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Tuesday, June 30th, 2009
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7:56 pm - soon to be *not* featured on an episode of "Wait Wait Don't Tell Me"
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A rather hilarious (also juvenille)/horrible Freudian slip on today's episode of "All Things Considered" on NPR. I'm frankly flummoxed that they didn't cut it out in post. Host Robert Siegel is interviewing NPR's senior Washington editor Ron Elving on the balance of the Senate after Al Franken's win today...and then this happens (30 seconds, NSFW).
(see a post in the comments if you would rather read a short transcript.)
I don't know how much hazing goes on in the Washington headquarters. I imagine he doesn't have to worry about some sort of a business card showing up on his desk. Ron Elving, president and CEO of... well, you'll hear it for yourself.
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| Saturday, June 20th, 2009
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11:21 am - an overheard conversation in which I was involved
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INTERIOR: Tugboat Brewing, downtown Portland, Oregon
I am drinking a beer at the bar, tended by my friend Linsel. My friend Mason is sitting nearby.
Me: Jeez, I have to pee again. What the hell.
Mason: Maybe you're pregnant.
(I contemplate this for a moment)
Me: (brightly) That means I've been having sex!
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(comment on this)
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| Friday, June 12th, 2009
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8:39 pm - a story from the long past
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Every spring, the Music School in Sunnyvale, California would produce a massive musical revue, starring all the students from all the age groups. Sometimes these musicals would include a vague plot, sometimes not. When I was 12, I scored a solo in their smaller summer production where I’d sing the lead in "T.E.A.M (The Baseball Game)" from "You’re A Good Man, Charlie Brown."
This show's director, Jill, was a junior high school choir teacher and the daughter of the Music School’s president. Her potential wrath was legendary. This wrath wasn;t often directed at me, because for the most part, I was obedient without being smugly virtuous. That is, I chose to goof off when Jill was nowhere nearby. But she was still intimidating. You listened to her direction and you did not goof off during rehearsals – or you lost your solo. A few years after this summer show, Jill would kick me off of my solo in an adaptation of "Skimbleshanks" from "Cats" – in a show that she wasn’t even directing. She didn’t think my voice was strong enough. (I got it back when the actual director decided to defy Jill's advice).
In "T.E.A.M (The Baseball Game)", Charlie Brown sits down to write a letter to his pen pal describing what happened in the day's (ultimately tragic) championship baseball game. Jill staged it with me sitting on a bench on the far left of the stage, writing the letter, while the action was pantomimed (as a flashback) at center stage. The mimed baseball game would pause to sing the chorus after each verse. I loved how this was setup, and not just because I didn’t have to learn any of the choreography. I loved that there were several of my peers acting out what I was singing. I loved that my friend Chris was playing me. And the staging had a certain artistic flair, like I was Billy Joel in the music video for "We Didn’t Start the Fire".
This is the final verse of the song:
Two men were on -- with two outs and me
With one strike to go…
Then I saw her -- this cute little red-headed girl I know
Firmly I vowed I would win it for her
and I shouldered my bat and I swung...!
Chris, playing me, swings and misses. He and the rest of the actors leave the stage, some pantomiming a celebration, the others despairing. I am left alone. I’ve always loved sad songs, so I relished being able to sing this decidedly heartbreaking last verse.
But here’s the thing: in addition to the baseball playing cast mates, Jill decided to also include cheerleaders in the singing of the song's chorus. Complete with cheerleader outfits, of course. I was harboring a crush on one of these girls – Janette, a girl who I’d known since we were both very young. She was at least an inch taller than me and fiercely smart. When I referred to "the cute little red-headed girl I know", Janette struck a pose, as part of the Jill's choreography, so it was clear that I was singing about her.
Jill managed to aggravate this, because I think a secret part of her enjoyed seeing me terrified and squirming. We were rehearsing the song and Jill stopped me. "Look at Janette," she instructed. I did so. "What color hair does Janette have?" she continued.
