The Laxity Of The Masses

I went into Wal-Mart in workout clothes today. Sweaty workout clothes, since I had just left the gym.
   I was not ashamed.
   Time was, the only place I would go after a workout would be home, or to buy a lotto ticket at a convenience store. You can't win if you don't play, after all. I've been back home two months now, and after perusing my favorite train wrecks at People of Wal-Mart, I realized that I could go into that store soaking wet and nearly naked and I still wouldn't stand out very much. Plus, there's no one in Wal-Mart I care about enough to want to make a good impression with. Wearing sweaty workout clothes? Need groceries at the same time? Bada-bing, bada-boom, and Don's walking through the aisles of Wally World with dark sweat rings around his neck and under his arms, and probably trailing a musky, provocative odor behind. Just one more redneck in several enclosed acres full of them.
   It's freeing, this hewing to the lowest common denominator. I'm a fairly educated person - and a bit of a smarty-pants too - and you couldn't tell me apart from anyone else in there, ditchdigger or physicist or anything in between. That kind of bland anonymity is comforting, like a dirty NASCAR blanket thrown around my shoulders in my time of need. I'm just there to get my pickles and American cheese like everybody else.
   Next time, I'm thinking of wearing my Fishnet Speedo Jr. and lobster hat. Just to push the envelope and see how far I can take 'casual Friday' before someone's forced to call the cops.

A Day In Mulletville

Lee yawned and stretched, a half-nude welcome to the morning. His right hand reached over the couch and accidentally hit the lamp - the one missing the shade - knocking it onto the dog bed. Luckily Booger was begging for Spam in the kitchen and missed getting nailed in the noggin with porcelain.
   "You up, baby?" Lee's old lady called from beside the stove as she lit her first cigarette of the morning from the blue propane flame.
   Lee took a moment to admire her curves inside the tube top, and the way her tattoos made it seem like her arm was constantly moving, even when it wasn't.
   "Gettin' there, sweet thing," Lee mumbled, his voice hoarse from cigarettes and SoCo. The trailer's living room spun in front of him as he labored to his feet, and for the thirtieth time in as many mornings Lee swore he'd need to toss the bottle aside.
   He chuckled to himself. There was no way. He liked the buzz too much to give it up. Things were just going to have to work themselves out.
   Lee kicked his way through the pizza boxes and still-rubber-banded newspapers waiting to have their coupons clipped, and shoved his way past the aluminum ducting and copper wire he'd stolen from those abandoned houses, the ones with actual foundations. He'd need to get that stuff to the scrap yard, sooner rather than later if Lisa had her way.
   Ah... maybe tomorrow.
   Lee flicked the bathroom light switch halfway up, so it just caught but didn't go so far that it sparked, and the bare bulb over the mirror flickered to life. He ran a hand across his chin, where two days' worth of beard took attention away from his puffy, bloodshot eyes. He reached for his toothbrush then remembered that Lisa had commandeered it to clean the little holes ringing her Franklin Mint collectible NASCAR plates. She paid special attention to Jeff Gordon's plate, which caused an argument, but they'd made up with lovin' so loud and enthusiastic it woke the retired couple next door. Lee was proud of that.
   Almost as proud as he was of his Trans-Am. And almost as proud as he was of his haircut. He ran a hand from the front, over the top, then down the back. Short, short, long. Classic mullet. Business in the front, party in the back.
   "Spam's on, baby," Lisa called from the kitchen. Lee heard the 'whoof' of the propane stove going off, but he took another moment with the brush. He hadn't cut the sleeves off his Nazareth t-shirt so his hair could look bad.
   "You gonna look for a job today?" Lisa called out.
   Lee shot himself both barrels of his finger pistols in the mirror, just like Isaac from the Love Boat. Lookin' good. Real good. Maybe get-a-job good.
   "We'll see, sweet thing. We'll see."

