And she rolls her eyes and gets me my cup of coffee.īefore he ever moved to Gotham City, before he grew into the overweight, obsessive sad sack of his later years, the Penguin was a poet and a dandy who lived in London. I want to tell her I love her, but I don't because it would be too weird. I pull in to Java Joe's to get some chemical help, and there she is behind the drive-up window. I look like a piece of gum in the gutter. I get up at 5:30 and drive to work in the dark. I feel as if there's a black hole in my brain, and slowly but surely, it's swallowing all the memories of my life. I sleep poorly, turning and maybe even groaning in anguish.
At home, at night, I go to sleep, searching for the lost memory.ĭid I meet her down by the river in a canoe, or was it on a ferry in southeastern Alaska, or at the Foreign Correspondents Club in Phnom Penh along the Mekong? She has something to do with water, with life, with mud. I should just walk out into traffic and kill myself. And now I can't even remember who she is. And she was able to give it to me, almost out of the goodness of her heart. It's just that I wanted something, needed something. I was never in love with her, not in that way. I think I may have been in love with her. Maybe she works in the library, or the county recorder's office, or at the newspaper. I'd say something dumb and she'd roll her eyes and get me something I needed, even though she didn't have to. Now I can't even remember how I know her. But I couldn't remember her name, so I just kept going out the door. And I said hello because I thought I recognized her. Who was that woman, that woman I just saw while walking out of the restaurant? She was sitting at a table by the door, glasses, a hat, like Lois Lane. And he just stammered over to me and was like, um, could you take a picture of us? And I'm like, OK, it was really wonderful to meet you. Hurry up.Īnd finally he sort of snaps it. And I'm like, all right, come on, take the picture. And I don't know what to do, so I just lean across, and I kiss her on the cheek. And he's got his camera in his hands and it's down by his chin.Īnd she's very stiff and awkward. And I go up to his girlfriend and I wrap my arms around her.Īnd I'm like, hey, where are you from? Fantastic, you going to see the play? That's great.Īnd the guy is sort of not taking the photograph very quickly. And he sort of comes up to me and he sort of mumbles something about a picture.Īnd I just feel for him. And she's really nervous and sort of clutching her hands. And he's got a camera in his hand.Īnd underneath the marquee is his date, who is in literally a prom dress, and she's got a corsage. He's in a rented tuxedo, unbelievably shy and awkward, and he's got acne. This nervous kid- I don't know, he must have been 16 years old. I was doing great.Īnd then the kid with the camera came along. They all left thinking, that guy's a really great guy.
Yeah, and warm, you know what I mean? I wasn't like one of these distant celebrities. How many will it be? How many will we squeeze in? There is but one way to find out, and that is to stick around. And I have to say, time is wasting if we're going to fit everything in. And so, that's what we're going to do today. Instead of our usual- each week we choose a theme, bring you three or four stories, blah, blah, blah, public radio, very reflective, what kinds of stories would we end up with if we did 30 in one hour? Or even 20? What would it sound like?
And we thought, that would be really fun- 30 stories in 60 minutes? Let's try that. And one of us had just seen one of their shows. And when we first broadcast today's program all the way back in 2003, a bunch of us were sitting around talking about that group.
There's this theater company in Chicago that, for years, put out a new show every single week where they performed 30 plays in 60 minutes, called the Neo-Futurists. From WBEZ Chicago, it's This American Life.
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