Second anniversary.
Two years ago tonight I got pulled over three blocks from home by a cop, because I'd hit a curb, and my car was sending out sparks from the rim of the tire I'd blown.
Because I'd had a modest helping of thirteen martinis before driving home, I wasn't in the best of shape to answer the officer's questions. "Where are you coming from?" I answered "Home." "Where are you going?" he asked next. I repied "Home." (Which was perfectly true. He never asked how many or which bars I'd been to on the way from home to home.) Finally he thought to ask me if I'd been drinking, and rather suspecting the smell of gin might be palpable upon my breath, I said "yes" in response, because it was not only true but undeniably obvious, and because the officer would have had to be a complete idiot to think otherwise, and because under the circumstanced I'd have been a fool to lie about it.
My next response to his next question baffles me to this day. He asked me how much I'd had to drink. In response, I checked my watch, and said "two". It's even in the police report that I checked my watch, first, before answering. Some part of me was sane, even right then. It was so true on so many levels, and so untrue on the grounds that it didn't accurately answer his question. Since I was doorman at Foxes at that time, looking at my watch and saying "two" was one of the most common answers to one of the most common questions I got asked each night: "when do you close?". The answer, except on Sundays: "Two". At the same time, "two" seems to be the "standard" answer given by drunk drivers, asked how many drinks they've had. You'd think we'd be smarter than that, and answer 3.14159 or something. The point is I *could* say I didn't understand the question, *because* I checked my watch. The irony is that even then I *knew* it wasn't "two", but more like "2:34", or thereabouts. Drunk off my ass, incapable of driving, I *still* knew the time to the minute, and *still* checked my watch before answering.
September Eighth. Katrina had just hit and people were just starting to realize it was *far* more serious than NPR and countless other mainstream news outlets had originally reported -- that the storm had passed without doing more damage than half-comically blowing the windows out of one side of the New Orleans Hilton. People -- tens of thousands of them -- were stuck at the Superdome, shouting "HELP! HELP! HELP!" en masse to any television camera or radio microphone present. I'd been following it minute by minute until I got pulled over.
The guys at MDC, which was fast approaching 200% capacity with prisoners sleeping all over the floors, had *no* idea. Being in jail is kinda scary to begin with, but even if you don't know sports from shit, you can find "common ground" with fellow prisoners by telling them the latest that you've heard about Katrina. Basically -- telling them the weather. "Yeah", I'd say, "the levee definitely broke. The lower ninth ward is completely flooded. Guys in orange jumpsuits just like ours are stranded on interstate offramps. You didn't know?"
Horrible education in how to do weather reports, but I wouldn't trade those three worst days of my life now for anything on earth.
So. Precisely two years to the day that I looked at my watch and answered a question that had not been asked, I receive my board certification. It's totally kick-ass. It's a gold-coloured DVD which says "Sept. 8 2007: KUNM 89.9 FM Albuquerque Certifies [Real Name] for Digital On-Air Control Room Operations". I don't want to watch the videos on the disk. I want to frame it! I've *never* been a paper-chaser! I don't care one whit about certifications and diplomas and the like. But this CD, or DVD, or whatever piece of plastic it is, really *means* something to me. The timing just accentuates the countless ironies involved. I would *never* have believed two years back that I'd be broadcasting.
Two years ago I didn't think I'd be alive 24 hours from then.
Life is very good.
Life is good.
Life is very good.
Because I'd had a modest helping of thirteen martinis before driving home, I wasn't in the best of shape to answer the officer's questions. "Where are you coming from?" I answered "Home." "Where are you going?" he asked next. I repied "Home." (Which was perfectly true. He never asked how many or which bars I'd been to on the way from home to home.) Finally he thought to ask me if I'd been drinking, and rather suspecting the smell of gin might be palpable upon my breath, I said "yes" in response, because it was not only true but undeniably obvious, and because the officer would have had to be a complete idiot to think otherwise, and because under the circumstanced I'd have been a fool to lie about it.
My next response to his next question baffles me to this day. He asked me how much I'd had to drink. In response, I checked my watch, and said "two". It's even in the police report that I checked my watch, first, before answering. Some part of me was sane, even right then. It was so true on so many levels, and so untrue on the grounds that it didn't accurately answer his question. Since I was doorman at Foxes at that time, looking at my watch and saying "two" was one of the most common answers to one of the most common questions I got asked each night: "when do you close?". The answer, except on Sundays: "Two". At the same time, "two" seems to be the "standard" answer given by drunk drivers, asked how many drinks they've had. You'd think we'd be smarter than that, and answer 3.14159 or something. The point is I *could* say I didn't understand the question, *because* I checked my watch. The irony is that even then I *knew* it wasn't "two", but more like "2:34", or thereabouts. Drunk off my ass, incapable of driving, I *still* knew the time to the minute, and *still* checked my watch before answering.
September Eighth. Katrina had just hit and people were just starting to realize it was *far* more serious than NPR and countless other mainstream news outlets had originally reported -- that the storm had passed without doing more damage than half-comically blowing the windows out of one side of the New Orleans Hilton. People -- tens of thousands of them -- were stuck at the Superdome, shouting "HELP! HELP! HELP!" en masse to any television camera or radio microphone present. I'd been following it minute by minute until I got pulled over.
The guys at MDC, which was fast approaching 200% capacity with prisoners sleeping all over the floors, had *no* idea. Being in jail is kinda scary to begin with, but even if you don't know sports from shit, you can find "common ground" with fellow prisoners by telling them the latest that you've heard about Katrina. Basically -- telling them the weather. "Yeah", I'd say, "the levee definitely broke. The lower ninth ward is completely flooded. Guys in orange jumpsuits just like ours are stranded on interstate offramps. You didn't know?"
Horrible education in how to do weather reports, but I wouldn't trade those three worst days of my life now for anything on earth.
So. Precisely two years to the day that I looked at my watch and answered a question that had not been asked, I receive my board certification. It's totally kick-ass. It's a gold-coloured DVD which says "Sept. 8 2007: KUNM 89.9 FM Albuquerque Certifies [Real Name] for Digital On-Air Control Room Operations". I don't want to watch the videos on the disk. I want to frame it! I've *never* been a paper-chaser! I don't care one whit about certifications and diplomas and the like. But this CD, or DVD, or whatever piece of plastic it is, really *means* something to me. The timing just accentuates the countless ironies involved. I would *never* have believed two years back that I'd be broadcasting.
Two years ago I didn't think I'd be alive 24 hours from then.
Life is very good.
Life is good.
Life is very good.
posted by xeltifon at 1:20 AM
1 Comments:
Congrats. Its been a hard road since then, but if anyone deserves to have things go their way for a bit, its you.
Post a Comment
Links to this post:
Create a Link
<< Home