Dirty Peccadillos

       I don’t consider myself a “smoker.”  And yet I do indeed enjoy a good cig once in a while.  I favor those  cigs with no added rat poison or plutonium.  American Spirit.  It’s a quality smoke.  Burns slow.  You can really kick back and stretch out with one of those. Last calendar year, I consumed seven cigarettes, and when I say "consumed," I mean the way a person consumes a cigar.  Yeah, I don't want that stuff in my lungs.  

      These days people seem more and more rigid in their opinions, and most anything can constitute a deal breaker in relationships.  I suspect that a person who has a strict “no smoking ever” policy will find themself with plenty of opportunities to be in a room where there is no cigarette.  And no significant other.

(NOTE:  mention the incident at the driving range w/ John and that cunt from the ins agency?)

     People who pull out a cig today are ostracized about as much as people who never pulled one out back in the '50s.  A particularly conservative, religious, and straight-laced friend of mine (!) once wore a button with a picture of flowers and the tagline “Smoking Stinks.”   Okay.  You know, smoking is more than just the stench of a stale ashtray.  Likewise, religion is probably more than just burning people who are different.

     Apparently some folks are under the impression that a single cigarette will cause their curtains to smell like a Bangkok brothel.  Listen, in order to make your curtains smell like a Bangkok brothel, you’d have to… Never mind what you’d have to do.

     I personally find tattoos kind of a dirty peccadillo.  I don’t see the allure.  I don’t get why people get them.  Other than the obvious, “I was drunk at the time,” or “It’s the Chinese character for Judge Judy, who saved my life by making me realize I should quit law school,” I don’t know what motivates people to get them.  Maybe it’s because I have sensitive skin.

     That said, it wouldn’t be a deal breaker if a woman whom I liked had a small one in a discreet, remote location.  I  would have to be pretty closed-minded to rule out a sweet, smart girl just because she has a minor flaw.  After all, it’s a high impact world we live in today.   I keep hearing about the importance of branding yourself.  Since no one has job security anymore, you must make yourself stand out. 

     Whatever the reason for getting tattooed, I’m a reasonable man.  It’s not like in the middle of our first intimate encounter, having pulled off her undergarments, I’m going to exclaim in a Ralph Kramden voice, “ah-HAH!  You didn’t tell me about your filthy little friend.  You know how I feel about tats.”

      “Uhh…what?  That’s not a tat, you idiot.”

Chief WTF Engineer

    These days I often ask people what their take is on dialogue obfuscation in films.  The people who don’t know what I mean tend to annoy me.  As does dialoge obfuscation.  My theory, perhaps a cynical one, is that the studios do it to increase the chances that the viewer will go to the movie / rent the DVD again to find out “What the fuck did he say?” 

    A little bit of mystery is a good thing, but there is a fine line between romance and annoyance.  As if Charlize Theron’s character in Young Adult isn’t annoying enough, there’s the scene where she says to Patton Oswalt, “____ me.”  Hmm.  Anyone catch that?  Could’ve been "Hold me."  Or maybe "Fuck me."  Hell, I'm thinking, Why me?  An acquaintance of mine pointed out that maybe the studio was going for a certain rating and so needed to cut the “fuck” down to, say, a barely audible “do.”

    My friend in L.A. who works in the business, sort of, says that sometimes on a given take the actor might have a vocal miscue, or the vagaries of the take might leave an audio soft spot.  I don’t really buy that explanation, since much of the dialogue is dubbed in during post-production anyway.  C’mon.  They have the fucking technology.  I mean, even in The Invisible Man, a film shot in the ‘30s, you can clearly hear every word.  You can’t see him, but you can hear him fine.

    The woman I'd been dating doesn’t know what I’m talking about.  “Okay, the next movie we see, I’ll point it out to you,” I promised.  Unfortunately, next up in my queue was The Artist.  It’s always something. 

    How can so many people not be aware of this practice?  As if you need some kind of sixth sense to detect it:  "I hear dead syllables." 

    If the studio wants to create mystery of the “what-the-fuck-did-he-say” sort, they should stick to the type rendered by Bill Murray at the end of Sophia Coppola’s Lost In Translation, where we are not meant to know what he said to Scarlett Johanson. 

