I hate packing.  I’m always afraid I’m going to forget something.  Yesterday, as I was jumping up and down on my suitcase, I had to suppress an urge to give my plumber a call:

“Ping, I need you to come over immediately.”

“What?  What?  Problem with plumbing?”

“I’m going on a trip.  I’ve packed shirts.  And socks.  And sweatshirts.  And stuff.  Now I need the kitchen sink.”

“What? Kitchen sink?  What?”

“Yes.  What if I’m traveling and the place I’m going doesn’t have a kitchen sink?  I’ve decided to bring my own.  I need you to come down here and detach it so I can pack it.”

“Ah.  Very strange, this job is.  Very strange.”

“Hurry up and get down here.  Also, I’ll need to be able to fit it into a duffel bag.”

“Ah, okay.  Detach sink.  Fit into bag.  Job will run around $1500.”

“Okay, but I’ve already converted all my money into foreign currency.  Will you take a traveler’s cheque?”

I’m not saying I had an uneventful weekend, the kind where you end up watching a large block of E! entertainment television.  Nevertheless, I’d like to point out that B-movie actress and ex music video vamp Tawny Kitaen makes no apologies for living life on her terms.

I have a lot of political opinions that I generally keep to myself, because they’re a little “out there” and people tend to get freaked out by them.  But frankly, I’ve become less guarded about discussing them lately.

I think it’s because the election is drawing nearer and I find myself having to consider Kerry and Bush over and over again.  And I find myself thinking about how ridiculous that is.  So when I’m confronted by a Bush or Kerry fanatic, I listen for a few minutes and then roll out one of my own cherished political positions:

“I think that the old TV series The Greatest American Hero was actually a documentary, cleverly disguised as fiction in order to fool the public into thinking that aliens haven’t actually visited our planet.  If you look in any phone book, there’s an awful lot of Ralph Hinckleys.  Any one of them could be a schoolteacher who found an alien costume and learned to fight evil.”

I’m not saying that people still don’t look at me strangely.  But as soon as they start yammering on about how Bush has protected the country against terrorists or how Kerry has fiscally sound ideas for healthcare reform, I know I’m on pretty solid rhetorical ground.

The thing I hate most about my job is when people tell me how to do it.  This happens more often to me than it does to other people at the company, because I’m in the marketing department and everyone on Earth has apparently taken a marketing class.

“I think our company should rely more heavily on the three ‘P’s,” says someone standing in my cube who works as a data entry clerk.

“Huh?” I know that I’m probably about to get hit with someone’s marketing course curriculum, but I’m still willing to maintain a veneer of civility.

“Yes.  The three Ps of Marketing.” The data entry clerk simpers and preens.  I think about creative things to do with a nearby stapler.  I smile thinly.

The data entry clerk doesn’t leave.  Fortunately, I know how to make people leave.  I tell them, “Here, have a coffee mug with our company logo on it.” “OH MY GOD!” they respond, and drop to their knees.  They hold it in front of them as though it’s the chalice that caught the blood of that one guy that one time.

It is beyond me why some people go crazy for free crap emblazoned with a logo that glares at them all day, every day, from each nook and cranny of their 9-5 lives, but I don’t question it: it’s like throwing fish to a seal.  They happily clap their flippers together and scamper away.

Anyway, back to the three Ps. I admit it. I’ve never taken a marketing course in my life.  I took literature classes and then I decided to do something besides teach, so I went into a silly field and tried to learn as fast as I can.  So, okay, for all I know, maybe the three Ps of marketing actually mean something.  I Google them.

Turns out that this person probably got a ‘C’ in the class: it’s actually the four Ps of marketing.  Product, Price, Place, and Promotion.

You know what I say to that?  Bollocks.

Let’s start with the first P, and let’s say you create a product that’s a big, dangling, spring-activated hand that allows you to slap your own face any time you want.  Let’s call it the One’s Own Face Slapper.  It has many settings, such as Pulsating Pink and Roaring Red.  It has a long battery life. Then you move to the second P: you set the price at $20.  And you sell it at a Place: let’s say convenience stores.  And then you Promote it through radio ads.

The problem is, no one wants a One’s Own Face Slapper.  This entire exercise leaves out the most important letter in marketing: the C.  The Customer.

I may not have taken marketing classes, but I do spend a lot of time talking to our customers.  I write them up for case studies and press releases.  I take them out to lunch.  I know what causes their pain. I know how our service solves that pain. I know where it sometimes fails to solve that pain.

