I'm Queueless (Cigar Smoke 10-25-07)

Well, it’s nice to be back after a week off. Although I’m still trying to recover from the news that Al Gore won the Nobel Peace prize. I’ve witnessed a lot of disgusting things in my life, but that’s right up there. At least ole Al is in good company. Right there with Arafat and Carter and the United Nations. Now, there’s a trifecta of throwing up. I hear next year the Nobel is going to OJ.

OK, I’m getting off my political podium. And jumping on my mundane podium. It’s lower. Something has happened to me that I think may be the only time this has happened to anyone in the history of happenings. I do not have any movies in my Netflix queue. Yes, I am queueless.

First, a little background. Marge and I are pretty big movie fans. We see a lot of movies. Kind of like Britney Spears sees a lot of penises. We go to the show almost every Friday night. Usually, we go to the Pasadena Playhouse and see some art movie and get out and look at each other and say, “Quite meaningful and insightful and ground-breaking -- for a piece of shit movie.”

Then we go next door to Vroman’s and buy an armful of books and then go eat dinner at Coco’s and Marge says, “You know, that wasn’t very good.” And I, being a what, a great conversationalist, say, “Huh.”

Anyway, we see a lot of movies. And not only in the theater. We watch movies on TV. We TiVo movies. We watch DVDs. We even watch VHSs. We search for movies. We find good movies. We find bad movies. We watch all of them. But finally, when we couldn’t even find any acceptable bad movies, I suggested to Marge that we join Netflix. And Marge said, “What is Netflix?” And I said, “I don’t know, but it did win the Nobel Peace prize, so it must be good.”

Netflix, in case you’ve been living on Jupiter or in Barbara Boxer’s head for the past decade, is an online movie service that has, maybe, four billion movies in its database. They have movies classified by drama and comedy and romance and crime and action and sci-fi and horror and childrens (very similar to horror) and gay and lesbian and thrillers and something called blu-ray. I’m afraid to even look at what’s in the blu-ray section. Maybe it’s a movie about a guy named Ray who painted himself a color he couldn’t spell correctly. I don’t know. I don’t care.

And if that’s not enough choice, you can search in special categories like New Releases and Netflix Top 100, and Critics’ Picks and Award Winners. And believe me, I have looked. And we have found some good flicks. A lot of them. We have enjoyed our home movie experience. All in all, Netflix has been a pretty good deal. And I just love to get and send back movies in the mail. Really. Their system is slick. I love it.

You have all the movies you want in what they call an online queue. I call it a cue. Anyway, they send you two movies in two little cool envelopes and you open the envelope and take out your disk and then after your movie enjoyment is over and you’re wiping away your tears of pleasurable movie-going experience you return it in the same envelope and you don’t even have to put a stamp on it. And then they send you two more movies from your queue automatically. Wow! I think this idea will work. Send me money and we’ll start a business. Send me as much money as you can. Your kid can wait until next year for that operation. We have to act fast. I’ll be the idea man, you can take care of the details.

OK, the background is over. Now, for the nowground. (By the way, my spellchecker actually makes little beeping whimpering noises when I write a sentence like that last one. Ah, damn spellcheckers. Spyllchek this!) So I get this email message from Netflix central command headquarters the other day and it says, and I am not kidding here, “You do not have any movies in your queue!” Yes, with the exclamation point. These Netflix guys I can only assume are both incredulous and pissed. What right thinking American moviegoer would have an empty queue? What non-commie flick-appreciating person would do something like this? It is inconceivable. To them. And, I guess, to me.

I really felt kind of guilty. I was paying for something I wasn’t using. And with all their movie-choosing aids, I had failed them. I couldn’t even stoop to the lowest movie-deciding level possible and pick a documentary. Not even a fitness video. I could not find a movie to put in my queue. I was, indeed, queueless. Who knows, maybe at some point I would have had to send back fake empty envelopes, weighted with cardboard, to keep their system going.

I didn’t want it to come to that, so I asked Marge, “Say Honey Bunny Poo Poo Face, which movie would you like me to get from Netflix: Hot Fuzz, The Astronaut Farmer, or Freddie’s Dead: The Final Nightmare.” She said, “How about if you get They Shoot Husbands Don’t They?” I laughed to myself a laugh of the queueless, “Uh, don’t you mean horses?” Honey Poo Poo never answered that. She probably has a hearing problem.

Well, I don’t think I’ll always be queueless. I know there will be new movies made. And I know that I may have missed a few good movies. And I’m sure now that my queuelessness is outted, I’ll receive some good movie tips from you queued-in people, and I just remembered that I forgot to look for 300. How bad can a movie with 300 Greeks throwing scum-suckers off cliffs and sweaty stallions and wenches (sweaty or not) and a lot of screaming and swearing and quaffing of ale be?

I may be queueless but I’m not quaffless.