Thursday, January 29, 2009
Raymond Unbound
Yesterday I read an Everybody Loves Raymond called "The Neighbors". Usually when I read a script for a show I've watched a lot, like Seinfeld, I'm struck by how the show on the page feels a little flatter than it does on TV. The actors are so good they can take a simple line that isn't itself a joke and make it hilarious. But when I read "The Neighbors", I swear, it felt like the most depressing, Eugene O'Neill/Tennessee Williams tragedy you've ever read.
Here's what happens in the episode:
ACT I
Raymond's parents are being overbearing inconsiderate assholes, as usual. (This time, his Dad set up a floodlight that's shining through Raymond's bedroom window). Raymond refuses to do anything about this, no matter that his wife and neighbors demand he take action OR that he's clearly miserable himself. And when his parents discover Raymond, his wife, and the neighbors talking about them, they accuse Raymond of BETRAYING THE FAMILY and shun him.
ACT II
Raymond is a wreck. He goes to a priest to confess his "sin", and the priest, in disbelief, tells Raymond he's completely in the right and that his parents are nuts. Raymond decides to confront his parents once and for all, make them pay for the years of emotional abuse. And the moment he enters their house, he collapses in a heap of sad dependency, apologizing profusely. They accept. And that night, the floodlight still beaming through the window, Raymond is fast asleep. Debra is not.
I mean, I remember feeling Everybody Loves Raymond was fucked up when it was on, but come on, HOW DID MILLIONS OF PEOPLE LAUGH AT THIS?!
Now I want to stage "The Neighbors", completely dramatically. It would play just like Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf if you do it right. Its title will be Danger and Anger, which I have stolen from Don DeLillo.
Also, here's the episode's tag:
Brad Garrett visits the priest later and asks whether it's normal to have murder-fantasies about your parents, specifically ones involving cannibalism. Roll credits!
Nicknames
I didn't see that everyone used their real names before I signed up for this blog as Sour Lozenge. Name selection has cost me a lot of respect and happiness over the course of my life/mess.
During the college application process, I would lay on my floor and sweat whenever I had to tell the school my email address was "Fire Crutches". Not one person thought it was interesting or clever. I've only spoken to two people in my life that have red hair so I thought it would be cool and funny. Little did I know that it would be a massive failure. Shut up, I don't want to talk about it.
A funny trivia fact about me is that I attended college. Why? You very well might wonder that. If you come over to my ranch, we can wonder about that together.
Let us continue sledding down the mountain of pain that is odd name choices. In my school days, I always was delighted whenever a teacher would tell us: let me know if you have a nickname you'd like to go by. How foolish of them.
To this day I will still react if someone calls out these names:
Charlemagne / Moses / Afinogenov / Bouwmeester / Julie / Lenny / Antiikanen
This desire to create a new persona in the presence of others is a disgusting, self-aggrandizing, and infectious exhibit of fear. Fear of what? Being complacent with reality. You mean fantasy is not good? It's ok in small doses.
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
I'm back, I'm back
[I walk up to the counter with my swagger and approach a woman I know is the owner]
Me: I'll have a small iced coffee, please.
Owner: OK...$2.55
Me [hands over money]: Here ya go. Also, are you looking for any help?
Owner: I'm sorry?
Me: Help, like, someone to work here.
Owner: Right. Not really.
[Hands me coffee]
Owner: I mean, because we mostly hire college students, and I won't know until I know their schedules.
Me: Oh, no problem.
Owner: It'll be several weeks.
[five-second pause]
Me: Well...my name's Jim.
Owner: OK...
[she hesitates, then takes out a pen and napkin and writes "Jim"]
Me: And I'm pretty reliable.
[hesitates again, writes "reliable"]
[five second pause]
Me: Thanks.
[I take my coffee and sit at a table directly across from the cash register. I read the newspaper, and I smile at her whenever we make eye contact. After about an hour, I leave].
But that's not really the point. Last week I was in Mississippi, pounding the Ativan and learning how to lay tile in the bathroom of a Katrina relief recipient. I may go back for a longer spell. I would get up early in the morning, build someone's house, stop early in the afternoon, work on my pilot, and get some crawfish. Why not? As far as I'm concerned, the coffee shop woman had her chance.
Saturday, January 24, 2009
Tertiary skills that I wish could get me a unique job
- Opening bottles that my mother cannot
- Improvising songs about my dogs eating their own poop
- Combining water, sugar and Kool-aid packets
- Finishing other people's dinners
- Swiffer-dusting
- Assembling and disassembling puzzles
- Explaining the difference between alligators and crocodiles
- Writing in the past tense
- Candymaking
- Leaving a voicemail message twice as long as it should be
The Greatest Story Ever Told
Legos. And strangers singing.
Thursday, January 22, 2009
And the winner is...sexy illiterate Nazis?
Monday, January 19, 2009
The Measure of a Man’s Forehead
As I search to find myself a job, with my big-city college degree and my fancy-font resume, I’ve realized that there aren’t that many jobs open in the professional sector during December and January. So I’ve had to resort to retail jobs, where the market is just as tight. The application process for a job at Turner Broadcasting, however, is a little different from that at Office Depot. For example, instead of sending your resume to a computer database and never hearing back from the former, with the latter you also get to take an extensive psychological testing procedure to make sure that you’re predestined to sell three-hole punches and disposable pens.
I shouldn’t give the impression that it’s just Office Depot that does this. No, I’ve done online submissions to several other big-box stores, and I’m sure that this application process is standard across the board.
Of what I’ve found, here’s their ideal candidate: a man or woman that never told a lie, never stole from their employer, enjoys being on their feet for long periods of time, can complete a task to fulfillment quickly and before a customer can approach them for help, has never broken any rule, has never broken any rule, and has never broken any rule.