Brad Nero, Boy Hero

"Well, golly, Skip, sure is lucky the pirates didn't notice us."
   Skip just wagged his tail, on account of his voice machine was broken.
   It was just as well, the volume on Skip's voice box had been stuck on 'YELL' for months, Brad just hadn't had the time to fix it. And just now, swinging onto the pirate ship on a jungle vine from the headhunters' island, Skip's voice box had crashed into a yardarm and now was nothing more than a mass of wires and dented metal around a furry brown neck. It was all for the best, Brad realized, he couldn't chance being discovered by the pirates, and Skip tended to talk too much anyway.
   The clomping tread of heavy boots rattled the deck, and Brad tried to make himself as small as possible as he hid behind barrels. Two pirates clomped by, men twice as big as Brad and four times as strong. Brad didn't dare peek out to look at their faces but they probably had scars too, big ones. Pirates always had dramatic scars on their faces.
   "Yo ho, mateys," came a call from read of the ship, from the wheel.
   Brad stifled a gasp and grabbed Skip's muzzle to keep him from barking. They knew that voice!
   "Aaargh, Cap'n," one of the pirates who had just passed snarled. "We're glad to be off that cannibal island."
   Cap'n? Brad's blood ran cold. So that explained it all...
   "If you don't pull your scurvy weight around here, I'll send you back," the cap'n snarled, "so the cannibals can put ye in their stew pot."
   "And if you do," one of the pirates replied, "who'll be unloadin' yer cargo of Cleveland Cavaliers bobble-heads?"
   "Or the crates of Sham-wows?" the other pirate asked. "You need us, Cap'n Thompson."
   Thompson. Or Old Man Thompson as Brad and his neighborhood gang The Enigma Patrol called him. He always yelled at kids to keep off his lawn and never gave back any balls or Frisbees that ended up in his back yard. Rumor had it that he took the loot to the flea market on weekends to pay for his cat tranquilizer habit.
   "To Blazes with your sass talk," Cap'n Thompson cursed. "But without yer help I'll never get this crap posted on Craigslist and eBay."
   Brad scribbled furiously in his L'il Detectives note pad. So that was Old Man Thompson's game... post all the pirated goods onto terrible, larcenous web sites so unsuspecting dupes would pay top dollar for discount crap. Fiendishly clever. An old man could buy a lot of cat tranquilizer with eBay money.
   "Before ye go below decks for inventory, though," Cap'n Thompson said, "could ye two look behind them barrels. I do believe we got us a stowaway."
   Brad's blood froze as the pirates' shadows fell across him and Skip.

-- to be continued --

Things That Worry Me Which Probably Shouldn't

I'm very concerned that the waistcoat will come back in style.
   We're already seeing the resurgence of the sweater vest, thanks to Mr. Schuester in Glee, can the formal waistcoat be far behind?
   I don't want to look like my grandfather's grandfather. I don't own a pocket watch... hold on, I think I do... regardless, I don't own spats or a celluloid collar or pomade or any of the other things that go along with proudly wearing a waistcoat. I like my t-shirt and jeans, thank you very much, and I'm perfectly fine dressing in business casual where it's appropriate. I don't want a return to 'business formal.'
   I do not want to look like Scrooge McDuck. Though I wouldn't mind having a money bin, to tell you the truth.
   You know how these things go, once a trend starts, it goes all the way. If waistcoats come back in style, then inevitably will come ruffled shirts, pants gathered at the knee, and great big powdered wigs. I look terrible in a powdered wig - don't ask how I know that, trust me that I do. I really don't want to end up looking like a Restoration-era dandy. White face powder makes me look terrible too. Though a beauty mark on my cheek might just bring the ladies a-runnin'.

How Much?!!

