Just a Reminder:

The places to go are

http://www.facebook.com/brianbreed
http://www.twitter.com/brianbreed
http://www.themilieu.com

Lessons Learned in Vegas: Part 1

1. It's hotter at 5pm than it is at 12pm.

2. You will see many asses. There is no avoiding asses in Las Vegas. In fact, Las Vegas loosely translates to "The Asses" in Spanish.

3. The Union looks mostly harmless, but is in fact big and scary.

4. Union workers look big and scary, but are in fact mostly harmless.

5. All casinos are the same.

6. If you're short-stacked. never take your 8/10 suited against the biggest stack, even when you have a great flop. He will get the King he needs on the River.

7. Addicts are literally plugged into the slot machines.

8. A job that appears small will turn out big. A job that appear big will turn out bigger.

[stay tuned for more]
-brian

How To: Meet A Celebrity

We like celebrities. We do. But we don't know how to treat them right.

People do very strange things when they meet celebrities. It doesn't matter who the person is, or who the celebrity is. Almost universally, "fans" (conceptual or otherwise) act different around the famous. There are three basic responses.

A: The Scathing Amateur Critic
Some people, whether they dislike the actor, they don't know how to be nice, or (more likely) because they want to feel superior choose to debase the actor. These proud few insult the actor's choices in films, demean his talents as a performing artist, insinuate that his parents were never married, and suggest that a dog, a pile of feces, or (on the same level) even they could act better than the actor.

B: The "HeyYou'reLikeMe(BeMyFriendPleaseSoThenICanTellPeopleIKnowYou[AndCanValidateMyOwnSelf{WorthByPretendingToRespectYours)]}" Coolheaded Patron of the Arts
This person may or may not like the actor whom he meets, but will nonetheless instantly become self-assured and sympathetic upon meeting the celebrity. He'll say things like, "Hey man, I like your work," or "What's up?" or even offer a simple "Yo's." This fan's actions intone that he sees the celebrity as a real person, not just as a Hollywood prop. But what this guy really wants is to be invited to the next big Hollywood shindig. He replaces one type of objectification (namely, seeing an actor as a prop) for another (that is, seeing the actor as a golden ticket).

He almost never gets his wish.

C: The Choir
I call the third group the choir for two reasons: (1) they are the majority of the fan base, and (2) they can't stop praising the actor. They often scream, say things like "I can't believe it's [THAT CELEBRITY I LOVE]," or "SIGN MY BREASTS!" As you can guess, they're more often female than male. I don't know why this is. It's probably because guys think they win points by "being cool."

By the way, they don't.

Real Life
So the other day, when I met Johnny Knoxville, I saw this principle in action.

The scene: my coworkers and I are in a box truck on the Paramount Studios lot. We are waiting to set expensive drape for a camera show, wherein a popular company will peddle their wares to the cinematography departments at Paramount. We are waiting to receive our security badges while a drug dog sniffs our equipment (I guess they don't have one of those at the celebrity parking lots… ZING).

I see a man wearing a button-down Budweiser shirt. I note his spiky hair, lanky build, and aviator sunglasses. I ask a coworker… "Is that Johnny Knoxville?"

My coworker says, "Holy shit… that is Johnny Knoxville!"

He proceeds to go C on Johnny. He yells "Johnny! JOHNNY! YO JOHNNY! I LOVE YOU MAN!"

Johnny waves and smiles politely.

The other worker in the truck leans out the window and says, "What's up John-eeee!" pretending to be familiar with the guy. We see B in action here.

I feel compelled to do something. Now, I'm not a huge fan of Johnny's Knoxville's work, but I'm not the kind of guy to go depreciating the actor for what he does. After all, he's taken softballs to the groin from pro pitchers before. I mean, that takes some kind of talent.

So A is out of the options for me. B would be a lie (I don't know him, and I know I'm not cool), and C just demeans us all. So I go for the secret option:

D: The Tautologizer
Tautologizers do exactly what they sound like: they state an obvious truth as if it were a point in question.

I say (in my most sympathetic and reassuring voice): "Johnny! Hey! You have fans Johnny! Fans!"

This, by a surprising stroke of fortune, makes Johnny laugh and walk over to our box truck and give us all the knuckle. "Hey guys," he says, "thanks for supporting me."

After that, I act B on the outside, but I am all C on the inside.

[I love you JOHNNY!]
-brian

a great quotation

'The only true currency in this bankrupt world is what you share with someone when you're uncool."

