The Intelligence Estimate

Tonight after work I stopped at the ice cream store near work. (Don't judge me!) Apparently it is common around here for children to trick or treat at businesses, so there was a steady stream of children coming into the store in costume and begging. (There was also a donut shop attached to this ice cream store. DON'T JUDGE ME!) That's where I saw a costume that both renewed my faith in humanity and scared the bejeezus out of me.

It was a boy no more than 7 years old who was dressed up like Scooby-Doo. It was clearly a store-bought costume because it was very elaborate. The whole body was soft brown fur. There was a long tail and even dog tags with SD on them. And then there was Scooby's finely crafted head, which would have looked exactly like Scooby had the boy been wearing it. The head was done up like the top of a sweatshirt hood so that when the boy put it on he would have been looking out of Scooby's neck with Scooby's eyes and mouth sitting on top of his head. As it was the child had the hood down. So the effect was that he was carrying around Scooby Doo's severed head on his back.

This reminded me of when I worked at the Civic Center and they would have the Seseame Street Live tours come through. Kids were never let backstage because there were Muppet skins everywhere. Big Bird was the worst. The way that costume works is that the performer put on the legs and then the body is lowered onto them. Well, to achieve that they hoist Big Bird up by the neck and lower him onto the performer. But between shows you walk backstage and are greeted with a legless Big Bird dangling from a noose 30 feet over head. It's eerie. Add to that the various Muppet carcasses strewn about backstage and it looks like some renegade Muppet poacher came backstage and gutted the lot of them.

Yet another childhood memory RUINED by adulthood! I need more ice cream. STOP JUDGING ME!

I was at a theater tonight to see a movie. Before the feature there was an ad for the hot dogs that are available in the lobby. I noticed these hot dogs were from Nathan's.

For the uninitiated, every year on the 4th of July Nathan's has a hot dog eating contest at Coney Island in New York. And, well, if you didn't know about the hot dog eating contest, I'm gonna go out on a limb and guess that you also didn't know that for many years the hot dog eating champion has been from an Asian country. I forget if it was China or Japan, but that really doesn't matter.

Here's my point: America is the fattest nation in the world and we can't even win a hot dog eating contest! Are we even trying anymore? We need to take the title back, and here's how: the competition will be open to the homeless.

I smell a victory...a victory with kecthup, saurkraut and sweet relish!

I got off work last night at about 20 after midnight and my walk back to the train took me past a lot of bars and clubs. And it is now official, I hate Halloween. It used to be about fun stuff: pumpkins and candy and worshipping the devil. Now it is yet another excuse for women between 16 and 67 to dress like hookers.

Walking home I felt like the grand marshall of the whore parade. Sexy pirate, sexy vampire, sexy helioseismologist! COME ON! Sexy butterfly, sexy angel, sexy maid. I'm not sure I even understand the sexy maid mystique. My only run in with a maid has been an overweight women with industrial solvents and a bad attitude. I look at the sexy maid and I think, "You can't dust in those heels."

Sexy, sexy, sexy. It's not right. No one wants to be the witch or the ugly step-sister or the frog. But seriously, let's set the record straight: Cinderella NEVER had cleavage like that! Cowgirls wear more than just chaps! And fishnets and a merrywidow were NOT the regular office attire for Ms. Margaret Thatcher! (Although I give this one credit for the creative use of the Crown Jewels!)

And the whore parade marches on....

I wore this t-shirt to work today that says "Clown Glass Company" and features a giant flame behind a pair of hands spelling out the word Clown. It was something I picked up at a thrift store in Des Moines for like $2. Tonight between shows one of the house managers looks at me and says, "So, do you blow?" I assume she was talking about the shirt. Dear God, I PRAY she was talking about the shirt!

Every morning I wake up to NPR instead of an alarm. I figure this is one of my only chances to get any news because I'm usually at work during other news broadcasts. But sometimes it backfires. I go back to sleep with the radio news on and I'll wake up later with some bastardized dream version of the news in my head. Like this morning I thought that Harriet Miers won the world series for Chicago Public Radio. And instead of World Series rings, they were gonna get a 3 CD set of the latest installments of This American Life.

Isn't that a world you wanna live in?

