I remember playing video games in my room after school when I was 12 years old. My room was just starting to become a personal space in which I found refuge, rather than the place I went to sleep. I had posters on the wall, mostly from Nintendo Power, of video games. I had posters of games I'd never played and never really intended to play, like StarTropics, just because they were in Nintendo Power and I was in love. There was brown carpet and an old brown office chair my dad had brought home from the hospital. It was heavy and noisy. It would squeak in seven different places when you sat down or shifted your weight. The fabric was almost like burlap, heavy and a little scratchy. My Nintendo and TV were on a big particle board entertainment center, where everything had its own compartment. The TV was a 13-inch tube with dials. I could watch broadcast television if I wanted, but I didn't. We had cable on the big TV in the living room and my parents almost always let me watch what I wanted, so TV happened in there. Video games happened in my room.
I would come inside after mom brought me home from school, and take the snack she made me back into my room. The afternoon sun would come through the window on the front of the house. In my memories it never rains. I only had one or two games I would be working on, and I could play obsessively. I would hammer at the same levels, the same bosses, for hours. Games then were different. There may have been a story but it was hard to decipher, and anyway the stories were always secondary to the playing, the simple act of progressing through the game, beating the enemies, perfecting the jumps, learning the timing of traps or the patterns of bosses. There were no online FAQs or walkthroughs, no hands to hold through these strange worlds concocted by grown men across the Pacific Ocean. Secrets, codes and hints were passed around at school like passwords for the French Resistance. Occasionally a game might be big enough for Nintendo to release a player's guide, and those were also passed around, never to be seen again by the original owner.
I suffered victories and defeats, sometimes witnessed by friends but often just to an audience of one. I raged at my enemies, at the "cheapness" of unfortunate respawn points or almost impossible jump/enemy combinations. I thrilled at the first time I would perfectly anticipate Bowser's moves, flowing like water around him to watch him defeat himself. I loved starting new levels, facing new enemies I'd only heard about from my friends. Seeing new backdrops, strange mountain plateaus on an alien world, or deep in the jungle here on Earth. Some games felt like they were mine and mine alone, games I'd picked out on a whim during a trip to the mall or Toys R Us. Did anyone else on this planet play Godzilla for the NES? Was that game created by Toho for me and me alone? Was Dynowarz sold anywhere in the country except my local Toys R Us? Did I buy the only copy in existence? I had no way to share this experience, no AOL or Reddit to find others like me. I was a young boy in a small city but I was also a lone explorer cutting my way deep into the outback of other countries, other worlds.
Colin Fisher is many things to many people, but mostly he's an actor and writer.
Monday, August 19, 2013
Wednesday, May 22, 2013
Job Journal: Office Assistant, private preschool in Manhattan
The United States workforce is represented by two separate, yet equally important groups: those who plan on keeping their job for the long haul, and those who are biding their time before becoming the Next Big Thing. These are stories from the second group.
Job: Temporary Office Assistant, private preschool in Manhattan
Duration: 5 months
Year: 2008
I've talked about my time at the private preschool before, and teased you with a tale of Tiger, the English bulldog. Well, dear reader, your day of fat slobbery dog-reckoning has arrived.
As mentioned in that previous post, I was given the duty of manning the front door of the building in which the school was housed during the changeover from morning to afternoon session. You may not be aware of this, but every child is born with the instinct, when they see a door to the outside, to run through it and keep going until they're hit by a car. Since these children were young and had yet to temper that instinct through teaching, I was the only thing that stood between their lemming-like habits and NoHo traffic.
The school was the second floor of this building, and as far as I know the rest of the building was occupied by tenants, some of whom seemed to be holdouts from a previous era when it wasn't necessary to sell an organ in order to stay in nice places in Manhattan. Most old, upscale buildings on the island have people like this living in them. They resisted the buyout when it came along, and like a tree absorbing a fencepost, the building just grows up around them. For example, the entire second floor of the hotel at which I was a doorman was reserved for people who wouldn't leave the building when it was converted. They were left to their own devices, like Morlocks. My coworker said the second floor smelled like his iguana cage. I've never owned iguanas, but that seemed about right.
I'm stereotyping, and there's certainly a degree of classism in effect here, but I believe Tiger's owner may have been one of these holdouts. He was a lovely person, but he just didn't seem like the type to pay however many thousands of dollars to live in a loft in a historic Manhattan building. I would see him when I came over to the school from the offices 10 or 15 minutes before the transition, when he brought Tiger down for their afternoon walk. I would hear them first, as they lived on the third floor. The first day I met them, I began to hear an epic procession of wheezing and uneven tramping down the stairs. This went on for a while, slowly drawing nearer, until finally on the landing at the end of the hallway I saw one of the fattest English bulldogs I've ever seen. He was, of course, adorable. He was mostly brown, with darker brindle stripes and white highlights. His owner was also very large, a late-middle-aged man, and I could not tell for whom the descent was more difficult. They stepped off the last stair and just stood there for a minute, collecting themselves. The man introduced his dog as Tiger, and they both limped out the front door, panting. I don't recall ever seeing them make the climb back home, and I can't imagine how it occurred without some sort of pulley system or winches. Tiger was a big boy.
I saw them several more times, and we got to "know" each other as you do people in this city whose paths somewhat regularly cross yours. Always the racket of them wheezing down the steps into the empty hallway, the rest at the end, and the gentle regard from Tiger as they went out the door. They always did this before the class change, except for the one day they didn't.
The morning class had come down with the teachers, meeting the waiting parents and nannies in the hallway. Most of the afternoon children were there as well, and the hall was filled with the happy din of parents, teachers and four-year-olds catching up with each other. Over this I heard the familiar wheezing and stomping, but no one else knew what they were hearing. Then suddenly Tiger had joined us, tired and happy. They did not know how to handle his presence. This fat, sloppy dog had absolutely no place in the allergy-ridden Montessori upper-class worldview of these people, and I was just delighted. So was Tiger. It turns out that he loved kids. He weighed more than any two of them combined, and all he wanted to do was jump on them and lick face. His owner was responsible enough to keep this from happening, and Tiger was straining as hard as he could against his harness to get his huge tongue on these kids. Parents, kids and teachers all shrank back so that there was a circle around Tiger wherever he went in the hallway. Due to the exertion of the stairs and his excitement, he threw up in the middle of the floor. Everyone but me, Tiger and his owner was horrified. Finally one of the teachers had the presence of mind to get some paper towels, but not before Tiger tried re-eating his breakfast. One of the children started weeping. Tiger's owner apologized, and they waddled out the front door to see what the city had in store for them. The children made their way upstairs, contemplating what they had just seen like Siddartha after he saw his first old man.
