The Intelligence Estimate

Due to the dismissal of an employee I have spent 22 of the last 48 hours at work covering shifts. Here is a list of bitches and complaints that I've amassed in that time.

I Didn't See Your Name On It!
There is exactly ONE stool in the lobby. It is tucked away in a corner by the end of the bar. It is strategically located so that I can sit there and keep an eye on the most often fondled, manhandled and misused portions of the lobby. Several time over the last two days I have turned my back only to find that when I turn back around someone is on my stool. Usually a middle aged woman who is at least 50 pounds past her ideal weight and about 50 Twinkies past giving a damn. The arrogance of this galls me to no end. In a theatre that holds over 600 people what makes you think the ONE chair in the lobby is for YOU? And there is exactly NO way to extract a bar stool from a sea cow's ass. You just have to wait it out.

Is It A Disease Where You Have To Touch EVERYTHING?
When little kids are in the lobby you have to politely remind them that they can't put their grubby little mitts on everything. However, when adults are in the lobby, oddly enough, you have to do the exact same thing. I watched a guy fondle a piece of Plexiglas for about 3 minutes. The most annoying part was watching him stare longingly at his hand as it was touching the words "PLEASE DO NOT TOUCH."

Stupid Quotes

*in a snotty, condescending tone* "I hope you recycle."

*in a helpful customer focused manner* "The paper used in the show is recycled paper and we recycle it again when we're done."

*still pissy* "Well...uh...ok. Good."

(If you cared about the environment half as much as you cared about being condescending the world would be overrun by spotted owls.)

*****

*a Blue Man decorates a 10 year old girl with blue paint from his head and mom exclaims* "You got BLUE'D!"

(I'm guessing in seven or eight years mom won't be so excited to find out her daughter got...uh...BLUE'D by a total stranger.)

*****
*man exits the bathroom where a child has just puked* "Uh..I just got out of the bathroom and there is...I mean, it's everywhere..."

"Sir, we've got someone on it right now."

*condescending* "Well, it's still there!"

(You mean in the 5 seconds between you registering your complaint with me and me answering you no one has cleaned it up? Well, rest assured heads will roll over this sir! I mean, if the cleaning crew can't travel faster than the speed of your whining then what's the use of having them around in the first place?)

*****








There are a lot of hoses and tubes in the lobby. It is an aesthetic choice to make it look like the place is constantly under construction and bursting at the seams. Some of the tubes are what we call "breathing tubes." The "breathing tubes" raise and lower by a vacuum system. Somehow the most repressed, homophobic men all find their way over to these tubes and begin commenting on the phallic nature of them. And when the tubes begin to retract into the ceiling they giggle like school kids and shriek, "SHRINKAGE!"

It wasn't funny at the 4p.m. show, it wasn't funny at the 7p.m. show...but the variation of it that took place at the 10p.m. show was actually kind of funny. It consisted of 5 or 6 woman (all over the age of 60) gathered together under one particularly large tube just pointing and snickering. And I couldn't swear to this, but I think I heard one of them say, "Remember when we used to see that at home?"

Lost and Found
After one show I found a little black, quilted case on the floor.

"Someone has lost a pencil case," I thought.

I picked it up and opened it only to find that they were not pencils at all. It was a tampon. I took it to the lost and found knowing full well that it was never going to be claimed. Someone suggested making an announcement when we announce late arrivals during the show. To which I countered, "If these people are late then they don't have to worry about tampons anymore."

The Surgeon General Says You're a Moron
A guy lit up in the lobby. In case you haven't been following the news about smoking bans in Chicago (and I can't blame you if you haven't, it's at least as much fun as trimming your nose hairs with a pair of pliers) the city has outlawed smoking in every public place...except this guys mind. In that large expanse of dark nothingness there is smoke all the time. It comes mostly from the gears in his head grinding feverishly to try to make sense out of etiquette and common courtesy. Yeah, there's no smoking in any public place in Chicago...except our lobby near 1 million dollars worth of paintings and flammable liquids. Please, feel free to smoke yourself silly kemosabe! You need a stool to go with that?

I have an abusive relationship with technology. Honestly, if a person ever treated me the way my iPod does then my friends would have staged an intervention long ago.

