the list of 9 for august 8, 2005:
NINE "WORST" EXPERIENCES I'VE HAD
I'm happy to say that I'm going through the best time in my life right now, but in the interest ofcontinually coming up with fresh ideas for the List of 9, I bring you these recollections of somelower-quality moments:
- WORST MOVIE SCREENING. While Born on the Fourth ofJuly was not the worst film I've ever seen (that dubious honor goes to the only film I've everwalked out on: some independent French garbage called So That's the Way...), I definitelyhad a horrible time watching it. It was the end of my college winter break in1989, I was back home in San Jose with friends, and for dinner I had some homemade fudge and twocans of Coke. Ah, youth! Born on the Fourth of July had just opened, and thanks to asold-out show, I sat in the third row of the gigantic Century 22 movie theatre. With that fudgeand Coke sloshing around in my stomach, and me in front of a loud, violent movie playing on a hugescreen with a billion edits and a jiggly handheld camera and Tom Cruise screaming for over twohours, I became violently ill. And though the next morning I realized I'd actually come down withthe flu that night, I have never touched a piece of fudge since.
- WORST JOB. In 1996, I was fed up with a nice but boringweb design gig, so I took a job at James Cameron's famed effects company Digital Domain,which had recently opened up an interactive division. Within hours, I learned that my "job" was toclean up the art director's work (I had been a senior designer at my previous employers), thatDigital Domain expected 50 hour workweeks from its employees (while paying them for 40), and thatI - a Mac guy - would be using a PC with Windows 3.1(!) to do my work. Within an hour, I knew Ihad to go. Four days later, I officially quit - and was viciously screamed and cursed at by noless than three of my higher-ups. What a great bunch of people! Years later, said art directormarried a good friend of mine (small world!) and apologized to me for his past behavior. Turns outhe had also hated life at Digital Domain and wound up quitting soon after I did. I'll respect his privacy by not naming him, but the woman in charge was one Andrea Miloro, one of the most wretched people I've ever met.
- WORST VACATION. I could just say "Pretty much every tripI've ever taken with my father," but I'll cite 1982's six-week trip to Norway with him andhis new wife. 23 years later, I've grown fond of his wife, but the 12-year-old me was not at allfond of her, or of the bossy, overbearing creep that my newly married father had become. Now takethat situation and place it in the northernmost part of the globe, in a mosquito-ridden ruralsetting where nobody spoke English and there was only one channel on TV (and that didn't startuntil 6pm), and you can imagine how I spent the summer of '82.
- WORST MEAL. Norway wins again, though this event occurredduring our much happier trip in 1984. My Norwegian grandmother (hence the frequent visits) was afine cook, but Northern Norwegian cuisine - hell, all Norwegian cuisine - often leavessomething to be desired. Still and all, I could deal with salmon and reindeer and loads of boiledpotatoes. But I couldn't deal at all with my grandmother's choice one night to make rose hipsoup (bitter) and blood pudding (actually a sausage - sickly sweet, coal black, andabsolutely nauseating). My poor grandmother felt so bad that I couldn't choke her food down. Notas bad as I felt, though.
- WORST CONCERT. Gotta be Genesis in 1987. I didn'tlike the group much anyway - I dug their Peter Gabriel era, but their Phil Collins-led soft rockoutput was the pits. I still don't know why I went. But it wasn't the concert itself that was thatbad. It was the fact that I desperately had to pee even during the hourlong drive to the OaklandColiseum, and had a nearly bursting bladder during the two hour concert. Why didn't I just use therestrooms at the Coliseum? Because I was seventeen and pee-shy and there was only a metaltrough to urinate into and the men's room was quite literally shoulder-to-shoulder.I would have sneaked into a stall, but they were all in use by women, their own restroomoverbooked. I finally found relief at a nearby Denny's after the show was over.
- WORST DATE. There have been few true bad dates during mypast life as a single man, but the one in February 1999 where my date and I were mugged wasdefinitely a downer. It was only two nights after the glorious premiere of my film ForeignCorrespondents, too. Talk about a humbling experience. (Needless to say, I got no action thatnight.)
- WORST PARTY. Speaking of dates, later that year I dated aformer coworker for about a month and a half. After she rather glibly dumped me, I stupidly boughther "Let's still be friends!" promise and went to a party she held about two weeks later.During the party, she thoroughly ignored me, openly flirting with every guy in the room. What asucker I was. I shared my misery with a guy at the party who I had gone to college with. Two monthslater, he started dating this same woman. They later married.
- WORST WEDDING. No, I was not invited to the wedding ofthis aforementioned couple. Though that would've been rich! But I did go to another coworker'swedding in 2001. She invited all the people from work who I didn't get along with and sat me atthe table with them. Nice! I couldn't bring a date, either, as my girlfriend at the time was inParis. My coworker married a guy who I thought was a bit of a loser as well. And there was a threehour break between wedding and reception where I had nothing to do as it was too far from my housefor me to just go home. I barely spoke to anyone and bolted the second I finished my cake.
- WORST ROOMMATE. This doesn't exactly count as an"experience," per say, as we're talking about a person here. But my college roommate during thefirst half of 1992 was a real doozy. Paranoid, awkward, and with a propensity for shoving wholeraw chicken skins down the sink (overestimating the power of the garbage disposal) and leavingthem there to rot on hot days with the windows shut, he was every apartment dweller's worstnightmare. Did I mention that when he moved out, he stuck me with a $200 phone bill and no way toget in touch with him? I finally tracked him down that summer and his mother had to pay forthe bill. I heard years later that this fellow fell madly in love with a cabaret dancerwithout realizing the dancer was a man in drag, but it's just hearsay...
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