MHC (1st March 2010)

He looks down at his plate, and looks back up at her.

This can’t work. This won’t work.
He stares at it again. The words “strawberry flavoured yoghurt” stare back at him from a little piece of paper.
This can’t work. This won’t work.

“All you need to do is look her in the eye and say the words. That’s all there is to it. I’m telling you man, you could totally use this.” Jerry wasn’t usually someone he could trust. Shifty fellow, not much for real work. It’s always been side jobs for him.

“Man, I have this sweet set up at the McDonald’s near Garden Street. Starts at 4 so that gives me plenty of time to recover. I’m done by 11 and this girl there, Mindy. She is FIT. The things I would do to her… I haven’t really spoken to her yet, but there’s this party coming up at Dave’s…” he drones on. I don’t know how he does it. It’s been 6 years now and life just isn’t the same for me.

How does he do it? I’m better off. Right? But you have to hand it to him, he sure sounds like he’s having a good time. Maybe straight shooting isn’t the point.

This is shit. I’m actually considering it. “Here, the fries are on me. Do it man, really. You may as well make this trip of yours exciting. Heck, it should be the only reason you go if you ask me. Not your gay conference…” He glances up. “Alright, ok ok I have to go… she’s looking this way. I think I’m going to ask her.” And he’s off. Off to his life. We used to be so similar, him and I. Weren't we?

I guess it depends on the context. I look down at my plate. One last fry. Heh.

I look up at her again. She’s gorgeous. I could do without the make-up, though. I guess they need it on to make them more ‘aesthetic’. Who decides what’s aesthetically superior then? She doesn’t need it. You know, looking a bit natural doesn’t hurt anyone. Whatever, she’s still stunning. I’m going to do it. I’m going to ask her. Ok, here comes my hand… higher… higher… THERE!

It’s visible and it means that I am asking for her to bring herself to me. She sees me. Great. Smile, Bob, smile. Fuck! That fucking steward sees me too! C’mon sweetheart, beat him to me. You can do it. You have great calves. Alright focus, focus. There, she’s here. Now what was I going to say again? Oh yeah.

“Umm… Excuse me, miss, but do you happen to have any strawberry yoghurt?”

I look at her knowingly, yet unsure. She stares right back, but with a puzzled expression. She opens her mouth to say something. The pause is stark. The anticipation is real.
Her eyebrows point as if to say, “Are you sure you’re in the right place, pal?” but the words that come out are “Certainly, sir” and she walks off, exposing her criminal behind tightly wrapped by that cloth she calls a skirt.

This is what the industry’s about, I tell myself. It’s tainted. A moment, and she’s back, handing me what looks like… YES! IT’S FUCKING STRAWBERRY YOGHURT! I knew it! I knew it was too good to be true. Jerry is such a bastard, I knew he was full of it.

Oh, what good is that now. “Thanks, dear.” Shit, why’d I say dear… I just called her DEAR? Brilliant. Just eat your fucking yoghurt, Bob. Scoop up that spineless rubbish. Yeah, I mean YOU.

I take the crummy little piece of paper filled with so much hope and I grin to myself. I knew this wouldn’t work. Ha. Wait a minute. Why the fuck am I so smug about this? This is just great, Bob. Now you have another unwritten story. Another fucking waste of space in your shitty memory. What good are you?

They’re telling me I’m going to be Vice President of Sales in the entire North Zone next year. That’s how good I am.
Wait, aren’t you selling magazine subscriptions? Haven’t you been doing that for 6 years now? Oh yeah, I forgot, you started out SMALLER. You’re a big man, aren’t you, Bob. You have a charming condominium in the South. You have wonderfully quaint furniture that accentuates your Moon sign. You must get laid a lo… oh yeah, that’s right. You DON’T. Why is it so important?? Maybe not, if it were something you would do maybe once in a YEAR. But not you, nooooo. You are too good for that. You want her to be smart, and funny, and cute and have dark, medium length hair and dimples when she smiles and someone you could go to the park with. She should own a German Shepherd, which means she’s warm but still a good task master. Right? An efficient, sensitive woman will make a great life partner, won’t she? Fuck you, Bob. I don’t know why I got stuck with you. I want out.

GET OUT THEN! AAAARGH! I didn’t choose this, Bob. You did. It’s your pathetic ride I’m a part of. Not the other way around. You’re lucky to have me. You’re just a voice in my head. I probably have loads more. But you PICKED me, don’t you get it? Like when you pick a car, or a colour, or a sofa, or that embarrassing litchi flavoured gelato you always do. Hold yourself responsible, kid. For once.

That’s it! THAT’S IT! There you go. No no, that’s IT! He waves a little piece of paper as his neighbour wakes up to the strange animation. “Flavoured! I didn’t say flavoured!” He shoots his hand right up, this time with more vigour and confidence than he has ever shown in the past six years. The blood rushing through his veins, his head, his phallic limb gesturing to the woman to come. And she does. Right fucking away.

