One of the reasons why I started this blog was to try to get into the habit of writing every day or nearly everyday. One of the reasons why I don't already write nearly every day is because I so rarely have anything of substance to say.
(But that hasn't stopped you from blogging so far, you might say. Zing!)
It's one thing to be working on a larger piece--a novel for example--and to have a day where you just aren't feeling it and to have your production for the day be below average. But it's entirely another when you sit down to work on something completely new and just not have anything.
Look. I'll be the first to admit that the act of writing a blog (and a blog that, like, six people read to boot) isn't a monumentally challenging act. Take the entries that I've posted so far: I sit down at the computer with whatever topic I've decided to prattle about for the day; I figure out how I'm going to start, which is always the most difficult part; I type--sometimes for upwards of 20 minutes--then re-read what I've put down in a (usually surprisingly unsuccessful) attempt to copy-edit. Done! Six of you read it, one of you will comment, and I go to bed safe in the knowledge that my original thought for the day has been heard by slightly fewer people than if I had just stood on my doorstep and shouted it at the neighborhood.
But writing about something just strikes me as boorish. Like calling someone to tell them you're tired. And when you're trying to add to a blog where you've (allegedly) set a precedent of being funny? Fuck man. You know what it's like when someone introduces you to someone else, and they're all like "this is so-and-so. He's the funniest person I know" and so the new person is like "Oh, tell me a joke"? No one has ever thought of something funny in that moment. Now imagine doing that to yourself for like an hour.
You: "Dude, if you're going to write something, don't forget to make it funny too!"
Yourself again: "...really? It's bad enough I can't think of anything to say, but there's that as well?"
You: "Don't give me that. You're hilarious. Everyone says so. Just write something down right now. Something funny. Go."
...I don't know. I guess I could just link to more Family Guy.
Tuesday, April 6, 2010
Saturday, April 3, 2010
Shitty Movie Review: Law Abiding Citizen
To begin, a couple of disclaimers.
1) The following post will feature a few spoilers. So if you haven't seen "Law Abiding Citizen" yet and were still hoping to without knowing too much about it, then I should also probably tell you that Kevin Spacey is the killer in "Seven" and the chick in "The Crying Game" is a dude. I mean come on. You've had six months.
2) For better or worse, everyones tastes in things are different. And it's just human nature for people to take criticism of their tastes as criticism of themselves. So there might be a couple of you out there with particularly thin skins who might read a statement like "this movie goes beyond normal stupid, and moves into 'cast of Deliverance, marry your cousin and have babies with flippers for arms' level stupid", and think that I'm really calling you stupid for liking the movie. Friends. That's why I'm taking the time to include this disclaimer. So I can clear up any potential confusion as early as possible. That's absolutely what I'm doing. This movie is for people who would drown during a heavy rainstorm if someone didn't keep them from looking up to see where the water was coming from. The kind of people who appreciate "The Teletubbies" for it's nuanced character development. Copies of this DVD should have been packaged with a Special Olympics enrollment form.
OK! Now that we've gotten both of those things out of the way, on to the review:
Every film that comes out, be it summer action blockbuster or Indie-darling Oscar fodder, relies to some degree or another on the suspension of disbelief. We, as movie goers, buy into that unspoken contract each time we pay for a ticket. But the thing about willing suspension of disbelief is, we're willing to believe in a LOT of things for the sake of appreciating a story (space operas, for example), but you had damn well better get the little shit right.
Case in point: When sitting in the theater with a friend watching Paul Verhoeven's faux-propaganda masterpiece Starship Troopers, we sat in rapt attention while an army of Space Marines fought with a planet of impossibly sized bugs so they could capture one to be handed over to the military psychics. All disbelief was willingly suspended until this scene.
My friend turned to me and snorted at the idea of three people not only outrunning an explosion, but turning and looking back several times to check their progress. It didn't completely ruin the movie for us, but it certainly pulled you out of the moment of the scene. Explosions are an especially common example. One of the things that made Scifi fanboys shoot a big creamy one over Joss Whedon's wildly under-appreciated Firefly was the fact that he shot all of his space action sequences with no sound. Because there's no fucking sound in space.
But I've gotten off track.
What does ANY of the above have to do with Law Abiding Citizen, you might be wondering. Well at the films heart, there's actually a really excellent story idea. And the whole thing gets blown 11 minutes in, when Jamie Foxx's Assistant DA character shakes hands with a convicted murderer.
The way the film kick off is that King Leonidas' family gets killed by a couple of burglars. After watching his family die but surviving his own wounds, his majesty has to then watch the ensuing legal wrangling as the man who actually did all the killing makes a deal with Ray Charles to pin the murders on his accomplice. In exchange for throwing his buddy under the bus, the real killer pleads guilty to murder in the third degree and will serve a few years in prison while his partner gets the death penalty. This makes Leonidas mad. Realllly mad. And the image that burns into his mind is one of Ray Charles standing on the steps of the courthouse. See, he's there explaining the deal to reporters and up walks his new best friend the murderer with the cops who are supposed to be taking him back to jail. He holds out his hand in a mock show of friendship and Ray Charles shakes it.
RIGHT THERE!
There is so much wrong with that ONE scene, that the wheels came right off this wagon for me. Quick, bring up Google in a different window. Now do a search and find me a photo of a prosecuting attorney shaking hands with the dude he's sending to jail. I'll wait. I've got some chips here.
It's damn hard to find, right? Because it doesn't happen! See, the thing is, even though the DA cut a deal, and even though one guy is helping send another guy to death row, none of that changes the fact that the first guy is STILL being convicted of murder. And DAs don't like to take pictures shaking hands with murderers. And that's without bringing up questions like "why was this convicted murderer allowed within 10 feet of the man who's currently bragging to the press about sending him to prison?" And "Why was the convicted murderer being brought out the front doors anyway?" So much wrong with that scene.
"But so what?" You might be saying. "That's one scene in a 90 minute film. You can't let one thing ruin the whole movie." Oh friends, I didn't. The film resumed getting the small things wrong just four minutes later, when we fast forward 10 years and we see Ray Charles' daughter go to a music recital, pick up a cello and proceed to rock that shit like she's Yo-Yo Ma. Throughout the film, Director F. Gary Gray continues to botch the little stuff which, unfortunately, has the effect of underscoring just how preposterous the big stuff--the stuff for which we'd normally try and suspend our disbelief--really is.
So King Leonidas goes off the deep end and hatches a grand plan to get revenge on the DA's office, the people who killed his family, the judge, the cops, random inmates, the entire city of Philadelphia...pretty much everyone. It's a plan that involves getting arrested for one murder, so he can go to jail, so he can break out of jail, so he can commit MORE murders...so he can try and get the DA to make a deal to let him out of jail.
