The cold is calling.

Part of my job as marketing manager/web designer/graphic designer/all-around jackass is to sell advertising. To say the least, it is not my cup of tea. I hate it. I can create a product, design the packaging, create an ad campaign and release it into the world. The part I can't do is the actual selling of it. Now this is a product I created, mind you. Now, imagine that I'm asked to sell something as impersonal and bloodless as advertising. You get the idea.

The most loathsome part of the selling process is a little thing we call in the business; cold calling.

And it's just as bad as it sounds.

This is a poem about cold calling called, Cold Call.

Unexplainably I sit here pondering the sacrifice I must make in the name of commerce. Once again, I contemplate the shedding of another fine layer of dignity and, perhaps, many others along the way as I reach boldly through the buzzing lines of technology and economics into the business ether to extract the very essence of what makes it live and breathe. The great and fabled revenue. The stuff of legend and dreams. Of backslapping and spreadsheets. Of status reports, memorandums and pen-tapping looks of approval across fingerprint-smudged glass tables and coffee mugs.

This is why I function.

For the greater good of liberally spilt red ink and upbeat financial outlooks. The brass ring. The gravy train. The ringing of bells of swollen pride and knowing nods and glances. Starched shirts misted with Axe and sweat stuffed under Structure pants with belts cinched tightly. This is the pith of men. Sales men. This is their primary objective and thus, it is mine.

It is my purpose.

Cold call.

A term so icy it could freeze the sun.

Cold call.

So murderously sounding in its’ modus operandi and sinister in ambition.

Cold.

Call.

How I dread thy name. How I loathe my own terror at your presence.

But they demand it. It demands it. The purpose. The meaning. The revenue.

So I stand poised at the ledge of the pit of despair. Preparing myself to violate and tear at others in their own privacy and calm. To intrude and pierce and cut away as my purpose grows more menacing and its’ cries more deafening. There is no looking back. That way lies death. For any man of tight slacks and stiff collar is powerless against the darkness. The seething, breathing, smirking entity of hate and hell. The timeless, ageless, faceless and immortal demon of revenue.

It calls.

So cold.

ROLLING STONE THINKS I'M AMUSING!!!

Gosh, I'm just welling up with pride here. RollingStone.com picked my comment on the controversy surrounding Beck's new album and it's release in Europe as "Comment of the Day". I won't bore you with the details, just check out this link and bask in my CONFIRMED cleverness.

http://www.rollingstone.com/rockdaily/index.php/2006/10/05/comment-
of-the-day-primitive-europeans-ban-beck/ (Sorry. You have to copy and paste.)

Now, I know I'm 30. Rolling Stone thinks I'm cool. I'm just waiting for the call from VH1 to be on "Return of the Revenge of the I Love the 80's Strikes Back".

Fingers crossed.

"Nuclear Weapons? Hey, Take It Easy, Buddy."

I really don't know what all the fuss is about Iran having having a nuclear program. I might be wrong but Iran's president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad seems like a cool guy to me. Just look at this picture. He's doing that, "Hey, you got me , you crazy guy" kinda thing. Anybody with that kind of relaxed body language just immediately puts me at ease. He looks like he'd be a riot at a bachelor party or karaoke night. Doesn't he? "Hey, buddy. You should come over sometime. I got the best hookah, man. We drink Jager and watch Caddyshack. Good times, buddy! We deal with Israel soon enough. No problem." Bush may have the reputation as a party animal, but he's alot more like one of those frat boy types that gets way too drunk, way too early and talks everybodies' ear off until they all become annoyed and ignore him. Then he sits drinking in the corner, sulking, then gets in his car and peels out leaving a Birkenstock behind on the street. Yeah, that guy. Ol' Mahmo's like the guy who teaches you a great new drinking game then gets it on with your sister. But you don't mind.

On the other hand you've got this Sting guy.

He's the pretentious dick who shows up with a bottle of mulled wine or something and proceeds to tell all the girls at the party how he loves trees and can fuck for eight hours straight. Then after he's been rejected by them all he goes up to all the guys and says, "This place is a sausage fest, man.", then puts on a CD of 16th century lute music that he recorded last week featuring toe-tappingly retarded versions of classics from his rocking past a century ago. Finally, one of the girls at the party gets drunk and desperate enough and decides to go home with him and upon leaving he says, "You can keep the disc, bro. I could tell you were feelin' it." Then goes home and proceeds to fuck the girl for eight hours straight.