Colin Fisher is many things to many people, but mostly he's an actor and writer.
Job: Temporary Office Assistant, private preschool in Manhattan Duration: 5 months
Year: 2008
I've talked about my time at the private preschool before, and teased you with a tale of Tiger, the English bulldog. Well, dear reader, your day of fat slobbery dog-reckoning has arrived.
As mentioned in that previous post, I was given the duty of manning the front door of the building in which the school was housed during the changeover from morning to afternoon session. You may not be aware of this, but every child is born with the instinct, when they see a door to the outside, to run through it and keep going until they're hit by a car. Since these children were young and had yet to temper that instinct through teaching, I was the only thing that stood between their lemming-like habits and NoHo traffic.
The school was the second floor of this building, and as far as I know the rest of the building was occupied by tenants, some of whom seemed to be holdouts from a previous era when it wasn't necessary to sell an organ in order to stay in nice places in Manhattan. Most old, upscale buildings on the island have people like this living in them. They resisted the buyout when it came along, and like a tree absorbing a fencepost, the building just grows up around them. For example, the entire second floor of the hotel at which I was a doorman was reserved for people who wouldn't leave the building when it was converted. They were left to their own devices, like Morlocks. My coworker said the second floor smelled like his iguana cage. I've never owned iguanas, but that seemed about right.
I'm stereotyping, and there's certainly a degree of classism in effect here, but I believe Tiger's owner may have been one of these holdouts. He was a lovely person, but he just didn't seem like the type to pay however many thousands of dollars to live in a loft in a historic Manhattan building. I would see him when I came over to the school from the offices 10 or 15 minutes before the transition, when he brought Tiger down for their afternoon walk. I would hear them first, as they lived on the third floor. The first day I met them, I began to hear an epic procession of wheezing and uneven tramping down the stairs. This went on for a while, slowly drawing nearer, until finally on the landing at the end of the hallway I saw one of the fattest English bulldogs I've ever seen. He was, of course, adorable. He was mostly brown, with darker brindle stripes and white highlights. His owner was also very large, a late-middle-aged man, and I could not tell for whom the descent was more difficult. They stepped off the last stair and just stood there for a minute, collecting themselves. The man introduced his dog as Tiger, and they both limped out the front door, panting. I don't recall ever seeing them make the climb back home, and I can't imagine how it occurred without some sort of pulley system or winches. Tiger was a big boy.
I saw them several more times, and we got to "know" each other as you do people in this city whose paths somewhat regularly cross yours. Always the racket of them wheezing down the steps into the empty hallway, the rest at the end, and the gentle regard from Tiger as they went out the door. They always did this before the class change, except for the one day they didn't.
The morning class had come down with the teachers, meeting the waiting parents and nannies in the hallway. Most of the afternoon children were there as well, and the hall was filled with the happy din of parents, teachers and four-year-olds catching up with each other. Over this I heard the familiar wheezing and stomping, but no one else knew what they were hearing. Then suddenly Tiger had joined us, tired and happy. They did not know how to handle his presence. This fat, sloppy dog had absolutely no place in the allergy-ridden Montessori upper-class worldview of these people, and I was just delighted. So was Tiger. It turns out that he loved kids. He weighed more than any two of them combined, and all he wanted to do was jump on them and lick face. His owner was responsible enough to keep this from happening, and Tiger was straining as hard as he could against his harness to get his huge tongue on these kids. Parents, kids and teachers all shrank back so that there was a circle around Tiger wherever he went in the hallway. Due to the exertion of the stairs and his excitement, he threw up in the middle of the floor. Everyone but me, Tiger and his owner was horrified. Finally one of the teachers had the presence of mind to get some paper towels, but not before Tiger tried re-eating his breakfast. One of the children started weeping. Tiger's owner apologized, and they waddled out the front door to see what the city had in store for them. The children made their way upstairs, contemplating what they had just seen like Siddartha after he saw his first old man.
Colin Fisher is many things to many people, but mostly he's an actor and writer.
Monday, April 15, 2013
New Guidelines for Reporting on Justin Bieber
Remember in the old Clash of the Titans, when Zeus is moving pieces around on a board, plotting out the lives of the mortals below? Someone, somewhere, is doing the same thing for Justin Bieber, and they're following a beat sheet some hack wrote thirty years ago that lays out the behavior of an idiot child who's been handed everything his entire life.
So here's the thing: as long as Bieber is following that predestined course, no one in the "news" has any business discussing it, because nothing about it is new. This is just a dog biting a man, over and over. This is like the Weather Channel announcing every hour that our atmosphere is still 78% nitrogen. Great. You should really only let us know when that changes.
What would be "new?" What could Bieber do that may actually warrant a news report? Here are a few suggestions:
Otherwise, news outlets may as well run two minutes of an anchor repeating the alphabet, because that information has as much value as anything else this kid is going to do in the near future. This also applies to Taylor Swift and breakups, and Amanda Bynes and...whatever it is she's going through.
Colin Fisher is many things to many people, but mostly he's an actor and writer.
So here's the thing: as long as Bieber is following that predestined course, no one in the "news" has any business discussing it, because nothing about it is new. This is just a dog biting a man, over and over. This is like the Weather Channel announcing every hour that our atmosphere is still 78% nitrogen. Great. You should really only let us know when that changes.
What would be "new?" What could Bieber do that may actually warrant a news report? Here are a few suggestions:
- Writing an actual novel, all by himself, targeted at anyone over 25.
- Quietly absorbing a lesson about humanity without tweeting it.
- Realizing the immaterial nature of reality and giving up his worldly possessions to wander the earth as an enlightened beggar.
- Keeping his shirt on for eight straight hours.
- Settling down in Michigan with a plain-faced nurse and going into lumber sales.
Otherwise, news outlets may as well run two minutes of an anchor repeating the alphabet, because that information has as much value as anything else this kid is going to do in the near future. This also applies to Taylor Swift and breakups, and Amanda Bynes and...whatever it is she's going through.
Colin Fisher is many things to many people, but mostly he's an actor and writer.
Monday, January 28, 2013
A Struggle of Wills at Gristedes
My basket full, I stepped up to the back of the line at register two. In front of me was a young man buying ramen and Gatorade; in front of him, an old woman who only spoke Spanish and who seemed to be paying with some form of obscure government documentation that required several witnesses. I was fine with this delay, because I came here with a mission and I needed a little time to accomplish it. I brought my own bag, and damned if this cashier was going to make me put my groceries in it yet again.
