5.23.2006

The pup

My Cassie. Nine-plus years and 75-plus pounds of Golden Retriever love. She's a senior citizen, by doggie standards. But sometimes . . . sometimes she acts like a 9-month-old.

Last night, the boy was in bed and I was doing my before-sleep canvassing of the house: locking doors, shutting off lights. Cass was nowhere to be seen, though. I called her, but she didn't come and I immediately began to worry. She always comes when called, so I had a little heart skip, imagining she was sick somewhere in the house (after all, she isn't getting any younger).

I went to the back door and looked outside. About then, the smell hit: musty dog. She was standing outside the doggie door, hesitant to come in, because she was soaking wet. Apparently, she decided to run in the sprinklers. She couldn't have been any wetter if I'd thrown her in a lake. I coaxed her in and she proceeded to snort happily, wag wildly and flop all over the carpet, rubbing off the excess water.

Some people, people much more fastidious than I am, would have been angry that a wet animal was drying off on the floor. But I was simply happy that she was alright. And as I laughed, she got even more excited.

I took a picture that I'll have to post.

5.22.2006

Why couldn't she have used real nails?

Madonna crucifies herself in tour opener

My Daily Annoyance

Because Emily had one.

This is related, in a way.

Emily's annoyance stems from the self-importance of people. I'd like to submit my hatred of THIS thing.

bluetooth bullcrap

The Bluetooth headset. The thing that sits on the ears of people invariably wearing dark pleated pants, too much hair product and a smug expression. This is Realtor-cool. Insurance-salesman-cool. Cool for anyone who is SO important he cannot function without constantly being plugged in to the legions of people dying to hear his pompous, ponderous voice. This is a person with views and skills, deserving of much admiration.

Or so he'd have you believe.

Three months ago, I was at a funeral for a much-loved and well-respected man. This guy was the real deal, and he hardly ever used a cellphone. He was old-school, I guess. At his funeral, which turned out to be the frickin' social event of the season, there was a woman. She was easily in her sixties, dressed in leopard print and white denim, her hair highlighted and curled within an inch of its life. She kept standing up and looking to the back of the chapel, because she was saving seats for her friends. She stood during the Rabbi's eulogy. She stood up during the daughter's eulogy. And she wore the fucking headset throughout the whole service.

Never in my life have I wished someone dead like I did her. Never in my life have I wished, so badly, that I could strangle someone with my bare hands.

I found out after the service that she was 1) the "best friend" of the widow, and 2) a hairdresser.

A stinking hairdresser?!?!? Wearing that thing during a funeral for her best friend's husband?

a very very bad word is coming up next. the sensitive should avert their eyes.

What an unbelievable fucking cunt. Cunt cunt cunt.

So now, every time I see one of those headsets, I make the snap judgement. Immediately, I think to myself, "what a TOOL. Not just a tool, but a whole fuckin' toolSHED." That's my failing, I suppose. Maybe someday I'll change my mind. Probably about the moment I get one.

Ha. Never. If I do, I give permission for someone to kill me. Really. Put me out of everyone's misery.

5.11.2006

Laugh, please

Why on earth don't I TiVo Robot Chicken?

Especially when there are jewels like this on it?

5.10.2006

Newsflash

WARNING: rant ahead

"Madonna: I'm a bad mother"

"I'm always going 'Oh my God, I'm a crap mother'. I want to get home and put my kids to bed and then sometimes, if I'm spending a lot of time with my children, I think 'Oh God, I just want to be an artist,' " she said in a TV interview.


SHUT UP.

The 47-year-old - recently reported to have problems in her five-year marriage to film director Guy Ritchie, 10 years her junior - added that Lourdes often gets embarrassed by her mother's fame.

"Sometimes she doesn't want to come to certain things because she knows everyone is going to pay attention to me," she said.


JUST. SHUT. UP.

