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Month: November 2018

Pizza Booth Time Machine

While reading former Rolling Stone magazine writer Jancee Dunn’s book, But Enough About Me, she mentioned Scritti Politti playing on her date’s car radio. I put down my book and went to remind myself of Scritti Politti’s songs. Below the video of “Perfect Way,” a guy commented, “Hot Tub Time Machine brought me here.” So that’s why I watched Hot Tub Machine, last night.

Goofy as it is, the movie Hot Tub Time Machine got me thinking about things I did in the past that changed my destiny, resulting in my present day life. Many of those moments were silly. I began thinking: What if I didn’t do (fill in the blank)? Would I be where I am today?

One of my “What ifs” involved John Cusack, in 1987. In Hot Tub Time Machine, John Cusack gets blasted back to 1986.

 

So, without any explanation, here are some of my sillier what ifs. To find out what they mean you’ll have to read my book Craving Normal and the chapter, “What the Hell Just Happened?”

*What if I never annoyed John Cusack as we sat together in a red booth at Damiano’s Pizza on Fairfax?

 

*What if my roommate’s boyfriend didn’t eat all my kung pao shrimp?

*What if I never became an aerobics instructor?

*What if I allowed that car thief to move into my Reseda apartment?

Answer: Nothing about my life would be the same.

Little did I know my goofy antics with John Cusack in that red booth at Damiano’s Pizza changed what I would do that following week, which brought me where I am today. That pizza booth was my destiny-changing time machine, catapulting me to the future.

King Cotton, doing Roscoe’s wrap from John Cusack’s movie “Tapeheads,” then set my future into an entirely different direction.

What silly, seemingly inconsequential, moments changed the path to your future?

 

 

 

 

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Dear Pete Townshend

*An Imaginary letter I wrote to our Tree Audio client (we design and hand-build tube recording consoles), Pete Townshend of The Who, about My Generation.

Dear Pete Townshend,

As I made and soldered the cables for your Tree Audio recording equipment we just sent off to you, I thought about how I spent my early teen years listening to “My Generation” until I wore down the grooves in my album, while sulking, thinking about how misunderstood I was, how The Who really understood me and my generation, all of us raised in the shadow of the Flower Children with our own issues. Unlike the Woodstock crowd, the media didn’t care much about what my peers and I did or what we thought, didn’t follow our every movement, or put down our every waking moment in documentary film–only stopped to warn us that the free love-era had come to a scary halt with AIDS.

You got me, I thought. Then I realized The Who song was written for YOUR generation, my parents’ generation.

Whatever.

My generation, your generation, my kid’s generation… I think we can all relate to being misunderstood. So thanks for getting my anger. Every time you smashed your guitar, I knew you felt what I felt. Or I liked to think so.

Thanks,

Michele,
Your Tree Audio cable maker

Hippie Orgy Free Love
1960s: Free Love!
safe sex poster 1980s
1980s: Halt! Love is NOT Free. It’ll kill you. Play hide ‘n’ seek, instead.

 

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Leave Me Alone! I’m In the Zone.

I’m at my computer, fingers flying on the keyboard. It’s a good writing day. I’m in the zone–the writing zone.

What’s that? Oh crap! I hear a light tap at my door. I stiffen, sit up-right, tip-toe away from my window and plan to wait out the knocker until they walk away.

But wait! What if it’s someone important? I don’t know, like someone wanting to give me a big check or maybe it’s UPS delivering a really late birthday present.

Or it could be someone coming to tell me my roof is on fire. I don’t know. So, damn it, I open the door.

Argh. Just as I feared. A sales guy. Yeah, I’m interested in solar, but I’ll do my own research. Plus, I’m in a great writing groove. I’m in the zone. Doesn’t this guy know about the zone?

Me: Well, I’m in the middle of writing. Just give me a card, literature, or a website (Dude, I want you to go away and now). Okay?

Solar sales guy: Okay, I’ll walk around the neighborhood and come back.

Me: (As I’m closing the door). Sure, fine. (I realize he said he’ll come back) No! No! (holding up my pen and waving it at him). Not today. I’m writing.

He backs away, like: Okay, crazy lady with the pen. Just don’t hurt me.

And now for an educational “How to Deal with Door Sales” video:

 

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