I was always told that if you have trouble finding a topic to write about you should just start writing in a stream of consciousness-manner and eventually the topic will emerge from the dark recesses of your mind. Well, in an attempt to flesh out today's topic, I tried this. And you know where I ended up? In a story about dead cats. See, sometimes the stream of consciousness needs to be damned up in order for the new saw mill of thoughtfulness to start churning out writings worth reading. (Or at least metaphors worth mangling!) So in the grand tradition of playground kickballers everywhere this blog entry is a do-over.

I just started a new job so I have many new people to meet. Today I sat next to our IT person (John) for a few hours as he installed a new operating system onto my boss' PC. In the course of those hours I found out that he was leaving a little early today to go pick up the ring him and his fiance (Lori) had picked out. They had found a great bargain at Zales. And you know what John was going to do with the money he saved? He was going to buy a replica of the WWF Inter-Continental Championship belt. That reminded me of my friend Joanne's wedding. Joanne and her husband (who, for reason's I'd rather not speculate on, chose to be called Beanie) met in college and they were both proud alums. So when it came time for the recessional music to play at their wedding, instead of a hymn, they played the college fight song. My girlfriend at the time leaned over to me and said, "How appropriate to start off your married life with a FIGHT song!" In my estimation John is going Beanie one better. He is preparing for the 9 round steel-cage death match of love that is married life. I wish him the best and I hope that Lori is not one who is easily brusied.

My friend Sarah was riding the train home a few weeks ago when she noticed a cell phone on the seat next to her. Being the responsible adult that she is, she attempted to find out who it belonged to. Sarah asked the people around her if it was theirs but no one seemed to know anything about it.

The train had come to a stop and people were exiting for the platform. She stepped to the door and yelled to the people on the platform to see if the phone belonged to them. No one seemed interested. No one was interested that is until the door closed on Sarah's arm and the train took off with her flailing limb and a cell phone hanging out of it.

Now everyone was very interested. They all had terriffic advice that they wouldn't stop giving her.

It was only when the train reached the next stop and her arm was freed that she realized that the phone she had been holding onto this whole time was not actually a phone, but a candy container SHAPED like a phone.

See what trying to do good gets you?

I've never understood that marketing gimmick. If they see only one movie a year, why are you marketing to them? And why do they put that on trailers that are playing before other movies? If you see only one film this year...well, we'll catch you in January!

Anyway, I saw "Goodnight and Good Luck" tonight. It's a movie co-written and directed by George Clooney about Edward R. Murrow taking on Senator Joe McCarthy. It was a surprisingly good movie. I really enjoyed it a lot. It had a fantastic look to it that was very much in keeping with the feel of 1950's television. Everything in the movie was very flat, the foreground was in very sharp focus and everything even slightly behind was VERY out of focus. They also used a lot of ads from 1950's television as well, which set the mood very well. Additionally they utilized the tracking shots very well to convey the frenzied motion of the newsroom floor and television studios.

It was a very good movie. If it's playing near you, go see it. And while you're there, see another movie too. Seriously, one movie a year? For God's sake LIVE a little!

Tomorrow is my last day at Drury Lane...anybody need any office supplies?

I've never been much into comic books. I flirted with them in college, but we decided to see other people. Thus I've never been to a comic convention, or, to use the parlance, a CON.

Well all that changed tonight.

I am very into a web cartoon called Red vs Blue. (www.redvsblue.com) It uses a video game called Halo to film a story about two armies of Marines in space who are pitted against one another. And while my description would not lead you to believe this, it is outragously funny. The creators of this series frequently attend all kinds of CONS, ones for video games, ones for comic books and ones for films. And tonight I went to a CON near my house (called The Reactor) to meet a friend of mine who is the voice of one of the characters in Red vs Blue.

The Reactor was a real education. WOW! I tried to keep an open mind about these people and their obsessions, but it was difficult to keep William Shatner's Saturday Night Live parody of Star Trek conventions out of my mind. You know the one? The one where he admonishes his fans to "Get a life!" and "Look at yourselves! You? You must be 30 years old. Have you ever kissed a girl?"

It was a cross between a chess club mixer and a costume shop explosion. There were so many OCD behaviors on display I felt like I'd wandered into a clinic of some sort. And, while I understood all the words they were using, I had no idea what they were talking about. I didn't speak the language. There were Ninjas and Demons and Aliens and Jedi and other costumes that defy categorization...by me anyway. I was REALLY out of my depth.

