Reason # Way Too Many Why I Hate Looking for Work.

Yesterday I got a message from a place I sent my resume into saying they wanted to talk to me. The message said to give a call in this morning and so this morning I called. A couple of times. Only got their voice-mail. Not wanting to spend the entire morning going back and forth to the payphone (I do have a job, you know), I left a message saying I'll call back around 2. Checking my messages a little later, I got a message from the woman saying she'll be looking forward to receiving my call at 2.

2 comes and I call. Get voice-mail. Okay, so I'll just try again. She got my message so she knows I'm calling. Maybe I just called at the exact moment she was on the other line or just returning from the bathroom. I leave a message and tell her I'll try her again in about ten minutes.

Now, I'm calling from a payphone about half a block away from my office. I can't really use the phone at the office, so I'm stuck making these super important phone calls with big huge trucks and busses blasting past me. It also means that whenever I make a call, I have to leave my desk, go down three flights of stairs, and walk to the phone. Everytime I make a call, I have to do it that way. Since I told her I'd call her back in ten minutes, I decided instead of going back to my desk, I'll just walk around and kill time that way. Ten minutes later, I call again and once again get a voice-mail. I'm getting pissed now, but what else can I do? So I tell her I'll call her back in an hour and schlep back to my desk. Total time away from my desk, half an hour.

Finally, on my try after that, around three, I get through to the person and have about half an hour phone interview. Great job, lousy pay- typical.

What bugs, though, is all the effort I had to make just to get the person. I don't have a number where I can be reached, I'm still cell-phoneless (Oh my Gawd!) and so I have to do all this schlepping to make important phone calls. No biggie because it's what I have to do. However, it is a big deal if I keep on telling someone I'll call them at a certain time and they're not there.

When I talked to the lady, I got a pretty sincere apology, the ole "lunch went longer than I expected" thing and she did sound like she meant it and wasn't dicking me around. Apology accepted, though, it's mainly because I have to. But what if the shoe was on the other foot? What if I they had told me that there was going to be a phone interview at 2 and I was late from lunch? That would be bad. The chances of them calling me back would be pretty low and even if I did finally talk to them, I'm already in the hole.

Basically, phone interviews are like waiting for the Cable Guy- so much as not be there at the exact moment it goes down and your screwed. God forbid you step out for a second or have to even go to the bathroom. Basically, if you have a phone interview, you have to down about a handful of Pepto Bismols and piss every fifteen minutes before-hand just to make sure that nothing, but nothing will keep you from not being there by the phone. But it's perfectly okay for the person on the other end to miss the appointment because she's off having a three-martini lunch and the crème brulee is a little late allthewhile I've spent all the time I could be working making the phone calls and spending money on my phone card for the long-distance calls.

And why do companies keep on telling you they'll make a decision in a day or two, then when that day comes, tell you they're talking to more people and it'll be another few days. And so on and so forth? Do they even know what it's like for the person who interviewed there? You spend the entire day checking your phone messages every half an hour, your e-mail every half an hour, and ride a roller coaster of emotion all day, only to find out at the end of the day that the company can't make a decision. Then there's like a two day breather and it all starts up again. It's torture I's tell ya. Not only that, the job in question isn't that fucking difficult (I know, I've done it before and can do it in my sleep, something which I can vouch for because I was way hungover for a huge part of my stint at that job).

Meanwhile, tomorrow's the big interview with the company that I first interviewed with almost exactly a year ago. Still haven't hired anyone and still want me to come in for an interview when I've already met everyone. Would be kind of ironic if I got the job, kind of a full circle type thing. Not to mention how they might be my last hope. Or if they do hire me, they'll basically have put me through a year of hell just because they couldn't decide whether or not they could afford me.

Oy.

Ah yes, even better than the Office Birthday Party, the Office Birthday Card. "Happy Birthday!" signed "the guy who you don't know, and who has know idea who you are- the Temp with the sour look on his face, always has headphones on, and spends half the day surfing the Web."

The job sitch has taken another turn, an out of left-field, "huh" turn. Basically, if I get the job I interviewed for last week, everything in my life gets easy. If I don't get it, things get really, really confusing. Which means that things are about to get really, really messy cause if there's anything I'm sure of, it's that if something could happen that'll make one's life way easier, it'll never happen. Buckle up…..

Alrighty, I'm gonna try something new here, something I've always thought about doing. Nobody's probably gonna read it, but what the hell, it's my blog page.

What I'm gonna do is I'm gonna take an entire article, one that's almost a parody of itself, and add my own little comments to it. The article in question is about- you guessed it, Ladyfest. I wouldn't have done it since I've already talked about it, but this one was too hard to pass up. And keep in mind too, that I'm only doing this because I find all of this really, really silly considering what's going on in the world- an Al Queda training camp discovered in Alabama, the Administration preparing to invade Iraq despite the fact nobody can come up with any good reason too, the economy still tanking and one after another corporate entity admitting they cooked the books, and a new Get Tough on White Collar Crime bill that if would have been enacted years ago would have resulted in the President and Vice-President being in Prison.

And not only am I so going to hell for doing this, but I better hope I don't have a date for the next couple of months and some woman stumbles upon this. Remember, send your nasty comments to hoorayforanything@yahoo.com, but considering what most of my traffic is looking for, I'm probably not gonna get much.....

