It wasn’t my first thought of the day, but it didn’t take long after waking up to realize that, this time next week, we’ll be watching football. This makes me very happy.
I watched, over the course of three installments, It Might Get Loud, a documentary where producers took three guitarists and put them in a room to see what happens when they stop being polite, and start talking about chord changes:
The Edge describes himself as an architect, which makes perfect sense when you hear his explanation. Jack White has this artistic struggling “I think I’m a little more important than I really am” vibe. Jimmy Page is Jimmy Page. They’re all great in their own ways, though Page of course transcends by virtue of his longevity and the genetic condition known as Being Jimmy Page.
If the producers are looking for a follow up project, I’ve just given them a title.
It is a good documentary. I’m no musician, of course, but I enjoy hearing the discussion of how these works came about. A lot of times you get the sense that there is this Thing and they wanted to Express It and eventually it made it to a recording studio, became a hit or important piece and now they have to Explain It. Trying to verbally explain this Thing which has become Transcendent must be an interesting exercise.
I watched this over Netflix. We signed up for the free trial last night. The Yankee downloaded a few things from the instant viewing feature. She’s watching television episodes on the television. I watched Full Metal Jacket — which has not aged well — on my phone. That was R. Lee Ermey’s third role, but the one that made us all aware of him. He’s done more than you realize, since.
Also, he might be the star in a sentence featuring the best ever use of the word refused.
R. Lee Ermey was involved in a jeep accident during the making of the movie. At 1:00 a.m. one night he skidded off the road, breaking all the ribs on his left side. He refused to pass out, and kept flashing his car lights until a motorist stopped. In some scenes you’ll notice that he does not move his left arm at all.
“I am in a great deal of pain, indeed old boy. But I shan’t to acknowledge it. I will not acquiesce to the sweet morphine that is mental surrender. So be a good chum, ribs, and stand fast while I flag a motorist.”
For some reason, in that story Ermey turns into a very proper Englishman in my mind.
Where was I? Oh, yes. It Might Get Loud. I had to watch it in three installments because I decided to replace the shower head. I made this command decision about 15 seconds after I broke the older shower head.
We have a slight dripping leak and I thought if I turned the plastic shower nozzle a bit tighter … SNAP.
So we visited Bed, Bath and Beyond. The Yankee walked us directly to the shower fixtures, which was a bit disturbing considering we’ve never been in this particular store. She mulled over the options.
Buying a shower head that would match the one in the guest bathroom was out of the question. The store no longer carries them. But you can get one online for 25 bucks. Of course, at the store, your options range from 29 to 99 dollars. I’m tempering my instinct to put my foot down with my guilt about breaking the shower head to start with. She buys a sensibly priced one. I suppose.
It is made by a company that calls itself Oxygenics. If you break it down, that means oxygen-born. More than air should fall from this device. The literature assures me that this might be the last shower head I’ll ever purchase. And it better be, if there’s anything that makes you feel more stupid than reading language on a shower head’s packaging I don’t know what it is.
Consider:
“The storm is coming … prepare to be drenched.”
Do you know what I do when a storm comes? I go inside. Out of the rain. So, already, we’re a little counter-intuitive in the marketing.
“A powerful, pressurized monsoon of water will envelope and sweep you away to a wonderous place.”
Again with the imagery. But doesn’t all of this sound wasteful? Oh no.
“… while saving 23% water and energy compared to industry leading brands.”
I’d like to suggest to the good people at Oxygenics that they add the word “other” to that phrase. Right now they just look like a trailing brand.
It has “1 drenching spray, 54 anti-glog spray nozzles” and is “guaranteed not to clog.” No pressure there, nozzles.
Here’s the best part, the 9 inch adjustable shower arm — mentioned by a sticker-like logo on the package, as if they weren’t sure when they designed the thing how big they could get that little rod — has two joints. From which water will spray. When you add the wall attachment and the shower head attachment itself that means there are four potential places from which water can escape.
Oh, but it has a monsoon, you see.
We visited the grocery store for a few staples. At the cash register two young men were there to help us. One was the bar code digital transfer engineer, the other the product package and dispersal supervisor. Whenever we make it to check out I try to find ways to entertain them. Who knows how long they’ve been working. It is new and clean and so happy with itself, and most of the customers are in the pleasure-zone known as Publix shopping, but you never know if the guy just had to deal with the guy that really ruined his Saturday.
So the patter today was about how we forgot our ecological shopping bags. Not to worry! I just bought a new shower head which will save 30 percent on energy. I am, as the cool kids say, offset. We hate the earth. The hemp woven, hand stitched, biodegradable hues of those items were left safely in the laundry room, where they are doing us a great service by hanging from something, so that we won’t forget them should we venture to the grocery store.
We live a mile-and-a-half away. One day the person will ask paper or plastic, I’ll remember I left the bags and ask him to hold everything for three minutes while I fetch my own.
He suggests we leave them in the passenger seat. But where would the passenger sit, my good man?
I point out that we usually keep them in the trunk, where they are also often forgotten. And then the conversation turned into one of those “A-ha! You’re my witnesses moments” that you just live for.
If we ever see those two guys up front at the grocery store again I’m going to have the world’s best follow up joke, brought to you by items on the condiment aisle, just to see if they remember.
We grilled steak. We baked potatoes and enjoyed okra. That’s a win. And next week we’ll be watching football.
