I have a very complicated relationship with my cell phone. You see, I enjoy having the wonders of the internet at my fingertips, but I hate actually speaking to people. I always wear my headphones on the subway while commuting to and from work even though I'm not usually listening to music, just because headphones generally prevent the crazies from talking to you. But sometimes the phone (which my headphones are plugged into) rings. That's the worst. Actually, that's not true. Text messages are the worst. Text are never good news. They're messages from my boss or coworkers asking why something didn't get done at work. They're messages from family letting me know that someone is in the hospital, and I should go over and see them, because it might be the end. They're messages from friends with bad news, asking me to call them as soon as I have some time to talk. When I get a text alert, I look at my phone and think, "Ugh, what now?" I've never liked text messages.
I remember when I first got a cell phone, I was dating someone who was a few years younger than me (my sources inform me that she still is). She communicated primarily through text messages. My phone calls would often go unanswered, but texts would be replied to before I could even put my phone down. Every text got a reply, even if it was just with "k". This was back in the early days of wireless carriers, when they charged for everything they could. Using your phone on a weekday? $. Roaming? $$. Long distance? $$$. Text messages? Ka-ching! Every text message sent or received cost me a dime. Anytime she sent a message that didn't require a reply, I didn't reply. But she replied to EVERYTHING.
"I'm on my way over. I'll see you in 20 minutes."
'k"
"I'm not going to make it tonight. My boss called and offered me a last minute job. I'll see you tomorrow night."
"k"
"I'm exhausted from work. I'm going to take a nap before we go out. I'll call you when I wake up. Please don't contact me for the next hour or so."
"k"
Those "k"s were costing me a fortune.
One day, she asked me why I didn't reply to all of her texts. "Because every text costs me money," I replied. "I don't exactly have much extra cash to put towards my phone bill, because you always want us to go out, and my parents don't pay my rent, unlike yours." It turned out that she had no idea that text messages cost money, because her parents paid her phone bill, too.
She wasn't the only friend that overtexted. I had a
friend who, before cell phones were big, got a beeper because his
parents never gave him messages when his friends called for him. He
asked me to start paging him instead of calling him, and he would always
get back to me immediately, often from pay phones.. Later on, after we got cell phones, we shared an apartment, and I would call him from work to ask him a question about any number of things; bills, mail, groceries, etc. I would call him at times when I *knew* he was home, but I'd get his voice mail. I'd leave him a message, and before I could even finish leaving the message, I'd get a text from him saying "What's up?" So I'd finish leaving the voice mail, and I kid you not, a few minutes later, I'd get another message saying, "I saw you left a voice mail, what's going on?"
Now, I was a waiter at the time, and sometimes I'd be REALLY busy, and I would struggle to find a few seconds when I could place a quick call, get a quick answer, and go back to work. And this guy, the same guy who would call me back immediately after I paged him a few years earlier, wouldn't pick up the phone unless it was a text. So if I had the time, I'd text him back with, "I'm working, so listen to my voice mail." A few seconds later: "Can't you just text it to me?" Finally, I snapped. "IF YOU HAD PICKED UP THE PHONE WHEN I CALLED, THIS FUCKING CONVERSATION WOULD HAVE BEEN OVER IN TEN SECONDS."
Funny story, I haven't spoken to him since I moved out of that place.
Monday, March 5, 2018
Monday, January 15, 2018
The greatest thing happened last night.
I was walking down my street, on my way to pick up some groceries, when I noticed a man weaving back and forth on the sidewalk heading towards me.
"Oh great," I thought, "I hope this drunk guy doesn't bump into me." As he got closer, I noticed he wasn't drunk; he was too busy looking at his phone to pay attention to where he was going. People like that are the worst.
About ten feet in front of me, he erratically zagged right, catching his foot on the edge of the tiniest sliver of uneven sidewalk.
It all went down in slow motion:
He must have been halfway to the ground before he even realized he was falling, so enthralled was he with was whatever was on his phone. His long hair slowly billowed behind him, as if he was a woman in a commercial for Carl's Jr. I watched in awe as his hipster beard inched toward the ground.
Finally, his eyes widened, and he threw his hands out in front of him, in an attempt to halt the pavement rocketing towards his face.
Success! His descent suddenly ceased scant millimeters from the sidewalk's cold, damp embrace.
Triumphantly, he righted himself, secure in the knowledge that he had bested gravity, and that from this moment forward, he was unstoppable.
He lifted his phone to resume his entertainment.
His phone.
The phone that was in his hand.
The hand that caught his fall.
His fall that was caused by his phone.
Shattered.
He looked down at the fragments of his screen, strewn about the ground. His head remained bowed, clearly mourning his friend... nay, his love.
He reveled in that phone, giving it his complete attention; attention that ultimately killed it.
He was lost without it.
I turned the corner, wondering if he would ever be able to pick up the shattered pieces of his screen... or his life.
"Oh great," I thought, "I hope this drunk guy doesn't bump into me." As he got closer, I noticed he wasn't drunk; he was too busy looking at his phone to pay attention to where he was going. People like that are the worst.
About ten feet in front of me, he erratically zagged right, catching his foot on the edge of the tiniest sliver of uneven sidewalk.
It all went down in slow motion:
He must have been halfway to the ground before he even realized he was falling, so enthralled was he with was whatever was on his phone. His long hair slowly billowed behind him, as if he was a woman in a commercial for Carl's Jr. I watched in awe as his hipster beard inched toward the ground.
