Working with your Workforce

Every day I get up, get dressed, trudge over to the office, where I am going to spend the next 8-9 hours. This is the without a doubt, the most difficult part of the day for me, knowing that I have to get through those hours with my head still on straight and no murder charges on my record.

It occurred to me how contrived the work environment is: we are thrust into a situation where we spend the majority of our day with people whom, given a choice, we probably wouldn't even spit at on the street. These...people...spend more time with you than your own family and you have almost not choice whatsoever as to who these people are. It's almost like family, but thank god you aren't forced to have dinner with them on a nightly basis or get involved with their lives on any serious level. I find it totally ridiculous that I have to spend so many hours a day with people I honestly can't stand. When I don't like my friends, I stop speaking to them. When I don't like my family, I just don't call them or hang out in another room. But with work, unless I quit, I'm stuck with these whining bastards till something better comes along.

And since you see these people almost every day, it's hard to tell them you have absolutely no interest in their personal lives, their problems or anything else for that matter. You walk this very fine line of maintaining a feigned interest in things without becoming too bitter or sarcastic because of that fake attitude. It's a very very fine line sometimes.

Yeah, I know everyone says work is just a microcosm of society and blah blah blah. But out in the world, when everyone around you won't shut the fuck up, you can usually just go into your room and lock the door. The office doesn't afford you any such luxuries. I suppose this is why people are blessed with the gift of patience, to deal with these situations that we have minimal control over. To that I just say "Ah Bartleby, ah humanity!"

Reading Rainbow Part Deux

I have been brought to task and must give credit where credit is due.

While Dan Brown's "The Da Vinci Code" has definitely gotten a whole new bunch of adults excited about reading, Oprah Winfrey and her book club accomplished this task much earlier.

While I may not always love her choices, Oprah has encouraged the average American housewife to turn off "The Young and the Restless" and crack open something with words. And on occasion, she'll even choose something well written (like "The Corrections"...despite the hubbub that followed)

However, I would like to point out that the DVC managed to get men reading as well, not just housewives. And although the occasional manly man might have found himself reading something from Oprah's booklist, I think we'd be hard pressed to find any who'd admit to it.

Reading Rainbow

Yesterday a friend of mind was bitching about everyone reading "The Da Vinci Code" and taking it so uber-seriously. Now while I agree that the darned thing is just a book that manages to hold your attention most of the way through, I'm not as vehemently anti-DVC as he is.

I think his analogy of DVC as the adult's Harry Potter was incredibly apt: everyone is reading it and talking about it and speculating here and there. Much like Harry Potter, the book is being taken a bit too seriously for what it is. However, the comparison is a good one in a positive way as well. Harry Potter got an entire generation of children interested in books again. Sure it would be better if they were all reading a higher caliber of book, but in the age of the internet and PlayStation 2, isn't it nice to know that kids are clamoring for the next Harry Potter book as much as the next version of Grand Theft Auto?

With adults, it's pretty much the same thing. Work, family, life, can all interfere with the unadulterated pleasure you get from reading. If a book, any book is energizing people over the age of 18 to read, then can we really be so derisive? Again, it would be wonderful if the book that caught the country's attention was "Moby Dick" or "The Iliad", but something that doesn't involve a Fabio look-alike on the cover isn't all that bad, now is it?

Of course if "Troy" does well, who knows? Maybe Homer will start getting residuals...

Where is that old explorer spirit?

Watching the A&E mini-series "Shackleton" made me realize that we have totally lost that zest for exploration that got us to the moon, to the ocean floors, and to every inch of our own planet. These days we're lucky if we're adventurous enough to explore under the cushions of our sofas, let alone to strange and unchartered territories.

The bravery and unbridled spirit felt by those who sought out the unexplored just seems so foreign to our society. Maybe this is why when Bush mentioned going to Mars, it tapped into our desire to discover something totally unknown. (And not just because people expected to see little green men with flying saucers.)

