No, despite the photo above, it's not Charles Laughton.
Or the character of Quasimodo from "Hunchback of Notre Dame." Or Victor Hugo.
I was unable to get a photo of the January 2011 shithead, but, in my mind, he looks sort of like this. Distorted. Deformed. Ogre-ish.
And I found him on the very first day of the year. At the Aero Theater in Santa Monica. At, of all things, a double feature of the Marx Brothers. "A Day at the Races" and "A Night at the Opera." How bad can that be?
On the screen, sheer nirvana. In the audience? Sheer hell. And that's where I found our month's rat bastard.
The Aero does this every New Year's Day. They run two flicks from the Brothers Marx collection and folks come out by the bushel. It's wonderful to see parents bringing children, many of whom are experiencing Groucho, Chico, and Harpo for the very first time. The laughs and surprises are all new to half the audience and you are gratified one more time that classic movie magic still has some tricks up its sleeve.
They ran "A Day at the Races" first and. when that ended, a short intermission of ten minutes or so is provided for the refilling of soda cups and the emptying of bladders. A conversation in the row behind my right shoulder caught my peripheral hearing.
It was a family. They were discussing restaurant options in the neighborhood. There are several good ones. I figured that plans were being made for the conclusion of the double feature.
And then the father voice disappears.
The second film begins and, about ten minutes in, there is a commotion directly behind me. Dad has returned. His arrival is heralded as he bangs me in the back of my head with a plastic bag as he lumbers to his seat.
And then the chaos begins. He has a plastic sack full of take-out food. So, the restaurant discussion was not about after-movie plans. It was all about what menu they would use to gorge their pie holes during the movie.
Out came plastic containers of entrees. I caught the glimpse of a chicken leg. French fries. All shared between Dad, Mom, and their two chimp-like children. None of this was accomplished without noise. Or the incessant rustling of cellophane. I was not the only one who noticed. Heads turned in four different rows as Dad asked his neanderthal charges whether they needed ketchup.
I said nothing. After all, the famed stateroom scene was coming and even cannibals on the rampage couldn't divert my focus from that.
As the credits ran at the end of the movie, I, however, could not resist. As I handed a coat to my friend from the chair where it had comfortably rested for three hours, I raised my voice ever so slightly.
"Here's your jacket. Provided no one has eaten it."
An emotion from the row behind me stirred.
"You have a problem with something?"
Bingo. I had made a connection. As I put on my garment, I stepped through the conversational opening.
"Yeah, I do. Your movie theater behavior was abhorrent."
Question marks formed all over this asshole's face.
"I don't know what that word means. Adhorrent."
Of course, he wouldn't. His vocabulary range was no higher than that of a truck stop in Mississippi. Tempting fate, I continued.
"The next time you want to have dinner and watch a movie, I suggest you set up snack trays in front of the television."
I was proud at how fluently that came out. Except now he was following me to the lobby. I had poked Papa Bear with a stick.
"You never saw people eat in a movie theater before????"
Popcorn, yes. Gummi Bears, yes. Raisinets, yes. Whole meals? Inappropriate, you Philistine.
He followed me but the retorts on his end were incoherent. I never made direct eye contact, but my friend tells me that he had a loony look about him. Had I crossed the line? I never once feared for my safety. Ultimately, I figured he was too stupid to kill me correctly.
The exchange was really over in about two minutes, but I felt gratified that I had stood up for some level of decorum in this world. After all, this behavior goes on all around us all the time. People for whom no rules apply. Folks who think every chair occupied by their fat asses is simply an extension of their living room.
We see it all the time. On planes. On buses. In movie theaters.
The death of any level of civility in our society. For me, this lout was yet another poster child for the lack of any sort of class in our world.
My uncomfortable moment at the Aero will be no doubt repeated again at some point. Maybe not by me, but some other poor slob who has to endure bad behavior promoted by the person alongside them. And it will go on and on and on. Our personal universes collide and collide.
The beginning of the end. I find it all adhorrent.
Er, I mean abhorrent.
Dinner last night: Rotisserie chicken from the California Chicken Cafe.
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