Vin Diesal is: Notary Public

I love reading trade journals.  The more random and obscure the industry, the better the journal.  These publications deal with sections of life I often take for granted; things I deal with on a daily basis have whole infrastructures and sub-structures and cultures and climates behind the facade of their public face -- i.e. the thing they do.  The industry I work in has two main trade publications: The Hollywood Reporter and Variety.  These read more like slightly more serious issues of People or Entertainment Weekly than real trade publications.  I usually skim both of them on my daily trip to the bathroom at work.  But most of the time the trades work on such an intimate and detailed in-the-know way, that I don't want that level of familiarity of paper fibers I get from reading Pulp Workers Weekly.  Yet I continue reading nonetheless.

Once on a cross-country flight to Los Angeles I read a whole issue of some notary public trade journal the woman in the row ahead of me was reading.  The man in the seat directly in front of me had suddenly and violently reclined his seat back and I nearly had the wind knocked out of me by my own tray... which was still in it's upright and locked position.  But the man's repositioning caused the crack between his seat and his neighbor's seat to widen and I was afforded a clear view of the aforementioned notary public trade magazine.

The first article I read during this clandestine peep show of nerdly proportions worked on the thesis that "notary publics are on the front line of fraud and identity theft" and are therefore vital cogs in the fight against terrorism.  Another article dealt with the upcoming elections in some kind of nationwide notary public board... wait a second.

Excuse me?

Did that last article just imply notary publics are leading the charge against al-Qaeda?  Let's flip back to that last page a moment.  Oh, no - they're not actually leading the charge.  That would be ridiculous and besides, that's the Marines.  Notary publics are vital cogs, though.  In the machine.  I can certainly imagine a scenario in which, by recognizing a fake passport while publicly noting something (or whatever that industry calls "watching someone sign their name"), a notary public alerts the police and a man is arrested, later to be found as a member of a terrorist group.  Unlikely, though.  

But how about that for an action-adventure film?  The main character is Lewis Spindler, a shy, unassuming notary public.  All he wants is to get these last two signatures down so he can get home to his cat, Rumplestiltskin, and watch reruns of The X-Files on cable.  The last job of the day comes and Lewis notices something fishy about the man's social security card: the number just so happens to be his grandmother's SS# - this grandmother who is suffering from early stages of Altzheimer's and who we met in an earlier, touching-moment-type scene.  In trying to solve the fraud case, Lewis Spindler is led further into a dark and dangerous world of world terrorism and oil monarchies. 

Good thing I live in Los Angeles and producers these days are buying crappy movie ideas.  I have a shot. 

But so here's the point.  An article on terrorism in the notary public trade journal?  Really?  I need to be made scared on every single level of my existence?  Where does it stop?  Are hockey scouts also vital cogs in the fight on terrorism because they spend so much time overseas, and are therefore in positions to do some reconnaissance work?  "While in Parbudice or Omsk, keep your eyes and ears open for the local terrorist network as well as the stud forward with a wicked slapshot."  What is a trade journal if it's not an escape?  Gateways to fantastic worlds I know nothing about?  I want my competative baby foods industry to be a terror-free zone.  How can this be when each and every single one of the trade journals telling its industry members how to combat terrorists.  Do the people at Beech-Nut and Gerber's need this?  I don't.  At least I don't want it.  Unless of course I'm reading CIA Weekly, in which case there better be some incredible articles on the subject.

Next summer, though, Vin Diesal is: LEWIS SPINDLER, NOTARY PUBLIC!!!