Monday, January 22, 2007

a brief note to any unemployed bloggers or people who simply stumble onto the humble blog o' doom and just so happen to be in a state of unworkingness

The place where I work feign the appearance of working is currently hiring for a couple of big projects that begin in mid February. The only thing one needs to qualify is:
1. A four year college degree. It can be in basket weaving, and I'm living proof that one needn't have accomplished it within four years.
2. That's pretty much it. I would say that you also need a pulse but that has been disproved.
3. No, that doesn't mean that I created a workforce of zombies. I wish. Zombies follow orders.
You also have to go through an interview and write an essay, but this consists of little more than making sure you can read, write, and appear semi-sane when clients are in the building. Also, there is a slight chance that you may have the misfortune of working directly under my supervision. Pray that this does not come to fruition. However, if so, it is probably best that you know of some special additions to the company rules that I demand of my workers:
1. I am only to be awakened in an emergency. An "emergency" consists of A) my boss has entering the room, B) the room happening to be on fire or in some other state that endangers my mortal, yet soundly slumbering flesh, or C) me sleeping through my lunchbreak again. You, however, will not be allowed to sleep. This rare, yet all too believable narcolepsy-like affliction of mine is my story, and it took me quite some time to craft it and forge the doctor's note.
2. You don't actually smell alcohol on my breath. That's just a side effect of the medicine I have to take for whatever it is that I said I had.
Anyway, it won't be the best job you've ever had, but you've undoubtedly had worse.
I should also mention that I am in lower middle management and therefore have no say in the hiring process and that my employers either have no knowledge of "Rex L. Camino" or there exists an unspoken agreement to pretend that they have no knowledge of him. I can't remember which it is, but it works best for all involved.
Feel free to email me at rlcamino at copper dot net if interested.
Also, I don't know if I'm going to capitulate to this new blogger business or find somewhere else to go. Late January to March is my busy time of the year and I've far less time to be around the computer anyway, so I haven't given the matter much thought. We'll see. Perhaps I'll capitulate for a while.

Friday, January 19, 2007

in which the blog o' doom takes another step toward become nothing more than my online dream journal

Last night I dreamt that I was driving down a relatively empty stretch of Murfreesboro Road just south of Smyrna on a sweltering mid-August afternoon when I happened upon the fruit and vegetable stand of one Mr. Billy D. Williams. I had no choice but to pull over, as buying fresh tomatoes from Billy D. Williams is a chance a person only gets once, maybe twice in a lifetime.

He was leaning back in his folding chair and wearing sunglasses, a Mexican straw hat and his full Lando Calrissian outfit. I paid for the tomatoes and had been standing there shooting the shit with him for a few minutes when he suddenly looked over my shoulder and said, "Damn".

I didn't use an exclamation point because he was Billy D. Williams and he said it in a smooth kind of way, though I could still tell that a sense of urgency was implied.

So it was that I turned to see a small armadillo in a copper-colored robot costume bounding over the hill on his little armadillo legs.

"You better run, man", Billy D. told me.

"What do you do when he shows up, Billy D. Williams?" I asked.

"He doesn't just show up. I think he's after you."

That's when I began my leisurely jog in the opposite direction of the slowly charging armadillo in the copper-colored robot outfit. I don't know if armadillos are that slow in real life or if I was benefiting from super fast, yet leisurely jogging powers in my dream, but there was plenty of time to stop and have a bite of raw tomato and think things out while the armadillo pursued at his slow, yet determined pace. I asked myself:

1. What the hell did I do to this armadillo?
2. Does he think he's really fooling anyone with the robot outfit?
3. Why didn't I just get in my car and drive away?
4. Is Billy D. Williams stealing my car right now?
5. Is this some elaborate car jacking ploy put on by Billy D. Williams and a highly trained armadillo in a robot costume?

I remembered Lando's betrayal of Han and assumed the last of these to be sadly true.

However, in all fairness to Mr. Billy D. Williams, I awoke before it could be proven.

