CROSSWORDS AND THE WRATH OF FAWN
Crossword Jones
I got a Crossword Jones
Got a Crossword Jones, oh baby, oo-oo-ooo
See, it doesn’t have quite the same effect, does it? It’s not quite as catchy. Up until I started this blog, the two things that have helped me keep my sanity so-to-speak were screenwriting and crossword puzzles. I am not exactly addicted to either per se, I can stop any time I want...yeah, sure any time. No I can’t. I can even go six or seven days without either one, but after day ten?
Screenplays and crossword puzzles have a lot in common with me, I haven’t completely finished one in a while. Plus I start my lesser screenplays and crosswords in the same manner:
By going as far as I can in the beginning, then I go to the end and try to work my way back. I fill in the names, all the things that I already know and hopefully the middle with come together.
Everybody has their pet peeve, their bugaboo, their bête noire. Mine is, or I should say mine was these shirts that say “Frisco.” It’s “San Francisco,” the “City” or even “Fog Town” if you old enough to remember that, not “Frisco.” As an example, a Manhattanite or even someone from Long Island will not call New York City, “The Big Apple.” They wouldn’t, it’s absurd.
Still, I let it go. Why compound my high blood pressure? Why froth at the mouth like a neocon would at Sponge Bob or rap music?
Getting back to crossword puzzles. I’ve learned such clues as Enid (a city in Oklahoma), samovar and Uta Hagen. I’m not too familiar with the works of Uta and Eero Saarinen, but I sure as hell can fill their names in. Ah, I just Googled Eero and I see that he designed JFK. The fact that I couldn’t remember Enid inspired me to look it up on Yahoo Maps and I wound up basing a screenplay around a town a few miles east of it.
As to pet peeves? I do something that is going to infuriate most of you and change your opinion of me for the worse...I do my crossword puzzles in pen. You over there, put down the pitchfork and torch. You over there, stop honing the machete and allow me to finish my story. Or at least put down the pitchfork or the torch, you’re liable to hurt yourself more than me if you insist on holding both at the same time.
The very thing that touched this post off happened a couple of weeks ago, I was doing my crossword puzzle on the way into work when I again, became the recipient of the glare. It’s always directed first at me, then the pen. I nodded and turned around, the eyes still followed me all the way down the subway platform.
This triggered the memory of the Medusa of all glares at a pen and crossword puzzle together. Almost fourteen years ago I was on my way to a job in Oakland, contemplating just what the Sam Hill is “lac” when I felt the glare for the first time.
I felt these eyes stuck on me and I looked up to see this Fawn Hall-clone staring at me. I could tell it wasn’t a love at first sight-thing because she was looking at me with equal parts pain and confusion. She asked me “what are you doing?”
Her tone didn't sound rhetorical, so I answered “I’m doing a crossword puzzle.”
She pointedly looked at my pen and said, “seriously, what are you doing?”
“I’m doing a crossword puzzle.”
Three words later and she was still staring. With a sigh, I glanced up.
“But what if you make a mistake?”
“I, um, write over it.”
The look on her face...an equal mixture of awe and horror. “You’re serious?”
I gave her a half-shrug, half-nod and went back to my puzzle. Was what I was doing defying the laws of God and nature? I could literally feel her eyes on me, she gave me the kind of glare that you only see on Court TV or on the news that the family of a victim of some monstrous crime casts at the accused.
Yes, it’s the glare or in this case, “The Wrath of Fawn” because she looked like Fawn and because back then professional women tended to sport only three hairstyles:
1) “The Fawn.” http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/j/msnbc/Components/Photos/
040720/040720_hall_bcol_930p.small.jpg Along with its variations of Julia Louise Dreyfuss or Rosie O’Donnell when she was first on VH1.
2) “The Kathie Lee Gifford.” With the hair cut just above the shoulders and shellacked to the sides giving the appearance of dog ears or that Afghan hound-effect. I can’t find a picture of this hair style and I’m not surprised. Any photos of Kathie Lee or any other women sporting this hairstyle have been burned and any corroborating evidence destroyed like President Shrub’s real National Guard files.