I have been a whole-hearted supporter of the bring-your-own-bag movement. Being both practical and environmentally-minded, I never threw away plastic bags. I never used them either, which meant that several cubic yards of any home I've had as an adult were dedicated to plastic bag storage. Since it has become generally accepted to bring a bag from home, I haven't touched a plastic bag in years and I have oodles of storage space for other things I never use.
The only problem with bringing your own bag is that cashiers seem not to have gotten the memo that times are a-changin'. They view bags from home as some alien intrusion into their workplace, some strange new math far above their pay grade and training that requires advanced philosophical understanding and strange Eastern mysticism to truly grasp and utilize.
In short, they won't touch them and generally stand there texting while you rush to put your groceries into this strange thing with which you've violated their place of business. This was especially true for the cashier in whose line I now waited.
Really, it's just a bag, and that word has a loose definition. They're lucky I don't bring a sheet with me, lay it at the end of the counter and ask them to tie it up like a hobo's bindle when they're done. That, too, would more or less fall under the category of "bag," but semantically I'm sticking very close to the device they understand to be a bag.
Back to the line: I wanted a little extra time. If there's no wait, as I'm unloading my basket they start scanning and attempting to put my food in plastic. I have to tell them I brought my own bag, at this point still folded under my arm, which always translates to "please, don't do your job. I'll take it from here." No, I wanted to unload the basket while the cashier was dealing with the young man's sad, sodium-packed dinner, so that when it was my turn I could put my open bag on the counter and watch her do her thing.
The old woman was wrapping up her transaction. Translators were indicating that the proper paperwork had been notarized, and witnesses and judges all agreed that this served as legal tender for her food. I quickly unloaded my basket while the cashier swiped the young man's items, stowed the basket under the counter and snapped open my own shopping bag with a flourish. Today would be the day.
Before the cashier's hand even touched my yogurt, I blurted "I have my own bag" as I raced to set it on the counter, holding it open with patient optimism. I watched as she scanned each item, sliding them down next to the stack of New York Posts screaming the headline "BOFFO BLOOMBERG BLASTS BUS BUSKER BUSTERS," which means nothing in any language I know. I twitched my bag a little, indicating that she was free to put my groceries in there rather than letting them pile up. Piling up they were. This was a full trip. I'd depleted my cabinets with the intention of going for broke today. Two, then three people formed a line behind me as the cashier kept scanning. The master of efficiency inside me wanted to start bagging, to get out of the way as soon as possible, but no. I wasn't here to be polite. I was here to make a statement. I was here to win.
Everything scanned, the cashier announced my total. I gave my bag another feeble twitch before swiping, but she stood idly as I punched in my PIN. The true test was beginning. She handed me my receipt. Our eyes locked. She was on to me. We each stood unmoving, daring the other to admit defeat. We did not break our gaze. Time stretched, slowed; the store became quiet. The world at large had ceased to exist. There was just me, the cashier, my bag, and a pile of food that wanted to go home.
We stood there like two samurai, knowing the first to move would lose the struggle. We exchanged whole paragraphs without speaking a word. I could feel the tension, the energy between us shifting, first towards her, then towards me, then holding in the middle. It was an even match. A single bead of sweat ran down my temple. She gave her eyebrow the subtlest of arches, as if to say "had enough?" I narrowed my eyes—never.
The fool behind me spoke up. "What the hell are you doing? Get out of the way!" We paid him no mind. If he couldn't understand what was happening here, then no explanation we could provide would make sense. The loudspeaker crackled. "Register one is open with no waiting." Grumbling, the line behind me shifted over. "I just don't understand some people." "Is this performance art?" They were as ants to us.
Time passed. I was exhausted. The strain was mounting, but I could tell the same was true for the cashier. My yogurt was now as sweaty as me. My bananas called out. I could practically hear them ripening, begging to be eaten. My mind started to wander, and I imagined myself on my couch, ripping into these Cool Ranch Doritos as the title screen to Assassin's Creed flickered on my television. I snapped back to the present, waiting. A big bald man in a short-sleeved shirt and tie came over to the register. "Lydia, what the hell is this?" The cashier's eyes flicked over to him, then back to me. I had the upper hand and she knew it. Yet she didn't move. "Lydia, bag those groceries." She was a statue. For the first time in what felt like hours, I smiled. I saw the end, and I liked it. "Lydia, I'm counting to three. One." She looked to the manager, then to my groceries. "Two." I nodded towards my bag. She had no choice now. "Alright. Three. Turn off your light and go home. You're done here. We don't have time for crap like this." The cashier smiled at me, turned off her light, brushed by the manager and marched right out of the store without a single backward glance.
The manager started bagging my groceries for me. "I'm sorry, I don't know what came over her. She's never acted like that before. I'll give you a five dollar coupon for your trouble, sir." I just nodded faintly. I was shocked. Lydia had known exactly how this would play out. She was ready for me, and she knew the only way to defeat me in a place where the customer is always right. She let me take her land, but she salted the earth and slaughtered her animals before letting me in. Technically I had won, since I didn't bag my own groceries in the end, but it was a hollow victory. The manager pushed my bag towards me. "There you go sir. Are you OK? You look pale." I made a noncommittal sound and shambled towards the door, replaying the events of the day in my mind. I looked for any way I could have truly succeeded, anything I could have done differently. There was nothing. Lydia had locked it all down before I even showed up.
I began the long walk home.
Colin Fisher is many things to many people, but mostly he's an actor and writer.
I have been a whole-hearted supporter of the bring-your-own-bag movement. Being both practical and environmentally-minded, I never threw away plastic bags. I never used them either, which meant that several cubic yards of any home I've had as an adult were dedicated to plastic bag storage. Since it has become generally accepted to bring a bag from home, I haven't touched a plastic bag in years and I have oodles of storage space for other things I never use.
The only problem with bringing your own bag is that cashiers seem not to have gotten the memo that times are a-changin'. They view bags from home as some alien intrusion into their workplace, some strange new math far above their pay grade and training that requires advanced philosophical understanding and strange Eastern mysticism to truly grasp and utilize.
In short, they won't touch them and generally stand there texting while you rush to put your groceries into this strange thing with which you've violated their place of business. This was especially true for the cashier in whose line I now waited.