Finally, his eyes widened, and he threw his hands out in front of him, in an attempt to halt the pavement rocketing towards his face.
Success! His descent suddenly ceased scant millimeters from the sidewalk's cold, damp embrace.
Triumphantly, he righted himself, secure in the knowledge that he had bested gravity, and that from this moment forward, he was unstoppable.
He lifted his phone to resume his entertainment.
His phone.
The phone that was in his hand.
The hand that caught his fall.
His fall that was caused by his phone.
Shattered.
He looked down at the fragments of his screen, strewn about the ground. His head remained bowed, clearly mourning his friend... nay, his love.
He reveled in that phone, giving it his complete attention; attention that ultimately killed it.
He was lost without it.
I turned the corner, wondering if he would ever be able to pick up the shattered pieces of his screen... or his life.
Monday, December 11, 2017
My Shameful Past
Wow, I haven't used this blog in six and a half years!
Look, I've done a lot of things in my life that I'm not proud of. The older you get, the more you look back at the things you did in your youth and cringe. I've done a lot of very stupid, often dangerous, things that could have gone incredibly poorly for me, and others involved. This is not one of those things.
I lived in Key West, Florida for about 14 months. For thirteen of those months, I worked in the Food & Beverage department of a hotel and resort. It was my first experience working in the food industry, so I started near the bottom and quickly worked my way up to mediocrity. I started out bussing tables, I restocked minibars, I hosted meals (seating diners), I served breakfast, I delivered room service, I did occasional banquet service, and ended up serving food and drinks to customers at the pool, hot tub, and on our private beach.
Let me tell you something about Key West, that you may not have known. There are a LOT of foreigners working there, and they come from all over the world.Many of them were young people participating in work/study programs; taking classes at the incredibly prestigious Florida Keys Community College, and working at one of any number of hotels or restaurants in the tourist district of Key West.
Off the top of my head, I worked with Russians, Ukrainians, Estonians, Romanians, Germans, Greeks, Spaniards, Croatians, Serbians, Latvians, Koreans, and Caribbean islanders. I also had coworkers from Ireland, the United Kingdom, Portugal, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan, and Japan. Anyone in the work/study program spoke excellent English; in fact, I'd say that many of them spoke better English than the Americans who worked there. But not everyone was in that program.
I remember one guy that I had to train to bus tables. I don't know why I had to train him. Sure, he was replacing me, but I don't recall being trained when I started. There's not a lot to it; you clear tables, you bring the dirty dishes back to the dish pit, and then you set the tables you cleared for the next customers. Anyway, this guy didn't speak much English, and I may have messed with him a bit.
I hosted at breakfast and lunch while he worked as the busboy, and he was a nice enough guy. He was very polite, but didn't know a lot of words, so he was pretty repetitive. Any time I opened a door for him (because his hands were full, usually), he would say, "Thank you, Jack!" Now for me (and this is absolutely true), part of working in the service industry means never saying "You're welcome." I work at a restaurant now, and I never say "You're welcome" when customers say "Thank you." I try to deflect it, and thank them for their business. How is this relevant? The first week or so that I worked with him, I responded to his thank you's differently every time. "No problem!" "My pleasure!" "Don't worry about it!" "I've got you!" "No big deal!" "Anytime!" "I'm happy to help!" etc. It wasn't intentional; it's just part of my nature.
Well, it wasn't intentional for the first week. Once I realized what I was doing, I became determined to keep it up for as long as humanly possible. I made a list of different ways to say "you're welcome." I asked friends for their suggestions. I googled "different ways to say you're welcome." I even started saying "you're welcome" in different languages, like "De nada!" I was absolutely obsessed with never saying the same thing twice to him.
I don't really remember how it ended (this was over 10 years ago), but I do remember how much his English improved. I choose to believe that all the different words I said to him in the exact same situation helped him absorb the language better. Yes, I did that man a service by refusing to say "you're welcome" like a normal human being. I'm not a horrible, cruel, monster. I'm a hero.
That wasn't my only instance messing with that poor guy, though. Fairly early on in his tenure, I ran into him in the men's locker room. The bathroom in there had the only employee wash area that used a motion controlled paper towel dispenser. He couldn't get it to work. I guess he couldn't read English, either. He showed me his wet hands, and gestured towards the paper towel dispenser. I, being an asshole, decided that this was a great opportunity to use powers for evil.
I walked up to the paper towel dispenser, bent down so that my face was right in front of the motion sensor, and yelled "TOWELS!" Sure enough, a towel slowly poked out of the mechanism. A great big smile appeared on his face, and he thanked me profusely. I'm pretty certain that I didn't say "You're welcome." Every few weeks or so, I would walk past the locker room door, and hear him yell "TOWELS!" It really never stopped being funny.
Another position I worked at that hotel was hosting dinner in our "fine dining" restaurant. I put fine dining in quotes because customers didn't dress up for it. I remember seating a hairy, overweight man wearing ratty shorts and a completely open Hawaiian shirt. When politely asked by the manager, he refused to button it up. The waitstaff, however, dressed in long-sleeved black shirts, black pants, and black shoes. They thought they were the best waiters in the world because they made better tips than the rest of us. That was mainly because the entrees cost roughly ten times more than the breakfast items that most of us got our tips from. Add a bottle of wine or two onto the tab, and you're making $50 in tips off a single table.