Not that I think that everyone in ye olden days was caught up in the fervor of exploration either; I'm sure we know about those who were since they're the ones history remembers. But where are our Shackleton's, Columbus's, and De Gama's? Is it because there remains very little on Earth that hasn't been trod upon by man, so there is nothing left on Earth to discover? Or is it just that technology and modern society have robbed us of our curiosity?

Of course it could be because no one wants to starve for days on end, lose toes and other body parts to frostbite, and possibly die stranded in the middle of the wilderness.

To all that I say, "CHICKEN!"

Homeless in San Fran

I spent this past weekend in San Francisco, a lovely town on the Bay. However, the majority of the city's landscape is marred by the overwhelming homeless population.

My hotel was located right on Union Square, a very chic area right above the Financial District (I think). Full of stores like Sephora, Nordstroms, Bang and Olafsen, the area just reeks of money and tourism. However, if you walk two blocks down to Market and just one block to the right, you are confronted by what seemed to be a homeless convention. Everywhere I looked there were people with all their earthly belongings in a tattered duffel bag or a few paltry plastic shopping bags. What struck me first, though, was that they were mostly young kids you'd expect to see on any college campus -- of course a bit better groomed.

Everyone keeps telling me that SF is where all the angry runaways go since the weather is so good and it still has that hippie vibe from the 60's. But does anyone seem to care that all these kids are just rotting on the streets? I'm not saying I have an answer, let alone the answer, but three days later and I'm still just as bothered by the whole thing.

Of course the rest of my trip was great, homeless people aside. Saw "The Lion King" which was visually the most stunning musical I've ever seen. Julie Taymor is a goddess and if a touring company is that good, I can only imagine how great the original on Broadway was.

Magazines and Waiting Rooms

I just did an improptu interview with a Canadian newspaper about doctor's waiting rooms and the magazines they order.

Till now I would not have thought that I would have anything to say on the subject. However, apparently I did. It's odd to have subconsciously accumulated knowledge -- especially about something which you never expected to know anything. Of course this knowledge is totally useless in the real world; who the hell needs to know about how magazine subscriptions are processed, who orders what and how to get around the system? I always wanted to keep magazine subscriptions in the same unknown realm as garage door openers and gravity.

I realize now that the other jobs I've held have given me insight into other equally useless areas: how to install a museum exhibit, how to organize a 100 page report (5 copies) in three hours, or how to wash a little yappy dog in the sink after it crawls into a frappacino cup. Well maybe the museum bit isn't so bad.

I just hope my mad skillz in dog washing never EVER comes up again.

Gobble, Gobble, Death
This is a sentence I never thought I would type:
A friend of mine is involved in a case regarding a professional turkey strangler who is suing because she has carpal tunnels syndrome from the repetitive nature of her job.

I now know what my life's calling is.

It's All Been Done

There's a saying that there are only 7 original ideas in the world and everything else is just a variation. That may well be true, but Hollywood seems to have ignored the second part of that statement.

The slew of rehashed ideas and plotlines is suffocating to those of us who enjoy originality in their cinematic experience. This morning a friend of mine sent me the link to the trailer for "The Manchurian Candidate". No, they aren't releasing the original with Frank Sinatra and Angela Lansbury. They have made a newer, more exciting, flashier version with Denzel Washington and Meryl Streep. With a 8 out of 10 chance that the average movie-goer hasn't seen the original, let alone heard of it, the producers want to take our movie ignorance straight to the bank.

This must be the reasoning behind other recent and highly unnecessary remakes such as "The Ladykillers" and "Connie and Carla". Till now, I've always respected Joel and Ethan Coen; in a mire of slapstick horrors or melodramatic shmaltz, the Coens have always managed to produce fine, quirky films that might have drawn on common genres (Blood Simple) or done an odd riff on a classical text (O Brother Where Art Thou), but they were always original. The original "The Ladykillers" is a brilliant old British movie with Peter Sellars and Alec Guiness, a movie that I have never watched and thought, "Man you know what this needs? Tom Hanks and Marlon Wayans!" After seeing the first trailer for the Coen's monstrosity, I kept hoping to run into them so as to be able to shake them violently by the collars and demand to know who took their souls.

