Eleven Years

I'm coming to conclude that every time I watch a documentary, and it seems safe to say that mostly that's all we've been watching lately, I come away fascinated by a single point and watching Fearless Freaks, a movie about the Flaming Lips, was no exception. Don't get me wrong, it was a really good movie, especially if you like the Flaming Lips, which we do, but when I found out that Wayne Coyne, the lead singer, had worked at Long John Silver for eleven of the band's early years, all I could utter periodically was, Eleven years? Or sometimes, Eleven years! Apparently he sort of liked it too, but more than that was that he's this very hardworking guy, and I guess that's what struck me, the lengths some people are willing to go to for their art. Because I do not have eleven years of deep-frying battered fish in me, and I think anyone who does is to be admired. When I worked at McDonald's one summer, I believe it was before my junior year of high school, I "worked fries" for maybe, well, eleven minutes before management (some perky seventeen year old dude) moved me over to the cash register for the duration of my six weeks there.