All of the waiters who worked there (with one exception) were from areas formerly under Soviet control. None of them liked me, so naturally they would all congregate around the host station in their copious amounts of free time (because their jobs were ridiculously easy), and converse in Russian. They did it constantly. And you know what? It bugged me, and the fact that it bugged me drove me crazy, because they were only doing it to bother me.
Now, I know what you're thinking: Shouldn't this have taught me some humility? It wasn't that long ago that I was messing with that guy who didn't speak English. Shouldn't this have shown me what it was like to not speak the same language as everyone else around me? You know what, wise reader? You have a point. But it's a really stupid point, because I still lived and worked in a place where everybody spoke English. If only there was a way for me to communicate with other English speakers in a manner that the waiters couldn't understand. That's when it hit me: Pig Latin.
I called my manager over and said, right in front of all the servers, "O-day ou-yay eak-spay ig-Pay -atin-Lay?" She laughed and said, "Es-yay, I-ay o-day eak-spay ig-Pay atin-Lay!"
The waiters lost their shit. One of them protested "They are not actually speaking to each other! They are speaking gibberish to try to make us think they are communicating. They are so immature!"
So I turned to him and said, "Let's go into the kitchen. You're going to pick something for me to tell her, and when I come back out, I'll tell it to her, and she'll tell all of you what it was. And if she gets it right, then you have to stop gathering around me just to speak Russian."
We went into the kitchen (where I found two other people who spoke Pig Latin, btw), and he thought long and hard about what he wanted me to say to her. Finally, he decided that he wanted to hear her say the word piano. I think he might have had an idea that we were just changing our words around, and he wanted to figure out what the trick was. Obviously, if I said "iano-pay" he probably would have heard the similarity between the words, and called us out on it. So I couldn't say it like that.
Now, like I said, this was a fine dining restaurant. Naturally, we had a lounge, and in that lounge we had a piano player named Larry. So when we walked back out to the host stand, I looked at my manager and said, "At-whay is-ay e-th ame-nay of-ay e-thay ing-thay arry-Lay is-ay aying-play?"
She looked at him and said "The piano."
And that's how I solved that problem.
I wish there was some wort of moral to this story, like "No matter what language we speak, deep down inside, we're all just people." Alas, no. If this story has a moral it would have to be "Don't learn from your mistakes. Be a dick to everybody before they can be dicks to you. Because deep down inside, we're all just dicks."
Look, I've done a lot of things in my life that I'm not proud of. The older you get, the more you look back at the things you did in your youth and cringe. I've done a lot of very stupid, often dangerous, things that could have gone incredibly poorly for me, and others involved. This is not one of those things.
I lived in Key West, Florida for about 14 months. For thirteen of those months, I worked in the Food & Beverage department of a hotel and resort. It was my first experience working in the food industry, so I started near the bottom and quickly worked my way up to mediocrity. I started out bussing tables, I restocked minibars, I hosted meals (seating diners), I served breakfast, I delivered room service, I did occasional banquet service, and ended up serving food and drinks to customers at the pool, hot tub, and on our private beach.
Let me tell you something about Key West, that you may not have known. There are a LOT of foreigners working there, and they come from all over the world.Many of them were young people participating in work/study programs; taking classes at the incredibly prestigious Florida Keys Community College, and working at one of any number of hotels or restaurants in the tourist district of Key West.
Off the top of my head, I worked with Russians, Ukrainians, Estonians, Romanians, Germans, Greeks, Spaniards, Croatians, Serbians, Latvians, Koreans, and Caribbean islanders. I also had coworkers from Ireland, the United Kingdom, Portugal, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan, and Japan. Anyone in the work/study program spoke excellent English; in fact, I'd say that many of them spoke better English than the Americans who worked there. But not everyone was in that program.
I remember one guy that I had to train to bus tables. I don't know why I had to train him. Sure, he was replacing me, but I don't recall being trained when I started. There's not a lot to it; you clear tables, you bring the dirty dishes back to the dish pit, and then you set the tables you cleared for the next customers. Anyway, this guy didn't speak much English, and I may have messed with him a bit.
I hosted at breakfast and lunch while he worked as the busboy, and he was a nice enough guy. He was very polite, but didn't know a lot of words, so he was pretty repetitive. Any time I opened a door for him (because his hands were full, usually), he would say, "Thank you, Jack!" Now for me (and this is absolutely true), part of working in the service industry means never saying "You're welcome." I work at a restaurant now, and I never say "You're welcome" when customers say "Thank you." I try to deflect it, and thank them for their business. How is this relevant? The first week or so that I worked with him, I responded to his thank you's differently every time. "No problem!" "My pleasure!" "Don't worry about it!" "I've got you!" "No big deal!" "Anytime!" "I'm happy to help!" etc. It wasn't intentional; it's just part of my nature.
Well, it wasn't intentional for the first week. Once I realized what I was doing, I became determined to keep it up for as long as humanly possible. I made a list of different ways to say "you're welcome." I asked friends for their suggestions. I googled "different ways to say you're welcome." I even started saying "you're welcome" in different languages, like "De nada!" I was absolutely obsessed with never saying the same thing twice to him.