Today after work I turned off my iPod and went to plug it into my computer. iTunes didn't recognize that I had the iPod plugged in, so I exercised the only technical solution available to me: I unplugged it and plug it in again. Still nothing. Now I'm starting to worry. See, my computer has been doing a bunch of crazy stuff lately so I figure I need to reboot the hard drive (my other all-purpose solution) and plug it in again (the other panacea.) I do all that and it still won't recognize my iPod. It was only then that I realized that there was nothing on the screen of my iPod. Nothing at all. Blank. I unplugged it again (I really am a one trick pony when it comes to tech solutions) and started to mess with all the dials. That usually rouses the little guy. Still nothing. I unplug it and plug it into the wall outlet recharger. It's still dead. My mind floats back to the last time I had such a problem...and I am certifiably insane with rage.

"I just got the song count back to where it was before the...before the recent unpleasantness, " I screech!

For those of you keeping score at home, that was about 3500 songs! I decided that the only thing to do was to go down to the Apple Store and start taking hostages!

"Another step closer and this Powerbook gets it! Listen, my demands are firm. I will not negotiate. I am leaving here with an iPod that works or so help me God I will blast this Powerbook back to the stone age! That's right...you will have to have deck of cards to play solitaire then. Do you remember how to deal? Are you prepared for that headache? Do you even HAVE a deck of cards? Maybe somewhere in a junk drawer with an old phonebook and a ring of keys that you don't remember ever having. MAYBE. But you don't know do you? I didn't think so. Now get me MY iPOD!"

I walked into the Apple Store exuding fury from my every pore. I march up to the "Genius Bar" and wait my turn, but every minute I'm waiting I'm getting more and more livid. Finally the guy behind the counter calls my name. Here's my opportunity.

"What's wrong with your iPod?" the unsuspecting "genius" asks.

"It just up and died like common courtesy, middle class morality and the commitment to customer service that this once great country was built on, and I demand to know what you're going to do to set it right Poindexter!"

Then out loud I said, "I don't know."

"Well did you do a hard reset?"

"I think so."

What I meant by that is that I pressed a lot of buttons and shook it a little. Beyond that I am little out of my depth.

He pressed two buttons simultaneously and held them for about 10 seconds and the iPod sprang back to life. I scrolled through a few menus and everything was back to normal. I felt like an ass. TEN SECONDS! I spent 45 minutes on a bus for TEN SECONDS!

I looked down at the iPod and thought, "I swear he's not like this at home."

I have never been a big lover of bumper stickers. I personally have never been driving behind someone and thought, "I wonder if their kid is an honor student? I wish they'd just tell me a little more about themselves. Who did you vote for? Do you prefer Ford or Chevy? Who would you like to have a cartoon character pissing on? What are you afraid of, OPEN UP TO ME!"

Well today I saw the best (and by best I mean WORST!) bumper sticker yet. It was on a black Dodge Dakota on Loyola Avenue at about 1p.m. today. It was a black sticker with white letters and a little cartoon gas pump. Next to the gas pump it said, "Powered By Gasoline."

Really? Gas-o-line you say? These newfangled horseless carriages confuse and confound my already bedraggled mind. I have so much to learn. Please, explain to me this GAS-O-LINE of which you speak.

I guess I should thank them for explaining the internal combustion engine to me. It's only been around for a hundred years or so and a lot of the complexities of it were lost on me, the lowly pedestrian.

Gasoline. It runs on gasoline. Was there really a lot of confusion on that point? Well, just for the record, I wanna clear this up once and for all: the Dodge Dakota is not powered by pixie dust and happy thoughts.

Woman exiting the Briar Street Theater: "...and then there was gravy in the hot tub."

I guess the gravy boat was full of heavily chlorinated water, so, you know, whattaya gonna do? Seems like the only logical solution. Sort of a gravy exchange program.

Saturday marked the one year anniversary of The Intelligence Estimate. To celebrate I'm sending all my subscribers a piece of birthday cake in the mail. It should be arriving in 3-6 weeks(longer in Australia)in a greasy manilla envelope. And to make sure that you don't gorge yourself, the antedote will not arrive for at least a week after that. Patience, and a healthy immune system, is a virtue!

