Mr. Macaroni

Last night, I had a dream about a job interview. This is not surprising, since I had an actual job interview yesterday. In fact my real-life interview provided the setting for the interview in my dream, which occurred in the dream world doppelgänger of the building I visited.

In the dream, I was brought to a small conference room where I awaited the person I would be meeting with. I had copies of my resume, a leather portfolio with a notepad… the standard job interview gear. Not long after I sat down, a man came into the room. I stood.

“You must be Mike.” He said, extending his hand to me “I’m Titty Macaroni”

I thought I might have misunderstood him, so I played it safe.

“Mr. Macaroni, nice to meet you.” We shook hands

“Oh, please, Mr. Macaroni is my father, call me Titty.”

I still couldn’t quite make out if he was saying “Titty” or “Teddy” and we hadn’t talked enough for me to determine if he had any sort of accent that might have made “Teddy” sound like “Titty”. I strategized that I would attempt to steer conversation in a way that I would never have to refer to him by name until I knew for sure, and possibly after that, should his name truly turn out to be Titty.

As it often happens in an interview, he handed me his business card. Sure enough, his name was clearly printed on the card as Titty Macaroni. Fighting the urge not to laugh, I placed his business card in one of the little pockets of my portfolio, face down, so I would not see his printed name. It was going to hard enough to keep from laughing until after the interview. I also wanted to keep the card not only for his contact information to send a follow-up thank you letter, but also as proof to my friends and family that I actually met a guy named (snicker, snicker) Titty Macaroni.

We sat back down, and through the magic of dreams, the conference room had suddenly turned into his office. I might as well have left his business card face up at this point, since there were many instances of his name plastered all over the office. I chewed on the inside of my cheek to keep from smirking, or worse, laughing. On the walls were various diplomas, certificates, and plaques proudly emblazoned with the name Titty Macaroni.

I considered just leaving… getting out of there, but instead decided to tough it out. I did not realize that I was dreaming at this point and wasn’t willing to completely blow a job interview because I couldn’t stop thinking like a 14 year old. But I felt like I was Beavis without Butthead.

We sat and began discussing the position. If anything, I’m sure he put in his notes that I maintained good eye contact. I had to. If I looked anywhere other than his eyes, I would see one of the diplomas or certificates or some other reminder of his name. I stared directly at him as we talked.

Then Suddenly…

About 5 minutes into the interview the cell phone on his desk began to vibrate and his custom ring tone filled the room.

“Titty Macaroooooooooooooooooooh Neeeeeeeeeeeeeeee?”  the sound of someone calling to him from a distance came from his phone’s tiny speaker.  It was if some one was standing on their front porch calling little Titty to come home for dinner. “Titty Macaroooooooooooooooooooh Neeeeeeeeeeeeeeee? Titty Macaroooooooooooooooooooh Neeeeeeeeeeeeeeee?”

A man can only take so much. I laughed out loud and woke myself up. I’m sure I didn’t get the job, most likely not the real life one, and certainly not the dream one with Mr. Macaroni.

So Now…

I am living in fear now. There will be future real life job interviews and I am certain I can rest assured that none of them will be with a person named Titty Macaroni. But I know how my mind works. Just being in a job interview situation will make me think of this dream, that name, the ring tone, and it will be a struggle not to laugh.

On the other hand, I could probably stand to loosen up a bit in these interviews. Perhaps this is a message from my sub-conscious, telling me to stop being so self-conscious. Maybe my next interview will be lighter and more conversational. Possibly in their notes, the interviewer will write “Very pleasant guy, he smiles quite a bit.”

If that ends up being the case, I thank you Mr. Titty Macaroni. You have done me a silly service that I will never be able to repay.

Pay it forward

Loot Beer

If there is one thing I’m the most proud and ashamed of, it’s my uncanny ability to completely embarrass myself in front of Asian people…

I am, by no means, a racist. I have no ill-will toward Asian people, any people really, but there have been many, many instances where I have made myself look like a complete ass in front of Asians. It is not limited to people who trace their lineage back to Japan, China, Korea, etc… No, my ability stretches to Southeast Asia, India, Pakistan and so forth. Perhaps I am subconsciously trying to make myself look like a complete idiot to the whole world, working from east to west. Perhaps once I have worked my way around the globe, I will finally do something that will leave residents of California absolutely flabbergasted shortly before my death.

It started back when I was a kid of course, when my parents would periodically take my brother and I to a Chinese restaurant. I was not exposed to Asian people, food or culture in my neighborhood, so it was exotic and different and therefore funny to me at 6 years old. I think everyone has done that sort of thing as a kid. The waiter takes your order, leaves the table and you laugh at what he said, how he said it, whatever.

The worst time for me was when my family went to a Pizza Hut and we had a very nice waitress in her early 50’s of Asian descent. She spoke English, but with a distinct and rather stereotypical accent. We ordered our pizza and the waitress asked my mother what kind of dressing she wanted on her “sarrid”.

