Dead Aim

As part of my job, I occasionally watch the raw footage before everything is edited together and in doing so, I get to see everything that ends up on the cutting room floor. Sometimes—most of the time—the material is extremely boring, but other times, a precious nugget appears. This is one of those, only it’s not from anyone who was actually on the show.

Overheard conversation from a cameraman and some crewperson while shooting b-roll:


Caution: There are a few words prohibited by the FCC, so be careful when listening to this.

Ten most recently played songs by the shuffle feature on my iPod:

1. Pass the Dutchie - Musical Youth
2. East of the Sun (And West of the Moon) - The Modernaires
3. Nuthin' but a "G" Thang - Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg
4. Chariots of Fire - Vangelis
5. Hey Joe (Version) - Patty Smith
6. Southern Anthem - Iron and Wine
7. Cracklin' Rosie - Neil Diamond
8. Herido De Sombras - Ibrahim Ferrer
9. Superstition - Stevie Wonder
10. Stukas Over Disneyland - The Dickies

Cold-hearted, thoughtless randomness. Technology rules.

It has come to my attention that I am getting older. Not old, mind you, but no longer a spring chicken. Years, months and days are quickly passing me by. I can still live fast, but I won't die young.

You know what this means don't you? I'm never going to be a child prodigy. Genius is probably forever out of my reach. In theory, my IQ will never change. My cognitive functioning level is probably redlining as I write this.

As I watch the Olympics I realize I'll never be atop the podium with gold, silver or bronze. There will be no victory lap and the heavy hardware won't hang from my neck as the national anthem plays throughout the stadium.

Youthful indiscretion is not an option. Waking up cuffed in the county jail will no longer elicit a "boys will be boys" from my mother. I must now be an upstanding, law-abiding adult. There are social conventions to be obeyed.

I still play my guitar, but realize I'll never become a rock star. Trashing hotel rooms and entertaining groupies will result in penalties too high for me to pay. Rock and Roll is a young man's game.

The minutes and seconds are slipping away, but I'm okay with this. There's a lot of life left in me. I can still read books about quantum physics and pretend I understand. Lapping the old lady at the jogging track will still feel like a victory. Committing an act of civil disobedience is a forgivable offense and there's always the arena of my living room to demonstrate musical prowess.

Besides, I still might have a shot at that Nobel Peace prize. They sometimes give that to old guys, right?

Our resident rock star drives an Cadillac Escalade.

I wish I were as rich, famous, good-looking AND ORIGINAL.

My replacement starts today and I've been asked to "show him the ropes." I can only assume this means the ropes people use to fashion nooses with which to hang themselves.

If he's nice, maybe I'll hand over the blog keys.

Oh, and I saw this at the Farmer's Market on Sunday.

Three more things:

1. I was startled by this as I went out the back door of the building I work in.

2. As I was slogging my way through traffic earlier today, I had to wonder: Whatever happened to the flying cars science fiction promised me as a kid?

3. A rock star is going to be the co-host of one of the shows my company produces. He is a complete tool. The fact that he has a job and I soon won't is a tough pill to swallow.


*Addendum to #1: Note the pack of cigarettes in her left hand.

*Addendum to #2: Yes, I was a geeky kid. In fact, I'm still geeky.

*Addendum to #3: I just checked out his new office. Bad artwork hangs on the walls.

Three things:

1. Please don't say to me, "That's a cute outfit." This offends my masculinity.

2. This blog is #5 in the Yahoo search for "garbage bins sitting on sidewalk" and #2 in the Google search for "hugh hefner sex harem." At least it was this afternoon... I'm sure these things change quickly.

3. If you ever have to run a mandatory sexual harassment seminar, showing clips from The Drew Carey Show and Friends probably isn't the best way to illustrate the gravity of the subject. I appreciate the attempt to lighten things up, though.

**JOB HUNTING UPDATE**

The "newsy/entertainment gig" that sent me a polite, if impersonal, form letter actually called me.

Again.