Italics are mine
Feminism
can be fun

BY GINA ARNOLD

"Hey, lady!"

Yell that in public if you dare -- you'll get a dirty look from most women,
since "lady" has long ceased to be a compliment. Has it? But if you shouted
it at Ladyfest -- the four-day festival of art, music, workshops and panels
in San Francisco last weekend -- you'd have gotten a cheer. There, "lady" is
a positive epithet, as are other hot-button words like "bitch" and 'feminist.
So when Snoop refers to his bitches and ho's, he's showing his respect to
women?

It's the latest take on feminism -- and judging by Ladyfest, which took place
Thursday through Sunday at the new Gay Lesbian Bisexual Transgender Center on
Market Street and other venues around The City, it's a lot more fun than the
last go-round. Yeah, heard last one was a huge-snooze fest.

Instead of earnest conversations about menstruating and a lot of tears
now that sounds like a party, Ladyfest was about self-expression I'm
coming up so we can get the party started!. It featured an eclectic mix
of goofy girly stuff (knitting and doll making forums) wow, politics (a presentation
by a foreign correspondent who has reported from the Gaza Strip) and that
has what to do with feminism? Wasn't there a well-documted gang-rape in Pakistan?
Oh wait, it's because the far left is borderline anti-semitic. Know something
else? My guess is there's not gonna be a Ladyfest in Israel or Gaza mainly because
they're too busy trying not to be killed than going to dollmaking forums,
and how-to workshops on hitchhiking and starting one's own record label.

There also were many parties. All weekend, ladies ran amok in the Mission
and the Castro, and were having a gas. Some were punk rockers, with combat books
and tattoos. Some were feminist studies majors with cute bobbed haircuts and
adorable clothing. There were workers, activists, teachers, mothers, teenagers
and transsexuals. What about, say, black/Asian/hispanic women. Or poor women.
Or, say, Vice-Presidents of some company?

There were flame-haired girls with glasses, like 25-year-old Katherine Hodges,
who flew in from Chicago to attend, hoping for inspiration for her work as an
activist back home. Hodges said she was interested in this version of Ladyfest
because many of her favorite writers and activists -- like Bitch magazine founder
Lisa Miya-Jervis and fat activist Marilyn Wann -- come from the Bay Area.
I got no joke here. Sorry.

She was also inspired by cable TV star Dee Dee Russell?, who told the
audience at her workshop, "How To Become A Cable Access Television Star," oooh.
You know how you do it? You contact the local cable-access people and ask them
if you can have a show. Then they give you a time your show will air and you
film it. How do I know? Because I know people who did it. It's fucking easy.
"I'm known for bragging and being self-aggrandizing. I really advocate that.
You're going to get called a bitch no matter what you do, so you may as well
do what you want and brag about it." You go girl!

In addition, each day featured numerous workshops and discussion groups, with
themes ranging from doll making and knitting Gloria Stienem will be so proud
to menstrual extraction lovely and self-publishing umm, sign up with
blogger.com and start blogging?. There also were forums for discussing fat
and body image problems, transgender health issues and "contemporary femme identity."
Didn't Bush just stop funds to a
U.N. population control fund? Didn't he submit for the Judicial
ship someone whose pretty anti-abortion? Don't you think that stuff's kind of important?

At that workshop, 25 pretty young women As I walked around the 'hood this
weekend, I can assure you that there weren't a lot of pretty young women walking
around. More like fat, tattooed, and spiky dyed haired. affirmed each other's
liking for lipstick, heels and other feminine accoutrements which, they say,
gets them branded weak, apathetic, apolitical, vulnerable, and worst of all,
straight. Oh no! And what is "affirmed each other" Does that mean they sat
around and said "I affirm you?" Isn't that pretty much what happens in your
average Ladies Room?

"It's like a tree falling in the forest," see below comments already
posted complained Devon, a stripper and drag queen from Berkeley hopefully
not at any of the strip clubs I go to. "If no one identifies me as a femme,
but I identify myself as such, then am I one?" And I care because…..

Women in the audience nodded with appreciation, wondering out loud how --
and why -- we take visual cues to define ourselves. Reverand!.

Some participants were actively hostile to men Oh my God, men hating radical
feminists, there's a shocker. "When I wear lipstick," said a French woman
named Miriam, "I feel like I am using one of their weapons against me, against
them." Stupid French. Was that the explination behind Vichy France?

"I really enjoyed discussing that," Erica Sagrans, 19, a student from Brown
University, said afterward. "It's great to bring your personal experiences to
a discussion. At school, that's not really an accepted source of knowledge."
Yeah, Brown is such a stuffy, conservative college. They have no grades people!

In addition to providing a forum for controversial issues, many of the workshops
focused on ways to increase women's independence and sense of adventure. Again,
isn't there anything else to be worrying about?

That was the idea behind "The Idiot's Guide to Hitchhiking and Train-hopping,"
at which a mysterious man named Xarick told participants how to recognize which
types of boxcars were potentially rideable, how to grab them, and what to do
if caught. ("You can climb in the wheel-well, if you need to be real secret,
or ride in the axle for super-stealth!") And this is feminism because....
Sounds kind of fun, though.

