Raymond Unbound

Some background: I finally came up with a New Years Resolution a couple days ago. This year I will read 300 TV scripts. Because it's the right thing to do.

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. 

I'm back, I'm back

Settle down. I've been on kind of a hiatus for a while. The last job I inquired about was at a coffee shop I like...

[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.

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

Perhaps I'm just a sucker for poop tales, but the comments in response to this Hater post are some of the most fascinating stories I've ever read.  I've never seen so many pants shitting anecdotes in one place.  It's almost beautiful.

Legos. And strangers singing.

I took this video at the inauguration.  I was too overwhelmed with everything that was going on at the time to really appreciate the significance of this event.  By event, of course, I mean any time I choose to wield a camera.  I obviously have skillz so any time I use them=mad significance.

Also, that's Bush's helicopter flying far, far away from DC so I guess that's kind of important too.  Over the past 8 years, I've learned to blame Bush for approximately everything that's wrong with my life.  I don't think I can stomach turning on Obama just yet.  Who/what can I blame for my unemployment now?  I think I'll start with my choice of going to art school.   

 

And the winner is...sexy illiterate Nazis?

Boo.  I assumed Sally Hawkins was a lock to represent the funny people.  I was wrong.  Jolie was pretty hilarious in Changeling though. 

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.

I Quit My Job For Freedom

Looking back, I think the fact that I was hired through a text message was the first sign that my new job was going to make me want to stick forks in my eyes.  Actually, the first sign may have been that it was for for a certain women's interest network. Rhymes with "Lifetime".  I have nothing against women.  I love them.  I am them.  But if "Lifetime" is supposed to be representative of our interests, I'm revoking my membership.  

I have worked many jobs, most of them bad, but nothing could have prepared me for the tapes and tapes I had to sift through of women eating their feelings.  I think I was supposed to get to an inspirational point where these women started to lose weight and gain self-confidence, but I never got there.  It was just tape after tape of women crying and eating and then crying some more.  And then being asked totally pointed and exploitative questions.  "Okay, but how fat are you?  No, say you're really fat.  You're going to eat that whole pizza for lunch?!?  Tell the camera that.  Tell the camera you can't stop eating.  Why can't you stop eating?  Because you hate yourself.  You hate yourself.  Say it!" You know when it's tough to have lunch?  When you're watching people crying about food and then stuffing their faces because of it.  I think I lost 10 pounds.  And that is the "Lifetime" diet.

My friends are going to DC for the inauguration.  I quit my job to go.  Yes we can.

Oh my gawd!

Just on imdb. Saw this:



Then my eyes scrolled down:



I double-checked:




OK, fine, nothing out of the ordinary. Except:



!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I just hallucinated

Maybe I am ruining the blog by blogging about something unrelated to comedy or jobs and such...*

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.

Deal with it, Cate Blanchett

What is more depressing than watching the Golden Globes alone?  Following a liveblog of the Golden Globes alone.  Last night I did just that and followed along with Amelie Gillette at the A.V. Club.  At approximately 9:35 she had this to say:

"30 Rock wins for Best TV Comedy.  Considering that 30 Rock and The Office are the only comedies that do what comedies are supposed to do (i.e. be funny) in that category, it had a pretty good chance."

I thought this was an exaggeration until I saw the 3 other nominees: Weeds, Californication, and Entourage.  I think the last time Weeds made me laugh was 2006, and I'd sooner watch the Golden Globes again than suffer through another episode of Californication or Entourage.*  I don't know if it makes me sadder that the HFPA considers these the best comedies on American television right now or that I can't even get a job bringing Matt Dillon's brother coffee on one of them.

*This is probably not true.

I could be a Latino variety show writer.

Si solamente hablara espanol...

The Beginning of the 2009 Fiscal Quarter

I decided to spend the first day of the 2009 fiscal quarter, (a.k.a. my first day of unemployment), running errands. I had a pile of checks to deposit. They were all my paychecks from December, plus a few gifts from my birthday and Christmas. I grabbed them and headed to the bank.

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.