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Inside: Cultural Sausage. ~ Ludic Lists. ~ Skullbucket. Outside: Today's entry is dedicated to my freshly
out-of-work Andrea
OK.
"math nerds" "white tiger tamer" "Mosura lyrics" "animal fuckers" "Jamuga" "teeth plaque conspiracy Metallica" "death lightning bolt movie nerd" "Ann Coulter documentary clip" |
10.01.2004
Hey, pal, I know you. I know you've been walking around this bookstore, right here in the business section. I bet you got dressed up in your best work clothes to make people think that you're here on your lunch hour instead of wandering around out of a job. You've even got a copy of Vogue or Sports Illustrated in front of the employment manual you've been reading. You may be fooling everyone else, but you're not fooling me. I wrote this book just for you, loser. That's right: I said it. You're a loser. But here's the point: you're not as much of a loser as you could be. You've been wasting your precious time hanging around in bookstores reading books on how to get a job, how to keep a job, how to get a raise. You've been squandering the precious gift of joblessness! But I can't blame you. You've been taught all your life how important it is to have a job, so that you can't get the most out of your unemployment. Well, that's what I'm here to change. I'm Thom Brentford, author of Thom Brentford's The Compleat Loafer, Thom Brentford's Maximizing Your Laziness, and the book you're holding in your hands right now, Thom Brentford's Ultimate Unemployment. And I want to ask you a question. If you don't have a job, how come all you do all day is work? You get up first thing in the morning, fax a bunch of stuff, make phone calls and take phone calls, run all around the city, have meetings with people in suits, obsessively check your e-mail, revise paperwork dozens of times a day, and comb through the paper and scour the internet -- and no one's even paying you to do it! You did more slacking off back when you had a job, and then, there was a fresh paycheck waiting at the end of each week. What's your excuse now? It's time to quit bringing yourself down with depressing questions like "How am I going to feed my family?" and "What am I doing with my life?" and "Will I be able to pay the rent this month?", and start lifting yourself up with energizing inquiries like "What beer goes best with Cap'n Crunch?" and "Is it really possible to literally stay in bed all day?" and "What's on The Aviation Channel at 3:00 AM?" We all know the common view of the unemployed person. He wakes up at two o'clock in the afternoon, only gets up to go to the bathroom, watches talk shows and Eastern European tennis tournaments on the digital cable box he can't afford to pay for, eats cookie dough straight out of the tube, and goes to sleep only when he runs out of drugstore gin. Sure, that's just a stereotype; not everyone lives like that. Like you, for example. So what's your problem? Why aren't you living the American Dream? Now that you've finally got all the free time you wanted, why aren't you spending it swilling cheap coffee from the photocopy shop, finally getting around to reading those old copies of Field and Stream your neighbors threw out, and going down to the wig store to see if Juanita is working today? Maybe you just don't know about the vast world of opportunity unemployment opens up. Maybe you've been working for so long, you think that it's a natural way to live. Maybe you just need some help. Well, partner, help is what I'm here to give. With the Thom Brentford Unemployment Experience Program in place, you'll learn all the things you'll need to super-size your joblessness: I'll teach you how to falsify records with the Department of Economic Security. I'll teach you how to file nuisance lawsuits. I'll teach you how to cover your doors and windows to keep out light and noise to accomodate your new 6AM-2PM sleep schedule. I'll teach you what hospitals, vehicle impound lots and bus stations have the best and least expensive vending machines. I'll teach you how to claim to be a grad student, a freelancer or a band member, and plenty of other occupations that will allow you to have no income and still get dates. I'll teach you the best free weekly newspapers to read and the best cable stations to watch for hours at a time. I'll teach you all the best and most effective excuses to tell your landlord, credit card company, or utility. I'll teach you about public parks, coffee shops, and off-track betting parlors, as well as dozens of terrific unemployed-people hotspots. I'll teach you how to make delicious and nutritious meals out of capers, discarded pizza boxes, and things you can buy in gas stations. And most importantly, I'll introduce you to your three new best friends: PlayStation, marijuana and the Thom Brentford Couch - Comforter - Pillow Integration System. Why should you pick up my book? Because I haven't had a job in twenty-three years. I was laid off from my job at the Sunshine Biscuit Company in 1981, and I've spent every single minute of my waking life (that's as many as ten hours a day sometimes) perfecting these vital techniques. Aside from writing these three books -- and if three lousy books in a quarter-century doesn't persuade you that I know how to laze around, nothing will -- I haven't done a blessed thing since the first Reagan administration. I've been on the dole longer than many people just becoming unemployed for the first time have been alive. I have been named American Goldbrick's Man of the Year a record-breaking six times. Am I going to bust my butt to help you get a job? Of course not! That's why you need to pick up my book. So embrace life. Embrace unemployment. Loosen your tie, take off those uncomfortable shoes, and buy Thom Brentford's Ultimate Unemployment. Go home and get back in bed, for God's sake -- it's only 11:15AM. And would it kill you to stop by the liquor store on the way home? Now you're learning. |
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| TODAY'S DRIFTWOOD: "The only difference between lilies and turds is whatever difference humans have agreed upon, and I don't always agree." (George Carlin) |