God Almighty, I can't stand this vacuous bitch. If you reaaaaaaalllllly want to be a mom, then STOP BEING AN ATTENTION WHORE. Because hey, Madge, that's the thing about kids: they need to feel important to you. That's kind of where their whole sense of self comes from. It doesn't come from the nanny, and it definitely doesn't come from having mom TREATING THEM AS ACCESSORIES! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!

Fuck, these kids don't have a single chance of being healthy.

Implosion of the Day


BoardwalkGurzinski
Originally uploaded by shansarver.
I'll miss The Boardwalk for one reason: The Surf Buffet.

The Surf Buffet used Butterbean as a pitchman in its commercials. The best line I've ever heard is this:

"The Bean don't eat no snooty food!"

Brillant. The Bean speaks in third person. The Bean uses double negatives. The Bean is a man of the masses.

I may have to follow suit:

"The Shan don't use no exclamation points in her copy!"

Hm. The Shan may have to rethink that.

Hell-Ay, Revisited

On Monday and Tuesday, we were shooting the spot we cast for last week. This is my short recap:

1) Talent was great, not a single Lip Bite in sight
2) Client was happy
3) Craft service (catering) was fabulous
4) Dinner Monday night was at The Lodge steakhouse in Beverly Hills, where we saw Keanu Reeves and Jack Nicholson (or a vagrant that stole Jack Nicholson's glasses)
5) Soundstages are hot, sticky miserable places
5a) I spent at least eight hours of each ten-hour day stuck (because of the humidity) to a leather couch
6) Dinner Tuesday night was at Frida in Beverly Hills, where we saw a lot of tequila

That's the nutshell version. That, and I'm glad to be home.

5.05.2006

Crazy-ass bastard

Yeah, this guy:

Metzgerjump

Daredevil thrills crowd, hurdles Caesars' fountain

108 feet, complete with a backflip. Good for him, considering the history of the jump.

My uncle was at the end of the ramp for this one:

EvelKnievelCaesarsPalace

December 31, 1967. This was probably the last thing Evel remembered before the crash. While Evel himself ended up across Flamingo Road in the Dunes parking lot, the motorcycle headed for the crowd. My uncle, 13 at the time, jumped onto the back of a fireman to avoid being run over.

Somewhere, there's footage of this. I hope to someday find it.

5.04.2006

Hell-Ay

I've been in Hollywood the last two days, casting for a TV spot I'm shooting next week. This is, believe it or not, one of the toughest parts of my job.

Two days, morning to night, sitting in a dark room watching non-union actors audition. There is so much pain involved in the process: the pain of hearing, for the first time, the lines that clunk in my script. Then there's the pain of watching actors that clunk, period. There's a pain in my ass from the couch I've been on too long.

I've been on the lookout, especially, for Actors' Tics. These are the things used by a bad actor to convey emotion. The most popular is The Squint, resulting in Actor's Forehead. Try it. Say something profound and squint at the same time. Your forehead will furrow, giving the impression of Deep Thought.

Another good one is The Lip Bite. This conveys conflict, mostly of the inner variety. Try it. Say something about illicit love, then bite your lip. Instant Conflicted Emotion.

If you can do both The Squint and The Lip Bite at once? Audition gold, baby. The job is yours. You're our "MAN 1," and you'll enjoy a full five seconds of screen time during the morning news commercial breaks in Las Vegas. Congratulations.

5.01.2006

. . .

I just couldn't title it. I'm a couple of days late on this, because I didn't know until right this minute:

Steve Howe killed in truck accident

It's odd: As long as a long-troubled addict is alive, you can make jokes. You can laugh at the person's stupidity. You can shake your head at the wasted chances and shrug off the pictures snapped in front of the courthouse.

(Need examples? How about Darryl Strawberry or Dwight Gooden?)

Sometimes, you can get angry. You get angry for all the same reasons: waste, stupidity, etc.

And then, this. It's not funny at all. Not anymore. And there really isn't any anger there, either. I just feel sad. That's the thing about addiction: You watch the person toss his life away. You deal with it the only way you know how – either with anger or humor or a combo of both. You watch, helplessly, through the nods and the methodone and the rehab and the relapses. You watch, sometimes, as he trades one addiction for another (alcohol, gambling). Through it all, you wait. You wait for the phone call that says he finally did himself in, whether from an overdose, a bad deal, or an accident. Sometimes, you get so damned tired of the waiting that you push him out of your head.