Another fun activity was stilt-making. "Stilts aren't feminist in their own
right," shrugged workshop leader Leonie Newhouse, "but women making them is
kind of feminist." Remember, people are getting gang-raped in Pakistan. And
if I made stilts, would that not be political because I'm a guy or would that
be too patriarchal?

So is her use of the word "feminist," which in mainstream America has become
synonymous with adjectives like radical, lesbian, humorless and unpleasant never
heard that criticism before. Here's a joke- how many feminists does it take
to screw in a light-bulb? That's not funny.. Ladyfest would like to change
that perception, Judging by the level of fun at the fest, and the youthfulness
of the constituency, it already has. I'm sure women in Afghanistan and Pakistan
are probably feeling better right now.

Still, its message reflects that of classic feminism: Women are excluded from
the power structure of mainstream culture -- or they're degraded and ignored
and objectified when they get there. Ladyfest argues that the way to fight is
to take control of culture and the media. Alright, they got a point there,
but stilt-making?

Krause, the Chicagoan who attended the "How To Be A Cable Access Star" workshop,
said she hopes to start a cable show at home. That's it? That's all she got
out of it? All that affirming and talk, and her big motivation is to start a
Cable Access show? Susan B. Anthony would be so proud.

Calling the energy at Ladyfest "incredible," she added, "Being here is like
the opposite of being immersed in mass culture. This is like taking a mini-vacation
from the fight." The fight against bad Cable Access shows?

Keep on rocking in the free word….

It's kind of funny I posted that thing about Anna Kournikovia because I got at least three people logging onto this site today looking for naked pictures of the World's Most Famous Bad Tennis Player. On the one hand, it kind of sucks that half my traffic is people looking for pictures of Ms. Kournikovia au naturel, but if it weren't for them, I'd be getting almost no traffic.

Speaking of traffic, as you might have noticed, I can tell who clicks on and how many hits I get. From a little gadget called Sitemeter, I can see what the ISP is of the people who log on and I can also tell how they got to my site. Which is how I know about all the people looking for pictures of Anna's bazoomba's.

All of this is kind of cool.

Well, it was up until I was Google stalking someone the other night and suddenly got paranoid about it. Because maybe they can do what I can do.

I love Google stalking. It's such a fun thing to do when you're bored or intensely curious- just put in a name of someone you want to catch up on and see what you can find. That way you could find out all sorts of interesting things about people without them actually knowing you did it. So, I was Google stalking my White Whale (more about her later) and found myself on a Web site of one of her friends. Then I sat there and thought about it. What happens if they have Sitemeter and they can find out that I came to the site searching for this particular person? Yeah, they wouldn't know it was me, per se, but they'd be able to see that instead of coming to their site by say, looking for naked pictures of Anna Kournikovia, I got there by doing a search on this person's name. And I don't know about them, but I'd be kind of freaked out if I found out that somebody came to my site by searching for me (which due to a stupid mistake on my part, can happen). If I go to Sitemeter and see that they put my name in and found me that way, it would kill me. Besides feeling kind of paranoid, I'd be wondering who the hell was searching for me. Was it a possible employer? Someone from my past? Someone in my near future? The White Whale Google stalking me?

And now I'm thinking that I'm getting too paranoid to even Google stalk anyone. Damnit.

For all those people coming to this site, I would just like to let you know that no, I do not have any naked pictures of Anna Kournikovia here. Not only that, I don't know where to find any because I'm pretty sure they don't exist. Sorry.

If I knew where they were, I'd let you know.

I only bring this up because it is rather disapointing to get the reports on traffic to the site and find out that over half of the people who come here are just people trying to find a pictuere of Anna Kournikovia's tits.

I had this long rant prepared about how companies have you drag your ass on down for an interview, make you sit anxiously by the phone, and then never have the common decency to let you know you didn't get the job. It was good. All of this was because I was stressed out over that job I was waiting to hear back from. Just as I was hitting full-on panic mode, they went out and sent me an e-mail letting me that it'll take a few more days than they said it would, so. They even said to have a nice weekend.

Isn't that nice? (No really, I mean it, no sarcasm intended).

And isn't that easy? The whole communicating thing. See, it's all about R-E-S-P-E-C-T- take care of TCP- and even if I don't get the job, I'll feel better about the whole thing. Because they at least they treated me well and with dignity. Of course, they could still hire someone else and not tell me, in which case that rant' will be posted faster than you can say "Ben Afleck's dating J-Lo?". And it also means I had the entire weekend to do some more stressing and have all of this week to do some more. Not to mention analyze every word of the e-mail that I received, like some high-school girl just being passed a note from some guy in Science class, just to see if I can figure out what's gonna happen, but still.

I also got an e-mail about some job completely out of the realm of not only what I was looking for, but what I have experience in. When I talked to them on the phone, I kept on wanting to ask them if they had me confused with someone else. The HR person even pulled up my resume while I was on the phone with her and I still wanted to ask her if it really was my resume.

But that wasn't the crazy thing. The crazy thing was the salary- a managerial position somewhere in the high '30's. Are they serious? Do they live here? Do they know how expensive this area is? And it's not an easy job too. When I see job postings that list a salary somewhere in the low 30's, I just laugh. Who the hell do they expect to hire?

