Today on Oprah: Selfish bastards who love their jobs when there's so much pain and suffering and unemployment in the world

Past performance does not guarantee future results, but still, I should be past that halfway point in my current job where I start looking forward to my next position. It's happened with every job I've had in the past: I'm good for a job for about 3 years before my attention span gets short and I get claustrophobic and restless and decide that it's time to try something new, and I make it happen posthaste.

Over 22 months into this job, though, and I really can't complain. Maybe I've found what I've been missing all along. I've worked for psychopaths and transgendered slavedrivers in the past, I've worked nights in a convenience store and one shift as a telemarketer and one weekend in pizza delivery, and I've worked many, many jobs where I was at the bottom of the barrel and had no hope of advancing any higher, and I have to say that this job is the antithesis of all those things.

Here's the most important thing, though.

While I have only a couple of what I would consider "close" friends at my job, the little group that I'm a part of has almost a family feel to it. It sounds corny and cliched, I'm certain, but it really feels true. There's no "us vs. them" undercurrent in the office that I had at my previous job - we're all on the same team, which is really nice.

And yeah, the money's better than I could have ever imagined I'd be making at this point in my life. Sure, there are bad days, and there are gonna be no matter where you work, but those are few and far between.

Knowing the way I am, The Captain sent me an e-card when I moved into this job: "Congratulations on your new job that you probably won't like any better." I think he finally might have gotten one wrong, which is fine; he gets one a year.

The only drawback is that, because everyone in my circle is reasonably sane and has at least a modicum of common sense, it really is hard to surreptitiously write about their foibles and quirks. About all I can really say is that Nemesis is a slow eater, and The Pregnant One runs her heater anytime the temperature dips below 85. And neither of those scenarios makes for really good ammo for 600 words - I bet I'd fall asleep writing about it before you fell asleep reading about it. And neither of us needs that.

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Now playing: Belle & Sebastian - Seeing Other People
via FoxyTunes

In Memorandum: Good night, obnoxious, congenial salesman.

Eagle-eyed readers (yeah, like any of those exist) will note that, in 2007, I did indeed tell Billy Mays to stop shouting at me. And I stand by that assessment, but his Discovery show "PitchMen" was a revelation. It showed a side of him that was warm, congenial and almost gentle - yet when the camera lights turned on, he transformed into an old-timey carnival barker from another time who was as obnoxious as he was quaint. The dichotomy was amusing to observe.

And I grew to respect him the more I learned about him - a man who wasn't just a shill, but someone who honestly believed in what he was selling, which is really the first lesson in any sales job. I ragged on OxiClean in the post linked above, but hell, the guy kept the stuff in his home and used it religiously, as he did all the products he spoke for, so there's a disconnect somewhere. I must have been doing it wrong (my God, surely not!), or maybe our water's too hard. I don't know.

I think it would be entirely appropriate for Billy's eulogy to be shouted. With the hand motions and everything. "BILLY WAS A GOOD MAN (waving hands) WHO LOVED HIS FAMILY AND (extending arms out in front) BELIEVED IN WHAT HE SOLD (pulling arms back)." And it would be tasteful and respectful and everyone would say, "Yeah. That was Billy." And there'd be smiles and tears.

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Now playing: Belle & Sebastian - There's Too Much Love
via FoxyTunes

This week in "Procrastinator's Weekly" ...

... and it was delicious, if I do say so myself.

In Memorandum: Very Special "Jacko On His Backo" Edition

What, did someone die?

Guess I would be remiss if I didn't put down at least a couple of words marking the passing of the King of Weird. (No truth to the rumors that since he was 90% plastic, he'd be melted down and turned into Lego blocks so little kids could play with *him* for once.)

Full disclosure: When I was 10, I had Thriller on cassette. I also had a sparkly glove (a gray glove covered in glitter). These things rendered me a fag among my schoolmates, so they were boxed up or trashed, never to be seen again.

Truthfully, his expected/unexpected* passing elicited little more than a shrug from these quarters, equal parts apathy and more apathy.

(* - unexpected because while I think we all figured he wasn't going to live to see 80, I think we also had money on 50 being the "under"; expected because we didn't think he was strong enough to bear the stresses he endured, both self-inflicted and otherwise)

I have said it here before, and I will say it again: if a person is a piece of shit during his lifetime - and let's be frank: there is just too much evidence, circumstantial or otherwise, to suggest he was anything but - it's INCREDIBLY disingenuous to mark the person's passing with showers of kind words praising him and expressing how much he'll be missed. Especially if you were part of the chorus of "yeah, the guy is a piece of shit" when he was still alive.

Not to defend him in the least, because even a hint of child molestation allegations forever tarnishes (or, in my view, destroys) whatever "legacy" he has as an entertainer (and leads me to my "piece of shit" assessment), but it doesn't help that the things he did - alleged skin bleaching! 500 plastic surgeries! dangling children off balconies! - were just batshit crazy. Maybe these things were "normal" in whatever universe he inhabited after Thriller - I reckon that if your every move were under the 50,000X power microscope that Michael Jackson's was, we'd all think you were weird, too.

And, really, I reckon that was Michael Jackson's biggest venial sin. Intentional or unintentional, his rise coincided with the transition from "entertainment news as 60 seconds on your local news broadcast's showbiz beat" to "entertainment news as hard news." Many pop culture names who came since him, from Paris Hilton to Jon and Kate to any number of reality stars (i.e., people who offer nothing of substance and are only "famous for being famous") owe him a great debt for indirectly helping to perpetuate their 15 minutes, and we as a society are all lesser for it. There was a day when the fact that North Korea is threatening to vaporize us would have led the nightly news, but we've gotten bored with hard news, and news organizations recognize this.

Anyway, yes, he is dead, and please get him off my TV now.

This sucks ass

in my upstairs sanctuary a few moments ago, this was the temperature

but it's a dry heat

whatever the fuck that means
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When we last left Our Hero, he was burned out on putting words to blog. It was taking everything he had to share with You, Fair Reader, the inanities and stupidities and joys of his life. So he went away.

In the interim........he fell in love. Her name is Belle. When he is inside her, he is happy. She is strong and sleek and gorgeous and he feels ALIVE when she is near. He looks at all the other girls and says, "I have the most beautiful."

Our hero loves his Belle.
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