How to put this? What do you do when you have a malfunctioning phone still under warranty and can't find the receipt?
- Rip up the apartment looking for it? Check.
- Search old boxes, bags, anything that might have contained articles of paper before and after move to new apartment? Check.
- Explore the contents of coffee pots, refrigerator, jackets, books, underwear shelf, guitar bags, closet floor, bowling shoe bag on said closet floor? Check (minus the refrigerator, but that might be tomorrow).
To put it into context, this was a very bad week for me and connective technology. Last Friday, my phone decides it no longer wants to allow any speech to be heard. Except on speakerphone. There is absolutely no way to validate all conversations being held over speakerphone. Even with the President.
Now, no problem, I will just run it in on the first day I can, easy as pie. Now the hitch: Saturday, the internet dies. In the ensuing days, this means the only way for any e-conversation whatsoever (email, facebook, what have you) is via my cell phone. Which throws a crimp into solution in the first sentence.
The short form of this: I run into the office, not there, I run to Sprint anyway, we interact in an essential roll of the eyes, they check for a replacement phone, give me a headset, say they'll have a new one by Tuesday or Wednesday (I had to confirm that Saturday was not a business day, a question I'm still not sure about).
Fine. Problem solved. Now to task two: Geof will not fuck up Christmas. I had made some promises, or at least said I'd look into things, and the circuitous path lead through Bryant Park to Union Square. Bryant Park being closest, I check there, and immediately realize I have no idea what I'm supposed to pick up there. Cue part three: the call to the folks.
Now usually, my conversations will look like this:
[ed. note: due to circumstance will throw in a brief synopsis/dramatization. Imagine this happening in the course of fifteen seconds, via split screen of Tommie and Johnny Gavin, courtesy of Rescue Me. Also, please infer the existence of these two characters as being portrayed by Denis Leary and Dean Winters. And also scriptwriters were somewhat competent.]
T: Listen Johnny.
J: Tommy.
T: You do not get my godson involved in this crap.
J: Tommy, you told me to get some dirt, so I went to the guy I knew who could.
T: You do not involve my godson. He's family, Johnny.
J: The kid's a computer geek, Tommy. And anyway there wasn't anything to get.
T: ...Nothing?
J: The guy's squeaky clean. If we could have found some cheat on his tax records, history of beat up wives, parking tickets, whether he cheated in school, he would have.
T: And nothing? Nothing at all?
J: I'm telling you, Tommy, the guy's a saint.
T: Okay, talk to him, Johnny, see if he can do something to him. Mess up his computers or something. But Johnny....
So, that's how it should sound. Only not in the sense that I'd be yelling at my folks and trying to hack into someone else's file for my own personal benefit. In other words, I might have messed up the details, but the tone was there.
Anyway, this, with my newfound stop-gap headset, is how I looked:
(That would be the best approximation, by the way, of me, the guy in the fence, if you add more hair, a beard, and put it in the middle of the sidewalk).
Brilliant, Metz. I can't wait for the new phone to come in.
* * *
On a final note, ended up hanging out with friend Randi at a Chelsea place called Trailer Park Lounge. And of course broke out the camera. The results:
That was probably the best. The lessons:
a) Take more photos,
b) Don't take photos from your camera, and
c) Take more photos from a real camera and, when presented, immediately and always take the action shot in the fake bowling alley.
I love being trash.
That was probably the best. The lessons:
a) Take more photos,
b) Don't take photos from your camera, and
c) Take more photos from a real camera and, when presented, immediately and always take the action shot in the fake bowling alley.
I love being trash.