I don't really remember how it ended (this was over 10 years ago), but I do remember how much his English improved. I choose to believe that all the different words I said to him in the exact same situation helped him absorb the language better. Yes, I did that man a service by refusing to say "you're welcome" like a normal human being. I'm not a horrible, cruel, monster. I'm a hero.
That wasn't my only instance messing with that poor guy, though. Fairly early on in his tenure, I ran into him in the men's locker room. The bathroom in there had the only employee wash area that used a motion controlled paper towel dispenser. He couldn't get it to work. I guess he couldn't read English, either. He showed me his wet hands, and gestured towards the paper towel dispenser. I, being an asshole, decided that this was a great opportunity to use powers for evil.
I walked up to the paper towel dispenser, bent down so that my face was right in front of the motion sensor, and yelled "TOWELS!" Sure enough, a towel slowly poked out of the mechanism. A great big smile appeared on his face, and he thanked me profusely. I'm pretty certain that I didn't say "You're welcome." Every few weeks or so, I would walk past the locker room door, and hear him yell "TOWELS!" It really never stopped being funny.
Another position I worked at that hotel was hosting dinner in our "fine dining" restaurant. I put fine dining in quotes because customers didn't dress up for it. I remember seating a hairy, overweight man wearing ratty shorts and a completely open Hawaiian shirt. When politely asked by the manager, he refused to button it up. The waitstaff, however, dressed in long-sleeved black shirts, black pants, and black shoes. They thought they were the best waiters in the world because they made better tips than the rest of us. That was mainly because the entrees cost roughly ten times more than the breakfast items that most of us got our tips from. Add a bottle of wine or two onto the tab, and you're making $50 in tips off a single table.
All of the waiters who worked there (with one exception) were from areas formerly under Soviet control. None of them liked me, so naturally they would all congregate around the host station in their copious amounts of free time (because their jobs were ridiculously easy), and converse in Russian. They did it constantly. And you know what? It bugged me, and the fact that it bugged me drove me crazy, because they were only doing it to bother me.
Now, I know what you're thinking: Shouldn't this have taught me some humility? It wasn't that long ago that I was messing with that guy who didn't speak English. Shouldn't this have shown me what it was like to not speak the same language as everyone else around me? You know what, wise reader? You have a point. But it's a really stupid point, because I still lived and worked in a place where everybody spoke English. If only there was a way for me to communicate with other English speakers in a manner that the waiters couldn't understand. That's when it hit me: Pig Latin.
I called my manager over and said, right in front of all the servers, "O-day ou-yay eak-spay ig-Pay -atin-Lay?" She laughed and said, "Es-yay, I-ay o-day eak-spay ig-Pay atin-Lay!"
The waiters lost their shit. One of them protested "They are not actually speaking to each other! They are speaking gibberish to try to make us think they are communicating. They are so immature!"
So I turned to him and said, "Let's go into the kitchen. You're going to pick something for me to tell her, and when I come back out, I'll tell it to her, and she'll tell all of you what it was. And if she gets it right, then you have to stop gathering around me just to speak Russian."
We went into the kitchen (where I found two other people who spoke Pig Latin, btw), and he thought long and hard about what he wanted me to say to her. Finally, he decided that he wanted to hear her say the word piano. I think he might have had an idea that we were just changing our words around, and he wanted to figure out what the trick was. Obviously, if I said "iano-pay" he probably would have heard the similarity between the words, and called us out on it. So I couldn't say it like that.
Now, like I said, this was a fine dining restaurant. Naturally, we had a lounge, and in that lounge we had a piano player named Larry. So when we walked back out to the host stand, I looked at my manager and said, "At-whay is-ay e-th ame-nay of-ay e-thay ing-thay arry-Lay is-ay aying-play?"
She looked at him and said "The piano."
And that's how I solved that problem.
I wish there was some wort of moral to this story, like "No matter what language we speak, deep down inside, we're all just people." Alas, no. If this story has a moral it would have to be "Don't learn from your mistakes. Be a dick to everybody before they can be dicks to you. Because deep down inside, we're all just dicks."
Sunday, May 8, 2011
Happy Mother's Day?
Mother's Day is not one of my favorite holidays. What's that, you want to know why? Mind your own goddamned business. I would have told you if I wanted you to know. Anyway... if you're anything like me, you're looking for a way to be able to enjoy the holiday again. I have found the only way that my black heart (it's from a transplant) will ever be able to enjoy this day again.
That's right, pictures of kittens nursing:
Happy Mother's Day, everyone!
That's right, pictures of kittens nursing:
Happy Mother's Day, everyone!
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
The Brief Life of Kimi Kobayashi
This post was written under the assumption that you've heard about the Peter Coffin-Kimi Kobayashi twitter debacle. If you haven't, then you can read about it here.
I know I'm a few days late with all of this, but I was away last week for a funeral and missed all of the hubbub. I'm certainly no fan of Peter Coffin's, but I really think that people have some of the story wrong. All of the evidence certainly seems to point to Kimi Kobayashi being a creation of Peter's, and I'm not trying to change your mind about that. I just feel that some of the details have been left out. This is the part that you're probably not hearing anywhere else.
There's some back story I need to get out of the way first. My name is Jack, and I write for a few twitter accounts. I write @RPuttz (formerly PattisonRobert), in addition to my personal account (and a few others). I first encountered Kimi on my RPuttz account. She tweeted a few Twilight jokes at me and I retweeted one or two of them. Then I looked at her page, and thought she was funny, so I started following her.