"Brown?" I said.
"Then sing it that way!" she said. I jumped to. The line became "Then I saw her -- this cute little brown-headed girl I know." I don’t know how many hours of sleep I lost over having to sing this line in close proximity to the girl I liked. Cumulatively, at least twenty four hours. To be fair, this moment was somewhat dulled when I considered the fact that Chris was the one playing me. I pointed this out to several of my cast mates -- without anyone having to ask.
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| Sunday, June 7th, 2009
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12:56 am - what, another one? well...okay
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I already have this blog and the ABPJ, but I want to start a third one dedicated solely to my sex-crazed rants. I already have the title: "Brassieres are Difficult."
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(2 comments | comment on this)
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| Wednesday, June 3rd, 2009
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4:35 pm - "Well, it was no 'Flatliners'."
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I was describing the movie "Mirrors" (starring Keifer Sutherland) to my friend John. I explained it as a "movie that took parts from other movies, ground them up into a meat paste, and formed them into a meatloaf. And then at the end of the meal, after you find a toenail in the meatloaf, the movie says, 'oh, that's supposed to be there.'"
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(comment on this)
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| Saturday, May 23rd, 2009
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6:03 pm - don't hitch that ride on a river boat queen
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The last verse of "Proud Mary" (written by John Fogerty, on Creedence Clearwater Revival's album "Bayou Country" (1969)) is:
"If you come down to the river,
Bet you gonna find some people who live.
You don't have to worry 'cause you have no money,
People on the river are happy to give."
But for the longest time, what I heard was:
"You don't have to worry 'cause you have no money,
People on the river are happy to kill."
Mind you, this was before I'd seen the movie "Deliverance" or read the original book by James Dickey. "What a twist!" is what thought to myself. "They're not even killing you so they can steal your money -- they're just murdering you because they enjoy it! Remind me to never go to that river."
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| Tuesday, May 19th, 2009
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4:22 pm - Celebrities who have biked past me in my Portland neighborhood in the last two weeks
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1. Milo Ventimiglia
2. Timothy Hutton
Huh. I have to go rent "Ordinary People".
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(comment on this)
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| Friday, May 8th, 2009
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12:33 pm - on the eve of seeing "Star Trek" on IMAX on Saturday
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It shouldn't bother me so much that my office/cube neighbor has her "Star Trek: The Next Generation" poster upside down, but I desperately want to turn it right side up.
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(comment on this)
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| Wednesday, April 22nd, 2009
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11:59 am - on the eve of the new "Wolverine" film
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[Way back in 2006, my friend Steve and Roy (me) are leaving the theater after viewing X-Men: The Last Stand.]
Roy: Well, I learned a lot from that movie.
Steve: No, you didn't.
Roy: Yes, I did. I learned that if I had $150 million, I could have made a much better X-Men movie.
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(comment on this)
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| Thursday, April 2nd, 2009
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5:24 pm
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I think there's something wrong with the employees of a Subway near where I work. They're always happy. It's eerie. I should write a letter to the store manager telling him or her that their employees are awesome and friendly and that they probably have brain tumors the size of watermelons.
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(comment on this)
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| Wednesday, March 25th, 2009
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9:57 pm - please be here. (a found item)
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I absolutely love love love the "please be here" at the end of this note. It reminds me a bit of this note from the official "Found Magazine" site. Perhaps Rudy hasn't arrived yet and this note was left to make sure they didn't miss each other? Or else, Rudy is already there and Sara doesn't want him to choose this moment to leave. If this note was part of a play or a movie, Rudy would be sleeping in Sara's bed when she wrote it. :) I'm not suggesting this was tossed on purpose, but if I was Rudy, I would have kept this forever. :)
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(comment on this)
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| Saturday, March 21st, 2009
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6:52 pm
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I'm not one of those dangerous wackjobs fascinated with everything related to Charles Manson, but I do applaud this entry on his Wikiquote page.
