Wii Bii Iidiots.

Been awhile, I know, but industrial strength writer's block, mega apathy, supersized malaise and no life whatsoever will do that. The final ingredient to the mix however, my having one foot on Methusalah's age and the other on a banana peel, plays prominently into this piece. Approaching the "golden years" at the same speed as a runaway freight train, I find myself noticing more and more of God's wit and humor in the practical jokes he plays as we age. "This will be a good one, " it says, and presto, I'm bald! What a kidder that Great I Am is. I mean if he had to make me lose something, why couldn't it be weight?

There have been a couple of incidents in the last several months that have really caused my reflection on the passage of time and its effects on the mind and body. And these are not good reflections. More like fun house reflections. The first of these incidents was when my lovely wife, or as I like to call her, Hecate (look it up, everyone except Sandy that is), decided that We needed a Wii. Now I am way too sophisticated for any wee-wii jokes here, although I could come up with several. Anyway, the reasoning was it could be our Christmas gift to ourselves. We could have saved a lot of trouble pain and money if we just bought dueling pistols.

For the unenlightened, the Wii is an insanely popular video game "experience" made by the good sadists at Nintendo. Wii is not your run of the mill, humdrum, everyday kind of video game, but a system that creates virtual experiences that allow you to physically participate in a variety of activities that are designed to optimize both your gaming enjoyment and the depletion of your bank accounts. In future divorce cases, custody of the Wii will surpass custody of the children in terms of most coveted assets. I can see the lawyer ads now..."Call Dewey, Cheatam and Howe at 1-800-ASSHOLE because we're tough and we'll fight to get your Wii from the rotten son of a buzzard adulter, spouse abuser your married to, all at bargain basement prices."

Anyway, once your have shelled out the kids' college fund for a Wii system, you then can begin consigning your paychecks directly to Nintendo for the privilege of buying the next "big game" they put out, which everyone MUST HAVE, OR ELSE YOU'RE NOT FIT TO LIVE IN CIVILIZED SOCIETY AND ARE LOWER THAN WHALE POOP OR ELSE YOU WOULD NOT DEPRIVE YOUR FAMILY OF THIS UTMOST NECESSITY OF LIFE! Not that I'm bitter.

Now that is all well and good, but they don't make your aware of the Wii side effects which are way worse than any of those chintzy little effects you get from Ambien, like sleep walking, sexual promiscuity or waking up and finding yourself in the hoosgow for breaking into the local Food King and eating the entire frozen pizza section. Wii side effects are much more insidious and debilitating. To start, before you can even begin playing the games, you need to create a cartoon version of yourself (called surprise, a Mii) to represent you in all of your Wii activities. I created what I thought was the perfect Mii and was promptly laughed all the way to Pittsburg by my ruthless and thoughtless family members, most of whom are still hospitalized from the laughing spells they incurred whenever my character came on the screen. And they deserve it. Other than becoming the first laughing stock in your circle of friends, more nasty things will begin to happen. You will decide that you need the Wii Fit system which allows you to not only play fun exercise games, but experience the very real strains, pains and bruises that normally accompany being the running back for the New York Giants, but it has music to accompany all your exercises that will move into your brain and immediately take precedence over all the ridiculous commercial jingles that you once thought you would be hearing in your mind on your deathbed. These songs go straight for the aural jugular and lodge immovably and irrevocably in your spinal cord. I'll tell you this, the first time I catch myself humming out loud the ditty that plays during the aerobic stepping exercise, I am going to wrap my lips around the nearest gas pipe.

Getting back to how aging fits into all of this, it is my understanding that the Wii is now being used as an innovative source of rehab and conditioning for people in nursing homes and as a preventative against the onslaught of aging by those looking to keep young and fit. I am quite sure this is a conspiracy between the Nintendo people and the osteopathic professional associations to increase business.

The other incident could be classified really as several incidents and are due to the fact, as I've said many times, that I didn't learn my lesson in the Marines about not volunteering. The AARP, of which I am now a proud card carrying member, was looking for people to help the elderly, the really elderly, do their upcoming tax returns. Sounds nice doesn't it? Yeah, right!

I called the area coordinator for the Lake County program and he informed me I needed to attend training. Well, how much work could that be, so I said OK. Around Christmas time I get a letter from the guy telling me I had to go to two weeks of all day training and take a certification test to meet IRS (whom I love as much as my own children, maybe more so, hey you never know who might be reading this) regulations.

