Bandwidth

We had a volunteer this week.  Some broad contacted Johnny about being my date, which naturally aroused suspicion, considering that no woman has ever expressed any interest in going on a date with me.  Johnny did some digging and we found the angle – she works for one of our shitbag rival pod cast sites and was going undercover to get some dirt on our operation.  We don’t fuck around here at Bandwidth though, so we took this as high as it goes.  Above Paul even.  We took this to Will, and Will authorised the hit.

We had to do this thing right though, so when I got the call on Saturday I was ready for it.  ‘Hey Ian I’ve got Lisa here – she’s the first girl ever to volunteer to be your date for the week,’ said Johnny.
‘Does she have big cans?’
‘Um, Ian…’
‘Come on man, what are they like?  Big?  Just say yes or no, she won’t even know what your talking about.’
‘Ian you should…’
‘Jesus Johnny it’s a simple question.  Are they fun bags or soggy rags?’
‘You’re on speakerphone Ian.’  I paused for a second to let this sink in.
‘Hey lady – if you look down can you see your feet?’
‘Um, yes,’ she said.
‘Not interested,’ I said, and slammed the phone down.  Johnny took some time to assure her I was joking, and also to recommend a push-up bra for the night of our date.  No normal broad would listen to that sort of shit and still want to go for a drink with me.  She was definitely a rat.

Under the pretence of a shitty gimmick, Johnny arranged for us to have a few drinks and then go to the late showing of Paranormal Activity.  I got to the bar early and as well as having a few stiff drinks, I ducked into a cubicle in the toilets and made the final preparations.  She showed up just as I was finishing my fourth whiskey.  ‘Hey – you look really nice,’ I said, ‘can I get you a drink?’
‘Yes please.  Vodka diet coke,’ she said, obviously surprised by my friendliness.
‘Sorry about the other day.  My blood sugar was playing up.’
‘Oh that’s ok,’ she said.  Man she was playing it cool.
‘You’re breasts are lovely by the way,’ I said, and smiled at the awkward, slightly scared look in her eyes.

Strangely, she was really quite nice to me.  She did her best to get me talking about Bandwidth and when that didn’t work she just tried to drag the small talk out of me, which wasn’t easy since I like small talk about as much as I like clothes shopping.  Then she started talking about the clothes shopping she did that day.  ‘I got these pretty new shoes,’ she said, showing me her feet.
‘Yeah,’ I said, ‘Purple.’  I’m very observant.
‘Well, plum,’ she giggled.  Plums are fucking purple you double crossing bitch!
‘My mistake,’ I smiled, and pounded back my whiskey.  Luckily it was time for the movie; I was growing impatient.

To me, hype is like the faint bad smell that alerts you that you have stepped in something warm and soft and disgusting and just not realised.  It’s like a precursor of something terrible.  But not always.  As with everything in life, there are exceptions and sometimes, the hype is well earned.  See, I have always maintained that ghosts are not scary.  I mean Jason will machete your fucking skull open but what’s a ghost going to do?  But then, Jason was never very scary either so maybe my logic was flawed.  Actually after seeing this movie I can say conclusively – my logic was fucked.  The film starts very innocuously in the same vein as (dare I make the comparison!?) The Blair Witch Project, shot as a ‘home movie’.  It’s incredibly economical, which is something I love to see in a film and has become all too rare these days.  It’s also very, very clever.  The recurring night vision shot of the darkened bedroom/hallway is one of the best uses of onscreen space and lighting that I have ever seen.  To put this in the context of a horror movie: it’s really fucking creepy.  On top of that, every other aspect of the film, from performance and pacing to special effects and the use of sound, is so close to perfect that I won’t even spend time making a distinction.  And let me tell you, when I go to see a horror movie and end up talking about the use of sound rather than the leading actress’s rack (which is magnificent, by the way) you know I’m talking about something special.  This movie changed my mind about the paranormal.  It is scary.  I don’t know why, but it is.  And you realise this about 10 minutes before the end of the movie when you get a cramp in your ass from clenching so hard; your body’s instinctual reaction when it realises your ass cheeks will be the last line of defence should your bowel just up and throw in the towel.  [Editor’s Note: Did you mean to rhyme bowel with towel?]  The night I saw this movie I woke up at 4am needing to pee.  When I went to the bathroom, I turned on the light.

After the movie I suggested that we go back to the bar for one last drink, and she agreed.  She even offered to pay.  Just as she was sitting down I excused myself and went to the toilets.  I stretched up over the vomit splashed toilet and reached around behind the cistern.  The weapon was still there.  I looked at it in my hands and contemplated what I was about to do.  Then some drunk bastard banged on the door.  ‘You nearly done in there man?  I gotta puke again,’ he said. I steeled myself and walked back to the bar.  I came at her from behind, and stuffed the huge cream pie in her face.  ‘Take that you bitch!’ I yelled as she went down, spluttering cream all over people at the next table.  Seeing this, the bartender grabbed his double filled pies from under the bar and started throwing them at me.  I ducked and ran for the door as they splatted against the wall behind me.  Johnny was waiting for me in the car outside.  I jumped in and we made a clean getaway.

Don’t fuck with Bandwidth, holmes.

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