Fucking Fazed

There is fazed, and the more commonly used - unfazed. This dude today was definately fazed. To protect the possibly embarraced, I am going to change the name of the hero of my story to Ed. My workspace has changed recently. It used to be a regular Office Space nightmare. Rows of efficient cubicles. No color to speak of. Uniformly uniform. Recent relocations have thrown the norm out the window and now our workspaces are a pieced together jigsaw remnicent of the the barricade built by revelutionaries in Paris. Peices of desk tacked together with lawfuly monitered space between them.

I first noticed Ed by his voice. His usual nasal monotone was now squeaky and tense. Raspy and whispering. He was hanging like a scarecrow over the top of my bosses "half cube", obviously trying to communicate with him. His shirt untucked and tie in hand. He was not okay. The Boss had him sit down in one of the shitty folding chairs. Now I could see his face. Now I could see there was a problem. The usual pale with red splotch combo was at work here, but in reverse. His face was bright red with white splotches. Lips really pale, almost bluish. His eyes looked like a fish's. Red and poppoing. His hands wouldn't stay still. Stiff like talons they tore along his scalp like a rake.
"So itchyyyy."
He sounded like he had a rat in his mouth. His breathing was laboured and he was heaving deeply into each breath, dangling perilously close to a full blown motherfucker of a panic attack.

I caught the Boss's gaze. He was wondering how he could transport himself to another dimension. A dimension that did not have Ed, his panic attack or the impending PowerPoint presentation that this little fiasco was going to fuck up. He was slack jawed and useless.

Coffee

Don't tell anyone.
It's a secret.
Burger King has really fucking good coffee.

The Hour

This is the hour. The hour between when my co-workers go to lunch and when I go. The first break in the day where the dust settles and I can focus on other things. There is not too much dust lately. Not a lot going on. The corporation I work for is in the middle of a massive reorganization, as I am. I feel like everything is doing that. Reality shifting. Things going in and out of focus without any control. One day the pain, pressure and yearning in my chest and head is replaced by calm and straightforward trajected thinking. Unmovable and monstrous issues and problems have turned featherweight and can be pushed aside with a breath. Such is my mind. How can I trust my own head when the decisions I've made may have been weighted with imaginary gravitas? The highs and lows are very clearly defined, but the mania is still a mystery. Are my decisions, which I know can be destructive personally, financially and emotionally, (to not only myself), based on fact? On blind faith that what I want to happen will? Is it really supposed to be to chaotic? Torturous? Black and dark? Is it really supposed to feel this way? Where is the promised Light? The redemption and swelling music. Are the tears that are my fault worth nothing? Thoreau said "Most men lead lives of quiet desperation." Who are the men that did not? Whose lives did they fuck up to be so pure and without despair? Does that exist?

Camera Phone Impressions

Camera broken.

Phone has camera.

I see stuff when I should be selling other stuff.

If You Have a Couple Of Hours ...

Coming Soon ...

Makes Me Laugh Until I Cry ...

"Aw Shit, The Bitch Had A Dick" or "The Story of Gary"

It was too good to be true. I knew it. I was offered a very lucrative position in an industry that I was desperate to work in. I figured that it was too weird not to be real. I was going to direct and stage manage a comedy tour for a popular prop comic that went all over the world. I have lived and worked in New York and Los Angeles as an actor / writer and director for years, finally escaping to a fairly small town in the Pacific Northwest. It seemed just strange enough that after all that I would get a break of some sort living in the middle of no where.

After moving, I got a job at a local close-to-no watt radio station doing Sunday afternoons and the local sports. Not enough to pay all the bills, but it was something to keep my sanity intact by learnig something I had never done. Shortly after I was hired at the local sinking ship newspaper where I currently work. While at the station, the manager knew I had theatre experience and I was drafted into directing their annual fundraiser. What a delight. No rehearsal until the day of the "show". Think accidental tranny show with Karaoke and magic. The thing actually got off the ground not too badly until the second act ground to a complete and visually exhausing halt with the finale. A lackluster ensemble number. A rousing chorus of God Bless America complete with waving plastic American mini flags and a Power Point slideshow barely projected on the back skrim, complete with desktop warm up icons and nightmare land sound effects. This was a three hour show and this is how we decide they should remember us as we shuffled them out into the street.

But, I digress.


The finale was choreographed and the PowerPoint designed by a woman named Kate. She was an afternoon DJ at the station who started after I had already left. Could not have been under 6 foot 2, or less than 240 pounds. Picture if you will, this potato explaining to me with greasy little eyes and tattered fingernails how she had been a opening act in Vegas for years. Opening for acts at all the casinos and living the glamorous life of a showgirl. I obviously had my doubts, but after experiencing what I have seen, having multiple preconcieved notions comletely shattered, I have learned to shrug and say, "OK, fine. You did that." I may not believe her but I know that it doesn't really matter to her, and the energy I would spend trying to straighten it out in my own head would be more than I was willing to spend on anyone I didn't really give a shit about.

So.