And yet, if I was to be honest with myself I would have to admit that I admire these fan's devotion and their disregard for the chagrin and shock of people like myself who would pass judgement on them. And, as the organizer of the event said during his opening speech, "We didn't go to Prom. We didn't go to Homecoming. We didn't go to frat parties. THIS is our frat party!" Well, I went to prom and homecoming. They didn't miss anything...except the opportunity to get sexually frustrated. And from the look of things, I think these people wrote the book on frustration. Well, the graphic novel anyway.

I applaude the Reactor and it's clientele, but I can't get far enough outside of myself to get in to it as much as those people.

We had an improv show last night, and afterwards four of us went out to eat and we closed down the restaurant. I left with my friend Susan because we were going to catch the same train. We get to the corner and are getting ready to cross the street when I hear a voice from behind me "is that for me?" I try to ignore it, but i just keeps getting louder and more insistant. After awhile I realized that it was a homeless person asking for the left overs I had in my hand. "Is that for me? Can I have that food? Lemme have that food." My solution? I crossed the street.

It was hard for me to deal with that because my usual answer to beggers is, "I'm sorry, I've got nothing!" Well, that line doesn't work when you're holding a doggie bag that suddenly seems larger than life. Susan tried to sympathize.

"It's hard when they ask for food because you can't counter with, 'No, I'm not giving you this. You'll probably just use it to buy drugs.'"

And she's right.

That being said, I'm glad I got to bring those leftovers home to my wife. She had them today for lunch.

This story is a lot like the movie "The Graduate," it's not over because it finally gets to the point...it just ends.

Dearest Blog Enthusiasts,

I come to you today with a heavy heart.

Occasionally, as a writer of humor you use friends, acquaintances and inanimate objects as a sounding board for punch lines or stories that you're working on. And often what happens is that the civilian will come up with a funnier idea than you will. And since they're a civilian with absolutely no social climbing instincts or performance skills, you write what THEY said instead of going off in your original, less funny direction. In college English this is called plagiarism. In comedy it is simply the price of doing business. However sometimes, in the pursuit of humor we forget the ones we tread upon to get to the punch line. And I have tread upon one Mr. Derrick Douglas.

In a blog entry a few days ago I was waxing idiotic about how I feared that I might be too happy to actually be funny. To remedy this I was going to join Columbia House to screw up my life. This is an idea that occurred to me on the train and before I got to my computer to write about it, Derrick called. Derrick is a friend of my wife's from college. He and his wife Amy live in Evanston. Derrick is a chemist, and is a quick wit...for a chemist. He said, "Hey, what's going on with you?" I mentioned the topic of my blog as if it were ordinary conversation. And Derrick suggested that I also attempt to get a rash in an embarrassing place. This is a theme that I expanded upon in my blog entry for that day. But the original idea was, in fact, Derrick's.

Derrick is no stranger to itchy rashes, nor to scratching himself in public, so he knows of what he speaks when he talks of rashes and the embarrassment of scratching them. Although, admittedly, his embarrassment has subsided over time and he now scratches himself whenever and wherever he pleases. Occasionally he will scratch other people completely unsolicitously and he is so well adjusted that he is not even embarrassed by their rebukes. Rebukes which have included slaps, drinks poured down his pants and more than one marriage proposal. But the fact remains; he was hurt by me taking credit for HIS joke. I'm sorry Derrick. I hope that this blog entry will heal the wound like a healing salve on poison ivy. Poison ivy in your butt crack.

Last night I saw "The Gates of Heaven" as part of The 41st Annual Chicago International Film Festival. The film is an early documentary from Errol Morris who won the Oscar for Best Documentary a few years ago for his film "The Fog of War." In this movie Morris interviews people involved in two pet cemetary businesses in California. One is forced to close down and the other thrives. But that is not really the point of the story.

The story is really about how people form attachments to pets but also let their attachments to people go to hell. The second pet cemetary (Bubbling Well Pet Cemetary) is run by the Harberts family. The two brothers, Danny and Phil, don't get along very well. Phil used to be in insurance but quit that to come back and work the cemetary. Phil speaks only in new age, management-speak catch-phrases. His younger brother Danny has been at the cemetary for 3 years, so he is in charge. This irks Phil a lot, a fact that he attempts to hide it under a thin veil of self-help colloquialisms.