Wednesday, January 17, 2007

i dream of a breakfast supreme

Last night I dreamt that I found John Coltrane sitting on my front porch, which was rather odd because:
1. John Coltrane has been dead for nearly forty years.
2. I don't have a front porch.
Still, he was sitting there chainsmoking and looking out across my yard at nothing in particular and saying very little. In fact, the only thing he said was that he wanted to go get some breakfast but didn't have any shoes. So it was that I gave him my nicest pair of black leather shoes and we embarked on a five mile trek to the I.H.O.P., even though I had a perfectly good vehicle sitting in the driveway. Trane didn't say so, but I could tell he wanted to walk.
He didn't say much over breakfast either. He just sat there smoking between plates of bacon, sausage, and eggs. In fact, I had to do his ordering for him and somehow just took him as the sort of chap to show little regard for cholesterol and such.
I ordered myself waffles and a slice of key lime pie and then spread the pie over the waffles. I offered some to Trane, but he shook his head after taking a moment to stare at them and give the matter some serious thought.
I picked up the check when we were done. Trane rummaged through his overcoat and found some wadded dollar bills to leave as a tip. He then patted me on the back and said, "Thanks. Now wake up."
So I did.

Tuesday, January 16, 2007

little rabbits have big ears

One of the things that always troubled me about being around babies was the question of whether or not swearing was permissible. I mean, I always try to watch my language around people’s offspring when they are large enough to speak and follow me around or just sit there and look at me, but babies, as they are less conversational, seemed a gray area.

Then all my friends began having babies and expected me to come and look at their babies. I didn’t want to ask about using foul language since they were always so quick to turn down my request to smoke around the runt, but the tension that came from trying not to scar the fragile offspring quickly made these “baby introductions” the most nerve-racking of social endeavors. Then one of my friends used the word “shit” around their baby, and it was as if a burden fell from soul. I believe in my enthusiasm I uttered something along the lines of, “That’s the most fucking goddamn beautiful bastard of a baby I’ve ever seen.”

I didn’t mean the word “bastard” in its traditional sense. I had actually forgotten that the word was intended to identify a certain type of offspring, and the gist of my compliment sadly did not come through.

Also, I think that the baby in question may have actually been a bastard.

I think my apprehension stems from one of my best friends back in middle and high schools. He had a little brother who was prone to follow us about, and any time a questionable subject was broached his mother would quickly jump in with “Little rabbits have big ears.” We would then wait for her to leave before teaching him all the foul language that our young minds had accumulated up until that point.

Anyway, I was thinking of this yesterday when I let Carl Weathers out to do his business in the back yard. It was cold and raining, and Carl took his sweet time before getting to the business at hand. He then decided to meander through every muddy patch on the way back. I stepped onto the porch and angrily prompted his return by yelling, “Get back here this instant, you fuckingly damnable bastard of a fucking dog!”

He knows this as the command to return at once, but it struck me that this particular command cannot be used if children are present when Carl has one of his days where sauntering about in the mud seems on his personal agenda. This is especially true if I happen to be wearing my clown suit. I suppose I could, but it has been my experience that children who grow up around constant streams of foul language from their adult figures turn out to be either white trash or angry hippies.
It has also been my experience that the world has a sufficient amount white trash and angry hippies as it is.

Tuesday, January 09, 2007

man shot in argument over james brown's height

You can read this breaking news from my beloved home state via Mobile's Press-Register .
By the way, the "Hardest Working Godfather of Al Sharpton", if the deranged-looking stalker on this site is to be believed, stood a mere five foot six.

Monday, January 08, 2007

now is the winter of my content

Folks, you won't hear me complaining about our unseasonably warm winter. I don't know if we indeed have global warming to thank for it, but our recent spring-like temperatures have done little to dissuade me from my SUV, my styrofoam pants, leaving the Christmas lights up year round, ignoring anything Leonardo DiCaprio says when he's not playing someone infinitely more interesting than Leonardo DiCaprio, or simply coating myself in motor oil when I want to feel special. In fact, I've been weighing the pros and cons of global warming and I've come up with the following. The benefits would be:
1. No more winter.
2. No more Florida.
3. Eskimos can grow corn.
I haven't really found any cons other than:
1. The extended summer might require one to shave his or her back more often.
2. There might be killer bees or something along the lines of a B-movie plague. I'd personally like to see flying armadillos.
Then there are the scenarios in which global warming actual cases a global cooling and a decrease in temperatures. I'm always unable to follow the science in these discussions, as I failed the majority of science classes taken in college and talk of science often leaves my thoughts too heavy and my brain confused, but I imagine some of the cons of a global cooling to be:
1. I can safely assume from the description that it will be cold, and that is exactly the opposite of the goal we had with global warming.
2. Eskimos, perhaps emboldened by the extended range of their beloved cold, will begin sneaking over the Canadian border to take the jobs that Americans won't do.
Anyway, it's just something to think about.

