Some More Items in Memory of Super Longs

I've been drawing some more merch for the shelves of my upcoming tribute to the legendary Oakland drugstore, Super Longs. For more information about the tribute, check out this post.

Rant.4

I’ve lately been sinking all my creative energy into a project of destruction: trying to get my psychopathic boss fired. I’m not a naturally vindictive person, so this process is draining. I am, however, into survival. I’m also okay at organizing my thoughts on paper—or in emails—and so I’ve been fine-tuning incident reports, narrating wrongdoings, and assembling general cases for insanity. This is war, I guess, and writing—for me, at least—is strategic.

The first day he shows up, Boss looks like he wandered in from People’s Park. It’s okay: we don’t deal with the public, but Jesus, it’s your first day on the job. Maybe wash your jeans or something.

He immediately rearranges the office so as to minimize its functionality—including turning his desk to face mine. Foolishly, I decide to let this slide in the interest of establishing rapport; I reason that it will be fine as long as Boss doesn’t turn out to be a prick.

A deceptively un-pricklike gesture: he hands me a letter opener with a quarter taped to its back, and tells me the Chinese do this when giving each other something sharp (No one involved, by the way—the quarter included—is Chinese). Keep an eye on this object, coin piggybacking on a blade. It will make an appearance again, you’ll see, as a weird little weapon of justice, a foreshadowy, lackluster back-to-bite-you-in-the-ass.

His ineptness becomes increasingly clear. I constantly have to argue with him about whether we’re going to meet deadlines. This isn’t like me; I tend to take my time. I also tend to take the path of least resistance. But look: This is a magazine we work for. It’s an industry that uses time-based words like periodical and quarterly. People are expecting their magazine during the month that’s printed on its cover.

Rather than subscriptions, though—which are a sort of contract, and a shitty one to break, nothing being sadder than a lack of mail—rather than subscriptions, Boss wants Lists.

And so my job description shifts to include spending hours on end generating Boss’s Lists. Boss means BUSINESS. He may be one big hippie mess, but he sees some numbers out there beyond the ether, and those numbers WILL become subordinate once they attach themselves to Lists. Despite the fact that the magazine is nonprofit, we are out to make some money.

Lists, he tells me, I need more Lists.

Boss proceeds to take over payroll, and tells me my check will be ready on the evening of the 1^st. Special trip in at 7 pm, only to open the drawer and see no check. Where is it? I email him, having spent my last four dollars on train fare.

Now it’s the 2^nd. Where is it? I email again, and call him, my bank account overdrawn. It’s there now, he writes without apology. Another special trip and yes, there it is, finally, and now it hits me that this uncashed check won’t pay for my train ride home. I rummage around in the bookkeeper’s drawer for some nickels, do an under-the-furniture scan. I’m almost there, I think, clenching the coins in my fist. All I need is one more quarter.

I think you can guess the rest. Why does this feel like a victory, though, the loosening of the coin from the blade? I’ve just left my pride under the desk where I scrounged for spare change.

Things are deteriorating rapidly. No magazines mailed, no renewal notices sent, no letters thanking donors. An unnecessary printer has landed in the middle of my workstation. My inbox now perpetually contains the same two items: a useless highlighter and a tub of gummy bears (I don’t ask). People call to complain about not receiving their magazines. The traces of tape on the letter opener turn yellow, then darken with grime: abandoned hope. Boss, who has always behaved as if on a sinking ship, increases his demands for Lists. Lists are his white whale.

Rather than Lists, I work on my opus: that collection of incident reports that need to be worded just right. This is creative writing. I’m not exactly making things up, but as with fiction, it’s important to know which details to include. Bring to the surface the worst of his offenses, leave out the ones that are simply my own overblown pet peeves. Pour my heart and soul into this, because this is Important. At last—as sad as it may be—at last, I’m writing something that will make or break whether I can pay my rent. So this is what it feels like when people get paid to write.

And my readers? A personnel board, unfortunately: a meeting of easily flattered egos. In my literary frenzy, I forget the importance of sucking up. This is how Boss got where he is: servile lies and bland reassurances. I’ve seen him at work on the phone. A propagandist, not a writer.

Resulting in MY termination.

Of course. Suck-ups are always bestsellers.

Wield that letter opener, I guess, and be grateful for small, pointless victories.

Darwin, Jesus, and the Devil walk into a polymer clay factory . . .

Parsing a Sentence Overheard on the Bus

The sentence:

We’re kind of like bff’s a little bit.

The speaker:

A college student on a “crazy lesbian” she knows.

Now parse:

First get inside the prepositional object, which here serves as a sort of nucleus, the first b (best) and second f (forever) both such superlative qualifiers, one referring to the highest possible quality, the other to the vastest amount of time. Now unpack them both and send them sprawling out into perfection, only to hit those two mediocre, tempering walls: kind of like and a little bit. You now hold in your hand, like an eggshell with its guts blown out, the brittlest sort of f, which stands for friend.

In essence:

We’re friends(?).

6 Restorative Camping Procedures

"Well, middle class was fun."

Thus speaks Rosanne Conner in the seconds after her power’s shut off halfway through Season 5 of the classic sitcom Roseanne. Who else on TV would bring up such a taboo topic as class but good old Roseanne? She had to choose between water or electricity, she tells hubby Dan, and well, you can only live for two days without water.