This woman, this large ex-showgirl with her simping mouth and teary eyeliner was also going to perform in the talent show. Low and behold. She was to lip-synch a song from the Broadway musical "Wicked". And she did. She lumbered back and forth on stage. Commanding everyone in the theatre to stare . Sweat dripping off her face, slathered in green greasepaint. The heavy lights pounding into her plastic black witch cape. She was desperately swinging her prop broom at assorted devils and demons as they stormed the stage from the right and left wings. I have no idea where she recruited them from. Never saw them before and didnt see them after. It was actually an amazing number. Visually. Like watching a Hieronymus Bosch painting come to life and dance around.










Again I digress, but I swear the pay off is worth it.

A few months later I get a call from the station manager sayin that he has been hired to be the opening act for a Vegas performer on a world tour with a 2-4 year commitment . He ahd also been put in charge of the crew for this gig. Oddly enough, he had gotten this job through his new afternoon drive DJ, Kate, the ex-Vegas showgirl with, apparently, connections

Keep in mind that this Station Manager was actually a stand up , and had actually opened for a few well known acts in Vegas. He is funny and used to be some sort of PI. I had no reason to doubt him. He also had offerred positions to many members of his own family, who had quit their jobs to prepare for this tour.

It is amazing what a person will ignore if they want to believe something bad enough.

I will repeat for my sake as much as anyone elses...

It is amazing what a person will ignore if they want to believe something bad enough.

During our conversation he offers me the position of Director / Stagemanager. Basically I would br the liason between the theatres and the show, making the personal introductions and making sure everything ran smoothly. The money was great for my current state and about in the right range for the industry. I would have a lot of time off AND travel all over the world working in some amazing theatres.
It's too good to be true. Of course I thought this. I didn't tell anyone for weeks. I followed up on a few background things, asked Kate the Tour Manager about a few things, all the while keeping in contact witht he Station Manager who, in turn, was in constant contact with the suppossed headliner. There were red flags. With the aforementioned doughy Wicked Witch fiasco burned deeply into my brain tissues, Kate told me that she was going to be opening the tour show with a few songs to warm up the audience. Red flag 1. I immediately chased any thoughts of WTF??? out of my head with "Well, she's an old friend of the comic and he wants to throw her a bone...Certainly she won't be doing a whole opening number at every performance..." While explaining the different tech teams, she included a whole team for pyrotechnics.Fire. Explosions. Red Flag #2
I even asked about that one.
"Really? Pyro?"
"Oh yeah, he's really into fire."
Shrug. OK.


I continued to keep quiet about it. Except to my Father who "pissed in my Cherrios". Just be sure, these show buisiness types are really creepy, etc., etc. The worst part about this was that he was in fact correct as you probably have guessed at this point.


FINAL ACT.


I get a message on my phone Saturday morning at about 8:30 am from Station Manager. He sounds like a deflating balloon. Asks me to call him. I know what is happening before I erase his message. I call...


"First of all, I just want to apologize to you..." is how he starts. As you have probably guessed, this was a complete and total bullshit scam from the beginning. I am going to edit out the excess crap and hit the points that feel most important and finally finish with my feelings because ... this is my blog.


- Kate was a man. Named Gary. Fuck. Did not see this coming.

- Gary was wanted in 5 states for fraud and burglary.

- Gary had been having in depth conversations about everything with the Station Manager as the comedian.

- He went as far as stealing a credit card with the comedians real name and charging hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of hotel reservations and plane tickets for the suppossed world tour. Station Manager had checked for shits and giggles.

I was surprisingly calm and almost relieved after hearing the news. It was like I always knew this was bullshit but was so invested in this guy's lie that I convinced myself. Very strange feeling. Eye opening. I have lived and survived in some of the most intense cities in the world, in an industry that is famous for blowing the most sunshine up the most ass. What the hell else have I been lying to myself about. What other obvious, hit me between the fucking eyes signals or flags have I ignored and let stand. My life slowly growing around them like a tree that envelops old fenceposts.

Crap.

Epilogue.

The Station Manager figured out that something was amiss when he did not recieve his first paycheck and the DJ / TourManager / Wicked Witch didnt show up for work that day. After a lot of hiding in bushes, police business and embarracement, Gary was finally taken into custody afer being found hiding in the attic of the house she was renting. She is currently awaiting trial on multiple counts of fraud and Burglary ... in the Men's Jail.

This an picture of Gray being arrested.

Thoughts.

After all this business sort of subsided and I came to grips witht he fact that I was going to have to stay in my hateful job for a while longer, I realized that I was never really angry. I understood the relief part. But there was a part of me that was actually thankful. While I thought I had this new position, a whole new world had opened up to me. I was able to burn away all the excess and get down to what was going to make me happy. If I had the time and money, what would I do? Like that scene in Office Space. If you had a million dollars, what would you do?

Should have listened to my Dad. Dammit.

* Includes a weiner

41 days ...

It's been 41 days since I've had a drop of booze. The biggest problem is that when I'm bored, I have to find something constructive to do. No tremors. No physical symptoms at all except the newly discovered chasm that exists between the rabid highs and the oily and slogging lows of non medicated bi-polar sweetness.

Actually dissappointed a little.

You'd think drinking heavily for fifteen years would at least incur the wrath of some type of withdrawl besides boredom.