Get Off My Desert Lawn!

Tag: writing

  • Full-Circle Failure Pt. 2

    After graduating, I admit I couldn’t take defeat. I still tried to be a screenwriter. I knew a few people in “the industry” but there’s something about the Hollywood type. Their style of arrogance annoys me.

    On a quick sidenote, I went to Universal Studios the last March and our tour guide said “the industry” and I almost puked.

    Then I felt bad because I saw myself in that tour guide 20 years ago.

    Fast forward to today. It has been roughly a month since I quit my job as an Assistant Cage Manager for a Las Vegas strip casino. It wasn’t a bad job. It was easy actually, and it paid well. The problem was, like most people, I worked for a group of idiots. The level of mismanagement was too much to take. Not surprisingly, these higher ups all knew each other and were friends.

    One can only stay on a sinking ship for so long. If I didn’t jump off when I did, I would have died. I am not going down with something I don’t believe in.

    I will say I learned an extremely valuable lesson. Casino work is very similar to Hollywood, which is very similar to USC.

    If I learned anything from USC, it’s that I don’t have the required attitude to be a Trojan. I don’t need to be in the alumni magazine showing off what great accomplishments I’ve achieved. Hell, I don’t even tell anyone I went to USC unless someone tries to show off first.

    Just to be clear I can’t speak for other schools at USC. I can only speak from my experience.

    Hollywood was no different than college. Yes, I wanted to break in, but I didn’t have the Hollywood attitude either. I wasn’t better than anyone else, and I sure as hell wasn’t going to degrade myself just to have a shot.

    It took me twenty-two years of casino work to realize I didn’t have the attitude to become a casino VP. My nose points level to the ground, not up in the air, and I don’t take pleasure in asking employees if they know who I am. It’s almost like becoming a VP means you got a gold sticker. Now it’s time to show it off.

    Life is funny because I could easily get on YouTube or any other social media platform and make videos on Vegas and what to do/not to do in a casino and probably have millions of views.

    But I reckon being an influencer would be the same as casino work.

    I don’t have the attitude for what would come with going viral. I know what I want now.

    I want to stay in the shadows and bet horses. I can succeed at that. I can make a lot of money at it, and I have the perfect attitude for it.

    I don’t care what anyone thinks about me. I can dress in clothes full of holes and still hit a six figure pick 6. I don’t have to show off what I’ve won because it doesn’t matter to anyone but me.

    Money comes and goes, just like fame and fortune. It sucks if I have a bad day at the track, and it can be very humbling. But there’s always tomorrow, and one good day is all it takes.

    The same can’t be said for falling out of the public eye. Hollywood stars, influencers, business executive can lose everything in the blink of an eye.

    For me, failing was the best thing that could happen to me. I can study races in my pajamas if I choose. I don’t though. I’m a professional.

    I wear work sweats.

    Failure – you don’t exist. Me – for the win

    Oh yeah, and fight on! 🙂

  • Full-Circle Failure Pt. 1

    I am not famous. I am not a billionaire. I am not a business executive. I am not an influencer.

    So what?

    I am my own man, who does what he wants, when he wants. Poor me.

    I recently received my quarterly copy of USC Trojan Family Magazine. It is a magazine put out for USC alumni to see how great their fellow Trojans are.

    One look at me, and it’s hard for a lot of people to believe me when I say I graduated from said school. I am not a stereotypical Trojan. Truth be told, I didn’t fit in when I went there. Just like today, I was the guy that didn’t fit the mold. They couldn’t kick me out because I was smart enough to get good grades (on my own), but I wasn’t exactly the guy you wanted to put front and center to show off the great things USC offered.

    The funny part is in high school I wanted to be a screenwriter. I worked my ass off to get accepted to USC. Getting accepted was one of the greatest moments of my life. Walking the beautiful campus gave me an extreme sense of pride.

    Like Hollywood though, I soon realized it was all a facade.

    My problem was I wanted to learn the craft of screenwriting. What I learned was everything was an audition. My first class was filled with connected kids. A few had film producer fathers. One was already a published author. I was impressed, as it should be.

