Singing in the Shower

People often comment on how much better their voices sound in the shower, but how many people acknowledge how much they improve on the lyrics of thier songs? Here's my most recent version of the old Trooper song "The Boys in the Bright White Sportscar" (remember, you need to hear the sound of splashing water and smell Finesse moisturing shampoo to get the full effect)

Here I am,
The boy in the bight white sports car,
Waving my arms in the air (wave arms here)
Who do I think I am?
And where did I get that car?

There I go,
The boy in the bright white sports car,
Honking at all the girls,
I'm jack-of all-trades-Stan,
Or maybe a garbage man

Naaa na na na, Naaa na na na NAAAAAAA

There I go,
I am really rollin'
I'd better call a cop,
Say my car is probably stolen
STOLEN!!!! (shout this)

Alternate lyric:

Say I love eating stollen...STOLLEN!!! (a sweet German pastry)

There I go,
A boy in a bright white sports car
Who do I think I am?
Where did I park the CAAAAR???

Personally, I think shower lyrics make a heck of a lot more sense than the originals. If I ever remember any others, I'll record them here.

Jive Talk Update-G.I. Jive!

Ok, it's been a while since I had some entries from the HepCats Jive Talk dictionary. Here's a tribute to the amazing people who serve in the armed forces...of course I'm talking about G.I.Jive!!

Armored Cow- canned milk

Bean Gun-rolling kitchen

Cross Bar Hotel- guard house

Dog Show- a foot inspection

Ether- a radio telephone

Fly the Wet Beam- flying along a river

General's Car- a wheelbarrow

Higher than a Georgia Pine- unduly excitied

Ink- coffee

Jeeter- a lieutenant

Knuckle Buster- a crescent wrench

Let Her Eat- drive ar full speed

Maggie's Drawers- a red flag used on a rifle range to inidcate a miss

North Dakota Rice- hot cereal

Old Issue- an old soldier

Prop Wash= an expression of disbelief

Quartermaster Gait- a step longer than the regulation thirty-inch pace

Red Leg-artilleryman

Six and 20 Tootsie- any bit of a young and enticing femininity who is responsible for a Flying Cadet returning late from a weekend leave

Tar Bucket- full dress hat

Uncle Sam's Party- payday

Valley Forge- temporary tent city in cold weather

Wing-heavy- inebriated

You're Gigged- you've been reported for violating a rule or ordinace

As always, if anyone wanders across this site and would like to see more of these posted, just leave a note! If this is your first visit, look back at my old posts for more Jive Talk!

Olympic Thoughts

I've always had mixed opinions about the modern Olympics. On the one hand, you have to admire the dedication of the atheletes involved, whether they win a medal or not. The sacrifice and pain they must put up with dwarfs anything I have attempted in the past, and deserve unflagging admiration. On the other hand, the Olympics are frequently a political statement on the merits of one form of government or another, and the concept of "fair competition" between rich and poor countries is often questionable. There is also the arguement of "the money could be better spend doing....(fill in the blank)", but I've never really subscribed to that one, as it tends to belittle anything that isn't absolutely pragmatic, and I think humans gain their quality of life and identity through how they manage their non-pragmatic stuff (art, love, purely investigative science, etc.)

Here's a thought that surfaced this weekend. How about having an Olympic games founded soley on playground games? We could have Olympic Red Rover competition, or "line tag" (I don't know how many people played that one-you need a tennis court where the players have to stick to the lines when they move, but are considered "safe" when standing on an intersction of lines). How about Olympic "What time is it Mr. Wolf"? If you never played that, the "it" person is the "wolf", and the players advance slowly behind him/her asking "What time is it Mr. Wolf?" The "wolf" answers 1 o'clock, 2 o'clock, etc. until they think the line of players is close enough to "tag" one of them, when they scream "It's lunch time", and turn around and run at the screaming hordes behind them. I love picturing a group of Olympic hammer-throwers running away while shreiking at the tops of their lungs.