By the way, Sting is actually putting out an album of 16th century lute music with new, lutey, versions of classic Police songs. Stewart Copeland rolls in his undug grave.

I Gotta See This!

Now that Juliette Lewis has retired from acting, we can only dream of what this movie would have been like.



























My money says it would have ROCKED! Good luck, Juliette.

Anna Nicole Smith's Son Dies Of Embarassment.

Sorry. Too soon?

In lighter news, Juliet Lewis has announced that she will retire from the acting world to focus on her career as, ahem, singer of the band 'Juliet and the Hot Licks'. Tickets for the farewell show go on sale tomorrow. If you are unable to attend, I have posted the picture below to give you an idea of what you will be missing, which is pretty much like her acting except now she's supported by a half- assed band instead of an embarrassed and weary cast of talented actors. (see Strange Days, Natural Born Killers, etc.) Notice the guy in the bottom-left corner simultaniously plugging his ears and flipping her the bird.
















Her heartfelt and not-at-all ludicrous portrayals of retarded people will be sadly missed by all.

Gen X v.2.0?

Like many of my generation, I have, more than somewhat, defined myself through my identification with the popular culture with which I was raised. I'm 29 years old, just old enough to have seen Star Wars during it's first theatrical run and therefore I consider myself part of the rapidly aging Generation X. Like my fellow Xers I was weened on saturday morning cartoons and Count Chocula and spent the best years of my childhood obsessing over action figures, comic books and Atari later trading those things in for punk rock, horror movies and skateboards. Anyone who knows me knows that I am fiercely proud of my pop cultural upbringing and for those who don't should know that I sport three, yes three, Star Wars tattoos and the Atari symbol on my left shoulder. Fucking scary, I know.

Tacky tattoos aside, I am the product of my generation and despite the slackers and Spin Doctors we have endured I feel we left our impression on the world in some small, plastic, candy-coated way. We forged this way with Transformers, Beastie Boys and Punky Brewsters which have all become part of the cultural lexicon. Well, not so much Punky Brewsters, but you get the point. We embraced the new, never looking back. Which is why the generation to come was doomed to completely and utterly suck ass.

To be fair to the Y's and soon the Z's they never had a chance. They were born into a fast food, Mtv, ADD world that we created. Gowing up I knew a couple of kids who took Ritalin, now they just mix it right into their sqeezable yogurt and Fruit By The Foot. Who has time to create or enjoy a culture when you're busy dodging bullets in your fucking elementary school? What can possibly come from an upbringing like that except Blink 182 and Pokemon? Nothing. So they only did what they could, they borrowed from us.

At first, I bore them no grudge. It was nice to see kids wearing Adidas Superstars and flocking to see the new Star Wars movies. I was amazed at the longevity of some of my childhood heroes and felt an enormous swelling of pride knowing my generations' culture would live on long after disco had bit the dust. But as is always the nature of the next generation, they went too far. They created a bastard child and took that annoying little fucker straight to the mall.

Now, I could sit here for days and whine about the wholesale commercialization of every idol, ideal and icon I have ever held dear. I came to terms with that a long time ago, right around the first time I saw RUN DMC in a Gap commercial. Everybody sells out. I have accpeted that. I'm just waiting for the Velvet Undergrounds' 'Sunday Morning' to show up as an IHOP jingle. It wouldn't surpirise me a bit. Frankly, I'm shocked Courtney Love never actually sold 'Smells Like Teen Spirit' to Teen Spirit. Seems like a no brainer, even for her.

What does bother me is that these ungrateful little emo punk shits have no respect for the bastardized Hot Topic garb they so unflichingly wear. I wouldn't mind that the Misfits skull has now become the Nike swoosh for the new generation of goths if they actually took the time to LISTEN to the fucking Misfits. I could understand a fourteen year old girl from Beverly Hills wearing a Ramones T-shirt if she could actually name just ONE of their albums. They actually sell reprinted Bad Brains records on vinyl at Hot Topic. WHY!!?! Who the fuck is going to buy them? Little Dylan with his $150 pair of plaid zipper pants? What's he gonna play it on, his fucking iPod? And don't tell me the chick who created that line of adorable little Emily products for precocious goths is still upset about something her boyfriend said about her cat in college. She's so dark.

