for the past couple weeks, i've been going downtown to do promo work for the theater. this involves handing out fliers and telling people about whichever movie we're showing outside that weekend. it's a good deal because i get time and a half and the work is easy. it also provides a nice way for me to get the city under my feet. there is another benefit to doing promo work though which outweighs all the other perks.
that benefit is the company. the people i work with vary from week to week, but i am frequently paired up with lockheed martin. everyone else he works with (and i do mean everyone) hates him. in fact, the first time i went downtown, bad religion shirt ground his teeth for three hours straight. every time lockheed said or did something, he'd hiss "idiot" under his breath and i'd suppress a smile.
delightful.
anyway, this week i decided to see how long i could keep lockheed going. i started off by asking his opinion of the movie we were promoting this week, 300. he loved it of course, though he was shocked to learn that the battle of thermopylae actually occurred. he went on to declare that the spartans were the most humane, socially progressive society ever to exist (i know, i know). close behind the spartans in compassion were the egyptians, who it turns out did not work tens of thousands of slaves to death to build the pyramids. aliens built them, by the way. the egyptians lived together in harmony in a techno-utopia fashioned for them by the superscientist jesus. yes jesus, the inventor of the lightbulb, earliest proponent of string theory, and all around rad guy.
it was at this point that things began to get silly.
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new feature! *lockheedism of the week* new feature!
"why do people believe in dinosaurs but not ogres?"
if you said, "the fossil record," you (like me) have been suckered by the archeologists (i've got my eye on you, theo); yes, that secretive cabal of scientists who, for unknown but definitely sinister reasons, formed a global conspiracy to cover up the existence of supernatural beings. triceratops, for example, are actually ogres which scientists have cleverly disguised as dinosaurs by affixing horns to the skull. radiocarbon dating? a sham. did you know that if you pour graphite on grass, scientists will think it is millions of years old? hand to god.
Thursday, October 15, 2009
Thursday, October 8, 2009
king shit
ok so you're sitting around on a tuesday night trying to think of something to do. you are bored. your friends are bored. everyone is bored. but then, inspiration! "let's go to the movie theater!" you cry. "but instead of going inside and watching a movie, we should sit in the parking lot and get trashed on specifically terrible beer!"
your friends are staggered. never before have they heard such an appealing proposal. only just able to contain their excitement, they look at you with a respect bordering on awe. suddenly the strain becomes too much, and your female friends (who until now hadn't looked at you twice) hurl aside furniture in their haste to throw themselves at you. everyone else is trying to shake your hand.
you are king shit.
this scenario is actually quite common. given the number of beer bottles i see in the lot each morning, i'd estimate it happens at least five times a night. I'm not even going to speculate on the appeal of drinking in a parking lot (although obviously there is something to it), but as a public service i will now compile a list of places more suited to public drinking than a movie theater parking lot. unfortunately for you, the public, this service will take the remainder of my life to complete because there is no place in the entirety of the universe less suited to public drinking than a movie theater parking lot.
your friends are staggered. never before have they heard such an appealing proposal. only just able to contain their excitement, they look at you with a respect bordering on awe. suddenly the strain becomes too much, and your female friends (who until now hadn't looked at you twice) hurl aside furniture in their haste to throw themselves at you. everyone else is trying to shake your hand.
you are king shit.
this scenario is actually quite common. given the number of beer bottles i see in the lot each morning, i'd estimate it happens at least five times a night. I'm not even going to speculate on the appeal of drinking in a parking lot (although obviously there is something to it), but as a public service i will now compile a list of places more suited to public drinking than a movie theater parking lot. unfortunately for you, the public, this service will take the remainder of my life to complete because there is no place in the entirety of the universe less suited to public drinking than a movie theater parking lot.
capitalism: a love story
capitalism is the new michael moore movie. as with every other movie i review here, i have not seen it. this review is based solely on bits i have seen and heard while delivering food (so i'm being about as stringent in my fact checking as moore). anyway, the movie is mainly concerned with informing people of the evils of the capitalist system (which, by the way, is the same system which has allowed moore to become so staggeringly wealthy).
this seeming confusion may be explained by the fact that moore (or at least his editor) doesn't seem to understand what capitalism is. in one of my favorite bits from the movie, moore interviews a woman who describes the bank bailouts as "pure capitalism." granted this woman isn't a financial expert (she is one of the jane everypersons that moore is so keen on defending), but surely someone on moore's editing staff should have pointed out that not only were the bailouts not "pure capitalism," they were an example of socialism, the antithesis of capitalism, and pulled that bit from the film. in a purely capitalist, free market system (which we don't have anyway), aig and the others would have tanked.
another of my favorite moments is the bit where moore describes the transition from carter to reagan. in that snide, condescending tone he uses to narrate his movies, moore explains that reagan was an evil, selfish man who took advantage of every opportunity that came his way. during this monologue, moore has chosen to include o fortuna (the first part of the first movement of the carmina burana) as backing music. you've certainly heard o fortuna before. it is often used as stock 'dramatic music' in action movies and commercials, and moore is clearly employing it similarly. if you'd like to hear it (and i do strongly encourage you to listen to it), here is a recording of a performance at uc davis (o fortuna occupies the first four minutes of the video). i do love the carmina burana - it is a stunningly beautiful peace of music - but it is delightfully relevant here because it is also unintentionally ironic. the carmina burana as a whole (the first movement in particular) is concerned with fortune. specifically, it is concerned with the fickleness of fortune and the utter necessity of taking advantage of every opportunity that comes your way.