But I wouldn’t know any of that without knowing them.  The most important part of Marketing is the big C.

And you may have gathered that there is, in fact, a P involved as well: Pain.  Without pain, you have no customers and no product.

For example, if the inventor of our mythical product had bothered to talk to me, he or she would know my own pain.  And he or she would have modified the product so that it was no longer a One’s Own Face Slapper.  Rather, it would have become a product that I’d happily purchase by the truckloads-- a Face Slapper that I could used on other people.  The very same people who constitute the hitherto unknown fifth P of marketing, which I’m revealing here for the very first time in the history of history.

The People who Pontificate on Pointless Platitudes that Professors Poorly Preach to Procure a Paycheck.

That’s right: the Pinheads.

- Women’s volleyball is totally the best sport.

- Who’s playing?

- It’s actually Brazil versus Brazil.

- Looks more like Brazilian Wax versus Brazilian Wax.

- Do you know that some of the Athens women’s volleyball games have cheerleaders?

- Huh?

- Yeah, it’s a new thing.  Women’s volleyball cheerleaders.

- That’s insane.  That’s like putting corn syrup in kool aid.

- Right.

- I mean, it’s one thing to be a recreational drug user--it’s another to become a full-on addict.

- Right.

- I mean, it’s like--

- Okay, Greg, we get it.

(A woman spikes the ball and wins the point.  She shrieks with delight and hugs her friend.  During the embrace, one of the women pats the other’s butt.)

- Did you see that?  Did you see that?!

- That was sweet!

- Isn’t this thing hooked up to TIVO?  Rewind!

- Okay, hold on--where’s the remote?

- Forget it, guys, the game’s already back on.  Don’t worry, they’ll do it again.

- They’d better.  I need to get reimbursed for years of watching male football players do that.

- Okay, look everyone--we’re putting in the wedding video now.  Okay?

One thing that has always baffled me is how people react to digital cameras.  Some bozos get a digital camera, read the instruction manual, and decide that they can be professional photographers.  A week later, they’re busy schlepping shots of flowers and people on their web sites for a pretty penny.  I always wondered: what’s up with that?

That is...I used to wonder that.

I recently purchased a digital camera.  After reading through the instruction manual and taking a few sample pictures, I realized something.

I have always been a professional-level photographer.

I can’t begin to communicate my excitement about this.  I could be one of the greats.  I could be the Ansel Adams for the digital age.

But at the same time, I want to emphasize: I’m not about the money.  I believe digital photography is a means to express my artistic side in a way that mere words simply can’t hope to accomplish.  I believe that digital photography is a way to express my soul.

To that end, I have assembled my very first photolog, and I’d like to share it with you.

Please...join me in this new and exciting adventure.

Over the weekend, I did something I’ve never done before: I lost a contact lens while at someone’s house.  This has never happened in ten years of wearing contacts, which explains why I don’t keep a spare pair of glasses in my car.  Obviously, I have also not had laser surgery, because lasers are for:

Shooting stormtroopers

Fighting Ming the Merciless

Blasting cylons

They are not for:

Putting in my eye

Going anywhere near me

PUTTING IN MY EYE.

Here’s the thing about laser surgeons: nobody becomes one unless they’re a Star Wars fan.  This means they’re familiar--too familiar--with the Death Star scene at the end:

“Luke, this is Red Seven.  Your targeting computer is offline.”

“It’s okay.  I’m going to shoot manually.”

“Wait a minute--how’s that again?”

“Yeah, I’m not going to use a computer.  I’m going put the entire universe at risk by trying to lob a torpedo in a tiny, tiny area using only my faith in a mystical energy field.”

“Luke, this is Red Seven. You suck.”

This is my issue.  I guarantee that any eye surgeon in the business will wait until the anesthetic kicks in, and then wave the laser thingie around and rant insanely:

“HA HA!  I am closing my eyes and then I’ll turn on the laser beam!  The Force will guide me as I slice your cornea to ribbons!”

So anyway, I wear contacts and I lost one while at my friend’s house.  He was brewing beer and we were all drinking it--a lot of it--but I was going pretty slowly and had just eaten so I was completely sober.  Still, I quickly realized that losing a contact is a lot like being drunk:

Everything shifts and blurs as though your head is submerged underwater

.

You’re afraid of saying something that reveals your handicap, so you become very quiet and you smile at everyone a lot

.

You’re hyper conscious that everyone sees the world differently than you do, which makes you faintly paranoid.