3) “The Sandy Duncan” http://us.imdb.com/gallery/mptv/1294/Mptv/1294/2313_0117.
jpg?path=pgallery&path_key=Duncan,%20Sandy or as I like to call it, the “deflator.” Remember ladies, androgyny kills. Viva la difference. No hate mail, I'm half-kidding and all things being equal, I had a mullet all the way up until 1998.
So, “Fawn” was making me uncomfortable to the point that I moved down one car marker, but I still felt her cold green eyes trying to turn me to stone. The train finally arrived and I moved further down to enjoy my puzzle in relative peace. The train went through the Transbay Tube and oddly enough, I felt the gaze again. I looked up and there she was! She had opened the doors between the BART train which was not easy because you have to be able to lift about sixty pounds to do so and was she was stalking me from about fifteen feet away.
Was she trying to psychically force me to drop the pen? Was she going to take me out like Rambo did his adversaries? Was she going to spout bad Stallone dialogue like, “you’re the disease and I’m the cure?” Mind you, this predated “Speed” and I was thinking along the lines of “The Taking of Pellham 1,2,3” gone wrong. Nowhere to run, nowhere to hide, no pencil to ease her wrath.
If I got off at West Oakland, would she follow? Obviously, I had managed to escape or I wouldn’t be here to tell the story, though let’s just say my pen and puzzle weren’t so lucky and...I can’t even talk about that. And every time I go across the Transbay Tube and have a crossword puzzle in hand, I have my head on a swivel.
I got a Crossword Jones
Got a Crossword Jones, oh baby, oo-oo-ooo
See, it doesn’t have quite the same effect, does it? It’s not quite as catchy. Up until I started this blog, the two things that have helped me keep my sanity so-to-speak were screenwriting and crossword puzzles. I am not exactly addicted to either per se, I can stop any time I want...yeah, sure any time. No I can’t. I can even go six or seven days without either one, but after day ten?
Screenplays and crossword puzzles have a lot in common with me, I haven’t completely finished one in a while. Plus I start my lesser screenplays and crosswords in the same manner:
By going as far as I can in the beginning, then I go to the end and try to work my way back. I fill in the names, all the things that I already know and hopefully the middle with come together.
Everybody has their pet peeve, their bugaboo, their bête noire. Mine is, or I should say mine was these shirts that say “Frisco.” It’s “San Francisco,” the “City” or even “Fog Town” if you old enough to remember that, not “Frisco.” As an example, a Manhattanite or even someone from Long Island will not call New York City, “The Big Apple.” They wouldn’t, it’s absurd.
Still, I let it go. Why compound my high blood pressure? Why froth at the mouth like a neocon would at Sponge Bob or rap music?
Getting back to crossword puzzles. I’ve learned such clues as Enid (a city in Oklahoma), samovar and Uta Hagen. I’m not too familiar with the works of Uta and Eero Saarinen, but I sure as hell can fill their names in. Ah, I just Googled Eero and I see that he designed JFK. The fact that I couldn’t remember Enid inspired me to look it up on Yahoo Maps and I wound up basing a screenplay around a town a few miles east of it.
As to pet peeves? I do something that is going to infuriate most of you and change your opinion of me for the worse...I do my crossword puzzles in pen. You over there, put down the pitchfork and torch. You over there, stop honing the machete and allow me to finish my story. Or at least put down the pitchfork or the torch, you’re liable to hurt yourself more than me if you insist on holding both at the same time.
The very thing that touched this post off happened a couple of weeks ago, I was doing my crossword puzzle on the way into work when I again, became the recipient of the glare. It’s always directed first at me, then the pen. I nodded and turned around, the eyes still followed me all the way down the subway platform.
This triggered the memory of the Medusa of all glares at a pen and crossword puzzle together. Almost fourteen years ago I was on my way to a job in Oakland, contemplating just what the Sam Hill is “lac” when I felt the glare for the first time.
