secret life of daytime
I took a 'personal day' today to attend to various needs, foremost being not going to work. At one point, I loaded a backpack with a big cider jar full of change full right up the neck and coming out the, uh, mouth hole and went to the Slum Flesh to dump it all in one of those giant change machines. As soon as I started dumping stuff into the tray, a guy showed up with a GIANT mason jar about 1/4th full of change. Leather jacket, sunglasses on his forehead, craggy, drug-burned features. I kept going and when I turned to look back, there was ANOTHER guy, also shifty-looking, clutching a sandwich bag full to bursting with change, the yellow and blue making green.
So, there we were, three guys in the middle of a rainy Thursday in a too-bright supermarket, scrounging our change together. It ocurred to me that I probably looked as shifty as they did and all three of us looked like nervous junkies itching for some folding money to shoot in our necks.
The change machine jams. The screen hesitates and simply says CALL FOR HELP. I go and get a short little woman who chastises me repeatedly about putting change in too fast. Junkie in the Leather Jacket keeps insisting I overloaded it, but he has a gregarious sort of nature and we fake laughter between ourselves. Change machine woman dumps the overflow into my backpack and I let Junkie go ahead of me. Sandwich Bag Man has left in frustration. I circle the aisles, listening to the change machine clank away from across the store. When I hear the noise stop, I come back and he's gently feeding the coins in one at a time, like he's appreciating each penny before jettisoning back out into circulation. Then, out of nowhere, he FREAKS OUT and begins frantically sweeping handfuls into the slot, exploding into this manic attack. I stare at him because, well, it's noon and we're both doing this thing and we obviously don't have jobs to go to and he was so crazed that he wouldn't have noticed me anyhow. He's sniffing his nose like crazy, wipes with his sleeve, produces a handkerchief and wipes his nose and all I can think is that he's clearly going to buy crack or meth or wine he's clearly wanting.
He digs out handfuls of coins from the rejected coins slot and begins feeding them in. I notice a big oversized coin that looks like a theremin-era flying saucer and say, "I don't think that one's going to fit." Before I finish my observation he's saying, "Oh yeah, that's a sobriety coin, that's the second one I found."
Costco, stocking up on lunchmeat and cereal, I play Musette on the keyboard I'm considering choosing as a Christmas gift and head to the produce aisle. As I inspect the 5 pound box of tomatos, I hear someone, over and over, play the lead riff from Sheila E.'s 'Glamorous Life.'
Kelly Sue lets me come over and use the landline to record an interview I'm about to have with Charlie Murphy. Yeah, the Rick James/Prince/K9 Posse Charlie Murphy. After the manager's assistant couldn't get a hold of the manager all day yesterday, he finally got back to me with 3 cell phone numbers and a time, saying that Charlie and the two comedians he's on tour with, Bill Burr (Chapelle Show) and Donnell Rawlings (Ashey Larry). "They're going to be in the limo together, they'll be driving through Dubuque, Iowa."
So I call Charlie Murphy and get one of those standard "The customer isn't there, leave a message" several times. Since I haven't used a landline in awhile, I kept messing up the three way calling and having his voicemail call me back and then I called Donnell and he picks up, really far away and interrupted by a recorded voice saying, "Record your message after the beep" and finally we begin the interview and it quickly becomes clear that this is not going to go well.
Donnell is riffing and since I mostly hate riffing and improv and the fake humor of interviews, I naturally sucked it up and went along with it. Then he hands the phone off to someone and I hear him say, "Here, it's that dude from the radio." This goes some distance towards explaining why they're so loud and so 'on.'
Then Bill is on the phone and I ask him some questions while people are making choking sounds in the background and laughing at other things and then Bill will yell what I just asked him to the other people in the limo and they'll all loudly discuss it and the signal will get even shittier as they continue "driving through the middle of a cornfield" as Bill put it. Then Charlie Murphy is on the phone and I ask a few questions and he is very blase and unhelpful and I wonder why I was excited about this in the first place. But, on the plus side, he says his name like Chappelle does as Rick James, "charliemurphy."
Then I'm back to Donnell, who quickly accuses me of trying to twist his words and edit stuff together, that it's "two dudes in a room" doing something nefarious. Kelly Sue, meanwhile, is cracking up in the dining room listening to my end, which mostly consists of me saying "Hello?" and swearing and repeating things I hear on the other end of the phone, like "On a horse?" "Piggyback?" So, completely aware of the fact that any control I may have exercised is completely lost and that I'm going to have to bullshit my head off to make the word count, I desperately try to get off the phone. While Donnell is talking at me, a recorded voice comes on the line, "Your message is too long. You have 8 seconds left." I realize that that's probably Charlie Murphy's voicemail and that I have now left a stupidly long message that consists of me trying to talk to him.
Donnell goes on, I tell him I'm not calling from a radio station, but a newspaper, which he takes in something approximating casual disdain and I rush to close with my standard line, "Okay, I think I have enough to work with. Thanks, etc." and Donnell holds me up, "Hey, whatever you write, end it with "I'm Rich, Bitch" or "Everyone's gonna get rich at the I'm Rich Bitch tour." Yes, Ashy Larry, whatever you say.
Posted by xtop at November 18, 2004 07:04 PM
