And Another Thing...





Hmmm....what do you think that was about?

Today is Thursday. Following the Mon, Wed, Fri thing and the Tue, Thur thing, that explains why, today, I have not spent hours applying labels to things at a Wells Fargo office. Monday I did. Wednesday I did. Tomorrow I will again.

I fear I am being typecast. You know, That Daniel guy, boy, can he do good sticker. I mean, let's see: Yesterday, I was told they were expecting us to be able to apply seven stickers a minute. Our "boss" told us, however, that he'd done 13 a minute. As if he was a sticker superstar.

So, well, the deal with these kinds of jobs is that you have to involve your mind somehow. So I usually look for patterns, or count things or something. When dealing with names, I look for people I know. Yesterday, I found two. One was my loan officer on the Westy. Go figure.

Another way I kept my brain from atrophying over in the corner was to try to figure out how many I could do in a minute. J.P., the boss, he could do 13. I'm better than J.P., I assured myself.

Go!

I did 23. Again, and I did 24. Finally, I topped out at a frenetic 25. A few things fell over that time. Heh.

Eventually, I settled in at a comfortable 20, I'd guess. Ahem. But I was expected to do seven. What does that make me?

A true, no doubt about it, sticker superstar.

And the only problem is that, now, I'm not sure whether to make a STICKER SUPERSTAR t-shirt or hide under the bed in shame that that's what become of my life.

On the upside, though, I just had a really nice glass of French red. Yup. You heard me, French.

I'm sorry. I gotta go now. I must prepare myself for the Homeland Security folks. They'll be here soon.

Ciao.

Speaking of Enron, the bankrupt (morally and financially) energy giant is actually hiring.

Can you believe it?

Here's some of the job requirements for one of their current postings.

"Highly motivated and 100% dedicated to team/region/corporate goals. Subject to hazardous conditions including escaping gas, adverse weather conditions and temperatures, heights, high-pressure gas, heavy lifting, and cramped conditions. Must be able to work in remote locations, often working alone. May be required to travel to other company locations for temporary assignments, meetings, and training. May require some overnight stays away from home and will be required to live within 30 minutes of the reporting location. Incumbent is subject to call out 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and extended workdays/work-weeks. Required to carry a pager and cell phone, to work a rotating on-call schedule, and is subject to 24-hr/day callout at any time for emergency response. Candidate must have a proven safe driving record and provide documentation of past traffic violations upon request, as well as maintain a valid driver's license. Incumbent will be required to take and pass a pre-employment drug test, and will adhere and is subject to all U.S. Department of Transportation Drug and Alcohol related regulations, and will be subject to background check."

So I wonder if "100% dedicated to team/region/corporate goals" means keeping your mouth shut when testifying before Congress?

Hmmm....

Remember how just about every presidential administration has some really big scandals and then, about two-thirds of the way through the term, there's hearings and lots of press and in the end, a whole bunch of mid-upper level guys get indicted and do some time?

Well, it seems more and more obvious to me that that's going to be happening to the Bush Administration in a year or so. I mean, Jeez, you've got so many scandals in waiting. You've got Halliburton, where VP Cheney's ex-company is all set to get the big, gigantic, ultra-lucrative contract to handle the post-war era in Iraq. You've got Enron, where it seems like just about every member of the Administration was a golfing buddy with an exec. And then, according to Salon's Joe Conason, you've got unbelieveably smug folks like Richard Perle, a Bush foreign policy advisor, who in an interview with CNN's Wolf Blitzer (who I interviewed once), called New Yorker writer Seymour Hersh, "the closest thing American journalism has to a terrorist, frankly."

And this because Hersh, in an article in this week's issue, unveiled some potential conflicts of interest in Perle's evangelism of war with Iraq. Hersh suggests that Perle's investments in companies that could benefit in the event of a war could present a conflict. Perle scoffs, tells Blitzer that, "I don't believe that a company would gain from a war. On the contrary, I believe that the successful removal of Saddam Hussein, and I've said this over and over again, will diminish the threat of terrorism. And what he's talking about is investments in homeland defense, which I think are vital and are necessary....If you read the article, it's first of all, impossible to find any consistent theme in it. But the suggestion that my views are somehow related for the potential for investments in homeland defense is complete nonsense....[H]e sets out to do damage and he will do it by whatever innuendo, whatever distortion he can -- look, he hasn't written a serious piece since" 1967.

Well, my feeling is that folks like Perle will eventually go down. But sadly, it'll all take plaze in a rush of hearings too long from now, long after the damage has been done. And I'm sure that Bush and Cheney and the others at the very top will escape, even though they're in it up to their necks.

What a world we allow ourselves to live in. Sigh.

It's Tuesday afternoon here in San Francisco, and it's sunny. But overhead, the fog creeps in from the south and the north, and in some ways, this atmospheric condition mirrors how I feel.

On the one hand, there are some pretty good employment prospects out there, including temp work, freelance assignments and possible jobs. On the other hand, they come to fruition slowly, and with low pay. And while I sometimes am very excited about those prospects (see last posting), other times I feel very down on the whole thing and want to run away to the circus. The problem there, of course, is that the damn circus ain't hiring.

Ah, well...at least it's sunny outside, right?

On a brighter note, Kathleen and I and three friends, Chris, Petra and Aaron, all took a crazy weekend trip down to visit Hearst Castle. What a hoot! I've never seen such a proud display of ostentatiousness (is that a word?) And yet, in the middle of it all, as you marvel at the man's lack of taste, you can't help admire his tenacity in building the collection that he wanted. Okay, unlimited means doesn't hurt, but hey, the man ran 94 businesses or something. And yet he still had time to fly all over the world, buying the art he wanted. No matter that he could have collected Van Gogh, or Picasso, or Renoir. But in the end, you do feel that he built something cohesive, and even if you don't agree with the taste, I guess you have to applaud his stick-to-it-iveness.

All told, the weekend was great fun. We saw zebras, we made people's mouths drop (okay, Aaron did with his costumery) and we made people smile. I really had a great time taking pictures, and though I promised my friends I would take 1,000 pictures (which at the going exchange rate would be worth 1 million words), I came up a little short. I only took 331 pictures. So, again, my photography work equals out to about 331,000 words. What to do with those words, I'm not exactly sure.

Aaron really rocked my understanding of how time and physicality works. This is a guy who is known for thelack of solidity of his commitments, and yet he's very nice about it. He'd said he'd be at Chris' house at 9am on Saturday so that we could all make it to Santa Cruz in time for Petra's 11am hair appointment. Suffice it to say that Aaron didn't even answer his phone on Saturday morning. So we left. At somewhere around 1:30, as we were well down the coast on our way to San Simeon, he called and said he was still in San Francisco but was ready to go. We told him he had until 5:30 to make it, and if he took 101 instead of the coast road, maybe he'd make it.

I seriously doubted he'd make it. But at about 5:15, when we pulled into the Hearst Castle parking lot, who was there waiting for us? Aaron. Amazing.

Aaron is also amazing because he's one of the very few Burning Man artists who truly is able to pull off BIG art. He's behind the Dice Club in 2001 and last year's Rubber Duck. This time around, he's planning a very large Sphinx and an entire Giza. Wow! And given his past results, I have no doubt that what he'll end up with will be nothing short of incredible.

Anyway...it's still Tuesday, it's still sunny, and I'm sitting here pecking away at Flap Flap Wiggle. If you can, subscribe now, because as of tomorrow, the rate goes up 25%.

Ta.