2013 Road Trip Day 9: Circle Of Life

I know I've used enough cheap metaphors for one lifetime on this Homeric odyssey already, but the "Circle Of Life" definitely fits. We went to see The Lion King on Broadway today.

My daughter said it was "better than the movie." My son said he didn't like it, but was riveted throughout. As for me, I thought it had great Broadway production value, choreography, and puppetry. But the play was 2 1/2 hours, whereas the movie (I checked IMDB) clocked in at 1:29. That's just too long, fully one-half of a 5-Hour Energy.

But something Simba said late in the show struck me:

"How can I go back? I'm not who I used to be."

There are too many connections for me while having my kids with me in New York City. I lived here from 1996-2002, but it seems like a lifetime ago. The sights of smoke billowing from a manhole, the smells of a pretzel stand, the taste of a slice of pizza, the agony of a stagnant and overheated subway stand - they all tap into whatever part of the brain that links to memory. The kids don't have those memories and will likely never know them. This part is my journey alone.

So I went AWOL for a couple of hours to the old Upper West Side before meeting a friend for dinner. And at 96th & Amsterdam, it was still there.

The Dive Bar was getting a facelift on the exterior but it was pretty much the same on the interior. It's really anything but a "dive" with whiskey and beer selections that can be sampled for weeks.

The Yankees were playing the Red Sox and it brought back a flood of more memories - how many baseball games did I watch there? There was also a legendary high-stakes Super Bowl pool, and I watched several of the big games there. But more than that, it was my spot around the corner. A place to meet friends or kick back after work or just think.

There hasn't been a place like this for me in Omaha or Kalamazoo or Savannah, but of course life is different now with new responsibilities. But every once in a while you can sit on a barstool and relive the past in your thoughts, and come back to the same point in your circle.

Postcards From The Edge (Of The World)

It should be noted that while South Dakota boasts Mount Rushmore, none of the presidents pictured are actually from there. And it would be hard to imagine they ever visited since statehood was achieved in 1889, part of America's manifest destiny.

This is my fourth straight year making the expedition to SD, always in early March, and it's always been cold and most often bleak though there were some periods of sunshine on this trip.

This time I thought I'd be smart and instead of taking 3 flights from Savannah to Sioux Falls, I took only a mere connection to Omaha to spend Sunday night at some familiar haunts down in the Old Market.

But I naturally flew into Omaha during the worst snowstorm of the season. It was one of the bumpier and more disconcerting flights in recent memory, but we made it.

Most of my old watering holes had already closed up shop when I plowed the GMC Terrain rental downtown at 11 PM. I found myself parallel parking through 6 inches of snow outside Old Chicago. Just like old times!

I walked in and there were about 50 people inside, it was fully staffed, and the kitchen was still open for another 90 minutes. The prevailing attitude was "Storm? Is this all of it?" I got my sandwich to go and was able to check in to my hotel ahead of the re-air of a great Walking Dead episode. Rick's sitdown with The Governor was classic television.

I woke up and predictably the Omaha street clearers had been out in force pre-dawn, and the mounds of snow had been pushed aside.

I went to the place where I got my coffee most every day between 2002 and 2004, the 13th Street Coffee And Tea Company. The same young woman was still working there. She remembered me but not my order.

In fact not much has changed in the upper midwest in the last 10 years. There's better coffee now, especially on the lonely highway truck stops between Omaha and Sioux Falls on desolate I-29.

The drive wasn't too bad, but it was pretty slushy. I almost went to get the rental car washed. But I arrived undramatically at my destination, and got something out of the trunk.

RIP: Family Roadster 2004-2013

You served me and my offspring well, Nissan Murano. It's too bad that lady ran a Stop sign and put you into that nice woman's front steps on Anderson & Paulsen. It's a good thing you were a safe car and took one for the team. It's also a good thing that the valuable cargo had already been dropped at school.

Thank you Nissan Murano for being the first car in the world of my firstborn, and for moving the family safely from Omaha to Kalamazoo to Savannah. Thanks for lugging me and two exhausted children through 14 states in 16 days on the epic summer road trip of 2010.

I don't believe that things happen for a reason, but there's a reason things happen. It was about time for some new wheels and you can't get too sentimental about machinery, unless you're Neil Young. So Long May You Run Nissan Murano, somewhere in automobile heaven. Your 130,000 miles were not wasted.

In case you're wondering, Backtime's Executive Editor walked away from the crash. I was banged up, but unbroken, and a little out of sorts to remember to take pictures of the actual scene. There will be much, much more on a day in the life of a crash test dummy, coming soon.

Alan Arkin: American Treasure

In Argo, a movie about life-or-death hostage exfiltration from Tehran in 1979, Alan Arkin steals every scene he's in as Hollywood producer and bullshit laureate Lester Siegel.

It was a perfect comic relief performance in a tense thriller. After one-lining everyone and delivering the mantra, "Argo fuck yourself," it's a likely Best Supporting Actor award for the 78-year old Arkin, to put on his shelf next to the one from 2006 for Little Miss Sunshine. 

My affection for Arkin is a little more personal. Less than a month after my move from New York to Omaha in 2002, I was toying with making changes in my chosen career of TV production. As if trading in a "212" for a "402" and an entry into co-habitation and future marriage wasn't enough. Arkin came in for a spring weekend and did a full two-day actor's workshop in downtown Omaha.

It was basic stuff about being the character and not just acting like one, getting inside the mind of the car wash operator and the cat burglar. I was motivated and inspired, and I think I was pretty good. There were about 20 of us in the group and it was a great time. But it was like a spring training fantasy camp: you really get into it, but when time runs out and your carriage turns into a pumpkin, you move on and never follow through.

There are 102 titles listed on the Alan Arkin page at IMDB, and though he's achieved massive successes in his 70s, I was just as big a fan before I ever met the man. His bit roles in So I Married An Axe Murderer, The Jerky Boys, and Grosse Pointe Blank were just as memorable to me.

But one movie stands out above all else, The In-Laws, one of the best buddy movies of all-time with Arkin as nebbish dentist Sheldon "Shelly" Kornpett, alongside unhinged CIA agent Vince Ricardo (Peter Falk).  

Their 48-hour adventure takes them on a covert mission into the palace of a Central American dictator and in front of a firing squad. But they escape with an unconventional treasure, and make a grand entrance into their kids' wedding by chopper.

In a word, Serpentine: Changing direction, retracing steps, reinventing yourself. It's Backtime's lofty mission. Thanks for your great work Alan Arkin.