Excerpt: A Misnomer's Daydream

Latest installment:

XII Arthur discovers a cure for the common cold

To: MartinJ@alternapress.savannah.com
From: GoodE2shoes@hotmail.com Subject: next submission
Date: Oct 01-09 22:10 EDT

Well then. Hello readers and a very big thank you to all of you, whether it be one of you or a thousand, for returning here with me to view and review the lives of ourselves and the lives of those around us. Not our loved ones, per se, and not our neighbors, necessarily, but those around us of whom we do not speak; those individuals surrounding us that we do not pose a second glance toward; those people that form the background to our lives much like a soundtrack fills in the quiet moments in the movie theater, letting us know when to expect some danger to be lurking, and when the next big screen kiss will occur. Because no matter how many times it happens in the movies, whether you are wearing your IPOD and the headphones while jogging or have the radio playing softly over the car speakers while getting it on in the back seat, in real life you will not remember the song that plays while events happen in your life. We think we do, of course. We have memories of the Drifters playing during our first kiss; we hear the Beatles whenever we fondly remember our parents 50th wedding anniversary. But in a ll honesty our memories trick us into believing they were playing at that moment. You may have heard music during your life's adventures but only later did you place a name and a label to the individual tune that your subconscious assigns to these events. In life, there are no commercial breaks and there are no instrumentals in the few seconds before hand to let you know they are coming. It is all conditioning and we have been suckered into believing it.
Now then, with our tangent out of the way, let us resume our lively discussion on white noise. White noise is static, you realize, do you not? White noise is the sound between channels and heard below the buzz of the jet plane overhead. White noise is the lack of silence heard behind the gentle cooing of a dove on the window sill during breakfast. White noise surrounds us and it is what we use to keep us separate from the people in our daily paths. The bum asking for change outside the convenience store; the couple walking hand in hand across the street as you stare out your car window wondering where your hand to hold is; The crying kid you wish would just go away while you are trying to shop in peace for your groceries and pretending she is not yours. All of these examples of what I mean when I talk about white noise.
You do not want to read about their lives any more than I wish to write about them. That means interaction and that means connections and that means you are no longer safe in your bubble and you find yourself exposed and vulnerable; to feelings and emotions and in sickness and in health. I know as a writer I am naturally a loner. I realize as a writer I am not really the social butterfly that others are. I am quite sure that as a writer I can be a bit biased on the subject. On the other hand of course, being a writer, being the observer and the documentor of life's comings and goings, I have a knack for explaining to you what you are feeling and thinking. I am paid to expose your feelings in ways you are unable to express. As a writer my duty is to create these characters of fiction for you to relate to and to root for and to fight against, all within the relative safety of your armchair and a reading lamp, without the need of getting your hands dirty or your feet wet. Because reality is so much more disappointing than fiction. Reality is disease and hunger and war and famine mixed in with the occasional feel good story to remind us that exceptions really do prove the rule.
Yet here I am, once again, celebrating the fact of mediocrity. Here I am clicking and clacking away at my word processor holding a mirror up to our ever mundane and completely lackluster lives screaming “look at what we have become!” Because all in all we have become, not just a nation, but an entire world of individuals, completely autonomous yet wholly connected to one another. The minor joy you feel when your son gets straight A's on his report card is not only equal to, but absolutely connected to the pain a daughter feels when her parent finally passes in her sleep at the retirement community. You may not understand me yet but if I am able to do my duty as a journalist here in this publication, you will find that in your solitude, inside the far reaches of your very soul, another person's simple acts of breathing in and breathing out the exact same air as you at the exact same moment, multiplied by six billion or so individuals, you will have no choice but to understand each individual as you understand yourself.
As I walked around the park this evening I found myself at quite the loss. How do I convey all this to you from one random individual here in Savannah? Who exactly do I interview that can express who you are through their actions? My head bobbed left and right, from the basketball courts to the tennis courts searching out the perfect person to introduce to you. I found myself wondering not only who has a story to tell, but who has a story worthy enough to tell. I fell into the same trap I am trying to free you from, the very untruth of our singularity creeping into my thoughts as quickly as a dying man gasping for one last breath of air.
In order to clear my mind I had to walk farther away. That lead me right into the middle of a movie production down on Bay Street. If reality brought us actual light bulbs to light over our heads, there would have been one shining like a beacon over mine. What better way to prove all this to each of us than to mix reality with the fantasy of a movie. Perhaps some of you have been on a movie set or at least have some idea that what really occurs and what the computer graphics department makes it appear to occur are two different events. Let's take Harold for example.
Harold, who's real name is Harold, was on the set. At first I did not know if he was a bit player or a major actor. I did not yet know if he was even in the movie at all. Perhaps he was a stunt man or just one of the many crew members standing around waiting for things to happen. There is a lot of standing around on a movie set. I am told, by Harold of course, as our conversation progressed, that there is usually twelve to fifteen hours of filming to make a two hour movie. You film the dialogue scenes, not with the actors but with stand-ins, so that you get the shot looking the way you want it. You film the scene with different lighting and you film the scene with nobody in it so that you get the backgrounds just right. Eventually you film the scene with the actors, and finally you record the dialogue in a sound stage to make sure that you have it right in case a plane flies over head at the wrong time or a certain journalist has a sneezing fit during filming while trying to interview a boom electrician when he wasn't even supposed to be on the set (yes, that's what happened to me halfway through this particular interview). Between all this you have rehearsals and conferences and missed lines and a thousand other reasons to be standing around waiting for something to happen.
Meritocracy at it's finest hour here, and I was thoroughly enjoying every grueling hour of it, standing behind Harold and his box of tricks. He is visiting Savannah from Los Angeles, and if you hope to express your southern charm to him, I doubt you will get your chance. He is working fifteen hour days and looking forward to a wrap to be home with his family and his Jack Russell terrier. But as you breathe in and breathe out tomorrow, wondering why in the world nothing exciting ever happens to you, remember he is there with you, standing on River Street, breathing in and out and existing entirely on his own as well.