Mixing it in

Basically, I've neglected the portrait lately and so I'm gonna mix one in.  If you've been keeping up, and by keeping up I mean if you read the last post, then you know I have a job.  While the job is at this point drastically insufficient in terms of its monetary value, it is possibly the sweetest gig on earth.  And when I say the sweetest gig on earth, I mean it's the best job I've had outside of playing baseball.  Outside of playing baseball, I've had precisely two jobs in the last ten years.  One was working in a warehouse in the armpit of California, Fresno.  The other is at Image Health in Roseville California.  For any who are even remotely familiar with central and northern California geography, a fair comparison of the two jobs is the comparison between the two cities.  Fresno, a place that I have openly referred to as the dingleberry of California offered a similarly grand employment opportunity.  Roseville may not be Bel Air, but next to Fresno it seems like an all inclusive, paid vacation to a twelve star resort in the Bahamas.  Or a cruise around the world on an opulent and eccentric Russian billionaire's Yacht.  With the girls included.

Ya, next to Fresno, Roseville is something like that. 

And the job is pretty sweet too.  Apart from the perks, which include me dropping thirty pounds and building muscle that would have otherwise taken me four to six months and hundreds of dollars worth of supplements to acquire, I work with cool people and at the service of cool clients.  If you remember the post, 'A cut above the rest', my employment in Fresno began with me cutting my finger and getting eight stitches.  Somehow, it got worse every day after that.  I worked with a group of ten that had a collective IQ somewhere in the neighborhood of my bank balance.  Did I mention that I'm flat broke?  Ya, so the Fresno crowd didn't get jokes.  Nor did they crack jokes.  And they breathed out of their mouths.  The Image Health group are at least in triple digits for the most part and are generally a jovial bunch.  And things just keep getting better.

So my boss, Rachelle, who I have openly characterized as some mutant hybrid of Mother Theresa and Demi Moore has welcomed two of her children to town.  One of whom is a seventeen year old high school senior named Jacqueline who is very lovely and nice.  The other is a fifteen year old named Alex.  And this is where things get better.  After school, Rachelle drags the yard monsters to work where it would seem that my job (barring any pressing matters that have to do with the business we conduct at Image Health) is to hang with the young man.

This kid is a character.  Since my maturity level hovers somewhere in the pre-pubescent range of ten to thirteen, we get along well.  Before they came to town, Rachelle related an anecdote to me that pretty much summed up Alex's deal.  At a Subway sandwich shop, the kid saw a bearded old freak and asked this guy if he would take young Alex as his  padawan learner.  That's Star Wars for you commies out there who don't know great American cinema when you see it.  It's this kind of smart assedness that makes me feel at home with the youngster.

I don't think he is literally smoking any weed yet, but he has that stoner look to him.  And he has the kind of witty disposition that would otherwise make me suspicious of indulgence in the alternative medicine that makes us giddy and hungry.  I mentioned to Rachelle that I didn't want to be responsible for corrupting her young son.  She told me that it'd be more likely that he would corrupt me.  Well then.  I might have gone a little too far today when I told him that one of my old room mates tried to pay his rent by pawning off a hooker on me for his rent.  Don't worry, I didn't accept those terms and made clear to Alex my opposition to such licentious bartering.  I did relay my colorful response, however, and in hindsight it may have been better to edit the response.  I mean, the kids are from Utah, where there may be hooking, but I imagine it's the sanitized hooking that can only be found in the most conservative locales.  I hope the kid doesn't respond to his first proposition by telling the girl he wouldn't give a squirt of piss for her.

But I digress.  It isn't that there is really any tedium at this job at Image Health.  But whatever monotony there is is now lessened by the company of my bright eyed and fresh faced friend.  He doesn't have red hair, but I think ginger ale may be his new nick name.  BTW, we are gonna make a movie about some of the characters we deal with at Image Health.  Dancing Dan is for sure gonna be portrayed by Alex with a goatee sharpied in and a generous amount of flour across his face and chest area.  We're just thinking in rough terms at this point, but Dancing Dan is gonna be the staple of this piece of art.  And maybe I'll get Rondell to come and play Nike.  Oh, it's gonna be priceless.  

