A boring "thoughtful" entry about my stupid job

Here's what gripes me about my job, or, I guess I should say field:

Triumphalist Modernity

Every ad is about the with-it present, the omega point of transcendent bitchin'ness that is this moment. We were dopes in the past, the future is nerdy, or perversely, the future is the object of sentimentality in advertising.

"Your most cherished old people-type feelings will come to fruition in the future. Feel good and warm about THAT version of you. The old version of you when you had sideburns and 501s is hopelessly retarded and we join you in mocking your hopes and innocence. You were such a pathetic asshole back then. But now, best beloved, you are in your tent pole-tent, the one you've been scratching toward. You've made it. And soon you'll descend into a weakened, though wiser version of yourself, and you'll look back at this moment of consumption with a twinkly fondness, for this moment is when your life began. Forget the person you were two years ago. You and we both know what a wretched creep you were -- hell, we ALL were. Nope, this is it -- right here, right now as the song you used to like goes."

That's what I hate about my field.

Thank you.

Karen's Blog

Karen is this gal I've know for 20 odd years (!) but I've lost touch with. We recently became Facebook friends, and I was reminded how I went to her 21st birthday party at a gay hamburger joint (a gay hamburger joint is a diner that features hamburger and photos of nude men with large weenuses). I threw up that night.

And funny enough, she currently works at Lonely Planet where I used to work back in the early nineties. What a coinkydink!

Anyway, here's her blog. 97 Things to do Before I Turn 97.

Rock!

Tell me, how does it feel.

Schmaka, Schamka, Schmaka, Schmaka-schmaka-schmaka. DOOT DOOT DOOT

That's Blue Monday.

It's in my head. I have been switching between Blue Monday, Jet Fighter Man, and Supernaut (1,000 Homo DJs version AND the Black Sabbath version) all day.

And thinking burritos. I was in a meeting today switch between those three songs and thinking about burritos, because I was hungry.

Blue Monday ----> Jet Fighter Man -----> Supernaut #1------> Burrito ------> Supernaut#2. Ping ponging for close to an hour and a half.

These are desperate times that try men's souls.

Owen and Chewie: Makin' friends

You are all Jet Pack people.

You are a Jet Pack person, because you're tolerant of pointlessly rad things, otherwise you wouldn't be here.

You see, at least on a theoretical level, the inherent joy, value, greatness of strapping on a box of a highly unstable liquid and letting in blow up in such a way that you can sort of control the trajectory and flip the bird at the surly bonds of the Earth and not die, or if you do die, it will be amazing and everybody will say that, while it's sad you died horribly, you died the most awesomest way.

I know, know, know in my heart of hearts that is true about you, you amazing sociopathic genius.

My friend Mac is a Jet Pack person to a fault. Like, he HAS WRITTEN A BOOK ABOUT HIS QUEST TO STRAP THAT SHIT ON FOR REALS.

And he's written a book on his descent (Joke! You ascend in a Jet Pack. Heh. God, I'm sorry) into the world of the Jet Pack, or more properly, rocket belts. Mac spent a year or so hanging in this weird subculture made up of human being who refuse to accept that future that promised to us on The Jetsons isn't coming. They are making their own future. Neat.

Mac interviewed me for the book, and I think I gave long, boring answers, so I might not have made the final cut.

But still, pick up a copy. You're the type.

The book is called Jetpack Dreams: One Man's Up and Down (But Mostly Down) Search for the Greatest Invention That Never Was. You can also read about the book here.

I interviewed Hank, Mac's lunatic liberal gun freak father, here.

I wanted a bed. You gave me air quotes.

Irony is sublime. It can be anyway. In film, in visual art, in fiction – in all those places, irony deftly applied can’t be beat. I EAT that shit up.

But in a hotel, at 10:00, when you’re checking in after six hours sitting in coach next to a chatty three year old, Irony is a big fat asshole maneuver. Upon reaching my room, I am not looking for an opportunity to begrudgingly say "Ah, hotel. You win. Well done. Yes, ha, the room is mismatched and wittily uncomfortable. I see what you did there. I get it, funny hotel. The price per night itself is ever so jolly, but the crappy mismatched bullshit you are peddling really brings it home. Wasn't expecting jejune, you scoundrel. I get it. Heh. You magnificent self-indulgent bastard of a hotel. And I can tell that it's just going to get funnier every time I walk in."

