My arrest record

On January 24, 2013, I got pulled over for a seatbelt violation. Also, I didn't have a current insurance card at the time, so I incurred two tickets, totalling $250 or roundabouts. My traffic court date was scheduled for 2/28/13, 5:30pm. 

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Totally true urban legends

As interpreted by the Mad Scientific crew ...

I heard that, before every spring season, the Knoxville Zoo hires rogue zoologists who kill the polar bears that they have on exhibit. When the following winter season begins, they just bring in more polar bears as replacements.

The Knoxville Zoo, in an attempt to justify this slaughter of a species already precariously balanced on a dwindling population spike, sent an internal memo to zoo administration to place emphasis on bears that are sick, but which maintain a healthy appearance.

The memo, which drew parallels between this desired polar bear population and HIV/AIDS victims, was interpreted literally, sending zoo officials into a frenzy, looking for polar bears stricken with sexually transmitted diseases.

After months of fruitless researching, they discovered a pocket of polar bears in the north Arctic that were stricken with syphillis; left unchecked, the disease has spread exponentially to the rest of the group, which numbers in the thousands. It's from this cluster of polar bears that the Knoxville Zoo culls their polar bears exhibit each year.

The location of the mass grave of polar bears has always been shrouded in mystery for years. However, amid the increasing rumors and speculation, a task force was commissioned to investigate the location of these decomposing, syphillis-ridden polar bear corpses. In 2007, they successfully tracked the bear corpses to a system of subterranean chambers located beneath Thompson-Boling Arena.

CAN YOU PROVE IT'S NOT TRUE??!

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Reverend Joshua versus The Crazy (Part Three)

(Also see Part Two!)

It's true, it's true! The big finish! Enjoy!

Money for Nothing (and the Crazy for Free)

Michael sent out one of his occasional emails detailing the latest installment of Obama’s Secret Plan to Destroy the World and apparently I sighed way too loudly as I read it because Michael flipped out and shouts about how I didn’t have to read the email if I didn’t want to, but the article he linked to was that Obama is going to raise taxes in January 2010 so high that he would have to cut everyone’s pay by a third. The original phrasing Michael used was “if you are still here in January, your pay will be cut by a third.” He specifically emphasized that he was referring to me and I thought it was odd that he was already planning for me not being there in January.

Unsurprisingly, there was no tax rate increase, but Michael apparently did recently cut pay, as evidenced by a Craigslist want ad recently discovered by my roommate. (Craigslist deletes ads after a period of time, so I archived this for posterity.) A year ago I would have said that I don’t know what kind of person would focus a want ad on the fact that he had just cut salaries; today, I can confidently say that I know exactly what kind of person does that.

Another email in August had a link to what at the time was just an early draft of the Health Care Bill. Anyone with any knowledge of current events or critical thinking skills was aware that there were at least six versions under review of which this was just one. Not Michael, though: “The Democrats are pulling a fast one trying to pass a Health bill and are lying to our faces right now. Here is the actual bill.” The email also included a huge list of “facts” about the bill, each “fact” referring to a page in the bill and whatever evil aspect of Obamacare it represented. As Michael bellowed through the office that everyone should read the email, he implied that the “facts” were from research that he had personally done. My general policy with Michael’s emails was to spot check them: pick a couple of points and do a quick Google search to debunk them just to make sure that I still lived on planet Earth.

The first “fact” from the email: “Page 22 of the HC Bill MANDATES the Govt will audit books of ALL EMPLOYERS that self insure!! WTF!!” I didn’t even have to research this: if a company decides to self-insure their employees – the employer assumes the direct risk for payment of employees’ benefit claims – of course the government is going to make sure that the employer can afford to do so, especially if mandates exist for health insurance. This is called “closing a loophole” and also protecting employees: the only thing worse than having no insurance is finding out that your employer never actually had the funds to cover the insurance that you thought you had. I double-checked the bill to see if there was something missing from this “fact” and it turned out there was: auditing books of employers who self-insure is part of an 18-month study of the efficiency of self-insurance, not a permanent aspect of health care reform. Two strikes on the first pitch.

I skimmed through more “facts.” “Page 29 lines 4-16 in the HC bill – YOUR HEALTHCARE IS RATIONED!!!” Insurance companies decide what they will pay for based on various factors. You can call it rationing, risk management, cost-benefit analysis, or whatever you like, but it’s all the same. I was disappointed by the inclusion of this oft-repeated criticism, as Michael’s nonsense is usually of a higher caliber. “Page 50 Section 152 in HC bill – HC will be provided 2 ALL non US citizens, illegal or otherwise.” I did a simple search of the bill for the word “undocumented” and found that on page 143, section 143 it clarified: “no federal payment for undocumented aliens,” defining undocumented aliens as “individuals who are not lawfully present in the United States.” Two more pitches, two more strikes.

I skip forward to a “fact” in big red letters, so it must be important and certainly it has to be true if he’s going to call attention to it: “Page 304 L 17-19 BIG ONE HERE: Expedited Data Collection – Chapter 35 and…” it has a link to a page that no longer exists. Fortunately, Google archived it: the point here is that the Health Care Reform act would be able to use collected data in any way it sees fit, exempting the government from protecting the privacy of citizens. Here's the text of the bill on page 304, lines 17 through 19: “Chapter 35 of title 44, United States Code shall not apply to this section.” What is Chapter 35 of title 44, United States Code? It’s the Paperwork Reduction Act! The Paperwork Reduction Act has nothing to do with privacy laws, it's intended to ensure that the goddamned government wastes as little time, money, and - as the title of the law suggests - paper as possible. At this point there are more errors in the “fact” checking than there are “facts.” In compiling this list, Michael failed at reading and comprehension in every conceivable way.

But wait, there’s more failure: in researching that last “fact” I discovered that the list was compiled by this illiterate. Not only did Michael steal someone else’s work, but he stole research that was incorrect to the point of being a lie. You couldn’t possibly fit any more failure and stupidity into one email.

Ohhhh yes you can. The email included the warning that "If Health Reform passes, not only will your pay be reduced, but the Post Office ( which means the government) will run your Dr. office and our health industry, and we WILL sacrifice our elderly as all all socialized medicine does in every nation including England and Canada." Just...no. I'm done with this part of the story.

Denouement Part Two – Race to the Bottom

Michael spent a great deal of time, money, and energy in creating an Internet-based War/Battle Simulation/Social Networking Strategy Game Website with a storyline based on his particularly odd brand of paranoid delusional politics: United States of Earth. I don’t know anything about how the Game works because I never tried to play it, but the explanation I was given made it sound like an MMO based on a combination of Risk and Diplomacy board games. The plot and setting is familiar; it’s 2011 and Obama’s Secret Plan to Destroy the World damaged America so badly that Republicans won majorities in both Houses of Congress in the 2010 election, but Obama refuses to seat the new Congress and revokes the US Constitution, leading the American people to revolt. The player’s goal is to seize territories and government to eliminate the evil liberals/Federales/traitors boogeymen.

The first guy Michael hired to do website programming for USoE quit after two weeks because he could not get Michael to understand the limitations of web-based gaming and was tired of being instructed to do the impossible. The second programmer quit after being ordered to wash his hands because Michael witnessed him leaving the bathroom without washing his hands; this incident was aired publicly on the calling floor while employees were on live calls as Michael ordered his assistant to very publicly clean the programmer’s keyboard, mouse, and work area with Lysol while Michael stood around shouting about it. Granted, not washing your hands after you use the bathroom is nasty, but this can be handled quietly.

Before United States of Earth went live, Michael needed posts on USoE similar to the ones on Earthfrisk, presumably for the same reason: to make the game website appear to have legitimate traffic. Michael also wanted us to focus on creating Trivia Questions for the game, as players will answer those questions to earn points to create larger armies to win battles to win the Internet, fuck if I know why. Creating Trivia Questions is easy: set the StumbleUpon toolbar to Wikipedia-only and then dig something out of the entries that come up. However, creating Trivia is far more time consuming than simply posting links; each question is multiple choice, so it needs one real answer and three incorrect answers.

Michael’s inability to focus leads to an erratic demand for Posts one day and Trivia the next, then nothing is mentioned for two weeks, then a sudden demand for Posts that changes to Trivia later in the day. One October Tuesday evening, just before the end of my shift, Michael storms around the office bellowing his demands Trivia Questions for the site. I do what I can over the remaining three hours of my shift to add Trivia Questions to the site between calls, but in deference to the clients I focus on answering phone calls and providing customer service to the callers.

