My father was something of an expert in spectacular embarrassment when I was growing up. This is my favorite story, one that my brothers and I still laugh about during holiday times like this.
When I was about 12, I went to Sacramento to compete in the California state finals for the National Geography Bee, sponsored by National Geographic magazine. (It's like a spelling bee, except they quiz you on bodies of water, capital cities and so on.) Everyone decided to come along to support me and make it one of a very few Adomian family vacations, so my parents and three brothers all piled into a rental car and headed north, fighting continuously as we drove up the length of the 5 Freeway.
Once we got to Sacramento, it was decided that we would go eat dinner in historic Old Town Sacramento, much of which is built below ground. This peculiar local style dates back to the founding of the gold rush town, when the early settlers had the civic wisdom to engineer a gimmick for a future tourist trap.
We passed a few "Old West"-style shops and bars along a main sidewalk and came up to an entryway that looked like a good place for dinner. There was a stairway leading down to an underground pizza parlor. My dad went downstairs to look at the menu and find a bathroom for Daniel, my second-youngest brother who was seven years old at the time. The rest of us stayed up on the sidewalk.
What happened right then in the next few seconds felt like an hour. Suddenly, a deep roar shook the entire restaurant.
"SHIT! EVERYBODY DOWN!"
The bellow. It was dad's unmistakeable bellow. The rest of us up on the sidewalk knew immediately that dad was involved in some kind of incident. We heard a wave of panic rise up from the dinner patrons below.
"What's going on? What's going on?" my mom asked, instinctively scooping my baby brother up from his stroller.
My brother David and I ran down the stairs far enough to see people ducking for cover, screaming. Dad was belly-crawling across the floor, as if under fire.
"Dad's bellying across the floor!" came my adrenaline-fueled report back up to mom.
"Oh god oh god oh god oh god," she replied.
Then dad swung behind a large table where a full dinner party were seated, all of them now crouching in total panic. Dad turned the table over on its side, sending their drinks, silverware and several large pizzas sliding off onto the floor. He ordered everyone to get behind the barricade.
"Now he's turning over the tables!"
"Oh god oh god oh god oh god."
I spotted young Daniel standing stunned in the middle of the restaurant. My dad lunged out from a prone position and tackled him, shielding him from danger.
"I SAID GET DOWN GOD DAMN IT!"
The restaurant was full with at least fifty people who were now on the floor, yelling and sobbing and praying. Dad turned another table over, strengthening his barricade.
Then, from behind the kitchen, a waiter leaned out, extending his entire torso across the counter, waving wildly and trying to get dad's attention.
"Sir! Sir! Sir! It's a dinner theatre next door, sir! It's a dinner theatre next door!"
The screaming died down, giving way to angry silence as everyone heard those words sink in.
"It's a dinner theatre next door, folks."
It turned out that in looking for a bathroom, dad had turned a corner, opened the wrong door and seen some actors acting out a gunfight at an adjoining murder mystery dinner theatre. (To this day, Daniel says that he, at age 7, could clearly see and hear that the weapons were cap guns.)
All eyes turned to my dad as he slowly stood up, dusting himself off. He helped Daniel get up and then addressed the crowd in a tone of magnanimous apology.
"I'm from Los Angeles," he explained. "We just had riots."
We ate dinner somewhere else that night.
It's that time of year! Critics are releasing their lists of the best and worst films of 2008! Of course, I'm not a film critic, so technically there's no journalistic standards I have to follow. (Like actually bothering to see a movie before I judge it.) So here's the list of the top movies of 2008 that I was aware of, but didn't care to see:
Australia
Do you really claim to tell "the story" of an entire continent? OK, I'll bite. So at least it's one of the five not-bullshit continents, right? Oh, shit. Sorry, then no.
Babylon A.D.
Vin Diesel walks through a darkened urban alley, pretending that he's not gay and that the set isn't derived from Bladerunner.
Cloverfield
Dude, shit starts fucking up, monster shows up and shit starts getting smashed, bro! Just like you're there! Remember when Yoda started slashing fools? S'like better than that, bro.
Dark Knight
Good guys wiretap civilians. Bad guys act like performance artists, hate society (especially banks) and end up dead before the movie even comes out. So listen to Batman: it's the good guys who are spying on you.
The Duchess
There's
nothing I like more than pretentious films that fetishize aristocracy. However, Keira Knightley's flamboyant butt corset wasn't quite big enough to
convey the intensely fake pathos that the Oscars are looking for.
Hamlet 2
Neither a follow-up nor a sequel be.
Hell Boy 2
He's the hero but he's a demon. Whooooaaaa. I guess we do live in a morally compromised universe.
Incredible Hulk
Remember
that other Hulk movie from a couple years ago? We weren't
sure. We thought maybe if you hadn't, you might be interested in
another one exactly as interchangeable with escapist video games as the first ...
but OK.