Really, it's just a bag, and that word has a loose definition. They're lucky I don't bring a sheet with me, lay it at the end of the counter and ask them to tie it up like a hobo's bindle when they're done. That, too, would more or less fall under the category of "bag," but semantically I'm sticking very close to the device they understand to be a bag.
Back to the line: I wanted a little extra time. If there's no wait, as I'm unloading my basket they start scanning and attempting to put my food in plastic. I have to tell them I brought my own bag, at this point still folded under my arm, which always translates to "please, don't do your job. I'll take it from here." No, I wanted to unload the basket while the cashier was dealing with the young man's sad, sodium-packed dinner, so that when it was my turn I could put my open bag on the counter and watch her do her thing.
The old woman was wrapping up her transaction. Translators were indicating that the proper paperwork had been notarized, and witnesses and judges all agreed that this served as legal tender for her food. I quickly unloaded my basket while the cashier swiped the young man's items, stowed the basket under the counter and snapped open my own shopping bag with a flourish. Today would be the day.
Before the cashier's hand even touched my yogurt, I blurted "I have my own bag" as I raced to set it on the counter, holding it open with patient optimism. I watched as she scanned each item, sliding them down next to the stack of New York Posts screaming the headline "BOFFO BLOOMBERG BLASTS BUS BUSKER BUSTERS," which means nothing in any language I know. I twitched my bag a little, indicating that she was free to put my groceries in there rather than letting them pile up. Piling up they were. This was a full trip. I'd depleted my cabinets with the intention of going for broke today. Two, then three people formed a line behind me as the cashier kept scanning. The master of efficiency inside me wanted to start bagging, to get out of the way as soon as possible, but no. I wasn't here to be polite. I was here to make a statement. I was here to win.
Everything scanned, the cashier announced my total. I gave my bag another feeble twitch before swiping, but she stood idly as I punched in my PIN. The true test was beginning. She handed me my receipt. Our eyes locked. She was on to me. We each stood unmoving, daring the other to admit defeat. We did not break our gaze. Time stretched, slowed; the store became quiet. The world at large had ceased to exist. There was just me, the cashier, my bag, and a pile of food that wanted to go home.
We stood there like two samurai, knowing the first to move would lose the struggle. We exchanged whole paragraphs without speaking a word. I could feel the tension, the energy between us shifting, first towards her, then towards me, then holding in the middle. It was an even match. A single bead of sweat ran down my temple. She gave her eyebrow the subtlest of arches, as if to say "had enough?" I narrowed my eyes—never.
The fool behind me spoke up. "What the hell are you doing? Get out of the way!" We paid him no mind. If he couldn't understand what was happening here, then no explanation we could provide would make sense. The loudspeaker crackled. "Register one is open with no waiting." Grumbling, the line behind me shifted over. "I just don't understand some people." "Is this performance art?" They were as ants to us.
Time passed. I was exhausted. The strain was mounting, but I could tell the same was true for the cashier. My yogurt was now as sweaty as me. My bananas called out. I could practically hear them ripening, begging to be eaten. My mind started to wander, and I imagined myself on my couch, ripping into these Cool Ranch Doritos as the title screen to Assassin's Creed flickered on my television. I snapped back to the present, waiting. A big bald man in a short-sleeved shirt and tie came over to the register. "Lydia, what the hell is this?" The cashier's eyes flicked over to him, then back to me. I had the upper hand and she knew it. Yet she didn't move. "Lydia, bag those groceries." She was a statue. For the first time in what felt like hours, I smiled. I saw the end, and I liked it. "Lydia, I'm counting to three. One." She looked to the manager, then to my groceries. "Two." I nodded towards my bag. She had no choice now. "Alright. Three. Turn off your light and go home. You're done here. We don't have time for crap like this." The cashier smiled at me, turned off her light, brushed by the manager and marched right out of the store without a single backward glance.
The manager started bagging my groceries for me. "I'm sorry, I don't know what came over her. She's never acted like that before. I'll give you a five dollar coupon for your trouble, sir." I just nodded faintly. I was shocked. Lydia had known exactly how this would play out. She was ready for me, and she knew the only way to defeat me in a place where the customer is always right. She let me take her land, but she salted the earth and slaughtered her animals before letting me in. Technically I had won, since I didn't bag my own groceries in the end, but it was a hollow victory. The manager pushed my bag towards me. "There you go sir. Are you OK? You look pale." I made a noncommittal sound and shambled towards the door, replaying the events of the day in my mind. I looked for any way I could have truly succeeded, anything I could have done differently. There was nothing. Lydia had locked it all down before I even showed up.
I began the long walk home.
Colin Fisher is many things to many people, but mostly he's an actor and writer.
Monday, January 14, 2013
Job Journal: Outbound Customer Service, Call Center in Oak Ridge TN
The United States workforce is represented by two separate, yet equally important groups: those who plan on keeping their job for the long haul, and those who are biding their time before becoming the Next Big Thing. These are stories from the second group.
Job: Outbound Customer Service, Call Center, Oak Ridge TN
Duration: Two months
Year: 2002
I first detailed the particular tortures of this job, and what led me to it, in this entry. Take a moment to refamiliarize yourself.
Great.
I mentioned there was one good thing I took away from the job, amongst all the cold calls telling people they couldn't yet get the service they were paying for, watching the redneck next to me obsessively and clumsily hit on the girl next to him for months, and wondering just how much the Starfox poster in my furry boss' cubicle turned him on. That one good thing was Pocket Tanks*.
My shift would occasionally overlap with Mark's shift. You may recall him as my friend who was hired the same time as me, but in tech support. That meant he was somewhere else on the floor, and we only got to hang out on our lunch breaks. Lunch breaks here were sad, obligatory affairs. The break room was small, situated between the main part of the floor and the entryway. There was barely room to sit and have lunch, and if I remember correctly, no real meals were available for purchase. I brown-bagged it. However, there were a few computers in there, and when our breaks coincided Mark and I would play Pocket Tanks.
It's an incredibly simple game, variations of which have been around for as long as personal computing. You set the angle and power of your shot, pick your weapon, and fire. This continues, one shot per turn, til your enemy on the other side of the screen is exploded. That's it. No graphical innovation (nor was any needed), no fast-paced run-and-gun action, barely any sound. Just a cool, subtle guitar track that can only be described as mid-90s video game music (see also: Spider-Man and X-Men in Arcade's Revenge, and Streets of Rage).
After four hours of obsessively clicking and calling strangers in an otherwise completely silent environment, this game was like Call of Duty.
