The Tory Party

First Assignment: The Dairy Case

Heh heh heh. My first writing assignment was a short narrative told visually (which is to say, what you see is what you get — no internal monologues and shenanigans). I daresay I am the grand high champion of WYSISYG writing, even though that means the characters are always glancing and looking and walking and crossing and it’s a bit demented to read (please consult the Shanda and Dan canon for evidence).

Anyway. I thought y`all might get a snerk out of this. This is what my poor professors are up against.

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   Berkeley consulted his list. He was a regular looking white-collar dude, a little soft at the neck and middle, still wearing his suit from the office, but the light of the dairy case was yellow and unflattering to him. He was alone in the enormous aisle with nothing but the sound of his own asthmatic breath and an instrumental version of “Maybe I’m Amazed.” He lightly bounced his hand-cart on his knee in thought.

   The bottom of the list said “YOGURT.” Berkeley looked at the yogurts. There was a lot to look at. There was plain and fruit on the bottom and fruit mixed in and tubs and cups and plastic lids and foil lids and full fat and non-fat and God help me nowadays there was even low-carb. Berkeley sighed and pulled his mobile phone out of his jacket pocket. Immediately, as if summoned, a young woman appeared at his elbow, and he started so badly he nearly dropped the phone.

   She was college age, maybe older, with two big white girl afro puffs like a Fraggle. She wore a tight tank top with a cow on it for interest and a button-down shirt over it for modesty. She had kohl eyeliner and a hemp necklace and a corduroy skirt and Berkeley could not stop staring at her.

   “Hey,” she said. “Whatcha buying there?”

   “Yogurt.”

   “A most EXCELLENT choice!” she said, clapping her hand onto his shoulder and throwing back her head. Berkeley stared at her hand like he’d just found a dollar in a dumpster. “Protein, calcium and active yogurt cultures,” she said. “An excellent nutritional decision. But which will you choose?” She popped her gum noisily as an ellipsis.

   “That’s kind of the problem,” said Berkeley slowly.

   “Problem? That’s no problem at all. Any of these options would be suitable.” She broke eye contact to wave her arm at the dairy case in a theatrical gesture, and Berkeley took the opportunity to glance at her chest. She looked up and he snapped to attention. “Put that phone away,” she said. He obeyed. “What I would recommend is one of each, my health-conscious friend, my lactose-intelligent compatriot. Each one has its merits as you or your significant other will certainly find. See the ‘YOGURT’ on your list not as a problem - a communication breakdown, a passive-aggressive test of your knowledge - but as an opportunity. Seize that opportunity, sir. Seize it by the convenient individual serving size.”

   Here she cleared her throat and stepped back. The light in the aisle seemed white now, almost holy. Berkeley squared his shoulders, straightened his spine, steadied his gaze and filled his basket with yogurt as high as it would pile. He looked at the girl with the afro puffs and gave her a stiff nod. She nodded back and raised him a small salute. He marched down the aisle out of sight, his basket so heavy he had to hold it with both hands.

   When he was gone, the girl stepped back toward the shadows of the beer case. There she pulled a pen and notepad out of her back pocket and wrote furiously. She flipped it closed. The cover read “NATIONAL DAIRY COUNCIL, Guerilla Division.”

   Just then a man in a work shirt and blue jeans appeared in the aisle, studying the cheeses and the list in his hand with a furrowed brow. The girl with the afro puffs smiled and watched, chewing the end of her pen.

Random Thoughts V

• Driving from Durham to Winston-Salem I passed an Embassy Suites that had the “B” light burned out. So it said “EM ASSY SUITES” in big red letters. Heh heh heh. “So whar`d you stay when you went down?” “Oh, you know, `em assy suites.” Heh.
• Good idea: storing Halloween stuffs in the attic. Bad idea: including candles in that box. Which is up there all summer. In North Carolina. Ewwww. I was able to save a ceramic candle holder, which was the only item I was worried about, so all is well. The candles even stained me inflatable pumpkin cooler so it looks way scarier. Rock. Of course, I could make it too so scary by putting Bud Light in there instead of Yuengling. Yee!
• These would make good band names:
  • Page Fault and the Memory Leaks
  • Critical Stop
  • The Pee Shivers
• D`you think people are holding back dogs? Like, they could have developed a social system as sophisticated as ours if we hadn’t teamed up with them and used them and bred them and stuff? Maybe this is what “The Secret Lives of the Monster Dogs” is about, and I am ridiculous and unoriginal. Please advise.
• Cyndi Lauper’s “Change of Heart” could totally be a lost track from Kate Bush’s “The Red Shoes.” I think a baton got passed somewhere along the line. Cyndi Lauper is cool. Remember when that bird pooed in her mouth and she just wiped her mouth and kept singing? That was awesome. You think Lil` Flip or somebody would play through that?
• I`m thinking about making a sexy music mix, and I wouldn’t mind some suggestions. The idea is that the songs would have to be ambient and unobtrusive, and without any lyric that might make you giggle or stop and think about what you have to do at work tomorrow. And no “love you forever” stuff — this is an early stage mix — that’s why U2’s “All I Want Is You” doesn’t make the cut. You`ll notice most of my picks are by female artists, but I figger, if I`m putting on the music, it makes sense to have a female voice `n` stuff. Points for songs that build to a climax. Double points for songs I already own. Here’s what I got so far (man, I listen to girlypants music):
  • Song of Solomon — Kate Bush
  • Emotional — Bjork
  • Mount Washington — Beth Orton
  • Lover You Should Have Come Over — Jeff Buckley
  • Sweet Surrender — Sarah MacLachlan
  • Ghost — Live
  • Spring Haze — Tori Amos
  • Indifference — Pearl Jam
  • Apart — Cure (or are these last two just big downers?)
• If someone enjoys gossiping *with* you *about* someone else, they`ll also enjoy gossiping *about* you *with* someone else. Gossip telegraphs asshat. Don’t get sucked into it.
• Watched the end of Titanic last night, which was good as hell and I don’t care what anybody says I totally got sneefy all over again. Also, Ioan Gruffudd was in it I swear as the lifeboat captain who goes back. IE is taking forever on this computer so I can’t bust out imDb to check, so please confirm or deny.
• I have my first class in a half an hour and I am pretty much freaking out.

