I spent today, with my daughter, at San Diego Comic-Con 2016. Finally. My praise to the organization for providing shockingly accessible accessibility services for the temporarily or permanently disabled. Because of corrective eye surgery two days ago, I fit the category for this Con, and hopefully none other. SDCC graciously gave Molly an onsite pass to be my attendant. In introduction, my impaired vision frames an unexpected encounter with Christopher Gorham.
When the surgical procedures are complete, I expect to have as good eyesight as my youth, but without the need for glasses. I wore a pair of dummy ones today, to protect the operated-on right eye (e.g. plastic with no prescription applied to them). Thus, the left eye is a complete blur without a corrective lens. On the right, my vision for things far away is exceptional. But my personal space, out to about a meter, is blurred out; my visual range will normalize sometime after the dilated pupil normalizes. So, yeah, Molly’s assistance is helpful.
Late-day, as we prepared to go to the Riverdale screening, I stopped for coffee at the Mrs. Fields kiosk just inside the Autograph Pavilion, because the Starbucks location with the typically shortest line had closed for the day. I ordered coffee, and received a cup to self-serve from an industrial thermos. But the thing was empty. I stepped back, behind another gent ordering. As I walked up to the counter, he also tried unsuccessfully to get out some brew. We both told the cashier about the same time that thing was empty.
The cashier pushed in another container, and the other guy offered to let me go ahead of him. “You were here first”. The voice sounded familiar. Just lovely—I couldn’t manage the pot, which required a little press here and lift there to uncork the caffeine richness inside. Because I have no near-range vision (my uncorrected eyesight is about 20/400), the task was impossible; and embarrassing. The other customer took charge, uncorked the brew, and stepped aside so I could pour coffee. I looked up, and, damn, he looked familiar. But blurry, I couldn’t be sure and didn’t want to embarrass myself more.
So I said: “You look familiar to me”. “I’m an actor”, and he was who I thought: Christopher Gorham from Covert Affairs. He had the same pleasing, disarming smile and friendly disposition of character Auggie Anderson. Whoa. I should have asked to snap his portrait, but I’m not shooting pics this year, because of my temporarily-impared near-distance eyesight.
Christopher played a blind computer-whiz operative for the CIA. His audio equipment needed to be of exceptional quality. I was most impressed by his headphones, which ear cup housing was wood. I told him, truthfully, that I bought a pair of Grado cans because of him. He perked at this and commented how good they sound, as we walked away from the kiosk. I agreed, remembering not to ignore Molly, and thanked him again. I bought the Grado Labs RS1i as a late-birthday present to myself on July 27, 2010. I replaced them, with the RS1e, in late July 2014. Sometimes, actors are like the roles they play.
On a marginally-related note, the dummy spectacles I wore were not my own frames but a loaner pair from the local LensCrafters. Is Superman for real? Has he taken on new identity as optical tech, who broke my Oliver Peoples frames at the bridge of the nose. WTF? I’ve only had them since May 2015. Condition was excellent. Now they’re in two halves. The store and I must resolve this after the Con closes.
Say, if you were wondering about Riverdale, don’t. Neither I or Molly found the 47-minute pilot to be all that engaging, although the tone and premise fits well with other CW shows. So there might be a future for the series, which brings to real life characters from Archie comic books. The plot was edgy and grownup.
Okay, that’s a wrap. My eyes are killing me. My Ophthalmic surgeon instructed me to use over-the-counter reading glasses while vision normalizes and to train the eyes during the process. But they feel stressed writing this way for so long.
Photo Credit: USA Network