A little over an hour into my shift the following day, I receive an Instant Message from the Office Manager telling me to shut down both computers and come to her desk. I know it this can’t be good: the only reason I would need to shut down both computers is if I’m not going to be there for the rest of the day - or possibly ever again. The Office Manager tells me that my bounced calls have been high recently.

Let me explain: in most call centers, you take one call at a time. At Crazyhouse Office, you have calls coming in on top of calls you are already taking and you have to put the first caller on hold to take the next call and so on, with the system having a limit of nine calls per station at any given time. The extent to which calls overlap is related to how many client accounts you handle and the current call volume. If you cannot answer an incoming call quickly enough, the system automatically reroutes the call to another available operator, thus it is called a bounced call or “bounce.” Bounced calls are a legitimate issue, because calls need to be taken promptly and a missed call could mean a lost customer.

From conversations I had with a fellow employee over the previous months, I was aware that my bounced calls were higher than other employees; however I was also aware that my call volume was higher than other employees. I was never given any official assessment of my performance, nor had my performance been discussed in any type of performance review in months because there are no performance reviews. As to why there are no performance reviews is debatable; it could be a result of there being enough just enough employees to cover the call volume, meaning that no one in a position of authority has the opportunity to compile data and discuss it with CSRs. It could also be that Michael’s review of your performance is based entirely on his serotonin levels on any given day. Or possibly your voting record. But this is speculation.

So now I’m getting an impromptu performance review covering some undetermined amount of time. When advising me of my high rate of bounced calls the Office Manager made a motion towards a piece of paper that had a column five numbers on it. I assumed these were the previous five days’ worth of bounces and protested that I had been added to a very large number of new accounts the previous week and was still familiarizing myself with them. The Office Manager claimed the new accounts were irrelevant and that I had been added to the accounts in order to bring my volume up to levels closer to other employees who had more call volume than I did. I wasn’t immediately looking to call the Office Manager a liar, but the numbers I had seen going back some months demonstrated that I was regularly taking a higher volume of calls than the employees she mentioned long before I was given the new accounts. In fact, I had long been taking a higher volume of calls than all but two or three others. The Office Manager mentioned that she had been instructed to look back over my numbers after Michael had noticed that I had not posted any questions to USoE the night before; because my bounces were so high I was being suspended for three days – without pay, naturally. I was furious and twice had to stop myself from screaming obscenities at the Office Manager because Michael was the true target of my rage and he conveniently wasn’t there.

I signed off on my Employee Warning Notice, which focused on bounced calls and doesn’t mention my alleged refusal to further contribute to the Internet Culture of the Workplace, then stalked back to the F-Train. I was still seething when I got home was not certain of what to do next, but after sharing yet another oh-so-hilarious tale of Crazyhouse Office for my roommates, I decided this: Michael would have to fire me if he wanted rid of me. In the meantime, the issue of bounced calls became a hot topic at the office, with regular updates on call volume and bounces being sent out throughout the day with the expectation of minimal bounces. It seems strange to tie the necessity of performance reviews to Michael’s hobbies, but it’s not my company.

When I returned from the three-day suspension, I saw an email from Michael saying not to worry about posting on USoE until the server issues were resolved and that a new server was being installed to handle the new traffic. The new traffic was a result of USoE being posted on Fark; for anyone unfamiliar with Fark, it’s a where people submit websites and news stories and the readership at large will comment on them. If something previously obscure, like USoE, hits the front page of Fark, the site is often overrun with traffic from people who saw it on Fark – the terms for this phenomenon are called “Farking” and being “Farked.” Michael found out USoE had been “Farked” and was allegedly quite pleased with “the publicity” until he read the comments that were being left on Fark about his masterpiece. For someone who takes his mythology seriously, it must have been quite a shock to read quotes like “This has to be a carefully crafted farce… I can only believe that this was concocted by a bunch of snickering undergrads out for the LULZ” and “These people are seriously unhinged” in reference to USoE.

I returned to work as usual the following Monday and The Office Manager took a moment before my shift started to ask me if I was ok and if there was any tension between the two of us. I assured her that I had no problem with her; she was just doing her job. And everything was fine until 15 minutes before the end of my shift on Wednesday, when Michael came by my desk and told me to finish my call, shut down both computers, gather my personal belongings, and come to the front desk.

Michael, the Office Manager, and I went to a conference room; Michael began with an odd question about my recent job searches and then detailed my allegedly poor performance. I noted that it was their failure that I had gone so long with allegedly poor performance without any intervening review to let me know that my performance was unsatisfactory. I also noted that my performance had improved once I was advised that it had been unsatisfactory. Michael suggested that my performance was a result of dissatisfaction with my job, demonstrated by how angry I had been about being suspended for three days, and referred to the fact that I had asked for time off for job interviews. I corrected him and pointed out that I had asked for a schedule switch on one day to interview for job that was a specific and possible career opportunity that I didn’t have high expectations of getting anyway. I didn’t really know how to address criticism for being angry about being suspended without pay for three days; that was one of the dumbest things I’ve ever heard him or anyone else say.

(I should note, in the interests of full disclosure and accuracy, that I did receive one performance review within my first month relating to bounced calls and I resolved the issue to the satisfaction of the Sales Manager who handled the review. I was not, at any time, advised of any threshold or standards of performance and the lack of further review gave me no reason to consider my performance unsatisfactory.)

At this point I determined that any further discussion was futile and a danger to my well-being and freedom as I was already beginning to see spots from anger and most of the words I could think of were obscenities, so I asked the obvious question of whether or not I was being fired and stood up to leave. Michael said that I was being terminated but, in a stunning twist, that if I would sit down and stay calm he would state that my termination was due to downsizing and position elimination, thus making me eligible for unemployment. If I left immediately I would be fired “for cause” and would unable to draw unemployment. So I sat down and then he said something about finding a job I enjoy and then scribbled a note about downsizing on a printout with the company name and employer ID. And with that, my tenure at Crazyhouse Office quietly came to an end.

Epilogue: Fark You, Buddy

United States of Earth did receive some publicity as a result of getting Farked, all of which occurred after my termination. Mother Jones, a very progressive Liberal magazine - who employs my favorite political blogger, Kevin Drum – interviewed Michael about the game and the anti-Obama storyline. Michael uses the second or third last name that I’ve seen - Russotto - in order to “protect himself” from people who, when looking for the main office of USoE, would find themselves directed by a big red sign to the front door of…you guessed it, Crazyhouse Office.

To be honest, I was quite disappointed with the MoJo interview. Here’s an opportunity for Michael to air his views in what will probably be the best opportunity he’ll see at a notable forum; more than that, it’s an opportunity to confront the hated “Liberal Media” head-on. When talking to David Corn - a legitimately bright journalist who regularly challenges and debunks absurd far-right nonsense – Michael, the man who stomps around the office shouting “THIS PRESIDENT IS DOGSHIT!” to a captive audience, is suddenly Mr. Middle-of-the-Road who dislikes each party equally and isn't an ideologue “advancing any partisan agenda.” This anti-Obama scenario is merely the first “stunt” to bring players to the game; a similar “Bush-themed” episode is in the works.

I did see the purpose in taking a moderated stance when discussing USoE for the publicity. If he’s looking to make the game commercially viable he can’t drive away potential customers. But then I found this interview Michael did with Two Stuttering Jerkasses and a Fuckwit (This is a YouTube link, just over minute long. Apparently there’s a longer version of this interview, but that YouTube clip is all of his nonsense I’m going to listen to for anything less than $14 an hour.) On an Internet radio show with an audience consisting of drunks who wear tinfoil hats, permanent basement dwellers, and what George Carlin called "guys in Army fatigues talking to God on a one-way radio" hosted by a couple of clowns who sound like they'd have trouble arguing with a kindergartener, Michael shows his true colors: Obama is evil and these Marxists “Czars” are infiltrating our government and using black helicopters, FEMA concentration camps, and Health Care Reform to kill the elderly. (I only listened to like 30 seconds of that interview so that may not accurately represent what he actually said, but I think I can safely assume that he did.)

And that’s my former employer in a nutshell: Glenn Beck with twice the crazy and half the charm, hiding behind fake names and confidentiality agreements so that he can preach to the chorus and a captive audience without having to risk being called on his bullshit.