-Lester Bangs, Almost Famous

[that's that]
-brian

How To Have An Adventure #47: In Los Angeles

1. Acquire a group of friends.
2. Find a free Saturday.
3. Plan the night before to go to a hip Hollywood restaurant for breakfast.
4. Set the meeting time at 10:30 a.m.
5. Proceed to stay up until 5:00 a.m.
6. Wake up at 10:00 a.m.
7. Skip the shower. You smell fresh already!
8. Arrive at your friends' house.
9. Drive towards LA.
10. Get stuck in world-famous LA traffic.
11. Get lost on world-famous LA streets.
12. Arrive at hip Hollywood restaurant in time for lunch.
13. Mock the pretentious snoblets.
14. Eat your sandwich and savor its taste.
15. Get up to go (after paying your check).
16. Go outside.
17. Notice that your car is about to be up on a tow truck.
18. Plead with the man to lower your vehicle.
19. Listen to him charge you $150 for the back-breaking task of lowering the car's front wheels back to the ground.
20. Say something about extortion as you begrudgingly pay him.
21. Get a call.
22. Learn that your house has been robbed.
23. See a pattern here.

[miffed out]
-brian

IKEA is Scandanavian for EVIL

My friend Tim picked up a "build your own chair set" from IKEA today.

"How much did the chair cost, bud?" I said.

"Oh, not too much. Only fifty for the chair and thirty for the footstool."

It took a moment for those numbers to set in.

"How much?" I said.

"Only eighty dollars for the pair!" Tim said with pride.

I was left stupefied. How is eighty dollars a good deal for a chair and footstool? A chair and a footstool that you have to build?

"That sounds expensive, Tim," I said.

"It's not," he reassured me. "Now help me build it!"

I looked at the design and thought to myself, "Boy, this looks really simplistic for eighty bucks." But, being a good friend, I lent Tim my masculine prowess and went to it.

It was great. The building of the chair took about fifteen minutes, and the accompanying footstool took only ten. I looked (and tried out) the finished product, and realized how comfortable and sleek it was.

I had been wrong before. IKEA’s furniture isn’t "simplistic"—it’s "minimalist." And "minimalist" is okay. It means that the thing is straightforward and functional, not flashy and annoying. Plus, I enjoyed building the chair. It was fun. And the finished product was really nice.

It's odd how IKEA indulges the masculine impulses to build and use tools, and yet bends them towards creating something stylish. With products from IKEA, strength really meets taste. And for only eighty bucks? Suddenly the numbers didn't sound so high.

"I could get used to this," I said to Tim.

"The chair?" he replied.

"Well, yeah, but also building my own good-looking stuff."

"Yeah," Tim said. "I love IKEA."

I loved IKEA too. For a moment.

But that moment passed, and with it went my newfound affection for the Swedish furniture people. I was walking out of the room when it hit me.

IKEA was evil.

They're vice peddlers. Think about it: the first hit of heroine is always free. Why? Because the dealer knows that the buyer will come back for more. You're hooked after one taste. IKEA's the same way. "I'll just get one chair," you think. But you end up coming home with a chair, a footstool, a bed frame, and a bookshelf. Not because you need them, but because you feel good when you finish making them.

It's evil. It's insidious. It's… a damn genius marketing strategy. That's what it is.

IKEA is a horrible company.

And yet so good… so very good. Um… I've got to go. I think I'm just going to look at the IKEA website… just to see if my suspicions are correct, of course. Research. You know.

[where's my VISA?]
-brian

text size = too big

Today I was on my parents' computer, reading a paper I wrote, and just felt like something was wrong with it. I got to this passage:

"What, though, is reader-response criticism? The question requires no short answer. Reader-response criticism is the academic explanation of what we do every time we take up a book for leisure reading: it is an investigation of what actually happens¾not what might, ought to, or could occur in a reader. Reader-response is a loose affiliation of theorists around one key belief¾'The reader is a major player in the making of a text.'"

If you didn't read that [and I wouldn't blame you], it was a brief introduction to reader-response theory criticism. I honestly think it's a well-composed paragraph. I use just the right number of big words to make it look smart, and just enough small ones to make it look friendly. Smart and friendly. Yay!


But it looked dumb and silly to me when I was reading it. Now, on my [now broken] laptop, the text looked just fine. So I knew it wasn't the text itself. I checked my parents' word processor settings, and I noticed what it was:

My parents have the text magnification set to a ridiculous level. Read the paragraph again like this...

"What, though, is reader-response criticism? The question requires no short answer. Reader-response criticism is the academic explanation of what we do every time we take up a book for leisure reading: it is an investigation of what actually happens, and not what might, ought to, or could occur in a reader. Reader-response is a loose affiliation of theorists around one key belief: 'The reader is a major player in the making of a text.'"

The point being, the bigger the text size, the more stupid whatever you have to say looks.

[consider and grow.]
-brian