The story also follows some pet owners as well. It is very interesting to hear them speak of their pets in such dramatically anthropomorphized terms.

The film is shot very simply. There are a lot of static shots, almost no tracking or panning at all. This works to give a tranquil feel to the entire film, very appropriate for a film about cemetaries.

I don't know if you can find this movie on VHS or DVD anywhere, but if you have a chance to see it I recommend it.

Reading back over these past few blog entries I'm starting to suspect I may not be funny anymore. (Incidentally this is not an invitation for you to weigh in on the issue one way or ther other. This is what we in the comedy world call "the premise.") Seriously, these last few entries have been full of the kind of run of the mill observations that make The Prairie Home Companion so popular amongst the stoic Lutherans and the labotomized. (But I repeat myself....)

I've decided that it might have something to do with the fact that I am currently in the process of extricating myself from a job I hate and starting work at a place I LOVE! This has put me in a state I'm not familiar with: happiness. And all comedy comes from pain...so I've decided that in the interest of comedy I am going to join Columbia House and totally screw up my life. I may also contract an itchy rash in a hard to reach area of my body. Then the comedy will flow from me like puss from an itchy rash! LOOK OUT WORLD, I FEEL FUNNY!

Chicago International Film Festival, round 2.

Just to bring you up to speed, round one of the festival left me questioning the existance of a higher power because I wasted two hours of my life watching a doucmentary about a guy who likes to tell everyone how great he is. Incidentally, in the service of fairness, I believe equal time should be given for opposing viewpoints at the festival. For instance, I don't believe he's great in the slightest. Now gimme two hours to expand on that and you'd have more of a thesis than was found in his movie!

That being said, I went to movie #2 today with some trepidation.

Today's movie was called CCTV, which stands for Close Ciruit Television. CCTV is the camera system they have in place in London that is supposed to help deter terrorists by surveilling the entire city simultaneously. Apparently (and ironically) it is illegal to photograph the CCTV cameras. Anyway, the movie follows one single camera through the lives of MANY different owners. The camera has a glitch that keeps the tape from ejecting and makes it film at very unpredictable times. The entire movie is a viewing of the tape by the police department.

The camera gimmick is both good and bad. Good in the respect that it presents an opportunity for some very nice voyeuristic moments to be captured that might be missed by a traditional story-telling device. Bad in the respect that I was always asking myself why these people kept putting the camera in such auspicious places. The film maker has made over 40 documentaries, but this was his first foray into fiction. He employed a lot of non-fiction techniques in this film. None of the "actors" are really actors and they are making up the dialogue from an outline the director wrote.

The "story" doesn't really hold together as such, but I don't think that was the intention of the film maker. As an experiment in storytelling I think it works much the same way as "Time Code."

Tomorrow I see Errol Morris' "The Gates of Heaven." I'm really looking forward to that.

I have always been a night person. I don't know why. I think it started out because I felt like I was getting away with something when I would be up when my parents weren't. And I would watch TV shows that ONLY I was seeing. I felt special. I felt like I was communing with a secret society of night owls. Everything seems more epic when it happens late at night.

When we moved to Chicago, we left Des Moines at 1 a.m. It was monumental. Even now, as I'm writing this, it's almost 12:30 a.m. I am alone. Jen is in bed, and our apartment is so small that I am sitting in the dark so I won't wake her. The only light is from the computer screen. I love it. When I was in college, there were many nights when I would turn off the lights in my dorm and just stare out at the city lights with some sad music on in the background. It was great. It's not a great way to meet peope, but I love it.

When film maker Robert Rodriguez is editing a movie he does it in his garage studio at night so that he can spend time with his kids. He wakes up at 3 p.m. and picks up the kids from school. He takes them home and makes dinner, helps them with their homework. Then he puts them to bed and goes to work. He works through the night until it's time to get the kids up for school the next morning. He gets them ready and off to school, then he sleeps until 3 p.m. and the process repeats.

See, this is what too much NPR will do to a person. I wax poet over misspent college years and regurgitate factoids from random Fresh Air interviews. Think of all the millions of better ways you could have spent the time you wasted on reading this! Shame on you!

