Out of the loop

Repeat after me: That woulda been cool. Say it wistfully, even though it doesn't matter, in the scheme of things, is no big deal, is nothing that you had your heart set on or would really wish to happen. Just say it, why not, because life is like that sometimes: that woulda been cool.

'Cause that's what I was saying when I found out that not only did the Hollywood types who commandeered a block or two of town for the day drove right by the end of my street as they moved from one location to the other, not that I would've camped out to catch a glimpse, but that they, and by they I mean Tim Robbins, showed up to play with the house band at a local bar for a couple of hours, and I most definitely would've shown up for that, had I only but known before my dad showed me his town's paper two days later.

I need a wider circle of friends, or at least acquaintances with my number programmed into their cell phones who are likely to be out late on a Wednesday night, you know, just on the off chance some other interesting actor type comes slumming two thousand miles from the coast. If I find out I do know someone who was there, well, that just won't be cool at all.

Once I realized what I'd missed, I went back and read the news stories that would have kept me in the loop if not for a poorly timed and purely accidental local news blackout. The city council seems to have done a fine job anticipating problems both real (traffic, interrupted business) and imagined (confusing Edwardsville, IL with Evansville, IN in the movie credits), and hundreds of people enjoyed a day in the sun seeing what there was to see. And why not? The movies came to town, and how often does that happen? (Technically? Once every twenty-nine years.) And then later, the guy who was both Nuke LaLoosh and the director of Dead Man Walking and Mr. Susan Sarandon played his guitar a couple of miles from my house. I don't know if it woulda been good, but, c'mon, admit it: it woulda been cool.