There are enough playground games for a winter Olympics too. Olympic "king of the hill" is a natural, along with Olympic snowball fights and Olympic snowman knock-down (how long does it take you to knock down another kid's snowman?). I remember kids spending their entire winter recesses trying to roll the largest snow-ball they could make, often rolling one or more kids under the mammoth snow-ball as they went.

I forsee "Nerf" being a major sponsor of the games, and host nations introducing their own country's kids games as demonstration sports. I oould easily identify with a marble-shooter more than a decathelete, and enjoy watching the laughter of thwe kid rolled down the snow-hill more than the distress of the sprinter who lost a medal by 1 1/100's of a second.

Better Than Awesome moments!

Once in a while I like to think back to those moments where I gained a temporary or passing victory of some kind, but which has since, gained a signifigance far beyond the implications of the actual event. On other words, life's greatest moments. Here's a sampling.

This year: I was sitting in Chicago's O'Hare airport, waiting out a 2.5 hour layover. It was during the lunch hour, so I had plenty of time to burn off by sitting down and having lunch somewhere. I selected one of the ubiquitious restaurants that seem to breed in airports these days (I think it was called "Chili's" or something like that). I ordered a lunch from the menu and a beer. The waitress asked me for some ID before she would bring me my beer. I'm 47 years old, and I was "carded". That was the best beer I ever tasted.

Flash back to High School (grade 10 I believe). I don't know how many people have a personal tormentor in school, but I'd suspect it's probably more common than the "High school is the best time of your life" set would admit to. Mine was a gap-toothed little troglodite with a permenent scowl who, before I even knew who the heck he was, started calling me the word to suggest my sexual preferences lay within my common gender. Now please understand, when I went to High School, suggestions of homosexuality were the worst kind of epithet. While it wasn't true in my case, I found out that I had to endure regular snide comments by this little troll who apparently just didn't like my looks (for this I also gained somewhat of an appreciation for the torment that gays and lesbians have had to deal with over the years....not a total appreciation, mind you , but this little sampling was sickening enough for me). I wasn't a kid prone to fighting (the thought of it quite frankly scared me), so I tried the "avoidance" technique, which occasionally worked, but which also occasionally left me lurching away with hunched shoulders after another verbal tirade. Well, one day in a gym class, our "teacher" (gym teachers always seemd to be Vince Lombardi wannabees, ignoring the general physical health of the masses, to pander to the jocks of the group) had us divide up for a game of flag football. To make a lengthening story short, I found myself lined up against the troglodite, who instantly started promising humiliation beyond my wildest dreams. The first time he charged at me, I raised both arms and smashed the little bugger in the chops. I still remember walking back to our side's "huddle", to the congratulations of my side's guys. as the little toad writhed in the dirt. Just as a post-script, I think he's a cop now. Take from that what you will.

Primary school. I remember (vaguely) making a clay figure of an Ankylosaurus ( a 4-legged plant eater with a hard shell on it's back and a club at the end of it's tail-kind of like a cross between a rhino and a tank). I was REALLY big on dinosaurs as a kid, and while other kids were dreaming of being pilots or cowboys, I was dreaming of being a Paleontologist. Anyway, I remember making my little clay Ankylosaurus, and my teacher being so impressed I was asked to take it to the Principal's office to show the Principal himself. Now aside from the chance to linger outside of class, I was also able to show up the Principal, who had no idea what an Ankylosaurus was. I remember starting to doubt the intelligence of adults at that time as well. I still do.

Other little victories:

-the first time I got a haircut I wanted (Beatles) rather than the one my parent's wanted (mental patient)

-when I beat my best buddy in a game of badminton (he always beat me in everything, up to then)

-being called the "coolest guy ever" by a girl I had the hots for

-winning a Mexican yodelling contest in a Caribbean resort

Notice than none of these include things like "getting my degree" or "buying my house". I guess the sweetness of the Better Than Awesome moment is in the brevity and personal nature of the event.