Pocket Tanks and the drive home were the only bright spots in the dim majority of my day. Once I got home, life was good. I was freshly graduated from college and content to simply have a job and hang out with my friends. We watched TV together, played Xbox (the first Halo) and Gamecube (Super Monkey Ball), and generally goofed around. This wasn't just Saturday nights, mind you; we all lived close enough to see each other regularly. We didn't have any other obligations or the strangely crowded lives of people in their 30s. Most of us were in the same apartment complex. As such, I actually have fond memories of this time period; memories scored by the sweet, almost-rockin' guitars of Pocket Tanks.
But good god that job was terrible.
Colin Fisher is many things to many people, but mostly he's an actor and writer.
*You can download the game for free at this link. I see Super DX Ball is also available. If you'd like to murder the next four hours and fail to accomplish anything else today, go ahead and download them both.
Job: Outbound Customer Service, Call Center, Oak Ridge TNDuration: Two months
Year: 2002
I first detailed the particular tortures of this job, and what led me to it, in this entry. Take a moment to refamiliarize yourself.
Great.
I mentioned there was one good thing I took away from the job, amongst all the cold calls telling people they couldn't yet get the service they were paying for, watching the redneck next to me obsessively and clumsily hit on the girl next to him for months, and wondering just how much the Starfox poster in my furry boss' cubicle turned him on. That one good thing was Pocket Tanks*.
My shift would occasionally overlap with Mark's shift. You may recall him as my friend who was hired the same time as me, but in tech support. That meant he was somewhere else on the floor, and we only got to hang out on our lunch breaks. Lunch breaks here were sad, obligatory affairs. The break room was small, situated between the main part of the floor and the entryway. There was barely room to sit and have lunch, and if I remember correctly, no real meals were available for purchase. I brown-bagged it. However, there were a few computers in there, and when our breaks coincided Mark and I would play Pocket Tanks.
It's an incredibly simple game, variations of which have been around for as long as personal computing. You set the angle and power of your shot, pick your weapon, and fire. This continues, one shot per turn, til your enemy on the other side of the screen is exploded. That's it. No graphical innovation (nor was any needed), no fast-paced run-and-gun action, barely any sound. Just a cool, subtle guitar track that can only be described as mid-90s video game music (see also: Spider-Man and X-Men in Arcade's Revenge, and Streets of Rage).
After four hours of obsessively clicking and calling strangers in an otherwise completely silent environment, this game was like Call of Duty.
Pocket Tanks and the drive home were the only bright spots in the dim majority of my day. Once I got home, life was good. I was freshly graduated from college and content to simply have a job and hang out with my friends. We watched TV together, played Xbox (the first Halo) and Gamecube (Super Monkey Ball), and generally goofed around. This wasn't just Saturday nights, mind you; we all lived close enough to see each other regularly. We didn't have any other obligations or the strangely crowded lives of people in their 30s. Most of us were in the same apartment complex. As such, I actually have fond memories of this time period; memories scored by the sweet, almost-rockin' guitars of Pocket Tanks.
But good god that job was terrible.
Colin Fisher is many things to many people, but mostly he's an actor and writer.
*You can download the game for free at this link. I see Super DX Ball is also available. If you'd like to murder the next four hours and fail to accomplish anything else today, go ahead and download them both.
Wednesday, January 9, 2013
Peter Jackson's Dwarf Problem
There's been plenty of chatter over Peter Jackson's latest film, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Nine Hour Adaptation of a Single Book. Such talk has ranged from the advantages and disadvantages of a high frame rate, to its cutting-edge CGI, to OMG Brad you said Legolas was in this movie I'm going next door to watch the Gerard Butler movie. But there's one thing the media are strangely silent about:
Peter Jackson is a dwarfist.
Look at the image above. You see 13 dwarves total. Twelve interchangeable characters in funny prosthetics made to look inhuman and cartoonish. Twelve dwarves with almost no characterization or backstory in the film, each serving up a line or two of comic relief throughout the movie. And then there's Thorin.
Thorin, the leader of the dwarves, the "good" dwarf, the noble dwarf, the dwarf with a compelling background, the dwarf who manages to be an almost-lead in a movie titled The Hobbit: An Unexpected Strain on the Devotion of Fans. Thorin, who just by coincidence happens to look way more like a human than any of his companions.
Where all the other dwarves have funny hats, or weird matted hair, or huge W.C. Fields noses, Thorin strikes a pose several inches taller than them with his flowing black locks, well-trimmed goatee, and well-proportioned nose. This is typical Hollywood studio-think. "We can't have a hero with x background; our audience of y background just won't identify with him." So you get David Carradine playing the lead in "Kung Fu." You get Mickey Rooney playing the Asian neighbor in Breakfast at Tiffany's. You get the dashing man-like character of Thorin in charge of 12 bumbling dwarves.
Let's turn the tables. Let's make a movie about 13 African-American men on an adventure. Let's give 12 of them funny noses and weird clothes and make them all look the same and say funny things that white people think black people say. They will be indistinguishable from one another. Then let's make the thirteenth man the leader. He'll have the conflict, the passion, the awesome action sequences. I want you to close your eyes. Can you see him leading his band of adventurers across the land? I want you to picture him, this man.
Now imagine he's in whiteface.
Shame on you, Mr. Jackson.
Colin Fisher is many things to many people, but mostly he's an actor and writer for whom the word "dwarf" has lost all meaning.
Thursday, December 20, 2012
What are you people doing at the post office?
I have a box. There's an address on that box. You need to make this box go to that address. Here's money. BOOM. Next.
But no, the people in front of me are never that straightforward. They have so many questions. What is there to know? Do you need to know exactly how these things are being delivered? Do you need the clerk to explain powered flight, or internal combustion engines? Are you worried that the mail man in Florida doesn't know where your niece lives? Don't worry about it. They have this figured out. For the most part.
Intense negotiations seem to be happening from time to time. Exotic currencies from forgotten lands are presented and exchanged. Eldritch powers are called upon to transport money orders through the netherworld, so that they may be used to buy goats on the other side of the globe. I think I once saw someone offer a newborn babe as payment.
And the clerk accepted it.
Colin Fisher is many things to many people, but mostly he's an actor and writer.
Wednesday, December 19, 2012
The Hobbit in 3D at 48fps: My Thoughts
First off, let me talk about what I thought of the movie itself before I get into my impression of the gears behind the screen. I actually found it fairly underwhelming. I don't know why I wasn't more excited to see the movie; I saw every LOTR film at either midnight on Thursday or prime time Friday. I'm no superfan. I've never read The Silmarillion. But I have read all the appendices in LOTR. I love the world Tolkien created, and I know the map of Middle Earth better than, say, our own Middle East. But I was lackadaisical about getting these tickets.