Positive flow

You guys have been missing out.  And I've been a bit selfish.  There have been antics and mayhem going on that would for sure have been best served, or perhaps better served humanity if they were documented.  And it's all been positive flow.  And this is positive flow in the good sense, not Reynaldo and Stephen positive flow.  Or, as my bud Dev would say, "PoFlow neg".  Whatever the case, things are awesome at work.  Somehow, even though I'm being paid next to nothing, I find my job fulfilling and gratifying. 

It would be dishonest to suggest that the most major contributor to my feelings of optimism were anything other than myself, and my choice to just bring a better attitude to life.  However, there are some other factors at work.  Some of which were and are instrumental in my ability to bring my A game positive attitude day in and day out.  The chief factor among them is my boss, Rachelle.

Rachelle-second from the right

Now, it's true that she occasionally hacks into my facebook and leaves interesting updates.  Another glaring shortcoming of her's is that she rarely has seen the movie I use as a reference to make whatever pointless point I find myself trying to make.  And her most criminal offense may be the fact that even though she had a cameo in the movie "License to Drive", which is by any accepted standard, among the sweetest 80's movies there is, she hasn't seen the film.  Yet even so, she is a pleasure to work with.  I find that that's the most accurate characterization of our working relationship, that I work with her.  Even though she is the boss, and makes the rules, she is open to suggestion and easy to talk to.  I feel like we are a tag team when working together, and no matter how busy we may get, she keeps her cool and I find that the work gets done with high marks in quality and glowing reviews in customer satisfaction.  Truly, she is a treasure to Image Health.

I can't realistically recall and explain the antics that we engage in at work in any way that would do justice to the fun that ensues.  I can say, however, that she is not above laughing with me when I reference Gargamel from the Smurfs when selling a potential costumer on the phone.  Nor is she above rating my paper airplanes' when I beat the boredom by folding a piece of paper and tossing it across the office.  And it warms my heart to see she and the other mothers with whom I work dote on their children.  It reminds me so much of my mom and the way she talked about me to others.  Rachelle always has a ready ear, too, when I get nostalgic and reminisce on my parents and their antics.

Rachelle is not alone either.  When it comes to work, nearly everyone there has a unique contribution to the tapestry.  There's Helen, the laser hair removal woman who leases space in the office and is also my piano student.  She is another striking beauty with the physique of a nineteen year old girl and playfulness of a child, yet with the sharp wit and intellect of a radio talk show host.  She too brings her A game most of the time.

And Rudie, who I affectionately call the Image gnome, not because of his height, but rather because he is always there, like a lawn ornament.  He could be the most engaging person I've known, well, apart from Jason Randall, the Las Vegas magician who had legitimate mind control.  Rudie could sell snow skis to a quadriplegic that lives in the desert.  He was a client of my father's back in the day and always has a good story as well as some new insight.  He is a very smart man and quite curious about the world around him.  We love Rudie, but he'd better give me a pay raise sometime soon if he doesn't want to be skiing from his wheel chair.  Naw, I'm kidding.  But seriously Rudie, it's about time for an increase in pay.

Let us not forget Dirty Dan with the dancing hands on sometimes women but he prefers a man.  Dan is my counter part technician.  He hooks the men up to the machine when I'm not around and is also a Masseuse. He's not really dirty, but he told me his nickname in the 70's was dancing Dan.  And you know what?  It doesn't surprise me for a second.  Basically, when you look at Dan and think about him in the seventies, you know for a fact that he did boat loads of Coke.  And that he danced the night away is a certainty.  I could go into detail, but that basically sums it up.  I'm not saying he still does drugs, even though by the sound of things, his eagerness to talk would indicate that he starts every day with a little bump.  I'm sure it's just a quirk of character.