I wrote this story to amuse and inform my friends and family, not as part of a crusade against an asshole who fired me and then suggested that he was doing me a favor by claiming my termination was due to downsizing so that I could draw unemployment. Any exposure of someone's political mythology to the harsh light of truth is unintended. Speaking of politics, I did occasionally refer to Michael’s politics as “far-right” and I want to make clear that I wouldn’t smear the Republican Party or modern conservative philosophy with his lunacy, but it is what it is.

I want to thank everyone who made it this far and I also want to suggest that newcomers dig around the archives here at Science Gone Mad. There’s some great work from my fellow Mad Scienticians - Nate, Ron B., Will, Buck, and Jake - all over this joint. Just pick a category over on the right and go. Bookmark us and y’all come on back now, y’hear?

~Fin~

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Reverend Joshua versus The Crazy (Part Two)

(Also see Part One!)

I opened up the ol' Inbox today to this gem:

Dear Joshua

Not only are you in violation of an agreement that you signed not to talk about the company in any way, but you are naming [Crazyhouse office] which was not your employer. You were employed by [Another Company, Not Crazyhouse Office]. [Crazyhouse Office Group] is an umbrella group for many companies around the country - all of which you have left yourself open to lawsuits from. You are advised to remove the article immediately. Failure to do so will result in many lawsuits from companies around the country, including your former employer [Another Company, Not Crazyhouse Office], which by the way, didn't protest your unemployment benefits. We may now do so, along with a lawsuit if you do not remove the article immediately since you were fired for cause and therefore are not eligible to get unemployment insurance. NYS will go after you for all monies already given to you.

We are giving you a few days before we notify each of the companies as individual entities who may also sue you for violation. We will share the info with them and join in the many lawsuits. We will also notify your hosting company of a violation of their terms of use in using free blog space to illegally disparage a former employer. Not only will your blog be removed, but they will also add testimony as they have a copy of the article and we do too.

We will acknowledge receipt of this message when the blog is taken down. Don't wait too long.

Your friend
Mike

Internet Lawsuit threat! For. The. Win. Man, I hope he totally doesn't tell the unemployment people that he changed his mind three months later and decided that I was fired for cause! I guess this Termination Notice with the reason for termination listed as "downsizing" is totally a forgery, probably by the same organization that forged Obama's birth certificate!

I planned to put the Strange but True Tale of Michael's Confidentiality Agreement in the third and final segment, but he totally spoiled it so I went ahead and included it part two. I may go back and change the name of where I worked to Crazyhouse Office. In fact, yeah, that's what I'll do. Hopefully this will avoid MANY LAWSUITS FROM AROUND THE COUNTRY. And it is also funnier, plus the Interests of Accuracy are appeased.

This reminds me of the legal threats Something Awful receives from aggrieved crazy people. I guess that puts me in pretty good company. But enough about that crazy bullshit, it's time for PART TWO OF THIS CRAZY BULLSHIT:

The Internet and You

The nature of the business requires that employees have largely unrestricted access to the Internet. The clientele is constantly changing and – aside from refusing to aid in the battle against our planet becoming uninhabitable and also declining service for blatantly obvious scams and frauds – Crazyhouse Office will provide services to anyone who puts in the barest effort at appearing legitimate. Because the clients include some fully-legal adult services, you can’t run content filters; because new clients are always coming along, you can’t run URL filters. Well, you could run filters that a competent IT professional would regularly update, but that requires hiring a competent IT professional. So the end result is that employees have unrestricted access to the Internet.

The obvious downside to allowing employees full access to the Internet is the possible loss of productivity, which is why most employers either limit access to the Internet or fire unproductive workers regardless of what causes them to not do their goddamned job. Michael doesn’t like that every other company in the world either limits their employees’ Internet access or fires them for not doing their job. Michael’s solution: create Earthfrisk, a social networking site similar to MySpace or Facebook, and require employees to contribute. (See also Michael's blog at Earthfrisk.) Employees contribute by using the StumbleUpon toolbar to randomly find new websites based on settings and interests of our choosing and posting links to those websites on Earthfrisk between calls. This site was created and maintained at an alleged cost of thousands of dollars per month so that Michael would not have to fire employees for using the Internet. I guess it’s cheaper than hiring an IT professional to maintain filters and I don’t really see how this helps productivity but I’m not batshit insane.

Although Michael repeatedly stated that he created Earthfrisk with no intent to profit – he does not sell advertising space of any kind – my impression from looking at the site and some posts and comments he made on various technology-related websites attempting to subtly advertise Earthfrisk was that the original purpose of the site was to actually compete directly with MySpace and Facebook and that employee contributions were intended to give the appearance of legitimate traffic and usage. Earthfrisk is poorly designed, provides no unique services, and - due to Michael’s constantly-trumpeted personal beliefs - the content focused largely on crazy right-wing nonsense; unsurprisingly the site has not, as of this writing, gained much market share.

This bizarre Internet Usage Policy is where my first real problem at Crazyhouse Office arises. As I’ve established, Michael is largely unable to hold coherent conversation for longer than 45 seconds unless it involves Obama’s Secret Plan to Destroy the World. The only clear explanation I was given about the IUP was that if I found something that I liked via StumbleUpon, I was to post it on Earthfrisk. No quota or quality control was defined or mentioned; if you like it, post it. It made sense to me that we would only post things that we like or find interesting from the position of the site having credible, quality material. I asked for clarification on what should be posted and Michael reiterated: if you like something, post it.

I didn’t keep track of what or how often I posted during my first month because I was under the impression that my job was to provide customer service to callers and this Internet nonsense was a trick being played on me by a vengeful God. Given that we were fairly shorthanded, I was also focused more on answering calls than randomly surfing the Internet or posting to a poorly-designed, third-rate social networking site. What Michael didn’t bother to clarify during my interview, or training, or on the three separate occasions I asked for clarification, was that he does indeed require a certain level of participation on Earthfrisk and he allegedly let it be known that certain people were not maintaining this level. He did this, allegedly, by storming around the office and bellowing it while people were taking calls, after which he retreated back to his office without further explanation. Of course I had no clue what he was talking about because I’m on the goddamned phone and can’t pay attention to his gibberish so I make the critical error of thinking whatever he was on about was more irrelevant lunatic political bullshit. Eventually an email was sent out by one of the veteran employees noting that Michael wanted more posts; I let Michael know that I wasn’t finding much of interest and a large amount of what I was finding had already been posted by other employees, as the StumbleUpon database shared by all StumbleUpon users. He mumbled something to the effect that other employees had mentioned the same problem, so he was looking into it and not to worry about volume.

Two days later I was pulled off of the phone and informed I was being suspended for one day (without pay, obviously) because of what my roommate adequately described as “a lack of contribution to the Internet Culture of the Workplace.”

I was upset because I was explicitly told by Michael just days earlier not to worry about post volume and that he had continually been unclear about exactly what volume of posting he was looking for. Michael did everything he could during the meeting to avoid saying “just post anything” without actually saying “just post anything” although I read between the lines and decided that clearly he meant “just post anything.” He would send out a directive a few months later, after he launched his new Social Networking Strategy Game Website, that we should post at least once for every two sites we visit, which would have been helpful fucking information before I lost a day’s pay over it.

Escalating Insanity

I made certain to post often, without regard to value of content, after my suspension and things ran smoothly for a month or so. This would soon change. At the time my desk was located beside the windows on the other side of the office. After a few weeks I noticed that Liz, who sat directly on my left, had begun turning her monitors away from the window on my right. I assumed that she was having trouble with sunlight glaring on her monitors, which was odd because I didn’t have any problems with sunlight, but I didn’t think much of it until a meeting that Liz had regarding her performance.

Normally a performance meeting is held privately in a separate office where a supervisor or supervisors will have a discussion with the employee. Not at Crazyhouse Office; Liz’s performance was reviewed at the front desk on a conference call with the Sales Manager who telecommutes from Long Island. The discussion was a loud airing of grievances audible to the entire staff. After a rundown of her shortcomings as an employee, Michael asked Liz about her monitors. As it happens, Liz didn’t turn the monitors away from the window because of glare; Liz was turning her monitors away from me because she was concerned that I was looking at what she was doing on her computers.