"Connie and Carla" is another example of Hollywood bastardizing not only a great premise, but what AFI deemed the funniest movie ever. "Some Like It Hot" is the apotheosis of humor. Jack Lemmon, Tony Curtis, and Marilyn Monroe were all at the top of their game and with Billy Wilder at the helm, you were guaranteed nothing but absolute genius. Two jazz players disguised as women to escape the mob might not be the most inventive plot, but the movie itself was just the right combination of talent to make it utterly unforgettable.

However, along comes "My Big Fat Greek Cliche"'s Nia Vardalos, who thinks that she can write a script that, while not an exact rip-off is close enough that anyone with any sense can see what movie inspired her. "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" was cute, it was chuckle-worthy, and it was totally average. I consider much of its success due to the fact that the IQ of most movie goers is just high enough to make "Lord of the Rings" successful and "Wonder Boys" a failure. Never rely on the movie-going public to pick the true winners. (Same goes for the Academy but they aren't on my enemies list right now.) This mediocre movie spawned a TV show (defunct) and a media darling (highly overexposed). Ms. Vardalos is banking on her past success to make us forget that her talented is limited and her ideas stolen.

If it's not an old movie, it's an old TV show. "Starsky and Hutch", "Scooby Doo", "The Brady Bunch", "Bewitched"...I'm waiting for "The Facts of Life Movie" or "Different Strokes: The Movie". What happened to the spirit that created "Sunset Boulevard", "Chinatown", or "Citizen Kane". Even movies inspired by books can be good if the adaptation is worthy. But you gain nothing by remaking something in the same medium as the original. Just a rehashing of the ideas that someone else already said, probably much better too.

Movies are for watching, not sleeping through

I went to see Kill Bill 2 this morning and it was good. In fact it was much better than the first one, though considering how I didn't love the first one, that's not so hard. The theatre was pretty full for an 11 am showing, so of course I had a twitchy-nose picking guy sit next to me. That's the kind of luck I have.

However Mr. Twitchy-Picky wasn't the worst of it. Three or four rows ahead of me was Mr. Snore, who felt that it was his job to provide a second soundtrack to the one Quentin Tarantino had chosen. Eventually his seatmate nudged him hard enough that he shut the hell up.

But this reminded me of another time that someone's snoring disturbed my moviegoing experience. A couple of months ago, I was at the very same theatre, watching "The House of Sand and Fog". Not a bad movie, not great mind you, but not awful. It was yet another showcase for Ben Kingsley's awesome talent, never a bad thing. HOWEVER, diagonally behind me was a middle-aged man who fell asleep right after the credits. He managed to sleep through almost all of the movie, snorting and snoring so loud I could barely hear the actors. The person sitting behind him kept kicking his seat, the person sitting next to him seemed to elbow him every couple of minutes, and still he slept on. Someone eventually called an usher who shook the man for a solid minute before he woke up and quieted down.

Wouldn't you know five minutes later he started up again?

So what's the deal with people coming to a movie to fall asleep? Why pay 11 bucks to sit up straight surrounded by strangers and loud noises to sleep when you can do it horizontally and for free at your own house? My theory is that if you're paying for a movie you might as well watch the damned thing, fight to stay awake and go crawl into bed afterwards if you're so sleepy. Then again, what do I know? I paid to see "Waterworld".

Same Plot, Different Title

Now I read Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code way before the majority of the United States, and I had fun reading it.

It wasn't a good book by any stretch of the imagination, but it was interesting to read his theories about Mary Magdalene, Jesus, and the Holy Grail and the whole art thing. And yes, there is a connected between Mythra and Christianity and there are theories that Mary meant more to Jesus than just a whore he helped "see the way". And the plot was interesting, if not totally impossible and convoluted. I enjoy crazy theories of odd connections in history and art and was therefore fairly entertained.

