Category Archives: Stuff

Everything else

Morning in Oakland

Uncharacteristically, we got our asses out of bed to meet with a guy who’s going to help the man with a bullet-proof resume. Of course, between the two of us the DIY approach could kick cliched ass. But, the older I get the more pumped I get with the notion of paying someone else to do my shit.

Why walk when you can fly? OK, that makes no fucking sense there, but goddamn it I’m American and we know how to write checks and process credit cards.

Got my first rejection from a short film submission. Yay. For brief, unrealistic, unfocused moments I thin, “aw shit.” Then, after a couple of whacks up my own head and some earboxing, I remember that my exercise was process. Gotta get into the groove of trying, submitting, blabbity fucking blah.

You ain’t getting laid if you don’t get in the game.

I, of course, am sitting here writing about my dreams and aspirations (to get laid), because M.’s going on to the resume man about his old curriculum vitae. Small and closed that I am, listening in makes me think of me, Dee-Rob, center of my own miniature universe.

Insert something funny here

I’m procrastinating on shit that I actually have tons of time to do. So, I got nothing all around.

In the back of my head is the thought of devising some kind of funny set list of jokey jokes and merriment for tonight’s show. But, really, wouldn’t it be funny enough to see me whimper, drool on myself blankly and then leave the stage?

Other than that, I love the fucking world wide web. Back in the horse and buggy days you couldn’t get an email from millions and millions of fucking miles away and eons of time. OK, make that 3,000 miles and some years, but you know fucking far.

Thanks to this bullshit, I’ve heard from different people from old jobs, old friendships, old passages of time, who otherwise would have fallen into dim, dusty, vague, “Huh? What ever happened…” memory, much like my virginity. I’ve almost kind of met new people, too.
And, I’ve got to stalk a few old chestnuts and whatnot from an incredibly safe cyber distance of weblog reading.

GOOGLE, I salute you.

Should have a title

In honor of it being just about the two-year anniversary of the life that prompted the sketch that prompted the post below called “Soundtrack, and inspired by “Freemblap” and his comment about kowtowing to the man, here’s a link to the post that started it all.

For the record, and keeping the whole debate alive and honest and shit, here’s a couple of things to note. I wrote that little bit of creative bullshit in March ’04. I got spoken to late June ’04 (a date I will remember always here in the land of the free and brave, ‘cuz my flag-waving July 4th weekend was interrupted by the second psych eval). Yeah, baby, three months later, you know, like long enough for shit to change, you got your clear and present danger heating up.

Point two in the whole debate is told in the sketch. I was interviewed alone by little miss zero tolerance and allowed to go back to my office to get my stuff. Yeah, um, just yeah.

It’s a cake eating too kind of dilemma. I was a freak, or I was not a freak. You just don’t fucking let a violent loon go get her stuff with an admonition “Ah, don’t talk to anyone, OK?”

Oh, and after working there through seven years, um, I would’ve thought someone would know me. As my lawyer put it, in all his years of pulling employee records for various and sundry disagreements and disputes, my file was shockingly stellar and spotless. The signs weren’t there.

Dunno, maybe I’m dwelling today, because at the new place, the place that came at the end of the snowball spinning ride that started two years ago, there was a summer shindig kind of thing going on. Food. Because, fucking yeah, everything about this job plays out in food. And, some wine and beer. Shit, I hadn’t had an ice cold beer in many months.

Anyway, it reminded me of the fabled beer hours from circa 1989, when I first started working in the non-profit world. I was in my 20s, as were a huge assload of others at the job, and there just wasn’t anything wrong in drinking the free beer and talking to folks. I did my job well enough to go from temp to perm and ultimately like triple or quadruple my salary in 5 years’ time, and until the director starting banging my co-workers, all was groovy. I just didn’t spend a lot of time looking over my shoulder or worrying if I was going to lose my job. (Well, again, until the director’s indiscriminate banging began.)

I never felt that relaxed in my last job and may never again. It’s fucking hard after being fucked with for so long, and it pisses me off.

For about a minute, I was all chill in the new job, thinking, “it’s going to be alright,” and cracked a second beer.

More pictures from a typical weekend

My trek to California has been one exciting adventure after another. A smorgasbord of trying new things.

Today’s chapter is called “Gun Show.” These fine people, apparently named Russ and Sallie, got some space at the San Jose Fairgrounds. Having never been to a gun show and seeing the obnoxious orange signs hung around power poles all over town, we figured what the hell. Perhaps we could learn something beyond snide condescension.
Nah, fuck that bullshit. I live for snide condescension.

I totally dug this sign out front, because I think you can never be reminded too many times. [image:3856:l] Sadly, the camera wasn’t allowed past that point. In fact, there was some threatening notice about confiscating cell phones with cameras. Gun yahoos must be shy.

There was also some notice about wounding people who violated some rule, but I can only remember the part about wounding. I thought about taking a picture, but wounds scare me.

It cost $8 to get into what basically amounted to a really shitty craft sale/flea market with guns. I could have got in for free, if I stopped by and joined at the NRA table out front. I thought about it long and hard, ‘cuz this gal loves a bargain. (I’m a “gal” when I’m with my gun-toting peeps.)

But, then I remembered two things: (1) I would have to pay membership dues, so bargain evaporated and (2) they are the fucking N R FUCKING A. I mean, I loved, loved, loved the Planet of the Apes and would have jumped Taylor faster than either the mute chick or Zira, but fucking get real. Shit, I dodged that bullet and passed the NRA table by.

Here’s the NRA dudes’ table:[image:3855:l]

Later, we did our usual shit and ended up hiking around Stanford’s dish. After admiring military surplus, including some Nazi SS patches…(Note to gun show type folks, every time someone sells neato, cool Nazi paraphenalia at one of your shows, your case is weakened.) …I made M. drop and give me 50.[image:3866:l][newline] Truth be told, he just does that shit out on the street every now and again.