Anyway, when I showed up for the first class, I found that the average age of my classmates was a tad over 112. At the door they handed out a stack of IRS training material the size of a small skyscraper along with an extra strength truss. Several of the ladies had enlisted the help of a local front end loader. I wish I'd thought of that! The classroom that first week was in a community center I am convinced doubles as an extraordinary rendition site. It was a dungeon, er, I mean basement, with whitewashed brick walls, no windows with a porthole for passing the bread and water to the inmates. Since this was the basement of the building the boiler room of course, was about two feet from the room. Hence another fear of growing old. It had to be about 800 degrees in there and 90 percent of the class kept their winter coats on for the duration of class. I can't wait until I am 80 (God forbid) and I vacation at the beach in a Depends bathing suit and gortex parka. Some image eh? No barfing on my watch, please. I wear a very expensive Timex.

AARP was good enough to supply plenty of hot water for tea, decaf coffee (which is like making love in a canoe) and Dick Cheney autographed Nike defibrillators. I must say that this was the only class I ever participated in with an ambulance on site. Now the instructors were, unbelievable as it sounds, older than the entire class. Combined! This made for some humorous situations involving misunderstanding of what the instructors and the class were saying. For instance:
Student: "What is depreciation?"
Instructor: "Out the door, down the hall on your left. Don't forget to flush."

However, a good time was had by all, and we all agreed to get together next year for a wild party at the Sea of Tranquility Nursing Home, or the next funeral, whichever comes first.
So everyone enjoy your birthdays before they become "How much time have I got left" days. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm bald.

Love
Dad

"They're Gonna Put Me In The Movies...Part Deux"

I believe I mentioned in one or two of my past posts that I never learn. Sure enough, when I saw a desperate plea for extras for a local movie by none other than Butch "Anyone can make a movie with actual money!" Maier, I felt that I owed him a favor after my last appearance in his film "The Head Of The Company" and volunteered. Now, if you didn't know it, my performance in "Head" had been the subject of some critical acclaim, "Two thumbs up for the follically challenged Bob L" Siskel and Ebert, even though Mr. Siskel is technically deceased it was the thought that counts. "Bob's performance makes you almost wish you were bald yourself" wrote Rex Reed for Variety. Mr Reed may also be technically dead, but I'm not sure, then there was this: "Bob's performance does for bald men what George W. Bush did for political integrity", Joe Fabeets for the Tipp City Picayune.

So I was feeling pretty good about myself when I finally found my way to the United Church of Christ in Bath, Ohio, thanks to (I swear this is true) the help of a guy, roughly 45 years old, in a Boy Scout uniform who was standing on a rural road in the middle of Noplace, Ohio directing traffic around some sort of bicycle race. I thought it was a dream, but he actually did give me pretty good directions.

Now the person in charge of getting extras, the mysterious "Krista S" whose organizing philosophy can be best summed up as "These people are so desperate for their 15 minutes of fame, or who have no actual lives, I can tell them anything and they will do it," had emailed us all several times with instructions that sounded very authoritative. "YOU MUST ARRIVE NO LATER THAN 9:00 A.M. OR YOU'RE OUT OF THE MOVIE, DON'T WEAR ANY REDS, WHITES OR BLACKS OR YOU'LL BE OUT OF THE MOVIE AND ALL EXTRAS MUST NOT GO TO THE BATHROOM FOR A MINIMUM OF 3 DAYS OR..." made us feel very secure this film was going to run like a taut ship indeed. What it actually turned out to be, and probably why we only knew her as "Krista S" (if that is her real initial), was that she was actually Butch's "Chief Assistant in Charge of Crapola." That was because none of the rules were followed with the exception of the one about the bathroom.

I arrived at 8:45 a.m. per Commandant Krista's instructions, and proceeded to become involved in the three things extras must do best. That is, wait! And wait some more and finally, er, um, wait. While the other extras and I waited in the church conference room, the good folks of the church held their worship services. And sure enough, Butch and the rest of the crew and cast arrived at the crack of 10:30. I think that Butch had become desperate for extras because he had coerced the pastor into soliciting the some of the braver of the church congregation to stay and be in the movie, upon pain of purgatory (either that or he won them in a card game). He said he could do it too, because he knew God personally.

After the services, the extras were finally told to go the sanctuary and fill up the pews. That was so Butch could film some shots of a wedding scene, which was probably appropriate as the tentative name of the movie is "The Bride and Grooms." It was at this point I learned another bit of cinematic trickery, which was cramming 100 people into two rows of pews designed to hold 10 people so that we appeared to be a well dressed mob of 500 attending a beautiful wedding.