And just so things can begin as weirdly as possible, the whole plan starts like this.
WHY DID THAT HAVE TO HAPPEN?? Why is he naked???
Since we've already committed this blog entry to "tl;dr" territory, allow me to digress for one more moment here: Is there an actor today with a more mis-matched head and body than Gerard Butler? I mean, you look at a head shot and--while he certainly doesn't look fat or anything--he seems like a guy who knows his way around a beer and a couch.
But then he takes off his shirt (and he WILL take off his shirt; it's in his rider), and it's all like KABLAM-O! He's still rocking the "300" abs.
Moving on.
So he's got a plan to kill everyone he possibly can, no matter how tenuous their connection to his family's murder and subsequent trial. This includes a half dozen random paralegals, his cell mate--who's death serves no purpose other than to get him into the right cell--and, eventually, the mayor. Which, assuming she's the same person who was mayor when the events that sent him over the edge took place, means she's serving at least her third term in that position. Not unprecedented, but just worth pointing out.
And here's the point when we stop harping on the little things and start looking at the story as a whole. Every story needs certain things. Paramount among them are people to fit the protagonist/antagonist roles. The audience needs someone to empathize with and root for. That person doesn't have to be a good guy, and he doesn't have to be nice, but he has to be there.
When it comes to "Law Abiding Citizen", it starts out pretty clean cut: Butler's character watches his family get slaughtered, then seethes with anger at the judicial system that allows the man actually responsible to serve a sentence far below what he's earned. On the flip side is Foxx's Assistant DA, who cuts a deal with a murderer in a move that (as we're hit over the head with in the exposition) is geared solely towards padding his high conviction numbers. He'd rather make a deal for one bad guy then risk a trial to get two. Fine.
But then Gray takes his film sideways on us and we watch the character we've hitched our emotional wagons to slip off the deep end in pretty stunning fashion. We try to stay with him for a bit--who WOULDN'T want to exact slow and painful revenge upon someone who killed our family--but it quickly encompasses a scale to which we're not meant to follow; our good guy is the bad guy. Even that would be fine, except for the fact that Foxx continues to play his character with the same flippant disregard that he had in the beginning of the film and it sets us adrift emotionally. We don't really care about Foxx's character, and we can't care about Gerard's. With no emotional anchor, the film loses all investment and becomes a bunch of random violence that serves only to push us to the next ridiculous scene, rather than to validate our feelings one way or the other.
Gerard is a better actor than his abs would allow you to believe. His biggest flaw as a professional is an apparent ignorance of the fact that he's allowed to say "no" to a script now and then. As for Foxx, while he's certainly a multi-talented dude, he's definitely got his shortcomings. He's musically gifted; he can sing, dance, and is spot on with his impressions (he won an Oscar for one). But if he's not aping someone else, his artistic range is somewhat limited.
My point is that the actors, despite their limitations, do the best they can with what they were given. The blame for this movie turning into a gigantic piece of shit rests completely with Director Gray and writer Kurt Wimmer (who's list of previous credits is rife with films that were brimming with promise and suffered mightily from scripts that were half baked and poorly constructed). This brings us back to my original point.
When you've got a plot that so obviously hinges on such a high number of ridiculous and improbable events--things you're specifically counting on an audience letting slide--it becomes that much more important to meet them half way and to keep the world surrounding those events as "real" as possible. Which is why things like the Assistant DA shaking hands with a convicted murderer or a 10 year old girl playing the cello like she's Rainman counting cards makes it so difficult to swallow the idea of a millionaire ex-black operative buying a ware house next to a prison so he can tunnel underneath the walls and into the solitary holding cells, then commit a crime and get sent to the same prison so he can get put INTO solitary so he can sneak OUT of prison through the tunnels he built...
And it's not a matter of me just not wanting to go along because I feel like some contract has been broken; it's a systemic thing. Once a movie puts you in a position to question small things, it's an easy slope to move on to questioning the things the film centers around. When that happens, the audience is less likely to go on your ride at all.
A good example of this can be found in the Die Hard films. In the first Die Hard, John McClane is introduced to us as efficiently as possible. We see him arriving in LA to spend Christmas with his wife, we see where she works, we meet everyone we need to and there's very little about the story set up prior to Hans Gruber's takeover of the Nakatomi Tower to question. Therefore, when the first belief-suspending coincidence comes up (that John happens to be in the same building Gruber is taking over and happens to be the one person the bad guys don't find when they seize control), we're willing to take that ride. Everything after that is gravy (including more explosion shenanigans).
But as the series progressed, while the method for telling the stories remained pretty much the same, the character of John McClane evolved from "NYPD Everyman" to some kind of GI Joe action hero, until the fourth installment has him killing a helicopter with a car.
So, getting back to this crapfest, when you find yourself starting a movie off asking questions like "why is that murderer standing on the courthouse steps", it gets you in the frame of mind to KEEP asking questions, which leads to things like "why couldn't he do this whole plan from his living room?"
In fact, it seems like the story could have been much more taut if he had conducted the whole plan from his living room. The premise given for his anger is the loopholes and legal procedures that allowed a murderer to walk free after a short jail term. If the movie had spent 90 minutes showing Butler's character killing person after person, yet doing so in a ways that made it impossible for any strong charges to be brought against him, it would have been a film about an angry (crazy) man underscoring the flaws in an imperfect system that's heavily weighted in favor of those who can work it.
I wanted this movie to be better than I suspected it was going to be. It's not like I went to the video store thinking "I kind of want to be frustrated and intellectually insulted for a couple hours", but that's what happened. Which is my clumsy way of segueing into my final point.
As a friend of mine pointed out: "The point of a movie is to entertain. It did its job. Despite being moderately intelligent, I was still entertained by it. I'd call it a 'fun movie', but not a 'good film.'"
There are plenty of stupid movies out there and there's a segment of the population who'll pay to see them. But I don't think that should be allowed to be a viable defense. One of the interesting bi-products of (the perception of) unfettered freedom in America has been the willingness to continually dumb-down our society. This is largely a capitalistic move. In a effort to cash in on the knuckle dragging masses, the lowest common denominator continues to be lowered. The result is that, rather than our arts and entertainment raising the level of our thought and discourse, we allow our bottom feeders to drag the entertainment level down to them. Art imitates life, life reflects art, until we've reached a point in society where people will go on TV for free for the chance to catch an STD from Tila Tequila, and we actually have politicians talking about an opposing politician's extensive education like it's a bad thing.
