So I’m at my usual coffee shop, when I get in the annoyingly long line for the bathroom. When finally my turn, I glance to those behind me and say, “I’ll only be a moment. Need to change into my Superman outfit.” Their lame, polite smiles – ranging from “I get it but it’s still not funny” to “idiot” – vanished seconds later when I emerged in full Superman regalia, my former glasses nowhere to be seen.
BILL
Monday, January 28, 2013
Thursday, January 24, 2013
But Seriously Folks...
It’s not all fun and games. Here’s some info and a link re a novel I wrote:
City of Seven Rivers is historical fiction set in 1995 about a Marin County junior high student who suspects that Myron Hunter, the 74-year-old recluse next door is in fact Arden Hennessey, former bombardier on the Enola Gay. The boy’s suspicions counter the widely held belief that Hennessey, whose postwar success as a painter would nearly be undone by unrelenting guilt over the death and destruction he himself unleashed upon Hiroshima, leaped off the Golden Gate Bridge on the 10-year anniversary of the bombing.
http://www.cityofsevenrivers.com/
BILL
PS – And if you dig it, spread the word… Thanks!
City of Seven Rivers is historical fiction set in 1995 about a Marin County junior high student who suspects that Myron Hunter, the 74-year-old recluse next door is in fact Arden Hennessey, former bombardier on the Enola Gay. The boy’s suspicions counter the widely held belief that Hennessey, whose postwar success as a painter would nearly be undone by unrelenting guilt over the death and destruction he himself unleashed upon Hiroshima, leaped off the Golden Gate Bridge on the 10-year anniversary of the bombing.
http://www.cityofsevenrivers.com/
BILL
PS – And if you dig it, spread the word… Thanks!
Wednesday, January 23, 2013
Working Payphone You Ask? Dial “F” For “Frustration”
Per my minimalist leanings, I do not own a smartphone. Nor have I ever owned a cell phone. Key among the reasons for this is I have yet to come across a mobile phone capable of providing the same consistently high quality reception I get from the dinosaur contraption that is my home phone landline. Call me quaint, old-fashioned or curmudgeonly, but I refuse to lower my lifelong standard of having my every telephone conversation be – per the ads from yesteryear – “the next best thing to being there.” On the rare occasions when I use someone else’s cell phone – or when calling a cell phone - I invariably become annoyed by the patience-fraying intrusion of delays, overlapping dialogue and blips in transmission so garbled they rival Neil Armstrong’s first words from the lunar surface.
OK, I’ll admit it; I’m cheap, too. One phone is enough, I say.
But where does this leave me when having to place a call while away from home? For decades the trusty payphone proved ever reliable, the coin-fed apparatus a dependable tool at a reasonable price.
I believe the days of the conveniently located payphone are numbered, however, for with each passing year I inch closer to finally joining the ranks of the smartphone generation, bidding farewell to the payphone days of yore. Why? Because they are going the way of the buggy whip.
For quite some time I have become increasingly frustrated by the dwindling number of payphones. They are, in fact, becoming all but extinct, their slow and steady decline relegating cell phone holdouts like myself to occasionally having to rely upon friends or the kindness of strangers for use of their cell phones.
Desiring to bolster the aforementioned with firsthand statistics, I recently walked a four-mile stretch of Sunset Boulevard from Doheny Drive to Vine Street. My initial plan to stroll east on one side of the boulevard, then west along the other was rendered unnecessary by the sheer dearth of payphones, their pitifully small number prompting me to simply cross over to the other side of the street upon spotting another payphone.
With notebook and pen I recorded the location and condition of each and every payphone along my route, the twofold results of which were equally disappointing, albeit hardly surprising. On what might well be the most famous thoroughfare in all of Los Angeles, I came upon only ten functioning payphones, a few of which nevertheless refused to relinquish coins to which they were not mathematically entitled. As for the others, their purposeless existence was mirrored by their abject physical state. Many of the receivers had been vandalized to the point of being smashed in half or ripped out entirely, leaving behind a tangle of multicolored wires soldiering on to communicate one last, desperate message: Upkeep is not high on the list of priorities of “the phone company.” From Highland Avenue to Vine Street – in the very heart of Hollywood - there was not a single payphone to be had. Nor did any of the service stations I passed along the way have a payphone, one that might sorely be needed by a customer whose car has just been towed onto the lot yet who does not possess a cell phone. As best I can tell, this leaves only two remaining places where one can reasonably count on finding a working payphone: hospitals and airports. To those clinging to the belief that a cell phone is more luxury than necessity, I say this: It’s not looking good.