    Until I read their work.

    I won’t get into details, but the funny part was at the end of the semester my professor called me into the office and told me she didn’t think I had what it took to be a writer. She gave me a B when I needed a B+ to advance to the next writing class.

    Failure – 1. Me – 0.

    As luck, or fate, would have it, I somehow ended up at Hollywood Park for their Friday night race program with my cousin. Hollywood Park was a thoroughbred racetrack that is now So-Fi Stadium. My cousin had just bought a book on beating the races and wanted to try it out. When we left, he had profited something like $7. I lost like $20.

    Failure – 2. Me – 0.

    Being the competitive jerk I am, I scoured multiple bookstores and bought every book on horseracing I could find. It wasn’t long before I wasn’t even going to class. I was at the track most days. I did show up to class on important days, like tests and report days. In the end, I graduated.

    Failure – 2. Me – 1.

    One hilarious note, or slap to my face, was the commencement speakers were George Lucas and Steven Spielberg.

    Draw. Failure – 2. Me – 1.

  • The Invisible Tip Jar

    I went to the Pantera concert last night (8/29) here in Vegas. Great show. Side note – I was extremely impressed with Amon Amarth. In all my years I had never had a chance to see them. I liked them so much I actually bought a shirt after the show, and I never buy an opening act’s shirt.

    Which brings me to my annoyance.

    Tipping has gotten out of hand as everyone knows. Being from Vegas I understand tipping helps, and by no means am I a cheap tipper. Most times I tend to overdo it.

    BUT

    This was the second time this has happened. The first one being the Ghost show a few weeks ago.

    Last night I bought 4 shirts at $40 a piece, along with a poster and tote bag. $200 plus tax. My total bill was $278, as I was told.

    In years past, the shirt guy would turn his iPad around to show me the itemized receipt, then I would be offered a screen to ask if I would like to leave a tip.

    Now, there’s nothing shown. It’s take it or leave it, you’re holding up the line.

    Like I said, the same thing happened at Ghost. A little more – $280 – but only three shirts and a tote.

    What is one supposed to do? Wait in a Disneyland type line of people, then question everything at the end of the transaction?

    I’m all for tipping, but as far as I could see, neither place had a sign that said “Whatever percentage will be added to each transaction.”

    I’m just supposed to assume that the concert shirt tax rate in Clark County is now 50%?

    That’s how they get you to not question anything. Show was great. You’re pumped up. You want that $40 shirt.

    $100 please.

    No problem. Here’s my card.

  • Fast Food Government

    Went to the McDonald’s drive thru last night. I thought my order was simple enough – three combos and an extra order of fries. When I pulled up there was one car at the order window on my left and nobody in my lane. I pulled up and ordered. Everything looked great on the screen. I paid and got my food. The bag looked okay, so I drove home.

    Once I opened up the bag, I discovered that two of my cheeseburgers were missing. Normally, I wouldn’t care but I was starving. That of course made it a complete disaster. I called the McDonalds to see if it was possible to get that order refunded.

    $8 is by no means a life or death amount, but I didn’t have a Snickers bar handy so I was extremely grouchy. Of course, they wouldn’t refund me. They told me they’d write my name down and whenever I was in the area I could speak with a manager about it.

    Of course that means, good luck buddy. We took your $8.

    This morning it dawned on me just how dangerous it is to not only use a drive thru, but to eat fast food to begin with.

    Not only is it bad for you. I, like everyone else, could care less about that.

    How many times has an order been wrong, and no one has gone back to complain?

    How hard is it to read an order?

    Most times, very difficult. That makes me laugh because most receipts will say NO KETCHUP, NO ONIONS, etc. It’s not like it’s written in small legal disclaimer mumbo jumbo on the back of the receipt.

    Still orders are sent out wrong.

    Sometimes you can even order a burger and get home and find a chicken sandwich.

    The part that boggles my mind is that most of these items are given numbers. So not only can’t people read. They can’t count to 10.