Look, I'm not saying that every film that comes out needs to be "Primer"; far more people have seen "The Lord of the Rings" than "Le Cercle Rouge" and I'm 100% OK with that. But when Hollywood stands over our collective chests, clenches it's eyes shut and drops a cinematic Cleveland Steamer for us to enjoy, I'm going to revel in my God-given right to mock people who sit in the front row and 'tard clap for it.
No, despite my most ardent wishes, Hollywood does not have a social responsibility to help make us a smarter, more rounded society. And, despite my deepest desires, mainstream films and video games will never reach their true artistic potential because of it. But that's the world we live in, and you don't have to join me in my disappointment. But that won't stop a few of us from fighting the good fight.
1) The following post will feature a few spoilers. So if you haven't seen "Law Abiding Citizen" yet and were still hoping to without knowing too much about it, then I should also probably tell you that Kevin Spacey is the killer in "Seven" and the chick in "The Crying Game" is a dude. I mean come on. You've had six months.
2) For better or worse, everyones tastes in things are different. And it's just human nature for people to take criticism of their tastes as criticism of themselves. So there might be a couple of you out there with particularly thin skins who might read a statement like "this movie goes beyond normal stupid, and moves into 'cast of Deliverance, marry your cousin and have babies with flippers for arms' level stupid", and think that I'm really calling you stupid for liking the movie. Friends. That's why I'm taking the time to include this disclaimer. So I can clear up any potential confusion as early as possible. That's absolutely what I'm doing. This movie is for people who would drown during a heavy rainstorm if someone didn't keep them from looking up to see where the water was coming from. The kind of people who appreciate "The Teletubbies" for it's nuanced character development. Copies of this DVD should have been packaged with a Special Olympics enrollment form.
OK! Now that we've gotten both of those things out of the way, on to the review:
Every film that comes out, be it summer action blockbuster or Indie-darling Oscar fodder, relies to some degree or another on the suspension of disbelief. We, as movie goers, buy into that unspoken contract each time we pay for a ticket. But the thing about willing suspension of disbelief is, we're willing to believe in a LOT of things for the sake of appreciating a story (space operas, for example), but you had damn well better get the little shit right.
Case in point: When sitting in the theater with a friend watching Paul Verhoeven's faux-propaganda masterpiece Starship Troopers, we sat in rapt attention while an army of Space Marines fought with a planet of impossibly sized bugs so they could capture one to be handed over to the military psychics. All disbelief was willingly suspended until this scene.
My friend turned to me and snorted at the idea of three people not only outrunning an explosion, but turning and looking back several times to check their progress. It didn't completely ruin the movie for us, but it certainly pulled you out of the moment of the scene. Explosions are an especially common example. One of the things that made Scifi fanboys shoot a big creamy one over Joss Whedon's wildly under-appreciated Firefly was the fact that he shot all of his space action sequences with no sound. Because there's no fucking sound in space.
But I've gotten off track.
What does ANY of the above have to do with Law Abiding Citizen, you might be wondering. Well at the films heart, there's actually a really excellent story idea. And the whole thing gets blown 11 minutes in, when Jamie Foxx's Assistant DA character shakes hands with a convicted murderer.
The way the film kick off is that King Leonidas' family gets killed by a couple of burglars. After watching his family die but surviving his own wounds, his majesty has to then watch the ensuing legal wrangling as the man who actually did all the killing makes a deal with Ray Charles to pin the murders on his accomplice. In exchange for throwing his buddy under the bus, the real killer pleads guilty to murder in the third degree and will serve a few years in prison while his partner gets the death penalty. This makes Leonidas mad. Realllly mad. And the image that burns into his mind is one of Ray Charles standing on the steps of the courthouse. See, he's there explaining the deal to reporters and up walks his new best friend the murderer with the cops who are supposed to be taking him back to jail. He holds out his hand in a mock show of friendship and Ray Charles shakes it.
RIGHT THERE!
There is so much wrong with that ONE scene, that the wheels came right off this wagon for me. Quick, bring up Google in a different window. Now do a search and find me a photo of a prosecuting attorney shaking hands with the dude he's sending to jail. I'll wait. I've got some chips here.
It's damn hard to find, right? Because it doesn't happen! See, the thing is, even though the DA cut a deal, and even though one guy is helping send another guy to death row, none of that changes the fact that the first guy is STILL being convicted of murder. And DAs don't like to take pictures shaking hands with murderers. And that's without bringing up questions like "why was this convicted murderer allowed within 10 feet of the man who's currently bragging to the press about sending him to prison?" And "Why was the convicted murderer being brought out the front doors anyway?" So much wrong with that scene.
"But so what?" You might be saying. "That's one scene in a 90 minute film. You can't let one thing ruin the whole movie." Oh friends, I didn't. The film resumed getting the small things wrong just four minutes later, when we fast forward 10 years and we see Ray Charles' daughter go to a music recital, pick up a cello and proceed to rock that shit like she's Yo-Yo Ma. Throughout the film, Director F. Gary Gray continues to botch the little stuff which, unfortunately, has the effect of underscoring just how preposterous the big stuff--the stuff for which we'd normally try and suspend our disbelief--really is.
So King Leonidas goes off the deep end and hatches a grand plan to get revenge on the DA's office, the people who killed his family, the judge, the cops, random inmates, the entire city of Philadelphia...pretty much everyone. It's a plan that involves getting arrested for one murder, so he can go to jail, so he can break out of jail, so he can commit MORE murders...so he can try and get the DA to make a deal to let him out of jail.
And just so things can begin as weirdly as possible, the whole plan starts like this.
WHY DID THAT HAVE TO HAPPEN?? Why is he naked???
Since we've already committed this blog entry to "tl;dr" territory, allow me to digress for one more moment here: Is there an actor today with a more mis-matched head and body than Gerard Butler? I mean, you look at a head shot and--while he certainly doesn't look fat or anything--he seems like a guy who knows his way around a beer and a couch.
But then he takes off his shirt (and he WILL take off his shirt; it's in his rider), and it's all like KABLAM-O! He's still rocking the "300" abs.
Moving on.
So he's got a plan to kill everyone he possibly can, no matter how tenuous their connection to his family's murder and subsequent trial. This includes a half dozen random paralegals, his cell mate--who's death serves no purpose other than to get him into the right cell--and, eventually, the mayor. Which, assuming she's the same person who was mayor when the events that sent him over the edge took place, means she's serving at least her third term in that position. Not unprecedented, but just worth pointing out.
And here's the point when we stop harping on the little things and start looking at the story as a whole. Every story needs certain things. Paramount among them are people to fit the protagonist/antagonist roles. The audience needs someone to empathize with and root for. That person doesn't have to be a good guy, and he doesn't have to be nice, but he has to be there.