I think it's problematic to step back to The Hobbit after the previous films have been so ingrained into the minds of those who care. The tone of the book is very different from the Big Three, and the movie caught that tone pretty well. It's not easy to go from "We must save all of Middle Earth from annihilation!" to "We're a bunch of interchangeable dwarves herp derp come on an adventure with us, total stranger. Here's a random song. Do you have any more food?" While the movie did catch that mischievous, adventure-for-the-sake-of-adventure tone, they tried to bridge the gap by really playing up Thorin's need to recapture his kingdom and making the conflict between dwarves and orcs something much more serious than I remember from the book. They created an orc leader for the film, to personalize the action more, whose name I could never properly understand but was often referred to as the Pale Orc. More on him later. That attempt to bridge the tonal gap may have actually hurt this film to some degree. It was jarring to go from bumbling Radagast talking to his animals, and the dwarves cleaning Bilbo's apartment to a song, to epic battles rife with orc decapitation and/or dismemberment.
The movie hit a lot of the same beats as the original trilogy, so much that I felt like I was watching some strange parallel telling of the same story. The way Bilbo first puts on the ring, a dramatic last-minute save, Gandalf facing down a large enemy on a bridge underground (seriously?); there's more than one way to make a fantasy movie, Jackson.
That being said, the cast is great. I was happy with Martin Freeman as Bilbo, which I fully expected, and while it's impossible to give each of the twelve dwarves a full personality and still get your story out in under six hours, I liked the ones we did get to know. Now that this story is out of the way, I'm actually pretty excited to see the next two installments. While this all felt like extremely well-trodden territory, I think the next two films focusing on Mirkwood, Erebor, and Smaug himself should be much more engaging.
Alright, onto the tech. When the film opened I'd forgotten we were about to see something at 48fps (most times I forget what movie I'm even there to see), so I was completely thrown when it did start. My eyes are so accustomed to 24fps that everything seemed to be moving too fast, like a silent film shot on an old crank-powered camera. I assume that was my brain trying to compensate for the extra frames. That passed after a few minutes, but the movie never stopped looking like a TV movie from the 80s. Did you ever see the live-action Alice in Wonderland on PBS when we were kids? That's what this looked like. Video, in short. It also looked like the smoothing feature you see (and immediately turn off, if you know what's good) on HDTVs. It was of course very sharp, and when there was motion you didn't have the blur you get on slower film. But I can't say I liked what we had instead. I'm really trying to look at the whole thing with objective eyes, and not turn my back on a new technique just because it's something I'm not used to. Allegedly the higher frame rate is supposed to benefit CGI, which in some cases seemed true and in some, not at all. The Pale Orc I mentioned was, as far as I can tell, almost entirely CGI, and I thought he looked great. His moments were very human, in that he was mostly still and framed close-up, and I thought it worked very well. What didn't work was any sort of extreme motion with CGI characters. Radagast, the brown wizard who loves his animals more than people, is pulled around on a sled by some very fast rabbits. When that happened, it looked awful. It was a cartoon. Then, we'd see a ghost creeping up on someone and it looked fantastic. Very hit and miss.
I could see this being an early attempt at something that may become mainstream in the future, in which case we may look back at this film and see it like we currently see those crank-camera silent films I mentioned earlier. I certainly applaud Jackson for having the guts to go through with a decision like that. I'm DYING to hear the back and forth with studio execs about the higher frame rate. Studio suits are a notoriously terrified, flighty, herd-like people, so I have absolutely no idea why any of them approved shooting a mid-nine-digit budgeted trilogy in an unproven format. Kudos to them?
This is the second movie (after Avatar) that I've seen in 3D, and it will be the last. It neither added nor subtracted from the film, but it did subtract an extra $7 from my wallet. Every shot I remember is 2D in my head. It just didn't matter at all. But, you can't see this film at the higher frame rate without also donning your 3D specs. Touche, Hollywood.
Colin Fisher is many things to many people, but mostly he's an actor and writer.
Monday, November 26, 2012
Movies I've Never Seen: Steel Sharks
Steel Sharks
In which I fully describe the plot of a movie I've never seen and know nothing about, based solely upon its Netflix picture.
Steel Sharks is written and directed by Garry Marshall. On the page, it's a quirky tale of a submarine commander trying to juggle single fatherhood and a burgeoning love life on Easter. As played on screen by Gary Busey, it turned into something very different. It became the story of Leftenant Cutter McKay (Busey) and his descent into "pressure dementia," a condition that according to this film afflicts 90% of submarine commanders in the US Navy.
"But it's not spelled 'Leftenant,' that's just how the British pronounce it!" Calm down, reader, I just got started. And stop doing that with your hand.
Garry Marshall was all set to capitalize on his formula of ensemble romantic comedies centered around a holiday, but after the release of New Year's Eve resulted in a cluster of suicides and the government-mandated dismantling of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences, Marshall had a hard time finding backers for this film. Due to his extremely limited budget, the only name actor he could afford was Busey. Always up for a challenge, Marshall hired him and began filming right away. From day one, Busey was literally not on the same page as the rest of the cast and crew. Even though they were filming the script in order, Busey would only speak his lines from the final scene. Strapped for time and cash, Marshall realized he would have to soldier on and piece the film together in editing. The challenges posed by Busey only increased from there.
On day two, Busey showed up on set in horn-rimmed glasses and carrying a guitar. As soon as Marshall said "action," Busey broke out into Buddy Holly songs. In the final cut, this begins the compelling third act and marks the peak of McKay's pressure dementia.
During the third week of filming, Busey was almost lucid enough to perform the scenes as written, though whenever someone addressed his character on camera he would screech "That's LEFTenant McKay to you, maggot!" He then wrote "leftenant" on his scene partner's forehead in permanent marker; hence, the altered spelling for the official credits of the film.
The final cut of Steel Sharks is a testament to the power of editing in the medium of film. The project went from a Marshall-penned romcom script, to a performance from Gary Busey by way of Col. Kurtz and Hunter S. Thompson, to an above-average military thriller. This may explain why the film won the award for Best Editing at Sonic: America's Drive-In Movie Awards Show, which replaced the Oscars after the Academy's post-New Year's Eve destruction. The award upset some, due to unavoidable relics of the original script: an adorable, yet inexplicable, five-year old girl on board the sub, a bizarre self-mutilation scene set to "I'm Walking on Sunshine," and Hector Elizondo.