I should also explain that things that are only slightly funny are amplified in humor simply by the presence of my father and brother, and they have always gotten great joy out of reducing me to a ball on the floor, tears streaming from my eyes, my laughs becoming groans from sore diaphragm muscles.

I got the “sarrid” laughs out of my system after about 10 minutes, when the waitress returned asking if my brother or I wanted more “Loot Beer”. We all waited until she left before erupting again. I was unable to stop laughing and the waitress, not realizing that she was causing it suggested that maybe I was drinking real beer instead of Loot Beer.

As luck would have it, they accidentally burned our pizza that night and had to make a new one. The waitress apologized, asking if any of us would like a sarrid while we waited. I had just taken a sip of my drink and ended up spitting loot beer across the table. Danny Thomas would have been proud. I was outside in a coughing and laughing fit when the pizza finally arrived.

Flash forward about 30 years…

I’m in Sam’s Club with my son Cosmo, who was then about 4 years old. He was in the cart, I was pushing and we had both learned several months earlier that he should not kick his feet suddenly while riding in the cart, because it hurts daddy in a way that makes him need to sit down for a while.

Cosmo, like most 4 year olds in the days since VCR’s were invented, had a habit of latching on to a particular video and watching it over and over for several weeks or months. Cosmo’s movie was The Karate Kid, starring Ralph Macchio. It’s a good movie, and Cosmo would watch it an average of 2 times a day.

So, we were having a good time shopping, joking and so forth. We weren’t in a hurry just hanging out. Something we were talking about made me make a reference to the “Crane Technique” that Daniel does in The Karate Kid.

“What? Crane Technique? What’s that?” Cosmo asked

“You know, from The Karate Kid?”

“No…” Cosmo looked at me as if I was suddenly speaking French.

“Remember? At the end of the movie? Just before Daniel wins the tournament?” I reminded.

“No, I don’t think that is in The Karate Kid.”

“Cosmo, it’s only the biggest part of the movie”

“Maybe I haven’t seen that part.”

“You have, remember? Daniel is in the tournament, fighting that mean kid from his school”

He was now looking at me as if I had a horn growing out of my forehead…

“Coz…” I was determined to make him remember. “The kid kicks Daniel in the leg and he can’t stand on it, remember?”

I looked up and down the aisle, no one was there, so I demonstrated. I stood on one leg, with the other bent in front of me. I raised both of my arms above my head like large wings. I’m sure YOU know what I’m talking about, but here’s a picture from that scene…

 

This is the Crane position. There is no other reason for anyone to ever stand in this position other than in a fighting situation.

 

I got into full Crane Technique position. It’s not a position that can be mistaken for something else. When someone sees someone doing it, they know it is the Crane Technique position from The Karate Kid. It’s not a normal position to stand in, especially not in the aisle of Sam’s Club, and particularly not for a 35 year old man who is obviously not a martial artist. For good measure, I added a kung-fu movie sound, the one that Bruce Lee would make as he was getting ready to strike. You know the one: “AWWWWWwwwww!”

At that exact moment, the man who rolls sushi at our local supermarket walked into the aisle. He was wearing the full, traditional Japanese uniform they made him wear. I’m sure he had been sent to Sam’s Club to pick up some supplies, and he was taking a short cut across the store. And as fate would have it, he came down the very aisle where I was, finding himself standing about 7 feet away from me, in the Crane position, calling him out, mid-“AWWWWWwwwww!”

I must have not looked too threatening as he just smiled and walked past me. He obviously sensed no danger of me suddenly leaping up and kicking him in the forehead.

Suddenly, Cosmo remembered the scene I was talking about, but was too busy laughing his tiny ass off at me as if I had just offered him some sarrid or loot beer. He couldn’t even tell the cashier what he was laughing about. In the car, he was able to gasp out “I can’t wait to tell Mom!” Which he did, before popping The Karate Kid in the VCR again.

Let’s All Go To The Circus

 

Yes, when I was 5 years old, I liked to comb my hair so it looked like the Bank of America logo.

 

That’s me at my 5^th birthday party. At that party, apart from the Johnny Lightning Race Car Driver Helmet and Goggles in the picture, I received a small record player. It was by no means a quality piece of audio equipment, but it wasn’t a toy either. It was about the size of a very small suitcase; in fact it had a handle on it and a clasp to keep the lid shut when not in use. It was made of what I think was wood and was covered in a leather-textured contact paper, the bottom half blue, the top half white.

There were 4 speed settings on the record player and I was taught how to tell which speed I should put it on for each of the records I had gotten with it. There was the 45rpm, which was used for the smaller small records with the large hole and 33rpm, for the larger records with small hole.