It's not even irony, though. That’s more like mean-spirited, hair trigger sarcasm.

I am staying at a sarcastic hotel.

(I’m also really, really tired today.)

**
Kid on the plane story:

Kid: Do you have any kids?
Me: I have a daughter and a son.
Kid: Do you like your daughter?
Me: Yeah, I love my daughter.
Kid: That nasty.

A bug I have spotted in Facebook

My friend Anushka recently sent me some litte Facebook digital tschotke thingie, "Good Karma" or some such.

This is how the delivery of Good Karma was announced to me

"You have received Good Karma from Anus"

Which immediately got me thinking about this book.

This is why I pace.

I'm in LA today. I'm in LA, and not at home, where I should be.

I mean, I should be in LA, because me being in LA is directly related to me bringing home some money every two week.

But I don't like it, none the less. It's been a long trip. And at home, contractors have started: they've ripped out the water heater, torn up the back yard (dug a pit actually) start tearing things up and chopping things down. Cleverly, I'm sure.

And I'm in LA while Paula deals with all this. This makes me anxious.

I am ESPECIALLY anxious, my beloved reader, ESPECIALLY anxious because of the phone call.

The phone rings, and I waddle out the studio and it's Paula.

PAULA: "Um, I need to talk to someone RIGHT now because I am going to explode if I don't. I just talked to the contractor, and he found... he found out that...."

ME: "...."

PAULA: "He said that the surveyor said OUR LOT HANGS THREE FEET OVER INTO THE NEIGHBOR'S THE ENTIRE LENGTH".

This is math and money. This a work stoppage, with a starting from scratch sort of vibe to it. Like new plans, new money, new ways of acquiring money, woe, pain, suffering and no hot water for a long time.

PAULA: "We going to have get new drawing, new permits, we're going to have to pay for the work done, we're going to have to live under a tarp. We're not going to get a new bathroom. We're going to lose our side garden. We're...." (YOU SEE WHAT I WAS UP AGAINST YES? YES?)

ME (LAMELY): "Could we get... a new surveyor? Like a second opinion?"

PAULA: "Maybe. Maybe we do that. That could be something we do."

We're doing something. So, good. We are affecting our destiny.

We aren't doing shit.

I wander the hallway of the production company stunned at the instantaneous total claim on my life this data had (okay, I'm being a baby. But it had just happened, okay?)

FUCKFUCKFUCK

I looked at a fake lizard attached to the wall (for whatever reason this production company has a Mexican village interior design scheme) for a minute to gather myself and get back to work, when my phone rang:

PAULA: "Nevermind. The Contractor misunderstood. We're fine."

Oh, what the fuck????

That's a bad magic trick, Mr. Contractor Man.

Take it away, Senator Davis:

Some answers for Tim

Work chum Tim has been puzzling over some knotty issues as of late, and has asked to me to weigh in on this blog. Here’s the result. I’m not saying my answers are good, but I am saying I am at least trying and that should count for something.

What the f@#ck happened to Ice Cube?

O'Shea Jackson, also known as “Ice Cube” and “Frasier” is primarily famous for wearing baseball caps with aplomb, though he also is a movie actor and was evidently a singer (or whatever the talking guy is in a ska band, sort of like Rankin’ Roger is in General Public) in some sort of ska band or something. His cousin, who is better than him, is Del the Funkee Homosapien, who provided the voice of Barney Rubble in Gorillaz, a Hannah Barbera project.

His turn in the film Anaconda got him a lot of notice, and that launched the Ice Cube media juggernaut, ultimately leading to Ice Cube landing the eponymous role in “That’s So Raven”.

Actually I really don’t know anything about Ice Cube. He seems like he was secretly not all gang guy, but a nerd, like one of the kids in “Fame” or something.

I think the Disney ride that is Ice Cube is closer to the true O’Shea Jackson.

I didn’t answer this one very good.

What manner of guy actually uses those paper toilet-seat covers?

Fussy men in $300 jeans and faux-hawks, creative directors mostly (and we know who I’m talking about).