Tory`s School of Socialization: Mingling

Can I write this article in 15 minutes? Let’s find out.

Today’s lesson is about the mingling phase. I rule in the mingling phase. Later phases where confrontation and conflict resolution come in don’t work for me so much, but mingling — rock on.

I’ve realized I have a four-pronged plan for determining whether I`m going to be best friends forever with someone. And here’s how it goes.

ITEM 1: Ask insightful questions.

This doesn’t have to blow any minds. But if somebody was in California yesterday, you might ask, oh, I dunno, if they’ve got any jet lag. Or like one time I was talking to a woman who used to commute from Greensboro to Chapel Hill for school, and I said says I, “Ooh, so you were driving into the sun both ways?” And she got so excited because YES the sun on I-40 is awful, and although I totally cheated and knew about driving to Greensboro at sunset already and stuff it was a great moment and clicking was extremely high and we were able to go right to item 2.

ITEM 2: Refer to what has been said before.

Make it like a Seinfeld episode where the end comes around to what happened at the beginning. If someone says they came from a real small town, and someone else says later that everybody has an ice cream shop in their hometown that they think is the best, then you can say “Oh ho, except for so-and-so” (So and So! Whatsherface! GRASPED.) Okay, that’s a pretty lame example, but if you make a joke based on something said 20 minutes ago then there will be great rejoicing in the land.

ITEM 3: Gentle negging.

If someone successfully makes it through the first two stages — they’re responsive to it, maybe they do it themselves — then you give `em a leeeetle bit of negative attention. Make fun of them just a leetle bit, to show you care. If they’re leading you somewhere and get a little bit lost, razz `em a little. But neg `em only on things that 1) could happen to anyone and 2) you know don’t bother them. And only briefly. Razz `em, then razz yourself, then move on.

ITEM 4: Random references

Okay. You know what I do on this site. Random references all the time all over the map that make up for what they lack in funny with speed and persistence. Make `em fast, make `em obscure and forget `em if they don’t make anybody laugh, but be prepared to explain them in a way that doesn’t make you look like a jackass if someone asks. So that tends to leave out the Noam Chomsky and the obscure local band you saw last week.

Sound terribly simple and dumb? Oh no. Many people never get past the second item. A whole lot of people — especially, oh, I dunno, young people, people in the arts — are what I`d call active but not reactive. They get so excited talking about themselves that there’s not enough dialogue to get past item 2. But sometimes you run into someone so magnificently cool that THEY do these items to YOU. F`rinstance, my heckling partner skipped item 3 altogether and jumped to making references to, ooh, I dunno, something I`m just a leetle bit interested in, like, oh, Tex Avery cartoons, and the amount of pee ensuing was immeasurable. Thank God it was via email. Random pee is what email is for.

This wasn’t very funny. I apologize. My 15 minutes are up. I`ll be funnier tomorrow.

CRESCENT FRESH.

Entrapment

It’s hecklin` time again! I got to dial the heckle-ometer up to 11 before I become suitably humbled by the movie-making experience and can never heckle again.

Entrapment. What a wasted opportunity. I had seen it when it came out, but they were showing it at the film school theater (tra la la I`m a pretty pretty film school princess) so I got my Catherine Zeta on again. It was weirdly better the second time — maybe because of the whole “holy crap I`m in film school” experience — but that’s not going to hold back the heckling. Oh no. Hold on to your Samuel L. Butts.

The camera’s over there, love.