So you're not waiting anymore, not really. Not consciously. You hear through friends that he's gotten his act together. You have a distant, cautious hope, but you've heard that all before. You can say, "oh, that's nice," and mean it. Then, you go for months, maybe even years, without hearing anything else.

And then you get the news. Sometimes it comes in a hysterical phone call. Sometimes it's a headline. You're not surprised. If you're angry, it's usually directed inward . . . you feel stupid for letting that hope creep in and take hold. If you were close to the person, you feel guilty for letting him go.

For him, you're just deeply sad. At the funeral, you're deeply sad for the family. It isn't until later, days, months later, that the anger comes again to be directed at him again. For all the familiar reasons: waste, stupidity, etc.

If you've read this, you probably guessed that someone close to me was an addict. He, too, died in a car accident. The toxicology came back clean, though. It was, in the end, just a freak thing – maybe he was switching the radio station or reaching for his Dr. Pepper in the cup holder. The wrong place - right into a telephone pole - at just the wrong time.

Steve Howe . . . I want to feel the familiar anger. He could have been so much, and he threw it away with both hands. His pitches were junky, dirty batters' nightmares. He had a gift. And he wasted it. I don't want to feel sorry for him.

And then I remember: sadness first. There's plenty of time for the anger later.

Fear Me . . .

. . . for I am CloverFooFoo, the Mariachi Larcenist!

When I'm not writing cheesy ad copy or producing cheesy TV spots, I am adventuring in The Kingdom of Loathing!

I've already killed 17 fuzzy white bunnies in the Dire Warren and I've only lost one hit point. Oh, the Moxie of me!

. . .

I don't know what I like about the Kingdom. Maybe its simplicity. Its absurdity. Or maybe it's just that it has nothing to do with advertising.

Thanks for this, Sobek.

It's a good day to be Ken

Sheep help cut Carson City fire risks

Dan's Fabulous Camera

Check these out.

Unintentional hilarity ensues.

4.26.2006

Bulls**t

This caught my eye because this man was the LOML's (Love Of My Life's) high school classmate:

Terror attack has scuttled Nevadan's Navy career

The Navy gave Cmdr. Kirk Lippold a medal for saving the USS Cole and preventing further loss of life after al-Qaida operatives blew a huge hole into the guided-missile destroyer in the Yemen port of Aden on Oct. 12, 2000. Little did Lippold know then that his fast-track career might be over.

Lippold, a 1977 Carson High School graduate, apparently is the first commissioned military officer or civilian official since George W. Bush became president to be held liable for failing to prevent an act of terrorism against the United States, according to the Sacramento Bee.


Well, if he cruised into that port ignoring all the warnings . . . oh, wait.

But there are questions why Lippold didn't know, before his refueling stop in Yemen, that two separate intelligence programs had found signs of a possible attack on U.S. interests in the Middle East in the days before the Cole bombing.

One of them, a secret Pentagon program now known as Able Danger, had identified Yemen as one of five "hot spots" of al-Qaida activity believed to be targeting U.S. interests. Two days before the Cole attack, Able Danger analysts briefed Gen. Peter Schoomaker, then head of U.S. Special Operations Command, on their findings.

Nothing about the briefing reached Lippold. Nor was he told that U.S. embassies in Yemen and elsewhere in the Middle East had been closed for fear of violence.


How does the Commander of one of our ships in that area miss out on this kind of information?

How about a breakdown of communication, the kind that's bit us in the ass before?

Lippold's adherence to security procedures was questioned, but the report was dismissed by his entire chain of command, "finding that he could not prevent the bombing." Unfortunately, the taint still hangs on his career.

I can appreciate the idea of constant vigilance. If you're heading into a foreign port and you have your pipes exposed (so to speak), you probably have to keep an eye on the locals. But if Lippold had seen that briefing, it stands to reason that a routine refueling would have been treated as less of a routine.