Colin Fisher is many things to many people, but mostly he's an actor and writer.
In which I fully describe the plot of a movie I've never seen and know nothing about, based solely upon its Netflix picture.
"But it's not spelled 'Leftenant,' that's just how the British pronounce it!" Calm down, reader, I just got started. And stop doing that with your hand.
Garry Marshall was all set to capitalize on his formula of ensemble romantic comedies centered around a holiday, but after the release of New Year's Eve resulted in a cluster of suicides and the government-mandated dismantling of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences, Marshall had a hard time finding backers for this film. Due to his extremely limited budget, the only name actor he could afford was Busey. Always up for a challenge, Marshall hired him and began filming right away. From day one, Busey was literally not on the same page as the rest of the cast and crew. Even though they were filming the script in order, Busey would only speak his lines from the final scene. Strapped for time and cash, Marshall realized he would have to soldier on and piece the film together in editing. The challenges posed by Busey only increased from there.
On day two, Busey showed up on set in horn-rimmed glasses and carrying a guitar. As soon as Marshall said "action," Busey broke out into Buddy Holly songs. In the final cut, this begins the compelling third act and marks the peak of McKay's pressure dementia.
During the third week of filming, Busey was almost lucid enough to perform the scenes as written, though whenever someone addressed his character on camera he would screech "That's LEFTenant McKay to you, maggot!" He then wrote "leftenant" on his scene partner's forehead in permanent marker; hence, the altered spelling for the official credits of the film.
The final cut of Steel Sharks is a testament to the power of editing in the medium of film. The project went from a Marshall-penned romcom script, to a performance from Gary Busey by way of Col. Kurtz and Hunter S. Thompson, to an above-average military thriller. This may explain why the film won the award for Best Editing at Sonic: America's Drive-In Movie Awards Show, which replaced the Oscars after the Academy's post-New Year's Eve destruction. The award upset some, due to unavoidable relics of the original script: an adorable, yet inexplicable, five-year old girl on board the sub, a bizarre self-mutilation scene set to "I'm Walking on Sunshine," and Hector Elizondo.
Colin Fisher is many things to many people, but mostly he's an actor and writer.
Sunday, September 30, 2012
National Sketch Writing Month Sketch #30
Previous Sketches
INT. POLLING STATION
CAL walks up to a desk manned by an elderly POLL WORKER. Cal is a white man in his 20s.
He hands it to her.
She begins reading from a form on a clipboard.
She makes a little mark on the clipboard.
Cal just looks at her like “seriously?”
She makes another mark, shakes her head a little.
She nods approvingly, makes her mark.
Makes her mark.
She does some figuring.
He turns and leaves. Newspaper spins in with the headline “ROMNEY STILL MANAGES TO LOSE.”
Voter ID Laws
by Colin Fisher
INT. POLLING STATION
CAL walks up to a desk manned by an elderly POLL WORKER. Cal is a white man in his 20s.
CAL
Hi, I’m here to vote.
WORKER
Photo ID please.
CAL
Sure.
He hands it to her.
WORKER
OK Mr. Flynn, I’ve got you right here. Are you still at 238 Main?
CAL
Yes ma’am.
WORKER
Alrighty. I have a few more questions here, just routine stuff for the new voter ID laws.
CAL
Oh, OK.
She begins reading from a form on a clipboard.
WORKER
Have you been convicted of a felony since you received your registration?
CAL
No.
WORKER
Have you had any felonious thoughts?
CAL
Thoughts? Uh, what constitutes a felony again?
WORKER
Oh, you know, murder, theft, arson, battery, rape.
CAL
And you’re asking if I’ve thought about any of those things?
WORKER
Sure.
CAL
Well, I haven’t made plans to do any of them.
WORKER
But you have thought about them?
CAL
Well I’m thinking about them right now, because we’re talking about it, but--
WORKER
Ah, I see.
She makes a little mark on the clipboard.
CAL
Wait, what was that mark?
WORKER
Oh, don’t worry, we’ll evaluate all this when we’re done. Are you black?
CAL
Huh?
WORKER
Are you a black person? Oh, excuse me, African American?
Cal just looks at her like “seriously?”
WORKER (cont’d)
I’m legally required to ask all of these.
CAL
No. No I am not black.
WORKER
Have you met any black people recently?
CAL
Not personally, no.
WORKER
Have you seen any?
CAL
Ever?
WORKER
Let’s say within the last four months.
CAL
Yeah. I have.
WORKER
Huh.
She makes another mark, shakes her head a little.
CAL
Is this legal? I feel like if I’m registered I’m just supposed to walk in and vote.
WORKER
Considering that our state assembly just passed the laws that say I have to do this, then yes, I think this is legal. Are you poor?
CAL
Is that a question on the form or are you insulting me?
WORKER
It’s on the form.
CAL
What do they mean by “poor?”
WORKER
I think it’s one of those you-know-it-when-you-see-it things.
CAL
Then no, I’m not poor.
WORKER
Ah.
She nods approvingly, makes her mark.
WORKER
And are you a woman?
CAL
No.
WORKER
Have you ever been a woman?
CAL
No.
WORKER
Will you ever be a woman?
CAL
Probably not.
WORKER
Hmm.
Makes her mark.
WORKER
Almost there. Are you going to vote for Mitt Romney?
CAL
That’s none of your business.
WORKER
OK, I have a subset of questions for that answer. Have you been watching the news in the last few months?
CAL
Yes.
WORKER
Did you see the Republican National Convention?
CAL
Yep.
WORKER
Do you watch any comedy at all on television?
CAL
Mostly, yeah.
WORKER
Do you have any degrees?
CAL
Yes.
WORKER
Alrighty, thanks for your answers. Let’s see here...
She does some figuring.
WORKER
OK Mr. Flynn. We won’t be needing your vote this year, but please try again in four years. Have a nice day.
CAL
Right.
He turns and leaves. Newspaper spins in with the headline “ROMNEY STILL MANAGES TO LOSE.”
END
National Sketch Writing Month Sketch #29
Previous Sketches
INT. LIVING ROOM
ALI is sitting on the couch watching TV. She’s eating a small bowl of popcorn and talking to COLE, who is in the kitchen.
Cole comes in with a ridiculously large bowl of his own popcorn.
