Thoughtless for the Day

Tonight, Vienna and I will be celebrating the eve of our fourteenth wedding anniversary by watching Rosemary's Baby. [This is, of course, after we watch tonight's episode of House] We do this every year for three reasons: 1) It's a great film. 2) It was on TV the night before our wedding (we spent most of that cleaning our apartment), and 3) It reminds us to never have kids or to trust old people.

In fact, I owe the success of my marriage to a single from Rosemary's Baby: “Because it wouldn't be fair to Sapirstein."

Throughout the film, Rosemary’s husband, Guy Woodhouse (played by the great John Cassavetes), a Broadway actor, uses his ability to ad lib to get through one close-shave after another. And then, one night after a party, Rosemary demands that she be allowed to see another doctor. Guy knows another doc, even if he's the worst pediatrician in New York, might notice claws and yellow eyes on a baby, but he's used up all of his A-List material by this point:

Guy: Well, I won't let you do it Ro. Rosemary: Why not? Guy: Well, because... because it wouldn't be fair to Sapirstein. Rosemary: Not fair to Sap... - what do you mean? What about what's fair to me?

So, whenever either Vienna or I don't want to do something, but don’t really have a good reason for avoiding the task, we fallback on “The Sapirstein Defense"

Vienna: You should really clean up your office this weekend Me: Gee, I'd love to but it really it wouldn't be fair to Sapirstein; now would it?

Try it sometime.

Belated congratulations to Paul Krugman for winning the 2008 Nobel Prize for Economics. I had the honor of interviewing Mr. Krugman about four years ago when I was a reporter for the Paul Kircher Show. Unfortunately, no audio clips of the show were ever posted, so you'll just have to imagine what we discussed.