I was out Christmas shopping this afternoon, you know, poking around, seeing what's what and getting the lay of the land. No, I had absolutely no idea what I was looking for or where to even start looking, but I was out there, mixing it up with everybody else. I got a little hungry, and since I was in the holiday spirit, I decided to stop in at Baskin Robbins, where I have not been in years, literally. I got a single scoop of Quarterback Crunch on a pointy sugar cone, just like old times. I nearly had a heart attack when the guy told me it would be $2.50. But I had a hankerin' and forked over the cash anyway. Grudgingly.
   Am I so out of touch that $2.50 for a freakin' ice cream cone sounds like highway robbery to me?
   I mean, really... come on. I know you have to pay rent and pay your staff and carry insurance and whatever other crazy-ass add-ons California burdens small businesses with, but seriously... $2.50 for a single scoop sugar cone? I remember when it was like 50 cents, back when dinosaurs roamed the Earth and cavemen had just invented fire and the ice cream freezer.
   Maybe it's more of my pending old-man-ness showing, the cranky codger coming out in me, but Baskin Robbins must be doing pretty well if they think they can get away with charging that much for a few ounces of mediocre ice cream. They sure aren't going to get my return business, I know that much.
   I'm almost afraid to go places I haven't been in a long time, because I have a feeling they'll all end up astonishingly overpriced and ruin my cherished memories. Like Stuckey's, do they even have those any more? With the pecan logs that used to be 25 cents? What's Dairy Queen charging for a Dilley Bar these days, ten bucks? Jeez, I feel like my grandfather, reminiscing about places gone for decades.
   Is it 4:30 yet? I'm hungry for dinner.

Where's Miss Cleo?

Every so often I like to go to the bookstore and buy a magazine I never otherwise would. Like 'O' for instance, or 'High Times,' neither of which is on my regular reading list. I particularly liked 'Make' and if I owned a home I'd probably buy it regularly. My point is, I like to expand my horizons and encounter things I normally wouldn't.
   I think I want to visit a psychic.
   This is not because I believe that psychics have special powers, rather the opposite, it's because I specifically don't believe they do that I want to go.
   I know several people who swear by their psychics, and several more who have been more than once and come away entranced with the depth and specificity of the 'psychic's' knowledge. But there are well-documented techniques - using cold reading, like what that fraud John Edward does - to get people to believe you know more about them than you actually do.
   I want to go and just see what happens. I'd have to pick my psychic carefully, go on someone's recommendation perhaps, and then just let them talk. No feedback, no nods, no responding to general questions, just listen. A real psychic would say what he or she 'hears' about me, from the spirits or her own intuition or whatever, a real psychic wouldn't need my yes or no.
   Of course, this does open the door to potential problems. I'd go because I'm pretty sure the person giving me the reading would be either so general as to be useless, or so far off the mark that they might as well be talking about somebody in Istanbul. But what if the psychic really is? What if they know things about me a stranger couldn't possibly know, specific things, like, say, where the heist took place and what I did with all the money. Then I'd be up a metaphorical creek, and I'd be forced to re-examine my preconceptions about the world and the way it works.
   I'm tempted to abandon the effort. But... then I'd always have this nagging question. I'm doing it. I'm gonna find a psychic. I'll let you know how it goes.

Odd Coincidence Or Sinister Gathering?

I drove down to the OC last night to see my older niece's soccer game. Her school - Mills College - had come down to play Soka University, and since I'm in the neighborhood I wanted to show my support.
   Game results: Mills lost 0-3, but not for lack of trying. Some good players, lots of good ball-handling but a few bad breaks. And I got to spend some quality time with my niece, one of the few players who had family close enough to show up. It was a good time and I'm glad I went.
   HOWEVER... you ever have one of those times where you see something and then you see a lot of that same something over and over again? Like maybe you see an ad for mousetraps (which aren't really advertised all that much) and then over the next few days you see lots of mousetraps in places you wouldn't usually see them?
   Yesterday it was men with casts on their arms. I saw the first one when I was walking from the parking lot to the game, a guy who was probably a student at the school with his arm in a sling. Too bad for him, I thought.
   Then as I was sitting in the metal bleachers I saw another man, a player's parent, with his arm in a cast and two fingers immobilized. An odd coincidence, I thought, and kind of amusing.
   Then during the second half I saw another man, probably another player's parent, with TWO casts, one on each arm. Now I was getting suspicious, and I started looking around for the hidden cameras, waiting for Ashton Kutcher to punk me (does he still do that, or is that reference old and tired now?).
   After the game there were snacks - it was one of the girl's birthday - and I took my leave of my niece and her soccer team. I pulled into a Chevron there in Aliso Viejo, still mildly amused/ concerned about the excessive cast-wearing I'd seen. I filled the truck with gasoline and as I was ready to leave I saw little red sports car pulled over by two AV police officers. I watched from my truck as the officers approached the driver, and then I noticed cast on the driver's arm.
   I escaped the Chevron as fast as I dared and sped back to Pasadena. I didn't know what the hell was going on the OC with men and casts on their arms, and I didn't want to join them.
   Seriously freaky.

