Uptown, downtown, and back again
I'm so tired, my hair hurts.
Now that I'm only in New York a few days a week, those days become packed from morning till night. My day today, as a film montage:
Morning, 8:00 am After a night of insomnia, the last thing I wanted to do was wake up this morning. Cue "Nine to Five" and me stumbling to the shower. Alas, there was no cup of ambition in the kitchen, only stale Orangina. So I had to go to Starbucks.
Morning meeting: Picture me pitching a project at a Madison Avenue advertising agency in the boardroom. It's something like master classes for advertising execs, and it has been in the works for six months. It came down to this, selling the program to the Arianna Huffington-esque executive who could greenlight everything. Cue the Working Girl soundtrack. Condition: go!
On the subway: I run into one of my ex-students. We chat as we are jammed into one of the cars of the #6 train. She's lugging the printer she just bought; I'm dragging along my overstuffed satchel, filled with proposals for student projects. Cue the Days and Nights of Molly Dodd music ... if anyone even remembers that show.
At school: I and two of my colleagues meet with student teams. I do my best to be inspirational, in the style of my hero Tim Gunn. Cue a track from Mr. Holland's Opus, climaxing with me crying out something like, "You must write what's in your hearts!"
After school, at the malt shop: Well, Johnny Rocket's. Who knew there was even a Johnny Rocket's in Manhattan? I didn't. I feel the need for onion rings, and I indulge, along with one of the other guys from the faculty. We alternately talk in lofty tones about "art", and then gossip and bitch about everyone we know (not anyone reading this, of course. We love you.) Cue the music from Beverly Hills 90210. Or Grease.
Before hitting the malt shop, we'd gone to Best Buy so my friend could scope out the new release of the original Star Wars trilogy in their as-originally-released versions - in a collectible tin! They had the DVDs, but they were all out of the collectible tins. We stood there debating whether or not the collectible tin was worth searching elsewhere for. I groused about the proliferation of all the different "editions" of movies - how many Lord of the Rings DVD editions are there? Just put out one goddamn version so I don't have to buy it five times (yes, yes, I know it's my duty as an American consumer to buy it five times, but give me a break.) I consider buying the "Severance Package" (seasons one and two of The Office, the U.S. version. We debate the relative merits of the U.K. and U.S. Offices.
Cue the music of ultimate dorkdom. Cue the sound effect of someone shooting us with tranquilizer darts and releasing us into some kind of nerd-geek nature preserve. We moo with delight "Loooook, Staaaar Waaaars."
Oh wait, that was the dream sequence part of the montage.
Back at school: I meet with another friend for whom I'm writing some songs. We work on a few things, and I play him some things I've written. Cue the music from any "Let's put on a show in the barn" movie musical ... or else the scene in Broadcast News where the guys come in and play the news theme they've written on a Casio keyboard, pounding the table for percussion.
Back on the subway: I'm so exhausted by this point - nine at night - that there's no music in the montage. Keep it down.
Posting on the blog: Cue the music from any cyber-thriller, where the protagonist breaks in to some secret database, and in the closeups, you can see all the information on the screen being projected onto his face. Like Sandra Bullock in The Net or The ScaryNet or whatever that crappy "Sandra Bullock is a computer genius, no, really!" movie was.
Crawling into bed: Cue the Harry Connick Jr. version of some standard, from the soundtrack of any Nora Ephron movie starring Meg Ryan. I love you, New York. Thanks for being the amazing whitewater raft ride you are on a daily basis. I'm whipped. Are you happy? Of course you are. See you tomorrow: let's do it all over again.
Now that I'm only in New York a few days a week, those days become packed from morning till night. My day today, as a film montage:
Morning, 8:00 am After a night of insomnia, the last thing I wanted to do was wake up this morning. Cue "Nine to Five" and me stumbling to the shower. Alas, there was no cup of ambition in the kitchen, only stale Orangina. So I had to go to Starbucks.
Morning meeting: Picture me pitching a project at a Madison Avenue advertising agency in the boardroom. It's something like master classes for advertising execs, and it has been in the works for six months. It came down to this, selling the program to the Arianna Huffington-esque executive who could greenlight everything. Cue the Working Girl soundtrack. Condition: go!
On the subway: I run into one of my ex-students. We chat as we are jammed into one of the cars of the #6 train. She's lugging the printer she just bought; I'm dragging along my overstuffed satchel, filled with proposals for student projects. Cue the Days and Nights of Molly Dodd music ... if anyone even remembers that show.
At school: I and two of my colleagues meet with student teams. I do my best to be inspirational, in the style of my hero Tim Gunn. Cue a track from Mr. Holland's Opus, climaxing with me crying out something like, "You must write what's in your hearts!"
After school, at the malt shop: Well, Johnny Rocket's. Who knew there was even a Johnny Rocket's in Manhattan? I didn't. I feel the need for onion rings, and I indulge, along with one of the other guys from the faculty. We alternately talk in lofty tones about "art", and then gossip and bitch about everyone we know (not anyone reading this, of course. We love you.) Cue the music from Beverly Hills 90210. Or Grease.
Before hitting the malt shop, we'd gone to Best Buy so my friend could scope out the new release of the original Star Wars trilogy in their as-originally-released versions - in a collectible tin! They had the DVDs, but they were all out of the collectible tins. We stood there debating whether or not the collectible tin was worth searching elsewhere for. I groused about the proliferation of all the different "editions" of movies - how many Lord of the Rings DVD editions are there? Just put out one goddamn version so I don't have to buy it five times (yes, yes, I know it's my duty as an American consumer to buy it five times, but give me a break.) I consider buying the "Severance Package" (seasons one and two of The Office, the U.S. version. We debate the relative merits of the U.K. and U.S. Offices.
Cue the music of ultimate dorkdom. Cue the sound effect of someone shooting us with tranquilizer darts and releasing us into some kind of nerd-geek nature preserve. We moo with delight "Loooook, Staaaar Waaaars."
Oh wait, that was the dream sequence part of the montage.
Back at school: I meet with another friend for whom I'm writing some songs. We work on a few things, and I play him some things I've written. Cue the music from any "Let's put on a show in the barn" movie musical ... or else the scene in Broadcast News where the guys come in and play the news theme they've written on a Casio keyboard, pounding the table for percussion.
Back on the subway: I'm so exhausted by this point - nine at night - that there's no music in the montage. Keep it down.
Posting on the blog: Cue the music from any cyber-thriller, where the protagonist breaks in to some secret database, and in the closeups, you can see all the information on the screen being projected onto his face. Like Sandra Bullock in The Net or The ScaryNet or whatever that crappy "Sandra Bullock is a computer genius, no, really!" movie was.
Crawling into bed: Cue the Harry Connick Jr. version of some standard, from the soundtrack of any Nora Ephron movie starring Meg Ryan. I love you, New York. Thanks for being the amazing whitewater raft ride you are on a daily basis. I'm whipped. Are you happy? Of course you are. See you tomorrow: let's do it all over again.
posted by crumblord at 7:16 PM
1 Comments:
I don't know how I feel about the word "satchel."
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