The conversation was just loud enough for everyone to hear it but no one was able to follow the entire conversation because they were trying to take calls, which led a couple of employees to believe that I had done something wrong. Fortunately I was able to piece together that Liz was concerned that I was looking at what was on her monitors and she didn’t want me to see what she was doing. This was absurd, because there obviously isn’t anything she should be doing at work that other people shouldn’t be able to see, a point Michael made, and she also made sure to turn her calling-station monitor away even though there was nothing she could do on that computer that wasn’t work-related. The next day I was moved to another desk on the other side of the office. I was fine with this arrangement because my old seat was in a corner away from the air vents and a couple of warm summer days in the sunlight had nearly resulted in me melting. And since I couldn’t possibly see her monitors from my new seat, everything would be fine…

…until a week or so later when Michael informed me that Liz was accusing me of sexual harassment and that he needed me to write a statement claiming that I had never done any such thing. I, having never sexually harassed Liz, wrote a statement to that effect and gave it to Michael. Apparently she was making a similar claim against another employee and generally looked to be angling for a lawsuit. Liz disappeared a week later with no explanation given.
 
Denouement Part One or “When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro.”

Randomly, in the middle of the day in the middle of September, Michael sent his assistant around with some very important paperwork that all employees had to sign by the end of the day. Before I have an opportunity to look at the document, Michael’s assistant comes around again to retrieve the original paperwork and give us new copies. Apparently the first copy had at least three typos - I say “at least three typos” because the new copy had two typos - unless you’re familiar with the law and legally binding contracts, in which case the entire document is one long typo. Amusingly, one of the remaining typos is a misspelling of Michael’s last name.

Once I finally look at the document I notice that it appears to have been written in Microsoft Notepad and is clearly based on someone’s poorly-thought out idea of what a legally binding document might look like if there weren’t hundreds of years of work that went into creating a common idea of what a legally binding document actually is. Ostensibly the purpose of the document is an agreement to protect the confidentiality of Crazyhouse Office’s clients and their customers – a Confidentiality Agreement, if you will. However, a close examination reveals that the document’s true purpose is to protect “certain ideas and information relating to [Michael]” from being disclosed “without the express written consent of the Discloser [Michael] …and to prevent the Confidential Information from falling into the public domain or into the possession of unauthorized persons.”

Now the reason I think this may be more about protecting Michael’s Confidential Information and not the Clients or their customers is because of the Summation that appears in the middle of the document clarifying that “the recipient will NOT discuss ANY personal information ABOUT [Michael] UNLESS it pertains to preforming [sic] your job…will NOT discuss any personal information pertaining to [Michael] that you have learned in the past or will come to know in the future to ANYONE for ANY REASON outside of work, PERIOD.” And yes it did include the words in all caps. Crazyhouse Office gets a cursory mention in the final third of the first Summation. The second Summation spells out the consequences: “if you break any term of this contract YOU WILL be FIRED and YOU WILL be sued to the fullest extent of the law. Even if you QUIT or are FIRED you can STILL be sued for disclosing any confidential information of [Michael], or the companies listed in this contract.”

Fun fact: notably, one of the circumstances under which the recipient is no longer obligated to protect Michael’s Confidential Information is if the information “was ordered to be publicly released by the requirement of a government agency.”

Secret fun fact: I haven’t been ordered to release this information by the requirement of a government agency…or have I?

Generally legal documents don’t have summations in them because the whole point of an attorney is to pay them a lot of money to do that for you. It’s kind of a racket. Speaking of having an attorney double-check this gibberish, I looked over the document and decided that I needed to take a good goddamned look at this and maybe even have an attorney look at the agreement before I signed it. It appeared to be very broad to the point that I was concerned that I might be signing away my right to tell people that I have a job. I know it’s preposterous, but when in Rome, do as the Romans do: act craaazy. When Michael’s assistant asked if I was ready to sign the agreement, I said that I would like more time to look at it. I also mentioned that I might see if the attorney I previously worked for would mind looking over it. Michael’s assistant sighed and walked away; five minutes later Michael came over to tell me that he “would give me a chance” to have my attorney look at the agreement, but I needed to leave for the rest of the day and that the agreement had to be signed before I could return to work.

I called the attorney I had previously worked for and asked if she would mind reviewing the contract; after reading the agreement her first question was “your boss is crazy, isn’t he?” After we discussed the agreement, my understanding was that it was poorly constructed, clearly based on some sort of template found online or in a book, and that I should sign it without hesitation if my continued employment was at stake. Everything the agreement covers is either protected under existing privacy laws, such as tax returns and medical records. Aside from that, publicly-stated anti-government paranoia and a fundamental misunderstanding of Science isn’t Confidential Information.

In the meantime I found out that others had not signed the agreement, but after I was sent home Michael left for the day without pursuing the issue any further. This began to concern me and I wondered if the entire incident had been a set-up to see who would balk at signing because apparently Michael’s fucking paranoia was contagious and had begun to seep into my head. I returned the next day and signed the agreement, as did everyone who hadn’t signed it the day before, and that was the last it was mentioned.

Continued in Part Three!

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Reverend Joshua versus The Crazy (Part One)

[Editor's note: Original references to whoever it was that I worked for have been changed to "Crazyhouse Office" due to legal threats detailed in Part Two.]

Crazyhouse Office was not a normal workplace environment where experiences common to many members of the workforce require no elaboration. A penny-pinching boss that cuts out stocking the break room or an idiot co-worker breaks the printer trying to remove a paper jam – these are things anyone can understand on their own merits. Not here. Aside from my laziness, the hardest part about finishing this was that most incidents demanded a full explanation.

There was a lot of rewriting, too. Every paragraph eventually turned into a word salad of twists and turns and run-on sentences. The final draft is probably the fourth revision; I’d estimate at least ten- thousand words went in and seventy-four hundred came out. If there is any part of this entire tale that you don’t understand, feel free to ask for elaboration. If there is any part of this entire tale that you don’t believe to be true, just wait until the lawsuit. Finally, and two months behind schedule, I give you a story in three ridiculous parts: Reverend Joshua versus The Crazy.

In The Beginning

Just like the rest of the country, Brooklyn wasn’t the easiest place to find a job in early 2009. Most of what I saw were awful desperation jobs, door-to-door sales trying to trick people into signing up for programs that allegedly “save money” on utilities. It’s easy to spot this bullshit, because major corporations like Comcast pay people decent money to sit inside climate-controlled buildings to call people with legitimate offers of savings and upgrades. And I’m fresh off the boat from Tennessee, I’ll be damned if I’m walking the streets of Brooklyn with no idea where I am or whose door I’m knocking on.

There was, however, a promising ad I kept seeing on Craigslist for a call center in DUMBO: the highest paying call center in America, recession-proof because they take work from other companies when those companies downsize. The ad focused on the Crazyhouse Office’s very laid-back atmosphere with an emphasis on not tolerating racism or homophobia, plus a couple of cats roam freely around Crazyhouse Office and take precedence over employees and any possible allergies. I sent my resume and placed a follow-up call the next day; the person I spoke with said they would send a note to the HR department. I saw the ad again a week later and again I sent my resume and placed a follow-up call the next day; this time I was told that they were not hiring. The following Monday I saw the ad a third time, posted at noon on for an Open House at 3PM the same day because they needed to hire immediately.

I walk into the office and introduce myself to the woman at the front desk. She isn’t an employee, so she directs me to another woman a few feet away. Before I can speak with the actual employee, a man walks up to me and says that he will guess my name. I don’t remember what he guessed - Gary or something, damned if I remember - but he wasn’t even close, so he introduces himself as Michael and begins the interview. He starts by explaining that Crazyhouse Office is a Virtual Office that provides reception, secretarial, and mail drop services to companies that want to reduce expenses or cannot otherwise afford office space and/or employees. It is largely a straight-forward call center, except that you handle multiple clients and are expected to be familiar with varying procedures across all accounts.

Michael further explains that the inability to fully research every prospective client occasionally results in scam artists and other unsavory characters perpetrating frauds of varying sorts. In order to protect employees from enraged victims of dishonest clients, employees are required to use pseudonyms on the phone and the mail drop location is not the same as the call center location. People victimized by the clients will never know the real name or location of the operator or operators they spoke with. However, Michael refuses to allow employees to refer to one another by their real names while on the calling floor, so everyone only knows one another by their pseudonym. And because the mailing address is the suite adjacent to Crazyhouse Office with a sign on the door that says “NO ENTRY - USE OTHER DOOR AT [CRAZYHOUSE OFFICE SUITE NUMBER]” with an arrow pointing to the front door of the office, any enraged victim with murderous intent will be directed to the office where they will ask for a pseudonymous person who is only known to other employees by their pseudonym.