What A Feelin'

She's a steel-town girl on a Saturday night, lookin' for the fight of her life, in the real-time world no one sees her at all, they all think she's crazy.

WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH ME?!!!

The lyrics for 'Maniac' have been running through my head for hours now, and I have no idea why. And just when I think it's over the lyrics for 'Flashdance' begin.
   At first when there's nothing but a slow-moving dream that your fear seems to hide deep inside your mind....

AAAAAAAGHHHHH!!

I saw part of 'Flashdance' only once, thirty years ago, and I put the 80's behind me back in 1985. Because I'm an overachiever. I haven't heard these songs on the truck radio lately, or in the gym, or on iTunes. As far as I can remember I haven't heard either of these songs all the way through in a decade or more.
   But damn me to Hell and back, I remember almost every word. And it's INSIDE MY HEAD, so I can't even get sweet release by puncturing my eardrums.

I understand now. This is what makes street people crazy. They're all hearing early 80's pop songs non-stop in their brains and it's driven them around the bend. If this keeps up much longer I'm going to join them.

I hear Target has the best shopping carts, but it's really difficult to get them off the property. And where's my tin foil? I need to make a hat.

I Think Too Much

I've been thinking too much lately, wrapping myself in knots over things that I have no control over. Thing is, I have no idea why. Even last month I was blithely unaware. Maybe unconcerned, really. Back in March, early April, I didn't have a job, didn't much care, things were going to work out one way or another.
   Now? I'm spending hours - literally - worrying about my next job, or thinking about things I did and didn't do ten years ago that I'd like to have a do-over for.
   What's the deal, man? Why these thoughts and feelings? Why now instead of ten years ago, or even last year? I'm not being productive and I'm not helping myself with this, but for the last week or so it's been nothing but second-guessing and recriminations.
   Where's the stress coming from? I have to figure that out and find a way to eliminate it.
   I'm thinking maybe it's working. Didn't have all this negative energy when I was a ward of the state. Working'll kill you every time.

Industrious By Example

My local gym reopened a few weeks back after being closed a month for renovations. It's not much different except for the absolutely hideous yellow paint. You know it's got to be bad for me to use a word like 'hideous.' Think of the palest, ugliest, most irredeemable yellow you've ever seen and that's what's on the walls. Like primer, except it's not primer, that's the color the walls are supposed to be. Horrible.
   They may have spruced up the place, but they kept the staff, including the guy who cleans. This guy doesn't speak much English - hardly any, actually - and he gets dropped off out front at 7 AM and picked up at 3 PM (I saw this on separate visits, I'm not stalking him). He's the guy who mops the floor, who dusts every piece of equipment, who cleans the sinks and the toilets and empties the trash.
   Man, that dude hustles. No matter when I'm at the gym when I see him he's always on the move, like a human freight train chugging along. I saw him this morning as a matter of fact, doing his usual thorough job of dusting. And I realized that I should probably be more like him. Do your job and do it well, no matter what it that job is. While I'm sitting here bemoaning my fate and grousing about my work situation and how it's not what I want it to be, this guy is out there hustling every day. Putting me to shame.
   I don't know... maybe with greater opportunity comes greater expectations? If this guy had worked his way up the ladder and then got put back in charge of a vacuum cleaner, would he give it the same effort he does now? Would he keep doing the same bang-up job if it was a job he hated? I don't know, and I hope he never has to find out.
   I tell you what, if I owned my own office building, I'd hire that guy away in a heartbeat. You gotta surround yourself with good people.