In the meantime please enjoy this encore presentation of the gently used issue of The Intelligence Estimate that started it all.

I remain your humble servant,
Chris

*******
There was a fire last week at the building next door to mine. I'm not sure the cause of it, but there was an arrest this week, so apparently it was intentionally set. And I can't say I am surprised. I have lived in my current apartment for almost three years. It is owned by the same people that own the now burnt building next door. The quality of tennants in these buidlings have steadily declined over the course of those three years. And they were never GOOD.

My first Christmas there I was approached by the lady in apartment 2 and she asked me for money because, as she so eloquently stated "the banks are closed and we're stuck like chuck." I gave her ten dollars and as collatoral she gave me two Steven Segal movies. Who got the better deal there? Well, they've moved and never returned my ten dollars and I'm stuck with two movies so bad that they barely stick to film.

After we got burned by those tennants, my wife and I shied away from talking to people in the hallways. Not because we didn't have the money but because we have standards in films. So we were a bit taken aback when recently our neighbor in apartment 3 introduced herself by inquiring, "Are you the ones that called the cops on me? I don't smoke marijuana!" Let me stress that this is the first conversation we ever had with this woman. Just to put it into perspective, try to think of the last conversation you had that STARTED OFF with the accusation that you were a narc. Sure, plenty of conversations end up there but very few start there, especially with strangers. And in her defense, she clearly doesn't smoke marijuana. Not the good stuff anyway, because that ditchweed will make you paranoid.

But at least the stoned are quiet. The people who replaced her in apartment 3 will not shut up. All hours, all days. They will not shut up. No matter what they do, party, listen to music, whisper, they do it loudly. One morning I was woken up to one of their conversations. Luckily one of them had a fleeting moment of clarity due to the fact that the landlord had talked to them the night before.

"Shut up, people are sleeping," the man said.

Not to be overcome by the power of his logic she shot back, "We'll those people need to get their asses up!" So what could I do? I got up.

These people all lived in my building, but they are also the caliber of people who were being displaced by the fire next door. So when all the neighbors were asking, "Where will they go? What will they do?" I thought, "Well, I guess they'll just be annoying somehwere else."

And I was right. They were all moved into our building.

Music from my iPod loading experience is still invading my life in new and interesting ways. I was at work yesterday, April 15 (tax day), when I heard The Taxman by the Beatles. I pray to Apple, Inc. that this all ends soon!

I think this iPod business may be taking over my life. I've had the past two days off and I've spent the bulk of that time loading music onto my iPod. The result? Besides having over 2000 songs on my iPod, I now see the world in song lyrics.

Today I was walking down the block to get some lunch and I saw this weasely looking guy pushing an ice cream cart down the sidewalk. All of a sudden he stops dead in his tracks. There is no one near him. It's not like he's making a sale or discussing business with anyone. There is no one there...except the pretty woman walking behind him, who he lets pass so he could check her out. As she passes him I realize that she has a cat carrier in her hand.

That's the objective information that was taken in by my entirely uninterested senses. But here's what I heard in my head:

"I'm your ice cream man stop me when I'm passing by
I said all my flavors are guaranteed to satisfy"

"Pretty woman look my way
Pretty woman say you'll stay with me
Cuz I need you"

"Cat scratch fever...wah-nah-nah-nah...Cat scratch fever...wah-nah-nah nah!"

"Could have been so beautiful
Could have been so right
Could have been my everything
On a cold and lonely night."

This is out of control.

Reloading songs onto my iPod has forced me to realize that a lot of songs have lazy rhyme schemes. For instance, how many times have you heard the word "dance" rhymed with the incredibly obvious "romance"? And romance is usually forced into the awkward coupling with the word "make," which has always seemed like shotgun marriage to me. Does anyone really MAKE romance? Have you ever been sitting alone watching tv as the clock struck 6 in the evening and thought, "time to make the romance?" No. It doesn't happen.

People in love make a lot of things (dinner reservations for that trendy little French place, disgusting nicknames for one another and their single friends angry) but romance isn't usually one of them. Romance needs to be experienced, not manufactured.