Friday, January 05, 2007

five true tales of rex

There is no other option than to oblige when one is kindly tagged by Miss Brittney. These are supposed to be five things you don't know about me, but I can't be expected to recall everything I've said here before, so some of these may very well be repeats. Anyway, I suppose it doesn't matter that much so long as I tell the lie the same way twice.
1. I was briefly related to Jerry Lee Lewis during the marriage of my cousin to his sister, Linda Gail Lewis. I was too young to remember it, but Jerry Lee actually attended a family function back in the late seventies and promptly proceeded to liven up the gathering with the assistance of his trusty flask. He was, by all accounts, the biggest asshole anyone had ever met. However, that's how you knew it was really Jerry Lee.
2. I made it all the way through college without once ever using a computer. It was the mid nineties and your average technophobe was still able to write papers using only a typewriter, scribbled notes, a pot of coffee, and a pack of smokes. It wasn't until I married Mrs. Camino a year after graduating in 1998 that I got into this whole computer and Internet bid'ness. You can therefore blame her.
3. I was a sort of child prodigy when it came to doodling. I probably started drawing before I could talk and would often spend hours scribbling away. I never really transferred this into anything occupationally beneficial, aside from the occasional freelance graphic design gig, but I'm still known for doodling away in meetings and such. This often irritates others, as it gives the appearance of an utter lack of attention. However, it's actually the best way for me to stay focused and remember anything that was said.
4. I've seen UFOs on two separate occasions. The first was in high school with a couple of other people. We spent a couple of hours watching these two lights that at first resembled airplanes moving around in odd patterns across the sky. However, I doubt they were airplanes, as airplanes rarely make sharp ninety-degree angle turns in mid flight. I was unfortunately alone for the second and more impressive UFO viewing. I was perfectly sober and brushing my teeth before bed one night back in college when I noticed some blue and red lights fly over my apartment and across an adjacent field. It was completely silent and looked just like one of the UFOs in Close Encounters. I watched it for a full thirty seconds through the bathroom window before it disappeared over the horizon. Super-secret military technology seems the more plausible explanation in both cases, but I may just be telling myself that to keep the alien probes away.
5. I was a vegetarian for a while. I worked in a butcher shop back in high school and was given the responsibility of making sure all the equipment was absolutely spotless for the frequent health inspector visitations, and cleaning meat scraps from machinery all afternoon is probably one of the easiest motivations for vegetarianism. I eventually got another job and began eating fish and chicken again but laid off the red meat and pork for a good three or four years. Then I passed by a Wendy's one day and remembered how much I loved their hamburgers. It was easily the best hamburger I ever ate.