HOWEVER, that book should never have spawned an ABC special looking into the theories behind "The Da Vinci Code". It was basically a reiteration of the book for stupid people who can't read and need the TV to give them the gist of things. It also seemed to give the whole thing a lot more credence than it deserved. Mood lighting and dramatic music do not turn theory to fact, sorry ABC.

That aside, the book was enjoyable enough to warrant the purchase of another one. This was "Angels and Demons". I should have saved my money.

The biggest issue I had with this one is that Dan Brown, rather than coming up with a new plot, copies verbatim the structure of "The Da Vinci Code". They both begin with a dead man found with some sort of symbolic thing on his body. Then Robert Langdon, Brown's protagonist du jeur, is contacted in the middle of the night. He then has to investigate with the help of a smart and attractive woman, whom he obviously ends up with. Step by step, every single main plot point is the same; just the details vary. It is disheartening to start a thriller and know the end within a few chapters...especially when you have 500 pages to go.

Another problem, I had with this book is that his underlying plot was weak. His bad guy's reasoning was so utterly ridiculous and unrealistic that it undercut anything worthwhile.

One of the things that was so much fun about "The Da Vinci Code" was that the conspiracy he wrote about was so complex and multifaceted. He kept the reader engaged pretty much all the way through with puzzles, logic games and wild ideas. "Angels and Demons" tries too hard to force those same things. There isn't the same sense of figuring out an historical riddle to propel you through the tedium of the plot. Even the small little nods he made to how art was used in secret brotherhoods, etc., were just small and uninteresting.

I feel cheated when an author relies on the tried and true formula for a book rather than branching out and attempting to use whatever talent he may have for something new and exciting. I'm not sure if "Angels and Demons" was written first, but there was a definite reason that it was "The Da Vinci Code" was the bestseller and this book is riding on its coattails.

Those Wacky Mormons

So according to the Associated Press, the Mormons are baptizing Jewish Holocaust victims after being told to stop almost 10 years ago.

Granted, just because some dude in Salt Lake City says that my dead relatives are Mormons doesn't make it so, but it is utterly insulting nonetheless. As R. Hier said, it shows a total and complete arrogance, thinking your religion has the easy key to heaven. They don't have to think Judaism is right, but to baptize someone after they are dead is just hubris above and beyond.

However, I think that the bigger problem is that these are victims of the Holocaust -- people who were killed solely because they were Jewish. By posthumously converting them, you are negating everything these people lived and died for. It seems like spitting on their graves.

I know the Mormons have their own wife-swapping, no-booze-drinking, multiple-sister-marrying agenda, but I cannot think that this should be part and parcel of their daily practice. If you're so concerned for everyone's souls, just pray for them. Baptize your own, but leave my people out of it.

Going Postal...San Post Office

Someone once told me that more than half of working Americans quit not because they hate their jobs, but because they hate their coworkers. I finally understand that statement.

Now, it's not that my job is so great. It's not. In fact it's as far off from any job that I would consider giving my life meaning, my soul fulfillment and dreams flight. I'm the manager of corporate service for a magazine subscription agency for crying out loud. But as jobs go, and as the jobs I have held go, this job isn't so bad. My boss is decent, I get to take off when I need, and I have a nice sized amount of responsibility. For a long time, I didn't go to bed at night and worry about having to wake up and go back to my job.

But how things can change. All it takes is two co-workers to make your life is living hell. The first is our head sales rep. He blames his stupidity on dyslexia. I blame it on his lack of wits. Now while I can't handle stupid people, he wouldn't be so bad if he weren't a congenital back-stabbing liar who feels the need to exert a control that he just doesn't have. The second is the ultra-liberal, conspiracy theory believing, alien abductee. He talks to me from the moment I walk into the office till the moment he leaves. He doesn't talk about anything interesting, just the constant yammer of the narrow-minded and uneducated.