However, I must admit that Butch has come up in the world and I became impressed that his film budget must have increased to maybe $20.00 because he had three (count 'em) actual camera's, a real boom microphone, a makeup lady and a few dozen gophers. It was just before the first "take" that the actors came in to line up at the altar that I was wondering whether they were actually going to act, or whether they were preparing to be linemen for the Cleveland Clowns, er, Browns. When the were coming in they were bobbing, weaving and jumping up and down like prizefighters coming into the ring, and at one point the hero, at least I think he was the hero, head butted another actor delaying filming for first aid.

At last we began shooting, which gave Butch the opportunity to practice his "one more time" slogan. It also gave the extras the chance to ruin their various leg muscles and joints by standing up and sitting down roughly 3,000 times (or one more time x 3,000) for the critical "The Bride Breaks Down and Sprints Back Up the Aisle" scene. During one of the three million breaks I had the opportunity to meet Butch's mother who (not surpising given Butch's huge budget) also volunteering as an extra. She is a kind lady (she must be as she complimented my first post on Butch's first movie see http://aging-disgracefully.blogspot.com/2007_02_01_archive.html ) and not at all the type that would rear a son who would make a knowing career choice in felonious aggravated movie making. In fact, her daughter, evidently the "bright one" has actually done something productive with her life and is actually helping people better their lives.

After the church scenes we meandered over to the fellowship hall for lunch and break, during which I did several crossword puzzles, chatted with some of the other extras and watched Pastor Bob clean out several extras in a seven card stud game. A couple of the extras I spoke with, Claudia and Cindy, were from Lakewood, or Rocky River, or some darn place. Anyway they would fit in well with the Bobcat crowd as from what I gather they are funny, sarcastic and a propensity to enjoy a beverage or two. In fact, the most productive part of the day for me was when Claudia, obviously the ringleader and most streetwise of the two, gave me several restaurant suggestions for the west side.

Just before doing the reception scene we were all told to change clothes and take a break before dinner. We had two hours to kill. So I tried to relax and take a nap in my car, however, God had essentially used the parking lot as a steel furnace that afternoon, so after about ten minutes of sitting in the shade and still sweating like a congressman in front of an ethics committee, I decided to forget and go inside and change. It was at this time I heard, over my right shoulder coming from a residence which had been shielded from my view by large hedges, the sound of at least two dogs barking and sprinting to find the source of the "car door slamming which means there may be some moron threatening our territory sound" and I turned just in time to see Fluffy and Snowball scramble around the corner of the hedges, tripping over each other and yapping like the pesty little anthills of fur they were and froze about 10 yards away. However, I could still hear barking. Real barking. And about 3 hours later, having been slowed considerably by his massive bulk, around the hedge came the third dog, Luca. Luca was some sort of cross between a rotweiller, saber toothed tiger and Dick Cheney, so you can imagine my sheer, stark terror. Luca stopped in front of his minute brethren and intermittently barked, growled and slobbered at me as I stood frozen like a statue. After what seemed a lifetime I finally heard a lady calling the names of the dogs and telling them, in vain of course, to COME HOME THIS INSTANT! And since these particular canines were operating 1 molecule of actual brain matter and a zillion gallons of adrenaline, I was not surprised that they just ignored her. After another lifetime the woman came around the hedge and started to drag the still clamoring mongrels back toward their home. I could hear her voice a thousand miles away, telling me the dogs wouldn't harm a fly. Also, I heard her say something about not knowing there was anybody there in the church parking lot. I could understand that since it was Sunday, and why in the world would ANYBODY BE IN A CHURCH PARKING LOT ON SUNDAY! At this point, I most definitely needed a change of clothes, change of scene or not.

While at the fellowship hall we were to portray attendees at the wedding reception and look stunned. This was the easy part, as I was stunned when I came out of the womb. Also at one point the extras were supposed to "dance" for reality purposes, I guess, but having the rhythm God gave gravel I politely demurred. No amount of encouraging waving from the mob of extras, Butch or unlimited Wild Turkey could persuade me to "act" like I was dancing. At least not in front of cameras where there would be a permanent record. Anyway the dancing scene was only done 200 "one more times."

Finally the shooting for the day was complete and Butch mercifully told us that we could now leave as the armed guards would let us leave. After scouring the parking lot for the terrible canine trio, I slinked (or should that be slunk) to my car, quietly opened the door and quietly started same, figuring Luca's teeth could easily shred mere steel, and eased onto the highway for the hour long drive home.
All in all it was a good experience, the congregation of the church were kind and generous in their volunteering, and Pastor Bob even allowed some of the card game participants leave with their pants. Me, I'm not sure how I'll explain to Sandy why I came home wearing a barrel.
Moral: Never play cards with someone who has God slipping him aces.

Love
Dad