Not to drag it out here, but the other manager is a woman named Nike who looks like either Cecil Fielder or Mr. T.  Take your pick.  Oh, and apparently her store (the next one to open) will have Zebra patterns on the couches in the lobby.  I think I saw this before on Soul Plane.  No biggie, just a little cultural sensitivity.  And we just hired three more girls to help out with some of the duties at the new store.  All of whom are fun and pretty effing raw.  Rachel is an ex-marine who just gets it done.  Deandra is a sweetheart/angel with a ready laugh and a penchant for men with questionable character.  Sandra has a foul mouth and a bad attitude.  It's kinda strange, but I think I like it.  All the girls are very beautiful and full of character.  And they help the day go by in the blink of an eye.

So, don't for a second consider yourselves caught up.  Most of the stuff that's noteworthy is stuff that I can't even blog for fear of reprisals or consequences.  And the stuff that is blogable...I just didn't get into it.  But that's what I've been doing with my day.  And when I look back on the abortion that was the Fresno experiment, I think only good riddance.  I deodorized the arm pit of California by simply extricating myself.  Smell ya later Grizzlies.  And hello Roseville.  Good morning, Image Health.

Movie Review

Trust me when I tell you that the three minute trailer is the best part of this movie.  Nearly horrendous, but certainly a train wreck.   Looked cool and sounded nice, but on the whole made no sense.  I got a little bit weak a few times, admittedly, but found myself cringing and wincing mostly as I took in what amounted to a disjointed dream I had after watching the cartoon when I was little, just going from topic to topic and explosions and flying stuff and girls and space things...Actually, that sounded kinda cool.  It wasn't that cool.

Now that I've been talking about it for a minute, it may be more like child birth, where you do it and it sucks, but after having done it, you're better off?  I don't know.  What I do know is that I am the least snooty person when it comes to movies and will watch mindless macho crap with the best of them.  In this case, not so.  Maybe I'll watch it again in 3-d.  After all, I am the same guy who made a snowball without gloves like four times before I figured out I didn't like my hands being frozen.  It might take a couple viewings of Transformers to figure out that I don't like...Whatever the fuck that was.

Master of my domain

As soon as I saw the headlights, I knew a masterpiece was brewing.  This is the kind of masterpiece that has such masterful potential, you fear you might wreck it before you even begin.  I thought of angles and counter angles, strategized and rejected said strategies until I finally decided there is nothing to it but to do it. 

I should back up a little bit and explain the beauty that is now.  I bailed from the apartment that I was 'renting' a few short days ago.  If this were a James Bond yarn, it would be me jumping from the plane without a parachute attached to my back.  It isn't a James Bond tale, so it was simply me jumping ship without a firm grasp on my immediate plans for the future.  Or even that night.

The coolest boss in the world-who is simultaneously the most devout in spirit, pleasing to behold, and seemingly kinder than kin-offered her place since she was going out of town.  And after a few modestly scornful glances from her beau, she set off with Mike on their Pacific Northwetern tour to take in Eddie Vedder on a Eukelele, or banjo, or some such silly stringed instrument.

So, after a few brief farewells and promises of leaving the place how I found it, and a pre-emptive admonishment from Rachelle to not sniff any panties, I set about my weekend of wall staring.  The fun part comes when they get back and I haven't secured a place to stay for the night.  What do I do?  Campout!

So I drive over to the parking lot at work-only after pilfering some wine out of a box in Rachelle's fridge-and begin the stakeout.  I struck out on calling any homies about the fun times I was in the middle of experiencing.  I then resorted to the old standby, hanging with my best pal.  Me.  And so it was.

Roughly twenty minutes ago, I saw headlights turn the corner as I was listening to some Bob Marley in my car.  I turned and who should approach the new whip but Mama Bear herself.  "What are you doing?"

"Huh?  Oh, just having a slumber party in the parking lot." 

She shrugged and stifled a scoff.  "Do you want to come in and sleep on the beds?"

It was the opposite of "Friday", where rather than pointing and saying 'no' after D-Bo asked if I wanted some, I pointed and said, "yes.  That would be sweet."

