One of my favorite moments in the history of "The Simpsons" is the following exchange:
Lisa: Cheer up, Dad. Did you know the Chinese use the same word for "crisis" as they do for "opportunity"?
Homer: Yes! Crisitunity!
Well, I've found myself with a bit of a telecommutitunity. Due to a series of developments at work, I've been able to engineer it so that I can telecommute starting today. I was actually going to wait to start until after we move in eight days, but I realized that I could take some of the strain off my dear wife by starting in sooner.
Will working from home help me in building my radio empire? In the words of the police officer in the Bugs Bunny cartoon where Bugs is being held captive by Rocky and Mugsy, "It might, rabbit, it might." I'm not saying that I would take time away from my regular job while I was being paid in order to work on scripts, but I'm not exactly not saying that either. And Federal law does mandate two breaks a day.
I think that not having to commute uphill both ways will help in that I will have more free time and will be less frazzled day-in and day-out. Commuting in Atlanta has become the thing of legend, and I figure that I'm legendary enough without having fight my way from one side of the city to the other twice a day.
I think I'm going to have my proposal ready for XM Satellite radio by the time we move. The new apartment feels propitious. And I'm ready to move on to the next adventure. Having my office at home is the first step.
10 comments:
Man oh man, am I jealous! I also thought it was great that you took the virtual high road and made no mention of the fact that you'll likely be composing in scanty and/or non-professional apparel. We would prefer to picture you at work in a silk smoking jacket with ascot.
Ascot Tannitch
Yes, yes, the silk smoking jacket with ascot, jodphurs and pith helmet, they'll all be in the rotation. And fez and burnoose, of course.
Bumm Breaumel
Well, Robert, you'll notice that I never mentioned pants in my earlier post. And that Bugs cartoon is in my top five, maybe top three. Not quite the bullfight, but close.
I believe the segment in which Bugs gives the monster a manicure and sets its hair with dynamite begins with Bugs saying, "So, anyway...."
I also believe that the three we've mentioned, as well as "The Rabbit of Seville," were all directed by Chuck Jones. Funny and humane. Great combination.
These cartoons are part of a secular body of knowledge that I like to call, "The Sources of All Wisdom." They are all pop culture artifacts that transcend pop culture and become works of art, such as "Citizen Kane," "The Wizard of Oz," "A Hard Days Night," the first five or six seasons of "The Simpsons," and any number of Warner Brothers cartoons from the '30s, '40s, and '50s. Oh, yeah, and "Casablanca."
These are artifacts that changed my consciousness, changed my way of perceiving the world, and lines and moments from them course through my interaction with everyday life. Just last night, I quoted Captain Renault: "I'd like to think you killed a man. It's the romantic in me."
There's really nothing quite like a good movie. Not these days, anyway.
There are so many members of this club that it would take someone of astonishing energy or neurosis to catalogue them all. And everybody's list is different, which is part of the wonder and part of the way to get to know someone.
When it comes to movies, I didn't even begin to start my list, a list that begins with Chaplin and Keaton and goes through to something that hasn't been made yet. And I skipped over the first seven Marx Brothers pictures!
And music! You're so right. It starts sometime in the misty mist of the past and includes Bach and Mozart and "that crowd" (in Tom Lehrer's phrase) and the incomparable Louis and Bix and the Duke and Benny right up through Mr ZimmerDylman and beyond. And The Beatles, for me, of course. And Paul Simon. When I listen to his song, "The River," and hear the lyrics, "Hard times, I'm used to them./ The speeding planet burns, I used to that./ My life's so common it disappears," tears well up in my eyes.
Pop Art, interestingly, doesn't move me at all, but don't get me started on Rembrandt and van Gogh and Renoir.
Of course, you're right. This is a conversation that's older than Homer (the Greek, not Simpson) and one that will continue in unexpected places in the future. I find it interesting that people will, with some regularity, kill in honor of their religion, but never, to my knowledge, has a group of people decided to kill in honor of their favorite artist or movement.
Here's to that which transcends the pairs of opposites! Cheers!
Oh, yeah. And The Firesign Theatre, who have given me so much, from "Please state your question, please," on Bozos to "Corn cousins forking in the wheat fields" on Boom Dot Bust.
While no deaths were involved, I think I did once shove a kid who loudly and persistently presssed the point that Paul Revere and the Raiders were better than The Kinks.
Stan Dardeeduction
Stan, I may have been that kid. However, I was a callow youth who was blinded by the sight of grown men wearing silly uniforms. And you have to admit, "Cherokee People" was a pretty significant little ditty.
I. Leica Bluecoat
In hindsight, the Raiders were darned good and everytime I hear "Kicks," I snack crow. Now I must be off to my secret conclave.
Hyman Daway
I hyperventilated to the first Ten Years After album while wearing a motorcycle helmet and spinning around in a chair.
-Dizzy Gilltipsy
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