I didn't even know his name until a couple weeks ago. Coworkers would mention a guy named Andy, to my blank look of confusion; I would ask what's the deal with the guy that walks really fast around the office, and was met with similar uncomprehending stares. But now that I know his name is Andy, I still feel better calling him The Guy That Walks Really Fast, since he's constantly plowing through the office, leaned forward, as if he's ascending a steep hill.
TGTWRF is also an avid hoops fan, and has announced several dozen times that he's running this year's NCAA office pool. Now, I didn't mind playing the Oscar pool because (1) I could stand to part with $5 and (2) I figured I had a good chance, even though I wound up in a three-way tie for fourth, meaning 10 people or so in my office did better than my score of 18 for 24. But, since I've written before about the permanence of art vs. the transient nature of athletic glory, coupled with the fact that I just don't care, I've decided not to participate in TGTWRF's pool. Not to mention that it costs $10, and I'd be better off shoving the ten-spot up my butt than filling out a bracket and pretending I know anything about players' stats. You want me to talk about how the styles of Wes Anderson and David Gordon Green can be seen in the work of Phil Morrison? Can do, and will gladly do. At length. But asking me to parse the Sweet 16 is a waste of everyone's time.
Plus, The Guy That Walks Really Fast is just creepy. I was standing at the soda machine, near the bathroom, when he pauses before entering to ask if I'll participate in the pool; since I'm from Texas, he expects to see Texas in the Final Four, he says/jokes/mumbles. I don't know how he knows I'm from Texas, since I don't recall ever telling him this, but I move on, asking him what the price is for the pool, knowing full well that it's $10 but hoping that he can ramble long enough for me to get a Dr Pepper and edge slowly away. TGTWRF then launches into how he decided to set the $10 entry fee: "It used to be $5, but this is my 20th year doing it, and I figure after 20 years, dammit, I can do it because it's not like it was 19 years ago when I was 14 I'm 33 now and I've been doing this for 20 years…"
… at which point blood starting running out of my ears. Thinking quickly, I threw my can of soda at TGTWRF's face. It connected with a solid thunk; he hit the carpet, blood pouring from his forehead. I ran all the way home.
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Los Angeles, California I'm a twentysomething white male with ambitions to be a professional film critic and generally spend my days getting paid to watch movies and write about it. I try not to think too hard about how I want to build my life around talking about other people's creations and not mine. A compulsive reader and stubborn cineaste, I take an often contrary stance to my more fundamentalist peers and upbringing by celebrating the pursuit of the good, and the Good, in life, love, art and film. If you watched enough episodes of a few TV shows ("The Hungry and the Hunted," "The Cut Man Cometh," "The Body," "Waiting in the Wings," "Out of Gas," "April is the Cruelest Month," "20 Hours in America," "Colonial Day" for starters), you would understand me completely, and you'd also realize that much of my worldview and philosophical insights are heavily influenced by fictional works/programs, and many of the good things I've said in my life are just a regurgitation of someone else's imaginings. I guess I was made to be a film critic. This Month
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Tuesday, March 14
The Guy That Walks Really Fast
by
Dan Carlson
on Tue 14 Mar 2006 05:23 PM PST
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Remembering speechlessly we seek the great forgotten language, the lost lane-end into heaven, a stone, a leaf, an unfound door. Where? When?
O lost, and by the wind grieved, ghost, come back again. — Look Homeward, Angel, Thomas Wolfe Conservatives are not necessarily stupid, but most stupid people are conservatives. — John Stuart Mill We are all under the same mental calamity; we have all forgotten our names. We have all forgotten what we really are. All that we call common sense and rationality and practicality and positivism only means that for certain dead levels of our life we forget that we have forgotten. All that we call spirit and art and ecstasy only means that for one awful instant we remember that we forget. — G.K. Chesterton We were, for the briefest of moments, something greater than the sum of our uncertain parts; we were youth itself, in all its painful glory and sharp joy. — August Van Zorn There is a time in the lives of most writers when they are vulnerable, when the vivid dreams and ambitions of childhood seem to pale in the harsh sunlight of what we call the real world. In short, there's a time when things can go either way. — Stephen King Los Angeles, give me some of you! Los Angeles come to me the way I came to you, my feet over your streets, you pretty town I loved you so much, you sad flower in the sand, you pretty town. — Ask the Dust, John Fante |
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