Wednesday, November 09, 2005

memorandum from captain random:

i am beginning to think that a number of my lightway co-workers do not share my sense of humor. a little bit of evidence that supports my assumption...

two weeks ago, just before our staff meeting, i decided to walk the diz in the rain. thus, when i walked into the conference room, my pants were sopping wet, but my torso was relatively dry due to the water resistant qualities of my long coveted, AA flight line jacket. anyway, when the manager announced that i was the new copywriter and asked if i had anything i would like to say, the following words tumbled out: "i'm so happy i just pissed myself." instead of laughter, i heard a literal "pip" squeak.

moreover, yesterday, about midway through my introduction to the new "sanctified spam" project, i encouraged the editors by telling them they no longer had to create a monotonous, time consuming, text version of the "spam" to stand alongside their html version. a few of them actually broke out into a cheer, that quickly subsided as soon as i told them that i was "just kidding" (e-i-e-i-o!). at that point, i almost had a mutiny on my hands. this morning, while reflecting on the failure of my humor i was tempted to think that i am not funny. but both of us know that's not true. the apparent failure of my humor clearly lies at the feet of the editors.


so i spent some time working with the dirty hippy down at vagabond records last night. about halfway through the tracy chapman disc, which was preceded by a marc cohn cd and a frantic search for a hidden bruce cockburn disc, i realized that i am going to be the most uninspiring music clerk ever. i won't have the musically inspired, manaical energy of barry at championship vinyl or even the artistic, detached, artistic cool of a.j. at the empire. the best i can shoot for is a second rate imitation of randall over at rst video. i've got the mixture of antipathy and anger towards the customers down. but, admittedly, i'd rather talk about the protest lyrics of tracy chapman than the ethics of the empire. so i'm still going to suck. oh well, if i'm not what vagabond is looking for i can always work at the virgin megastore.


i just had my workday rudely interrupted by a publisher's meeting with a certain southern baptist publishing house that we could abbreviate with a B and H but, as per larry cannon's request, i am not going to identify here. anyway, at the end of the long-winded meeting i made a point of shaking hands with donald smith, the sales rep for the aforementioned company, and saying, "i interviewed the C.E.O. of your company last month and i told him what a helpful and attentive sales rep you are." at this, he smiled and thanked me. "no problem," i responded, "i just affirmed that even though you voted for Kerry, the folks at lightway still love ya." once again, no response.


more to come...

12 comments:

Before Girl said...

I think you have a multi-tiered thing: It's humor-sarcasm-humor-is he kidding-humor. Plus, stressed out and/or neurotic people don't get humor well, even when not multi-tiered. I'll be the first to say I'm not the sharpest knife in the drawer, and I didn't get it was a joke even when you said it was. And there are others far duller than me in said drawer, so I can only imagine what they thought.

muusfh (mussfah)

Agent B said...

Well, I'm laughing. At least at the piss joke. I'm w/ before girl about the spam joke...I didn't entirely 'get' it. But that's because I don't now what you're refering to w/ spam.

There are certain words that generate a pip squeek response from religious folks, but are words that aren't necessarily 'foul'. Words like piss, suck, hell, ass...

W. Wilson said...

You got me laughing... thanks for a good wake-up laugh on this Wednesday morning.

leanne said...

One of these days you'll just have to accept that you're not funny.

g13 said...

some people think andy kaufman was an idiot, some think he was a comedic genius. i am one of the latter.

Before Girl said...

Leanne: now THAT was funny. I cracked up silently on that one.

I also cracked up at the word verifcation I got: znthubz

zin-thube-z! I've got zinthubz of the elbow. Damn zinthubz-they're everywhere this time of year. I'll have the tenderloin with zinthubz sauce.

Agent B said...

voted for kerry...good one

g13 said...

he was a little suprised by my comment, but not as surprised as he would have been if i would have used "profane language" in his presence. much like i did with the next sales hack i had to sit down with. it has been a crazy day around good ole lightway.

Mike Murrow said...

there are some jokes that are "inside"...

i think your humor is "outside" in that if you are on the inside you don't get it cause you are the butt of the joke... but if you are on the outside looking in you laugh your ass off...

or you could just be the lightway equiv. of the mgr on the office...

Dale said...

buenos dias senor, I have run into this very same problem/personality crisis...it's very unnerving to start thinking 'could it be true that I'm just not funny?'
Don't let yourself think that...when I have run into problems, it's usually when people don't know me well enough to discern whether or not I'm kidding.
As a result of my joking before someone really knows me, I have several friends who are constantly asking me 'are you kidding?' VERY annoying!
The 'pissed myself' joke is classic...reminds me of the day I went around at Focus referring to everyone as 'bitch'

Michelle said...

Gentry ~ Did you remove the butt pic, becasue you are second guessing your comedic talents? Keep the faith Sir you are side splitting. How unfortunet that your co-workers don't recognize the value in your antics.

g13 said...

thanks for your kind words mish. i actually removed the pic because, well, people don't want to look at an ass-crack time and again. those kind of jokes have a limited shelf life.

and rest assured that i'm not insecure about my sense of humor. the observation about my coworkers was simply a way to frame the "i pissed myself story."

peace.