I’m madder than a person with attention deficit disorder trying to figure out what the heck is going on in the movie “Momento” over the fact that I sometimes write whatever comes into my head, and not all those thoughts are cognizant of that fact.
Look, you all know that sometimes fancy filmmakers make movies that leave the viewer connecting the dots, and this week, I’m doing the same with my column.
It’s called “Tornado’s Tail of Two Cities,” and it starts with me in Atlantic City and ends with me in Brooklyn.
I’ll get into the common thread in a minute, but speaking of nursing homes, remember that movie with Olivia de Havilland? You know, that drama I saw on the “Million Dollar Movie” on Channel 9 back in the day that tells the tale of a woman who finds herself in an insane asylum and cannot remember how she got there? Well, that gets me wondering what will happen if this here Obamacare continues on its present path.
And what about “Soylent Green” with Charleston Heston that I saw on the “4:30 Movie” on Channel 7? It’s about Earth in despair in 2022, and I just checked the calendar and that’s just 10 years from now. Well, apparently 10 years from now there will be no natural food like fruits, vegetables, and meats. Earth will be overpopulated, and New York City will have 40 million starving, poverty-stricken people.
The only way they can survive is with water rations and eating a mysterious food called Soylent Green.
So this detective investigates the murder of the president of the Soylent Company. And it turns out he learns a lot more than he bargained for.
Now, I know what you’re thinking: “Carmine, you’re not going to give away the ending to Soylent Green, are you?”
Perish the thought. You’ll just have to get the Betamax tape yourself. But I’ll tell you this: watching that movie makes me hungry.
Now that I have your undivided attention, let me tell you about my Tornado horror story. My lovely wife Sharon and I were away for a couple of days to celebrate her birthday. We stayed at our usual haunt in Atlantic City (you know the place) and when it came time to recharge Tornado I realized I didn’t have all of the necessary equipment. That is to say I had the charger, but not the thingy that lets me connect it to the electricity.
Well, I didn’t want to be without Tornado being well fed, so we scooted to the front desk and spoke to the manager. I asked if I could borrow one of the thingies from one of the electric scooters that they rent for $35 plus tax.
She said that she couldn’t lend it to me, but she would give me a $20 food comp if I rented the whole scooter, which would end up costing me about $20.
Of course, I would have none of it.
I took Tornado to the room where he was safe and tried again the next morning.
The next day, I explained the situation to a different desk manager, showed him the plug I needed, and he looked me straight in the eyes.
“Will you promise to bring it back after you’re through with it?” he asked.
I put up two fingers and said “Scout’s honor.”
He let me have it, and suggested I try the UPS Store on the convention floor where they sell all sorts of things.
Tornado quickly took me there and sure enough, the clerk showed me the part I needed. I returned the loaned plug back to the front desk manager and once again proved to myself that patience is a virtue.
So, I rewarded that front desk manager with about a half dozen pretzels from the boardwalk. The other desk manager? She got buptkis!
So I get home a few days later and decided to look in on my friend in the rehab home, which was 15 minutes away atop Tornado.
So here’s where all parts of this story get connected.
About a block away from home, some people started yelling at me. I stopped, figuring they wanted an autograph.
Well, to my surprise, they didn’t.
Instead, they told me Tornado’s brand new thingy that I just bought was dragging on the floor behind us.
Apparently, I left it connected, and it got jostled loose by the bumpy sidewalks and roads I have to drive on.
Meanwhile, Mayor Bloomberg is so concerned with big glasses of Coke, instead of making our streets ridable. Wake up Mr. Mayor and fix the streets and sidewalks!
Screech at you next week!
Read Carmine every Sunday on BrooklynPaper.com. E-mail him at DiegoVega@aol.com!