Learning The Banjo

I've been trying to think of a new career direction, considering my almost complete lack of interest in working for another corporation. While I may have to take another office gig, I need to find a new passion. I was working on a few edits for one of my books today when it hit me: I need to learn how to play the banjo. And why would I need to have that skill? you might ask.
   I'm gonna start a jug band.
   Yup. Right here in SoCal. I'm gonna find me some barely-literate fellows, guys who have trouble reading street signs but who have innate rhythm and know the words to hymns by heart. We'll have a big fat guy - no, not me - and a thin, weaselly guy, and one with a wild mountain-man beard. And then me. None of us will wear shirts unless it's cold outside or we're playing a wedding or something. No shoes either, 'cause I want to keep it real. The big fat guy will play the washboard, the weaselly guy will play the one-string washtub bass, the mountain man will play the moonshine jug with 'xxx' on it, and I'll play the banjo. As the only one of our quartet with his own teeth, I'll also be the lead singer and de facto chick magnet.
   Now that iTunes has provided a platform for emerging artists I know we'll break big, if for no other reason than to provide an alternative to Lady Gaga. Although I wouldn't put it past her to steal our shtick and start her own jug band... I should nip that competition in the bud and record a duet with her right away. And I gotta start growing my mullet out right now.

Yeah... this is really looking up. I can't see the flaw in this plan at all.

You May Have Already Won...

Guess what? I just won $150,000. No, seriously, it's for real. I got a letter from England and they said my name was drawn from different sweepstakes and lottery databases around the world. Evidently they've tried to contact me for years now, and it's down to the wire, only three more weeks left before I forfeit this forever. And all I have to do is call a number in England... hold on a second. This sounds fishy. I'm beginning to suspect this letter from 'Standard Links Alliance' might be a scam. Or scam-ola...

   You know, now that I think about it, I've never entered a British lottery. I don't even know if they have one. I know they have a lottery in Australia because I did buy lotto tickets there, but all I won was a kangaroo with a pouch full of beer. I'm kidding, the beer came in its own crate.

A while back I wrote about a Nigerian scam e-mail I received, one that claimed to be from our own FBI. I could tell immediately that was a scam because it wasn't from some prince, but from a US Federal police force operating on behalf of a foreign lottery and I was supposed to have won almost a million dollars. Only the truly desperate would believe that kind of pitch.
   But these Standard Links Alliance guys are good. Really good. The letter was indeed mailed from England, and it's written on A-4 paper (what they use in Europe instead of 8.5 x 11), and the phone number they tell you to call is in London, England just like they claim. Aside from the complete nonsense of the letter itself, which never quite explains where they got my name or how I came by this sum, it's almost totally believable. Even the dollar amount itself, $150,000, seems within the realm of possibility. Not too large to be ridiculous like the Nigerian e-mail, and not so small that most people would ignore it. $150,000 is that Goldilocks spot for generating interest in free money. If, of course, you don't ask yourself why a British bank is issuing checks in American currency.
   I'm half tempted to give these guys a call - from a work phone, of course - just to screw with them. But, nah, this will just go in the trash with the other garbage.

Still... you gotta give them an 'A' for execution on this one.

Woe Is Me

There's a thing I've been struggling with for years, decades, actually, and I've just given up. Thrown my hands into the air and resigned myself to my fate. It's not going to get any better and there's nothing I can do about it. They've won. You know, them, the people behind it all.
   I just cannot get a good haircut.
   No matter what I try, where I go, how much I pay, how much I tip, it just doesn't matter. I can't get a good haircut. The haircuts I get aren't astonishingly bad - most of them - but they're not particularly good either. Men barbers or women hairstylists, it seems none of them can give me a decent cut.
   At first, years ago, hairstyles were so terrible that you couldn't really tell if I had a good haircut or not, nobody had a good one so I fit right in. But after disco died and then after Regan stopped being President things changed. You could get a good haircut. Or so I thought.
   Turns out good haircuts for men are like cover models on women's magazines: nobody looks like that, it's all Photoshop magic.
   There was guy back in San Antonio, his name was JB and he had cut my father's hair in decades past - no lie. JB gave good hair. He'd been doing it forever, longer than my father had been alive, and he could do no wrong. But JB was old and growing older, he came into his barber shop less and less frequently, leaving me to the tender mercies of his second-in-command, who was bald, or a lady barber who meant well but just didn't have the skills. I long for the days when could wander into JB's and never worry that I would come out looking like an escaped mental patient.
   I need a haircut right now, this very second. Have for at least a week but I've been putting it off. I just don't want to be disappointed any more.