And sweet it is.  Like Tom Hanks in the terminal, I'm just rocking it.  I might put some of the robes on and stroll around.  Maybe there's some shaving in the cards, or perhaps crude, hastily executed bathing performed at the sink.  Who knows?  The possibilities are endless.  Endless, I tell you.

So, while I was looking forward to my first car campout and a bold step into the hobo experience, I'll gladly take the semblance of civilization that is the office.  And it's possible that I'll blog five times tonight as the evening unfolds.

The side of the road

*This may or may not have actually happened

So, after a party I recently attended, I was giving a few friends a ride.  The initial plan was to drop these friends at a bar and perhaps pick them up later.  When I drove a two person car, this could not have been done.  It would seem that I was better off when I drove a two person car.

One of the friends decided they didn't want to go to the bar after all.  The person who could have otherwise driven them home was either indisposed or not picking up their phone for other reasons.  I offered to drive them home, which happens to be literally over a river and through some woods and up some hills...

My newly acquired car, a Honda was ill-prepared for the hills.  After a comically short effort from the car, my head gasket ruptured and we were on the side of the road.  Hazard lights.  Frustration.  Profanities.  A few small bottles of Vodka.  Well, the vodka wasn't for me, but my friend had no qualms with drinking it.  And he already had plenty.

It was two am, we were on the side of the road, I had a suspended license, my buddy was drunk and may or may not have had a pistol on him.  And the tow truck took an hour and a half.  That's a lot of exposure for two guys who would immediately be dead meat at the first sign of any law from parking attendant to CHP.

Long story short is I ditched a V8 for a Honda with a four hoping for economy and reliability.  I'm now in way over my head trying to take an engine apart that may as well be Japanese.  Get it?


And we may or may not have been on the side of the road waiting for the tow truck and trying to fire his gun which wouldn't fire and a I may or may not have said, "at least we didn't have to shoot anyone..." and laughed hysterically.  And I may or may not have dodged a groin shot from my compatriot and nearly gotten in a drag down fight and fallen down the side of the hill...Good times.

Safes and safety

The Chevy Impala moved through the neighborhood like a wraith.  In the vehicle were two men.  One was slightly more calm than the other, but both were pretty calm.  "Where is this place man?", said the driver, who was a white guy about 6 feet tall and 200 hundred pounds.

The passenger was a black guy.  He was about 5'10" and a buck seventy.  He was working on a slush puppy he procured at the gas station they just got gas from.  He was mid bite when his partner Reggie asked where the place was.  After letting the slush puppy settle in his stomach he answered, "Right up here on the right.  See that motor home?"  Reggie nodded.  "It's two houses after that.  Drive past a piece.  Then turn around and park about four or five houses down."  The passenger, Fred, was already bringing another bite to his mouth.

With the lights off in both the car and neighborhood, the men waited.  Reggie asked, "you believe Ron?  About this guy having money in a safe in there?"  Fred shrugged.  He answered with the cold drink in his mouth, "He bever", in the way people do when their mouths are full, using the 'v' sound rather than the 't'.

"Hey man, I didn't know you knew how to get into a safe."  Reggie.

"Getting into the safe is the easy part".  Fred.

"Do you crack it?  Or take it with you?"

"You take it with you.  Then you crack it."

Reggie asked, "what if it's bolted down man?"

Fred was mid bite, so he waited to reply.  After smacking his lips a few times, he did.  "Well, then you gotta wait for 'em to come home."

Reggie laughed hysterically and Fred smirked as he stirred his slush puppy some more.  They looked at each other.  Gesturing to the house with his chin, Reggie asked, "Did Ron say if this one was bolted down?"

"We waitin', aren't we?"

Reggie began feeling out of his depth.  He considered what brought him here and equally what would get him out.  Fred interrupted his reverie, "How come you got a blacker name than me?"