     On a related topic, someone should start an 800 # or web service to explain confusing plotlines.  “Hello, yes.  I don’t get the thing with the keys in A Perfect Murder.”

    “Right, here’s the deal with the keys…”

     As of now, I’ve never seen “Chief WTF Engineer” appear in the end credits, but I’m convinced these schemers exist, secretly calibrating the amount of obfuscation.  Especially in romcoms.  Especially a certain 2008 romcom.  I won't mention any names.  Suffice it to say, the film left me frustrated:  Forget you, Sarah Marshall!  









 

Display Case for the Ductwork

   Ladies, I implore you...

   Our work space was a huge, expansive single floor with about 300 cubicles. Sort of a cubicle farm.  Women, especially young women, tend to turn out for this work.  As a team leader, I spent most of my day milling around helping fellow readers score essay answers to standardized test questions.  I peer over shoulders at monitors, and down at faces.  It's not exactly a professional job, and the dress code is pretty casual.

   You know, if a woman wants to show lots of tit at the club or even at the grocery store, great.  But at work, what are you doing?  Many women, especially the younger ones, don't seem to realize the extent to which they insinuate themselves into the male brain, a brain that just might be stuck at work carrying around a 3 and 1/2 day encumbrance.  Sometimes I'll be walking down an aisle, look up at someone and think, Put that away.  Jesus.  (Other times it's more like, Pick that up.)

   There were two women on my team named Sabrina.  Both sexy.  Black Sabrina, the type of girl who was probably used to getting her way, was a very nice person, but she tested authority.  She would take her own "break before the break."

   Guys would wander over from other projects to chat with her.  Big Glen, our data monitor with a front butt, said, "This is getting out of hand."  I joked with him  that we should set up one of those deli number dispensers at her cubicle.

   "I know, Glen.  There are two black guys and three white guys who come by all the time.  Four, counting me."  Blame it on the wanderbra.

   She had a sweet set of B cups.  I don't know what these brassieres are called, but  hers may as well have been "The Erector Set," or "Display Case for the Ductwork."  She provided a sweet view from above.  The luxuriating mid-size mams with that little strip of connecting fabric.  I was seriously asking myself if I could afford to be let go.

   If you hold a Milk Bone in front of a dog, he's gonna look.  He's gonna do more than look.

   Once in a while a student's essay needs to be flagged and sent higher up.  Anything mentioning suicide, other violence, pregnancy talk, stuff like that.  One day four minutes before dismissal, white Sabrina raises her hand.  She's also in her mid-20s, not quite as angelic, but really pushes the boundaries with her display.  When I get over there, she says, "Is this an Alert?"  (Something about building a bomb and blowing things up.)

   I looked down over her and thought, You bet it is.  Jesus!  I'm seein' pink.  I'm seein' blue veins.  Secure the perimeter!  This is a major alert. Then, conjuring up Groucho, I'm all,  Lady, please!  I need this job.  I've got kids to feed.  And from the looks of it, so do you.

 

 

     

 

 

Angry Money

     Jon Stewart's dressing down of financial celebrity James Cramer four years ago was an interesting phenomenon.  Cramer is a smart, well-informed insider who has something to say.  He is also a guy who loves the sound of his own voice.  I was surprised that he didn't punch back when Stewart repeatedly slammed him as being part of the problem.  He absorbed every last bit of the beating.

     I'm not a fan of Cramer's show Mad Money, partly because I tend not to like loud people.  The guy acts  and sounds like the Wizard of Oz.  One thing I will say in his defense is that he sometimes admits when he's wrong.  There are probably tens of thousands of newsletter writers, stock pundits, gurus, trading system peddlers, advisors, call them what you will, who virtually never admit when they're wrong; and of course, anyone who repeatedly gives trading advice on specific stocks will frequently be dead wrong.

     So what's my point?  It's just that I would think Cramer (and other high profile stock advisors) would have trouble sleeping at night.  I haven't seen Mad Money in years, and maybe they run a boilerplate warning about risk of loss, so that inexperienced, naive investors don't get too carried away in the excitement of the show.  But toward the end of the Stewart interview, Cramer's defense was, "I'm not Edward R Murrow.  I'm a guy trying to do an entertainment show about business."  