When it comes to "Law Abiding Citizen", it starts out pretty clean cut: Butler's character watches his family get slaughtered, then seethes with anger at the judicial system that allows the man actually responsible to serve a sentence far below what he's earned. On the flip side is Foxx's Assistant DA, who cuts a deal with a murderer in a move that (as we're hit over the head with in the exposition) is geared solely towards padding his high conviction numbers. He'd rather make a deal for one bad guy then risk a trial to get two. Fine.
But then Gray takes his film sideways on us and we watch the character we've hitched our emotional wagons to slip off the deep end in pretty stunning fashion. We try to stay with him for a bit--who WOULDN'T want to exact slow and painful revenge upon someone who killed our family--but it quickly encompasses a scale to which we're not meant to follow; our good guy is the bad guy. Even that would be fine, except for the fact that Foxx continues to play his character with the same flippant disregard that he had in the beginning of the film and it sets us adrift emotionally. We don't really care about Foxx's character, and we can't care about Gerard's. With no emotional anchor, the film loses all investment and becomes a bunch of random violence that serves only to push us to the next ridiculous scene, rather than to validate our feelings one way or the other.
Gerard is a better actor than his abs would allow you to believe. His biggest flaw as a professional is an apparent ignorance of the fact that he's allowed to say "no" to a script now and then. As for Foxx, while he's certainly a multi-talented dude, he's definitely got his shortcomings. He's musically gifted; he can sing, dance, and is spot on with his impressions (he won an Oscar for one). But if he's not aping someone else, his artistic range is somewhat limited.
My point is that the actors, despite their limitations, do the best they can with what they were given. The blame for this movie turning into a gigantic piece of shit rests completely with Director Gray and writer Kurt Wimmer (who's list of previous credits is rife with films that were brimming with promise and suffered mightily from scripts that were half baked and poorly constructed). This brings us back to my original point.
When you've got a plot that so obviously hinges on such a high number of ridiculous and improbable events--things you're specifically counting on an audience letting slide--it becomes that much more important to meet them half way and to keep the world surrounding those events as "real" as possible. Which is why things like the Assistant DA shaking hands with a convicted murderer or a 10 year old girl playing the cello like she's Rainman counting cards makes it so difficult to swallow the idea of a millionaire ex-black operative buying a ware house next to a prison so he can tunnel underneath the walls and into the solitary holding cells, then commit a crime and get sent to the same prison so he can get put INTO solitary so he can sneak OUT of prison through the tunnels he built...
And it's not a matter of me just not wanting to go along because I feel like some contract has been broken; it's a systemic thing. Once a movie puts you in a position to question small things, it's an easy slope to move on to questioning the things the film centers around. When that happens, the audience is less likely to go on your ride at all.
A good example of this can be found in the Die Hard films. In the first Die Hard, John McClane is introduced to us as efficiently as possible. We see him arriving in LA to spend Christmas with his wife, we see where she works, we meet everyone we need to and there's very little about the story set up prior to Hans Gruber's takeover of the Nakatomi Tower to question. Therefore, when the first belief-suspending coincidence comes up (that John happens to be in the same building Gruber is taking over and happens to be the one person the bad guys don't find when they seize control), we're willing to take that ride. Everything after that is gravy (including more explosion shenanigans).
But as the series progressed, while the method for telling the stories remained pretty much the same, the character of John McClane evolved from "NYPD Everyman" to some kind of GI Joe action hero, until the fourth installment has him killing a helicopter with a car.
So, getting back to this crapfest, when you find yourself starting a movie off asking questions like "why is that murderer standing on the courthouse steps", it gets you in the frame of mind to KEEP asking questions, which leads to things like "why couldn't he do this whole plan from his living room?"
In fact, it seems like the story could have been much more taut if he had conducted the whole plan from his living room. The premise given for his anger is the loopholes and legal procedures that allowed a murderer to walk free after a short jail term. If the movie had spent 90 minutes showing Butler's character killing person after person, yet doing so in a ways that made it impossible for any strong charges to be brought against him, it would have been a film about an angry (crazy) man underscoring the flaws in an imperfect system that's heavily weighted in favor of those who can work it.
I wanted this movie to be better than I suspected it was going to be. It's not like I went to the video store thinking "I kind of want to be frustrated and intellectually insulted for a couple hours", but that's what happened. Which is my clumsy way of segueing into my final point.
As a friend of mine pointed out: "The point of a movie is to entertain. It did its job. Despite being moderately intelligent, I was still entertained by it. I'd call it a 'fun movie', but not a 'good film.'"
There are plenty of stupid movies out there and there's a segment of the population who'll pay to see them. But I don't think that should be allowed to be a viable defense. One of the interesting bi-products of (the perception of) unfettered freedom in America has been the willingness to continually dumb-down our society. This is largely a capitalistic move. In a effort to cash in on the knuckle dragging masses, the lowest common denominator continues to be lowered. The result is that, rather than our arts and entertainment raising the level of our thought and discourse, we allow our bottom feeders to drag the entertainment level down to them. Art imitates life, life reflects art, until we've reached a point in society where people will go on TV for free for the chance to catch an STD from Tila Tequila, and we actually have politicians talking about an opposing politician's extensive education like it's a bad thing.
Look, I'm not saying that every film that comes out needs to be "Primer"; far more people have seen "The Lord of the Rings" than "Le Cercle Rouge" and I'm 100% OK with that. But when Hollywood stands over our collective chests, clenches it's eyes shut and drops a cinematic Cleveland Steamer for us to enjoy, I'm going to revel in my God-given right to mock people who sit in the front row and 'tard clap for it.
No, despite my most ardent wishes, Hollywood does not have a social responsibility to help make us a smarter, more rounded society. And, despite my deepest desires, mainstream films and video games will never reach their true artistic potential because of it. But that's the world we live in, and you don't have to join me in my disappointment. But that won't stop a few of us from fighting the good fight.
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
Extra Sausage
I didn't realize until he was getting ready to close the door that the guy I just delivered a pizza to wasn't wearing pants.
It was last summer, and I was delivering on the city's west side. This particular deliver was later in the evening--about 10 or so--and I was looking forward to going home. The way I usually deliver a pizza is like this: I walk up to the door, greet the person, then pull their order out of the bag and set it on top of the bag so I don't burn my hand. I remind them of the total, take their cash, then hold the order out and let them lift if off the top of the hot bag. This was exactly what happened here.
He came to the door, I pulled his pizza out of the bag and told him the price. I took the cash and held the pizza out until he took it off the top of the bag. Because of the way I hold the oder out to the customer, I couldn't see him from about mid-chest down until I lowered the bag. That was when I noticed his penis was flapping at me.