    And whose fault is that?

    Ours.

    Because, like God, we get home, forgive them for their errors, and eat what was given.

    In my case, I didn’t eat at all. I did get my soda if that’s any consolation. Still, $8 for a soda is more expensive than a soda at a steakhouse.

    There should be some kind of recourse, because if we added up all the fast food orders that were messed up, forgiven, and never refunded, I’m sure it’s some astronomical amount that has been stolen from the American people.

    Sounds familiar.

  • Brain Dead

    I went to the Weird Al concert this past weekend. I’ve never seen him perform before. While he is extremely entertaining, there was a part of the show where I had to stop and wonder.

    Not wonder about what song he was making fun of, or why I had never gone to one of his shows before. I had to wonder about me.

    When it was time to sing FAT (Michael Jackson’s BAD), Weird Al came out in a fat suit complete with a fat mask. If you’ve seen DODGEBALL, Weird Al’s face looked exactly like Ben Stiller at the end of the movie, when he’s eating chicken.

    Since coming on to the music scene, Weird Al has always been a symbol of harmless fun. While I don’t follow his career closely, I’ve never seen or heard him say anything disparaging about anyone. I don’t even know what political party he sides with.

    So, what’s the problem? Is it that Weird Al was in an outfit that was four times his body size, singing about fat people?

    No.

    The problem was that as soon as he came on stage, I thought OH SHIT.

    Twenty, thirty years ago I would have been laughing my ass of at his theatrics. Instead, all I could think of was how many people he was going to piss off.

    That’s when I realized I was brain dead.

    Millennials, Gen Z, the woke, cancel culture, stupidity, whatever you want to call it, has obviously embedded itself in my brain. As much as I make fun of those groups, they have a tight grip on my head.

    While I should be amazed at how skillful Weird Al is in a fat suit, I’m looking around the audience to see if anyone is shaking their head.

    I felt like I had lost the battle.

    The funny part is I didn’t feel bad for me. I felt bad for Weird Al.

    While I hope to God I’m wrong, I know there will be many more who watch the song the way I did. No one is ever alone in their thinking. All I can do is hope no one says anything because that’s when the trouble starts.

    Unfortunately, someone, somewhere will.

    It’s a shame we can’t just enjoy comedy for what it is. Or anything for that matter. What pisses me off the most is that subconsciously I’ve allowed the stupidity to take control of my brain.

    Has my independent thinking gone by the wayside?

    Am I brain dead?

  • You’re Stupid!

    Why not just come out and tell us?

    I just watched a commercial for Starbucks. It was closed captioned, which we all know (hopefully), is meant for the hard of hearing. It makes life easier by letting them read what’s going on when they can’t hear it.

    Starbucks should be commended for closed captioning the commercial, right? No. Not when you put Baba O’Reilly between music signs.

    If you can’t hear, how do you know what Baba O’Reilly, or any song for that matter, sounds like?

    It makes zero sense.

    But someone approved it.

    Which brings me to the Aquasana commercial.

    They have one where their spokesman has two glasses of water. He states one is Aquasana and the other is dirty tap water.

    Yuck.

    He goes through his pitch of how great Aquasana is, but at the end can’t figure out which glass has the Aquasana water. He even says, “Wait, which one is it?”

    if you want me to know how safe your water is over regular water, shouldn’t you know which water is bad to drink?

    Now that I think about it, it doesn’t matter anyway. We need to drink water to wash down the pills we need to take.

    You know the ones. The pills that will make us look good but are killing us internally.

    You want to lose weight? No problem.

    Get rid of itchy skin? Again, no problem.

    You can clear anything up. Hell, you’ll even be able to dance in the streets with like-minded people. So what’s the problem?

    Nothing. Unless you want diarrhea that makes Mt. Vesuvius look like a 3rd grade science project. If that’s not enough, you’ll probably want to kill yourself.

    They do warn you not to take the drug if you’re allergic to it. That’s good because that might kill us.

    I don’t think we’re that stupid.