Oh, another note to the gun folks, ix-nay on the u-Klux-Klan-Kay. There was a big, framed movie poster that actually would be pretty awesome for a film student or whatnot to have. It was D.W. Griffith’s Birth of a Nation. Only, the image was of a hooded figure on horseback. Was it history, or was it nostalgia that brought it out to the gun show?

Here’s my fave pic of the day:

[image:3870:l] [newline]

Runner-up would be this poor little tail-less fella.[image:3874:l]

Addendum and a new friend

I should add to the post below, I had a rather mediocre set at the beginning of what turned out to be a rather mediocre show. Sigh.

Meanwhile, here’s a few more nature shots. I’m Ms. Wilderness Safari, hiking everywhere.

[image:3852:l][newline] [image:3853:l][newline] [image:3854:l]

The blessings of Stern

Listened to a bit of Howard Stern on Sirius today.  It was positively a balm to my soul.  OK, not positively and not my soul.  Whatever, it felt good.

Not scary good, like a ride on the Stern-fabled Sybian.

Artie Lang declared Jay Leno a pussy.  (I know it’s heretical to anyone who came from Boston comedy, where Leno is an accomplished legend from Andover, but I can’t fucking stand him and the shitty, syncophantic, whiney crapfest the “Tonight Show” has become under his name.  Once upon a time he was apparently an amazing, original comedian.  But, what is the statute of limitations on once good now unwatchable?)

Artie and I both watched Jay Leno last night, anticipating a showdown from old and old-school liberal George Carlin and fucking twat, Anne Coulter.  Carlin was silent, while Jay just fucking glossed over her venom.

I’m paraphrasing:
Jay:  “Um, ah, don’t you think that you were nasty in your book?”

Anne: “Not really.”

Jay:  “Uh, OK.”

Carlin: ”     “  while examining lint on his sweater or calculating by when exactly he could get home and relax.

I know I’m obsessed with Coulter these days, but it’s just such an indefensibly cruel statement from which she’s trying to play victim (unconvincingly).  Hearing Stern and the gang deconstructing a tape from Leno just helped remind me that actually a whole slew of people in the middle aren’t buying the shit.

Stern and Artie Lang are not at all particularly liberal, and they will say almost anything in the name of comedy, reveling in tastelessness and all the sorts of fun things that made Howard famous.  But, hearing them say there’s just some stuff that no one says (not shouldn’t say, more like “who the fuck does that?”) was awesome.

Heart palpations

One of my work colleagues was a teenage actor on a not unknown sitcom in the ’80s.  Another co-worker mentioned traveling, being in a hotel room and hearing this guy’s voice as she got out of the shower.

Ew.

This let to a conversation about “Googling” at work.  Which instantly led someone to jump to their keyboard and search out yours truly.  In order to fix one thing in my new design, I had turned off my banning of the workplace ‘puters.

MAJOR BREATH-SUCKING FEAR AND TREPIDATION ENSUED.

Cleverly, there is no mention of my actual name on this front page.  Although, a bit of digging could have uncovered me.  She got to this very page, did a page search for my name and got nada, a goose egg, nought but text and pretty pictures.

Sigh.  I survived.  She moved on, concluding it was an aged item in Google land.
Thank fucking Christ in heaven or Texas, wherever he lives.  Either place, your average web looker has a nano gnat-sized attention span, and my secret identity is safe.

Things I've forgotten to mention

I get a tad obsessive when I dig into shit like my website. But, the world continues to turn unabated while I twiddle, as it were.

So, here are a few things I should have mentioned.

Zarqawi is dead. That’s good, right. No wait, it’s bad, because according to the pundits on the right I want soldiers to die, right? No, wait, it actually is bad, because who the fuck knows who’s next in line while we (the U.S.) metaphorically keep jamming the short stick into a wasps’ nest. No wait, it’s good, because he was a fucker of a guy afterall.

I feel saddest for Daniel Pearl’s dad. I get his frustration. Just like I get Cindy Sheehan’s. The whole thing just sucks so hard and long and horribly chockful of lying world leaders. And, down on the bottom of the food chain of people making shit up to go to war was their kids.

In other words, Ann Coulter should shut the fuck up forever and just go away. I don’t want her banned or harmed or otherwise done to so she can shrilly claim everyone is proving her point. Nope, just want her 15 minutes to be the fuck up already.

Here’s where her logic will always break down, but it relies on humanity, so she will never get it:

(1) The little people are allowed to say whatever petty little insults they can come up with against the mighty and powerful. The mighty and powerful have the might and power, so they can basically hum “sticks and stones will break my bones…” while doing whatever the fuck they want.

(2) You never know anyone else’s grief in the face of tragedy. You might know your own similar experience, you might have vast resources of empathy, but in the end we all have our own shit to deal with and no shit pile is quite alike. You never can walk exactly in someone else’s skin.

(3) If the little people are the victims of said grief, even if you’ve moved on already and don’t get it, you give them some slack as they shake fists at authorities against which they are trying to regain some potency in an impotent situation.

(4) At no time are the ones in power allowed to name-call the little guy. At best, it’s poor sportsmanship, at worst it’s tyranny. See “Let them eat cake,” as moment in bad PR.

(5) Roll ’em all together and you get want Ann can’t or won’t comprehend, a world where it’s just weird and painful for her to slag off on people who have a shittier life than hers.

I think in her world, if you call the President “stupid,” he should retort with “Oh, yeah? You’re a fat cow.” While all non-first graders would think not.

In short, and paraphrasing Abbie Hoffman, just fucking steal her book. If we all did take one, imagine the world.