But the whole time before that, he had been completely nonchalant about the fact that his pork and beans were in the apartment hallway. Nothing. When he answered the door, there was no looking from my eyes down to his waist and back up; no "lookit what I've got" eyebrow raise; he didn't answer the door with a hearty "How's your evening? Look at my penis!" So the whole time that I'm holding his pizza out to him and he's counting out ones and handing me the cash and taking the pizza, I had absolutely no inkling what was down there. Then I lowered the bag and went to put the cash in my pocket...and there's this guys lil spittin' cobra looking at me with its one good eye. I took a half jump back and think I even squeaked a little.
Even THEN, things didn't turn weird(er). He didn't wink and invite me in. There was no cheap innuendo about offering me a better tip. Nothing. In fact, he was so blasé about it that for a moment, I wondered if I was the weirdo because I was wearing pants. He told me to have a good night, and closed the door.
What. The. Hell.
I've had chicks answer the door in underwear before. I've gone to houses where people were sitting around looking at porn. Corey Taylor of the band Slipknot lives in our delivery area and he's fond of ordering pizzas for parties he throws and having naked ladies answer the door. So it's not like you don't get used to seeing strange stuff when you deliver things to people's homes late at night. But the thing of it is, when people DO shit like that, they usually do it for the effect. Chicks will answer the door in their bras to watch the guys eyes bug out at the gift of free boobies. People do shocking stuff for the shock. At least, people do things they THINK are shocking for the CHANCE to shock people. Most delivery drivers, we see a guy or a chick in their underwear, we just shrug and assume that means we're not getting tipped.
But this guy did absolutely nothing to call attention to it. And once I finally noticed, he STILL didn't do anything out of the ordinary. He didn't even laugh at my--admittedly--funny reaction. That made the experience even more strange.
Whenever someone tries to make the argument that delivery drivers don't deserved to be tipped, I think of that guys penisokyousee, now, that didn't come out right. (that's what she said) Let me try again: Whenever someone says delivery drivers don't deserve our tips, I think of that evening. People say "I tip waitresses because they bring my food, refill my drinks, and do other things that drivers don't do!" And I think "AND THEY NEVER SEE YOUR DICK!"
It was last summer, and I was delivering on the city's west side. This particular deliver was later in the evening--about 10 or so--and I was looking forward to going home. The way I usually deliver a pizza is like this: I walk up to the door, greet the person, then pull their order out of the bag and set it on top of the bag so I don't burn my hand. I remind them of the total, take their cash, then hold the order out and let them lift if off the top of the hot bag. This was exactly what happened here.
He came to the door, I pulled his pizza out of the bag and told him the price. I took the cash and held the pizza out until he took it off the top of the bag. Because of the way I hold the oder out to the customer, I couldn't see him from about mid-chest down until I lowered the bag. That was when I noticed his penis was flapping at me.
But the whole time before that, he had been completely nonchalant about the fact that his pork and beans were in the apartment hallway. Nothing. When he answered the door, there was no looking from my eyes down to his waist and back up; no "lookit what I've got" eyebrow raise; he didn't answer the door with a hearty "How's your evening? Look at my penis!" So the whole time that I'm holding his pizza out to him and he's counting out ones and handing me the cash and taking the pizza, I had absolutely no inkling what was down there. Then I lowered the bag and went to put the cash in my pocket...and there's this guys lil spittin' cobra looking at me with its one good eye. I took a half jump back and think I even squeaked a little.
Even THEN, things didn't turn weird(er). He didn't wink and invite me in. There was no cheap innuendo about offering me a better tip. Nothing. In fact, he was so blasé about it that for a moment, I wondered if I was the weirdo because I was wearing pants. He told me to have a good night, and closed the door.
What. The. Hell.
I've had chicks answer the door in underwear before. I've gone to houses where people were sitting around looking at porn. Corey Taylor of the band Slipknot lives in our delivery area and he's fond of ordering pizzas for parties he throws and having naked ladies answer the door. So it's not like you don't get used to seeing strange stuff when you deliver things to people's homes late at night. But the thing of it is, when people DO shit like that, they usually do it for the effect. Chicks will answer the door in their bras to watch the guys eyes bug out at the gift of free boobies. People do shocking stuff for the shock. At least, people do things they THINK are shocking for the CHANCE to shock people. Most delivery drivers, we see a guy or a chick in their underwear, we just shrug and assume that means we're not getting tipped.
But this guy did absolutely nothing to call attention to it. And once I finally noticed, he STILL didn't do anything out of the ordinary. He didn't even laugh at my--admittedly--funny reaction. That made the experience even more strange.
Whenever someone tries to make the argument that delivery drivers don't deserved to be tipped, I think of that guys penisokyousee, now, that didn't come out right. (that's what she said) Let me try again: Whenever someone says delivery drivers don't deserve our tips, I think of that evening. People say "I tip waitresses because they bring my food, refill my drinks, and do other things that drivers don't do!" And I think "AND THEY NEVER SEE YOUR DICK!"
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
Zen and the Art of Pizza Delivery
My dad's a cop. He's been with the police force for 19 years or so now, but he got a late start in his police career, not going through the Academy until he was 42. But the thing of it is, my dad was a cop before he was a cop, if you know what I mean. He's always been the authoritarian, good with keeping tabs on things, willing to bust his ass for what he thought was right. So when he actually became a cop, it was like "oh yeah, this fits."
So, for better or worse, it's save to say that I've pretty much always been a pizza delivery guy.
It's easy to see how people could look at that statement and pull a negative connotation from it, or assume that I'm being self deprecating. After all, you think of pizza guys, you think of stoned slackers who want to work as little as possible and spend their free time riding their fixies and listening to Zepplin in their parents basement. I'm not going to say that any of that is false for a lot of drivers.
But I think that--whether they realize it or not--many drivers have a far more zen-like approach to life than the average person. We all do the job for the tips and the ability to have a decent amount of walking around cash in our pockets, but no one ever became a pizza driver under the auspices of becoming rich from it. And most of us are fine with that. Myself, for example: I only deliver three to four days a week, averaging right around 20-25 hours. My paychecks are juuuuuust enough to pay my rent and bills, and the tip money keeps me in food and DVD's. It's not very Rand-ian of me, but it certainly fits the "pursuit of happiness" portion of the American Dream.
