One of my most favorite people on the planet started a blog today! And I didn’t even make him do it!
Please take a minute and go visit The Church of Cool. Today was his first day. Welcome him to the wonderful weird virtual world of the blog! He’s a great writer (possibly better than me, but that’s debatable). Once he gets rolling, there’s no stopping him. I can’t wait to see what he comes up with.
Oh, and I went to see M. Ward play tonight at the Park West. He was totally solo. It’s rare for me to go see an artist play totally solo. He was pretty remarkable. I had the opportunity to give the people sitting behind me some really dirty looks because they were talking the entire time, and I got all distracted trying to think of things I could say to them.
Two I thought of (but didn’t use):
“Um, yeah. You know, you could put his CD on your stereo at home and talk loudly all night and it would be pretty much the same thing, minus the girl bringing you drinks. And, as an added plus? You wouldn’t be bothering the CRAP out of 100 people who paid to see someone play some music!”
OR:
“You know, I have to thank you. I had an assignment in which I had to eavesdrop on a conversation and record everything said, and do my best to capture any possible unique qualities to the voices of those speaking. I went to Starbucks, but it was too loud and I couldn’t hear all of what people were saying. It’s so funny though, here I am at a ROCK CONCERT, and I was able to catch every word of your entire, inane, annoying conversation, and I think I did a damn good job of replicating your snobby, pseudo-intellectual, nasally voices! Thank you so much!”
I didn’t say anything, though. I’ve never been any good at the snappy comebacks. Mostly because they’re never snappy. By the time I’m done with them, everybody has kind of moved on. Oh well.
I was at the theatre once (as in live play) and a twat behind me was eating potato chips. I could not believe it. I also couldn’t bite my tongue before turning and glaring at him (I give good glare) and saying, “Dude – we’re not in fucking Hoyts.” Not very witty, but it did the job.
Hmm. Do you have Hoyts in the rest of the world? Big shiny movie theatre chain.
Nope. No Hoyts. We have several different movie theater chains, and we don’t really call them by the brand name.
In your case I would have said, “This isn’t a fucking movie theater, you idiot. This is the theataahhh.”
Or something like that.
Yeah, except in my case you wouldn’t have said it.
I like your second alternative
How about something subtle, like leaning over to the person next to you and saying, “Here’s my lawyer’s phone number. Please call him right after I turn around and beat the living shit out of these rude, annoying assholes right behind me. Thank you so much.”
I probably would have done that, James, except that I had my 11 year old daughter with me, and when I start fights, she wants to jump in, and I hate being upstaged by my daughter. She is one tough cookie.