I’m not so naïve as to anticipate a resurgence of payphones in the years ahead. Like most anyone, I predict the opposite, i.e. their inevitable demise. Perhaps in a few years I’ll trek along Sunset once again to conduct a second survey. I’m fairly certain, however, that by then the tally of working payphones will have slipped from its lofty perch of double figures. I realize the clock is ticking and not at all in my favor, so I suppose I should begin preparing for the day looming large before me when, at long last, I will utter those dreaded words: “Can you hear me now?”
BILL
OK, I’ll admit it; I’m cheap, too. One phone is enough, I say.
But where does this leave me when having to place a call while away from home? For decades the trusty payphone proved ever reliable, the coin-fed apparatus a dependable tool at a reasonable price.
I believe the days of the conveniently located payphone are numbered, however, for with each passing year I inch closer to finally joining the ranks of the smartphone generation, bidding farewell to the payphone days of yore. Why? Because they are going the way of the buggy whip.
For quite some time I have become increasingly frustrated by the dwindling number of payphones. They are, in fact, becoming all but extinct, their slow and steady decline relegating cell phone holdouts like myself to occasionally having to rely upon friends or the kindness of strangers for use of their cell phones.
Desiring to bolster the aforementioned with firsthand statistics, I recently walked a four-mile stretch of Sunset Boulevard from Doheny Drive to Vine Street. My initial plan to stroll east on one side of the boulevard, then west along the other was rendered unnecessary by the sheer dearth of payphones, their pitifully small number prompting me to simply cross over to the other side of the street upon spotting another payphone.
With notebook and pen I recorded the location and condition of each and every payphone along my route, the twofold results of which were equally disappointing, albeit hardly surprising. On what might well be the most famous thoroughfare in all of Los Angeles, I came upon only ten functioning payphones, a few of which nevertheless refused to relinquish coins to which they were not mathematically entitled. As for the others, their purposeless existence was mirrored by their abject physical state. Many of the receivers had been vandalized to the point of being smashed in half or ripped out entirely, leaving behind a tangle of multicolored wires soldiering on to communicate one last, desperate message: Upkeep is not high on the list of priorities of “the phone company.” From Highland Avenue to Vine Street – in the very heart of Hollywood - there was not a single payphone to be had. Nor did any of the service stations I passed along the way have a payphone, one that might sorely be needed by a customer whose car has just been towed onto the lot yet who does not possess a cell phone. As best I can tell, this leaves only two remaining places where one can reasonably count on finding a working payphone: hospitals and airports. To those clinging to the belief that a cell phone is more luxury than necessity, I say this: It’s not looking good.
I’m not so naïve as to anticipate a resurgence of payphones in the years ahead. Like most anyone, I predict the opposite, i.e. their inevitable demise. Perhaps in a few years I’ll trek along Sunset once again to conduct a second survey. I’m fairly certain, however, that by then the tally of working payphones will have slipped from its lofty perch of double figures. I realize the clock is ticking and not at all in my favor, so I suppose I should begin preparing for the day looming large before me when, at long last, I will utter those dreaded words: “Can you hear me now?”
BILL
Friday, January 18, 2013
Call Me Crazy But...
… I’m pretty sure one could gain access into a nuclear missile silo simply by hiding outside the door, waiting for someone to leave, then tapping out “Shave and a Haircut” on the door ten seconds later.
BILL
BILL
Thursday, January 17, 2013
I'm Cancer Free, Everybody! I'm Cancer Free!!
Not that I was in remission or anything; I’m just thrilled not to have cancer.
BILL
BILL
Tuesday, January 15, 2013
Table My Booth
Janusz Kaminski had to be talked into being cinematographer for Steven Spielberg’s latest film, his hesitancy stemming from the belief that he would henceforth be known as the man who shot Lincoln.
BILL
BILL
Monday, January 14, 2013
Oscar Major Whine
I’m the first to admit the inherent difficulty in playing the Oscar “snub” game, forcing one to ask as it does: “OK, who gets pulled from the list of five nominees?” With the directorial exclusion of previous Oscar winner Kathryn Bigelow for “Zero Dark Thirty,” the last thirty minutes of which are so mesmerizingly tense you practically have to peel yourself from your seat at film’s conclusion, here is my reply: “Anyone. That includes you, Mr. Spielberg….”
BILL
BILL
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)