“Strawberry flavoured yoghurt please.” She smiles. Her lips widen and it’s as though her teeth sparkle. No kidding. Right, this is it. What next? Let’s let her guide me, then. I saw the way she was pointing at the emergency exits. She knows her stuff. Yeah.

Wow, this is going to be excellent. Her eyes point to the toilet. She says it again, except this time the words have so many fucking awesome connotations. “Certainly, sir.” Certainly fucking A.

I’m doing this. I jump out of my seat, and stroll towards the bathroom. Like a Bee Gee, I walk by all the suckers listening to their iPods and reading their lifestyle magazines.

Haha, ironic. Lifestyle magazines.

Well, they ARE the windows to the world.
Ok, no shop talk. This is going to be off the hook.

ENOUGH! Get out if you’re going to be lippy. But stay, if you’re finally ENJOYING THE RIDE, BITCH. Hah. Look at me now. Take a look at me now. This is going to HAPPEN. The sign says vacant. I have to keep it that way, Jerry said.

Alright. Vacant it is.

I check my hair in the mirror. The twirl is just right. This is perfect.

*Click.* She walks in. Smiles. Wow, what a smile. What a woman.

She sits me down. “You’re new”, she grins.

“I know.”

The End.

(tasteful song here) (depending on taste, of course)

(I'm thinking If She Wants Me)

Backwords (27th February 2010)

-Hi Atus, we seem to be running into each other often enough. How are you?
(long pause)
-Yeah, that’s right. You’re all about the pauses. Never mind then. Let’s get on with this.

We’re four months in now, even though it feels like much longer since I was cast away. Self imposition.

I’m sitting in the lobby of a fancy hotel working on a primitive laptop. Got my glasses on. Getting my groove on. Now where are the single malts and single ladies?

Who am I kidding. I need to regroup.
Boys, you’ve got your work cut out for you. Do you think you can manage?

Of course I can. There’s lots to do but they’re only just pedantic tasks. No real brainwork. What a pain.

People think this is a really big deal. I can’t seem to compute. It’s supposed to be a fun-filled EVENT. The word ‘Games’ is in it!
“Come out and play”, all sorts of sport, 70 countries, a big bonanza.
But no, involve the Man and bunches of Ministries and get everyone to hold their breath. Taking things seriously is everyone’s favourite game.
“This is the largest sporting event, second only to the Olympics”, and we’re bringing together countries originally brought together by colonialism. Right.

The eye of the storm is blind to me.

Here I am, taking each day as it comes, looking forward to the night and ensuring that there’s always good things in store the next day. It’s a survival tactic.
I’m in a big, unfamiliar city that is unfamiliarly becoming familiar to me.
Where am I? is a superb question to wake up to. Especially whilst driving by myself.

My constants of music, thought and energy assist in confusing me. Can’t help it.
This shit is bananas.

“You know it’s time that we grow old and do some shit”
- Broken Social Scene
(Listen to the version in the Bee Hives album. It's great. Plays in an awesome movie called Half Nelson)
-------
There is a space at work that is affectionately referred to as “The Stairs” where my associates and I indulge in some flippant conversation about whose boss said what to which underling and so on. We also turn our attention to nicotine and caffeine. Fun.

I was at The Stairs the other day with my wonderfully wonderful new-to-the-workplace Director. He’s a 60 year old man who has spent most of his life smiling politely in the hotel industry and is fluent in at least seven languages. Props. I don’t really think much of him in a professional light. I mean, I’m just looking to do my job and go home afterwards and I’d prefer it if there were a smaller number of people (that matter) having an opinion about my work. In any case, nice chap. Warm voice and his french is impeccable. He is also additionally charming because of his slightly awry sense of humour. It’s eccentric.

So we’re at The Stairs and he offers me a cigarette. I decline and so does my accomplice. We’re just giving him company, really. “You’re a good girl”, he concludes, directing his stare at my friend. And after a long enough pause, he adds-
“And I’m a bad boy.”

Warms my heart, it does. He talks about being consistently smokey since he was 12. Proud of it, he sparks off my desire to estimate how many cancersticks that actually amounts to. Over 350,000 which also translates to 700,000 rupees (considering the average price per cigarette, which, is obviously his information.) and before I finished playing with these numbers, he starts what seems like a completely disconnected story. Part of the ‘eccentricity I admire’, I dismiss – but Nay! “There was this American…” (here, you may note that he pauses to look into your soul, just to check if you’re paying attention, almost 5 times per sentence. His moustache covering his pout only makes the man cuter.) “standing near a car, smoking a cigarette. A sardar, like you (that’s me), asks him how long he’s been smoking and quickly works out the figures and says – ‘if you would have kicked this nasty habit of yours, you could have actually owned this car and the building you stand in front of!’ The American deftly responds, ‘This IS my car and that IS my building.’ The End.” He grins. I have absolutely no idea why. It’s marvellous.