Kimi and I sent some direct messages back and forth on twitter. I told her that if there was any justice in the world, that she would have more followers than me (She had less than 1,000 followers when I first encountered her). I asked her outright if she was really a girl, and she insisted she was. "Haven't you seen all my pictures?" I was satisfied enough with that response; after all, I was just looking to network with other funny people. It wasn't like I was trying to date some chick I met on twitter.
I think back to some of those early direct message conversations, and it's weird to think that it was some guy writing back to me, desperately trying to convince me that he was a woman. Let me tell you, he wasn't just flying by the seat of his pants; he knew who this girl was. I can remember her writing to me one night after posting (and quickly deleting) some "drunk tweets." She seemed like a fairly normal, insecure girl in conversation. She seemed strangely mature for her age, which should have thrown up some red flags, but I chose not to believe that someone was creating this girl. I couldn't figure out why anyone would. At worst, I thought that the girl in those pictures was a friend of the girl writing all the tweets.
She continued to amuse me with her tweets, and I wanted to share them, but they weren't the right kind of jokes to share on the RPuttz twitter. I tried to stick with a certain niche for that account, and most of her jokes were wrong for it. I decided to start following and retweeting her with @NotGaryBusey (formerly GaryJBusey), an account that I co-created and contribute to. Once Busey gave her a few RTs, her account grew from a couple thousand followers to over ten thousand, and kept growing. At the time, all I had ever heard of Peter Coffin was an occasional retweet by Kimi (which I never found funny). Then one day, she announced that she was dating Peter.
End of back story.
Here's what I'm hearing from everyone who talks about this story: "Peter Coffin created a girlfriend for himself on twitter." I disagree. Peter Coffin created an alternate account on twitter, which quickly surpassed his own account in popularity. I don't know why, but for some reason the things he says are funnier coming from an Asian woman. I highly doubt he created Kimi with the intention of making her his twitter girlfriend. If anything, I bet he made a hot girl on twitter to laugh at (and mess with) all the guys who hit on her.
I don't think he ever believed that Kimi's account would blow up, but when her popularity eclipsed Peter's, he tried to think of a way to use that to draw attention to himself. Retweeting his own jokes on her page didn't seem to be working too well. He couldn't come out and say, "Hi, my name is Peter and I created this account. You should all follow me now!" That probably would have infuriated a large portion of Kimi's mostly male following. The decision to start dating his own creation probably seemed like his only choice. Maybe if Kimi vouched for him, it would give him some cred with all her followers. That obviously was working for him, so he also had to create a youtube account for her to help boost his own. He just didn't know where to stop.
I actually feel kind of bad for the guy. Don't get me wrong, it was a super douchey thing to do. But all he wanted was to find a way to get some credit for something he created, and he chose a bad way to go about it. As a guy with a bit of an ego myself, I can empathize with that. Hell, posting this is the first time I've acknowledged to my RPuttz followers that I'm the guy who writes it. Hopefully, the fact that I write him as an obvious parody instead of trying to pass him off as a real person will earn me some leniency.
As always, you can send your hate tweets to me on twitter or leave nasty messages on my facebook wall.
I know I'm a few days late with all of this, but I was away last week for a funeral and missed all of the hubbub. I'm certainly no fan of Peter Coffin's, but I really think that people have some of the story wrong. All of the evidence certainly seems to point to Kimi Kobayashi being a creation of Peter's, and I'm not trying to change your mind about that. I just feel that some of the details have been left out. This is the part that you're probably not hearing anywhere else.
There's some back story I need to get out of the way first. My name is Jack, and I write for a few twitter accounts. I write @RPuttz (formerly PattisonRobert), in addition to my personal account (and a few others). I first encountered Kimi on my RPuttz account. She tweeted a few Twilight jokes at me and I retweeted one or two of them. Then I looked at her page, and thought she was funny, so I started following her.
Kimi and I sent some direct messages back and forth on twitter. I told her that if there was any justice in the world, that she would have more followers than me (She had less than 1,000 followers when I first encountered her). I asked her outright if she was really a girl, and she insisted she was. "Haven't you seen all my pictures?" I was satisfied enough with that response; after all, I was just looking to network with other funny people. It wasn't like I was trying to date some chick I met on twitter.
I think back to some of those early direct message conversations, and it's weird to think that it was some guy writing back to me, desperately trying to convince me that he was a woman. Let me tell you, he wasn't just flying by the seat of his pants; he knew who this girl was. I can remember her writing to me one night after posting (and quickly deleting) some "drunk tweets." She seemed like a fairly normal, insecure girl in conversation. She seemed strangely mature for her age, which should have thrown up some red flags, but I chose not to believe that someone was creating this girl. I couldn't figure out why anyone would. At worst, I thought that the girl in those pictures was a friend of the girl writing all the tweets.
She continued to amuse me with her tweets, and I wanted to share them, but they weren't the right kind of jokes to share on the RPuttz twitter. I tried to stick with a certain niche for that account, and most of her jokes were wrong for it. I decided to start following and retweeting her with @NotGaryBusey (formerly GaryJBusey), an account that I co-created and contribute to. Once Busey gave her a few RTs, her account grew from a couple thousand followers to over ten thousand, and kept growing. At the time, all I had ever heard of Peter Coffin was an occasional retweet by Kimi (which I never found funny). Then one day, she announced that she was dating Peter.