Bargains

I took a trip to the Rose Bowl Flea Market today. It's held the second Sunday of every month, rain or shine (mostly shine), but I haven't been in years. The last time I went I got a really good, really greasy corn dog from a vendor I would have been suspicious of if I'd seen him on the street. The best street food is like that, just the good side of too scary to try out.
   I expected to see a lot of the same kind of stuff from many vendors, you usually do in a flea market, but I also expected to come across a gem once in a while. An odd, quirky, cool little piece of something that you can't plan for but you know it when you see it. I didn't see it.
   Not to say that the flea market was a disappointment, you don't go to a flea market expecting Earth-shattering revelations, but I did leave feeling a little flat. Maybe it's because I couldn't find anybody selling corn dogs.

A few observations:
   The ticket-taker girls were all wearing black leprechaun hats and green sunglasses in honor of St. Patrick's Day. None of them seemed particularly enthused about the whole business.

   People will eat barbeque at 9 AM. I seen it.

   Bald dudes with tattoos on their heads gravitate towards one another. I think it's a new kind of speciation. Now they have to find chicks with tattoos on their heads to have little tattoo-headed babies.

   When the crowd gets very thick you get stuck behind people. I have been forced to amble along at the pace of a woman shopping for bargains, or to put it another way, as close to a dead stop as you can get without rolling backwards. Men know what I mean and sympathize. Women couldn't care less.

   At the front gate they play hurdy-gurdy music, or calliope music, or carousel music, whatever you want to call it. I thought I recognized a calliope version of 'The Trial' by Pink Floyd, which has calliope music in it. An amazing meta-reference for a flea market. Then they played the calliope version of 'Waterloo' by Abba and lost me.

Get Dressed To Make A Phone Call

When you're a kid your life is nothing but a series of firsts. First steps, first teeth, first broken bone, first driver's license, first kiss, first run-in with John Law, the list goes on and on. But as you get older the list grows shorter and shorter. You've done many things at least once, and the older you get, the less inclined you are to doing anything new or anything dangerous. If you haven't ever jumped from an airplane once you turn 30 chances are good you never will. And I'm over 30. But I did buck the trend today, and had another first.
   I had my first Skype call.
   Since my computer has a camera built-in I've had this capability for a year and half now, but I never downloaded Skype, never installed it, never felt the need to. But a friend of mine is doing some freelance work and is using up her cell phone minutes, and she was under the mistaken impression that I used Skype regularly. She is also one of those people who doesn't have a land line, for some unfathomable reason. I did a quick install, set up my account, and she called me. It was interesting, much like video teleconferences they've had for decades, but from the convenience of my own living room.
   I gotta say, I don't like the idea of having to get dressed to make a phone call.
   I knew she was going to call, so I combed my hair. Not something I'm used to doing for a phone conversation. That's the great thing about phone calls, you can do anything - and I do mean ANYTHING, just ask my sister - while you're talking to someone. But not with Skype. I have to sit in my chair at my desk, stare into the camera so I look engaged, and be careful not to make any noises that the microphone might pick up. And trust me, I make a lot of noises no one else wants to hear.
   It's convenient for keeping in touch with loved ones, foreign exchange students talking to their parents back home, for instance, but for a quick chat or what have you, I'm not so sure video phones are a great idea. If I gotta make sure I'm wearing pants before I answer the phone something's not right with the world.