The other weird job thing was that I heard back from the Lucy Publishing Company (for those who just joined us, it's a Publishing company that has been dicking me around for almost a year about a job) about coming in for an interview. I don't trust them at all, but what else can I do? The worst part about it is that during the whole process, I have to pretend that I'm happy to see them and that it was no big deal that they jerked me around for a whole year. I'll just have to sit around, all smiles, and say things like "oh, no problem" and "no, it's no big deal, it's not like I've burned out all the money I own in the world and I'm in so much debt to my credit card companies that Big Pussy is calling me every other day." The way I see it, they owe me a job for dicking me around so much. They've had me bend over so many times for them that they can tell me how my prostate is doing.

Man, I need a job.

Heh. Bud Selig got booed three times at the Baseball Hall of Fame ceremonies. When do you know you're a joke? When you get booed at a ceremony honoring the thing your supposed to be in charge of. Three times.

What a maroon.

Anyways, congrats to the Wizard of Oz. Oh, and Harry Kalas too. My love of baseball came partially by listening to him and Richie Ashburn call Phillies games.

Once again I found myself at the video place, looking for movies to rent. Should I rent Oscar nominated movies like Ali Should I rent quirky art flicks like The Man Who Wasn't There?? How 'bout really good serious dramas like Lantana or really good foreign flick like that Bollywood epic about cricket that I really did want to see when it was out?

Nope, of course not. I rented How High
Yes, I rented this as opposed to Gossford Park. What can I say?

Not half bad either, or at least mildly amusing at bits. I was, however, hampered in my enjoyment of it in that I was not, in fact, high while watching it. Don't think it would have helped much, though.

Still, it's good to now that in these crazy times, with the Far Right ascendant, and an Attorney General who drapes a cloth over the bare breasts of a statute, and a bill in the Sentate that would crack down on Rave promoters because some people think raves promote drug use (CAN SOMEBODY SAVE THE CHILDREN?), and when the FBI won't let someone work for them just because they took a few measly pipe hits three years ago, that someone is still making movies in which the basic jist is that smoking dope is cool.

God bless the U.S.A.

And you know, if we stopped making those movies, the terrorists will have won (okay, maybe not Osama Bin Laden, as much as John Ashcroft, but still).

Yet another lazy Sunday and yet another afternoon movie. Once again, it's trailer after trailer after trailer for something like half an hour, each for some movie you can tell within ten or fifteen seconds that they're gonna suck-ass (oh look, it's another action buddy movie starring a white guy as the uptight white authority figure guy and a black comic-relief side-kick,). And then I saw it- a quick shot of a barren landscape, a female voice sets the scene, and a few quick shoots of sweaty men drawing swords. And then these words: "the two towers have formed an alliance." My jaw drops and my eyes glaze over, it's the trailer for The Two Towers. It looks fucking awesome. Lots of battle scenes. Lots. All that and Gollum too.

Oh man, I can't wait.

As for Austin Powers Goldemember, eh. A little too much too much. Let's just say the best part of the whole movie was the Two Towers trailer. Did I mention it looked like it's gonna rock?

Yeah! It's
Ladyfest all weekend here in S.F. I'm so psyched! My neighborhood is just crawling with lesbians and wanna-be lesbians, all getting together to "bring feminist arts to the forefront and take back some cultural space with an event by us and for us."

Awesome.

Not fun enough for you? Here's what's scheduled:

"Beyond a presentation by Khazzoom -- complete with a reading from Consequences and a showing of the anti-harassment video War Zone -- there are workshops on anti-body fascism, gender identity, break dancing, being "fat as fuck," starting a record label, living like an "ethical slut," and more. For visual stimulation, the Pond Gallery hosts "Pow! The Power of Women in Illustrative and Sequential Art," an exhibit of female graffiti and cartoon artists such as Roberta Gregory (Naughty Bits) and Ariel Schrag (Awkward), and renowned New York film curator Astria Suparak delivers "Looking Is Better Than Feeling You," a compendium of the latest cool underground shorts."


Wow! And I thought Reign of Fire was fun.

Actually, today I'm not gonna get my snark on. I'm gonna take a different tact. I'm gonna try and explain why all this stuff drives me up a wall. Living where I live, in the center of Political Correctness, and seeing it every day on billboards, posters and in the papers I can't get away from it. It's even rearing it's ugly head in Buffy-land as there's a huge fight going on about the death of Tara and the "dead-lesbian cliche."

You know, one of the things about being unemployed is that it puts a lot of things into focus. You start seeing what's important and what isn't. You realize what really matters and what doesn't. Supporting yourself matters. Friends and relationships matter. Physical and emotional health matters. The reason why they matter is because they're are real. They're tangible, they exist.

On the other hand, things like "anti-body facism" or taking "back cultural space" aren't real. They're just thoughts, ideas, and theories. They're not even social constructs, really, but intellectual constructs- big, provocative words thrown together by over-educated Grad students who've read too many books on deconstructionism and have too much time on their hands.

Take "anti-body fascism" for instance. I'm guessing it's about body-image issues and how our society says one type of body issue is better than another type. Of course, I could be wrong because I must have missed that class in college. Yeah, the whole body image thing is kind of fucked, but you know what? It's not exactly just a women thing. Guys have it too, or haven't you heard about guys taking steroids just to look like they've pumped themselves up? And it's not exactly an -ism either. If some girl is pulling an Ally McBeal, she's got other issues than being put down by Patriarchial Society.

