« Previous | Home | Next » December 16, 2004

Be Cool-er
Drive a 66mpg Honda Insight (specs here).

The trailer to Be Cool, the sequel to Elmore Leonard's Get Shorty, just came out, and my little hybrid, the Honda Insight (pictured), is one of the stars of the show. Here's an excerpt from the end of the trailer, with Travolta and Danny DeVito's characters talking outside The Viper Room valet parking:

DeVito: Is that your car?

Travolta: It's the Cadillac Of Hybrids.

(Some outrageously expensive sports car pulls up behind the car)

DeVito: But, what about speed?

Travolta: If you're important...they'll wait.

Similar logic applies to public cell-phoning. If you're truly important, you probably have a battery of assistants and secretaries who keep you from being reached. You are not shouting your business into a cell phone over a lunch tray at The Rose Cafe. Recently, I was in the Rose Cafe, enjoying lunch, when some young guy, probably late 20s, came in and started bellowing show biz lingo into his cell at high decibel. (No, we don't think you're important; we just think you're permanently damaging our hearing.)

This went on for quite some time, and a woman actually got up and moved away from him because he was so loud. Not wanting to have some toxic exchange that might give me indigestion later, but not able to drown out his conversation with the loudest setting on my iTunes, I politely asked him to lower his wheeling and dealing volume. He seemed shocked that I asked, apologized, and went immediately back to his shouting. No need to go into my whole dull exchange with yet another person who must have been an orphan (because if he'd had a mother, she probably would have taught him manners!).

He eventually accused me of "trying!" to listen to his conversation. I replied that I actually would have given anything not to hear it, if that had been humanly possible. Still, the suffering almost became worthwhile when the guy actually defended himself by announcing, "That's Tom Cruise on the other line!" as if I should be ashamed to interrupt his shouting for a little peace and quiet because he's talking to A FAMOUS PERSON!

First of all, I'm sure Tom Cruise would fire any of his minions who announced anything of the kind. Second, I would simply DIE before I, 1. told somebody who I was talking to as if it made me important, or 2. think it made me important in any way, shape or form! Naturally, I practically fell out of my chair laughing when he said that, and others around me looked like they were working pretty hard to stifle some guffaws. I told him that I didn't care if he was talking to the garbage man -- as if my life should stop because Tom Cruise (who most certainly wasn't on the line!) makes movies for a living instead of bagging groceries or selling futons.

Of course, it's always best, in this town, to remember that you never know who you're talking to. If I did think it was Cruise on the line, and if I didn't think even stars deserve some privacy, the guy would have been in some trouble. An old assistant who'd worked at Warner Brothers a while back gave me a printout of the movie star portion of her ex-boss' Rolodex. Perhaps some of the numbers have been changed by now, but I do have Tom Cruise's home number (from the Nicole days), his personal cell, and personal assistants' cell numbers floating around here somewhere. It is just a little tempting to think of picking up the phone and saying, "Yo, Tom, that's some ill-mannered cur you've been doing business with!"

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