How much more exciting a world would it be if romance only rhymed with antidisestablishmentarianism? All of a sudden it turns Celine Dion into Rage Against the Machine! Whoa, that's a thought, huh? What brave new world is this that has such people in it?

Ok, the reason I haven't been posting on my blog regularly is a mix of good news and bad news.

The good news is that the Apple service agreement is incredibly lax and they gave me a new iPod, no questions asked. Seriously, no questions. I brought it in and they hooked it up to a Mac tower and said, "Yup, hard drive failure. You need a new iPod." Naturally, I thought there was a catch. Like, "You need a new iPod...that'll be $400!" or "You need a new iPod, whattaya want me to do about it?" I even had my lies for the interrogation all ready to go. "It may have gotten dropped. I'm not with it every minute." and "It was certainly not ever exposed to water! Who would ever do such a thing? Why, that would invalidate even the least craftily devised warranty. And I know you here at Apple are no dummies!" But I didn't need the excuses. They just gave me a new one. Well, for $29 anyway. But that's practically giving it away! I was so thrilled I even bought the extended warrantee so I can play this game for another year and a half!

The bad news is that, of course, the new iPod doesn't have my 3500 songs on it. So I've spent the last few days piling my music back on the iPod. So far I'm a little over 1000 songs. This is gonna take forever.

I may post some pictures of the new iPod...but then again, they all look the same so just go back to the other photos and pretend they're new.

JQ5207Z4PS9, known to his friends as the Pea Pod, passed away on Wednesday, April 5, 2006 at the age of 9 months old. He died of unknown complications. He is survived a younger sister JQ5244JW545 (Pinkie Pod) and several accessories. A wake will be held at the Apple Store (679 North Michigan Avenue, Chicago, Illinois) from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Thursday, April 6, 2006. Cards and remembrances can be sent here.
















JQ5207Z4PS9 (Pea Pod) and his friend
PAV4014TRIP (Belkin) on one of their many car trips

When I first moved here (almost a year ago now) I worked downtown next to the Hancock Building. One day I was standing at the corner waiting for the bus to take me home when I saw this guy stopped at the light. He was in a little silver convertible sports car and he had a big dog riding shotgun. The guy was in his early-mid fifties and was dressed like he was not out to impress anyone. This suspicion was also confirmed by the music blaring out of his speakers: We Built This City On Rock and Roll, by Jefferson Starship. And he was ROCKIN' OUT! The dog was less interested in The Starship. This pleased me. At least someone in that car had taste. Sadly it was the one who spends gross amounts of time with his nose gleefully buried in his own crotch, but I'm sure that if the driver had that talent it would take the place in his heart that was formerly held by Jefferson Starship!

I stood at this light for what seemed like an eternity. The light changed. The little silver sports car careened away and I was stuck at the bus stop with that song in my head. Why are the most inanely insipid song always the most catchy? I was two seconds away from a full blown dance-off when I swore I heard the music starting up all over again.

"This can't be good," I thought. If the music is stuck in your head, that's one thing (most likely a long couch trip at your favorite therapist.) But if you are projecting the music out into the real world from your thoughts, that's quite another matter indeed! (A long bout with shock therapy is my guess.) I quickly wrote off any delusions of full blown psychosis when I noticed other people reacting to the song as well.

The little guy in the silver sports car was clearly lost. He had circled the block and was now right beside me at a 90 degree angle from where he was the first time. And he was still blasting Starship. Apparently they'd built this city on Rock and Roll, but, seeing as how they were most likely rock and rolling all night and partying everyday, they forgot to make maps. As far as I know, this nut is still stuck in some kind of mobius strip of frustration downtown right now. And the only one who is really happy about that is his dog who built this city on and even more base instinct than Rock and Roll!

The other night Jen and I came home around 11:30 p.m. Jen had to be up at 6 the next morning and needed to go right to bed. This became rather difficult to accomplish when a neighbor decided we needed to hear the Guns N' Roses album Appetite for Destruction over and over again at about a billion decibels. (I'm rounding to the nearest billion, but I think I'm pretty close here.) And, unfortunately, he wasn't alone. You could smell the alcohol in the hall and see the hoof marks in the carpet of all the ignorant rabble who had heeded the keg's siren song. So, being the strapping hunk of masculinity that I am, I handled it the only way I could.