"Do you feel blame? Are you mad? Uh, do you feel like wolf kabob Roth vantage? Gefrannis booj pooch boo jujube; bear-ramage. Jigiji geeji geeja geeble google. Do you begep flagaggle vaggle veditch-waggle bagga?"
(as transcribed from this YouTube video.) I thought I was good at transcribing.
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(comment on this)
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| Wednesday, March 11th, 2009
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7:28 am
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Next time I go shopping for clothes (circa 2011), I'm going to find a good work-shirt that I like and buy 10 copies of it. Like Jeff Goldblum in "The Fly."
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(1 comment | comment on this)
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| Saturday, March 7th, 2009
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11:58 am - from the cubes of the office where I work
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What I MEANT to say to my (female) co-worker was: "Sorry, I'm banging your chair with my knee."
What I DID say: "Sorry, I'm banging you with my chair."
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(comment on this)
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| Friday, February 13th, 2009
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12:15 pm
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I imagine a lot of deaf moviegoers were thoroughly pissed off (or more politely, disappointed) when movies went from silent to talkies. "Damn you Al Jolson!" they wrote in their red shoe leather diaries.
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(comment on this)
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| Monday, February 9th, 2009
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11:23 am
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I was walking home with some groceries yesterday and I saw my apartment building in the distance. And this question occurred to me: if I could fly, would I need my arms free? And if so, could I carry my groceries while flying? Unrelated, I had a dream about an orphaned baby hippopotamus imprinting on me and then eating risotto (the hippopotamus, not me).
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| Friday, January 23rd, 2009
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9:31 pm - in which I'm not such a bad person
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Last year, when I saw Rilo Kiley at the Roseland in downtown Portland, there were two blind women next to me in line. I struck a conversation with them both, and winced every time I'd accidentally used the verb 'see.' "Did you see [Rilo Kiley] at the Crystal Ballroom during Musicfest Northwest?" I asked. (They hadn't.) But surely they get that all of the time from sighted acquaintances or strangers.
Later, I asked them if they'd been to the Roseland before. They hadn't. I offered to help. "I don't mean to offend," I said. "But would you two like to do the elbow thing? I don't know what you call it." So with one blind woman touching my elbow, and the other blind woman touching her elbow, we managed to walk through the security station, metal detectors, up two flights of stairs, through an ID check station, and finally to front seats in the balcony. I was frankly surprised that I did all this successfully, given that I had zero experience assisting the blind. No one fell. No one tripped. Correction: I tripped. They both had canes, and I nearly tripped over one of their canes while going up the stairs. I commented on this and we all laughed.
It was an excellent show. A couple times, I leaned over to comment on what was going on stage, like when the crowd randomly cheered at Jenny putting on a bracelet thrown on stage to her or when the stagehands threw giant plastic balls full of gold and silver confetti into the crowd. I managed to assist them safely out of the venue when the show was over, walking slowly down the stairs. They thanked me and I told them that it was a pleasure to meet them both. I love encounters with strangers, I really do.
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(comment on this)
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| Sunday, January 4th, 2009
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10:31 pm - Bob Hope in a white tuxedo and the most terrifying car trip from my life
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Have you ever been in a car and sure that you're going to die in a vehicular accident? I have. Recently. These were the circumstances: I was at work on Wednesday Dec. 24, despite the freaky snow-ice storm that had gripped/twisted the Portland metro area since the previous Saturday. The office had been closed on Monday and Tuesday of that same week. The roads were still dangerous, so I opted to take the Portland light-rail ('the Max') to work and walk the 40 minutes from the light-rail station to my office. Because of my dark mood at the time, I opted to stay late, even after the office closed early at 3pm. The only person left in my area of the office was my co-worker 'L', who kindly offered to give me a ride back to the transit station so I wouldn't have to walk. I was prepared to walk, but I accepted L's ride. But L wasn't driving. It was L's friend Brad who arrived to pick us up. Of course his name was Brad. I'd printed directions from the office to the station -- six minutes away, and handed the directions to Brad as soon as I got into his eerily cluttered van. Of course it was a van. Brad glanced at the directions and dropped them to the floor of the van. I looked at the directions wistfully, wanting to pick it up but hesitant to get my hand too close to the floor. Brad announced that he was going to give a ride to my neighborhood. "Where do you live?" he asked. "Northwest Portland," I said, "But I don't want to inconvenience you any more than necessary." "No trouble," Brad said. And we were off.
