the photo

newyorkmug.jpg

the info

Dan Carlson
Los Angeles, California

I'm a twentysomething white male with ambitions to be a professional film critic and generally spend my days getting paid to watch movies and write about it. I try not to think too hard about how I want to build my life around talking about other people's creations and not mine. A compulsive reader and stubborn cineaste, I take an often contrary stance to my more fundamentalist peers and upbringing by celebrating the pursuit of the good, and the Good, in life, love, art and film. If you watched enough episodes of a few TV shows ("The Hungry and the Hunted," "The Cut Man Cometh," "The Body," "The Zeppo," "Waiting in the Wings," "Out of Gas," "April is the Cruelest Month," "20 Hours in America," "Colonial Day," "An Echolls Family Christmas," and "Look Who's Stalking," for starters), you would understand me completely, and you'd also realize that much of my worldview and philosophical insights are heavily influenced by fictional works/programs, and many of the good things I've said in my life are just a regurgitation of someone else's imaginings. I guess I was made to be a film critic.

Calendar


July 2008
Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat
1 2 3 4 5
6 7 8 9 10 11 12
13 14 15 16 17 18 19
20 21 22 23 24 25 26
27 28 29 30 31

Categories

The Counter

the world

Locations of visitors to this page

Search


the library

The Words

the shots

www.flickr.com
This is a Flickr badge showing public photos from dan_carlson. Make your own badge here.

the city

the politics

The Alumni

« Jump Down, Turn Around, Pick A Bale Of Truth |Main| It's The Size Of Texas, Sir »

May 2, 2006

I Can't Believe This Is How I Spend My Time

By Dan Carlson

Following on the unwanted heels of parts one and two, I expand the list as follows.

The Sigher

You'd think this is the same as The Groaner, but oh, you'd be wrong. The Groaner elicits full-on throaty growling while he urinates, but The Sigher is much more discreet. While standing before the stall, he'll let out a light sigh, just shy of a moan, and it's genuinely unnerving. Tony, the old man in my office, is a constant sigher, and I'm always worried that the next sigh I hear will be a death rattle.

The Scouter

The Scouter is a crafty public pisser, especially when it comes to the office restroom. If he's looking for a stall, and at least one is occupied, he'll bolt and continue searching for a toilet not in use. The urinals are a different matter: If there are walls between the urinals, then The Scouter will usually use one regardless of whether the others are occupied. But if there are no walls, he might deem the proposition too risky.

The Reader

Many men will take a magazine to the stall, but it's another kind of man altogether that takes reading material on a urinal trip. I've seen it done, too. This guy stood there with a Sports Illustrated in one hand while peeing with the other. I like Rick Reilly as much as the next guy, but seriously, nothing's that compelling.

The Horse Whisperer

This guy can't finish the job of urinating without making little passive-aggressive noises in an effort to get his body to stop the flow. It's not uncommon to be stanidng next to him and hear "hut hut" as he's wrapping up.

The Conference Caller

Simple: This is the guy who answers his phone while at the urinal, which we've all done, since there's something inherently satisfying about the multitasking, not to mention the minor challenge of digging your phone out of your pants without letting them fall while maintaining a constant stream and avoiding a mess. The ballsier Conference Caller will actually place calls while in the bathroom, as if the acoustics and space to think are what he really needed to motivate him to do business by phone.

[Many thanks to The Oldest Guy I Know for assistance with the last two items on the list.]

--------

Comments: 0

Post a comment

the post

Questions? Comments? Complaints?

Drop 'em in the mailbag.

homefeed.png

The Lines

The Quotes

"The critic is the only independent source of information. The rest is advertising."
— Pauline Kael

"Film lovers are sick people."
— Francois Truffaut

"I hope I strike a blow for chubby bald men everywhere. I hope they rise like an army."
— Paul Giamatti, quoted in the Los Angeles Times, 12/14/04

"Let others praise ancient times, I am glad I was born in these."
— Ovid

Current Reading

In Rotation















the humor

the screens

the tube

the sounds

The Plugs

Recent Posts

Subscribe to this blog's feed
[What is this?]

Archives

Powered by
Movable Type 3.33

the wisdom

Remembering speechlessly we seek the great forgotten language, the lost lane-end into heaven, a stone, a leaf, an unfound door. Where? When?

O lost, and by the wind grieved, ghost, come back again.
— Look Homeward, Angel, Thomas Wolfe

Conservatives are not necessarily stupid, but most stupid people are conservatives.
— John Stuart Mill

We are all under the same mental calamity; we have all forgotten our names. We have all forgotten what we really are. All that we call common sense and rationality and practicality and positivism only means that for certain dead levels of our life we forget that we have forgotten. All that we call spirit and art and ecstasy only means that for one awful instant we remember that we forget.
— G.K. Chesterton

We were, for the briefest of moments, something greater than the sum of our uncertain parts; we were youth itself, in all its painful glory and sharp joy.
— Me, Fall 2003

There is a time in the lives of most writers when they are vulnerable, when the vivid dreams and ambitions of childhood seem to pale in the harsh sunlight of what we call the real world. In short, there's a time when things can go either way.
— Stephen King

Los Angeles, give me some of you! Los Angeles come to me the way I came to you, my feet over your streets, you pretty town I loved you so much, you sad flower in the sand, you pretty town.
— Ask the Dust, John Fante