Weight loss contests and speed

I have a big mouth.  It's no secret.  Sometimes my ego writes checks my body can't cash.  Such was the case about two weeks ago when the owner of the company I work for and I were smack talking weight loss.  And when I say we were smack talking, I mean I was smack talking.  Anyway, we were talking bet when Rudy pointed out, with the wisdom of a sage, that I had nothing to bet with.  Someone suggested "fun bet".  I said, "I don't do fun bets".  Like 'The Princess Bride', we were at an impasse.  I said finally, "how about this?  If I drop thirty by July 4, I get a hundred dollar bonus."  He said, "Ya, ok."

For one thing, there really is no reason he should benefit from my weight loss, so it was bold to suggest that I get a bonus for bettering myself.  Bold happens to be my middle name, however, and I figured the claim was outrageous enough that he'd agree.  And he did, so here we are.

Naturally, the first thing I did was ponder how I could cheat in this contest.  I joked about taking Meth for a couple weeks for that extra high octane slimming effect.  I quickly discarded the idea as I considered the fact that there are no two week meth users.  I considered using a scale that I purposefully un-balanced to give me a slight ten pound edge.  If no one was paying attention, that could work.  It could also backfire though, if any witnesses wanted me to verify the feat on any of our other ten scales.

So I mulled and plodded, feeling somewhat discouraged by the clear asymptotic weight loss, trending toward none after a couple weeks of aggressive shedding.  And on a Tuesday afternoon, this doctor fellow came in and we got to talking.  He heard about the little contest.  Because I told him.  He asked if I wanted to win.  I kinda shrugged the remark off, thinking he was asking about my personal feelings or some latent, competetive, disposition.  He asked again, "Do you want to win?".  Now he had a look of mischief that I was all too familiar with and I said, "Ya".  He said, "I could prescribe you some 'Phentermine', and the pounds will fall off."  I said, "What is that?  Speed?"  He looked at me, smiled, smirked, and said "Ya". 

So, this sounded like a legitimate way to cheat marginally in the contest and earn an extra hundred bucks, or a net of 80 after buying the pharmaceutical grade speed.  Now, don't go thinking I considered this some legitimate way to relive drug days or anything.  I've never taken any of the street drugs associated with cleaning aggressively.  But in my mind it sounded intense enough that it might just work.

To tell the truth, it doesn't really amp you up that much.  I'm a little disappointed.  I kinda hoped to conquer the world on the shoulders of modern chemistry.  Caffeine gives me more energy.  And, ironically, my sleep has improved since taking this stuff.  Pfft.  Whatever.

I was running laps in the apartment, grinding my teeth, and talking to myself like the micro machine man wondering if this stuff was going to have any effect.  I took a look in the mirror and my pupils were, uh, perhaps a bit small in diameter.  And I was hopping from foot to foot.  Hmm.  Whatever.

Drunk dialing the boss

It's 11Pm.  You have to be up in five hours.  Your phone rings.  Your heart races.  Fearing the worst, you check your phone as your boyfriend leans over to see what the problem is.  You laugh, and return the text.  Confused, your boyfriend asks, "What was that about?"

"Oh, that was just Corey from work..."

If I were narrating this, an appropriate song would play out as I got to that last part and a split screen would show empty bottles of Sky Vodka.  Ya, that and some straws leaning to the side of about three Long Island Iced Tea glasses.  Just another Saturday night.  The loneliest night of the week.

Some of you may have noticed the review of my boss' coolness on the Facebook page.  That I totally wrote.  And wasn't her hacking into my stuff like she was some Mission Impossible flunky.  And when I say hacked, I might mean that I didn't sign out.  On the office computer.  At the front desk.  Hey, If you don't roll the dice, you aren't in the game. Pfft.

So, somewhere along the way on Saturday I figured out that Rachelle left an update on my facebook deal.  I promptly responded by calling her, or so she says, and pouring forth with a gem of Stewart proportions...

Sometimes if you want to know if the noodle is cooked, you gotta throw it against the wall.  To hear her tell it, it was like a full frontal assault.  I say there may be some wishful thinking, Freudian slips, or otherwise a projected disposition here.  No biggie.  I'm big enough to manage the delicate balance between overt criminal unwanted advances and complete disinterest.  It would appear that balance lies at Rod Stewart.  Ha!

