Home for the Holidays VISIT OUR BREWTIQUE FOR THE BEER LOVER IN YOUR LIFE THIS WINTER. OPEN DAILY & YEAR-ROUND. CAPEMAYBREWERY.COM FOR MORE INFORMATION. 10AM-10PM l Free Delivery Sunset & Broadway l 609-435-5052 Page 20 EXIT ZERO December 10, 2020 pay all that well, gives me weekly Deadline Anxiety and costs me three/creates new enemies every year. Your friendly neighborhood Exit Zero delivery driver got off to a rollicking start this week by forgetting to click-in the passenger side seatbelt before loading 56 bundles of magazines on the seat. What’s the big deal? Well, the seat thought a very heavy person was sitting there so the seat belt warning chimed about every five minutes. I mean, nobody died, but it was pretty annoying. And now I know precisely how many times it beeps. (eight slow, 40 fast. And now you can hear it, can’t you.) Pulled into Ocean First Bank in Villas to drop a bundle, noticed a sign on the door and got out to read it. Lobby closed until further notice due to Covid-19 precautions. This took all of 12 seconds. Or long enough for an angry old lady to pull in next to me and mutter “learn how to f*cking park” because I was blocking the handicapped spots. The Christmas spirit is really flowing this year, guys. My guy at Donut Connection, whose name I wrote down but lost somewhere because I’m a real journalist, is always in a fantastic mood and always hooks me up with a few donuts when I order my decaf. I can’t eat them, of course, which is psychological torture, but he doesn’t know that and I don’t want to make him feel bad. Plus, I score points with the wife and kids for bringing them donuts and I can’t afford to lose that gravy train. (But, really, thank you, it’s appreciated.) My oldest son Owen is binge-watching Nurse Jackie, which I first opposed as I thought it to be another hospital drama in the vein of ER and Grey’s Anatomy and, while there’s a little of that, it’s so much more. And every episode is about 25 minutes so we can kill a season in an afternoon. (Also, Coop is low-key the best character on that show.) Owen is also bingeing New Girl, which makes me want to smash the TV with a hammer. There’s only so much “adorkable” a man can tolerate. If you told me in 1982 that R.J. MacReady from The Thing (Kurt Russell in one of the very few perfect movies ever made) would become this generation’s Kris Kringle (The Christmas Chronicles on Netflix) I would have told you that sounds... just about right for one of the most underrated actors America has ever produced. I’d list all his stone-cold classics here but I only have so much space. I mean, Tombstone. Dude was in Tombstone. Shut it down. I try to impart upon my youngest on Henry my vast knowledge of Silver Age Philly Sports (late 70s to early 90s), and he digs my stories and odd YouTube clips I unearth of Dr. J or Randall Cunningham. But this modern era, in which there is no loyalty, from neither team nor player, means he has to suffer through watching has favorite team (Oklahoma City Thunder) trade his favorite player (Russell Wesbrook) to a decent team (Houston Rockets) that just traded him to probably the worst team in the league (Washington Wizards). Go team. Lastly this week, I am committed to producing a new work of fiction in 2021. Whether for these pages in serialized form or as a novel, I do not know. But it’ll be… something. The question is; what? An adaptation of my stage play, Sherlock Holmes and the Werewolf of London in the style of Arthur Conan Doyle? My homage to Armistead Maupin’s Tales of the City called, creatively, Tales of the Cape, a nostalgia piece set in 1993? Or a novelization of my previously published short story, The Boat, a WWII-set spy thriller? A smart man picks one. I am not a smart man. So, uh, sorry this week wasn’t so upbeat. I promise next week will be much happier. Like, 10% happier. ’Til next week, don’t get caught in The Undertow.
December 10, 2020 EXIT ZERO Page 21