The Big Stuff

• If MacDougal (Sean Connery) knows all along that Gin (Catherine Zeta — nice character name WTF) is a real thief, and he’s really hornswaggling her and stuff, then what’s up with the whole bit where he taps the pay phone down the street from his castle (?) and then menaces her on the castle wall? This doesn’t make sense on two fronts: ONE, when we’re supposed to think she’s the agent and he’s the thief, why wouldn’t he give her the boot the moment he finds out she’s working with the Feds? Is he supposed to be taken with her hotness? Because that’s not how it seems at all. TWO, when you realize *he’s* the agent and *she’s* the thief, why does he tap the phone? He already knows everything that’s going on. And why try to frighten her? Maybe he’s trying to scare her off so she won’t get caught after all, but, again, that’s not how it plays out. And the hair grab and water dunk thing he does after they steal the mask — I have no idea what was supposed to be motivating him there.

  
  I can’t remember the rest, but your mother’s a WHOAR.

• Why does Hector Cruz (weirdly played an Anglo Saxon — like, change your character’s name or cast accordingly, dudes — but it’s Will Patton who went to NCSA so rock) show up in Jakarta to try to interrupt the wacky milennium robbery? Doesn’t he want them to successfully complete it or something? And if he really wanted to catch them, like it seems when he sends in the police, couldn’t he have done that earlier, before they lost sight of them? Not being able to see somebody isn’t exactly probable cause.
• Why doesn’t MacDougal give Gin up at any point in the heist rather than risk both their lives in the New Year’s light string Tarzan swing?
• No Fed sticks around with Mac after Gin disappears on the subway? Um. Might want to keep a dude with him or something.
• Is everybody supposed to be Feds, or insurance agents, or Federal insurance agents, or what?

The Little Stuff (aka the funnest stuff)

• Gin says something about Mac’s contemporary art. Says Mac, “You sound surprised.” Says Gin, “No, it’s just not what I expected.” Um. Played for laughs? No.
• The dress Mac buys for Gin is TERRIBLE. She opens up the box and says “it’s beautiful” (mmm, red and orange), and then she puts it on and it looks like Laffy Taffy. It’s like something Tori Amos would wear.
• Gin doing back-walkovers and splits on a beam in Mac’s ceiling: no problem. Gin trying to walk on the edge of a big-ass castle wall — suddenly spookily unsteady. Ooh wacky suspense!
• During the Chinese-mask-heist training montage, Mac counts and Gin says “bang,” like this: “One.” “Bang.” “Two.” “Bang.” “Three.” “Bang.” “Four.” And then Gin says nothing. Then she gets real frustrated and says “Bang! I forgot, okay?” Played for laughs? No. It’s not like she said “bang” one too many times, or she forgot what came next. She forgot to say “bang” again. She’s not coming off as too smart, but there’s more of that coming.
• Hector Cruz (Will Patton) shakes up Ving Rhames. Much respect to Will Patton but shaw right. I dunno if Evander Holyfield could shake up Ving Rhames.
• When Mac and Gin meet at the train station at the end, they’re both wearing beige suits to blend in to the scenery and contrast with the Feds in a Matrixy way. It looks cool but it’s terribly silly — “Hey, don’t forget to wear beige.” Silly.
• The whole going through the laser grid thing. I just didn’t get that. You never got to see what the whole grid looked like, and I think that’s on purpose. Catherine Zeta’s bends and twists look mighty hot, don’t get me wrong, but I know of no reason why she`d have to do them. Furthermore, she repeatedly breaks lasers that are supposed to be there. Furthermore, Mac’s all like, “I`ll be your eyes,” and he gives her hardly any guidance at all. Furthermore, she gets the mask, and there’s like no time left before the guard gets there, and then Mac says, “Now get out of there, fast.” Um. Maybe she should have used the way she got out of there to be the way she got in, and avoided the whole time-consuming laser issue altogether? But I be bitchy.
• In Malaysia, some laptop gets stuck behind some weird automatically closing steel doors in the top of a desk. Whoa, that’s a hell of a document control room. So Gin is all worried about the CD in the laptop, and says, “If they find the CD, we’re dead!” And I`m all like, why? What is the CD going to tell them that your data transfers didn’t? You think they’ve got TWO sets of crunch-em-up metal doors in this room and they don’t have an audit trail? What, does your CD say “Property of Catherine Zeta Jones’s character” on it?
• Gin’s going to steal $8 billion from “hundreds” of companies that use this Malaysian bank, but the individual transactions will be so small that they won’t be noticed. Um. Superman III and Office Space weren’t skimming $8 billion, and they weren’t trying to do it in ten seconds, either. Which brings me to my favorite Gin-is-dum point:
• She’s got some device that replaces a signal from the atomic clock so that she can gain 10 seconds to do her thing to the bank computers. This is a HUGE deal in this heist and comes up several times. I`m not worried about the idea of these huge crunch-em-up metal door computers being driven by some external clock. I`m not worried about whether you could block a signal like that or what good it would do you. What got me is that Gin gets her 10 seconds by activating the thing at 11:00 PM and gaining a tenth of a second every minute between then and midnight. Does anyone else see a problem with this plan? Does Gin need to write Marilyn Vos Savant?

A-a-a-and I`m spent.