The interview continues as Michael looks at my resume and sees that I have a great deal of experience with phone jockey work. He then tells me that he doesn’t like to hire men because they don’t handle irate calls very well. I note that I’ve held several phone jobs without issue and can handle irate calls very well, which was apparently the magic phrase to overcome his highly-illegal gender-based hiring preferences, because then he asks when I can start.

As Michael introduces me to the rest of the office he asks me what my political views are. I’ve just moved to New York, one of the most socially and fiscally liberal states in America, from Tennessee, one of the most socially and fiscally conservative states in America and it did not occur to me that admitting that I was a liberal who voted for Obama would be a terrible, terrible mistake.

Michael tells me that electing Obama is the worst mistake this country has ever made. Michael says that he is liberal himself, but not a Liberal, but also not a Conservative, because he doesn’t like either Democrats or Republicans, because he “doesn’t buy the bullshit.” It sounded as retarded spoken aloud as it does written out here.

As he took me around the office and introduced me to my new co-workers he expanded on his view of the current political landscape, predicting that Americans would be so sick of Obama’s liberal agenda by 2010 that they would vote Republicans back into a majority in both Houses of Congress but Obama would refuse to seat the new Congress and there would be an all out armed revolution.

We return to the front desk where he introduces me to the woman that doesn’t work there, Liz, who it turns out was hired just before I arrived. She was at the front desk (normally occupied by a secretary) reading Michael’s personal blog about whatever paranoid right-wing conspiracy bullshit Michael was up on at the time. Michael says that Liz is also a libertarian like he is who “doesn’t buy the bullshit” and admits to both of us his concern that Obama is going to come after him personally because Michael was personally involved in the investigation that uncovered that Obama was born in Kenya, not Hawaii, and that the birth certificate issued and certified by the State of Hawaii was not only a fake but that anyone who wants a Hawaiian birth certificate can get one from the Internet. This too sounded as retarded spoken aloud as it does written down.

I didn’t bother to mention the birth announcement from the Honolulu Register published days after Obama’s birth nor the fact that any state that freely issues birth certificates for anyone who wants one would certainly require the intervention of the United States Senate in order to satisfy the Full Faith and Credit clause of the Constitution seeing as a birth certificate is the most important document a citizen can possess.

Michael continues to harangue us with batshit-insane political rants for about 10 or 15 minutes and I don’t even remember how that ended except that I was suddenly riding the F Train home concerned with the very real possibility that I had accidentally joined a cult – and I start tomorrow.

Training Day

Training initially involves studying the various states and time zones of the United States, which are generally things that should be learned in elementary school and I was pretty sure that this was a waste of time and money until later on when a co-worker thought Mexico was a state. Regardless of the value of this exercise, it would be great if it was at the starting hourly pay rate, but training is paid at a flat-rate of fifty dollars per day. Michael emphasizes that training can take anywhere from three days to two weeks, depending on how quickly you pick up the instructions. I spent seven weeks training to phone jockey for Cingular and that was handling clients for one major corporation; Crazyhouse Office has hundreds of clients and I can be on the phone in three days? I don’t see a problem with this.
After a few hours “studying” the various States and their Time Zones, I am given a quick overview of the calling station software and directed to study some accounts. No real direction and/or objectives are given: just study the accounts and at some point someone with experience will show me how to further use the software and the equipment. They will do this when they have the opportunity to stop taking calls; unfortunately there is very little opportunity for anyone to stop taking calls because the office is critically understaffed. After someone found the time to show me how to use the software and equipment, I was again left alone to “study” accounts. Years of experience with phone-based jobs, coupled with not being retarded, allowed me to pick everything up quickly and I was on the phone full-time after three days.

It takes about 45 seconds of speaking with Michael to learn that he is capable of coherent conversation unrelated to Obama/the Socialists/the Marxists’ secret plan to destroy Capitalism/America/the World for a maximum of about 45 seconds. Fortunately it turns out that when you start on the phones full-time, he doesn’t really bother you. I also learned that no one else in the office, aside from Liz, cares about his nonsense. Everyone just nods and smiles and hopes he goes away; this was quite the relief, but I made the critical error of thinking that he will fade completely into the background.

“Crazy Man Michael”

I was initially assigned to a seat by a window; Michael likes to keep the office relatively cool, so he opens the window for fresh air. The cold weather here lasted fairly well into May, so Michael asked if I was okay with sitting by the open window; I said that I was and that I like a cool environment myself. I made the mistake of continuing with small talk by noting that I had just moved to Brooklyn from Tennessee and, while I do like the cool weather, it was kind of depressing that the weather had been so shitty here in New York at the same time the weather back home was mild and dry. This gives Michael an opportunity to let me know that Global Warming is a hoax and here’s how he knows: Newsweek printed an article in the 1970s about some scientists who were concerned about Global Cooling. He pulled up his blog and, from there, a scan of the article which he insisted that I read.

After I read the article, Michael asked what I thought about it. I pointed out that regardless of whether or not the Earth’s temperature is rising as a result of natural climatological cycles or man-made activities, current Global Warming theories are not invalidated by the existence of previous theories that suggest cooling instead of warming. I didn’t bother to mention that the Global Cooling concerns came from a small group of scientists that had misinterpreted a very small amount of data which had long since been debunked or that what little media exposure Global Cooling received at the time was largely a result of standard media sensationalism. Likely expecting some Al Gore-style facts and analysis response that he could counter with more gibberish, Michael didn’t know how to process a rebuttal that discounted his premise entirely and wandered away silently.

Michael’s concern about the “lies of Global Warming” extended to the business itself, as indicated by a press release Michael put out trumpeting the fact that Crazyhouse Office had turned down a potential client who raised funds and awareness for Global Warming due to Global Warming being a hoax. However, he once spent thirty minutes arguing in favor of Evolution with his assistant, so clearly Science is not Michael’s enemy. Amusingly, Michael wasn’t even able to properly argue on behalf of Evolutionary Theory, but I imagine the intricacies of macro- and microevolution elude anyone who thinks Obama is planning to deputize AmeriCorps volunteers as his own private, domestic army. The kind of hippies that join AmeriCorps wouldn’t touch a gun if you taped a bag of pot and incents to it, but certainly Obama will have them running around enforcing orthodoxy.

Michael’s paranoia regarding the Federal Government has driven him to embracing all of the poorly-thought out Libertarian/Neoconservative viewpoints from Glenn Beck, Michael Savage and the rest of the far-right Tea Bagging fringe that lost their goddamned minds when the Scary Black Man With The Funny Name was elected President. He subscribes to theories alleging that the Federal Government has created internment camps for domestic political dissidents under FEMA, a claim which goes back to the early days of the Clinton Administration. Michael repeatedly charges that President Obama is a socialist trying to destroy capitalism and is at the same time controlled by Wall Street financiers. Michael demanded that anyone who received the Swine Flu vaccine let him know so that he can stay away from them because the government is trying to killing citizens with either the Swine Flu or the vaccine or both. I will give Michael credit for one prediction: he claimed some months ago that Obama would declare the Swine Flu a national emergency. He also predicted that Obama would force everyone to take the vaccination. He was also outraged that the Swine Flu vaccine contained live germs, which is generally how vaccination works.

His social skills are greatly retarded in the clinical sense of the word; he doesn’t seem to have the ability to differentiate between what is and is not appropriate behavior, especially in the workplace. To a large degree his inability to understand appropriate behavior isn’t even regarding what most people would consider morally offensive so much as the wrong time and place. Michael was storming around the calling floor one morning, upset about something Obama did or didn’t do, repeatedly bellowing “this President is dogshit.” Later that same day, Michael reprimanded an employee for saying “fuck” too loudly because “the callers might hear it.” In fact, Michael does most of his interoffice communication by storming around the calling floor, bellowing instructions to people who should be focused on speaking with callers, rather than using email or Instant Messenger.

Michael’s paranoia leads to him running what I assume is an entirely legitimate business like a Mafia front. I uncovered the Global Warming press release as I was doing Google searches to learn more about my employer, who used an entirely different name on the press release as he does for running Crazyhouse Office. Michael would turn up with a third name later in the story. Crazyhouse Office actually operates under two different names with a payroll under an entirely different company registered in the state of Florida and at one time had an office in Nevada that Michael never mentioned.