And I hate the language of it all, the throwing around provocative terms just to get a reaction. Like using the word "Fascism." You know what facism is? It's Hitler. It's Mussolini and Milosevic. It's people being thrown into jail for no reason and lots of death and no freedom. It's people telling you what you should do and say and punishing you for not following the rules. It's a real thing, a political ideology that's killed millions of people. It's not some girl constantly worrying about whether or not she's got a fat butt.

Fascism is a strong word, but it's turned into one of those words that's been thrown around so much- like Holocaust or Racism- that it's losing it's real meaning. Like when you repeat a word over and over again and suddenly realize that you can't remember what it means. It makes the issues seem important, but to compare society's beauty myths to an oppressive political system that kills millions of people is ridiculous. And that's not the only time I've heard stuff like that. The whole gentrification fight years ago was about "economic cleansing," as if an army was coming and kicking out poor people. And I once saw a poster up on Valencia months ago showed that famous picture of the Jewish kid being help up by Nazi soldiers and trying to compare Ashcroft's rounding up of hundreds of people to the Holocaust. Yeah, what Ashcroft did was kind of on the lame side, but it is, in no way, even remotely comparable.

Then there's another thing about all of this. Read that story about the girl in Pakistan, the one about the girl who got gang-raped by the townsfolks as punishment for something her family did? Now that's an awful, hideous thing- a serious, bad, violent attack against a woman. That's sexism taken to it's violent, worst extreme. It happened and probably happens more than we know. At LadyFest, they're discussing how to be an "ethical slut" and there's an exhibit about women in cartoons. A gang-rape is real, it's horrible. It's some serious shit. How to make feminist 'zines and how to have lots of sex without the guilt is not serious shit. It's, well, it's bourgeoisie. It's people without any real problems or issues making it up to make their life more dramatic than their poor, upper-middle class existence.

When I just graduated from college, I was down at my dad's in the Santa Cruz mountains hanging with him and the rest of his side of the family. One afternoon, I went for a walk with my aunts and their husbands through the Redwood forests. When I was younger, I kind of had issues with my aunts, mainly because of their Jerseyness, but as I got older, I realized that while they didn't come off like it (because of their Jerseyness), they actually have really good heads on their shoulders. As we were walking, staring at the huge, beautiful trees, I made a joke along the lines of if a tree fell in the woods- blah, blah blah, can't remember the rest of it and it probably wasn't really funny anyways. My aunt's husband, Louis laughed and told me it was something straight out of the mouth out of someone who had just gotten straight out of college. I protested and said that those were the questions that were important in life. You'll see, he told me, some day you'll have to work and make a living and you'll get too busy to wonder about whether a tree falling in the woods makes a noise or not.

And that's what I'm saying.

I wonder if I should admit that not only do I like most of the stuff I've heard of the new Pink album, I'm kind of think she's cool too.

Nope. Not gonna admit. Never, ever will I admit to something like that. I'd be so uncool for saying I like her.

Oh wait....

So when does checking your voice-mail/e-mail messages obsessive-compulsive? Every hour? Every half an hour? Every fifteen minutes.

Just wondering.

And for those who have nothing to do this weekend, here's what I'm doing. The great bastion of relevant and timely programming, The E! Channel is premiering this documentary this weekend: Family Feud- True Hollywood Story.

Not excited yet? Well, here's what your missing-

"This popular game show pulled families together, but it ripped the staff apart!
Survey Says- Egos, Death and Blackmail!
For three comedians, hosting Family Feud was more than kisses and applause. This True Hollywood Story tells the rollicking and tragic tales behind the game-show phenomonem!"

Find out about Richard Dawson's ego running amok and how he managed to stand up for civil rights by kissing black women! "Get the details of "his rise and fall--and, now, his happy reclusive lifestyle." And watch as Louie Anderson details his arrest for soliciting a male prostitute and how his "rinking and gambling problems, the scandal that nearly ruined his career and his dismissal from the show in 2002."

Does entertainment get any better than that?

Ah, the post-interview wait, my favorite part- the checking of phone messages every half an hour, the self-analysis of every word and every moment for ways I could have fucked it up, that feeling of excitement mixed with deep dread.

Rock on.

And I sit here and wonder, as I check my phone messages, various things about the interview. Was the fact that one of the interviewers ran out of questions in a couple of minutes a good thing? Was the fact we somehow got into discussions of Mission bars, The Whicker Man, Buffy, and Manchester United a good thing? I mean, did he run out of things to say because he instantly wanted to hire me (especially since I threw in "ManU" and "treble" right at the beginning of the interview when I saw all the Manchester United posters) or did he know within minutes that I was wrong and didn't want to deal with interviewing with me because I was the last one they talked to and it was the end of the day? I've heard that women know within minutes whether or not the guy has a chance and maybe it's same thing with job interviews.

Or, did they all notice that due to various reasons, I spent most of the day sweating my ass off and everything I was wearing drenched in sweat? Or I made one verbal slip and might have revealed the one big hole in my resume.

And you know, the amazing thing about the whole thing is that so much is riding on just one phone call. One. Just one simple voice-mail message and my whole life could change.

Ugh.

Graffitti seen at The Toronado

"If it's the most popular pencil, why is it #2?"

Sorry folks, that's all I got tonight. Long day.