End of back story.
Here's what I'm hearing from everyone who talks about this story: "Peter Coffin created a girlfriend for himself on twitter." I disagree. Peter Coffin created an alternate account on twitter, which quickly surpassed his own account in popularity. I don't know why, but for some reason the things he says are funnier coming from an Asian woman. I highly doubt he created Kimi with the intention of making her his twitter girlfriend. If anything, I bet he made a hot girl on twitter to laugh at (and mess with) all the guys who hit on her.
I don't think he ever believed that Kimi's account would blow up, but when her popularity eclipsed Peter's, he tried to think of a way to use that to draw attention to himself. Retweeting his own jokes on her page didn't seem to be working too well. He couldn't come out and say, "Hi, my name is Peter and I created this account. You should all follow me now!" That probably would have infuriated a large portion of Kimi's mostly male following. The decision to start dating his own creation probably seemed like his only choice. Maybe if Kimi vouched for him, it would give him some cred with all her followers. That obviously was working for him, so he also had to create a youtube account for her to help boost his own. He just didn't know where to stop.
I actually feel kind of bad for the guy. Don't get me wrong, it was a super douchey thing to do. But all he wanted was to find a way to get some credit for something he created, and he chose a bad way to go about it. As a guy with a bit of an ego myself, I can empathize with that. Hell, posting this is the first time I've acknowledged to my RPuttz followers that I'm the guy who writes it. Hopefully, the fact that I write him as an obvious parody instead of trying to pass him off as a real person will earn me some leniency.
As always, you can send your hate tweets to me on twitter or leave nasty messages on my facebook wall.
Saturday, August 7, 2010
An Exercise In Absurdity
I have decided to write a play.
I have made this proclamation several times before, but I’ve yet to complete one.
This time will be different.
This play will be artistic, so it doesn’t have to be very good.
It just has to be original.
I’m very good at original ideas.
A man and a lemur have a contest to see who can tread water the longest.
That’s not what the play is going to be about.
I just wanted to show you an example of an original idea.
I think it’s a very good example.
Maybe that’s what my next play will be about.
I’m getting ahead of myself.
I’ll never start writing this play if I’m already working on the next one.
I’ll write it now.
The curtain opens.
A man is standing on the ledge of a building, looking down at the street.
He is wearing a business suit and a fedora.
He looks up at the audience, and speaks.
“I”
The curtain closes.
There is no music playing.
You can hear the hustle and bustle of the crew hurriedly changing the scenery.
The curtain opens for the next scene.
The man in the suit and fedora is now standing on a tropical beach.
He looks up at the audience, and speaks.
“Am”
The curtain closes.
You can hear the crew backstage once more.
One of them is grunting very loudly.
The curtain opens for the third scene.
The man is standing atop Mount Kilimanjaro.
He looks up at the audience, and speaks.
“A”
The curtain closes.
During the scene change, a man sings a Cyndi Lauper song from backstage.
He doesn’t know most of the words.
The curtain opens.
The man is standing in a dirty gas station bathroom.
He looks up at the audience, and speaks.
“Veh”
The curtain closes.
You can hear the crew moving scenery again.
Once man sounds like he is whimpering.
The curtain opens.
The man is holding a bayonet.
Three Redcoats are impaled on it.
He looks up at the audience, and speaks.
“Ree”
The curtain closes.
You can hear the scenery moving.
There is a loud crash, as if something was dropped.
The curtain opens.
The man is keeping score at a bowling alley.
The scorers table is noticeably bent.
He looks up at the audience, and speaks.
“Am”
The curtain closes.
We hear the crew talk backstage during the scene change.
They seem to be concerned about the health of a fellow crew member.
The crew member in question insists that he’s fine.
The curtain opens.
The man is lying on a couch in a therapist’s office.
The therapist is audibly crying.
He looks up at the audience, and speaks.
“Bih”
The curtain closes.
A ghost appears in the auditorium.
It finds a seat with the help of an usher.
The curtain opens.
The man is standing behind a podium in a lecture hall.
He looks up at the audience, and speaks.
“Shus”
The curtain closes.
As the scene change begins, we hear a man backstage cry out in pain and fall.
Other crew members call for medical help.
A man yells, “CLEAR!”
There is silence.
Once more the man yells, “CLEAR!”
More silence.
The man yells, “LIVE, DAMN YOU, LIVE!”
There is silence once more.
Another voice suggests “Are you sure that’s turned on?”
The man says “Crap! CLEAR!”
There is applause backstage.
The curtain opens.
The man is still in the lecture hall.
He has stripped out of his suit and is now in his underwear.
He looks up at the audience, and speaks.
“Man”
The curtain closes.
Seventeen voices cry out in terror.
The curtain immediately opens.
A large sign is center stage.
It reads “End of Act One”
The curtain closes.
The lights come up in the theater.
As people file out of the theater, the lights flash on and off.
Everyone returns to their seats.
The curtain opens.
A large sign reading “Intermission” is center stage.
The curtain remains open for ten minutes.
The lights do not come up.
The curtain closes.
The sound of sawing and hammering is coming from the stage.
The curtain opens.
The man is once again wearing the suit and fedora.
