Chris and Fred flew in from Texas, where they reside. Early in the morning, the four us took a shuttle to Los Angeles Pier. The driver of the shuttle was the slowest I think I’ve ever witnessed. I mean, kudos on being safe, but when your passengers start thinking they’d make better time on foot, you’ve got a problem. Seriously – he made the Peoplemover seem like the Starship Enterprise.

Once at the Pier, we were guided through a bewildering array of checkpoints, gates, lines, forms and again, more checkpoints. To add to the confusion, there were both mandatory forms and photos to be taken, and optional, “fun” photos and forms. The whole ordeal was kind of like being led to the concentration camp at Auschwitz, if, y’know, instead of wanting to exterminate people, the Nazis were obsessed with tricking them into buying family portraits superimposed on commuter mugs.

A couple of days ago I read this story in the paper about a Bosnian couple who are going through divorce proceedings as a direct result of each getting caught cheating on each other --but, here's the twist-- with each other.  It's a scenario that seems almost identical to that portrayed in Rupert Holmes' sappy but engaging 1979 number one pop hit single "Escape (The Pina Colada Song)," in which a guy, bored with his relationship, answers a newspaper personals ad to find that he has a lot in common with this blind date (pina coladas, walks in the rain, and a dislike of yoga and health food, etc.). He finally meets up with this mystery woman only to discover it was in fact his own "old lady" that he thought he had little in common with. This unusual and unlikely situation brings the two formerly drifting lovers back together again and they all live happily ever after. But not so in the recent real life scenario with the couple in Bosnia. The disgruntled pair (Adnan Klaric, 32 and his wife Sana, 27) went online in search of new love. There, under the pseudonyms "Sweetie" and "Prince of Joy" each met some seemingly new soul in whom they could confide and find solace, complaining about how awful their marriages had become. Finally they felt they'd found someone who understands. They each thought they'd found their soulmate. So they arranged to meet up in person. And when they did: Shocker! Each accused the other of being unfaithful and they started divorce proceedings pronto.
    
                                               If you like Piña Coladas
                                               And getting caught in the rain
                                               If you're not into yoga
                                               If you have half a brain
                                               If you'd like making love at midnight
                                               In the dunes on the Cape
                                               Then I'm the love that you've looked for
                                               Write to me and escape.
          
So anyway, this whole story was just so reminiscent of the Rupert Holmes hit (except for the outcome) that I had to go back and track down "Escape," as it was originally simply known, on video. On YouTube there are close to a hundred videos that pop up when you put in a search of "Rupert Holmes Escape The Pina Colada Song)," including the Sims Movie 2 version above and a great many more "visual interpretations," and numerous lip-syncing takes, like the playful one posted by the young courtneySpace and her friend (scoll all the way down). One mime version of the song was done as a college class project for a final test. And of course, there are also numerous cover versions of the thematically timeless song. Interestingly Rupert Holmes himself doesn't have a visual version. He never made a video for the song. It was in the pre MTV/VH1 days, but there is one for the lesser hit "Him" taken from the same 1979 album Partners In Crime (the video clip is from Top Of The Pops, I believe).