Written last monday-

It's Monday and I go into work, so out of it that I need to drink a huge cup of coffee just to reach tired. Get to my computer and reach into my backpack to plug in my CD player. I notice that while I brought the CD player, even some CD's, but I somehow forgot to bring the headphones. That means an entire day at work without music. No Howard Stern, No NPR, no music- just me, the data and the sound of me type, type typing away. There is no way to accurately describe the boredom that I'm about to endure.

Go get some coffee. Pour the pot into my mug but only a few drops come out. The pot is empty. Damnit, the old "leave only a few drops left so somebody else has to make the coffee" trick. Bastards. That's my trick. In the throes of my caffeine addiction, I take it upon myself to make the coffee. Take out the old filter and throw it out, then put in a new folder. I go look for the coffee to put in the coffee maker, but realize that there's no coffee left. Not a bean, not a crumb. I don't know where to go to find the coffee.

I'm kind of stuck. I've already thrown out the filter and replaced it with a new one, so I'm passed the point of no return. If I was to bail now, it would be way too obvious that I had started and bailed. Can't do that. But I don't know where the coffee is and there's nobody I could ask to help me out. The receptionist isn't around and the only one who's nearby is the Women Who Always Wears Shirts Way Too Tight (and they were awfully tight today), but she was on a call. I'm on my own.

I go looking through the cabinets. Every one in the kitchen area. Can't find anything. Don't know where it could be. I do, however, find some International Blend Coffee, Vanilla Flavor. What the hell, it's coffee. It's got caffeine in it and what else matters? So I decide I'm gonna brew up some Vanilla International Blend Coffee.

New problem. It's some funky coffee maker and it's not the usual coffee can, so I don't know the measurements. Don't know how much coffee to add, don't know how much water to add. So I wing it. Add a dash of the Vanilla International Blend Coffee and a whole bit of water. Once it's done, I make a silent prayer that it'll all come out and go back to my desk.

I sit there and type away. Clack, clack, clackity clack. And as I sit there, typing, I get worried that something's gonna happen. I can hear the coffee maker gurgling away, like Poe's Tell-Tale heart, making more noise than usual. I wait for something to explode. Or, even worse, the coffee will come out without causing a mess, but the coffee will be so bad that there'll be a progression of people pouring themselves a cup and spitting it out once they taste the awful concoction I made. I can hear the complaining and bitching already. "God, who the hell made this crap," they'll say, "this is the worst tasting coffee I've ever tasted." And I'll have to hear it. Because I don't have headphones, I hear everything. I can't tune everything out and become oblivious to the office around me.

I wait. Five minutes, then ten minutes. Finally, I decide it's about ready and decide to go take a taste for myself. Want to see just how dreadful a brew I made. Besides, if I'm the first one there and it's truly awful, I'll just get rid of it, destroy the evidence. None will be the wiser. I pour myself a cup. It's actually not bad. It's really, really sweet, like a Mocha, kind of, one with tons of sugar in it, but a well brewed mocha. It's not sludgey and it's not too watery. People won't mind would they? They'd be okay that the coffee's not totally black, right? Most of the office is women and women don't particularly like strong coffee, right? I decide to leave it be. Hoping it'll all work out right, I go back to my desk. If I hear anything, I'll just play dumb temp. Nope, it wasn't me. Didn't brew a thing.

Ten minutes later, I get up from my seat again to go to the bathroom. I notice, as I walk by, that the coffee pot is off the coffee maker, it's lid off and lying on the cabinet. Coffee stains are up and down the stem of the coffee maker. Someone was cleaning up the mess I made

Later that day, I hear someone talking to the receptionist. I hear him asking her something, about whether anyone knew who made something, but I can't make out what he was asking about. Even though I can't prove it, I'm pretty sure it was about my coffee. I'm never gonna make coffee there again.

So yesterday I mentioned I loved Reign of Fire. Watching it made me wonder what exactly would happen if the movie became reality. What would happen if say somebody stumbled upon a dragon buried deep and unwittingly unleashes Dragon Apocolypse. Would they kick our butts or would we kick theirs?

Here's what would happen:

-The Left will, at first, try and declare the dragons as an Endangered Species and then protest the killing of them. The Peaceniks will declare that they wouldn't be setting fire to the world if it wasn't for us attacking them, the Environmentalists would worry about the ecological ramifications of wiping out an entire species, and the Animal Rights activists and P.E.T.A will protest the killing of poor, defenseless, fire-breathing dragons. Everyone will agree, however, that defending ourselves against the dragons is really just an excuse for Big Oil to use the Dragon Lairs as a place to drill for oil. In speeches, they'll all say that it's really our fault anyways for being such a patriarchal, consumerist, hierarchical system. There will be teach-in's in Berkeley discussing how the dragon attacks will affect Mumia.

-The Right will immediately call for blowing them all up, so what if they wind up blowing up more people than the dragons do. They will also call for a Missle Defense system to defend against the dragons and select major Republican campaign donors, as well as Halliburton, to build it. President Bush will declare the dragons "evil-doers" and then declare war on Iraq. Meanwhile, Vice-President Cheney goes in seclusion once again- fueling rumors that he's been either eaten or had a heart attack- when he's secretly in a bunker somewhere in the West trying to get Haliburton the contracts for digging oil in the dragon lairs. John Ashcroft freaks out that the Apocalypse is actually happening and is caught having a three-way in a Nevada brothel. Bill O'Reilly, Anne Coulter and William Bennett will appear on every news show shouting that the dragon attacks are all the fault of the liberal elites and tree-hugging hippies. That and Bill Clinton.

