Housekeeping first: My last recap of Third Watch is online. The show is going on, but MightyBigTV.com is cancelling the recaps because not a lot of people are reading them, the forums are a graveyard and the show just doesn't seem to fit with what the gazillions of readers of that site are looking to read.

That's good because I was really getting burned out on that show. Wing has promised to get me moving on something else soon, and it couldn't be better timing: Our Latino Comedy Project show, "The LCP Sells Out," which opens this Thursday night, is taking up lots of my time, so finding time to recap new episodes this month was going to be really difficult anyway.

Plus there's management training again this week. I don't know how I keep getting mixed up in these programs, but this one is actually pretty good. In fact, I'll tell you more about it in a little bit...

 

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"Have you seen this movie? No? Because if I had any short-term memory, I'd probably be able to tell you that it kicks ass.."

Saturday night, I saw Memento.

This is a movie that, like The Usual Suspects, is capable of blowing your mind as if it were a birthday candle. The film stars Guy Pearce from L.A. Confidential, and is about a man who is trying to find the guy who raped and murdered his wife in their own home.

Twist #1: He was injured in the attack and cannot create new memories. He has no short-term memory, so in order to function, he has to write down everything as it happens. Eventually he tattoos bits of information and clues about the murder all over his body.

Twist #2: The entire movie is told backward. The first scene in the movie is the last thing that happens in the story and each scene begins as the ending of another scene shown later.

It's clever as can be and keeps you thinking for days after. You're piecing it together chronologically and wondering if it still makes sense (as best as I can figure, it does). Add to that some great acting, and you've got the makings of a cult classic.

Warning: Don't go to the Web site for this movie until AFTER you've seen the movie. Otherwise it'll ruin a major plot point. Seriously. See the movie, then visit the site. I won't even link to it until you've all gone out and checked it out.

The movie is also inspiring. It makes you think about narrative structure and how it can be played with to confound the audience.

In fact, I was so impressed, that I went back to thinking about my week and wondered what it would look like backward...

 

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Management Training

 

"It's in the little nook over there," Cassandra said. "Over by the front desk."

I wandered that way, but it seemed as if the entire first floor of the hotel was made up of nothing but nooks. There was a wooden nook here. A wallpapered nook on the right. A nook with sets of phones up ahead. A very long, office-y nook was nestled behind the front desk. Where exactly was this nook?

The ATM turned out to be a sad, pathetic little swipe machine that took about four minutes to dispense the money. I took the cash and my receipt, walked out into the warm gloom of a cloudy Austin day. In my car, I rolled to the gate and paid the attendant. $7. And they don't even include a car wash with that.

He handed me my change and a receipt. I looked at the coins. They were etched with symbols I didn't recognize. "Just in case," the attendant said. He wore dark sunglasses and flashed a smile like a broken pencil.

"Just in case?"

"Management training, right? For the big thing coming. Just in case the other guys win. Doesn't hurt to carry the currency, yeah?"

I nodded slowly, but didn't ask any more questions. This wasn't the time.

"Stupid, damn management training," I thought, rolling the unfamiliar coins into my pants pocket. "How dare they refuse to validate parking."

It was late afternoon.

The drive home was short, and no wars broke out on the way.

 

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The last hour turned out to be the toughest.

Folks were restless. Everybody kept checking their cell phones, responding to errant pagers. Some of them were obviously upset to be there. They just wanted to jump in, do their work and not be bothered with training and learning how to be better managers.

They wanted to be part of the front lines; to tangle and to command. They weren't interested in the finer points of learning about their own authority.

It was tough sitting there all day, talking about strategy. And then there was the instructors scar, which some people (including me) found ourselves staring at. "Old war wound," she joked early on, but no one laughed.

During that last hour, heads were lowered to table-level. We filled out workbook after workbook, until our hands were numb and our eyelids too heavy to keep elevated.

When she finally finished her closing comments, we all sat at attention, beginning to pack our things. "Be careful out there," she said, and I couldn't tell if she knew she was referencing Hill Street Blues. "You have your action plans. Now put them into place." I watched her scar and tried not to think about the future.

On the way out, I looked in my wallet for money. I knew I'd have to pay for parking, but I was completely out of cash. I saw Cassandra, a co-worker, and asked her if she knew where there was an ATM.

"It's in the little nook over there," Cassandra said. "Over by the front desk."

I wandered that way, but it seemed as if the entire first floor of the hotel was made up of nothing but nooks. There was a wooden nook here. A wallpapered nook on the right. A nook with sets of phones up ahead. A very long, office-y nook was nestled behind the front desk. Where exactly was this nook?

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"No. No! No!" I didn't care that nobody could hear me scream. It just felt good to shout at something, anything for the injustice of having to wake up when I'd had so little sleep.

The alarm clock looked back at me, but it didn't even blink. It held the time accurately, unmindful of my annoyance. It was 7:30 a.m., far too early. The meager gloomy outside light hit me through the half-open blinds and I willed myself up. The training was to start at 8:30. Honestly, who functions well that early? I knew this was important. I'd been thinking about it all weekend. But would it have hurt anybody to have set more reasonable hours for this thing?

Visine allergy eye drops. Menthadent. Toothbrush. Brush, brush, brush. Check e-mail. Multivitamin. Orange juice. Allegra. Water, towel, hair dryer. Iron a shirt. Put on some pants. E-mail again.

And then it was almost 8:30 and I was late. I hurled my car onto Congress Street, but the street was packed. Obviously there'd been an accident on one of the highways and somebody was using my 'hood as a bypass street. And the rain wasn't helping either.

I made it five minutes late, grabbed coffee and some banana bread, and made it into the session. Some people I recognized, others I didn't. The instructor was a woman with blue skin and a huge scar across her neck. I didn't know if she was from here or from a distance place.

She was holding a gun. She held it up for us.

"This is a Trent 432D plasma pistol," she began. "Today, you'll learn how to keep track of weapons like this as well as how to manage inventories and how to delegate leadership responsibilities in the heat of battle."

The gun had us all at attention, but it didn't last. By the time we'd trudged through "Principles of Effective Management," "Inventories and Budgets" and other annoyingly obtuse coursework, the enthusiasm for implements of destruction had already faded.

We were, amazingly, already bored.

The last hour turned out to be the toughest.

Folks were restless. Everybody kept checking their cell phones, responding to errant pagers. Some of them were obviously upset to be there. They just wanted to jump in, do their work and not be bothered with training and learning how to be better managers.

They wanted to be part of the front lines; to tangle and to command. They weren't interested in the finer points of learning about their own authority.

 

More backward storytelling ==>