What Michael knows about the imaginary world doesn’t translate well to Crazyhouse Office; he rarely seemed familiar with much about any of our clients, call volume, or the constant need for new equipment. The best example of Michael’s poor familiarity with what actually goes on with the office is when he hired too many people in response to a temporary spike in call volume. The call volume was for a client that was working on a Federally-mandated deadline, after which they would no longer need Crazyhouse Office’s services. But all Michael knew was that call volume was through the roof, so he frantically hired eight new employees, four of which would start the following week; the remaining four would start two weeks later. There was not enough equipment for the first group to go live when their training was complete, so they received an extra week of “training” while Michael took the opportunity during the downtime to force both classes of new hires to watch online videos explaining President Obama’s Secret Plan to Destroy the World in great detail.
Once the first class took the phones it became apparent that call volume would not require the office to retain half of the new hires, so Michael fired the entire second class. Instead of just admitting that he doesn’t know what the fuck he’s doing, he made a big production of telling the people he terminated that The office was being forced to downsize because of a new tax that President Obama had just signed into law and then went so far as to inform one of the veterans that he was also going to have to fire some of the people who had just started. I assured my coworker that Michael was full of shit; accordingly there was no tax that had been signed into law nor were any of the first class of new hires fired.

Continued in Part Two!

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Breaking the Habit

Years ago, I developed a habit, a ritual to be performed before leaving the house. Before I close the locked door behind me, I pat my right hip pocket, my right back pocket, and my left hip pocket in that order. This serves the function of ensuring that I am in possession of my house keys, my wallet, and my cell phone when I leave. I whisper the words to myself as I touch each pocket: keys, wallet, cell phone. This soothes the irrational fear that I will inevitably lock myself out of my house without any money, means of identification, or convenient way of calling for help.

Several years ago, approximately nine years, I walked out of a journalism class at ETSU angry and irritated and in some bizarre fit of pique decided that I needed a cigarette. I walked to the Citgo on the corner and purchased a pack of non-filtered Pall Malls just like my grandfather smoked. A pack of Pall Mall non-filters, and a lighter because as a non-smoker I had no reason to carry a lighter. This led to the eventual modification of the house-leaving ritual; moving the cell phone to what was often my left cargo pocket, the ritual became right hip pocket, right back pocket, left hip pocket, and left cargo pocket. Keys, wallet, smokes, phone.

Two weeks ago today the ritual was revised back to the original sequence for the first time in nearly a decade: right hip pocket, right back pocket, left hip pocket. Keys, wallet, phone. No smokes. Lord willing and the creek don't rise, it stays that way.

So how and why is a decade-long habit broken? I attended a Fourth of July party and in a drunken stupor managed to smoke an entire pack of cigarettes in six hours. My stomach, notorious for its weakness, was angry about this for days. As I cluctched at my stomach on the train-ride home the following Tuesday, I made the decision to quit smoking. I'm approaching 30 and I just can't take that kind of beating anymore. I had been trying to cut back a few cigarettes here and there since I moved to Brooklyn, but I knew that just wasn't going to work. For every pack of cigarettes that I could make last two days, there was another that was gone between sunrise and sunset. Plus, cigarettes in NYC are eight dollars a pack at a minimum. So I had two smokes left in the cigarette case I carry with me and six in the pack left at home; I made the decision that I would finish the remainder of the pack and the end of the night on Tuesday, July 7th I would quit smoking.

Most smoking cessation guides suggest quitting on a Sunday or Monday, but this seems to me a truly terrible idea. Sunday is a day spent dreading Monday, creating a tension that a nicotine fit would amplify into murderous rage. Monday is fucking Monday and if you want to try to quit smoking on a Monday then you might also like to try base jumping without a parachute. Friday is out for the obvious reasons of partying or how ever you like to blow off steam at the end of the week and I can't imagine anyone short of an intense, self-hating sadist spending a perfectly good Saturday off trying to quit smoking. The only good thing about Tuesday is that it isn't Monday anymore and Thursday is nothing more than hopeful anticipation of Friday, so you can't quit on those days either. That leaves us with Wednesday. I figure if you can quit smoking and make it through "Hump Day" at the same time, you'll be all right.

Both the City and State of New York really want people to quit smoking. On top of the exhorbitant, punitative taxes on tobacco, they run occasional programs where they send you free patches. Not long after I moved to Brooklyn I took advantage of the wild free-money blue state liberalism of New York and requested a box of patches. The patches helped me through the first three days, which involved a lot of retraining. The cessation guide suggests, for example, that you should consider switching to hot tea or cocoa if you have trouble adjusting to having your morning coffee without a cigarette. I'm sure "taming the triggers" as it is called this is a fairly well tested method, but I'm of the opinion that you have to break the habits by forcing yourself to do everything without a cigarette that you previously did with a cigarette. Morning coffee, the walk from the subway to the office, before and after lunch, the walk from the office to the subway, after dinner, when I'm bored, playing guitar, playing video games, reading a book, surfing the web, before bed. The patch gives you the nicotine to allow you to rewire your brain to do all these things without a cigarette in your hand.

That first morning was sheer panic as soon as I woke up, knowing there would be no morning cigarette with my morning coffee or morning cigarette with my morning walk to the F-Train or any cigarette at any point. The first obstacle popped up as I realized that my Metrocard was nearly expired. I would have to walk to the booth at Avenue U to get a new one. The bodega at the corner of Avenue U by the entrance to the booth is where I've been buying my cigarettes and I'd rather not deal with the temptation right off the bat. Fortunately, just before I left the house, I noticed a singule-use card that I had from a drunken late-night incident on the A-Line a week prior, which meant that even if the card was out, I wouldn't have to pass by the bodega.

Taking lunch without a cigarette was the first truly different experience and the second test of willpower. It was nice to eat without having to rush so I could get that last smoke before the second half of the day, but I was five minutes getting back to the office which never happened when I smoked. Then I noticed it happened the next two days; I was five minutes late getting back from lunch. Apparently I tell time by cigarette.

After the first three days I decided to see how far I could make it on Saturday without a patch, leading to a three-day period where sleeping was a goddamned disaster. I went all day Saturday with little trouble, keeping myself busy by helping Jake set up a new addition to the music studio he's managing. I arrived home tired and expecting a good night's sleep, but the Nicotine Demon had other plans kicking withdrawl into high gear. After laying in bed for an hour or so I started to doze off before suddenly snapping awake. This cycle of almost falling asleep repeated for a few hours before I finally fell completely asleep only to wake up a few times throughout the night.

I decided to try another day without the patch on Sunday, which lead to a long day of depression that felt like falling off a cliff. Sunday night's sleep was disturbed by anxiety and panic attacks along with some burning stomach pain for good measure. I fought through it and found myself amused that the best symptoms nicotine withdrawl had to offer were issues I've previously experienced. Insomnia, stomach pain, anxiety and panic attacks, and depression? I've dealt with this shit before and in full Technicolor, not this TBS colorized version shit. What I'm saying is that the withdrawl wasn't easy, but it was surprisingly weak sauce. Both I and the withdrawal continued without the patch on Monday and I went five days without the patch before I finally slept well. It was twelve total days before a cigarette wasn't my first thought as soon as I woke up.

Now I'm at two weeks without a cigarette. My brain has finally readjusted to getting two lungfuls of oxygen all day long, which at the beginning was giving me levels of energy that I haven't experience since childhood. I haven't coughed up nearly as much lung crap as I expected, which is surprising given that I've smoked a pack a day for nearly a decade. Getting my olfactory senses back, I learned that New York City smells like hot garbage; as my taste buds heal, I learned that Red Bull tastes absolutely awful. It turns out that television isn't the only thing that benefits from dulled senses.

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Not to be Confused With - Day 7

... wherein you WILL! wonder if fighting Joaquin Phoenix is better or worse than fighting Brian Dennehy; you WILL! bear witness to the brutality that earned Chuck Norris his infamy; you WILL! look at a titty threatening the Super Bowl, decades before Janet Jackson did it; and you WILL! marvel at the power of Walken ... “G’dnight, moon. G’NIGHT ... moon.”

Gladiator (1992/2000)



Gladiator (1992)
Dir: Rowdy Harrington
Synopsis: “One fought to win. The other fought to survive. Two friends are pitted against each other by a corrupt boxing promoter in a brutal battle that threatens to destroy their friendship and lives.

