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I renewed a tradition of long standing on Monday afternoon when I attended, in the company of a few friends, the Mets' home opener at cold, damp, and blustery Shea Stadium. I've been attending opening day at Shea for more than fifteen years, but having been unable to secure tickets the past couple of seasons, I was pleased to again be on hand to help the Mets open their first homestand of 2004.
The Amazin's won handily, which is, of course, a good thing, and I had a fine, if teeth-chattering, time with my pals. But, as I do nearly every year at the home opener, I squirmed a bit at just how out of place I felt.
There were more than fifty-three thousand fans on hand, and if, among the cheering throng, there were more than a dozen I'd want to, say, go to lunch with, I'd be very much surprised.
The crowd comprised mostly large louts -- who knew there resided so many stevedores in the tri-state area? -- who had, apparently, been waiting the better part of a year for the opportunity to a) drink more than their weight in overpriced, watery beer and b) let loose periodically with feral howls, yowls, and wails, few of which, it seemed, were at all related to events on the field of play.
My effete little klatsch, meanwhile, made up of a low-level academic administrator, a magazine editor, a designer of web sites, and an adjunct professor at an upstate university, nibbled on our salted-in-the-shell peanuts and tried not to attract attention.
Okay, okay -- I'm being a little dramatic, but it is odd to attend an event at which one feels so out of place -- and it's not just Mets games that leave me scratching my head over this phenomenon, either.
In 1992, I traveled cross-country for four months, and while passing through Missouri, I detoured off Route 66 to take in a Loretta Lynn show in Branson, Missouri.
Lynn was great, of course, but I felt oddly like an intruder at the show. I surely had little in common, beyond the shared need for food, clothing, and shelter, with those in attendance.
I feel secure in stating categorically that every person of age in that theatre had voted for Ronald Reagan -- not once, but twice -- and that they would each have happily done so a third time, had the Constitution allowed it.
In short, as regards my lifestyle, attitude, and worldview, I felt certain I was a horse of an entirely color than anyone else in the place.
Now, Branson's not so far -- in miles or in outlook -- from my hometown of Oklahoma City, but by 1992, I'd already been an avowed New Yorker for a decade. You can take the boy out of Oklahoma, of course, and it's probably true that you can't take the Oklahoma out of the boy -- but you can surely dilute it more than a little. As such, I kept expecting an usher to approach me and ask me just whom I thought I was kidding before escorting me to the door.
When I started high school, I was already an avid Marx Brothers fan, and by the time I entered college, I'd seen all their films save ROOM SERVICE and LOVE HAPPY. When one of the campus film clubs announced that they'd be screening the former, I was thrilled to get to finally see it.
But I can remember feeling a little embarrassed upon arriving for the screening. The room was filled with a few dozen of what I might have termed at the time dorks and dweebs. I don't imagine they'd been on more than six or seven dates, collectively, in their lifetimes.
Mind you, I'm fully aware that if I somehow avoid dork status myself, it's by the slimmest of margins. Perhaps that's why I was distressed to watch the movie in that particular company -- it brought me face to face with my own true station in life.
Or maybe I'm just a shallow, judgmental snob. I certainly don't like to think myself one, but perhaps it's time I faced facts.
And yet, surely, we all experience this type of disconnect at one time or another, no?
Regular B&Y readers know I'm something of a movie buff, and that my cinematic interests extend beyond the obscure into the arcane. As such, I find myself often at the Film Forum here in New York, a wonderful non-profit theatre that shows independent movies, foreign films, documentaries, and lots of vintage films from the silent era up to the nineteen-seventies.
I've attended enough screenings at the Film Forum to know that there are certain characters likely to be there when old movies are playing -- characters whom I go to great effort to avoid.
I'm not proud to state it this plainly, but these poor souls are among society's oddballs and pariahs. Whether they mutter to themselves incessantly or fall asleep and snore throughout the picture or are a good week past the expiration date of their last shower, the quirks particular to each member of this rogue's gallery are enough to ruin even the most tolerant cineaste's moviegoing experience. So I enter the theatre on such occasions with a watchful eye and remain vigilant until the lights have gone down and the coming attractions have begun. Only then do I allow myself to fully settle in and enjoy the picture.
There's one older gentleman whom I encounter -- and I'm not exaggerating in the slightest -- every single time I attend an old movie at the Film Forum. It doesn't matter if I choose the day's first screening, the last show of the day, or something in between -- if the cinematic bill of fare is in black-and-white, he'll be there. And this has been going on for some years.
Early on, I wondered if perhaps he wasn't a ghost, if the Film Forum wasn't haunted. Or maybe I was losing my grip and in need of psychiatric care. But two or three different companions confirmed on various occasions that they, too, could see him, so I was reassured that I was not, in fact, imagining him.
He tends to fall asleep during the screenings, but he doesn't generally snore, so he wouldn't be problematic, really -- except for his proclivity for changing seats two, three, and even four times before the movie starts (and, often, two or three times after it's underway).
What inspires his peripatetic approach to moviegoing, I couldn't say, but it's enough to have earned him a spot on my list of Film Forum regulars to be avoided.
If the evening's featured film is an acknowledged classic, the crowd is generally diverse enough to allow me to avoid self-doubt, but when I attend those programs of more rarefied interest, bills that seems to attract an inordinate number of the above-described irregulars, I'm left asking, are these my peers? Is this my crowd? Am I indulging in an unhealthy denial by not embracing, or at least acknowledging, my own pariah status?
Am I, in fact, an oddball, a dork, a dweeb?
I also attend events that inspire a converse reaction, movies and musical events and museums that find me feeling right at home -- or perhaps only hoping that I fit in. It might be the latest film by hot young director, a reading by a particular author or a concert by a band that somehow seems to attract those I'd like to consider my kind of people -- intelligent, creative, attractive individuals who don't hold lengthy conversations with themselves in private and are not adverse to soap and shampoo.
I'm reminded of one of my favorite scenes from a Woody Allen movie. It occurs early on in STARDUST MEMORIES and is a scene from a movie within the movie. It's been some years since I've seen the picture, but I'll recount as best I can.
Allen portrays a director (not unlike himself, as usual) who is now striving to make serious films, despite the protests of his studio and fans, who keep reminding him that they prefer his earlier, funny films.
In rushes being screened by (and starring) the director, Allen finds himself aboard a train. As he looks around at his fellow passengers, he notes they are all of a particular type. Neither attractive, happy, nor healthy, these are clearly people who have been beaten down by life.
Distressed, Allen looks across the tracks at another train. This is a luxurious, well-appointed car filled with gorgeous, fashionably dressed people sipping champagne and laughing at what were no doubt brilliantly witty ripostes. One lovely blonde even looks over at Allen and blows him a kiss.
Panicking, Allen is immediately convinced that he's on the wrong train, and he jumps up, looking for a way off the "undesirable" train and onto the "desirable" train. After all, that's where he belongs, surely -- among those elegant, beautiful people! -- not here among these weeping unfortunates.
The "desirable" train begins to pull out of the station, though, before Allen can find his way off the "undesirable" train, and Allen is left behind, amongst a crowd of people with whom he's convinced he doesn't -- and will never -- belong.
Perhaps, then, like Allen's character, it's time I stop kidding myself and learn to accept which train I belong on; maybe I should just look around for the most comfortable seat I can find and enjoy the trip as best I can.
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