The Conners find themselves in the darkness of their living room, their TV down for the count (ironically enough), and they’re forced to entertain themselves.

Dan: You know when I was a kid, my grandpa used to tell me about when he was a kid. Before there was TV, they used to sit around and tell stories.

DJ: What kind of stories?

Dan: I don’t know. That was his best one.

Roseanne: (after some thinking) Ok, I got one. Well, once upon a time there was these four princesses, and they lived in this great big house all together, and they never left. Ok, and uh, and they just sat around all the time, talking and talking and yammering and yammering, and they killed every single man who ever came over there, except for one who they kept as a pet. And then one time these two princesses left and these other two came on and they and they really stunk and—

Darlene: Mom, that’s Designing Women. 

Roseanne’s story is probably my favorite, her delivery, as usual, perfectly timed, and Darlene’s punchline is funny on several different levels of meta, my favorite being Roseanne’s almost instinctual attempt to cover for the now silenced TV.

DJ’s story is equally hilarious:

DJ: (serious, thinking hard, interspersed with lots of glazed looks from his family) Ok, um, there was this guy … and he was walking down the street … and he kept walking … then he found something … and then he lost it … and there was this car with a guy in it … then he got something … and there was this dog … and he was barking because the window was open … not so much he could jump out, but, ummm …

Darlene: The end.

I like that he begins to realize that his story is too abstract for anyone to follow, and so tries to save it by adding more specific detail: the exact position of the car window.

Roseanne tells one more story before the scene ends:

Roseanne: (trying to bond with Darlene by asking her to go with the mall with her to “soak up some electricity”) Aw, come on, it’ll be a lot of fun, you know. Uh, Becky and I used to go down there, ok, and this one time (laughing) we were over at Rodbell’s, you know, and, uh, we went in and, uh, stuck all the mannequin’s skirts right up their butt, you know. (grinning devilishly, slapping knee) And then we went over to Hickory Farms and we squeezed all the cheese logs and ran. (cackling) What do ya say?

(knock on door)

Darlene: Please let that be Child Welfare. 

Darlene really gets all the good punchlines in this episode.

The next morning, the power still out, the Conners are at the breakfast table when in comes Aunt Jackie, played by Laurie Metcalf, who’s such a great physical comedian.

Jackie: (looking worn out in club clothes from the night before) Hi guys. Oh, you guys are not going to believe the time I had (putting bread in toaster) at that singles dance last night. I haven’t even been home yet (pouring milk in blender)—not that I met anybody or anything, but Nancy and I had a few so … I just decided to crash at her place for awhile, you know, just, uh, for the night (getting something out of freezer) You ought to, uh, turn the freezer up, it’s getting kind of warm in there. Anyway… 

Roseanne: Um, Jackie, let me make you some breakfast, ok, because—

Jackie: (putting something in microwave) Roseanne, I’m right in the middle of a story here, ok? Anyway, the second we walk in the door, it’s like Nancy starts throwing herself at any jerk who’s wearing Old Spice (picking up and dialing phone), which like leaves me completely alone having to fight off this whole parade of losers (pouring powder in blender). One guy actually said, ‘You’re under arrest for stealing my heart,’ it was quite, it was so … pathetic, ahem, I just wanna (still holding phone) … see if any of ‘em called. Hey, uh, there’s a message from you on here, Roseanne. What do you need candles and flashlights for? (hitting blender button, turns and looks at everyone) Oh.

Roseanne: Well, we don’t have any lights but now we know the speed of stupid.

Jackie: How was I supposed to know they cut your power?

Roseanne: Well, we thought maybe the lack of electricity might tip you off.

Dan: (answering ringing phone) Hey, you wanna shut down that blender? I can’t hear.

Roseanne has been making the rounds again this year, promoting a new book and reality show, and it seems like she's starting to get some of the respect she deserves. Read her article in New York Magazine and check out her interview with Amy Goodman of Democracy Now.

Dream That Ends Like a Wedding Review

Looking at dreams from waking life, motivations become unclear. Our reasoning in dreams is intuitive, based solely on emotion or something thereabout: something we don’t have the luxury of understanding while awake, what with the constant grind of logic. And so in this dream I found myself wrapped up in Scientology.

I was in a red brick plaza and wanted to see a psychic; the one I chose entered as part of a procession, carrying a cross. She was an elderly white woman in a cloak, and something about her was untrustworthy from the start. Her fellow psychics flanked her: one had a horned headdress, the other was a pathetically friendly young man.

This psychic held a power over me, like a boss or a parent, and I continued to take long, confusing bus rides to see her in her office at the edge of the red brick plaza. Her fellow psychics—all Scientologists, I discovered—were always somewhere nearby. I continued to give her money, hating her the entire time. Part of this relationship was based on fear, but there was something else unnamable between us.

At one point, my psychic required me to attend a wedding, which took place in the plaza. I stood at the very back of the crowd and had trouble telling what was going on. I took out a fine-point purple pen and began to doodle on the red brick. One of my psychic’s fellow psychics—the pathetically friendly young man—told me that drawing on the brick wasn’t allowed. It comes right off, I told him, and spit on what I’d drawn, and rubbed it clean with my finger. It’s still not allowed, he said, and I exchanged an eye roll with one of the other guests. 

If you start making less expensive weiner whips . . .

Approach-Avoidance

How do I reconcile my longing for whimsy with my extreme hatred for it?