Thursday, January 04, 2007

a beast unleashed, indeed

I don't know where El DeBarge is now but I hope it is a dark place. I hope that his life has become tragic and unpleasant and that people say My God, I wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy or That poor bastard; I know he deserves to be in a horrible place, but this place he is in now is so unspeakably horrible that I might pity him if he didn't deserve it so. In short, I hope there is much wailing and gnashing of teeth and the like.
You see, I've spent the better part of aught-seven with his horribly unlistenable song "Who's Johnny?" stuck in my head, and it is all the fault of Meat Loaf.
It all began over the holidays when I found myself lazily collapsed on the couch before a flickering television late one night. I had probably eaten too much and then washed it down with half a pot of fully caffeinated coffee, thus rendering myself into a state of being hummingbird alert while still trapped in my slothful mortal casing. It was the perfect sort of thing for a "Twilight Zone" marathon, zombie movies, watching the same Sports Center over and over again, or whatever the hell it was that I subjected myself to on that particular evening. The television program itself isn't important, mind you, for offensive Meat Loaf visitation and the demon seed that implanted the foul fruits of DeBarge deep within me came in the form of a commercial.
Did any of you know that there is now a Bat Out of Hell III: The Monster is Loose? I dare say that you didn't, as Mr. Loaf has taken to promoting the thing through television commercials.
Look, I've made my love of the Loaf's original Bat Out of Hell no secret. However, though I have yet hear it and lack even the slightest desire to subject myself to any portion of it, I know that this offering, much like the ill-advised sequel, is nothing more than a defiling of the original.
Still, the Loaf had a number of accomplices to help him on this one, and a list of them rolled by as if I needed even less incentive to purchase Bat Out of Hell III: The Monster is Loose.
Look, Loaf, if the burning questions about how "the monster" indeed escaped, who was to blame for the failure of securing said monster, and the resulting compromised safety of me and my family didn't sell it to me, then knowing that there is a guest spot by Steve Vai--the very same Steve Vai who got his ass handed to him in a guitar duel with Ralph Macchio in Crossroads--can do very little to sweeten the pot, as it were.
At this point those of you who are still with me here might be asking yourself, My God, does El DeBarge have a guest spot on the new Meat Loaf album? I can assure you that he does not. However, it was another name on the list that began to torturous journey to DeBarge, for there with Vai, Todd Rundgren, Nikki Sixx, Diane Warren, and Brian May was a chap by the name of John 5. I couldn't place him at first and therefore did some old-fashioned googling within the dark corners of my primarily unused brain space. By brain returned with this entry:
John 5 was that robot in Short Circuit, a film so bad that they couldn't even get Steve Guttenberg to do the sequel.
Indeed. This settled the matter for a while. However, it was the strains of DeBarge's "Who's Johnny?", the theme song to Short Circuit, playing in the back of my mind some time later as if accidentally placed on the mental phonograph while rummaging through dust covered boxes for the John 5 reference that alerted me to the fact that the robot in question was actually christened "Johnny 5" and that John 5 was, in fact, some hack guitarist from one of those talentless NuMetal-Hop abominations.
Well, the matter had then been cleared, I suppose, but I had been left with a steady loop of unwanted DeBarge as a consequence, a price certainly too great to pay for having such a petty matter put straight.
Damn you, Meat Loaf.

Tuesday, January 02, 2007

seven deadlies

The 'coma hit me with a meme asking for seven personal accomplishments in 2006. I suppose I will oblige, as it seems pretty safe at this point to say that I will accomplish nothing else in aught-six, but let it be noted that "accomplishments" are not always good things.
1. I killed James Brown. I didn't mean to, of course, but I did, and there you have it. This may be of little solace to the Brown clan, but there was really no way of knowing it would happen until Mr. Brown passed away and the pattern then availed itself. You see, I happened to notice that I've only devoted two posts to soul singers, yet each of those singers died within a month or two of the post. There was this sophomoric bit of word play and photoshopping devoted to Lou Rawls and then this bit about the Hardest Working Godfather of Al Sharpton. Each seemed harmless enough at the time, yet they robbed the world of two irreplaceable voices. Sorry about that.
2. Lou Rawls actually died in January of aught-six, so I suppose I should list his demise among my accoplishments for this year.
3. I found some poor bastard to impersonate me at blogger functions in aught-six. He hasn't embarrassed himself too badly, I suppose, but he certainly hasn't been earning his five bucks and seventy-five cents an hour.
4. I half-heartedly ran for senate and was surprisingly unsuccessful. I guess people really do get the government they deserve. Bastards.
5. I think I was also running for governor. It's really hard to keep up with such things. At any rate, I changed my middle name to "Ladies" in an attempt to shore up the female vote, yet it was to no avail. Either that or only a handful of ladies voted. Anyway, I've changed it yet again for political purposes, just in case there are any more feeble political attempts in my future. The "L" now stands for "Low tax".
6. I finally purchased and began learning my way around a bull fiddle. Really, I don't understand why more musicians don't switch to instruments that can double as small apartments in those lean months.
7. I generally don't stick with things. This blog was started as a way to cheaply kill a month or two of unemployment, yet the humble blog 'o doom be closing in on two years in a few short months. I suppose that's an accomplishment.