-Jerry Falwell will say it's all wrath of God type stuff for being tolerant to gay people

-France will blame America and quickly surrender.

-The Palestinians will blame Israel

-Israel will blame the Palestinians

-Baseball will go on strike

-The 24-hour news channels will intermittently interrupt broadcasts of stories involving rich, kidnapped white girls for live footage of burning cities. Geraldo Rivera will become the first big-time reporter to be killed when he's incinerated trying to bust into a Dragon's Lair. Fox News' ratings will sky-rocket when they intentionally use their studio as bait and show live broadcasts of the studio burning down. In response, CNN will add more graphics to their broadcasts. Larry King will interview Liza Minnelli.

-Entertainment Tonight will feature stories about how the stars are dealing with the dragon attacks plus the latest on who J-Lo is dating.

- Ross & Rachel will finally get married, but right before the big episode will be filmed. David Schwimmer will be viciously mauled.

Love this story.

From the LA Times-

Capital Wags-
The whimsical donkeys and elephants all over Washington has some people butting heads over art and politics

Apparently, D.C. has this thing going were local artists are either painting or making sculptures of Elephants and Donkey's. Part of a local art, community type thing. The Times says:

"Decorated as everything from Elvis Presley to a tourist donning an FBI baseball cap and sporting a video camera, the animals are providing a touch of whimsy to a city shadowed by terrorism. Painted by local artists and pop artists these 800-pound sculptures of polyurethane resin depicting Republicans (elephants) and Democrats (donkeys) are bringing smiles--and a few rolled eyes--to residents and visitors alike."

The idea came from other cities, like Miami, New Orleans and LA and was widely popular in both the cities that had them earlier and in D.C.

But wait…..

First, the Green Party started bitching because they're not represented. Naturally, they sued. "Party officials wanted the D.C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities to decorate the streets with 100 sunflowers--their party emblem." A judge told them to fuggedaboutit and ruled that the animals aren't political speech, but art.

But then P.E.T.A got into the act. They wanted an elephant to be shown to be depicted as Elephant would in the Circus. They wanted to show a "shackled circus elephant with a tear running down its face and a bull hook in its side. Hiring New Yorker magazine artist Harry Bliss, PETA designed an elephant to represent the "miserable, deprived, and broken animals used in circuses ... forced to perform uncomfortable, confusing, and often painful acts over and over again under the threat of thrashings with a bull hook."


The committee rejected it for the obvious reason that nobody wants to see something like that, so P.E.T.A, of course, sued. Obvious case of "'discrimination based on message'," said Arthur Spitzer, the ACLU lawyer handling the case for PETA. Public art, he said, "'is not a forum for just happy speech'." Right.


So, as a result, there's one elephant left that hasn't been painted, waiting for a judge's ruling whether "P.E.T.A has a constitutional right to use the beast for a message about mistreatment of circus animals."

Good to see there's another city as screwed up as San Francisco.

Saw "Reign of Fire" today. We here at Hooray for Anything give the movie four "fuck yeahs." All I can say about it is, fuck yeah.

Anyways, last weekend, Road to Perdition opened up. It stars Paul Newman and Tom Hanks and was done by the same guy who did American Beauty. It's mainly gotten great reviews and my mother called to say that she thought it was a great movie, a "classic" even, and that I should see it. Do I want to see it? Nah.

Don't really know who wants to see it. The word on the street is, well, there is no word on the street. Nobody I know is talking about it. A lot of people have been talking about seeing Bourne Identity and some people are into Eight Legged Freaks or XXX, but not Road to Perdition. Me, I wanted to see some dragon butt-kicking. If my mom knew that I had no interest in seeing Road to Perdition, but was dying to see Reign of Fire she'd be flabbergasted, upset. She'd accuse me of being one of those uncultured, cretinuous mooks who ruined movies by mindleslly plunking down $9 bucks to see stupid FX movies and/or sequels as opposed to serious, great movies.

Am I?

I just have no interest in seeing Road to Perdition. No interest whatsoever. I know it's gonna be a pretty good movie and I'm sure it's really thoughtful, well-done and well acted. There's too many talented, well-intentioned people involved in the movie to not have it be that good. Which is why I don't want to see it. It just reeks of it's own nobility and self-importance, one of those movies that just screams that it's A Very Serious Movie. It's the kind of movie that once the movie starts filming, half the people who work on it are already renting formal wear for the Oscars in anticipation of their nomination. In other words, total Oscar Bait.

Those types of movies just bore me. There's nothing to them other than it being A Very Serious Movie. You know it has to be because it's got Tom Hanks in it in a dramatic role, and he only does Very Serious Movies. Which is why I don't like Tom Hanks that much. Oh, he's a great actor, and from what I hear a great guy and all, I just don't get all super-excited for any movie he's in (and does anyone get really excited for a movie starring one of the big Hollywood stars? Do people really say, "wow, I can't wait to see the next Tom Cruise movie because Tom is awesome!"?). He's your prototypical Hollywood film star- well intentioned, talented and completely vanilla. No edge, no quick, no hint of anything other than being earnest and serious and being a very serious actor.