Things That Worry Me Which Probably Shouldn't

I never run any red lights at intersections where they have those traffic cameras. It's not because I'm afraid of getting a ticket, though, I'm just worried about getting a bad picture.
   I've seen photos taken from those cameras, they're really sharp and in focus and capture the essence of the driver. Usually people I've seen look angry, a few of them look distracted. Some look gassy.
   I would be picking my nose. Which, while everybody does it, in a photograph is just gross. It would be just my luck to blow through one of those intersections and have the camera snap a frame while my index finger is two knuckles deep, tickling the base of my brain. I don't need to see that, and I don't need the DMV to see it either.
   Most people take great care not to be seen picking their nose, they usually do it in the bathroom where they do other icky but necessary stuff like flossing their teeth (you do floss,right? Every day?), popping zits, and other potty things. But you don't really need a mirror or any special tools to pick your nose; your finger just sort of creeps up there and gets to work. Which means that you can take care of business while doing something else entirely, like mowing the lawn or sculpting or composing a sonnet.
   Or while driving, as long as you have a window cracked to 'dispose of the evidence.' And don't get all uppity and protest that you would never do such base a thing as pick your nose at all, let alone behind the wheel. I do a lot of walking around my neighborhood, and I can see drivers just as easily as they can see me. And trust me, waaaaay more people pick their noses behind the wheel than you might think. Including you.

Mmmmm... Pie Charts...

I've been hitting the job search pretty hard for a few weeks now - I know, I know, it's disappointing for me too - and I can see that it's going to take some time. That time will allow me to ease back into the work routine, long hours spent away from home, the couch sadly neglected, the refrigerator door grossly under-used. I've been trying to think of what I would look forward to at work, aside from the birthday cake, and the list was woefully short. And then I thought a little bit more and I had it.
   I look forward to pointless technical innovation.
   You'd think there would be plenty of that in the non-corporate world, what with your Twitters and your iPhone apps and android what-nots. But some of the pointless technical innovation in society eventually proves useful somewhere - Twitter about the Iranian elections, for instance. But only in the corporate world can you get technology that presents itself as helpful which is anything but.
   Pie charts, for instance. I don't know how much programming time has been wasted getting pie charts easier and easier to produce, and yet I've never seen a serious presentation that actually uses a pie chart. Or a bar graph, or line graph or any of the bloat that spreadsheet programs list as 'features.'
   What about the presentations themselves? Power Point, Keynote, whatever, I've never seen, been shown, or handed a stack of presentation slides that wasn't a total waste of time. A waste of time to produce, a waste of time to explain or read aloud, a waste of time to e-mail. But there are people whose entire job is to produce Power Point presentations, and they think what they're doing adds value. Big-four consultants, I'm looking your way here...
   How about security access doors? You have to swipe you employee ID to get inside. And if you read the fine print in the documents you sign to get that ID, you're not supposed to let anyone in unless they swipe their ID too. Find me one person who abides by that provision, even the head of corporate security. If five people go out for lunch, only one person swipes all of them back in the building. Might as well just prop open the door with a rock.
   I could go on, but it's getting close to time for my afternoon nap. Gotta grab this opportunity while I have it.

Did You Ever Notice...?

I used to like stand-up comedy. Really. Back in the good ol' days, before there were entire TV channels devoted to replaying mediocre comics over and over and over again. I think I reached critical mass last week, when I stumbled across a Seinfeld episode, and before I could change the channel I was subjected to some of his 'what marketing genuis thought of that...' lines.
   Ugh. Painful. So I thought about all the comedy routines I've seen over the years, and I've come up with a checklist, in case you want to try your hand behind the microphone.