Between the two of them, I cry a little bit on the inside every time I wake up. Anyone know how to make someone permanently mute? Or voodoo perhaps...?

Roger Dodger or Men at Their Worst

Thanks to Netflix, I have a seemingly unending stream of movies coming to my door. This weekend I managed to watch two of them.

The first of which was Roger Dodger, a movie where a man who thinks he knows everything about women is confronted with the fact that he might not be 100% on the ball. This is a tired cliche, so many movies have been made where the man who "knows it all" finds out that he doesn't. What elevates Roger Dodger above the rest is the unbelievable dialog and the very daring performance by Campbell Scott.

Campbell Scott plays Roger, a witty ad-copy man whose boss breaks up with him at the beginning of the movie. His 16 year old nephew, Nick, shows up at his office, asking to be shown how to handle women (basically how to get laid). Roger, both in an effort to lick the wound inflicted on his ego and in an honest effort to help his nephew, takes Nick a night full of hopeful debauchery. He drags Nick to a bar, where they do indeed strike up a conversation with two women, neither of whom seem to know what they are getting themselves into. They are both quickly attracted to Nick, who is trying to be suave, but ends up being adorable. The evening ends with one of the ladies (Jennifer Beals) giving Nick his first real kiss, and Roger acting like a jerk, giving the women ample reason to leave.

The rest of the movie is somewhat similar in tone: Roger trying to show Nick how to get laid, firing at him sexist dictums, and truly messing him up along the way. They stop at a brothel, but Roger has a crisis of conscience and stops Nick before things get too far. But of course his conscience isn't enough to stop him from crashing his boss/ex's party and making a true ass out of himself and get himself fired.

What really made this movie work was Roger's utter and complete self-loathing. Be it unresolved issues in his past or his inability to handle issues in his present, he is a character who truly hates himself. However, his large and powerful ego doesn't let this stop him from trying to turn his nephew into a mini version of himself. By the end of the movie, he's lost his girlfriend, his job, possibly the awe of his nephew and quite probably his own self-respect. Yet, we find him coaching Nick and his friends on the finer points of picking up women in the lunchroom cafeteria. When Nick uses the "skills" his uncle has given him on the most desirable girl in the school, we aren't sure if we should be delighted for him that he's getting the girl, or dismayed that yet another smooth-talking guy has entered the scene. Personally, I'm still wondering how to feel.

Mel's Daffy Passion

So while I have yet to see "The Passion of the Christ", I have seen the South Park version. And let me say, if Matt and Trey are still alive by the end of this week, it will be a miracle.

As usual, South Park provides clarity on the situation...through foul mouthed little boys and a very skewed world. In an effort to prove Cartman wrong about Jews, Kyle goes to see "The Passion of the Christ", and as expected he ends up vomiting all over himself. Taking to heart the images that he has seen, he begins to question how the Jews could do that to Jesus. Meanwhile, Cartman feels that he has been divinely inspired -- by Mel Gibson -- and it ready to do his work, i.e. rid the world of Jews. The entire town of South Park is so caught up in allowing the movie to guilt them into religion, they don't notice when Cartman, dressed as Hitler, has them goose-step around the town shouting in German.

Meanwhile Kenny and Stan see "The Passion" because, well, everyone else has seen it. Their reaction is about as truthful as it gets: That wasn't a movie. It was a snuff film. As depicted by Matt and Trey, "The Passion" consists mostly of Jesus being whipped and screaming. Apparently that isn't so far from what actually happens. They decide they want their money back, but when the theatre refuses, they have to go see Mel himself. And this is where things get odd.

Mel Gibson spends most of his time in this episode running around in his tighty-whiteys and asking people to torture him. While they do use his real face, much in the way they used Saddam Hussein's, this is nowhere near a impersonation. This is an out and out mockery. Riffing off of Mel's odd interview with Diane Sawyer and the persecution complex he exhibited recently, the South Park version of Mel Gibson is a torture-obsessed, screaming lunatic, who I think is only slightly over the top in comparison to the real deal. And considering how tolerant Mel is these days, if I were Matt or Trey, I'd have someone else taste my food before I did.