What's the capper, though?

Meanwhile, promotions and honors have flowed to higher-echelon figures such as Gen. Peter Schoomaker, who did not act on the intelligence briefing he received two days before the Cole attack. Schoomaker has been promoted to Army chief of staff.


Scapegoating. What a lot of crap.

Hai-Poo

Yesterday, I decided to write a little poetry. Haiku, with one singular subject. I also encouraged my co-workers to contribute. You see, Creative Departments are composed mostly of people who, in some way, refuse to grow up. I myself may be on my fifth childhood by now. So here are my sophomoric verses in all their inglory:


my eyes, they water
love cannot support this pain
I curse cheap diapers


three o'clock, and haze
a noxious noose 'round our throats
Qdoba no more


Are you inspired? Drop one of your own.

4.25.2006

Words a Copywriter Hates to Hear

"So what else you got?"

(That, in a nutshell, is how work is going.)

4.14.2006

Zero hour is coming

Hang in there, Shannon.

Tax Day is only one day away.

Oh, crud. That means I should do my taxes before tomorrow, eh?

Roll Addition

I've added Dodger Blues.com thanks to my cousin Tim.

Tim lives in Claremont (a suburb of L.A.) and goes to as many games as possible. If anyone knows the scuttlebutt on Da Bums, it's him. So thank you, Timmy. The site is absolutely irresistible.

Be sure to skim the section called "Asshole of the Moment." It's great stuff . . . insightful and snarky.

4.11.2006

How low can they go?

Nobody outside of Las Vegas has been watching this particular bit of homegrown nastiness, so I've sat back with my proverbial bowl of popcorn and watched the show, refusing to air it out so people in other cities can see how awful our local politicians really are.

After all, the kind of political corruption trial we got was the exact kind you'd expect: County Commissioners took bribes from a strip club owner in exchange for favorable votes.

When this first broke, I shrugged. The Commissioners that got tagged were absolutely no surprise. You'd heard, "under the radar" of course, of all types of shady dealings. So Federal charges were just the inevitable stop in their illustrious political careers.

Daily, as the trial wore on, I'd read the juicy headlines. My favorite so far was "Dario Never Paid," in reference to the comped drinks, lap dances and who knows what else he got on his frequent visits to Galardi clubs.

Until now. What I thought couldn't get any crappier just did.

PUBLIC CORRUPTION CASE: Galardi names more officials

Ex-strip club owner says former commissioner provided sex


Former strip club owner Michael Galardi rattled off a list of public officials Monday to whom he said he made cash payments and confirmed that he had several sexual encounters with former Clark County Commissioner Erin Kenny.

Galardi stunned the courtroom when he testified that Kenny performed oral sex on him about six times during the time she served on the County Commission and took cash bribes to lobby for legislation beneficial to his topless club empire.

"Oh, for heaven's sake," a woman in the federal courtroom audience muttered after Galardi's admission.


My sentiments exactly, lady. Ew. Just ew.

It's disgusting enough that Galardi shelled out hundreds of thousands of dollars to public officials (whether in cash bribes or "services rendered"). But this, somehow, made the whole horrid affair just a little shittier.

Just to let you know, Kenny is a government witness. She got in a room with the FBI and started singing.

But now, I'm thinking of a local political cartoon I saw when Erin Kenny's deal first made the papers. In it, she was seen in silhouette behind a glass "FBI" door. And she was on her knees.

I'm sure the artist knew even then what she was all about.

Nevada politics is a dirty little business, made even dirtier by those who have the cash and the power. When those who deal in vice are the ones lobbying the officials, it's only a matter of time before our public buildings become cesspools.

I'm not surprised. Not at all. But I do feel a little dirtier.

Ew. Just frickin' ew.

4.10.2006

The Birthday was successful

I'm still alive.

This week, I'm home with the boy, who's on Spring Break.

But work is already calling, so I suppose I'm NOT on break.

Bleah.