"Jen? Call the cops."

That's right, a man's work is never done...being delegated! The police informed us (and by "us" I mean Jen) that they had received calls about this apartment before and that they were on their way. It was little consolation that this guy was a repeat offender, but at least the cops were on their way. In the meantime the music got louder and the neighbors across the alley started yelling all of the pithy things I wish I could. I imagine it's a lot easier to be caustic and withering when you're safely out of drunken-beating range. I guess I could have had Jen call some of my witticisms downstairs, but we decided to just sit in silence and listen to the Jerry-Springer-Show-in-the-making that was festering below.

When the cops did show up the guy was apologetic. To the cops. To the two men with guns he couldn't have been nicer. But then something weird happened. I know this because Jen and I stood on the landing above them and listened. The guy started telling the cops that he didn't turn down the music because the people who were complaining "didn't even speak English." I assume this meant the people who lived across the alley, but I don't know. Anyhow, this guy didn't seem to be one to let a little thing like logic or sense get in the way of his arguments. "If they're gonna be here they need to speak English. Hey, do you guys know Detective So and So? Or sergeant Whatshisname? They're good guys. Oh, I know you can't accept handshakes. You know, they just need to speak English. I'm a right-wing conservative."

Now, besides the obvious problems I have with this guy, I have to know this: when did G N' R become the soundtrack to the Republican Revolution? Lemme give you a sampling of their lyrics.

Exhibit a)
"I Used to Love Her", from the album Lies.
"I used to love her/but I had to kill her/I had to put her/six feet under/and I can still hear her complain."

Exhibit b)
"Mr. Brownstone", from the album Appetite for Destruction
"I stuck it in the needle/and I shot it in the needle/and it drove me out of my mind/I wish I could forget her/said I wish I never met her/I'd leave it all behind."

Exhibit c)
"Get in the Ring" from Use You Illusion II
"You want to antagonize me?/Antagonize me motherfucker/get in the ring motherfucker/ and I'll kick your bitchy little ass/ PUNK!"

Exhibit c 2.0)
"I don't like you/I just hate you/I'm gonna kick your ass!"

Now THAT'S the party of Lincoln and Reagan! It may be a little hard to understand at first, but I assure you that underneath that flashy hair-band exterior beats the heart of a true tax-cutting, god-fearing, wire-tapping Patriot! Let me show you.

Republican Rebuttal

I Used to Love Her: Family values. Traditional domestic roles. How can this country move forward if weak willed temperamental creatures are constantly thinking that they can do grown men's work? No, no, no! Women need to know that their place is at home by the stove. And only the party that champions the legalization of every weapon from a slingshot to nukes in space would have the firepower to "correct" the woman when she gets all uppity and starts talking that nonsense about wearing pants and voting and the like.

Mr Brownstone: War on drugs. The Republican position on drug addiction has become a lot more nuanced since Rush Limbaugh got bagged for shooting up painkillers he got from his maid. This party anthem clearly celebrates the common man pulling himself up by his (imported Italian leather) bootstraps and kicking the habit all by himself...without any help whatsoever from a government subsidized clinic...as any common man can do. Of course the Republican definition of "common man" is someone who only owns three Senators and has an ABOVE GROUND pool.

Get in the Ring: This characterizes the myriad attacks on traditional values. Whether it's godless corporations who want to take Christ out of Christmas or nancyboys who want to sit idly by and let foreign countries have a free hand to make decisions about their national soverngity and domestic policies without a thought given as to how those decisions will effect US corporations. (That's the GOD-fearing corporations of course. No one cares a whit what happens to the godless corporations!) Republicans cannot abide people thinking for themselves. The box is there for a reason. If you're not going to think inside of it, why did you go and buy you a box in the first place?!

"I don't like you, I just hate you, I'm gonna kick your ass" Republican foreign policy better known as the Bush Doctrine of Preventative War.

So you see how Guns N' Roses is rallying around the flag? I hope this has been helpful. Rest assured I will take this talk somewhere it will do some good. In the meantime remember, God is just a theory too!