Rounding off this episode is the collection of Jewish stereotypes, freaking out about "The Passion" and demanding it be taken from the theatres when Kyle publicly announces that he wants the Jews to publicly apologize for what happened to Jesus. Stereotypes complaining about stereotypes is always a good way to go.

By the end, everyone realizes that a. Mel ain't the saint and religious inspiration they think he is; b. "The Passion" is only a movie, not a documentary; c. Though it is only a movie it can lead to some people becoming more anti-Semitic; d. But causing a huge stink about the anti-Semitic thrust movie only makes things worse by giving the movie credence. Finally the main thing we learned today is that you shouldn't base your faith on violence and suffering, let alone a movie made by Mad Max.

Again, I have not seen "The Passion" yet so I don't know exactly what goes on there. But if it's even remotely like the 2 hour torture-fest I've heard it is, well, I have to wonder about the people this is religiously inspiring. But I'll just have to see.

To forgive or forget; that is the question...

I recently saw "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind", a movie which disturbed me more than I had expected it to. Though I'm not sure if it was the thought of someone erasing me from their memory or me erasing someone else.

This movie is a revelation in so many ways. Jim Carrey makes you forget about Ace Ventura and the fact that he ever talked out of his butt. His Joel Barrish is at once an Everyman, slumped and drab and at once someone utterly unique, with a vibrant imagination and intense dreams and wishes. Kate Winslet's Clementine (I can't remember how to spell her last name) is so much more than the poster child for both ADD and Manic Panic hairdye. She imbues Clementine with enough depth to understand why Joel fell for her so hard. So many people like to palm off their relationship on Joel needing someone impulsive in his dreary life. I think that might have been the original attraction, but over the course of their relationship as seen during Joel's memory flashbacks, it would seem that it became about those two real people, not just their stereotypes.

Charlie Kaufman, who did "Being John Malkovich", "Human Nature", and "Adaptation" also penned this movie. I have not yet seen "Human Nature" but from what I've seen, Kaufman is not only becoming a bit more quirky, but he's delving more into the emotions behind the quirks. You care for Joel and Clementine more than you cared for anyone in "Being John Malkovich" and while "Adaptation" did have heart, it seems that "ESoTSM" has a soul as well. When Joel realizes that Clementine has enlisted Lacuna to erase all her memories of Joel after their bitter breakup, you honestly feel his pain(Pardon the BC reference). His spur of the moment decision to have her erased from his mind is understandable and deeply sad. As Clementine is adjusting to life without her memories of Joel, her confusion and realization that something is somehow wrong is devastating. These are two souls unknowingly searching for something and someone they've already found.

Kirsten Dunst, Mark Ruffalo, and Tom Wilkinson are all very fine as the employees and owner of Lacuna. Kirsten Dunst, for once, doesn't make me want to smack her by the end of the movie, and Tom Wilkinson is both repellent and pitiable in his human faults. Elijah Wood is incredibly creepy as a Lacuna worker who fell in love with Clementine during her erasure process and has decided to use her deleted memories of Joel to win her affections. He may look like Frodo, but he sure don't act like him.

Of course so much of the moral of the story is that you can't really escape your past. As some people have told me, your mind may not remember something but your body and your entire being will. This is only partially reassuring.

I had to ask myself if I would ever consider doing something like that. Enough horrible stuff has happened in my life and I've often wondered what I'd be like if it had never happened. However, there is a difference between erasing something from your memory and it never occurring, as "ESoTSM" proves.

Though it may not sound like it, the movie is actually a comedy with some wickedly funny scenes, many taking place in Joel's memories. But overall "ESoTSM" is a melancholy meditation about the triumph and the destruction of love. You root for Joel and Clem to work it out and even though you know what will happen and they know what will happen, hope does seem to spring eternal for everyone.