Another thing that attracts many of us to the job, is the impermanence of the whole thing. I'm personal friends with the owners of my shop. I first started working for them when I was 18 and they had one store in town. Now I'm 34 and they've expanded to 11 locations in two states. I haven't worked for them the entire time, but rather I've come and gone pretty much as I've pleased. If I decide tomorrow that I've got to get out of dodge for a while, I can say the word and walk away from the job without causing any real disruption for them. And, when I finally arrived at my chosen destination, there's a pretty solid chance that I could get a job the same day delivering pizza somewhere. As I mentioned in my first post, there's not a huge screening process for drivers at most places; there are usually not a lot of questions asked beyond "do you have a car?" "can you find your way around?" and "can you keep your pants on for six consecutive hours?" As a general rule, as long as you can show up when asked, get food from one place to another without it going cold, and don't steal your bank at the end of the day, you can deliver pizzas whenever and wherever you want. It opens up a lot of options for a person who's looking for a more languid approach to life. Which is why it tends to attract stoned slackers. That and the pizza, of course.
I guess what I like most about all of the above, or the thing that most defines the majority of the drivers I know is that we don't tend to define ourselves by our jobs (says the guy with a pizza blog). I happen to deliver pizzas to pay my bills at the moment. I didn't always, and I might choose to stop tomorrow. But in the meantime, the method by which I get my cash isn't a reflection of who I am or what I want out of life; it's a means to end. Granted, not being defined by my job also means I'm not particularly fulfilled by it, either. But I've got other things to do that. My friends. My kittens. A ton of old generation video games. I don't come home at night worrying about the next day or sweating something that happened at work. I come home at night with breadsticks. And for now, that's a pretty sweet way to go.
So, for better or worse, it's save to say that I've pretty much always been a pizza delivery guy.
It's easy to see how people could look at that statement and pull a negative connotation from it, or assume that I'm being self deprecating. After all, you think of pizza guys, you think of stoned slackers who want to work as little as possible and spend their free time riding their fixies and listening to Zepplin in their parents basement. I'm not going to say that any of that is false for a lot of drivers.
But I think that--whether they realize it or not--many drivers have a far more zen-like approach to life than the average person. We all do the job for the tips and the ability to have a decent amount of walking around cash in our pockets, but no one ever became a pizza driver under the auspices of becoming rich from it. And most of us are fine with that. Myself, for example: I only deliver three to four days a week, averaging right around 20-25 hours. My paychecks are juuuuuust enough to pay my rent and bills, and the tip money keeps me in food and DVD's. It's not very Rand-ian of me, but it certainly fits the "pursuit of happiness" portion of the American Dream.
Another thing that attracts many of us to the job, is the impermanence of the whole thing. I'm personal friends with the owners of my shop. I first started working for them when I was 18 and they had one store in town. Now I'm 34 and they've expanded to 11 locations in two states. I haven't worked for them the entire time, but rather I've come and gone pretty much as I've pleased. If I decide tomorrow that I've got to get out of dodge for a while, I can say the word and walk away from the job without causing any real disruption for them. And, when I finally arrived at my chosen destination, there's a pretty solid chance that I could get a job the same day delivering pizza somewhere. As I mentioned in my first post, there's not a huge screening process for drivers at most places; there are usually not a lot of questions asked beyond "do you have a car?" "can you find your way around?" and "can you keep your pants on for six consecutive hours?" As a general rule, as long as you can show up when asked, get food from one place to another without it going cold, and don't steal your bank at the end of the day, you can deliver pizzas whenever and wherever you want. It opens up a lot of options for a person who's looking for a more languid approach to life. Which is why it tends to attract stoned slackers. That and the pizza, of course.
I guess what I like most about all of the above, or the thing that most defines the majority of the drivers I know is that we don't tend to define ourselves by our jobs (says the guy with a pizza blog). I happen to deliver pizzas to pay my bills at the moment. I didn't always, and I might choose to stop tomorrow. But in the meantime, the method by which I get my cash isn't a reflection of who I am or what I want out of life; it's a means to end. Granted, not being defined by my job also means I'm not particularly fulfilled by it, either. But I've got other things to do that. My friends. My kittens. A ton of old generation video games. I don't come home at night worrying about the next day or sweating something that happened at work. I come home at night with breadsticks. And for now, that's a pretty sweet way to go.
Thursday, March 25, 2010
I broke my taint today
I finally got to ride my new bike today. A fixed gear, for anyone who's interested in such information. I hadn't actually "ridden" a bike in probably 4 years or so, but I bought a new one so that I could add another dimension to the slimmer, more active, "now with more sexy!" me that I've been working on and I've been looking forward to a day that was dry/warm/free enough to give it a spin. Today was that day.
The actual ride number one went pretty well. There will be an adjustment period to get used to actually riding again, but I expected that, and I wound up making the ride from my gym to my apartment--about 45 blocks--in right around 20 minutes. The ride TO the gym will probably be a different story, as it's mostly uphill, but today I felt pretty good. I got home, whipped up a bowl of oatmeal and sat down to watch the first 140 hours or so of Ken Burns' "The Civil War" (oh, General McClellan. You're so gosh darned lovable with your borderline treasonous rhetoric and crippling military ineptitude!). All was well.
Well, that is, until about 4:00, when I got up to get ready to join a friend for a bite to eat. Lying down on my living room floor, surrounded by oatmeal and kittens, everything was sunshine and lolly pops. Standing up and trying to walk around, however, was all screaming pain and flaming taint*. Seriously, I know I was concentrating on not getting hit by cars and everything, but I still figured I would remember having the bicycle seat actually plunge into my ass. Especially if, as it seems to feel like, it had gone up there sideways. I mean, what the fuck?
I've never had this problem before. I don't mean to brag or anything, but there was a time when I was the 10th or 12th best horse rider at the Dubuque, Iowa YMCA Day Camp. And I never remember getting particularly saddle sore. It's true that I haven't ridden a bike in a while, and not regularly since I was in Junior High, but when I think back to those times, I never once remember wanting to rub Icy Hot on the underside of my coin purse.
And while we're on THAT topic, let me just say for anyone who's thinking that possibly sounds like a good idea that it totally is not. Icy Hot is great on shoulders. Arms, chests, thighs and calves are all fine, too. But don't go anywhere NEAR that whole butt/taint/dangles and orbs area. Sweet Jesus, it's like someone hit my dusty runway with a tazer. While kicking me in the sack. With another tazer. Made of Icy Hot.
I've been looking at different seats for my bike. It's something I was probably going to do anyway, since I'd planned on customizing it a bit when I had the cash. But now that I know that my current seat is made of granite and the fiery tongue of Satan himself, I think the seat issue has been upgraded to "necessity". I am, however, happy to say that it hasn't dimmed my love for my new bike. Gritting through the pain (and the residual burning of my pelvis's version of Dresden), I actually managed to mount up again when I got back from dinner and take a dying light spin around the block. I won't have time to ride it tomorrow, but you can bet that I'll be back out there again Saturday. But that's one of the wonderful things about getting involved in a regular workout program; once you get beyond the starting aches and pains, not only do you start looking forward to your regular workouts, but you start looking for other ways to start being a healthier, more fit person. And enjoying them.