Dream a little dream with me

Dreaming is something , they tell us, we all do, whether we remember them or not. People have tried to interpret dreams for centuries, with varying results. Some, I think, are fairly obvious. I remember I used to dream about tornados fairly frequently. The dreams had different settings (a field, a road, etc.) but all had the same sequence. I would start off, travelling through an open countryside, when I saw the start of a tornado in the distance. As I ran and searched for shelter, the tornado would form and come right towards me. For all but the last two dreams, I was just about to find shelter (a gully, a basement, etc.) as the tornado was upon me, and I would wake up just before I found out if I was safe or was sucked off to Oz. The second last time I had a tornado dream, I was able to open a door and start down a flight of stairs before the tornado hit. The door shook violently, but I felt fairly safe. The last time I ever had a tornado dream, I found shelter and was deep in a safe basement, with other people I didn't recognize. By the time the tornado hit, I felt calm and safe.

I used to have another, very weird dream all the time. I always started the dream in the basement of a house, and would start to explore the house room by room. As I explored, I felt a growing sense of threat and unease. The dream would always end just as I was opening a door, and my nerves were screaming at me not to do it. I would sometimes have this dream more than once a night. The weird thing was, if I did something in the first dream, like move an object, the object was in it's new location in the second dream. I had these for a number of years as well, and I knew they were almost over when I had one dream that had me looking up a spiral staircase into the light. I wasn't out of the house yet, but I knew I was close. The second last dream I knew I was on the ground floor of the house and about to get out. I still explored rooms, but mainly out of curiosity. I remember one had a bunch of Asian monks, hovering cross-legged in front a black board, in a room that looked like a school room. I remember thinking, in my dream "no that's not it." This particular dream sequence ended literaly, with me walkong out of the door and into a grassy field. I remember looking back and seeing a red-painted wood-frame house. There was one more brief dream after this one, where I set the house on fire and said to myself "I had to do this".

Most of my dreams, however, are of the weird and amusing kind. Recently I dreamt I was the host of a local public-broadcast talk show. My first episode didn't go so well, as it was based in the small appliance department of a store, and I had no guests to talk to. For my second episode, I switched locations to a small coffee shop, located in an old house. The house had a number of shelves with small china figurines in it. My guest was Tom Petty, and I remember clearly asking Tom how a creative person got their ideas. Tom proceeded to demonstrate, by putting on a cloth octopus costume and prancing around the room as he spoke. I remember watching ceramic oraments flying as Tom pranced from side to side, including a little ceramic cowboy's head with a cowboy hat being crushed under his feet. As you can imagine, the episode was a hit.

Another dream I just had last night featured myself in Las Vegas. For some reason I was wearing a long hair extention from the back of my head. It was ponytail, about an inch and a half thick. It was obviously an extention, as it was red and my natural hair colour is greying-brown. I clearly remember whacking people with the end of my pony-tail as I walked past them. If they confronted me, I would hold the end of the pony-tail under my nose, like a false moustache, and in a phoney English accent, would say "My dear chap I don't know what you are talking about." Of course, no-one saw through my ruse.

I would have to say that probably 90% or more of the dreams I can remember are of the variety of the last two I have mentioned. Bizarre. Oddly entertaining. And probably entirely without deeper meaning, except the definite possibility that my mind is happily warped.

Unless Tom Petty actually does prance around in a cloth octopus costume when he's writing songs. If anyone can confirm this, I would be greateful.

Better Than Munsteriffic Monster Bash '08

If anyone reads this fairly regularly, then you know I'm a HUGE fan of the classic horror and science fiction movies of the 30's-50's. This year I again attended the fabulous Monster Bash in Butler, Pennsylvania, and had a FANTASTIC time. Here are some highlights:

Meeting neat people! The guest list was fairly heavy with TV personalities, including Pat Priest, who played Marilyn on The Munsters (pictured here, with yours truely!!) She's not only a great person, but she had some great stories of working on the show. Apparently, Fred Gwynne (Herman) LOVED the old "Munstermobile", and at one point decided to drive it off the lot, while in full Herman makeup, and toodle around the streets of Los Angeles for a while. I'd have LOVED to have seen that.

