Plumb the Brakes

Given all the problems in the world right now, the biggest one, the most pressing one as far as I can tell, is how Hollywood portrays other professions. Those jobs existing comfortably outside the sterile lots of major movie studios aren’t shown in the wholly positive light they deserve. While there’s very little they get wrong, this particular blind spot is extremely glaring. But not the good type of glaring, like the phosphorescent glow emanating from glamour and positivity. And like anything that isn’t truly about you, it’s wise to take it personally.

Have you ever had the pleasure of attending a movie premiere with an outstanding veteran plumber? Good, I thought so. These sterling individuals, taking a break from the job, tired of the grime and the dirt, discover that they can’t turn off what makes them special (how beautiful, really, since they devote their lives to turning things off). Even in the concocted fantasy world of well-paid Californian pretenders, movie plumbing isn’t actual plumbing. It's a fake, a Fugazi. During a pivotal scene where the main characters debate the true borders of the former Yugoslavia in their unrenovated kitchen, your plumber pal is completely taken out of the movie. He can't stand the inauthenticity. One of the actors kneels down for a sink soliloquy, to both plug an incessant leak and encapsulate the complicated career of Joey Broz. 

“That’s not right. You’d never kneel beneath a sink like that. You need an open stance. No plumber worth his salt in soap calls pipes, pipes. It’s just the metal. Always the metal.” 

They just can’t seem to get a simple thing like that right. Now is it possible that no two plumbers are alike and this person’s irritation should by no means lead to industry-wide generalizations? Perhaps. Some plumbers don overalls, while overs prefer rubber tuxedos. That's the exception though. The rule is that they are all the same.

Once you’ve cashed that first check for doing something – you are a professional. And with that, you understand every single person who’s ever done the same thing. You fry a tiny single sausage link on a 24-hour diner’s filthy griddle and you’re immediately invited into the rarefied minds of people like James Beard and Tony Bourdain. Suddenly, you know what makes them tick. You get them on a deep level that a novice could never understand. You've tried to remove bacon grease from cashmere - we haven't.

I’m a writer. And as a writer, I understand, almost by divine intervention, what transpires between the ears of every other writer, living or dead. You ask me, “what do you think Chaucer ate for breakfast.” I’ll say, “you mean, after the grog and the mead and the madeira?” That’s my gift. I have it and you don’t. Unless you’re also a writer. Then you could probably finish my next sentence. 

But I know better.