Noise in the Shape of Writing

Today I had an interview that threw me for a loop.

I was being interviewed for a position at a movie poster design firm in Hollywood. It's a nice place.

The interview started with a 10 minute tour of the place. Then, back in the interviewer's office, I show off my portfolio for a few minutes. Then the guy gets a call... something about a package from a messenger up front. He says he will be right back.

20 minutes later, he returns, apologizes, says it will be only a few minutes more. Another 20 minutes later, he says he hasn't forgotten me and promises it will be just a couple more minutes. 30 minutes later, he pops in and swears it will be only a minute or two more. Finally, after an hour-and-a-half, he returns to finish the interview.

But before getting too far into the specifics of the job, he basically starts asking me if I'd be interested in the job. I try to ask some more insightful questions, but basically he wants to know if I can start in 2 days. Then he gets a call telling him that his temp for the week has to leave for an emergency. So he up and asks me if I'd like to start RIGHT NOW.

He wants to keep me freelance for a couple days, but then start salaried as soon as possible.

I begged off, saying I was busy today and tomorrow. I am interested, I just didn't feel comfortable giving an answer right there. Tomorrow we can discuss over the phone a dollar amount and then perhaps I will do a few days freelance to get a feel for the place.

I guess he was just anxious to fill the position. But I can't stop wondering if he spent that hour-and-a-half researching me or maybe just staring at me though a one-way mirror... cause he certainly didn't interview me.

Maybe it's just the new way of interviewing. Stick them in a room for 90 minutes and if they don't bolt after an hour, hire them.

When I first got this here house, I didn't like the lawn. I feared it. It would grow and grow and taunt me to cut it.

I resisted.

But it was stonger than I. So I submitted to it's power and bought a lawnmower. Then the weeds grew at the edges, so I bought an edger. Then the trees began to drop leaves so soon I had a blower.

I now own all 237 yard implements known to man. Even then aerator (which is NOT nearly as fun as it may sound).

And yet until recently I still feared my lawn. It's unsightly in many places and try as I might, it always looked like a dump. It made me buy new sprinkler heads for it. It ate the wires that ran underneath it to power the back yard sprinkler timer. It grew up and over the rocks that my wife tastefully strew along the edge. It died in many places.

And every time I went out with my weedwhacker and bush trimmer in tow, I just knew the neighbors were judging me. "Look a him kill that lawn!" "Ha! He can't even keep the roses alive." "He holds that edger like a sissy!"

I was pretty sure they were all watching from their windows and laughing. Of course I am pretty much the only one left who does his own yard work. There are wiry hispanic men who seem to be everywhere at once... skittish clones of each other who somehow appear to be servicing every house in the tract at the same time. They glower at me with Stepford eyes that seem to say "Why don't you give us money to do that for you. Everyone else is. You suck!"

But here I am, beer in hand, shaping bushes into geometric topiary (I learned that word from Zork 2!!). It's been almost 8 years, but I think by now if I haven't turned the whole thing into a desert wasteland then I guess I can hold my own.

I still think they're watching me, but it's probably out of amazement that I can hold a Guiness and push a lawnmower.

Movie geek admission? Auto-reflexive reference? Macguyver gadgetry scene preface?

I fear we shall never know. As it stands, it's just something the director of "Surge of Power" had me say so that my very first star moment on film was not a walk-on non-dialogue roll.

Last night, I got to see myself on the big screen in the coveted role of "Bank Robber #2". I would love to say that it was all due to Aaron's masterful PA yelling that I hit my marks and made it to the set on time, but I don't even remember if he was on set that day. It was all just a whirlwind of excitement.

One thing is for sure... I didn't suck too bad. I didn't even sound too "ACTORLY", as I'd feared I would. I looked like a big balding chubby inept bank robber. Covered in silly string.

Still, it was great fun being a part of a feature film. Even if it doesn't stand a chance of ever being screened theatrically. I'm afraid I know the industry all too well.

Besides, I don't know if I could take the paparazzi.

I would have never thought I'd be saying those particular words to my 8-year-old daughter. But I digress...

(and yes, if you are sick of hearing about my daughter then you'd best be clicking one of the links to the right or switching over to your other friends' blogs)

Yes folks. A scant few weeks after attaining Holy Grail #2 ("Making Texas Hold Em my daughter's favorite game of all time"), I have moved on to Holy Grail #3.

I have taught her how to play Craps... and she loves it!

We began by betting on the Pass Line. I showed her how to roll, set her point, make her point, and even place odds (though she's sketchy on that). I even taught her the Field, Don't Pass and all the hard ways. At one point, she asked me what placing a bet on "Come" meant. I told her it was too complicated and she waived my concerns away. "I think I will understand it, Daddy. I figured out everything else on the board, didn't I?"

She certainly had, so there was no way around it. "It's like rolling your first roll in the middle of someone elses series of rolls. You get to pretend that it's YOUR first roll and then you get your own point that no one else has." She didn't miss a beat. "I get it," she says. "So how do you know which point is yours? Where does your bet go?"

Amazing. For a few days, all she wanted to play was Craps. BTW, I have a large table and a large Craps "felt" upstairs, so it was almost like Vegas, especialy when I constructed a miniature "wall" out of videotapes so the dice wouldn't fly off the edge. I have a croupier stick, too, which she loves to swish about... collecting the dice... pushing them towards me... pulling my losing bets away from me. She has a job in Vegas someday if she wants it.

But Craps wasn't the Holy Grail. (Psyche!)

The next day, she said she had a surprise. She wanted me to teach her something. I feared the worst... I reached for the "Where Did I Come From" book. You know the one... with the happy little sperm on the cover and the funny naked people inside. But she instead pointed at my huge Dungeons & Dragons collection. "I want you to teach me Dungeons and Dragons."

Oh, the joy on my face. You see, I had decided early on that I would not force D&D on her. That would certatinly drive her away from it. Instead, we started on the gateway games... Tunnels & Trolls and Choose Your own Adventure books.

And it had paid off. Heck, she even asked to go through my favorite module... I3: Pharaoh! I showed her how to roll a character... we grabbed an old sheet that still had a list of equipment and skills on it, and we went through about 3 rooms from a random page of the map. Just enough to get her a feel for it but not getting into all the "campaign level" stuff. You know, starting with the guts: combat!

We rolled some 20-siders for to-hit rolls, some 10-siders for damage, some six siders for monster attack damage. And then she asked about magic. He he he! Handing her the Players Handbook list of Magic User spells was like offering crack cocaine to a high schooler at her first college frat party. (I imagine).

Man, the look on her face as she perused each level of increasingly Monty Hall spells... Why, it was like.. my own face at about age 11 (I was late to the game). When her eyes lit upon "Power Word: Kill" I though they could get no wider (but then again, I had forgotten about "Time Stop"). "You can stop time??!! I want to be a Magic User!" And so, an adventurer is born.

But D&D wasn't the Holy Grail either. (Suspense is a bitch, I know.)

The very next day I decided that I deserved a break, so I gave myself a treat of a few hours of Halo. Aha!

Yes folks, my 8-yr-old daughter is now a 100% bonafide First Person Shooter freak. She will do ANYTHING (eat her vegetables, do her homework early, clean her room) just to play a few more minutes of Halo. Halo in the morning, Halo in the afternoon, Halo before bed.

And by now, you all know the chorus... "And she's pretty damned good at it!"

Covenant don't stand a chance. Of course, when the chelatinous plating starts flying and her hit points take a precipitous dive, she does tend to freak out. But, who wouldn't... those grunts and hunters can come out of nowhere if your nose is burried in a sniper scope.

And now you know whence came the name of this post.

Pat.