I gave my two weeks notice at work today. Wow. It feels almost as good to type that as it did to actually do it. Let me try again. I gave my two weeks notice at work today. WOO-HOO! MAN, that feels GOOD!

I will begin working at the Blue Man Group on Oct 25. My last day at my current position is Oct 23.

I went to a movie tonight. It was the first of the movies that I plan on seeing for the Chicago International Film Festival. Let's just say I chose poorly. I love documentaries, but this was really not good. It was called "The Protocols of Zion" and it was really misguided and self-congratulatory. The narrative was very muddled and the interviewer was very self-righteous.

The "story" was about the book published in the early 1900s called "The Protocols of The Learned Elders of Zion." That book purported to be the transcript of a meeting of Jewish leaders who hatched a devious plot to take over the world. The book is false. It was propaganda placed by the Russian Czars, but it keeps popping up again and again claiming to be true. The film maker used his father, personal history and a bunch of ham-fisted and belligerent interviews with opposing view points to try to advance the premise...but there WAS NO PREMISE! It was just 2 hours of the film maker provoking fights and preaching his self-righteousness. He mocks skinheads and Arabs for being close-minded and not presenting any facts to back up their prejudices, and then he makes a film where his side is presented with no more proof than to say "Nuh-uh!" He never tells you WHY the book is false, he simply tells you that it was debunked. I found the film lazily researched and sloppily presented. Which is a shame because it was an interesting topic.

I hope the rest of the fest is more appealing. The next film I'm scheduled to see (well, the next one I have tickets for anyway) is an old Errol Morris film called "Gates of Heaven." Wish me luck!

Today was a mixed bag.

On the job front, I feel like I can finally talk a little more freely about what has been going on. I have been interviewing with The Blue Man Group. (www.blueman.com) I interviewed for a ticket office position and a position called Lobby Jack Sub. If that last job looks like three random nouns that were thrown together by tossing a dictionary in a Cuisinart, you're not alone. They have their own language there. It's basically a lobby supervisor who has some limited run-crew duties as well.

Anyway, I love the organization. Everyone is VERY friendly and very laid back. It's a totally different atmosphere than I have ever encountered in a real, adult job. It always feels like the grown-ups are gonna come home and find us out. For instance, when I shadowed the regular Lobby Jack on Friday I was greeted in the green room by an excited Beagle named Wrigley. He was one of two full-time canines in the place. (There is a full time Sheltie named Lilo and a part-time French Bulldog named Otto.) It's just an incredible environment to be in.

Well, I got a phone call from the ticket office today and they offered me the position. Actually, they offered me MORE than I interviewed for. The position was supposed to be part-time seasonal, which means it would end on Jan. 8. But they liked me so much that they decided to drop the seasonal part and just hire me as a regular part-time employee.

Here's why that's both good and bad:

GOOD) I get to get out of this horrible, soul-sucking job I'm stuck in and into a great company that churns out a quality product.

BAD) The guy I leave behind in my stead is already doing 2 jobs at the theater!

His name is Tyler and he's getting screwed by the theater. Por examplo, on ordinary weeks when he has only about 30 hours of work, he'll only receive one paycheck despite the fact that he's doing three jobs for the company. Now that he's being worked to the bone (120 hours in 2 weeks!) he's getting 2 paychecks so that they can justify paying him less overtime. I think he'll explode if he has a 3rd job piled onto him.

Well, whatever. I'm really looking forward to giving my notice tomorrow.

Here's how I find out about things that are going on at work...

http://www.suntimes.com/output/weiss/cst-ftr-bee07.html

...from The Chicago Sun-Times!

Public transportation is fun. The concept, as I understand it, is to take as many disimilar people as you can and cram them into a metal tube of some kind. Mix throughly and enjoy.

On the bus today a woman in her late 40s was holding a college girl hostage with her unwanted conversation. She went on and on and on and the younger woman was just too polite to stop her. Story after story after story. The younger woman couldn't get a word in edgewise. Zip! Finally the older lady says, "I'm orginally from here. Born and raised in Chicago. Where are you from? You from a small town?" The younger woman countered, "I'm from Cleavland." "I knew it," The older lady shot back. "Nice people are never from Chicago!" I wonder if she includes herself in that tally?

