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The Will of God, the Will of Rollberg
5/11//05
by Shaw

Not many columns on this website are commissioned; in fact most of them are completely made up on a whim, and nearly all of them are late (except for the 27, KWo, DJ, Clay, and Tardio--they're always on time). But today is different. Today is special. Today's column was destined to be. Today's column was commissioned by God.

As you may remember, just a few months ago we ran a two week behind the scenes exposé on the International Celebrity Ping Pong Tournament. I was assigned to write up an analysis for Peter Lorre, who lost in the first round to Golden Globe winner Teri Hatcher. (Refresh your memory here. I'll wait.) As Clay and I had taken a class together on German Cinema in college where we viewed one of Peter Lorre's first films, I thought this column would just write itself. I would email our former professor, German-born child actor and renowned German and Russian literature and film scholar Peter Rollberg.

Dear Professor Rollberg,

The latest series of columns we have is about an imaginary celebrity ping pong tournament based on pictures we found of some various celebrities playing ping pong. Believe it or not, this is actually funny. As I am in the process of writing an analysis for Peter Lorre before he plays his first imaginary match against Teri Hatcher, I was hoping you might be able to give me your expert opinion on his ping-pong potential. Ironically, after all these years of catching up on old movies, the only movie I have ever seen with Peter Lorre is still M, which I own and have watched once or twice again in the last few years. Your opinion (however serious, informed, or flippant, it may be) would be an extremely valuable footnote to my column.

Shaw (and Clay)

Given his poetic turn of phrase and the dulcet tone of his writing, I assumed that whatever information he gave me would suffice as a column, and I would credit him with the analysis. Unfortunately my deadline came and went with no response from Rollberg, and the column went in without comment from the worldly scholar's voice. Regrettably, Lorre lost the match, probably because of my dull-witted biography and unspectacular assessment of his ping-pong skills.

On this day Mr. Lorre has been resurrected.

As luck would have it, this weekend I was in a hotel room in Orange County, CA, having just come back from a holy pilgrimage to Newport Beach. Just minutes before, I had dug my toes into the same smooth silt that Sandy Cohen's best mornings are made of. I had looked with a mixture of envy and anger, as an outsider from Chino might, at the pretentious bungalow that houses The Arches. I stared wistfully as we drove by Pier Records, where no doubt Seth spends many an afternoon in the hopes of finding a rare import Les Savy Fav single, or a bootleg live recording of Neutral Milk Hotel. And I spotted high schoolers in swimsuits, gathered despite the relative chill in the air, perhaps discussing the evening's gossip with fervor. And yet I returned to my hotel room to find my heart lifted to previously unmatched heights, for there, on my friend's computer attached to the Marriott's $9.95/day wireless service, was a sign from God. Or from Peter Rollberg. I had a new email.

When I saw the return address, I was visibly nervous. My hands were instantly damp. What if I tried to open the email and it got deleted? What if, akin to the Heidenberg Principle, the very act of reading it would irreconcilably alter the data contained therein? What if it was not from Peter Rollberg, but from some unfortunately named spam artist? I did the only thing possible: I called Clay to ask his advice. Of course on this day he could not answer the phone in time to save my fingers from doing the unthinkable. I read the email--and it was better than we could have imagined.

Dear Shaw (and Clay)

Thinking of Peter Lorre, I can very well imagine him playing ping-pong, sweating and commenting absent-mindedly in a heavy Teutonic accent, looking erratically at the window. His chubby physique may even resemble a ping-pong ball to an imaginative cartoonist, although Lorre was a rather morose character and, to my knowledge, never appeared in a kid's movie or gave his voice to animation.

Do keep in touch, gentlemen.

PR

The words went directly to my heart and I knew, much the same as all of you reading now know, that Teri Hatcher was not the rightful winner but the lucky shooter Paris to Lorre's master warrior Achilles.

Okay, so the analysis doesn't actually mention Teri Hatcher, or how well Peter Lorre would play. In fact the description almost seems to suggest that Lorre would be a sluggish and inattentive participant. But the point remains, shouldn't we have had all of the facts before going into this match? If the Imaginary Celebrity Ping Pong Tournament had been not Imaginary but Real, wouldn't you have wanted to know?

Until next year.