The women of the house came home--a sister-in-law, a nanny, a few others--and one of them looked at us sitting around the table and said “I think the men are a few drinks ahead of us.”

I said, “I’m completely sober.  It’s just that I lost a contact lens.”

She laughed. “Now that’s one I haven’t heard before.”

You know when you realize that arguing will just make it worse?  So I just smiled in my faintly paranoid way and stared at my beer, which, due to my impairment, looked vaguely like the old ‘70s cartoon character Captain Caveman.

But now I have third-party validation that losing a contact lens is pretty much the same as being drunk.  And I’ve learned from this incident. Next time someone to go out drinking, I’ll save time and money by saying “Right on dudes! Let’s party!  But let’s not go to a bar.  Let’s just take out our contact lenses!”

And no hangover the next day.

Does anyone have any tips for getting a song out of one’s head?

If “I Thought I Was Your Boyfriend” by the Magnetic Fields loops one more time inside my skull while I’m trying to do something else, I’m going to pull something that’ll make Columbine look like a Sunday school bake-off.

I liked the movie Collateral, and I particularly liked Tom Cruise’s performance.  This is unusual because I generally hate the guy.  I think I made an exception this time because he played a villain.  And I’ve known all along that Tom Cruise is a villain.

He struts and sneers and flashes his tightly wound grin at the camera.  Women melt and guys applaud.  I stare at his high cheekbones, his perfect hair, and his arrogant expression, and I want to put a crowbar inbetween his eyes.

I look at him and I see the guy who takes my lunch money. I see the guy who steals my girlfriend.  I see the swaggering senior with the letterman jacket who throws freshmen into trash cans.  The coaches love him; the adults admire him--but he’s ruthless.  Lacking in humanity.

I remember being in junior high and seeing Losin’ It on the video stands.  This was before Cruise broke through to major stardom, but the cover of the video mocked me anyway. It was about Cruise losing his virginity to Shelley Long.  I hadn’t even lost my wallet at that point.

I ran into Tom Cruise and his girlfriend, which at the time was Molly Ringwald.  I said, “Stop making movies that make me feel inadequate.  I hate you.”

Tom Cruise said, “You’re a wuss.  If I hadn’t just signed a major contract to be in a movie called Risky Business, I’d pound you into the cement right now.”

Molly Ringwald said, “Do you want to see me apply my lipstick using only my breasts?”

Years later, Top Gun came out on video.  I tried to fool around with my girlfriend, but she said, “Go away.  I want to rewind and rewatch the scene where they’re playing volleyball with their shirts off.”

I ran into Tom Cruise and his wife, which at the time was Mimi Rogers.  I said, “You can’t even play volleyball because you’re, like, 5 feet tall.  If you and I played real-life volleyball together, I’d spike the ball so hard down your throat that it would appear as a bulge around your ankles.  Stop using special effects to make yourself look cool.”

Tom Cruise said, “You’re an idiot.  If I hadn’t just signed a major contract to be in a movie called Cocktail, I’d give you two fat lips.”

Mimi Rogers said, “I don’t think Tom will ever leave me for a younger, prettier actress.”

Years later, The Firm came out.  I ran into Tom Cruise and his wife, which at the time was Nicole Kidman.  I said, “I’m in graduate school and I’m poor.  Stop making movies about rich people and high-powered careers because it annoys me.”

Tom Cruise said, “You’re a retard.  If I hadn’t just signed a major contract to be in a movie called Mission Impossible, I’d give you a bloody nose.”

Nicole Kidman said, “One day I’ll be a respected actress and people won’t remember me for movies like Dead Calm and Days of Thunder.”

I said, “Nicole, of all the things I’ve heard from Tom’s women over the years, that has to be dumbest.”

But things have changed.  Now Tom has made Collateral, in which he plays a hitman who believes that human life is worthless.  He is losing his sense of caution--he’s making movies in which his characters more closely align with his actual personality.  It’s only a matter of time until he’s revealed as the evil little man that he truly is.

And I’m not alone in my crusade.  There are other people who have joined me in my quest to topple Cruise and cast him into pop culture oblivion. Just the other day, I visited some of the other enlistees in my army--Molly, Mimi, and Nicole.

Nicole said, “He’s made his first mistake.  By deliberately shedding his good guy persona, he’s started on a path that will ultimately expose his web of lies.”

Mimi said, “People will be amazed when they find out the truth.”

Molly said, “Do you want to see me apply my lipstick using only my breasts?”

I’d like to address everyone in the gym who is currently staring at me.