along with these classic moments of self-clowning, moore throws in the usual lies and oversimplifications. for example, moore claims that "you are never going to be rich. the chance of that happening is about one in a million." if we follow moore's logic, we can confidently state that there are only about three hundred rich people in the us, and not say the three million people claimed by the 2008 world wealth report (bottom of page six). but hey, he's only off by four or five decimal places. of course, "rich" doesn't have to be defined as millionaire. moore could just mean that only the top three hundred are rich. in 2002, forbes reported there were 245 us billionaires, which is pretty close to 1 in a million. perhaps, moore believes anyone with less than a billion is in the struggling middle class. this would certainly be one way for him to justify claiming to be just another working guy.
and that's what really bothers me about michael moore. it isn't his eagerness to oversimplify and misrepresent facts. it isn't that he defends these misrepresentations by calling his movies "works of entertainment." it isn't even the fact that he chose to throw an opulent, hedonistic party to celebrate the premiere of his movie whose central purpose is to lambast opulence and hedonism. it's the fact that he portrays himself as a champion of the working class when he is in fact a multi-millionare who directly benefits from the evils he raves against.
all that said, the opening weekend gross was encouragingly low, so with luck it'll be gone in a couple of weeks and i won't have to hear that obnoxious, neckbeard having hypocrite's voice for the foreseeable future.
this seeming confusion may be explained by the fact that moore (or at least his editor) doesn't seem to understand what capitalism is. in one of my favorite bits from the movie, moore interviews a woman who describes the bank bailouts as "pure capitalism." granted this woman isn't a financial expert (she is one of the jane everypersons that moore is so keen on defending), but surely someone on moore's editing staff should have pointed out that not only were the bailouts not "pure capitalism," they were an example of socialism, the antithesis of capitalism, and pulled that bit from the film. in a purely capitalist, free market system (which we don't have anyway), aig and the others would have tanked.
another of my favorite moments is the bit where moore describes the transition from carter to reagan. in that snide, condescending tone he uses to narrate his movies, moore explains that reagan was an evil, selfish man who took advantage of every opportunity that came his way. during this monologue, moore has chosen to include o fortuna (the first part of the first movement of the carmina burana) as backing music. you've certainly heard o fortuna before. it is often used as stock 'dramatic music' in action movies and commercials, and moore is clearly employing it similarly. if you'd like to hear it (and i do strongly encourage you to listen to it), here is a recording of a performance at uc davis (o fortuna occupies the first four minutes of the video). i do love the carmina burana - it is a stunningly beautiful peace of music - but it is delightfully relevant here because it is also unintentionally ironic. the carmina burana as a whole (the first movement in particular) is concerned with fortune. specifically, it is concerned with the fickleness of fortune and the utter necessity of taking advantage of every opportunity that comes your way.
along with these classic moments of self-clowning, moore throws in the usual lies and oversimplifications. for example, moore claims that "you are never going to be rich. the chance of that happening is about one in a million." if we follow moore's logic, we can confidently state that there are only about three hundred rich people in the us, and not say the three million people claimed by the 2008 world wealth report (bottom of page six). but hey, he's only off by four or five decimal places. of course, "rich" doesn't have to be defined as millionaire. moore could just mean that only the top three hundred are rich. in 2002, forbes reported there were 245 us billionaires, which is pretty close to 1 in a million. perhaps, moore believes anyone with less than a billion is in the struggling middle class. this would certainly be one way for him to justify claiming to be just another working guy.
and that's what really bothers me about michael moore. it isn't his eagerness to oversimplify and misrepresent facts. it isn't that he defends these misrepresentations by calling his movies "works of entertainment." it isn't even the fact that he chose to throw an opulent, hedonistic party to celebrate the premiere of his movie whose central purpose is to lambast opulence and hedonism. it's the fact that he portrays himself as a champion of the working class when he is in fact a multi-millionare who directly benefits from the evils he raves against.
all that said, the opening weekend gross was encouragingly low, so with luck it'll be gone in a couple of weeks and i won't have to hear that obnoxious, neckbeard having hypocrite's voice for the foreseeable future.
Saturday, October 3, 2009
hey! free pizza!
ok, so today was a good day. it was a good day because i finally got to do something about one of the ridiculous fucking people who come to the theater and do just ridiculous fucking things inside. it was, i admit, a rather small something (perhaps even a petty something), but then, i am a rather small man. it made me happy and i definitely intend to let the consequent sense of authority go to my head.
i had brought a tray of food into one of the theaters, and taken several dishes to customers. upon returning, i found a woman bent over the tray, rearranging the remaining plates. rather than waving my arms around and being all, "what the fuck are you doing?" at her, i decided to play it cool. no emphasis, steady intonation: "excuse me ma'am what are you doing?" she jerked upright and scuttled past me into the theater. my interest piqued, i followed and noted where she sat before returning to the tray to investigate. it turns out that this lady had decided that we are a buffet service, made off with a slice of another person's pizza, then tried to hide it by covering the pizza with other food.
i got one of the managers, who made a thing about it and had her leave. the best part of all this was that the woman just happened to sit next to the people whose pizza she had grabbed, which meant i was able to personally embarrass her by explaining to the people exactly what had happened.
i had brought a tray of food into one of the theaters, and taken several dishes to customers. upon returning, i found a woman bent over the tray, rearranging the remaining plates. rather than waving my arms around and being all, "what the fuck are you doing?" at her, i decided to play it cool. no emphasis, steady intonation: "excuse me ma'am what are you doing?" she jerked upright and scuttled past me into the theater. my interest piqued, i followed and noted where she sat before returning to the tray to investigate. it turns out that this lady had decided that we are a buffet service, made off with a slice of another person's pizza, then tried to hide it by covering the pizza with other food.
i got one of the managers, who made a thing about it and had her leave. the best part of all this was that the woman just happened to sit next to the people whose pizza she had grabbed, which meant i was able to personally embarrass her by explaining to the people exactly what had happened.
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