How to construct your own stand-up routine and get on HBO:
   1. Dress down, but not too down. T-shirt and jeans are out, but so is a suit and tie. Business casual is right out, so you're left with 'Friday night club-hopping' attire. Since no clubs will let you in, ask someone.
   2. Get something to drink. Water is good, but so is a bourbon and coke if the bar is complimentary for performers.
   3. Get a stool to put next to the microphone. You'll need something to play with, and something to prop yourself up if you have too many bourbons and coke.
   4. Practice mugging in front of a mirror. You'll need funny faces, especially if your material is weak. And be honest, you know it's weak.
   5. Work out one physical bit. You'll need to jump across the stage, or fall down or something, because movement makes good television. Remember that you're working towards a mediocre sitcom, so think visual. Dane Cook is master of the non-funny, kinetic performance art standup comedy.
   6. Think about what to say to a heckler. Those meanines try to ruin your show by pointing out inconsistencies or telling you that you suck. This is especially devastating to those of you who do suck, so prepare a witty rejoinder in advance.
   7. Have head shots and credits ready just in case a network exec or agent is in the audience and wants to offer you a development deal. Have contract demands worked out, and be prepared to stand firm.
   8. Oh yeah. Think of something funny to say. (see next checklist)

Funny stand-up topics:
1. Those pin heads in Washington.
2. Airplane food.
3. Your traumatic childhood.
4. Your goofy relatives.
5. Commercials you hate.
6. Commercials you love.
7. What if television characters were real?
8. Some guy in line at the coffee shop.
9. Black people (if you're black).
10. White people (if you're black or white).
11. Asian people (if you're black, white, or asian).
12. Women drivers.
13. Since you haven't really done much with your life, your childhood is a rich mine of material, and it plays in with the physical stuff.

Where's My Giant Pineapple?

When I moved out to Pasadena a few years ago, I expected several things. Warmer winters, for one, which I got. A few celebrity sightings, which I got. An earthquake or two, which I got. And I expected to see lots of buildings in the shape of food. This one I did not get, and I'm still kind of miffed.
   When you think about Los Angeles you think about buildings shaped like food. You also think about rampant police corruption, plastic surgery, and Ponch from CHiPs, but mostly you think of gargantuan food-shaped buildings. At least I did. But Los Angeles has lost its only cultural roots, the food-shaped buildings aren't here any more. They're all gone, the Brown Derby, Tail O' The Pup, that one shaped like a hamburger. The only one left is Randy's Donuts, and that's waaaay down by LAX, not a drive I'm willing to make, even for doughnuts.
   Without a big hat, or a huge milkshake, or a colossal apple every few blocks or so, Los Angeles lounges in the California sun like what it is, mile after mile of urban blight. Just like the allure of 'Hollywood' disguises the terrible truth of the entertainment business, LA needs the architectural distraction provided by a hot-dog-shaped building to keep people from noticing how desperately ugly the rest of the city actually is.
   And even though I'm picking on LA, most cities in the US are ugly too. Especially with the highway-adjacent sameness you find everywhere, Wal-Mart and Target and TGIFridays with Borders and Home Depot and vacant shells of Circuit City. Our highways are sad, homely conduits leading us to buy more things at an outlet mall just like the one thirty miles away. It's depressing. But we can fix it.
   We should all tell President Obama that even though he's working hard on other stuff, he needs to put forward the Food-Shaped Building Act of 2009. We need more buildings shaped like something else, and it's time we started demanding them.

Return From Vacation

I know, 'vacation from what, deadbeat?' Anyway, I'm back. I'll post regular stuff tomorrow, but here are some short bits from my - extended - time lounging around DFW.

The mullet is not dead! Dee Snider can stop turning over in his grave. If he's dead. Which I don't think he is. I saw three mullets, though at first I thought it was four, but the first guy just changed his shirt. Really, I recognized the cap.
   A long, curly mullet under a camo cap, a Lesbian mullet on one of the ground crew seen from the airplane window, and a little kid mullet on some seven-year-old who obviously didn't know better.
   Long live the mullet!

A surprising number of people wear red sneakers. And by 'surprising' I mean any number other than zero. I thought Garrison Keillor was the only one, but I saw four different people wearing them.
   Perhaps it was the same pair of red sneakers, and these four people just switched them out when I wasn't looking?

Lots of people wave expansively across the airport terminal, but they seldom catch the eye of the person they're waving at. They end up walking over anyway, close enough to yell out the other person's name.

Some people shouldn't run in public.
   Some people definitely shouldn't run in public.
   Also, the half-run half-walk thing makes you look silly. Just say no.