aiming low

there is a guy.

well, there may be a guy. i can't be entirely certain because i have not seen him. however, given that this person's zone of operation is the men's bathroom, i am going to assume for the purposes of this post that there is in fact a guy (though i readily concede that it may be an unusually stealthy girl).

ok. so here we are in the bathroom. there was a guy in the bathroom previously, but he is gone now. he has, however, left indelible traces behind. the word "curley" is scrawled everywhere - scratched into the stalls, the mirror, even the porcelain. i have two ideas about this:

the first is that "curley" is an old man. his wife died from cardiac amyloidosis when he was a young man and the chemotherapy she received during treatment left her sterile. he never came to terms with her death, so he remained childless and alone. his friends became distant and eventually melted away as he allowed his grief to overwhelm and consume him. now an old man, shriveled and alone, he feels the icy touch of the reaper. he will never have children, but he wants - he needs - to leave something behind. so, like borf or that guy my roommate knows who's thing is the big boy with three eyes, he has adopted an alias and taken a stab at immortality. he has aimed low. he knows that.

my second idea is that "curley" is not a sobriquet. his father, an illiterate man, gave him the name after seeing punch drunks for the first time. his mother was against it, but his father was a forceful man. a reserved sensitive child, curley never demonstrated an aptitude for physical comedy. this lack opened a rift between him and his father, who took to drinking and domestic abuse. curley's feelings of inadequacy and persecution intensified following his introduction to the school system. children are indiscriminate in their cruelty, but once his fellow students learned his ridiculous name, that cruelty was distilled, focused on him. battered at home and school, curley began to create elaborate revenge fantasies. blaming the three stooges for his nightmarish childhood, but unable to take revenge on the dead, he set out to destroy the film industry entire. having grown up in such a stultifying environment however, curley's plans were relatively uninspired. defacing movie theater bathrooms is the best he could come up with. he has aimed low, but he doesn't know that.

new moon

hey, you know what movie i saw recently that was worse than the twilight sequel? that was a trick question. i have never seen a movie that was worse than the twilight sequel.

family dinner

remember the cocaine huffing bartender who almost left his friend for dead in a swamp? well cocaine the bartender got demoted and is now cocaine the food runner. i resent, by the way, the fact that a night doing my job is used as a disciplinary measure for other employees. but anyway, last night ctfr had his first conversation with me. it went like this (keep in mind, this is the first time we've had any contact besides "hey" and guy nods):

ctfr: hey, man
me: (cautiously) hi
ctfr: (in a rush) i'm only gonna be here for about an hour tonight. i am going to dinner with my girlfriend and her parents.
me: (noncommittally) oh, that sounds nice.
ctfr: (leans in close) yeah. i knocked her up.
me: (leans back, cocks eyebrow)
ctfr: oh, it's cool. i'm not paying for shit.

twilight

tonight is the premiere of the new twilight movie. tonight i will be surrounded by 1500 people who think that combining vampirism with angst and sparkly lip gloss is a good idea. i do not believe in god - in fact, i consider the existence of the twilight franchise conclusive evidence for the non-existence of an omnipotent, benevolent force - but tonight i would appreciate it if you prayed for me anyway.

i am not ok

tonight an actual man asked me to bring him a straw for his beer and i had to do it and now i have to come to terms with being an accessory to what happened.

lucky charms

today was new poster day at the theater. as one might expect studios send promotional materials out along with the film reels. generally, these get stacked by the entrances and are available to whomever. as i headed out the door with lockheed on our way downtown, he noticed a poster for the alvin and the chipmunks squeakuel (shudder). perhaps unsurprisingly, lockheed's reaction was one of near unbridled enthusiasm. the chipmunks! together again at last! but despite his excitement, he had a few reservations.

the first of these was the inclusion of christmas in a kids movie. merely acknowledging the existence of the holiday in a kids film it seems is "an act of deliberate racism" against muslims (who apparently are a race now).

the second of his reservations was the inclusion of lucky charms in a kids movie. so concerned was he that kids would see their heroes, the chipmunks, condoning (and even advocating!) consumption of the popular cereal that he no longer wishes to see the film. but his objection is not the reasonable one. the revolting nature of the cereal, it's utter lack of redeeming nutritional and sensuous qualities, the destruction of our children's tastebuds, the ravaging of their young digestive systems; these things concern him not. no! again it is a "racially" motivated objection. the marshmallows in lucky charms contain that insidious goo, gelatin, which as you must surely be aware is a pork product. pigs are of course haram, and thus the inclusion of pork products in the chipmunks squeakuel (a boardroom full of handsomely compensated people agreed that that pun was a good idea) must clearly be interpreted as a sinister attempt to undermine the muslim faith.

damn those crafty rodents. damn those subtle studio executives.

cocaine

so tonight i had a super awkward encounter with one of the new bartenders. one of the sets had just finished so i had some downtime. i went to the bar to order some food. as i walked up, i heard this guy talking to one of the servers about a party he had attended recently. he was talking about all the drugs he did and how he and this guy had snorted a bunch of cocaine. the other guy had done too much apparently, and was in pretty bad shape but the bartender didn't want to take him to the hospital because he didn't want to get in trouble. so he and a friend took the guy out to a swamp and planned to leave him there (to die presumably), but he woke up so they brought him home. and the whole time he was telling this story, i just sat there becoming increasingly uncomfortable. like hey this guy is standing here telling a story about almost leaving a guy for dead in a swamp like it is a reasonable thing to very loudly talk about in a public place around casual acquaintances and i just want to order a sandwich.