So I'm a bike rider now, or at least I will be, once I either toughen up my ass crack or find a seat made out of cotton and baby seal eyes.
*"Flaming Taint" is currently sitting at #5 on my list of "greatest band name ideas", and I've officially called "dibs". So any of you out there who have been reading my blog in search of the perfect name for your punk band: move along. There's nothing to see here, bitches.
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
Hey ladies, he's single!
OK. Brace yourselves, female readers, because I'm about to drop a world of cute on ya, and I'm not going to be held responsible for any knee-buckling-related injuries that happen as a result. You ready? Then drink it in.
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
I Flipped a Baby Off Today
The thing you need to understand is, my kitten is a fucking asshole.
Actually, I have two. Frank and Starbuck. Starbuck is so named because Battlestar Galactica is the greatest thing to ever happen to television and Starbuck is the greatest thing to happen to Battlestar Galactica. Frank is named Frank because my ex has the imagination and sense of humor of an empty cardboard box. This is Frank:
Frank is a good kitten; impossibly cute, hilariously timid and, for lack of a better word, a very polite little guy. Look at him, all sittin there. Good kitty. Goooood kitty.
And then...there's Starbuck.
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He's the more social of the two and definitely the more vocal. He's also the more evil.
People don't believe me, because he's small. But they don't live with him. They don't see all the things he does to drive me crazy. He's rude. Selfish. Pushy. Demanding. And gets into everything. Evil.
I leave a box of kleenex out, 'Buck is shredding them. I fill their water bowl, 'buck knocks it over. He gets up in the windows and knocks down the blinds. Gets behind the entertainment center and unplugs all the cords. Hops up on the counter and eats my food. EVIL
So. Like I said, one of my kittens is a fucking asshole. Early this morning my alarm went off and I spent a little too much time relaxing in bed afterward, causing me to have to rush through the rest of my routine and get to my workout. I drank my milk, ate my toast and off I went. When I walked out the door, I was in just enough of a hurry that I left my glass on the counter top, rather than putting it in the sink. Frank didn't mind one bit. He manged to go about his kitty life without paying that glass any mind whatsoever. Frank is polite enough that I'm sure he'd have offered to wash it for me, but for his lack of thumbs. Starbuck, on the other hand, needed to know what that thing was all about. He knows he's not supposed to be on the counters. And I KNOW he knows, because when he gets up there and I notice, he hops down and runs away the moment I stand up to go get him. Bastard.
So Starbuck spends the next hour thinking about that glass. But because he's evil, he waits until I get home to do anything about it. I walk in, sit down and take off my shoes. I like to sit quietly for a bit when I get home from my workouts and just kind of feel everything buzzing. It's nice. But my reverie this morning was ruined by The Yellow One. He waited till I was nice and relaxed, then hopped up on the counter, meowed to get my attention, then--looking me right in the eye--he reaches out one little paw and casually knocks the glass off the edge of the counter. Shatter. That was a matched set you little cock hole.
Swearing ensued. Starbuck ran and hid where ever it is that he goes when I'm pissed at him. Frank, bless his little heart, ran to his favorite hiding place for when things get loud: under the kitchen table. I haven't got the heart to tell him that I can totally see him under there and could reach him if I really wanted to. I swept up the remains of the poor glass, dumped them in the trash and went to work before I skinned Starbuck.
My first three deliveries of the day totaled $212 and some odd change. They resulted in exactly $3.00 in tips. And then things got dead. No deliveries, no phone calls, nothing. Great day. So when things die down like that, they send us out "couponing": walking door to door and putting coupons in mailboxes, taped to doors, or handed to employees of businesses in an effort to drum up a little business. I couponed a couple of residential blocks, then went to the mall. I handed coupons out to a few of the stores then went to the food court for a sandwich. The lousiness of the day had me in such a foul mood that I decided to walk around for a bit to try and blow off a little steam. I walked to the upper level and stood, leaning against a railing, looking down into the lower level of the center court. The mall has an easter display set up, with some poor schmoe in an Easter Bunny suit for the kiddies to get their picture taken with. Does that ever go well? I mean, it's always some kid who's too small to know what the hell is going on and has no idea why mom is handing him off to some gigantic monstrosity that looks like HR Geiger and Walt Disney had sex in your nightmares. They can't pay the guy in that suit enough to deal with all the screaming he must endure in the course of a day. Plus, it's the Goddamned Easter Bunny. What does he SAY to kids? It's not like Santa, where you can tell him what you want and he'll lie and say ok. No one gets presents from the Easter Bunny. It would be all:
"What do you want for Easter, little boy?"
"An X-Box!"
"...how about you just color some eggs and I'll stick them under the couch for you?"
Anyway, I'm watching the horror-fest below and up comes this lady with a baby. Thing can't be more than 18 months old, but I didn't get to count its rings or anything, so I'm not certain. She puts baby onto Harvey's lap, and steps back so the kid running the camera can take a picture. I'm surprised when the baby doesn't start crying. He actually seems pretty cool with the whole thing, except that he's not at all interested in looking at the camera. So the camera girl starts doing all the stupid thing that people who photograph kids for a living do to get their gnat-like attention spans to focus. She's making "brrrr" sounds. Squeaking a toy. Snapping fingers. Calling the kids name in ultra-high pitched voices. But baby's not having it; he's just not looking at the camera.
He's looking at me.
I've always thought it was kind of unnerving how babies can stare at something and they never seem to blink enough, until it gets to the point where your eyes start to water on their behalf. And this baby has got his lidless stare focused up right into my face. I've locked eyes with an infant and he won't stop staring. Mom and camera girl are clapping and singing and "yoo hoo"ing and all he does is keep right on staring at me and all I can keep thinking of is how this baby is willfully ignoring the person who cares for it, just like Starbuck and why won't this baby look at its mother and why won't this baby listen and why the HELL won't he just GET OFF THE GODDAMN COUNTER...
And that's when it happened. All that frustration just bubbled right on up and my arms shot out completely of their own accord. Yes, I said arms. Plural. I whipped out both guns and gave the kid a double deuce.
Look, I'm not saying it was my greatest moment as a human being. Part of me felt bad the moment it happened. Appalled, even. So was the lady who had been standing a few feet away from me.
"Did...you just flip off that baby?"