I do love great movies, though. Really, truly do. I have seen most of the classics and can talk film auteur with anyone. I've seen most of the great Westerns, the best of Hitchcock, even a bunch of silent classics. Hell, I've studied Citizen Kane fer crissakes. Once, when I was younger and more into stuff like that, I got one of those "100 Greatest Movie" lists that come out every once in awhile and checked off all the movies that I've seen. It was more than 50% for sure, closer to around 75%. Then, for like a couple of months, I went out and purposely rented movies that were on the list but I hadn't seen. All of that I did because I considered myself cultured and wanted to get more cultured. And because I love movies. Good movies.

Maybe it's because they're old and don't remember the marketing of them, but all of the old classics- the Hitchcock flicks and Capra flicks and whatnot- never really come off as reeking in self-importance. Even when they are serious, they never came off as self-important, more like just a flick that came together really well. Even when there was a dint self-importance, like On the Waterfront or To Kill a Mockingbird, they never seemed overly self-important. I think it's the whole studio system thing, that at it's heart, they were still movies that were part of some big, huge movie factory. It's not like they were ever put together just for a trailer to go "from the director of Sunset Boulevard and the Producer of To Have and Have Not, Stewart. Kelly……"

Somewhere along the lines, probably after the '70's when film got taken more seriously, serious movies became more serious. Or maybe but more self-important. But while the great '70's flicks were self-important and way arty, they were also a little too edgy. Taxi-Driver, for instance, is a great fucking movie and there's no question Scorcese, DeNiro, et al, thought they were making serious art, but there's also a feeling that they were doing something that they thought was art, not what other people thought was art. Even The Godfather, the Daddy-Mack of movies had too many weird quirks and took too many chances to be considered kind of Oscar-baity. It's over three hours long, all of the characters are mobsters and the main character (Pacino) goes from nice and innocent to evil and cold-hearted by the end of it. Which I'm guessing would never happen in a movie like The Road to Perdition. I'm sure, because of what it is, there'll be some sort of redemption at the end, some sort of happy ending or neat conclusion.

Whatever.

So am I a mook when it comes to movie viewing? I loved Mullholland Drive. . Yeah, self-important, arty, and a bit on the masturbatory side, but definitely not geared towards members of the academy. Not to mention Naomi Watts (mmmm….Naomi Watts). Last weekend, I rented The Royal Tannenbaums. It was quirky, funky, unique, original and managed to be both very funny and very sad all at the same time. I'd rather watch The Royal Tannenbaums over and over again than The Road to Perdition. Because unlike the Hanks' flick, The Royal Tannenbaums wants nothing more than to be a cool-ass flick. And that's what makes a movie good.

Did I mention I loved Reign of Fire?

Interesting Things Overheard at Softball Practice:

"Oh yeah, I got the book in prison. They don't care if you take it."


Speaking of softball practice, I came home from practice today all exhausted and sun-fried. Turned on the TV to recover and stumbled upon a Sorority Life marathon on MTV. Three hours later, I'm totally hooked. Damn MTV and their reality shows. Damn them all to hell.

How could I not like it? It completely confirms all my suspicions of the lameness of sororities- all the stupid rules and rituals, the total cattiness, and the blowing up of completely non-important things into something that's totally, like, oh-my-God.

And the story line they have going is absolutely stupendous. Basically every episode goes like this- one of the interchangeable curly blonde haired pledges goes out partying, gets way too drunk at a club and finds herself backing her bony white ass up with a bunch of random meathead guys (Editor's note- they've mentioned a club that everyone goes to called "The Graduate" and if it's anything like "The Graduate" that was in IV when I was at school-and I think it is- bad, bad things do happen), all in front of other Sorority Sisters who stand in complete disapproval and spend the night cattily whispering back and forth about the shocking behavior of the Pledges. This is followed by a meeting between the poor beleaguered Pledge Coordinators and the blonde party girls (along with their two party-girl pledge partners in crime) in which the Pledge Coordinators tells them that "other Sisters" have been talking and complaining about the "shocking" behavior of the group. The Pledge Coordinators then goes on to tell them that by their behavior they are sullying the image of the Sorority and not representing. Further shocking behavior could lead them to the most horrible of results- not being asked to join the Sorority.

Besides the obvious fact that it's so completely obvious that the four girls who are always in trouble should just go tell everyone to go fuck themselves, there's the silliness of the whole thing. All the Sister's are constantly worried about how the behavior of the girls could sully the image and reputation of the Sorority but I gotta wonder this- what image and reputation? Do sorority's have reputations? Granted, I was defiantly a GDI (God-damn Independent) and adamantly anti-Greek, but I always thought the reputations of sororities were pretty much r what the girls are doing- partying and ho'ing around. Remember the old joke, "what's the mating call of a Sorority Sister? 'I'm so drunk'"? If I remember correctly, the reputations of each Sorority were basically along these lines- the super hot blonde sororities, the not as quite super hot blonde sororities, the still hot but not as hot sororities, the we're not nearly hot enough for all the other sororities, and, finally, the we're ugly but us ugly girls should have a sorority too sororities.

All I can say is you go Jordan and get down with your bad-self….