In 1974, I go to see the new disaster movie Earthquake. The high-budget movie features famous actors and “Sensurround”! This involves specialized bass speakers that create a sound wave that is more felt than heard. The speakers make the theater rumble during the earthquake scenes.

The movie follows the typical disaster movie formula. Part One introduces characters pre-disaster. Part Two shows characters during the disaster. Part Three shows the characters after the disaster.

In the movie, before the big quake, there is a pre-quake, but there is no Sensurround, and I wonder why. (I learn later that Sensurround should have been felt during the pre-quake.)

Everyone in the theater can tell that the earthquake is going to happen very soon. And then… the movie skips from Part One directly to Part Three, leaving out the earthquake part. The entire audience is wondering, “What the f***?”

Three minutes into Part Three, the movie stops and the theater lights come on. The projectionist messed up. Ten minutes later, the movie finally resumes with Part Two. We finally get to feel Sensurround, but the climactic moment in the movie is lost.

After the movie, I get in the long line with all the others wanting a voucher refund ticket. The manager is sitting at a folding card table in the lobby to sign refund vouchers and he is not happy. After ten minutes in line, it is finally my turn. The manager looks at me and says, “So why do you think that you deserve a refund?”

Internally, I just thought, “Whatever the forty people in front of me told you.”

I am showcasing an Apple TV setup to a customer. One of the Apple shows, “For All Mankind,” is playing the trailer. It’s an alternative history show about what might happen if the Russians landed on the moon first and the space race never ended.

Customer: “What’s this bulls***?! We landed on the moon first! Not those d*** commies!”

I explain the premise of the show, which does little to assuage his contempt.

Customer: “Maybe if they taught the truth instead of this ‘woke’ crap, our country wouldn’t be full of so many d*** snowflakes!”

Me: “Yes, sir, nothing more dangerous than alternative facts, right?”

Customer: “That’s right!”

The customer did not buy the Apple TV. Worth it.

My grandfather, who was born in 1915, really liked movies but not anything he thought of as “modern films”. He was also an accomplished and successful chef.

One day, I was watching the second “Indiana Jones” movie at my grandparents’ place and my grandpa came into the living room and asked what I was watching.

Me: “That’s not something you would like. It’s new and also quite violent.”

Grandpa: “Oh, all right, then.”

As he was about to leave, the banquet scene came on. He stopped and started watching. When the eels came out of the snake, he said:

Grandpa: “That’s how we used to serve them.”

He then stayed and watched the rest of the film and rather enjoyed it.

There is one particular actor who, for whatever reason, my brain absolutely refuses to record the name of. I have seen him in at least a dozen movies, in a broad range of roles, and he’s been acting for longer than I’ve been alive. But I simply CANNOT remember his name.

Every time he comes up in conversation, I sigh, rack my brain, and finally resort to imitating a famous scene of his because I CANNOT remember his name.

I don’t think this is too unusual, until one time I start trying to describe a movie to my girlfriend.

Me: “It had this one character, who… D*** it, I can never remember his name, but—”

Girlfriend: “Jack Nicholson.”

Me: “How did you know?!”

Girlfriend: “Because every single time you say that, you always follow it up with, ‘Heeere’s JOHNNY!'”

Me: “We should watch that circus movie starring not-Hugh-Grant.” 

Husband: “You mean The Greatest Showman with Hugh Jackman?” 

Me: *Laughing* “Yes. That’s the one!”

I love it when he knows what I’m talking about.