"What? No. I...know the guy in the suit. I was flipping HIM off." Like that's better: I flipped off the Easter Bunny. No worries.
She gave me a look like I had just farted on her grandmother and walked away. I went back to handing out coupons. Eventually things picked up at work and it turned into an ok day that mercifully ended early. I came home, kicked off my shoes and flopped into my chair. Starbuck hopped up into my lap. He looked at me, purring slightly, then dropped his head under my chin and nuzzled my neck. All's well again. For now.
And I'm not going to lie: flipping off that baby helped.
Actually, I have two. Frank and Starbuck. Starbuck is so named because Battlestar Galactica is the greatest thing to ever happen to television and Starbuck is the greatest thing to happen to Battlestar Galactica. Frank is named Frank because my ex has the imagination and sense of humor of an empty cardboard box. This is Frank:
Frank is a good kitten; impossibly cute, hilariously timid and, for lack of a better word, a very polite little guy. Look at him, all sittin there. Good kitty. Goooood kitty.
And then...there's Starbuck.
.jpg)
He's the more social of the two and definitely the more vocal. He's also the more evil.
People don't believe me, because he's small. But they don't live with him. They don't see all the things he does to drive me crazy. He's rude. Selfish. Pushy. Demanding. And gets into everything. Evil.
I leave a box of kleenex out, 'Buck is shredding them. I fill their water bowl, 'buck knocks it over. He gets up in the windows and knocks down the blinds. Gets behind the entertainment center and unplugs all the cords. Hops up on the counter and eats my food. EVIL
So. Like I said, one of my kittens is a fucking asshole. Early this morning my alarm went off and I spent a little too much time relaxing in bed afterward, causing me to have to rush through the rest of my routine and get to my workout. I drank my milk, ate my toast and off I went. When I walked out the door, I was in just enough of a hurry that I left my glass on the counter top, rather than putting it in the sink. Frank didn't mind one bit. He manged to go about his kitty life without paying that glass any mind whatsoever. Frank is polite enough that I'm sure he'd have offered to wash it for me, but for his lack of thumbs. Starbuck, on the other hand, needed to know what that thing was all about. He knows he's not supposed to be on the counters. And I KNOW he knows, because when he gets up there and I notice, he hops down and runs away the moment I stand up to go get him. Bastard.
So Starbuck spends the next hour thinking about that glass. But because he's evil, he waits until I get home to do anything about it. I walk in, sit down and take off my shoes. I like to sit quietly for a bit when I get home from my workouts and just kind of feel everything buzzing. It's nice. But my reverie this morning was ruined by The Yellow One. He waited till I was nice and relaxed, then hopped up on the counter, meowed to get my attention, then--looking me right in the eye--he reaches out one little paw and casually knocks the glass off the edge of the counter. Shatter. That was a matched set you little cock hole.
Swearing ensued. Starbuck ran and hid where ever it is that he goes when I'm pissed at him. Frank, bless his little heart, ran to his favorite hiding place for when things get loud: under the kitchen table. I haven't got the heart to tell him that I can totally see him under there and could reach him if I really wanted to. I swept up the remains of the poor glass, dumped them in the trash and went to work before I skinned Starbuck.
My first three deliveries of the day totaled $212 and some odd change. They resulted in exactly $3.00 in tips. And then things got dead. No deliveries, no phone calls, nothing. Great day. So when things die down like that, they send us out "couponing": walking door to door and putting coupons in mailboxes, taped to doors, or handed to employees of businesses in an effort to drum up a little business. I couponed a couple of residential blocks, then went to the mall. I handed coupons out to a few of the stores then went to the food court for a sandwich. The lousiness of the day had me in such a foul mood that I decided to walk around for a bit to try and blow off a little steam. I walked to the upper level and stood, leaning against a railing, looking down into the lower level of the center court. The mall has an easter display set up, with some poor schmoe in an Easter Bunny suit for the kiddies to get their picture taken with. Does that ever go well? I mean, it's always some kid who's too small to know what the hell is going on and has no idea why mom is handing him off to some gigantic monstrosity that looks like HR Geiger and Walt Disney had sex in your nightmares. They can't pay the guy in that suit enough to deal with all the screaming he must endure in the course of a day. Plus, it's the Goddamned Easter Bunny. What does he SAY to kids? It's not like Santa, where you can tell him what you want and he'll lie and say ok. No one gets presents from the Easter Bunny. It would be all:
"What do you want for Easter, little boy?"
"An X-Box!"
"...how about you just color some eggs and I'll stick them under the couch for you?"
Anyway, I'm watching the horror-fest below and up comes this lady with a baby. Thing can't be more than 18 months old, but I didn't get to count its rings or anything, so I'm not certain. She puts baby onto Harvey's lap, and steps back so the kid running the camera can take a picture. I'm surprised when the baby doesn't start crying. He actually seems pretty cool with the whole thing, except that he's not at all interested in looking at the camera. So the camera girl starts doing all the stupid thing that people who photograph kids for a living do to get their gnat-like attention spans to focus. She's making "brrrr" sounds. Squeaking a toy. Snapping fingers. Calling the kids name in ultra-high pitched voices. But baby's not having it; he's just not looking at the camera.
He's looking at me.
I've always thought it was kind of unnerving how babies can stare at something and they never seem to blink enough, until it gets to the point where your eyes start to water on their behalf. And this baby has got his lidless stare focused up right into my face. I've locked eyes with an infant and he won't stop staring. Mom and camera girl are clapping and singing and "yoo hoo"ing and all he does is keep right on staring at me and all I can keep thinking of is how this baby is willfully ignoring the person who cares for it, just like Starbuck and why won't this baby look at its mother and why won't this baby listen and why the HELL won't he just GET OFF THE GODDAMN COUNTER...
And that's when it happened. All that frustration just bubbled right on up and my arms shot out completely of their own accord. Yes, I said arms. Plural. I whipped out both guns and gave the kid a double deuce.
Look, I'm not saying it was my greatest moment as a human being. Part of me felt bad the moment it happened. Appalled, even. So was the lady who had been standing a few feet away from me.
"Did...you just flip off that baby?"
"What? No. I...know the guy in the suit. I was flipping HIM off." Like that's better: I flipped off the Easter Bunny. No worries.
She gave me a look like I had just farted on her grandmother and walked away. I went back to handing out coupons. Eventually things picked up at work and it turned into an ok day that mercifully ended early. I came home, kicked off my shoes and flopped into my chair. Starbuck hopped up into my lap. He looked at me, purring slightly, then dropped his head under my chin and nuzzled my neck. All's well again. For now.
And I'm not going to lie: flipping off that baby helped.
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