Btw, I'm blogging this at work.  In every one's face.  Hella risky Indeed.  Gotta walk the knife edge.

Party time

Now we're talking!  I have a bottle in my lap and I'm listening to Billy Idol.  If you think the life in free fall is some nebulous, ethereal type metaphor, think again.  The ironic thing is that I have a job interview in the next couple days...At a real job.  And no bull, the dude said "the women who work here are intimidating." I said, "huh?  What?  Like they'll kick my ass?"  He was like, "no, they're really good looking.  Most guys can't keep it together."  Really?  Sounds like a big problem I'll just have to battle through.  He goes, "One of the women was Miss Utah.  Don't worry Rudy.  I'll keep it together.  I invented big league inverted.

So this is actually hilarious.  I was messaging my main man deej and we decided we had to move to an island.  I'm ready to bail.  He's ready to bail.  So I got online and was looking into how I could jump on a banana boat and get to an island.  It occurred to me that one of my dad's customers offered him a job in the Cayman islands a few years ago.  He probably knows something about island life right?  Gave him a shout.  He didn't have any action on the island because he opened a store around here.  I didn't even know what kind of store it was, I just, bold as brass asked him, "Can you hire me?"  He thought about it and asked me to pop in.

The way I have it figured, I just have to keep a straight face when I meet the smokes who work there.  Billy Idol didn't trip off of hot chicks.  Neither will I.  Oh, and just so you know, Rudy didn't say anything dirty or anything, just that the girls were good looking, so don't go thinking my boss is a creep. Just giving a guy fair warning.  Appreciate it.

So, I was in the act of finding a way out of the country and may have stumbled into a job with beauty queens in Roseville.  Could be something positive.  Funny that I got the best news I've had lately and I grabbed a bottle from the gay guy downstairs and am just taking it to the dome.  750ml  down the hatch. Pfft.

Odyssey

I've been on a musical odyssey for the last day or two.  It happens.  After rediscovering Marc Antony and side stepping to Santana's later stuff, I went down the hall to some of his older stuff.  From there I stumbled into some other guitarists, one of whom was an Irish guy named Gary Moore.  Never heard of him before.  Dude had his axe on lock.

And so, after the age of Moore, I stumbled onto some other less notable stuff, but in the mix was 'ol Gary and BB King doing the thrill is gone.  Got back to Santana and he played with Tower of Power for a show.  One of the Tower tunes was "diggin on James Brown".  Finally, I said fuck the dumb shit and got into some James Brown...

It's a good thing that was documented. In case you didn't know, that was James Brown and mother effing Luciano Pavaratti singing It's a Man's World.  Ya, and I watched living in America from Rocky four too and went apeshit America all over everyone I saw.  Who was no one, so I just felt a little patriotic.  Had a thought too.  People get down on America and hate it for the bad things of the past.  And you can't argue about it.  There was some messed up stuff.  But what if you judged your parents or someone else you loved by the same standard?  I'd hate my parents with the same standard that people put on the Stars and Stripes.  However, I choose to love my country good and bad, acknowledging the bad crap for what it was but still embracing what it stands for and my countrymen.  So take that Godless commies.  And take this...

It didn't end there, and still hasn't ended, and yes I started drinking at 2 today.  It's now 12.23a so put that in your pipe and smoke it.  Gotta give Santana some love before I forget and assume I already did...

Actually, Santana gets double love so...

Ok, he get's triple love because I like this one too...

And somewhere in the mix, I got into some Billy Idol.  He wins.  He is what Charlie Sheen is trying to be, but Idol doesn't even know what's going on.  Just effortless ownage, or hegemony.  You're welcome Pete.  Or, thank you I mean.  I could probably show you better than I could tell you, so odyssize with me...

I put the acoustic version there so your brain wouldn't melt off your face or whatever is supposed to happen.  Winning?  Yes.  I think so.

Apparently, the warm bacardi hug is a good companion to odysseys.  I mean, Conan did it so it has to be the thing to do, right?  Oh, and Thornan.  You're welcome for that one Deej.