On the train today I saw the oddest graffitti. Someone had scribbled on the wall with Sharpie Marker, "Gangs are Gay." I'm not sure which of those groups should be more offended, but I'm leaning toward the gays. Then again, it gives a whole new meaning to "Gang Bangers."

I went to the opera on Wednesday with my friend Sarah who used to work there. Because of her ties to the opera, we went backstage briefly before the show so she could say hello to some friends of hers in the office. While they were all busy fawning over Sarah and how great she looks since she left there, I had plenty of time to soak in the bulletin boards in the offices.

Having been an office rat of one stripe or another for the bulk of my working career, I know that you can tell a lot about an organization by what they deem worthy of posting on public bulletin boards. Amongst the usual calendars, phone trees, memoes and birth announcements I found two quotes that say something unique about the opera. (I'm not sure WHAT it says, but I know it's unique!)

One was a quote that was on a sign over a small desk in an otherwise abandoned corner of the office. The quote seemed to be an answer of sorts. Like the outcome of several small phone skermishes. The sign said, "Would I work in the arts if I could do math?"

The other sign was on a larger bulletin board in a more well lit area of the room. This sign was under the heading of "Quotes from Season's Past." And the quote was "This rehearsal absolutely can not run any longer because I must get home and water my compost worms."

I went to my first opera last night. The opera house is amazing. The show was quite good...but what the hell do I know?

I had an interview for a ticket office position today. It went well, but it turns out it's a seasonal position. Not sure how I feel about that.

An aquaintance suggested that I contact the head of the Chicago League of Theaters. I e-mailed him and included a resume. He was very nice, but cryptic. I've got an appointment to call him tomorrow.

I know this is not an ordinary post, but I'm not quite myself today. I don't know who I am, but not me. I'm someone more depressive. Suffice it to say I'm a joy to be around.

The Kinks, helmed by the Davies brothers, wrote such timeless classics as "You Really Got Me" and "Lola." Those were fun Kinks. Rowdy Kinks. These kinks are not.

I'm still working out some bugs in the blog. Basically, the way I was updating this didn't allow for anyone to be notified about new writings being posted. I am waiting on a judgement from Google before I can take this any further. (Long, boring, technical story. Let's not get into it, ok?)

So basically, no one knows this post is here and won't for a few days. Which begs the question, "Who am I writing this for?" Hmmmm. Posteity I guess. Besides, when people do start flocking here in droves (or maybe they'll walk! HA!) they'll need an explanation as to why there was a break in the writing and why the comment sections are not chock full of witty replies by a feverishly devoted community of fun-loving monkies! Yes, it is for THOSE people that I plug away at this journal.

GAWD, I hope those idiots hurry up and get here!

I just got off the phone with the ticket office at a really great little theater.

Remember the post where I talked about an interview I had with a cool theater that I didn't want to talk too much about because I would jinx it? ( http://intelligenceestimate.blogspot.com/2005/09/rules.html) Well, this was for ANOTHER position with THE SAME theater! They want to interview me for a ticket office position. Between both of those part time jobs, I may be able to...nope, don't want to jinx that either. Now then, please excuse me while I dance around wildly flailing my arms and making trumpet noises!

*The sound of Souza marches being murdered by an army of wannabe kazoo soloists fills the air*

Oh, you're still here? Thanks. I appreciate that! Wanna dance?!

Ok, I will be adding a proper blog later, but right now I just need some information.

Can I just get a reply from all the people who get e-mail when this blog is updated? I'm just having some trouble with the settings on the site. So I need to know who is currently on the list so I can check it against the information I have here.

Thanks.

-Mgmt

I just saw a Japanese movie called Audition. (http://imdb.com/title/tt0235198/)

HOLY CRAP! HOLY CRAP! HOLY CRAP!

Freaky. Mind-bending. Scary. Demented. In some scenes physically painful to watch.

I got it from Netflix. I'm not sure how easily you can find it at your local video store, but I recommend it. It's VERY hard to describe. It must be experienced.

WOW!

I have decided that the funniest thing in the world would be to see James Earl Jones and Morgan Freeman in an no-holds barred, bare-knuckled, old-fashioned pie fight.

Those two guys are amazing. The epitome of class, grace and sophistication. They have glowing, resonant, golden throated speaking voices that can sell buttons to the Amish. And I think it would be fabulously funny to see them slinging pies at each other.

I'd pay to see that. Who's with me?