Anecdote No. 2:
I was driving to the office this evening. To meet a colleague after her work hours so that we could have a drink and maybe do some shopping. On my way, the music reminds me of friends and times back home and so the calling begins. Whipping the phone out, I dial a good buddy and I laugh away as I drive into a major road. Hark! Police! The fellow gestures for me to stop. My first reaction is to wave my hand apologetically and decide whether I’m going to be driving away or stopping up ahead. I see him mount a motorcycle so I figure I’ll leave the exciting, high speed chase for another day.

I put on my sorry face and plead and show him all sorts of identification cards until he’s sore. He decides to let me off with a warning, which in his terms implies a smaller fine for a smaller crime. A crime I did not commit but it’s a mutual compromise that we’re happy to live with. He tells me the fine is a 100 and I’m alright with it. I open my smallet (small+wallet = new concept, great one at that) to discover that the beverage buying this afternoon left me with all of forty rupees. Damn, this could get complicated, I muse as he goes over to note down my registration. I’m going to have to go to an ATM and I don’t know how that’s going to fly with our crusader-man.
But wait! Over the past few months I’m sure I’ve made quite a collection with the spare change I accumulate now and again… and I dive into my dashboard tray to find all the thick coins I can. Two minutes and sixty rupees in circular stainless steel/ cupronickel later, I hand over my pittance and I’m free; free to do all the important things I told him I had set out to do which formed the basis of the illegal phone conversation I was having in the first place. (fib)

One important man to another, that’s how we do it, innit? :D

So yeah. Life in the capital is pretty sweet. I’m just not always in the mood, you know?
And this inability to teleport is something I think I’m never going to get over. I feel as though I’m regressing on so many levels as I move forward on the other ones.
Is that possible? What about that “once you learn to ride a bike” expression? I’m concerned that my writing is becoming more primitive and less coherent. Backwords.
Where’s the glue? I need to regroup.

One thing’s for sure – people here may be more legit, but they haven't broken any mould.

B-A-N-A-N-A-S.

Tonight is SO Last Night. (13th January 2010)

Over a month since my last post, I need to be a little more regular with this. It is the way forward.

What is not forward, however, is the recent re-scheduling of The Tonight Show and poor Mr. O'Brien has indeed been treated unfairly. I happened to really enjoy his show and found his delivery and over-all fun quotient to be superior to Jay Leno. (No disrespect to Mr. Leno, but one does tend to make comparisons, especially in this line of work, especially when one major television icon gets succeeded by another.)

Conan O'Brien is clever, tasteful and astonishingly tall. I remember when he did an episode with Snoop Dee Oh Double Jee, I found myself wondering if our dear dizzle wasn't as vertically impressive as I had initially thought. But it's been Conan all the way and I wish him the best for what ever he wants to do with himself, and his wonderful crew. The words "In the Year 3000" will forever ring in my heart.

This is his letter to the People of Earth:

In the last few days, I've been getting a lot of sympathy calls, and I want to start by making it clear that no one should waste a second feeling sorry for me. For 17 years, I've been getting paid to do what I love most and, in a world with real problems, I've been absurdly lucky. That said, I've been suddenly put in a very public predicament and my bosses are demanding an immediate decision.

Six years ago, I signed a contract with NBC to take over The Tonight Show in June of 2009. Like a lot of us, I grew up watching Johnny Carson every night and the chance to one day sit in that chair has meant everything to me. I worked long and hard to get that opportunity, passed up far more lucrative offers, and since 2004 I have spent literally hundreds of hours thinking of ways to extend the franchise long into the future. It was my mistaken belief that, like my predecessor, I would have the benefit of some time and, just as important, some degree of ratings support from the prime-time schedule. Building a lasting audience at 11:30 is impossible without both.

But sadly, we were never given that chance. After only seven months, with my Tonight Show in its infancy, NBC has decided to react to their terrible difficulties in prime-time by making a change in their long-established late night schedule.

Last Thursday, NBC executives told me they intended to move the Tonight Show to 12:05 to accommodate the Jay Leno Show at 11:35. For 60 years the Tonight Show has aired immediately following the late local news. I sincerely believe that delaying the Tonight Show into the next day to accommodate another comedy program will seriously damage what I consider to be the greatest franchise in the history of broadcasting. The Tonight Show at 12:05 simply isn't the Tonight Show. Also, if I accept this move I will be knocking the Late Night show, which I inherited from David Letterman and passed on to Jimmy Fallon, out of its long-held time slot. That would hurt the other NBC franchise that I love, and it would be unfair to Jimmy.

So it has come to this: I cannot express in words how much I enjoy hosting this program and what an enormous personal disappointment it is for me to consider losing it. My staff and I have worked unbelievably hard and we are very proud of our contribution to the legacy of The Tonight Show. But I cannot participate in what I honestly believe is its destruction. Some people will make the argument that with DVRs and the Internet a time slot doesn't matter. But with the Tonight Show, I believe nothing could matter more.

There has been speculation about my going to another network but, to set the record straight, I currently have no other offer and honestly have no idea what happens next. My hope is that NBC and I can resolve this quickly so that my staff, crew, and I can do a show we can be proud of, for a company that values our work.

Have a great day and, for the record, I am truly sorry about my hair; it's always been that way.

Yours,

Conan