true, I watched a lot of movies. Mainly Before Sunset, The Royal Tenenbaums, and Everyone Says I Love You. Then after a year was up, I resolved to get in the best shape of my life. I ran seven days a week. At first I would get winded after a mile, but after a few months, I could probably run from either end of the Arlington, VA county lines without much trouble.
Then one day, while running on a trail I turned to give a pair of girls on a field trip the time, and something wrenched in my abdominal and I had to stop. It would be cool if I could say I remember the time I gave them, but I don’t, but it was 3 something…probably. Ever since then, it had never been the same. I pushed it hard, but everytime after about 2-3 miles, it would tighten up, and the pain would become unbearable. But even then I pushed it and pushed it with the full bullheaded stubbornness I had learned from my father. It never got better. It even ended up me getting the flu one day, which only exacerbated the pain, and I didn’t drink enough water so I got dehydrated and I started throwing up. And at 3 am I had to go the emergency alone, because 1) I was too nice to call and wake up my parents (I had moved out by then)2) My roommates were too drunk and undependable 3) and my aforementioned now ex-girlfriend said no.
Although I wasn’t aware of it at the time, as I lay there alone in the hospital bed, I sorta made a pact with myself to never rely on anyone again. So I returned to work, at a job I had just gotten (luckily they were cool about having to miss like 2 days of work a week into the job) and put my head down and started accumulating cash. Cash that would help me move out to Los Angeles, where I figured opportunity for my writing to become something greater was out there.
If I’m honest with myself I’d say these three things:
1) The Woody Allen clip I posted before did influence me, but I posted it mainly to prove that I’m not a philistine.
2) The below video has had the most profound impact on my comic sensibilities more than anything else that has ever existed in the world.
3) I don’t get Mullholand Drive.
I’ve been doing the magnanimous laugh into “I don’t get it” move my whole life, and after seeing this interview again, I realized I’ve just been ripping off Martin Short.
My friend has a foot fetish. And by that I mean she likes 12-inch dicks.
I have a horrible memory. To the point that when I catch up with old friends I have to smile and nod when they start getting nostalgic. It’s sorta debilitating in relationships as you can imagine, and there is seemingly not enough tuna in the world to fix it. Despite all that, while I was writing that joke, I knew that it was being influenced by a joke Woody Allen made at the 2002 Oscars. When small things like that from so far back stick out, I know they must be important to me, so I’ve decided, whenever I feel like it, and if youtube is accomodating enough, I will post the things that have meant most to me in cultivating…whatever it is I have become.
Anyway, during the 2002 Oscars broadcast (the first Oscars after 9/11), Woody Allen made a very rare appearance to introduce a movie montage dedicated to New York. I was 17, and at this boring point in my life, I had never got to see Woody Allen do stand up. I was well versed in his movies, and thus his humor. But seeing him do 4 minutes of essentially stand-up really shaped what I now think is funny.
What are my qualifications? None, really. I’m not douchey?
11. Young Adult
I added this one in at the end because I wanted to say that it was better than I thought it was gonna be. I always thought Reitman was a little overrated, not that he is bad, just not a master like some people make him out to be. But he shows a lot of restraint in this picture. So does Diablo Cody who really writes a straight forward story that resonates despite it’s characters being totally unrelatable as humans (to me). I dunno, I was just really genuinely impressed and judging by the reactions of who I went with, I might be alone on this, so I wanted to shove it in as number 11.
10. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
This isn’t minor Fincher. It isn’t major Fincher either. But middle-of-the-road Fincher is good enough to make this list in a year, which in hindsight, seems weak. Usually they’ll be a movie that noone else really liked that I will champion, but all my picks are gonna be pretty standard. I guess the more logical answer is that I’m losing my edge. Anyway, I took my six year old niece to see it, she thought it was better than “Gnomeo and Juliet.”
9. Captain America
Ok, well maybe this is the movie I champion that noone else has on their lists. I dunno, again, maybe I’m just losing it, but I thought this was the best summer blockbuster of the year. And none of the people in it would have made me thought so going into it. Joe Johnston, Chris Evans, Big boobs McGee (ok well that one, I’m on board with). But goddamn if it wasn’t the best action movie I saw. People die, like important characters die, it’s well paced (if you’ve read this blog, you know I feel passionately about this subject), it’s campy but they realize it’s campy, I feel like I should just type “aw, shucks” and be done with it.
8. The Trip
I feel like disecting this movie would be impossible. Just check out this video:
