Today it is very cold outside. One week ago it was unbearably hot. When faced by climatic dilemmas such as this, my freshman-year roommate at college used to pull out his hair and say, "No, this cannot be right," as he marched off into the arctic outdoors dressed in T-shirt and jogging shorts.
How to explain this? My roommate was always one to think outside the box, as long as they gave him that option. But I think there's a simpler explanation:
So I got this audition for a “Choice Hotels” ad. You know, the conglomerate behind your local Comfort Inn, Quality Inn, Sleep Inn (damn, I wish I’d been able to do that this morning). Their principal claim to shame is this series of ads featuring a glib bastardization of the Johnny Cash song, “I’ve Been Everywhere,” in which stereotypically-portrayed families of 4 (always 4, always a younger sister and older brother, dad is always fat) insert verses about their middle-American travels between the Man in Black’s refrain.
Commentary aside, I figured this was another one of those, and I figured I was a shoo-in, as my musical skills are well-documented.
Turns out, however, that even that low level of Quality (ha!) is not lame enough for the folks at Choice Hotels, and so they are embarking upon a bold new ad campaign: the “Comfort Zone” series. The premise is this: different folks find themselves in awkward situations, expressed via a “hilarious” vignette, and then the image freezes as text reading “Get back to your Comfort Zone” appears. Then, presumably, the viewer is advised of some amazing promotional rate package, available for a limited time only.
I read for two of these. The first one, entitled “Wave,” was relatively benign. In it, a young woman sees a young man (played by me) eagerly waving to her…or so she thinks. Whoops! Turns out he’s actually waving to someone directly behind her. How embarrassing! Looks like someone needs to get back to her “Comfort Zone!” (A quick aside: this is among the aspects of the acting business that I find the most idiotic. I only got this audition because I am fortunate enough to be freelancing with a “talent agency.” Ten years of ongoing acting training in emotional resonance and the vicissitudes of the human experience to convince some dudes behind a desk at an agency that I have enough talent to convincingly wave at someone for the purposes of encouraging people to stay at a modestly-priced motel.) So they had me wave a couple times, without comment (thankfully–I’ll have to tell you about the Best Buy ad in which they had me try about 14 different grimaces in another post).
Next, however, we moved on to the ad entitled “Flicker.” Here, only very slightly paraphrased, is the “script” for this ad:
We see a 20-something guy seated behind the wheel of his car, waiting at a stoplight. We see that his arm is hanging out the window. Suddenly, he flicks his wrist. After a moment, he looks over to see the woman in the car next to him glaring at him. He smiles apologetically. Text appears, “Get back to your Comfort Zone.”
So, if it’s clear to YOU what’s going on in this scene, I’ll punch you in the face.
What?!? He “flicks his wrist?” Okay, fine, I figure. Time to access the Acting Skills. Let’s imagine a set of Given Circumstances in which this behavior might logically occur. The obvious choice (as usual) is boogers. So, when I do the scene, I pretend to be nonchalantly flicking a booger out the window, then look over to discover it on the window of the fictional woman’s car, and smile apologetically.
“Stop!” shouts the casting director. “Okay…Sam? Did I SAY you were flicking a booger?”
“Um, no, I guess not,” I replied.
“Okay, so then, why are you doing that? I mean, for Christ’s sake, you’re just flicking your wrist, okay? You just…you know, you have something on your hand, and you’re trying to get it off. Can you just do THAT for me, please?”
“Sure, okay.”
“And also, don’t apologize to her. You’re Mr. Cool, you’re slick, you’re trying to play it off.”
“Got it,” I said.
What I had failed to understand, of course, was that when the script said “smile apologetically,” what it meant was “do something else entirely, which we will not specify.”
I finished the scene and sat for a moment in the silence of the casting director’s response to my work. Of course, since this is the real world, no text appeared saying “Get back to your Comfort Zone,” and I was not whisked away to the cozy confines of a modestly-priced room with free HBO and complimentary “deluxe” breakfast, all set to the tune of a pepped-up Johnny Cash number as a voice chirped about promotional room rates. Rather, I gritted my teeth, grabbed my bag, and hopped on a train to Long Island City to rehearse for an Off-Off Broadway play about underground theatrical revolutionaries in Weimar Berlin.
If we don't get this 2log started off right, we'll be facing a disaster of Articles of Confederation proportions.
The problem, as I see it... we called it "2log", but is there any difference between us and a garden variety blog? Of course, dummkopf! It's a 2log, and therefore substantially different from a blog. For starters, the word "blog" does not begin with a single number, whereas 2log begins with 2.
Are there other differences? Who cares! I've already moved on to the next big thing.
The potential dilemma: HOW DOES ONE PRONOUNCE 2LOG? (Actually, how does one capitalize 2log. Cripes... Watson, one mystery at a time, please.) I know many people like the bisyllabic approach... (for the bisyllabic-curious, that's pronounced tuu-lahg). But as a thoroughly lazy man, I can't wastefully flash phonemes about.
Keep it to a single syllable, people. It's pronounced "TLOG". Think that's tough to pronounce? Well, the Tl'azt'en Nation would disagree heartily. And if you gripe too much, may Tlahuizcalpantecuhtli strike you down with a well-timed thunderbolt.
After many sleepless hours of coding on Gerrit's part, we finally have a place to put up the kind of material that we always thought would be neat to work on, but didn't really fit on the main Ao2 site.
Like everyone else with a blog, we secretly think that we're the most interesting people on the Internet, so I thought it might be fun to to actually explain who the hell we are, and why Ao2 even exists. So here ya go-- the Audience of Two timeline:
Fall 2000: Sam, Gerrit, Ben and Mac begin freshman year at Swarthmore College in the suburbs of Philadelphia. Sam and Gerrit are randomly assigned to each other as roommates. Mac lives down the hall. Ben is randomly assigned to a roommate who is arrested 18 months later for possession of kiddy porn. Ben spends as much time away from his room as possible.
Spring 2001: Sam and Gerrit decide to host a sketch comedy show on WSRN, Swarthmore's anemic campus radio station. They consider naming it "Wobblin' Butt Cheeks," but instead go with "Audience of Two." This is possibly the worst creative decision they will ever make. Mac, Ben and Lea Denil (currently retired from the comedy game in 2007) tag along.
Fall 2001: Sam-- exhausted from hours of classes, play rehearsals, and sleepless nights writing papers-- frequently passes out at his desk and mumbles to himself. Gerrit has the presence of mind to take notes. Pages and pages of new material for Ao2 are generated. Also, Ben says a bad word on the air while Gerrit's mother is listening. He's very sorry.
Spring 2002: Gerrit goes to Australia for a semester. Ben pinch-hits as Sam's co-host. They write a sketch about an evil eggroll filled not with meat, but a tiny civilization of angry warriors who attack anyone who tries to eat their crunchy home. They begin to wonder if College is actually teaching them anything.
Fall 2002: While playing Super Smash Brothers Melee in Ben's Room, Mac is randomly assigned the nickname "Flav." It sticks.
Fall 2003: After three years, Audience of Two finally gets a fan! After years of broadcasting unnoticed (even the Ao2 girlfriends don't usually listen) a high school student named Josh Breit calls in to WSRN during an Ao2 broadcast, and insists he's actually been listening. The Ao2 cast suspects he might actually be a deranged 40-year-old man, but they choose to say nothing out of politeness. Josh turns out to be real, and currently graces the top of the Ao2 main page. His forehead tattoo is arresting, but tasteful.
Fall 2004: Sam and Ben move to Ben's hometown of NYC. Gerrit follows them six months later and sleeps on their couch. Without a radio station, they turn to the Internet, and begin poisoning the minds of America's youth. Mac continues holdin' down the fort in Philly.
Summer 2007: Ben Sam and Gerrit realize they haven't done a live show together in more than three years. They write Would They Kill You? and perform it at the The PIT. The next live show, a musical set in the old west (seriously), is currently in the works, as is a video series for the PIT's web channel, PITtv.
October 2007: 2log launched. Civilization destroyed by tremendous ants (pending).
I originally decided to post this picture because I thought we'd never succeed on the internet unless we posted pictures of naked women. It turns out that this is scientific-grade porn, so I can safely post this without having to nettle Sam's moral qualms.
The test is to see which way the lady is rotating. If you see her rotating clockwise, you're right-brained, which means you're a soap-fearin', hybrid-drivin', dashiki-worshippin', LSD-totin' hippie. If you see her rotating counter-clockwise, then you're left-brained, which makes you a clench-reared, 401K-understandin', Nader-thankin', type A type. Pick your side, so that we may all fight each other.
You can actually get her to switch directions if you look at her for long enough (GET A ROOM, PERV!) I did it by focusing on her shadow.
If there's any neurologists out there, please let me know whether or not this is complete crap. My gut feeling is that it has nothing to do with brain hemispheres, but that won't stop me from looking at it in-depth.
To discuss in the comments section: what else qualifies as scientific-grade porn?
BTB: Being from Seattle, I came out heavily right-brained
1.) Those who love themselves more than others.
2.) Those who can't help but to love others more than themselves.
Now, of course, there are clauses. Exceptions.
Like, for instance, flip-flopping. Shape-shifting.
If you start out a "1" (the world might call you selfish, Darwin might call you fit), you may, ever so briefly, inhale a bit of snow the wrong way, and shape-shift into a "2." Let me give you an example. Bobby's a "1." He loves himself. He does. He isn't afraid to admit it. He's happy in his own company. He hopes he does well in life. He likes to take care of himself. When people get him down, he shakes it off. He looks in the mirror, tilts his chin, and goes on with his day.
But one day, it's snowing. Bobby is on a run (Bobby doesn't go to the gym. He prefers to run outside. He read an article about getting a better endorphin kick from outdoor air.) Bobby sees a woman, older than him, walking towards him. Walking. Walking a pint-sized 'dog.' It's a city dog. A dog that fits in a bag. A crap excuse for a dog. He doesn't look at the woman. He has no need to check out a woman like this. A woman who would walk a crap dog. As he gets closer, he fixes his eye on the dog. Something weird. It's… yes.. it's wearing shoes. This woman has put this dog in shoes. Four little vinyl booties. Teel vinyl booties. This is a sick woman. And one-two-three-four, one-two-three-four, the little vinyl booties shuffle along. Mesmerized in horror, Bobby slips. He goes down fast and hard. As he hits the ground, he inhales a little snow.
First he sees they grey of street-stained snow. And then a warm red. The blood comes out surprising fast. It's a dapper red, realy brightens up the place. Then he feels two warm hands, small, firm, sliding under his armpits. He closes his eyes. The hands turn him over. Then he hears sniffing—quick, loud, spastic—in his ear, right up in his ear so close that it would be better to say he feels sniffing. He opens his eyes, and sees in this order:
1.) snow falling, like white sewing needles against grey sky. 2.) the older woman, with a smile. 3.) one teel bootie, lifting.
He hears the pee, then feels its steam. Finally, he hears the woman. "It's not my dog!" So defensive. And sweet. Like she knows him. Finally, he hears six legs scurrying away (four from the dog, two the owner). And for a brief moment, Bobby turns from a "1" to a "2."
It's been a little under a week since Al Gore won his Nobel Peace Prize. Run, Al, run. That is, run away from the spotlight, and please stop being a complete and utter embarassment. Yes, it's disappointing that you got robbed back in 2000, but please stop trying to overcompensate.
I'll avoid commenting on his loathsome, smarmy personality, since enough venomous conservative bloggers have already taken their cheap shots at Al Gore, (or as they bizarrely dub him, AlGore). It does make one wonder, had he known his internet would be used against him in such a manner, would he still have birthed it?
My big gripe is with the all-too-frequent perversion of science into dogma nowadays. I recently got into a spat with militant atheists over a very similar issue. Science succeeds when it derives its beliefs from skepticism and resists orthodoxies. Science never knows anything for certain, it just offers the best explanation possible with the facts at hand.
Nonetheless, as idiotic sheep in this world lust for absolutes, flawed leaders like Al Gore are all too happy to pervert scientific observation into, as he describes it, a "moral crisis." WTF does a scientific theory in its very infancy have to do with morality? When has science ever dictated what is "moral"? Astronomers just say they see a comet, it's idiots that decide to panic and sip on Kool-Aid. The greening of evangelicals is no surprise... after all, they're speaking the same fanatical, faith-based, dogmatic language!
Scientific fear-mongering pretty much always leads to terrible things. The reality is usually far less scary. The last time the climate changed, we didn't collectively crap our pants, we just picked up our teepees and moved to a better location. If the earth gets hotter, people will all move to Canada (gay marriages and health care), Scandanavia (socialism), or Siberia (still hasn't heard communism collapsed). As lefties, we shouldn't be frightened of global warming, it should be part of our freakin' game plan!
Just to keep things in perspective, Gore's preening is far from the worst thing going on in the world. Al needs attention, lefties need somebody to feel superior to, et cetera. Raising environmental awareness, even through hyperbole and fanaticism, is probably a slight net gain. I'm super serial.
Speaking as the person who's Avatar is, apparently, wearing a green hat, I feel that it is my holy duty to pick up the green mantel of one Mr. Al Gore and clean a little bit of the spit that it has on it.
Look. He just won the Nobel peace prize. How is that an embarrassment? Its one of the most prestigious awards a community of thinkers can give. Why… would we assume… that something far greater then the American Presidency in terms of individual credit is just because the guy is overcompensating?Where I able to overcompensate for not getting the job I wanted right out of college, I would be the owner of a massive news network spanning the globe.(Well, actually, to follow Al’s track, I would be bearded and depressed.But in another two years or so… )
If you want to claim that their is no morality, fine. I'm not here to argue that point. But Al Gore actually believes (as do I) that he (and I) are safe from global warming. Cause we are. We CAN pick up our collective teepees and move away from the banks of the GawanusCanal, back to our nice new waterfront properties in the mountains of Virginia. But you know who CANT? Poor people.
I don't care if you think that Global warming isn’t happening. I don’t care if you don't like poor people. I don't care if you don't even think that poor people (who live, say, 45 to a house on the banks of the yellow river in china) are going to be totally safe. What I DO care about is the idea that Al Gore is "Loathsome". that he is "an embarrassment". That he is "fat and boring". None of those things have anything to do with his little "theory". And none of those have anything to do with his claiming that there is a moral imperative for action because, as he sees it, the people the most likely to be hurt by changing climate are the most unable to help themselves.
No one in the Al Gore/climate change camp is saying that you need to dogmatically believe in something. THEY happen to have seen a set of statistics that scares the poop out of them, and they have decided that the best thing to do is to scare the hell out of us.
Now. If that’s not your sense of what morality means, that’s fine. Its not a lot of peoples sense of morality. A lot of peoples sense of morality is a one way street: do unto me as I would like to be done. But come on. I mean. Seriously. Come on...
My 2cents are that what's important about Al Gore, "algore," "Fatso," "Savior," "Veepy-Jeepy," "Tipper's Bitch," or whatever you want to call him is that he has successfully made the notion of humanity engaging collectively for undeniably positive global change a major talking point. Whether you're talking for or against it, whether you're Tucker "Fucker" Carlson or Jon Stewart, you're talking about it, and that would never, ever, be happening if some otherwise-anonymous scientist was standing on the steps of his lab, shouting into the echoing void that we're all in big trouble.
As for the moral aspect of the debate, it used to be that evangelicals spent much of their energy trying to get Congress to legislate who can and cannot love each other. The fact that they now devote at least a bit of that influence to the environment must, I think, be viewed as positive, for the simple fact that it cultivates a spirit of inclusiveness, rather than exclusivity. Anytime America is thinking in terms of "how can WE solve this problem" rather than "how can THEY solve THEIR problem," this naive ex-cabdriver believes we're on the right track. Yes, America has a poisonous culture of celebrity worship, and yes, "Ali G" is exploiting it. But, I have a hard time seeing who loses.
Sam and I, rooming together without cable, have each come to separate conclusions. Sam argues that Blockbuster is cheaper, and includes the option of going to the nearby brick-and-mortar stores to trade envelopes for free rentals. He'll likely go ahead and try and convince you in his own blog post. He had me fooled for a time, but I quickly came to my senses.
It all started when I put my Netflix account on hold, since I had a full season of Venture Brothers to watch and nary a minute of free time. Netflix decided to slap me with a $20 charge for doing so. I called up a friendly Oregonian who explained that this was simply their policy, and that they would refund the money as soon as it was returned. (I ain't seen no money yet. True, I have not looked, but my outrage remains).
In summary... Netflix offers me an inferior product, charges me more, and then bills me when I'm not expecting it.
Apparently, they're taking the domestic abuse approach to doing business. Netflix hurts me because they love me. Then they put on their kind Oregonian face and explain that it won't happen again. Then I blame myself. Then I start rationalizing reasons why Netflix is better than Blockbuster. And the cycle works! I've thought up hundreds of reasons to stick with Netflix. Sure, they make no sense, but they bring comfort to my battered psyche:
Netflix's envelopes are bigger and redder
Hot female mail thieves may see my red Netflix envelope and find themselves hopelessly attracted to me
As part of its nefarious business plan, Netflix automatically adds movies to my queue that glorify domestic violence, such as Gone With The Wind or the Honeymooners
Netflix will recommend movies to me... and I'll sit there and tell Netflix how much I like their movie suggestion, because if I disagree, I'm worried Netflix will have another one of its little fits
For the comments section: What reasons have you invented for standing by your alpha-male Netflix?