Meeting great things! Also pictured are my run-ins with the original Audrey plant, used in the Broadway version of the Little Shop of Horrors. There were a couple of guys from "Muppet Labs" there too, and they showed how to work their creation. The last picture is of a major movie star in it's day, and a co-star of Steve McQueen. Yep, someone brought the original "Blob" (pictured in it's luxury bucket). I was hoping to be able to wear it on my head for a picture, but it's a bit of a senior citizen Blob these days, and doesn't handle too well.

Meeting great fans! Cudos to all the people who run and attend this event. Even being a foreigner, I never felt like I wasn't 100% welcome at all times. An event like this attracts a certain demographic, the people who grew up during the late 50's to early 70's, when monster movie's were the staple on TV, and there was a sizable industry of monster models, trading cards and magazines (specifically Famous Monsters of Filmland-thank you Uncle Forry!!)It seems like we all had the same experience growing up; waiting for the weekly late-night horror movie to come on, reading about the filsm, building the Aurora plastic model kits. Now we're "grown up", but we're all still "monster kids" at heart.

Speaking of Heart...one regular family attending this event has a son who requires quiet a bit of costly medical attention.The Bash hosted a charity auction of better-than-awesome pictures, posters, toys and books, raised almost $5000.00 for this family. Monster kids stick together!

Final thought-as much as I like the convenience of my DVD player, I sort of miss the days when all you could do was look forward to seeing a classic movie being played on the Chiller Thriller movie on a Saturday night. Seeing a favorite film listed in the TV guide was like findign a nugget of gold, and the anticipation made the experience, well, better than awesome. I'm really glad I was able to experience that!

More Random Thoughts-Company Weirdness

Working in a call-centre based industry is probably more common than most people want to admit. From what I've seen, the biggest advantage is the endless supply of material that should one day become the basis for a very successful Fringe Festival play. The only problem is, few people will believe that it could possibley be true. here's a few examples and you tell me if you think things like this can exist outside of a Dilbert cartoon.

Episode 1-Stressed for success. A supervisor is told by a Manager that his call centre representative is supposed to dial through a certain group of phone numbers on a certain project, in this case, attain a dialing rate of 40 numbers per hour. Now, normally, one dials phone numbers on a project in order to contact people, which this call centre rep. did. In fact, the rep. was quite good at their job, and was able to make a number of successful calls in this time. However, since successful calls actually slow down the dialing rate, the rep. didn't manage to dial those 40 numbers that were asked for. I think yo know what came next...the Supervisor was scolded for NOT DIALING THE 40 NUMBERS. "What went wrong?" the Manager asked. "We were successful" the Supervisor explained. "Well..." the Manager mused "you should have called the numbers"

Episode 2-What's the message. Call centre staff can call into an office voice-mail to communicate any attendance issues. The voice-mail message begins by saying...."don't leave a message....call back later to speak to someone". This is a rather lengthy message, and most people hang up before they hear the proviso "UNLESS...you are calling early in the morning for the daytime shift" Daytime representatives were calling the attendance line, hearing the first part of the recording, and not leaving messages. The solution to the problem? The unimaginative would say something ridiculously simple like....CHANGE THE MESSAGE!!! But no, this is a business. The centre spent weeks re-training their reps to ....IGNORE THE MESSAGE.

Episode 3-Don't go breakin' my heart. Staffing a call centre is always a difficult task, as the work tends to be repetitive and staff turnover is ridiculously high. So when a big project comes in, the push to "ramp up" quickly always causes some panicky and irational. There was the project where we "NEEDED" 20 people a day to call through "20,000" phone numbers. We ramped. We trained. We somehow found 20 bodies to call on the project. When it was finally launched.....oops, did I say 20,000?? I meant 2,000.(This from a 'senior" staff member) Of course there's always the "hours blitz", to try to encourage staff to add and extend their shifts, only to be told part way through that they are no longer needed. Finally there's the "bonus frenzy". wherein Supervisors earn their annual bonus through encouraging staff to add or extend their shifts. the most recent one was announced tothe Supervisors like this. Management: We're going to start our "bonus frenzy", so for the next little while you'll need to really encourage staff to add shifts" Supervisors: "great, when does it start?" Management: "TWO DAYS AGO"!!!!