I felt these eyes stuck on me and I looked up to see this Fawn Hall-clone staring at me. I could tell it wasn’t a love at first sight-thing because she was looking at me with equal parts pain and confusion. She asked me “what are you doing?”
Her tone didn't sound rhetorical, so I answered “I’m doing a crossword puzzle.”
She pointedly looked at my pen and said, “seriously, what are you doing?”
“I’m doing a crossword puzzle.”
Three words later and she was still staring. With a sigh, I glanced up.
“But what if you make a mistake?”
“I, um, write over it.”
The look on her face...an equal mixture of awe and horror. “You’re serious?”
I gave her a half-shrug, half-nod and went back to my puzzle. Was what I was doing defying the laws of God and nature? I could literally feel her eyes on me, she gave me the kind of glare that you only see on Court TV or on the news that the family of a victim of some monstrous crime casts at the accused.
Yes, it’s the glare or in this case, “The Wrath of Fawn” because she looked like Fawn and because back then professional women tended to sport only three hairstyles:
1) “The Fawn.” http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/j/msnbc/Components/Photos/
040720/040720_hall_bcol_930p.small.jpg Along with its variations of Julia Louise Dreyfuss or Rosie O’Donnell when she was first on VH1.
2) “The Kathie Lee Gifford.” With the hair cut just above the shoulders and shellacked to the sides giving the appearance of dog ears or that Afghan hound-effect. I can’t find a picture of this hair style and I’m not surprised. Any photos of Kathie Lee or any other women sporting this hairstyle have been burned and any corroborating evidence destroyed like President Shrub’s real National Guard files.
3) “The Sandy Duncan” http://us.imdb.com/gallery/mptv/1294/Mptv/1294/2313_0117.
jpg?path=pgallery&path_key=Duncan,%20Sandy or as I like to call it, the “deflator.” Remember ladies, androgyny kills. Viva la difference. No hate mail, I'm half-kidding and all things being equal, I had a mullet all the way up until 1998.
So, “Fawn” was making me uncomfortable to the point that I moved down one car marker, but I still felt her cold green eyes trying to turn me to stone. The train finally arrived and I moved further down to enjoy my puzzle in relative peace. The train went through the Transbay Tube and oddly enough, I felt the gaze again. I looked up and there she was! She had opened the doors between the BART train which was not easy because you have to be able to lift about sixty pounds to do so and was she was stalking me from about fifteen feet away.
Was she trying to psychically force me to drop the pen? Was she going to take me out like Rambo did his adversaries? Was she going to spout bad Stallone dialogue like, “you’re the disease and I’m the cure?” Mind you, this predated “Speed” and I was thinking along the lines of “The Taking of Pellham 1,2,3” gone wrong. Nowhere to run, nowhere to hide, no pencil to ease her wrath.
If I got off at West Oakland, would she follow? Obviously, I had managed to escape or I wouldn’t be here to tell the story, though let’s just say my pen and puzzle weren’t so lucky and...I can’t even talk about that. And every time I go across the Transbay Tube and have a crossword puzzle in hand, I have my head on a swivel.
Labels: Writing habits
posted by Writeprocrastinator at 8:31 PM
3 Comments:
I'm sure that somewhere much has been written about the great Pen vs. Pencil Crossword Puzzle Debate.
Now get back to your current screenplay project, dude.
btw, my friends have been admiring the hoodie.
--Alb/Grove
oh my, that sure is a bizarre encounter. Rambo? That's Lieutenant Marion 'Cobra' Cobretti. :D
Al,
"Now get back to your current screenplay project, dude."
Hey, the Missus will tell you that I *am* writing, just not screenwriting.
"btw, my friends have been admiring the hoodie."
Wonderful, glad you enjoy it.
Yo Slurp,
Eh, I see you know your Stallone. Yeah, "Cobra." A good film for the first thirty minutes and just goes waaaaayy down into the abyss from there. Directed by the late, sometimes great, George P.Cosmatos.
All George needed was a quality script like "Tombstone" and he could do wonders.
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