Done Done and Done

Well, that's that I guess. I'm out of Canal St. and looking for a new job, but I'm also enjoying myself in the meantime. There wasn't much I could do in the end after a friend of the managing partner said she could do my job for free. My value was essentially zero at that moment. She later confided in me that she probably couldn't do it, but it was too late by then.

We planned for a farewell party, a small get together at a karaoke bar but it didn't happen because I had other plans. I was a little resentful that I would be missing a chance to sing some old favourites. My other plans were to go see Amal, a nice Hindi movie that sounded promising, starring Naseeruddin Shah as an eccentric wealthy man who discovers that he has only a few days to live and wants to find the most deserving heir in Calcutta the cesspool. Don't get me wrong. I've met some fine, very upstanding people from Calcutta. That's just how the promo scrip described it. The director, Richie Mehta or "Rishi" as the emcees would call him would be in attendance, quizzically still sporting a Veterans' Day poppy.

Also in attendance, unfortunately, would be an old classmate from high school. This particular classmate would be the first and so far the only one to go to prison. He beat some dude to death with a piece of rebar ostensibly due to a fight over crack. The last guy you would want to meet anywhere, let alone a soon-to-be darkened movie theatre. I'd see him panhandling every now and then, ever since I moved back to Newark. He'd call me Bobby. I'd try to look past him but he knew by the way I made eye contact that we knew each other. The guy was psycho in high school. I won't get into it, but it's so obvious in hindsight. So the other night, Randy and I walk into the theatre and before we even get in the door, the psycho has us scoped out. His recon is phenomenal. I guess that's a good skill to learn in prison. That way, nobody shivs you from behind. Anyway, he calls out "Bobby!" I grin because he's going to act like he's my best friend in the world and he can't even remember my name. He slaps me on the back as I brush past him, putting myself between him and Randy, and go to the end of the queue. When we got out of earshot, I told Randy that under no circumstances were we going to sit next to that guy. It looked like life was looking up for him actually, but then I dismissed it as the benefits of a life of crime. Later on his date showed up. I felt bad for her. She looked like a girl we went to school with. She must have known. He must have told her. I think it's one of the twelve steps. He didn't tell me, and even I knew. This is not a hard thing to find out. Pretty much guaranteed, you bash a guy's head in because you're in a crack house and you're so high on drugs that you think someone is trying to rob you - and you're stupid enough to get caught because you think you can lie your way out of it just like everything else - your trial is going to be covered at least by a stringer. You might not make the evening news, but the media are going to tell. Either way, she should eventually find out. I really wanted to tell her, but I guess even drug-addled vagrant psycho killers have a right to privacy after they've served their sentence. Label me a democrat.

That was all soon forgotten as the film started to roll. Close up of Naseeruddin Shah slumped over and sort of bumping up and down. Silence. Artistic effect I thought. Then someone front row left yelled "Sound!". Sitar music cut in and credits began to roll and I thought the film was going well so far. Then the film cut. A very embarrassed Richie Mehta got up in front of the audience and said that something was wrong with the audio. About ten minutes later the film started again. This time, Shah narrated from the beginning in English a little about the backstory. As the scene changed we were treated to Hindi dialogue. I still didn't see anything wrong with that. Just another Sunday afternoon for me. About two minutes into that scene, Mehta leapt to the front of the theatre and told the projectionist to stop the film. The distribution company had sent the wrong print. There were no subtitles. Mehta offered to act the movie line for line scene for scene, but said it wouldn't do the story justice. After some debate over how to proceed, he offered free passes to everyone who left tonight and came back to another screening. Randy and I took the offer, but a fair amount of viewers stayed. There were a lot of Hindi speakers there.

It was quite comical. I could just imagine how Mehta felt. He really kept his composure, although he did refer to the distribution compamy as a bunch of idiots. He had done the subtitles personally, and felt that the viewer needed to understand everything so that the little nuances could be caught. Mehta was very, very apologetic but I think the audience was very forgiving. Afterall, it was a freebie and mistakes happen to everyone.

Randy and I hit a nearby pizza joint and cursed the restaurant for making Newcastle Brown the special on another night. I had my first Kilkenny, and was pleasantly surprised at how smooth it was. It wasn't watered down, it came straight from a can but that cream ale is extremely smooth. Then I had a Lowenbrau and silently reminisced about my first Lowenbrau tallboy last summer and the film festival that went with it. Randy and I talked about stuff, the waitress fawned over us because I complained pointed out a slight discrepancy between the volume of the Kilkenny can and the promotional material provided by the restaurant.

Ekaterina came and picked us up in her and Randy's new car. We went out for coffee and talked about Kat quitting her job and then we were kicked out and they drove me home.

The next day, Ali and Foxy and I all piled into the car and took Pepper camping in Maine with Bobby, his boss and his family and four exchange students. Overall, given it was a new venue for all of us, and it was Foxy's first camping trip it went pretty well. Nobody lost any fingers or lost any toes. Nobody came home with ticks, except maybe the dogs so it was very nice and we look forward to it again next year.