Movie night at the Emerson

A while ago (late September) a couple of friends and I made our annual pilgramage to the Emerson Cultural Center in Bozeman for the showing of the first ski movie of the year.

Skiing is a popular activity in the Rocky Mountains, and especially here in Bozeman, home of the Cold Smoke: otherwise known as super light and fluffy powder, the best skiing substance in the world. If we can't ski in powder we like to watch people ski in powder. So the movies are shown to whet our appetite for the upcoming season--oh, and also to make money for the people who made the movie.

They are always very popular and nearly every show sells out. People like to get together for them, cheer the sick lines, groan at the massive crashes, and brag about doing the same tricks. Plus, there's always a raffle for great free stuff, including, sometimes, season passes to Big Sky or Bridger Bowl.

I won't talk too much about the movie, it was good and entertaining. It did start late, which is also a Bozeman tradition. This may sound harsh...but the shows are put on by a bunch of hippies. The same people run the shows every year and the same crap happens every year. It's as if they are doing something to burn away brain cells throughout the year to make them forget about the problems they had at the previous show. Not to mention probably being in a certain state of mind so as to not care about what's going on around them. No, the main thing I wish to go on about is the method of the raffle.

Usually, every one gets a ticket at the front door. They are those rolls of tickets that you've seen at school ice cream socials and other like events. Each tickey has a number on it and a twin ticket. The ticket is given to the patron and the twin is put in a big box with all of the other twins. This big box is then brought to the stage where some lucky soul gets to choose--randomly--a ticket. The number is then read and the person with the corresponding ticket comes up to claim his or her prize. I shouldn't have even had to mention the process--you all know how it works. Everyone knows how it works. Everyone agrees that it is fair and that's what everyone expects to happen.

Not this year. I wish I could have been there. At the brainstorming meeting when the show was being planned. Who were the participants? What state of mind were they in? Were they eating brownies? Do you want to know what brilliant new idea came out of this meeting of the minds? Let me explain.

The MC goes up to the stage and lists off the prizes that are to be given away. He also has a big box (the twin tickets, I'm thinking). He then calls a couple of his buddies up on stage, both clearly under the influence of one substance or another. Instead of announcing a prize and then drawing out a ticket, clearly the crappy, old-fashioned way of doing things, one of them reached into the big box and pulled out a tennis ball. This was the idea. A big box of tennis balls, each with a prize written on it, was to be flung into the audience. Are the problems with this system starting to pop up in your mind?

My friends and I had unfortunately gotten to the show a little late and had some trouble securing excellent seats. We were sitting more towards the back under the balcony (which was closed). The seats proved to be just fine for the viewing of the show. The seats were slightly less optimal for the catching of flung tennis balls.

The problem was the balcony. The ceiling was a mere 10 to 12 feet high. If people stood up in front of us this reduded the opening from the stage to only 5-6 feet. If the people standing in front of us happened to raise their arms the window of opportunity was now diminished to a modest 2-4 feet. But, if these people, who were raising and flailing their arms, were to get up and not just stand on their seats but step up with one foot to their own arm rests and set their other foot on the back rest of the chair in front of them, the aperture would quickly shrink to near microscopic proportions.

That is exactly what happened.

And no, it wasn't only the row in front of us. It was at least 5 rows in front of us. For all I know it could have been the whole theater as I could barely make out the raised stage through the slits of light that punctured the wall of humanity in front of me. What I could make out on stage was a trio of idiots heedlessly chucking the tennis balls marked with prizes in to the crowd and off of the walls. The one saving grace is that they did not announce the prize as they launched each ball. I can only imagine the bedlam that would have ensued with the launch of a bright yellow ball that represented a full season pass to Bridger Bowl.

Needless to say not one ball made it near to our seats. We decided to forgo the $10 after party and each headed home. We felt that we had spent enough time with this crowd.