For Thursday, September 28, 2000 Drummer Column, Gibbs, 738 words
I'm bugged by a few things. First off, I have not been able to drive through an automated carwash since I was a teenager (except for a spell between 1982 and 1988 when I also owned a Tercel.)
I grew up driving motorcycles. I've had a Kawasaki 175, Honda 350, Honda 400, and a Honda 750, which I still own. I've had to wash and wax them manually for 30 years. In 1986 I bought a van. Vans are not allowed in automated carwashes. I owned it and washed and waxed it by hand for 14 years. This spring I bought a truck. Trucks are not allowed in automated carwashes. I wash and wax it manually. That bugs me. Sometimes I drive my wife's car through and get a hot wax to ease the longing.
Popcorn sales at the Cinedome in Vallejo bug me. Their small popcorn is not the "small" popcorn. It's the "junior." If you walk up to the counter wanting a minimum of popcorn and say, "Give me a small," you actually get one size bigger than their smallest, which is the junior. Then you sit in the dark and watch the slide show before the movie and see a popcorn advertisement that shows small, medium, and large sizes only.
I'm bugged that every driver knows every shortcut that exists eastbound around the I-680 and I-80 interchange. I used to be able to take one of two frontage roads, but noooooooo, not any more. Cars to the left of me, cars to the right of me. Motorcycles zipping down the middle. Cars cutting across Cordelia Road to Susuin. Lately more people have figured out that taking I-780 to I-80 in Vallejo is the quickest route east toward Sacramento. The Vallejo onramp is blocking up.
Now my secret route that no one knows about is to take either Columbus Parkway Exit off of I-780 or Lake Hermann Road around to Columbus Parkway, then out past Blue Rock Springs and catch I-80 northeast of Vallejo. Don't anyone else go that way, O.K.?
I'm bugged that film is not a respected communication medium. Most people love great literature, but a small few have relegated cinema to the alleyways. When Shakespeare wrote Romeo and Juliet, he did so for actors and actresses. When Roots was made into film it swept the country with its visual power. When Shoah was filmed, it captured a sentiment for eternity. The film Harold and Maude is more real than the book because Ruth Gordon and Bud Cort are so well cast. Actors breathe life into the written words, just as the authors intended. Now, once again a pall is cast, and its shadow is so large because the source of its light is so close to the ground.
I'm bugged by television commercials. Ameritrade has the craziest offer. If an investor opens a $500 account he gets 25 free trades. Duh. How many trades can one make on $500. One? Two? Ten, maybe, but 25? It's designed to keep new investors from leaving because it will take many of them years to use up all their freebies.
I'm bugged by AT&T. They charge $4.95 to make a payphone call using a Pacific Bell calling card. I made a series of eight one-minute calls to my friend Gino's answering machine this summer, waiting for him to get home. Including the minute and service fees, the bill was around $50 bucks. I called and asked them to remove these outrageous blindside charges. They refused, so I canceled my AT&T long-distance service after 25 years. Two nights later AT&T salespeople were calling me inviting me back with an offer of 1,000 free minutes. "What? You won't give me my fifty bucks back for eight minutes of calling, but you'll give me 1,000 coast-to-coast minutes free? This is why your stock is at an all-time low. Forget it." I hung up. Now I'm bugged by these fancy AT&T commercials because, and excuse the pun, they are phony.
I'm bugged that days are not 30 hours long. I need more time. I want someone to design a fleet of giant retro rockets that we use to slow the rotation of the earth. We may experience a few continent-sweeping floods and canyon-maker earthquakes, but after that it would be really good. I would spend three of those extra hours doing nothing to a great extent, and three hours puttering.