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
Dr. Jones
finally returns, this time to wrap up the archaeological loose ends of
the legendary bible story: the parable of the crystal skull.
Madagascar 2
You almost had me convinced that this was a Pixar movie. Luckily, Dreamworks keeps an entire department on the payroll to make sure that their lack of cinematic imagination translates to their billboards.
Mamma Mia
What the fuck is this? Pirates of Penzance without the pirates?
Meet Dave
This is clearly more than just one of those movies
where Eddie Murphy plays multiple characters. This time, Eddie Murphy
stars as each tooth inside Eddie Murphy's grin. Eddie Murphy also
played the uncredited roles of every skin cell and enzyme within Eddie
Murphy (Eddie Murphy).
Mirrors
How many different variations of vision-related words can be used for titles of Saw knockoffs? Mirrors. Shutter. The Eye. Glimpse. Glance. Lense. Sight. Stare. Periscope. Look.
Quantum of Solace
"My name is James Bond. Simply James Bond."
A new Bond for the new century -- and he's breaking all the Bond
conventions! This 007 is in a committed relationship, rides the bus and
might actually go ahead and try a stirred martini this time.
Saw V
Was there a Saw movie this year? Duh! There's a Saw movie every year! If you like Saw I, Saw V and Saw XII, you'll look forward to Saw MCMLXXXIV.
Secret Life of Bees
There's more to bees than the public image you see in the apiary tabloids -- but the queen doesn't want you to know! This groundbreaking documentary doesn't sugar coat the honey. Winner 2008 Hive d'Or.
Sex and the City
I always wondered what would happen to those
privileged ladies from that show I would never have watched even if I
had a subscription to HBO. Turns out they're still fucking in an urban
setting!
Slumdog Millionaire
An inspiring real-life story based on the
life of Forrest Gump, except find/replace Alabama with Mumbai. Yay! God
makes money fall from the sky -- but sometimes he'll test ya first!
Speed Racer
When I was a kid, if I went over to another kid's house and they had a Speed Racer toy or poster, I would quickly grow nauseous and want to go home, knowing this was a kid whose idea of fun was as rudimentary as shouting, "Fast car go fast!"
What Happens In Vegas
Unfortunately, I've been to Las Vegas. What happens there is like what happens on the Sunset Strip on any Saturday night in L.A., except magnified 1,000 times. I'm waiting for more movies that take place in pleasant, sustainable American cities, like Portland.
Plugged-in, "with it" friends of mine are always telling me about t.v. shows that I have to see: Battlestar Galactica, Lost, The Wire. Problem is, they always demand that I watch the entire series run on DVD.
How? HOW!?! How the fuck am I supposed to watch an entire t.v. series spanning multiple DVDs? "All eight discs of season nine just came out. You have to watch them all." Tell you what: I've seen two episodes of Battlestar Galactica. I really liked them both. But the idea of watching the entire series sounds like a lifelong project. My very favorite t.v. shows are The Prisoner and Mr. Show, both of which had relatively short runs. Yet I still haven't seen every episode of either one! Maybe I will some day, but it seems absurd that I should be made to feel like a fool unless I take in every episode over the course of a non-stop, weeks-long marathon.
Listen, if you were to recommend a simple one-off motion picture to me, it is at least plausible that I would be able to rent the DVD and watch the movie. I cannot, however, even imagine how a functional human being could go, "Six seasons spanning 83 hours on 12 discs? If you say so! I will gladly watch this program in its entirety and report back to you on its merits."
Imagine if this obsession with comprehensive series-watching were translated to works of writing. If I were to recommend a book to you, it would be reasonable to imagine you being able to read it:
"You should read A Confederacy of Dunces."
"OK, I will. That is possible. Thank you."
But imagine if I recommended reading material the way people do with videos:
"You ever read Time magazine? You should. Every issue. The 1940s and the 1970s are particularly essential."
"Uh ... shit? Does it me a cultural illiterate if I can't accomplish that?"
"Yes. Every real connoisseur has read all of Time magazine."
So please, if you really think I should check out a t.v. show on DVD, just tell me the ten best episodes of a series and I'll try to take them all in over the course of a year. OK?
Let's make one thing clear: I don't hate old people. That's ageism, and it's wrong. Why? Because important people who study sociology say so.
What I do hate, with no apologies, is the Baby Boom generation, now getting old enough to retire. I listen to the protest music from their
long-forgotten past on a nearly continuous loop, imagining, as some of
them still must, what could have been. But overall, they are the most entitled, spoiled generation in this country's history, and as author James Howard Kunstler (a boomer) says, they'll be remembered as "the generation that wrecked America" for their collective greed and gluttony. It wouldn't be so bad if the boomers, as a generation, had not declared victory. But they have. And they are throwing themselves a fucking grand national parade of self-congratulation that will last for many years until they're all finally dead.