Yes, I am doing those little lifts in which I hold on to the bars and send my feet flying up in the air as though I’m repeatedly slipping on two scoops of ice cream.

And yes, my legs cause a green blur every time I do so because I am wearing green socks.

And yes, a valid interpretation for this might be because I forgot my regulation white gym socks at home and therefore I’m working out in colored socks that I wore with my slacks today.

But that is not necessarily true.

I could be wearing green socks with these leg lifts for many other reasons.

For example, I could be practicing a kind of Kinyasa Buddhist meditation, in which organic energy is funneled through my legs and down through my feetwear.  In this ancient exercise regiment, the color green acts as a conduit for said energy.  And the results are plain.  My focused meditative strategy is burning up my love handles faster than you can say “Keanu Reeves was the best Buddha ever.” Also, I am becoming extremely virile.  Ladies, step on up.

Or I could be tapping into my Irish heritage and using the mystical connections between my green socks and the Motherland.  Invisible leprechauns are helping my legs swing into the air.  And they’re massaging my feet.  And upon my command, they will find all of your mommas and give them a good slap.

Or I could be wearing these socks to protest the United States withdrawing from the Kyoto treaty.  The green of my socks represents the need to seek out alternative energy sources.  And, like, saving the whales, and crap like that.

Look, the point is, mind your own goddamn business. 

You just wish you could do leg lifts with this much grace, poetry, and--yes--this much green.  I’ll tell you who is green.  You are all green.  WITH ENVY.

Ingrates.

While shopping in Banana Republic yesterday--

(pause until the cries of DIE YUPPIE SCUM die down)

--I overheard the staff person asking a customer, “And do you intend to wear the shirt untucked or tucked in?”

The customer replied “Tucked in,” and a brief pause ensued and then the staff person said “I see.”

I wasn’t surprised by the staff person’s question and I wasn’t surprised by his patronizing follow through.  I read in the Times a while back that keeping shirttails flying is the new trend.  There’s even a major designer who refuses to wear his shirts tucked in.  It’s a way for young men to separate themselves from an older generation, demonstrating their hipness and edge.

I don’t like keeping my shirts untucked.  It’s not tidy.  And you say, oh, well, you’re just revealing your lack of hipness and edginess in the face of this new, unkempt generation.  But it’s more than that. These kids don’t understand the importance of multiple identities.

What these hipsters fail to recognize is that it’s necessary to be both Clark Kent and Superman.  Wearing tucked in shirts to work and other respectable locales is being Clark Kent. Then, on your own time, you can be Superman.

These kids want to be all Superman, all the time.  It won’t work.  Not even Superman can be Superman all the time.

Take the case of Jimmy Chapman, 24-year old Wall Street stockbroker.  Jimmy will start the day by arriving at the office and doing his presentation, shirttails flying, making everyone uncomfortable and sweaty because this young turk is apparently a slob yet doing a great job--and then he’ll go to a power lunch, kicking back martinis, shirttails still flying--and then he’ll get off work and go shop at Pottery Barn and Sharper Image and then he’ll hit the club, and he’s getting a bit tired now, because he’s still in Superman mode as evidenced by his flying shirttails--and eventually he’ll take drugs and get in a fight and someone will kick his ass and he’ll lie bleeding in an alley somewhere, his loose shirttails flapping morosely in the chill night air like two, small white flags of surrender.

And when that happens, I’ll be there.

I’ll stand over poor Jimmy’s body.  And I’ll say, “Jimmy, you can’t be Superman all day.  Some times you have to be Clark Kent.”

And also: “The only reason you don’t tuck in your shirt is because you’re trying to hide an enormous beer gut.*

*In other news: just when you think keeping a blog is super lame, someone who comments on your site emails you and says she’ll be in town, and so you meet up, and she says “How about a beer on me?” And you say “Really?” And she says “No, not really” and you say “Awwww” and she says “It’s actually TWO beers” and you say “Rock!” and you talk and she’s very interesting and totally nice!  Although it’s weird when talking to someone who reads your site and frequently references things you’ve posted, and you’re all “You mean I actually mentioned that I’m a color-blind albino hermaphrodite?” and she’s all “Sure, back in October 2003.” It was fun!  Thanks Frank!**

**Can’t link to her*** site because she just reads and comments; she doesn’t have a blog.  So those of you with blogs who only meet other people with blogs, eat it.  Commenters rule.

***Who the hell names their daughter Frank?  I don’t know, but my dad is apparently now named “Papa Goose” so I don’t cast stones.