But what really drove me to write this is, to me, the ultimate snub. It wasn't enough to bite the clothes of real punks past, now they're after the hair styles. I'm not just talking the Punky Color dos either, that's fuckin' passe. I'm talking about the big one. The one which that I truly thought was sacred, the mohawk. It started a while back with the 'faux hawk' or 'mock hawks', just combing the hair upwards to simulate the mohawk but without the actual commitment of shaving the head. Now they're on to the real thing. Blonde, white, suburban, college students with Abercrombie and Fitch repro t shirts, flip flops, and mohawks. What the fucking fuck?

To my generation the mohawk was the ultimate, punk, middle finger at the fashion world and society. Short of getting barbed wire implanted in your forehead their was no bigger 'fuck you' to the rest of the world. Because, back then, wearing a mohawk meant being harrassed, chased, and beaten on an almost daily basis. Basically, you were a walking target and subject to almost any form of ridicule humankind could think of. Thus, there were mohican punks who banded together in numbers against all enemies. A particularly nasty subsect of punks who were known for their nihilistic and violent acts and attitudes. If someone else hadn't already tested your mettle for wearing the mohawk that day, they would. The mohawk commanded respect because you had to have balls to wear it.

Now, I'm not a violent man. But when, I see one of these frat boy fucks walking around Westwood with his neatly trimmed little chicken hawk that he paid $85 for, I want to beat the living shit out of him. It may be tame and acceptable by everyone elses standards, but not by mine. Not to say I have ever worn one. I was never that ballsy. But I sure as hell respected the cats who did. No way do I respect these guys. Maybe it's just an L.A. thing. I really can't see these guys walking around say New York or San Francisco and getting away with it. Maybe I'm just out of touch and old fashioned. But if you ask me we need to find the last of the real mohicans and get him drunk and riled up. Fast.

Bobby Lee I'm talking about you. Shave that thing off you look ridiculous.

That Mario's A No Good Son of a Bitch!

You know.

I was just playing Donkey Kong Classics on the old Nintendo and it occured to me that I've probably spent at least a few years of my life so far, in the guise of one Dr. Mario...... Hey, what the fuck is his last name anyway? Something greasy I presume.

No, really. Have you ever read those satistics like, you spend six weeks of your life sneezing. Or 2 and a half years waiting in line. You know. Those. It got me thinkin'. Since 1982, how much time have I spent as Mario, either throwin' down with that mercilous monkey and his punk ass delinquint son or squashing mushrooms or bangin' boxes for coins whilst running around in a raccoon suit or slangin' pills, all in the name of some dumb ass princess who can't seem to stay away from sinister simhians or hallucinogenic hooligans for any length of time. I spent that long sneezing!? What the hell!!???!

Here I am, twenty three years later, still trying to improve my skills at jumping barrels. And for what?

Some stereotypical pizza tosser with a plumbing certificate and a lazy, cowardly brother with the second most common wop name on the planet, Luigi. Fuck him too. And that other little mushroom headed fuck from Mario 2.

Mario, (and his shitty John Leguizamo-esque brother), are quite possibly, the worst of all the everyman hero figures we grew up with because, for some damn reason, he just can't seem to get his shit together. How far are we going to follow this hapless fuck in his overalls as he traverses his endless and alternately sunny and pleasant to seweric and CHUD like existence? When will this dimwitted princess realize that fellas donning turtle shells bristling with spikes are NOT TO BE TRUSTED!??!!! JESUS CHRIST!!!

Princess Leia knew better than to fuck around with a Grand Moff, right? Luke figured out how to wrap up his little flap with his arch nemesis, eh? Why not this little cannolli biter? What's his deal? And why do I still care?

Oh wait. It just hit me. It's so simple. He IS the everyman hero. It's incredibly stupid, really. You see, Mario represents all of us. Because...., wait for it....., he just can't get the monkey of his back!!!!

Holy shit, I suck.

I'm sorry. Play on.

P.S. Pistons In Game Seven!!! BAD BOYS RULE!!!!

JH