Cole pulls out a bottle of caramel sauce and starts pouring it all over the popcorn. He keeps pouring. He empties the bottle. Ali just stares.
He walks back into the kitchen to get something. Ali sneaks a little popcorn with the caramel sauce. Cole comes back in with a plate piled with bacon. He starts breaking up the bacon and sprinkling it over the popcorn.
He pulls a vial out of his pocket and sprinkles white powder over the bowl.
Cole stuffs a handful of this mess into his mouth.
Freeze frame on Cole. Text crawls up the screen, which Ali narrates:
But I’m Training for a Marathon
by Colin Fisher
INT. LIVING ROOM
ALI is sitting on the couch watching TV. She’s eating a small bowl of popcorn and talking to COLE, who is in the kitchen.
ALI
So I told my boss that if he really needed me to, I could type up his kids’ homework, but probably they should learn how to do that.
Cole comes in with a ridiculously large bowl of his own popcorn.
COLE
Totally, these people are so entitled.
ALI
Are you seriously about to eat that whole thing?
COLE
Yeah, I’m training for the marathon. I need the energy.
ALI
If you say so. How far are you running tomorrow?
COLE
Eighteen miles.
ALI
Good god that’s unnatural.
Cole pulls out a bottle of caramel sauce and starts pouring it all over the popcorn. He keeps pouring. He empties the bottle. Ali just stares.
COLE
I’m sorry, did you want some?
ALI
Are you sure you can have that much sugar?
COLE
Totally! I’m going to end up burning over 2000 calories tomorrow. I don’t want to hit the wall like halfway through. Oh, I forgot something, hang on.
He walks back into the kitchen to get something. Ali sneaks a little popcorn with the caramel sauce. Cole comes back in with a plate piled with bacon. He starts breaking up the bacon and sprinkling it over the popcorn.
ALI
Oh my god, you’re going to kill yourself!
COLE
No way, my heart’s pumping way too efficiently to let this clog up my system. I need the protein, and actually I need the salt too from all the sweating I’ll be doing. Seriously, I read about this online.
ALI
Couldn’t you eat some chicken and whole grains or something like that instead? This just seems excessive.
COLE
Look, I love food and I love running, and this is the best way to combine the two. It’s only for the training period. I’ll go back to normal after I run the race.
ALI
If you say so.
COLE
And now for the garnish...
He pulls a vial out of his pocket and sprinkles white powder over the bowl.
ALI
What is that, like powdered sugar?
COLE
Oh, this? No, it’s cocaine.
Cole stuffs a handful of this mess into his mouth.
ALI
What?! What are you doing to yourself?!
COLE
Lay off me! I need the energy!
Freeze frame on Cole. Text crawls up the screen, which Ali narrates:
ALI (v.o.)
Cole had the energy all right. By the time the marathon came, he weight 265 pounds. He started off sprinting at a pace of a five-minute mile. His heart exploded on the third mile. He made it another half-mile before he dropped dead. He was an idiot.
END
National Sketch Writing Month Sketch #28
Previous Sketches
INT. MAYOR’S OFFICE, 1902
The MAYOR sits at his desk, writing. A knock at the door.
RICHARD and CHARLES, the two engineers responsible for planning the city’s subway, come in with some rolled-up maps and a file on the plan.
He starts looking at diagrams and plans.
Planning the NYC Subway
by Colin Fisher
INT. MAYOR’S OFFICE, 1902
The MAYOR sits at his desk, writing. A knock at the door.
MAYOR
Yes, come in please.
RICHARD and CHARLES, the two engineers responsible for planning the city’s subway, come in with some rolled-up maps and a file on the plan.
MAYOR
Ah, just the men I was hoping to see! Come, have a seat. Show me the plans for this underground train system, or sub-way, that you claim will revolutionize how New York’s citizens traverse her boroughs.
RICHARD
Your honor, as you look over these plans, you may see things that seem strange at first.
CHARLES
But trust us when we tell you that we have planned this system not for tomorrow, but for the long-term. So that in the decades and centuries to come, the residents of the finest city on Earth will need to make almost no adjustments to their public transit.
MAYOR
Well, that all sounds very impressive. Let’s have a look.
He starts looking at diagrams and plans.
MAYOR
I believe I’ve already found a problem. This system will be entirely underground, but I see you’ve made no allowances for any sort of drainage or run-off in a rain storm. What will happen should a downpour erupt?
RICHARD
Your honor, believe me when I say we’ve taken this into account. Our friends at the National Geographic Society assure us that scientists will have control over that pesky rain problem in a matter of just a few years.
CHARLES
Sunny skies for the rest of eternity! So we felt that instead of addressing a problem that will be rendered moot before construction is even finished, we should focus on other problems.
MAYOR
If you say so. It seems that an underground system based on electricity would become an absolute quagmire in the slightest of storms without proper care.
CHARLES
Oh, if it were to rain on this system it would shut down completely. But rest assured that will never happen.
MAYOR
Speaking of electricity, these trains will be running on high voltage tracks, yes?
RICHARD
Indeed, sir.
MAYOR
And yet on the platforms I see no rails or guards against the public falling to the tracks, risking electrocution. Not to mention the danger of rushing trains. That would seem to welcome those who are down on their luck to end it all.
CHARLES
My brother is a sociologist at Columbia, sir. He assures me that based on current trends, we will soon have completely eliminated suicide from our society. In addition, we shall all have such outstanding spatial awareness that we will never stand too close to one another, nor fail to notice our proximity to danger because our face is buried in some glowing futuristic device. Will not happen.
MAYOR
You’re asking me to take quite a lot of things on faith, gentlemen.
RICHARD
Faith sir? Or SCIENCE?
MAYOR
Well see here, no science can indicate why you’ve omitted separate entrances for travelers of color.
CHARLES
Your honor, surely you don’t think our progeny will tolerate the presence of minorities in their society?
MAYOR
Good point. What are these small rooms in every train car?
RICHARD
Ah, yes, the lady compartments.
CHARLES
Eventually, our society will come to realize that women only serve to cloud the minds of men with their hysterical womb-brains.
RICHARD
But of course, we’ll still need them to travel through the city to make our clothes and serve our food.
CHARLES
So, we’ll install these lady compartments in every car. The walls are lined with uranium to block the poisonous womb waves. Women can travel, and men can focus on bettering the world.
MAYOR
Sounds perfectly reasonable. You’ve won me over gentlemen, I see no way that this plan could go wrong. Would you like some celebratory cocaine?
RICHARD
Indubitably!
END
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