deeplyshallow // lady beware

lady beware

Last night, being the movie geek I mostly consider myself to be, Felicia and I volunteered to volunteer for the SLO Film Festival. I’ll confess something here: I have always wanted to be, if only once and for just one showing, the usher in the classy movie theatre, the guy who pulls back the red velvet rope and allows the orderly and well-dressed crowd entrance, the guy who wears a little vest and pillbox hat and snappy shoes. It’s an old, silly dream of mine, but I’d be very happy to get to be that guy, just once. Problem is, that guy doesn’t exist in America anymore, not in this era of multiplexes and three-hundred dollar popcorn and The 2wenty.

The SLO Film Festival, you’d expect me to write here, is giving me that opportunity. But I can’t write that, because it’s not. For one, that’s not what volunteers do at these things. Okay, it’s close, but they don’t do it in a classy, borderline film-snob way. All they ask is that you don’t wear clothes that will embarrass them.

I’ve been looking forward to volunteering at the festival ever since I moved here and learned that, hey, there’s a film festival here. I had a great time there a couple of years ago; there was a fantastic lineup of good movies, a few genuine movie stars, and etc. But this year ain’t that year, and neither was last year. And my enthusiasm has waned, because: what’s the fun of working a film festival when you’re not excited about what you’re showing? I don’t even know what movie Felicia and I are working, that’s how disappointed I am in the organizers. They’ve gone from Morgan Freeman, two years ago, to Josh Brolin and his homemade movie, this year.

F.: What movies are they showing this year?

J.: I didn’t recognize any of them, except one old Western.

F.: I heard Diane Lane’s going to be there.

J.: Really?

F.: If you look at her, I’ll kill you.

Diane Lane will be here on the arm of Brolin, her husband, who, you know, likes to hit girls.

T.: (last year) My friend saw Diane Lane at the adult bookstore in Paso.

J.: Really.

T.: Yeah. She was with that Brolin character.

J.: I just read an AP story that said he was arrested for beating her.

T.: I saw that, too. They said it was a misunderstanding.

J.: It’s always a misunderstanding. Want to go have a misunderstanding with Brolin?

T.: My friend knows where he lives.

In any case: I won’t be the guy at the film festival in the little vest and snappy shoes and pillbox cap. I will, however, be the guy at the film festival who isn’t in the little vest and snappy shoes and pillbox cap. I will also be the guy who is easily distracted by the conversations of filmgoers all around me

X.: I loved that one movie that Jim Cameron directed, what was it called, the one about the little furballs that come to life…

Y.: Ooh, ooh, Goonies!

and who will neglect his duties in order to insert myself into these conversations, to better educate humanity. Because, you know, people like those just need people like me. It’s what we’re here for.