The man I talked to told me that an overzealous underling “who didn’t actually make any of the hiring decisions” had sent out the letter. I was told that they had heard “great things” about me. I was told that before I take a staff gig anywhere else, I should consider coming and freelancing for them.

Freelancing…. Sounds interesting.

However, I should remember that this same man, the one who called me, actually threw a VCR at a friend of mine a few years ago. He also once held up a page of someone’s writing and exclaimed, “Now, I could take a pencil and make notes all over this piece of paper, but I could also take the same pencil and stick it up my ass. And to be honest, sticking a pencil up my ass seems more productive.”

VCRs. Pencils… Sounds interesting.

I told him I’d think about it.

I feel like an untalented hack that no one wants to hire. There, I said it.

I apologize for the profanity-laced nature of the previous post, but it was something I was feeling at the time and needed to be said. I’ve had a couple of blows to my over-inflated ego this week, as there were two jobs that I interviewed for and didn’t get.

Oh yeah, and I didn’t want those jobs anyway.

Sure, it sounds like sour grapes, but it’s true. If I look at things objectively, it’s a blessing in disguise. One of the potential employers would have had something a lot to do with soap operas, which I couldn’t care about less about. The other, sort of a newsy/entertainment gig. Again, I’m not really that interested. The latter was described as follows:

*Tense, demanding, heart-pounding…

*Participate in daily 5am creative meetings…

*Ability to be de-railed for late-breaking news stories, and still keep it all together…

*Must be on call 24/7…

*Willing to forfeit family, friends, sleep…

*Stress filled position is awarded with commensurate salary…

Were these things I left my current situation to do? No. Would I have taken one of these positions if they were offered? Hmmm... I would've liked to think I would have held out for something better, but since I’m still in need of a job, I applied anyway. I interviewed. I got a voicemail message and a nice form letter informing me they were each going with someone else.

What? Who wouldn’t want to hire me? I cannot believe this. I thought I was bulletproof.

So, I’ve been knocked down a few notches and that’s okay. I know things will work out; I still have a few other irons in the fire. The jobs I’m actually excited about are still up in the air. There are other places I’ve interviewed that haven’t said no… Yet.

It’s just that it would have been nice to been offered one of those other jobs, even if I were going to decline the opportunity. I just would have been nice to feel wanted.

Fuck.

More on this later.

Tonight we were watching the first few episodes of Freaks and Geeks on DVD and it reminded me of something from my childhood.

Before I go poetically waxing about years gone by, let me take a moment to ask myself a question: How is it that I missed this show the first time around?

Anyway, in the third episode these kids are out on Halloween night trick-or-treating when they come upon the house of some longhaired hippie dude. Instead of handing out candy, he’s giving away carob. “It’s nature’s chocolate,” he says.

Oh, the memories.

When I was a kid, my parents made me eat all sorts of things that the other kids didn’t have in their houses. We had sorghum instead of maple syrup on our pancakes. Everyone else had Twinkies while I ate brown bread that my father baked in an old coffee can. When I spent the night at someone’s house, I was always excited to have Froot Loops for breakfast instead of granola or some healthy multigrain cereal.

I wouldn’t call my parents hippies or anything, but they… Well, they were into a healthy lifestyle back then and we did live in the hippie capital of the Pacific Northwest, so I suppose it was inevitable.

The worst thing though, was carob. It was among other things my mother would try to pass off to me as delicious. “It’s just like chocolate,” she’d say with a smile. “C’mon, it’s tastes just like chocolate,” my dad would say as he ate a carob chip cookie.

But I knew better.

I can only assume my parents came to their senses at some point, because I haven’t seen them eat carob in years. But for a while they did. And so did I. So let me put this rumor to rest once and for all…

Carob is not just like chocolate.

Carob does not taste just like chocolate.

CAROB IS NOT NATURE’S CHOCOLATE.

So, I’m still slugging away at my old job for about another month, and during the whole looking-for-a-job process, I’ve learned two things:

1. You can never have enough interviews.

2. I always feel like an idiot after an interview.

On another note, a friend of mine had a lunch meeting today with Pauly Shore about some upcoming straight-to-video movie.

I can’t wait to hear how that went.