Thursday, April 01, 2004

Brushes with Brushes with Greatness, vol. mcxvii
Note: This would be more accurately described as a BwG, since I myself was the brush-ee, but since it relates to an earlier BwBwG by WULAD Wregular Belle (who has recently informed me that she misses the old days, when I wrote about things like myself and baseball, rather than writing about the writings of other bloggers about still other bloggers' writings about blogging), the WULAD Categorization Coven has decided to allow it.

So without further ado...

I COULDA BEEN A CONVERSER

or, I Ain't Mythin' You At All;
a Brush with Greatness in One Act.

Dramatis Personae:

Yours Truly, the customer;
The Slighty Skeezy Record Store Clerk;
The Slightly Spazzy Guy from MythBusters and his entourage;
C-Baby, the Sig. Oth.

Scene: A dark and cluttered record store in North Beach, sometimes affectionately referred to as "Record Hell" by myself and W.W. Clare-bear (in reference to the long-deceased Record Heaven, lost sacred temple of Sacramento vinyl worshippers in days of legend), an unexpectedly warm Sunday afternoon not so long ago... and by not so long ago I mean the day before the day before yesterday.

Yours Truly (hereafter "Yours") is rifling through record stacks in an order apparent only to himself. Slighty Skeezy Record Store Clerk (hereafter "Skeezy") radiates an aura of mild derangement behind the counter while Miles Davis' Bitches Brew, favorite jazz record of Grateful Dead fans everywhere, simmers loudly in the background. C-baby (hereafter C-baby) browses in a stationery store across the street.

Enter Slightly Spazzy Guy from MythBusters (hereafter "Spazzy") with entourage of several women. He looks exactly as he does on his TV show, except that he is just a little paler, and he is not blowing things up or burning himself. He carries a Woody Allen album under his arm.

Yours (soliloquy): Hey! It's that Slightly Spazzy MythBusters guy! Belle is gonna freak when she hears I saw him. But she had a Tracy/Hepburn-esque exchange with him, so I better come up with something pretty damn witty to say if I'm going to compete. Maybe I should suggest some really funny/brilliant idea for their show—yeah, that's what I should do! So what should it be?

Skeezy: [Skeezily] Lookin’ for somethin’ in particular?

Spazzy: Yeah, have you got The 2000-Year-Old Man? [to entourage:] You’re gonna love it. I grew up on this record.

Yours (soliloquy continues): ...but Belle already asked him about the Richard Gere/gerbil thing. What about... um... damn! Why can’t I think of anything? If I could just come up with a good one, we could have an entertaining conversation. But don't mention that fact that he's wearing a leather jacket on an unexpectedly warm day—

Skeez: Uh, we might have one—lemme check in comedy, it’d be in the back here...

Yours (sol.): —Unless I ask about some myth about leather jackets that they could test—who knows, he might even like my idea so much he’ll want to give me a job! How cool would that be? Going to work on a TV show where they blow things up every day instead of sitting in my cube...

Spaz (to Skeez): Thanks, that’d be great.

Skeez begins to rummage in crates toward the back of the store. Spaz chats with his entourage. Yours continues rifling through albums, although the records no longer register in his mind, as his consciousness becomes consumed by his inner monologue.

Yours: Why didn’t I think of any good ideas in the past, so that I’d have them prepared in case I ever ran into one of these guys? They film here, so it was obviously only a matter of time. I should’ve made up a list...

Sk.: 2000-Year-Old Man. Here it is. [Hands album to Spaz.]

Yrs.: Crap. Maybe I should just say, “great show,” or something, just to acknowledge him in some way... "Hey, you look like a guy who knows what a month-old dead pig in a car smells like." No, that’d be stupid. Or just “keep on bustin’.” No. He'd probably think I was a stalker, or just some dumbass who can't come up with anything intelligent to say.

Sp.: Hey, great! [To entourage] You’re going to love this.

Skeez, Spaz and company go to the register and complete the transaction.

Sp: OK, take care...

Sk: Uh-huh.

Yours freezes in his rifling as Spaz walks by him, and deflates into a slouch as the last of the entourage files out the door. Enter C-baby.

Yrs (dejectedly): How was the postcard store?

C-baby: Not very interesting. I saw a really cute baby, though. I waved at him and he went like this. [Wiggles hips from side to side.]

Yrs: That guy from MythBusters was just in here. I spent the whole time trying to come up with something clever to say and ended up saying nothing.

C-baby: [shrugs.]

Curtain.