     Wait, wait.  Let me stop you there.  An "entertainment" show.  You mean like when a psychic has a disclaimer (or should, anyway) "For entertainment purposes only"?  So people aren't actually supposed to take their hard-earned cash and plunk it down on some snappy growth stock in an emerging new business that you think is aces?  You mean like when those 900 numbers in the back of weekly news rags say, "For entertainment purposes only"?  So... is buying a Cramer stock pick akin to taking the "entertainer" at your local gentleman's club back to the VIP room?   To use the parlance of financial speculators:  "This stock's got legs."

Saunders' Tenth of December

     I've seen George Saunders on Letterman.  He seems like a good guy: modest, funny, likable.  And Tenth of December was hyped on NPR, the reviewer proclaiming it might be the best book you will read this year.

     He has been described as the chronicler of the wage slave, and the best short story writer today, so naturally I had to lay my hands on a copy.

     Here is my review.

     How to respond:  Incumbent upon, and what not.  But what would they say?  Keep wits, no doubt.  Keep wits.  It could be done.  Oh God, voice rec.  Ignition.  Sledding is tough, unbelieving, informal.  Hotel Echo, this is Charlie Delta.  Show some respect.  (Weds OK?)  Coffee shop sample requester.  Direct quote: "cornhole the ear-cunt."  Added bonus or pure liberty?  Takingwise.

     If you've enjoyed my review of Tenth of December by George Saunders, then you might like Tenth of December.

The Universal Language

    During the first few years of my guitar-playing life, I was really livin'.  And learnin'.

    I'd recently traded in my basic guitar for a very well-made cedar top.  The relationship between musician and instrument is an intimate one, and I guard my 6-string with the vigilance of a mama gator.

    There was a folk music club where members take turns rendering their favorites.  The group's organizer and leader, Walt, is well-known locally as a folk music enthusiast and patron.  With his bald head, long beard and black, plastic horn rims, he looked professorial.

     Some people think it would be difficult to get up and give a speech.  Nothing compared to playing acoustic and singing, which requires complete relaxation and immersion.

    In the cozy classroom setting of this club, I decided that "Dark Hollow," a tune derived from bluegrass and made somewhat popular by the Grateful Dead, would be my best bet for a winning debut.  I had almost no experience playing for anyone other than myself and my yellow lab, and I hadn't quite mastered this tune.  But I just figured this crowd would go for "Dark Hollow."  The song ends with the following refrain.

                                         I'm goin' away, I'm leavin' today,
                                         Well I'm goin', but I ain't comin' back      (repeat)

    I struggled with some of the chord changes; my rhythm was iffy; my vocal was flat.  It was a frustrating attempt at communing with like-minded humans.

    As I was putting my cedar top back in its hardshell case, and out of harm's way, moderator Walt said, "Well don't go away mad."

    I actually replied with, "Oh, I'm not leaving."  And I didn't.  I slid back down onto my chair where I quietly held my baby in its shell.  I'm more protective of my guitar, apparently, than I am of my dignity.



 

Has It Been That Long?

     "I'm not feeling too well," she explained when I called Friday night to firm up our Saturday plans.  We'd been dating every weekend for about two months.

     "I'm kind of run down and a little depressed."

     This actually suited me, as I wasn't feeling my best either, and was struggling to come up with something  interesting to do for a date that wasn't too taxing.  Thinking it polite to show some concern for her condition, I continued, "So it's not like a bug or something then... you're just kind of  stressed out?  I have lots of bad days myself but don't actually get sick much.  Usually I get a cold once a year in October.  Actually last year, I didn't get sick, probably cuz  I wasn't working around kids anymore."   Blah, blah...

     I called Saturday afternoon.  We had a long chat that went pretty well: I scored some laughs, cheered her up a bit.  And then I wanted to recap how she was doing.

     "So then you don't have like a virus or anything serious, you're just run down?"

     I'm not sure at what point over the next couple days it finally dawned on me.  God.  Two things:  I'm pretty slow, and I need to get out more.   It's been so long since I've had a regular relationship that I forgot women have periods.