Just look at how they are marketing products to themselves. Whether it's investments, hair loss treatments, boner pills or luxury cars, the t.v. ads aimed at aging Baby Boomers are uniformly flattering of their supposed generational accomplishments, to the point of hyperbole. These ads always start with an iconic boomer anthem written by a wilder, more admirable member of the herd who raged and died young. These songs are chosen to evoke a pavlovian "Yeah, maaan!" response among the failed idealists, and are inevitably accompanied by a video montage of moments that the Baby Boomers have declared to be grounds for their own sainthood: the moon landing, Woodstock and the Chicago convention. (The boomers never want their ads to remind them of the fall of Saigon or the CIA killing of two Kennedy brothers.)
"You were the generation that went to the moon, freed love and changed the world!" the smarmy voiceover always reminds their needy egos. "Who could have ever imagined that you would one day get old enough to retire?" (Or want prescription drugs, exploit future generations, need diapers or whatever else the product requires.) Who could have ever imagined? Me. Or any scientist. Or anyone else who understands human mortality.
All their real Baby Boom heroes -- like Hunter S. Thompson and John Lennon -- died trying to change the world, a task which for some reason the rest of them believe was accomplished when Nixon was forced from office. ("We did it! Nixon's gone! Let's all start complaining and become Republicans!" goes the logic.) So who's the best they can come up with now for a generational spokesman? Dennis Hopper! You can hear the marketing guys: "Is any famous old hippie still alive? Does he still represent some superficial image of rebellion while being desperate and/or soulless enough to sell out and do an ad for a bunch of bankers? Hopper? OK, get him in here." So for the last couple of years, Dennis Hopper has cut commericals rapping at wilting flower children in the rigidly informal tones they find soothing: "Time's they are a-changin' brother! You need a retirement plan, maaan!"
But when the economic collapse suddenly hit this year, and all the old hippies lost half their gambled "savings," the surviving investment firms scrambled for something to tell the disquieted crowd. So they panicked and pushed Dennis Hopper back out on stage to explain why everyone's retirement dreams were suddenly turning into a bad trip: "Didja think the journey would be easy, maaan?" he asked, in ads that are still airing. "You gotta climb the mountain before you can reach the ultimate high!" What the fuck, Hopper? You're not a spirit guide in someone's peyote trip, asshole. You were just paid a load of money to convince these balding long-hairs that it was cool to invest in The Man. How dare you act cool about it?
Sometimes I feel bad for the boomers. I think what these dying babies need is a public service announcement, in the self-congratulatory style they respond to so well, simply informing the aging boomers that they are, in fact, mortal:
"You were the generation that went to the moon and blah, blah, blah. Who could have ever imagined that you would one day get old and slide towards death? Well, actually, it turns out, the Baby Boom generation is doomed to die, just like every generation before it. And ya can't go to Canada to escape this draft, maaan. You turned on, you tuned in, you dropped out. But now it's time to drop dead. YOU ARE GOING TO DIE AND BE FORGOTTEN LIKE EVERYONE ELSE."
(A public service announcement from the Ad Council, AARP and Rolling Stone Magazine.)
During election week, I went to New York to perform my stellar Bush and McCain impressions at some edgy, politically-charged comedy shows we don't have enough of in Los Angeles. After I landed, I got a message from my manager saying I had been booked to perform an additional gig at the German consulate in New York. The event was an election night dinner for a group of German journalists. For five days I tried to get in touch with the consulate directly, hoping to find out the time and location of the event, but the Germans would only communicate to me indirectly, through cryptic forwarded emails and one mysterious phone message from a private number. It was clear that these secretive bureaucrats did not wish me to know any more of their plans than necessary.
Their strict Teutonic itinerary continued: "He will go through security and proceed to the 23rd floor, where he will be greeted by Dr. Blaumann and will enter the room when called." Dr. Blaumann! The appropriate image came to mind:
"You vill arrive exactly at five-zirty p.m.!"
I hastily got into Bush makeup and suited up, allowing a ridiculously generous 90 minutes to get across Manhattan from my friend's apartment in Hell's Kitchen to the U.N. complex, where the consular missions are. I arrived almost an hour early, well aware that I was in technical violation of their 5:30 p.m. ultimatum. Jumping out of the taxi and hiding my face, I scurried away down 42nd Street, glancing behind me to make sure that I had not been spotted by any arriving German diplomats.
The consulate lobby was decorated in a crisp, angular style. On one wall hung a large, sad painting of an androgynous human or mannequin torso, surrounded by barbed wire, flowers and birds. Along the opposite wall, three wood carvings were arranged: one of a man inside a box, one of a man sitting on top of a box, and one of a man holding up a box. The German artist had pinpointed with maximum efficiency all three possible expressions of the man-box dialectic.
