dudes! (a delightfully educational timeline of my favourites)

* 1898 - Some Dudes Can Fight , an early silent film in which a Bowery young man starts a fight with another gentleman

* 1889 - Three Men in a Boat (to say nothing of the dog) by Jerome K. Jerome refers to dudes: "It is the town of showy hotels, patronized chiefly by dudes and ballet girls."
(this happens to be one of my top favourite books, by the bye.)

* 1933 - The Dude Bandit, a western in which Tod 'Ace' Carter Hoot Gibson defeats the evil moneylender Al Burton Hooper Atchley.

* 1962 - The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, western in which Lee Marvin uses the term repeatedly, especially toward Jimmy Stewart.
(what we all knew anyway. jimmy stewart: a dude.)


* 1973 - Dude, a musical by Galt MacDermot.

* 1985 - Less Than Zero (written by Brett Easton Ellis) is first to use the overused phrase, "No way, dude!", and the first mainstream display of dude having crossed the gender barrier. In a noteworthy scene a young woman tells her mother, "No way, dude."


* 1989 - On February 17, 1989 Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure, introduced Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter as Ted Logan and Bill S. Preston, Esq., two righteous band dudes, bringing dude to an even wider audience. Ted uses the word "dude" 10 times in the first 15 minutes, and doesn't ever let up. The next day on February 18 the first segment of the "Wayne's World" skit aired on Saturday Night Live.



i think i'll end the timeline on that note. does it ever get any better than bill & ted? no way, dude.

Marty Neumeier: you know how I know you’re gay?

quotes from the book the bra nd gap
(obviously titled by a man unfamiliar with the term "see-say")

"If it’s not innovative, it’s not magic" (thanks for that, doug henning...)

"When everybody zigs, zag"

"Law of the jungle: survival of the fittingest"

"By asking left-brainers and right-brainers to work as a team, you bridge the gap between logic and magic. With collaboration, one plus one equals eleven."
(maybe that's what you learned in your gay math class...)

"For successful precedents to creative collaboration, look to Hollywood, silicon valley, and the cathedral buildings of the renaissance."
(the renaissance. right. do that. that sounds totally and completely heterosexual.)

"Your business is not an entity but a living organism. Ditto your brand. Alignment, not consistent, is the basis of a living brand."
(you know how I know you’re gay? You say, “ditto”.)

"A living brand is a never-ending play, and every person in the company is an actor. People see the play when they experience the brand and then they tell others."



gay features in the book:
incredibly obvious pictures illustrating his points. “branding is the traction!” (picture of a car wheel with a big white arrow pointing to the bottom of the tires.)

references Gershwin’s rhapsody in blue
(everyone knows only assholes in semi-luxury, yellow cars reference Gershwin.)


he suggests I add his ‘take-away notes’ to the bottom of emails. yeah, that's not going to happen.


simply wrong/simply gay:
"Our brains filter out irrelevant information"
(yeah right. then why do I know so much about the marianis trench and that tiger pheromones smell like theater-style popcorn?)

He also keeps suggesting you move to a “tribe”

seriously, what kinda crack...

the real question is: why don't diamond smugglers use chipmunks in hot air balloons more often?

things that do not make sense about the chipmunk adventure movie:

the basics
. man with undetermined (and awesome) career adopts and raises three chipmunks.

. turtlenecks, the likes of which i've never seen in real life

. there is no difference between chipmunks and people, besides the little nose

. the girl chipmunks don't seem to have a home/guardian. yet seem to regard dave none the less.


plot peculiarities

. wealthy diamond smugglers plotting illegal distribution in a soda shop-slash-arcade.

. wealthy diamond smugglers thinking it's a good idea to hand over millions of dollars in diamonds and cold, hard, thousand-dollar-bill cash to chipmunks (who also happen to be children).

. wealthy diamond smugglers who think chipmunks in hot air balloons are a feasible method for carrying out diamond/money exchange.

. simon's random and sudden ability to translate what the fiji natives are saying.

. chipmunk children's sudden ability to man, maintain and repair hot air balloons.

. facial expressions that defy all anatomical logic

. why an agent of interpol has gold teeth, is wearing a white dinner jacket, bowtie and rose. unless this interpol office is somewhere deep in havana.

. why snakes would be attracted to chipmunk ladies

clause and claudia? you are visionaries. creepily incestuous, visionaries of the diamond-smuggling industry. but let's face it, you deserved to get tossed in the can.

note: why do i not have some turtleneck that covers me, neck to toe, with my first initial on it?

there are worse things i could do

inspired by rhianna's list

at least i am not:

1. toting around babies that i regret or everyone suspects i secretly regret. no babies.

2. a crazy sea captain with ugly business cards

3. a crazy cat lady/crazy candle lady/lady who likes meg ryan and jokes about meenstruation

4. a tense-jawed martial arts fanatic

5. riddled with the onset of menopause

6. a girl with a tail or job at a zoo

7. ashamed or even uncomfortable with my coffee addiction. it's all peachy.