It has to do with an idiotic denial of one’s own mortality, and the fact that one has a bum-bum that makes boom-booms. These creeps irreconcilably straddle the life-denying stasis of a particularly non-reflective consumer aestheticism and fact that one lives in on the material plane where time is cyclic and we die and are reborn a little bit every sticnking minute of our mortal existence, and the abyss is as a close as the breath of your lover, or splash back from a toilet.

That’s why these people are assholes. BECAUSE THEY PRETEND THEY DON’T OWN THEM.

Also: men who have shingles on their buttocks. But I’m not as annoyed with them, 'cause dudes got painful shingles on they asses.

What are some items one could put Wing Pepper sauce on?

Despite it’s exciting and exotic name Wing Pepper sauce is a watery bland sauce with cloying cheese notes.
Because it’s barely registers, you could dump it gallons of this shit of most things and not improve the flavor.

It is very expensive.

Wing Pepper can be added to the following foods/item, and not even make a goddamn difference:

 Watermelon
 Salsa
 Rice and Milk
 Beef Wellington
 Pad Thai
 Wasabröd ™
 Kugel
 Dry breakfast cereal
 Dried sinew
 Ambrosia
 Beer caddies
 Powdered sports drink
 Chaw-type tabacco snuff
 Eggs
 Tofutti Cuties ™ Vegan Dessert Novelties
 American paper the currency
 Hushpuppies (fried fish)
 Hushpuppies (shoes)
 Shrimp Etuoffe

My Taglines

Greg Mills: Because Mediocrity Doesn’t Sleep
Greg Mills: America’s Energy Future
Greg Mills: The Man Kids Love to Stare At
Greg Mills: Sweating for America, Today
Greg Mills: Manly enough
Greg Mills: Greg Makes Life Bearable
Greg Mills: Smell Different
Greg Mills: Untouched by Human Hands
Greg Mills: Wonder, Made From Lint!
Greg Mills: New Complexion, Everyday.
Greg Mills: For Your Home
Greg Mills: Sealed Against the Elements
Greg Mills: The Best Kind of Left Overs
Greg Mills: Humanity Version 2
Greg Mills: Mothers Ask For Him By Name. Especially Yours.
Greg Mills: Rubber Reimagined
Greg Mills: The Best Parts Are Liquid
Greg Mills: Crunchy. Satisfying.
Greg Mills: Greg Mills stays on your mind.
Greg Mills: Your coffee table, his feet
Greg Mills: Pets Are Meat Too
Greg Mills: California Grown. Look for the seal!

Today's palette

Grey. Non-existent Beige. High school guidance counselor earthtones. Old lady plum Plum. Spun polyester Carbon. Cheesy fake cherry-wood. Nursing home oatmeal. Diabetic-pee yellow. Scorch mark poo brown. Inky stencil black.

I need to get the hell outside.

The no-sleep silent irrational passive aggression blues

I am in New York right now. Just checked into my hotel and I have a fucking bastard eyeball headache.

I got up at 5 am to walk to BART to catch the train to get me to my 8 am flight.

I was in coach, and foolishly gave up my aisle seat so a pair of young Quebecois in love could sit next together and coo about poutine.

I was now plopped in the center seat and to my left is a surly hunking flat-nosed bastard. Actually I know nothing about him, other than he dropped his newspaper under the seat and did NOT give up his seat to the Quebecois couple. So he is obviously Hitler in hell. And I was so, so tired. I can't sleep on planes.

So, I've had five hours of sleep deprived resentment fester in my core by the time the plane lands.

And this is an actual thought I had when I noticed the bastard to my right not craning his neck to see the Manhattan skyline like everyone else on the plane:

"You're not looking out the window to see Manhattan so you can read USA Today? What a goddamn asshole."

I didn't say it out loud, and I'm glad I didn't. I'd look sort of insane.

Ruby's last words before night-night.

The other night, I was hanging out with Ruby waiting for her to go to sleep so I could go watch some swearing TV.

Her eyes were fluttering at half mast and she began to talk in a sweet, sleepy voice:

"Daaaaad.... today at school...."

"Yes? What happened?"

"... I farted during circle time and didn't say anything so everyone would think someone else did it."

And with that, she slept.