He is also nailed to a cross.
He looks up at the audience, and speaks.
“Why”
The curtain closes.
Lots of loud power tools are being used behind the curtain.
We hear something very heavy fall.
The curtain opens.
The man is at a Tijuana donkey show.
He is still nailed to a cross.
He looks up at the audience, and speaks.
“Are”
The curtain closes.
Music starts to play, and there is an elaborate tap dance number backstage.
The curtain opens.
The man is parasailing, still affixed to the cross.
He looks up at the audience, and speaks.
“You”
The curtain closes.
Two men argue over who gets the last doughnut.
The argument turns into a fight.
Other crew members are heard trying to break it up.
The fight spills out onto the stage apron.
The two men fall off the edge of the stage and onto a table.
The table breaks beneath them.
The curtain opens.
The man is the therapist’s office once again.
He is lying on the couch, still nailed to the cross.
The therapist has hung himself, and gently sways back and forth.
He looks up at the audience, and speaks.
“Still”
The curtain closes.
A stagehand says, “I’m glad nothing odd happened during this scene change.”
The curtain opens.
The man, still attached the cross, is lying in front of a dam.
Beavers are chewing on the cross.
He looks up at the audience, and speaks.
“Wah”
The curtain closes.
A gun is fired.
A man casually announces, “I have been shot.”
The curtain opens.
The man is doing pull-ups on the St Louis Arch.
He looks up at the audience, and speaks.
“Ching”
The curtain closes.
A stagehand wearing a pink robe comes out from behind the curtain.
He yells “Go home!” in a bad English accent.
He goes back behind the curtain.
The lights come up.
For more updates follow me on twitter or facebook.
I have made this proclamation several times before, but I’ve yet to complete one.
This time will be different.
This play will be artistic, so it doesn’t have to be very good.
It just has to be original.
I’m very good at original ideas.
A man and a lemur have a contest to see who can tread water the longest.
That’s not what the play is going to be about.
I just wanted to show you an example of an original idea.
I think it’s a very good example.
Maybe that’s what my next play will be about.
I’m getting ahead of myself.
I’ll never start writing this play if I’m already working on the next one.
I’ll write it now.
The curtain opens.
A man is standing on the ledge of a building, looking down at the street.
He is wearing a business suit and a fedora.
He looks up at the audience, and speaks.
“I”
The curtain closes.
There is no music playing.
You can hear the hustle and bustle of the crew hurriedly changing the scenery.
The curtain opens for the next scene.
The man in the suit and fedora is now standing on a tropical beach.
He looks up at the audience, and speaks.
“Am”
The curtain closes.
You can hear the crew backstage once more.
One of them is grunting very loudly.
The curtain opens for the third scene.
The man is standing atop Mount Kilimanjaro.
He looks up at the audience, and speaks.
“A”
The curtain closes.
During the scene change, a man sings a Cyndi Lauper song from backstage.
He doesn’t know most of the words.
The curtain opens.
The man is standing in a dirty gas station bathroom.
He looks up at the audience, and speaks.
“Veh”
The curtain closes.
You can hear the crew moving scenery again.
Once man sounds like he is whimpering.
The curtain opens.
The man is holding a bayonet.
Three Redcoats are impaled on it.
He looks up at the audience, and speaks.
“Ree”
The curtain closes.
You can hear the scenery moving.
There is a loud crash, as if something was dropped.
The curtain opens.
The man is keeping score at a bowling alley.
The scorers table is noticeably bent.
He looks up at the audience, and speaks.
“Am”
The curtain closes.
We hear the crew talk backstage during the scene change.
They seem to be concerned about the health of a fellow crew member.
The crew member in question insists that he’s fine.
The curtain opens.
The man is lying on a couch in a therapist’s office.
The therapist is audibly crying.
He looks up at the audience, and speaks.
“Bih”
The curtain closes.
A ghost appears in the auditorium.
It finds a seat with the help of an usher.
The curtain opens.
The man is standing behind a podium in a lecture hall.
He looks up at the audience, and speaks.
“Shus”
The curtain closes.
As the scene change begins, we hear a man backstage cry out in pain and fall.
Other crew members call for medical help.
A man yells, “CLEAR!”
There is silence.
Once more the man yells, “CLEAR!”
More silence.
The man yells, “LIVE, DAMN YOU, LIVE!”
There is silence once more.
Another voice suggests “Are you sure that’s turned on?”
The man says “Crap! CLEAR!”
There is applause backstage.
The curtain opens.
The man is still in the lecture hall.
He has stripped out of his suit and is now in his underwear.
He looks up at the audience, and speaks.
“Man”
The curtain closes.
Seventeen voices cry out in terror.
The curtain immediately opens.
A large sign is center stage.
It reads “End of Act One”
The curtain closes.
The lights come up in the theater.
As people file out of the theater, the lights flash on and off.
Everyone returns to their seats.
The curtain opens.
A large sign reading “Intermission” is center stage.
The curtain remains open for ten minutes.
The lights do not come up.
The curtain closes.
The sound of sawing and hammering is coming from the stage.
The curtain opens.
The man is once again wearing the suit and fedora.
He is also nailed to a cross.
He looks up at the audience, and speaks.
“Why”
The curtain closes.
Lots of loud power tools are being used behind the curtain.
We hear something very heavy fall.
The curtain opens.