But there were two other speeds as well: 78rpm and 16 rpm. I would later learn that 78rpm was an old standard speed that even then, in 1969, was about 40 years obsolete. But I was prepared, in the unlikely case I got bit by the Rudy Valee bug, say, in second grade. I have never seen or heard of a record that needed to be played at 16 rpm

But I took advantage of all four speeds. Sure, I enjoyed all my records at the proper speed, but change the speed and you arrived in comedy heaven. Any given artist could be converted to The Chipmunks with just a flip of a lever. A song meant to be played at 33, sounded silly when played at 45 or 16, but it was almost pants-wetting funny at 78. Similarly a 45 of The Lion Sleeps Tonight, played at 16 sounded remarkably like something you might hear a whale say on a National Geographic special.

I blatantly ignored my parents’ and my brother’s warnings of “You are going to ruin your records doing that.” I didn’t care, I loved it. I even learned that I could turn the records the wrong way with my finger and a whole new world of silliness opened up to me.

I should point out here that I have never outgrown this. To this day, I still find Spike Jones’ Cocktails For Two played backwards on my computer to be one of the funniest things ever.

I received several records that same day, what good is a record player if you don’t have records, and I was thrilled to have my own music, as bad as it was.

And it was bad…

One of my favorite records I received was called Look Out For The Batman and recently, through the glory of the internet, I became reacquainted with the song. Give it a listen at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DnRoEQFBWwA

 

I forget the other records I got with the exception of one: Let’s All Go To The Circus by The Big Top Singers. I don’t remember the songs at all, and when I found them on the internet, the links to mp3’s brought me to a page saying that the FBI had shut that site down due to copyright laws. That’s good use of the FBI’s time don’t you think? Never mind organized crime, it’s important The Big Top Singers don’t get screwed over)

But oh, I remember that album cover…

 

Imagine my horror!!!

 

Keep in mind that the actual album cover was 12”x12” and you can imagine the horror. That clown used to creep the ever lovin’ piss out of me. I remember having nightmares about that smiling bastard. The tiger never bothered me much. Yes, he was roaring and baring his fangs, but to me it was like he was warning me to stay away from that clown. If you look to the right of the clown’s collar, it appears that the international logo for the men’s rest room is trying to fend him off as well. Even the elephant has reared up and is spitting little red and pink balls at him! I always perceived the trapeze artists and the ladies on the horses as being in some sort of combat with the clown as well.

The seal should be commended for his ability to line up the red/yellow border of the ball with the red/yellow border of the backdrop, but to me, that is not a circus act, that’s just him being anal retentive. I was never quite sure what the guy in the powder blue tux was doing, but he seemed to be very firmly attached to the seal. The woman next to him seems to be saying “Hey, this is all we got folks, take it or leave it.”

But my favorite part of this album cover is the monkey. He just has this air of calm pleasant indifference about him. It’s like he’s saying “Yeah… well, I only have to put up with this stuff for another year, then I’ll have enough tuition money to go back to law school.”

 

Random Sights and Rants

It has been a strange couple of days. I’ve seen and heard some strange stuff. I have felt a wide range of emotions. There is no common thread here just off-loading things in no particular order

• For the person who threw me under the bus at work this morning (not literally): You DID TOO say that dammit!!! Not a direct quote, no, but I DID say that I was paraphrasing, so shut the hell up, YOU are making this an issue. So just stop it! (thank you for letting me get that off my chest)
• When I was leaving the house for work yesterday, my son Max (11) was talking to me and was jumping from subject to subject as he tends to do. He told me that one time he read something about a set of Siamese twins that were 5 months apart… yes, one was 5 months older than the other…I asked him how something like that happens and he told me it was caused by “misinformed sperm”

  The rest of the day, I was haunted by a vision, not of misinformed sperm, but of a woman with one half of her conjoined twins hanging out of her for 5 months. I started thinking about the logistics of it all… the discomfort, the awkwardness of showing off the new baby, and of course the unique wardrobe challenges.

  I’m not a doctor, but I would advise any women reading this who may be thinking of starting or expanding her family to talk with her doctor and discuss a contingency plan in the event this happens to you. There is a lot of misinformation out there, so it’s not surprising that it has spread to sperm. 5 months is a long time, discuss a plan to have labor induced if the younger of your conjoined twins does not arrive after a few weeks.

• I’ve learned that while it is lots of fun to do, speaking in the voice of Detective Holder from AMC’s The Killing and saying “Linden” at the end of all your sentences will annoy your family very quickly.
• Every time I hear a commercial for vitamin supplements that contain “Glucosamine and Chondroitin”,  I think of how cool it would be to walk through a pharmacy with Jerry Lewis and have him pronounce the names of everything.
• Driving out of my neighborhood the other day, I could not help but notice the Hammer of Thor in on of my neighbors’ front yard. It just struck me funny, I wasn’t expecting to see that. But Andrew Ross lives there and he’s a really cool kid, so I’m okay with him being the Norse God of Thunder.

I promise I’ll have a new post with some actual substance to it soon.