The reason that I repeat that last qualification three times is because you will be asked to verify this several time in questions that are essentially the same but with a slightly different wording. Additionally, every question is littered with double negatives, and you are supposed rate these questions on a spectrum of “strongly agree,” “slightly agree,” “don’t know,” “slightly disagree,” “strongly disagree.” For instance:
You have never broken a rule when you didn’t know your parents would not be unhappy.
Strongly agree
Slightly agree
Don’t know
Slightly disagree
Strongly disagree
Of course, whenever I came to these types of questions I just answered “don’t know” because, honestly, I didn’t know. I could not comprehend that the hell they wanted from me.
My favorite part of the tests were to assess how virtuous you were. Specifically, they had to do with how truthful and upstanding you are. Keep in mind, to say that you are an honest person, that binds you to honestly answer every question you come to.
You have never broken a traffic law.
Strongly agree
Slightly agree
Don’t know
Slightly disagree
Strongly disagree
Of course this is a yes or no question. I guess you could say “don’t know” but this option is essentially a non-yes. And you’ve either broken a law or not, so there’s no need for this “slightly” nonsense. So answer the question: yes or no?
Yes, I have run a red-light. Yes, I did hit that gypsy with my car, and her retching death curse accounts for my sudden weight loss. AT LEAST NOW I CAN WEAR SHORT SHORTS AGAIN, YOU OLD HAG. Now you know what a horrible candidate I am, and my reckless driving will lead me to steal as many reams of paper I can get my hands on while I spit in the face of every customers on my beeline out the door.
Then to expand on the questions concerning how loyal and truthful and do-gooding you are, the tests set up these great hypothetical situations. I am going to transcribe, more or less, a question that was asked to me on my application for Old Navy:
If you received a $1 item from a large mail order house that you were not charged for, would you go through the trouble and expense to mail that item back to the mail order company?
Yes
No
If you got home and found that a sales person forgot to add a $1 item that you bought, would you return the next day and pay the $1 to the store?
Yes
No
If you got merchandise by accident from a vending machine, would you put the money in the machine anyway?
Yes
No
Here we go. If you’re saying “no” to these questions, than you are are a normal human being that uses reason and logic to these situations. You might ask yourself, “Why would I be responsible for the mistakes of the business?” But you are wrong and are a horrible person who Old Navy will not hire. If you answered “yes,” then you exhibit the correct ideals that the good people at Old Navy are looking for. Also: you are a replicant, and will be “retired.”
Now this last question takes the cake. Did this honestly make sense to the person writing it, or have they never used a modern day machine in their life? Maybe you’re supposed to put money into the machine and leave without making a selection, so the next person can face the same philosophical dilemma that perpetuates until the machine is filled again. Maybe you’re supposed to put money in the machine and then wait around for the vending machine man to come, fending off people who just want a bag of Funyuns. Maybe you’re supposed to use your replicant super-strength to pry open the machine and place the money into it.
So how well did I do? Let’s just say that, since I’ve been looking for jobs, every single job that I apply for having one of these tests, I haven't heard back from. I guess I’m just too real for those algorithms to handle. But I have had some success in (get this) any job where I can talk to a real human being and exhibit my true human talents. How about that? Maybe this real-life human interaction thing will catch on. And the next time you’re shopping at Best Buy, remember: your salesperson is a goddamn lying robot.
Thursday, January 15, 2009
I Quit My Job For Freedom
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
Oh my gawd!
Monday, January 12, 2009
I just hallucinated
I love the Pittsburgh Steelers. And every year, I love that a Pittsburgh-area real estate developer named Roger Wood comes out with a song, "Pittsburgh's Going to the Super Bowl". He came up with the song itself maybe 15 years ago, and now he updates it annually by plugging new players' names into the verses, no matter whether they actually fit. Like so:
http://www.ithaca.edu/students/zwilson1/steelers.html
This is regardless of how the team actually does. If the Steelers are, say, mathematically eliminated from the playoffs when it's time to make the song, Roger Wood will still crank it out, damn it.
Naturally I was looking for this year's version when I found that link, and even though it's an old version I listened all the way through out of nostalgia. Then I went to the WDVE website and heard it again. It was very faint, so assumed it was the 2009 version of the song. I kept trying to make it louder.
About ten minutes went by. There was some ambient noise in the room I was in, (yes, bathroom fan), so I turned it off. And there was no song. Never was.
I did do other things today. Honest.
*I don't think this post ruined the blog at all. It provides people a glimpse into what my psyche is like. It's like something Kafka would do.
Sunday, January 11, 2009
Deal with it, Cate Blanchett
Wednesday, January 7, 2009
The Beginning of the 2009 Fiscal Quarter
Now, one of my job hunting strategies is to be ever-vigilant anywhere I go during my day, no matter what this or that company happens to be. Is that a "Help Wanted" sign I see? Does this seem like a work atmosphere I'd like? Sometimes I'll even chat with the employees to get the lay of the land. I considered doing this when I showed up at the bank. I could begin to hear myself formulate a question in my head..."how do you get a bank teller job?" Luckily, I caught myself before it came out. Because here's the thing: it's a bank. I would be a terrible, terrible banker.
I totaled up all my checks and filled out a deposit slip. It was a good amount, maybe a couple month's rent. Normally I love depositing my work checks in one lump sum--a very satisfying feeling--but today it was unpleasant. When the teller gave me my receipt, here was a clear, tangible reminder of the way things were.
Later, when I returned home, I found a couple paychecks I'd left behind. I had to go back to the bank.