“Cuba Gooding, Jr. (As Good As It Gets, Boyz N The Hood, Jerry Maguire) and James Marshall (Twin Peaks) star as the talent amateurs who are exploited by the ruthless promoter Horn (Brian Dennehy, F/X, F/X2) and his scout (Robert Loggia, Jagged Edge) in the fight of their lives.”

Gladiator (2000)
Dir: Ridley Scott
Synopsis: “A man robbed of his name and his dignity strives to win them back, and gain the freedom of his people, in this epic historical drama from director Ridley Scott. In the year 180, the death of emperor Marcus Aurelius (Richard Harris) throws the Roman Empire into chaos. Maximus (Russell Crowe) is one of the Roman army's most capable and trusted generals and a key advisor to the emperor. As Marcus' devious son Commodus (Joaquin Phoenix) ascends to the throne, Maximus is set to be executed. He escapes, but is captured by slave traders. Renamed Spaniard and forced to become a gladiator, Maximus must battle to the death with other men for the amusement of paying audiences. His battle skills serve him well, and he becomes one of the most famous and admired men to fight in the Coliseum. Determined to avenge himself against the man who took away his freedom and laid waste to his family, Maximus believes that he can use his fame and skill in the ring to avenge the loss of his family and former glory. As the gladiator begins to challenge his rule, Commodus decides to put his own fighting mettle to the test by squaring off with Maximus in a battle to the death.” (Courtesy of All Movie.)

Advantage: DRAW
Both succeed on their own merits, the former a gritty street drama, the latter a period piece that features enough historical drama mixed in with visceral bloodshed. Both are quite fun for an evening’s viewing. Then there's the bonus of the 3rd Bass title track for the 1992 version, that if remixed into a trailer-like sequence of "greatest hits" from the 2000 film, would make me quite gleeful. Quick! To YouTube!

Eye For An Eye (1981/1996)



Eye For An Eye (1981)
Dir: Steve Carver
Synopsis: "Police detective Sean Kane (Chuck Norris) is any criminal's worst nightmare: a cop who's just as lethal with his lightning-quick martial arts moves as he is a with his service revolver. But when his partner is brutally murdered, Kane quits the force and goes beyond the law to seek vengeance against the ruthless Morgan Canfield (Christopher Lee), a powerful and well-connected drug lord who destroys any man who stands in his way. But Kane has never been more ready for a fight. He's bold, ferocious and has an ace up his sleeve: his mentor, Chan (Mako), a martial arts wizard who will join him in a thrilling no-holds-barred final assault against Canfield and his criminal empire."

Eye For An Eye (1996)
Dir: John Schlesinger
Synopsis: "Karen McCann's (Sally Field) orderly life is shattered when a stranger breaks into her home and murders her 17-year-old daughter. But shock and grief turn into rage and disbelief when the killer (Keifer Sutherland) is released on a legal technicality. When he commits another murder - and is set free once again - Karen is determined to make him pay for his crimes."

Advantage: Eye For An Eye (1981)
The 1996 film is one I would only recommend to people who are seriously masochistic, because I have only been able to make it through the first fifteen minutes, and that was only one time. The movie, in case anyone is curious, begins with Sally Field witnessing (via telephone) the brutal, BRUTAL rape & murder of her teen daughter. The rest of the film, as I understand it, is a constant drain on the audience’s emotions and ability to suspend disbelief. How Sutherland sleeps knowing that there's films like this out there, I can't imagine. On the other hand, the 1981 film has Chuck Norris vs. Christopher Lee ... win.

Black Sunday (1960/1976)



Black Sunday (1960)
Dir: Mario Bava
Synopsis: "Mario Bava's 1960 directorial debut stands alone as one of the most influential and startling chillers of all time. British actress Barbara Steele became an international icon in this uber-gothic fever dream pulsing with stunning cinematography and landmark special effects - both by Bava himself - in which the conventional trappings of the horror genre were indelibly impaled upon perverse sexuality and graphic sadism. It remains a masterpiece of the macabre that changed the face of cinema forever."

Black Sunday (1976)
Dir: John Frankenheimer
Synopsis: "Black Sunday is the powerful story of a Black September terrorist group attempting to blow up a Goodyear blimp hovering over the Super Bowl stadium with 80,000 people and the President of the United States in attendance.

"Robert Shaw plays an Israeli commando who discovers the plot, masterminded by Marthe Keller with the help of deranged Vietnam veteran Bruce Dern. Director John Frankenheimer creates a chilling portrait of people obsessed with a cause for which they will die.

"In an incredible finale, Dern and Keller navigate the lethal airship into the terror-stricken stadium, pursued by Shaw in a helicopter, climaxing one of the most exciting and unusual chases in movie history."

Advantage: Black Sunday (1960)
Look at the cover for the 1976 film ... don’t that look like a big ol’ titty looming over the stadium, just ready to start spurting milk all over the crowd? Yeah, now try to get rid of that image, why don’tcha? What I find hard to believe is that Thomas Harris, he of "The Silence of the Lambs" and the shriveled titty that he's milked into a swimming pool of hundred dollar bills, wrote the book that the 1976 film was based on. Brrrr. The 1960 film is on fire with all kinds of witchery and brimstone, and Barbara Steele ushers in the madness with grand aplomb. It’s a must for any horror film fan.

Prophecy (1979/1995)



Prophecy (1979)
Dir: John Frankenheimer
Synopsis: "Robert Foxworth and Talia Shire (Rocky, The Godfather) star as a doctor and his wife, who, at the request of a concerned friend, travel to Maine to research the impact of the lumber industry on the local environment. They begin to investigate a succession of mysterious and terrifying events: ecological freaks of nature (including fish that grow many times their normal size), and a series of bizarre and grisly human deaths. Veteran suspense director John Frankenheimer manages to present Prophecy as a 'monster movie' as well as a suspenseful tale about the deadly forces which result from the pollution of the environment."

Prophecy (1995)
Dir: Greg Widen
Synopsis: "At the scene of a bizarre murder, L.A. homicide detective Thomas Dagget (Elias Koteas - Exotica) discovers a lethal heavenly prophecy now being fulfilled on earth! Yet in his fight to stop the forces of evil - led by the powerful angel Gabriel (Walken) - Dagget finds an unlikely ally in an elementary school teacher (Virginia Madsen - Candyman). Together they race against time and terror to save the world as we know it! Also starring Eric Stoltz (Pulp Fiction) - critics everywhere praised The Prophecy for its high-powered thrills and knockout performances - don't miss it!"

Advantage: Prophecy (1995)
Look no further than Christopher Walken spouting choice lines like “I kill firstborns while their mamas watch. I turn cities into salt. I even, when I feel like it, rip the souls from little girls, and from now till kingdom come, the only thing you can count on in your existence is never understanding why” to understand why I give it the nod. Of course, this film was then subsequently cursed by the DTV sequel plague, and it became the “sinister whispering in the ears” series, but before all that junk, there was this, and it was good.

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Not to be Confused With, Day 6

... wherein Karloff is king, we serve up something for the hip hop heads (and the Hitchcock heads), maniacs abound, and the two Coreys invade the countdown.


Walking Dead (1936/1995)



Walking Dead (1936)
Dir: Michael Curtiz
Synopsis: “Put simply, this is one of the greatest horror films of all time. Karloff is framed for murder by a crooked DA, played to the hilt by Cortez. After he is sent to the chair, an eccentric scientist brings him back to life in one of the best lab scenes ever filmed, complete with Kenneth Strickfadden electrical effects. Wow! A tremendous music score adds to the electricity-filled atmosphere. The reanimated Karloff then seeks revenge on those who conspired against him. We gotta tell ya, this film gets our absolute pinnacle, highest recommendation. They don’t come much better.” (Courtesy of Sinister Cinema.)