Now, I was mostly ignored as Brad and L sat in the front seats, but when Brad turned to me, I answered the majority of his few questions with a formal 'sir,' but I do that whenever I'm nervous and addressing someone older than me. I spoke only when I was spoken to. I did not want to disrespect Brad. I couldn't help noticing that 1) the view out of Brad's windshield was terrible, 2) Brad's driving was erratic, 3) Brad did not turn his windshield wipers on, despite the poor visibility. He weaved in and out of lanes, cursing tenative drivers in front of him. Of course, I wasn't about to bring any of this up as I did not want to be dropped off on the side of the freeway. Or Brad could have decided to feed my remains to whatever ugly dog he had at home.
As we approached my exit, Brad swerved away from it. As my life flashed before my eyes, Brad announced that he was going to take a different route. I did not point out that rather than our being three minutes away from my building, we were now 10 minutes and several traffic lights away from my building. I thought about the "This American Life" segment where two kids are almost kidnapped by a mysterious couple in a truck. We got off the freeway near a Jack in the Box, and Brad pointed out, "I used to sell dope over there, before I got saved." Hoping with every molecule that he was speaking to L, I didn't reply. As we drove down 23rd (yet another unnecessary detour that I did not correct Brad on), we bounced off of ice moguls and Brad pointed out that there used to be a business on 23rd, "Quality Pies." He said that when they closed their doors, he was helping them move the equipment out, and "Bob Hope walked in, in a white tuxedo." "Wow," I said. I expected him to say something else about Bob Hope. He did not.
Not wanting to be ungrateful, I offered Brad money for the ride but he graciously refused. He let me out at the nearest corner to my building. I shouldn't complain. He did me a huge favor by giving me the ride to my apartment building. But it was still a vehicle belonging to a complete stranger, offered by a generally vacant co-worker. I can't be blamed for being a little unnerved by this episode. Especially considering both of them now know where I live.
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| Wednesday, December 31st, 2008
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8:25 pm - "That's what Christmas is all about, Charlie Brown."
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I was waiting for my friend Kevin in front of the Miracle Theater in SE Portland. We were attending a show, "Weird Sandwich", by the always brilliant sketch comedy troupe The Third Floor. I'd seen them several times before, but Kevin hadn't. As I waited, I noticed a man dressed as Santa Claus walking down the street with a woman dressed as Mrs. Claus. This was particularly notable for two reasons: 1. Portland's annual SantaCon had occurred the previous weekend and as far as I knew, it was over. 2. I'd seen this couple earlier, rather sweetly kissing while leaning up against the window of a (closed) car dealership. As the Claus couple crossed the street near where I was standing, a car paused to let them cross. The Santa grinned at the car's driver and placed something on the hood on the car. "A candy cane?" I thought. A few minutes later, Kevin appeared. After greeting each other, he handed me a naked, decapitated, dismembered Barbie torso with sparkles on its breasts and pubic area. "Do you want this?" Kevin asked. "A Santa put this on my car."
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| Tuesday, December 2nd, 2008
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5:24 pm - greyhound
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I live a few blocks away from the Greyhound bus station and I regularly wave at the buses if one passes by me. I like the idea that everyone on the bus who sees me wave thinks I'm waving at someone else.
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