The man is at a Tijuana donkey show.
He is still nailed to a cross.
He looks up at the audience, and speaks.
“Are”
The curtain closes.
Music starts to play, and there is an elaborate tap dance number backstage.
The curtain opens.
The man is parasailing, still affixed to the cross.
He looks up at the audience, and speaks.
“You”
The curtain closes.
Two men argue over who gets the last doughnut.
The argument turns into a fight.
Other crew members are heard trying to break it up.
The fight spills out onto the stage apron.
The two men fall off the edge of the stage and onto a table.
The table breaks beneath them.
The curtain opens.
The man is the therapist’s office once again.
He is lying on the couch, still nailed to the cross.
The therapist has hung himself, and gently sways back and forth.
He looks up at the audience, and speaks.
“Still”
The curtain closes.
A stagehand says, “I’m glad nothing odd happened during this scene change.”
The curtain opens.
The man, still attached the cross, is lying in front of a dam.
Beavers are chewing on the cross.
He looks up at the audience, and speaks.
“Wah”
The curtain closes.
A gun is fired.
A man casually announces, “I have been shot.”
The curtain opens.
The man is doing pull-ups on the St Louis Arch.
He looks up at the audience, and speaks.
“Ching”
The curtain closes.
A stagehand wearing a pink robe comes out from behind the curtain.
He yells “Go home!” in a bad English accent.
He goes back behind the curtain.
The lights come up.
For more updates follow me on twitter or facebook.
Thursday, July 22, 2010
Ways to Build a Band Following
Are you in a band? Are you having trouble building a following? Are you looking for a way to make your name in the music industry? Stop trying to answer me, I can't hear you through the computer.
Lucky for you, I've worked up a list of gimmicks you can use to distract the audience from how bad your music is. What qualifies me to give you tips on making your band awesome? Why, I happen to be in a band called Mayors of Super Awesome Town (I know, best band name ever), and in the last few months we've gone from being a band comprised of two guys in suits and an iPod to a band comprised of three guys in suits and an iPod. If being 50% more human doesn't impress you, then you should know that we are Cincinnati's #1 band consisting solely of three guys in suits and iPod.
A big part of our meteoric rise (wait a second, that's a terrible metaphor; meteors don't rise) has been the memorable ways we came up with to engage the audience, so they would be more likely to seek us out. Now you can do it too:
I hope this helped. Feel free to add ideas of your own in the comments.
Follow me on twitter for updates.
Like me on facebook for guaranteed fun! (Disclaimer: Fun is not guaranteed)
Like Mayors of Super Awesome Town on facebook for more pointers.
Lucky for you, I've worked up a list of gimmicks you can use to distract the audience from how bad your music is. What qualifies me to give you tips on making your band awesome? Why, I happen to be in a band called Mayors of Super Awesome Town (I know, best band name ever), and in the last few months we've gone from being a band comprised of two guys in suits and an iPod to a band comprised of three guys in suits and an iPod. If being 50% more human doesn't impress you, then you should know that we are Cincinnati's #1 band consisting solely of three guys in suits and iPod.
A big part of our meteoric rise (wait a second, that's a terrible metaphor; meteors don't rise) has been the memorable ways we came up with to engage the audience, so they would be more likely to seek us out. Now you can do it too:
- Buy lots of legos and build extra band members out of them. At the end of the show, destroy them with ninja swords and nunchucks.
- Each band member should drink a gallon of milk during the set, and when necessary, drop trou for explosive diarrhea.
- Get into a fight onstage. Break someone's nose, and have him bleed all over as many people as possible before announcing that he has HIV.
- Get 100 kittens, and stomp on one kitten for every person less than 100 there are in the crowd. So if there are only twelve audience members, stomp on 88 kittens. This will build you a strong following with animal activists.
- The band should have eating contests in between songs. Hot dogs, hamburgers, burritos, chicken wings, ribs, pizza, jalapeños, and chili. Eventually, you will have no room left and vomit everywhere.
- Two words: Nickelback covers.
- Bring a pig onstage and feed it bacon and pork chops. Slaughter the pig and feed it to a larger pig.
- Wear all black, put on white face paint, and pantomime your entire set.
- Whichever band member flubs a song must immediately hang himself.
- Release thousands of hornets into the audience, and tell them that the most effective method to kill hornets is thunderous applause.
- Perform a seance, and speak to the spirits of celebrities who haven't been born yet.
- Perform surgery on people who can't afford to go to the hospital.
- Challenge audience members to fight you one group at a time, until one gang defeats you. Those people will play the rest of the set.
- Don't allow the crowd to think it's better than you. Single someone out and berate that person until he/she breaks down crying. That'll show them who's boss (not Tony Danza).
- Pluck out random hairs, and give them out to audience members. Free merchandise!
- Get a dog and train it to hump legs. If someone complains, ritually sacrifice it to Satan.
- Get one of those confetti cannons, fill it with leeches, and fire it into the crowd.
- Hand out free tasers to the front row.
- Anyone who claps for every song gets coupons to The Olive Garden.
- Build a volcano, and take turns making love to it onstage.
I hope this helped. Feel free to add ideas of your own in the comments.
Follow me on twitter for updates.
Like me on facebook for guaranteed fun! (Disclaimer: Fun is not guaranteed)
Like Mayors of Super Awesome Town on facebook for more pointers.
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