8. in the cateogory of people who a) haven't read Remembrance of Things Past and b) don't get all the references that are honestly everywhere. because people who've read it like to plant smirky code to people who have.

9. a person who worries they'll never have a leg up in any stable career

10. a person who worries they'll never "find themself"

11. a person who claims to have "found themself"

good fences make good...well, everythings.

when you know you've overstepped the lines of your landlord/tenant relationship:
your landlord first takes you out on a date with his current (and hideous) girlfriend. your landlord then comes over and asks you a) what you thought of her and b) how you'd recommend breaking up with her. your landlord then asks if it's okay to write down questions and call you later if he needs help.

when you know you've been violated at work:
CEO brings in little dog named jerry. jerry brings his gigantic blue pillow over to your desk and begins humping it enthusiastically while staring at you. you turn your back... jerry starts whining. still humping. you have no choice but to bury yourself in work like never before, in order to avoid pervy, dog eye-contact.

when you know you've been harassed at a Macs:
chinese woman behind counter tells you it's already 10 days into the month and it's no use buying a public transit pass. you still want one. offer credit card. chinese woman looks at your credit card, looks at you, asks for ID. even after much attention is given to your passport, credit card, and face, she still digs in her heels and tells you how dissimilar your signature is.

when you know you've picked the wrong girlfriend:
you ask everyone you know how to break up with her decently. frankly, she has little more personality than jerry's pillow and isn't nearly as comfortable to hump.

door stress.

something that never fails to give me the giggles?
the outside door in the office stairwell, marked in big red letters: "this door is alarmed".

something neither here nor there?

every day, the guy behind me sneezes twice. sometime around 8:45/9am. i guess it's his nose's way of starting the day off right. either way, i am prepared for it. not that i wish ill of his nose. just i turn my music down low on my headphones and keep him in my peripherals... so when he inevitably does sneeze, i am prepared to turn around and whisper "bless you!"

sensitivity training

after so many episodes of the office, i completely expected training day to involve out-of-date work ethic videos. instead, it was a whole lot of people from critical mass talking over a powerpoint presentation. the single, bright-burning beacon of this experience was sexual harrassment and sensitivity training. and sure enough, it didn't disappoint.

sexual harassment role playing:

first off, i looked at the 4 parts girl, 1 parts guy audience and suggested the leader go find some young, supple IT guys for us to sexually harrass. for learnin'. following this, i asked if i should roll dice and claimed to be an uncomfortable compliment elf with a +2 in ogling.

scenario: myself and another female co-worker are engaged in hyper-slut gossip, ("i got it on with jim in his corolla--he looks great in his tight jeans with no underwear"--verbatim)

other girl- reading from lines: "have you seen mr. february on the beefcake calendar?"
me improving: "girl, i got that one laminated on my desk."

at this point, co-worker dave stands up and gives a weepy line about how we make the office an uncomfortable place to work.

me improving again: "here dave i laminated one for you too."


at the end, the HR leader asked what the moral of this scenario was. i offered up, "if you're going to bring porn to the office, you better have enough to share. also, we support dave's lifestyle."

racism:
all of these scenarios take place on a green. we are read a situation and have to figure out who was right, who was wrong, what should be done...

scenario: at a golf course, they rotate caddies. a golfer gets an african american caddie and is upset because, of course, he is racist and his caddie is black. when the caddie explains he is very good at what he does, the golfer shouts that he wants a white caddie.

HR:"what should the caddie do, and what should his manager do?"
me: "well... is the caddie packing heat?"
HR:"what?"
me: "you said he was black.sometimes they do that."
HR: "no he's not packing heat."
me: "is the manager black?"
HR: "no. but that doesn't matter"
me: "well maybe he just hired the caddie to stir shit up. it's marketing, any publicity is good publicity."

back up on our floor-
co-worker: "it's a good thing you're on the one floor where you're considered weird if you don't offend people."

me: "right. i've been meaning to tell you...you have a nice body. you don't even need to wear that control top pantyhose..."

how stampede offends my common sense

i ask you, how appetizing does this sound: eating instant pancakes in a parking lot, off a downtown street, filled with exhaust. during the dusty, hottest, driest month of the year.

just give me the sexual harrassment tape and let me go...

dear readers;

they have me scheduled for something called "buddy program". and i am noticing there's a big hour knocked in for "lunch with buddy". honestly, i think i'd rather be caught in a monkey-herpes downpour (when animals go bad II) than have "lunch with buddy".

there are also time blocks for "knowledge" (half an hour allotted); "5 D's workshop"(why doesn't the farmer drown the fox in the river?-- an hour); "respect works here (half an hour); and acronyms like "G.E.A.R– meeting etiquette".

pray for me.



k