Walking Dead (1995)
Dir: Preston A. Whitmore II
Synopsis: “Using relatively unknown actors, first-time screenwriter-director Preston A. Whitmore II examines the effects of the Vietnam War on four black Marines sent on a doomed prisoner-of-war rescue mission. The four men are what's left of a platoon that's been decimated after landing behind enemy lines. In charge is Sergeant Barkley (Joe Morton), a no-nonsense, Bible-quoting preacher who is leading three privates to find a POW camp in an abandoned temple. Cole Evans (Allen Payne) is an intellectual who is highly political, racially proud, and a devoted family man. Joe Brooks (Vonte Sweet) is a cheerful, naïve, and brave young soldier. Hoover Branche (Eddie Griffin) is a dope-smoking, foul-mouthed rebel who hates the war and fights the sergeant constantly. They eventually are joined by a crazy, bloodthirsty white soldier, Pippins (Roger Floyd). Flashbacks reveal why each character joined the Marines. Pippins entered the recruiting office to escape rival gang members who were trying to kill him. Brooks enlisted to impress his girlfriend. Branche signed up after being fired from a meat-packing plant for stealing a ham that he used as admission to a party where he wanted to woo a girl. Evans enlisted because bigoted real estate agents prevented him from buying a decent home for his family in L.A. -- he intended to become a Marine officer so that he can get free housing.” (Courtesy of All Movie.)

Advantage: Walking Dead (1936)
The 1936 film is incredibly awesome; it comes out on DVD in October, and I totally recommend it to anyone. But the 1995 movie is fucking terrible. It came out during a 3-4 year time period when movies were being made in attempts to blackify genre benchmarks – “Tales From the Hood:” the horror anthology; “Posse:” the western – and “Walking Dead” 1995 apparently was supposed to be Preston A. Whitmore’s “Platoon.” But the character development … whoo buddy. “Branche signed up after being fired from a meat-packing plant for stealing a ham that he used as admission to a party,” now stop reading. And that Branche is played by Eddie Griffin ... y’know, I could see Eddie Griffin stealing a ham to get free admission to a block party. "Hey man, remember me? I'm Eddie Griffin, I was in 'Norbit.' Howbout 'The New Guy?' I think I might have been on 'In Living Color' or something? You don't remember me? Well, will you at least take this ham?"

Notorious (1946/2009)



Notorious (1946)
Dir: Alfred Hitchcock
Synopsis: "When troubled beauty Alicia Huberman (Bergman) is recruited by American agent T.R. Devlin (Grant) to infiltrate a German spy ring in postwar Rio, she accepts... but soon finds herself falling in love with Devlin. And when she receives orders to seduce a Nazi kingpin (Rains), Alicia must sacrifice the only happiness she's ever known for a perilous mission that could ultimately cost her and Devlin their lives."

Notorious (2009)
Dir: George Tillman Jr.
Synopsis: "Chronicling the extraordinary life of Christopher 'The Notorious B.I.G.' Wallace, Notorious follows the young rapper from the tough streets of Brooklyn to the heights of superstardom as he juggles the increasing demands of fatherhood, marriage and a music career. Amid chaos and controversy, Biggie's remarkable talent and fierce determination help to solidify his legacy as one of hip-hop's greatest MCs.

Advantage: Notorious (1946)
The 2009 film leaves out the most important part of the life of Biggie Smalls, and that’s the fact that Puff Daddy, capitalizing on the (faked) death of 2Pac, had someone shoot B.I.G. in an effort to make himself a bigger name in hip hop. Think about it: One dead friend, and all the world loves a public griever (except in the case of Kurt Cobain’s murder), and I can’t name one person who doesn’t like “Every Breath You Take,” and you’ve got a recipe for finally coming out from the booth and joining the ranks of superstardom. And before you call me crazy, consider this: When’s the last time Sean Combs thanked Biggie for shit?

Maniac (1934/1980)



Maniac (1934)
Dir: Dwain Esper
Synopsis: "A milestone in exploitation filmmaking, Maniac is also one of the most shocking and fascinating movies made in the thirties, pushing the boundaries of acceptable film production to its limits. Created by the husband and wife team responsible for films such as Marihuana, Weed With Roots In Hell, and How To Undress In Front of Your Husband, Maniac was originally shown at burlesque theatres and roadhouses rather than at regular movie theaters. A burlesque house was an appropriate venue for Maniac as the movie includes shots of topless women-a true shocker for 1934! Based partly on Edgar Allan Poe's The Black Cat, Maniac also cleverly superimposes clips from a 1922 movie called Haxan to suggest the insanity of characters. The wild plots concerns a mad doctor (Horace B. Carptenter), who blackmails a former vaudeville impersonator (Bill Woods) into helping him obtain the corpses he needs to perform Frankenstein-like experiments. When the doctor is accidentally killed, the impersonator ‘becomes’ the doctor and even attempts to bring him back from the dead. Maniac revels in its gleeful exhibition of 'bad taste'".

Maniac (1980)
Dir: William Lustig
Synopsis: "Frank Zito (a career performance by co-writer/ co-executive producer Joe Spinell of Rocky and The Godfather fame) is a deeply disturbed man, haunted by the traumas of unspeakable childhood abuse. And when these horrific memories begin to scream inside his mind, Frank prowls the seedy streets of New York City to stalk and slaughter innocent young women. Now Frank has begun a relationship with a beautiful photographer (Caroline Munro, of The Spy Who Loved Me), yet his vile compulsions remain. These are the atrocities of a human monster. This is the story of a Maniac."

Advantage: Maniac (1980)
Vintage anti-marijuana propaganda film vs. Frank Zito as a serial killer who, among other things, blows Tom Savini’s head clean off his shoulders? No contest, brother.

Blown Away (1992/1994)



Blown Away (1992)
Dir: Brenton Spencer
Synopsis: "Corey Haim (The Lost Boys), Corey Feldman (Gremlins) and Nicole Eggert (television's Baywatch) star in this erotic thriller about young love gone dangerously wrong. Rich (Corey Haim) works as an activities director at a fashionable resort in order to earn money for college. He meets the blonde and beautiful Megan (Nicole Eggert) and soon discovers she is not your average seventeen-year-old. Despite the warning from his older brother Wes (Corey Feldman), Rich plunges into a dangerous and obsessive affair with Megan. But Megan has more on her mind than love. She has plans for the future that could include murder. Is Rich the man who can help make her dreams come true, or a pawn in her game of deceit?"

Blown Away (1994)
Dir: Stephen Hopkins
Synopsis: "When an explosion jolts Boston, bomb squad expert Jimmy Dove (Jeff Bridges) is thrust into the most harrowing work of his career. Evidence points to a bomber more dangerous and skilled than any he's ever faced - except one. The possibility that the terrorist is his former mentor (Tommy Lee Jones) increases the stakes - and as his friends and family are unsuspectingly drawn into the action, Jimmy is forced to face not only his bitter enemy...but also his haunting past."

Advantage: Blown Away (1994)
Are there any films that the Corey’s didn’t appear in together*? Are those two douches Siamese twins? They should have been in the film “Stuck on You,” not Kinnear and Damon. It’s a crime that, as of this writing, Blown Away 1994 is out of print, because seeing Jeff Bridges, Lloyd Bridges, Tommy Lee Jones, and Forest Whitaker(!) trade bad Irish & Boston accents is a hoot. Shit blows up real good, and there’s some fine and dandy Rube Goldberg bomb orchestrating going on here. Tommy Lee Jones is a standout, and his scene where he’s turning the hull of a battleship into a bomb, to the tune of “With or Without You” is golden; the only thing keeping disbelief from being suspended is that, for an Irish dude, he’s just so goddamned Texan.

---

* Hey, here's the movies that they did appear in together:
The Lost Boys (1987)
License to Drive (1988)
Dream a Little Dream (1989)
Blown Away (1992)
National Lampoon's Last Resort (1994)
Dream a Little Dream 2 (1995)
Dickie Roberts: Former Child Star (2003)
Lost Boys: The Tribe (2008)

Of course, Corey Haim was nowhere near "Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter," "Goonies," "Gremlins," or "Stand By Me," some of Feldman's best work. Likewise, Feldman was absent from "Silver Bullet" and ... well, pretty much everything else Haim was in was shit. Looking this info up, I did find out that Corey Haim was in a DTV movie called "Demolition University," playing a dude named Lenny who hooks up with a chick named Jenny. Wow, heroin or valium or whatever it was cannot take your life fast enough for him, I bet.

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Not to be Confused With, Day 5

... wherein Tara Reid is an archaeologist(!), Nick Nolte is a cop(!!), Will Ferrell is a parent(!!!), and you WILL believe a boy can spell!

Alone in the Dark (1982/2004)



Alone in the Dark (1982)
Dir: Jack Sholder
Synopsis: "At a secluded mental institution, Dr. Bain (Halloween's Donald Pleasence) maintains order while electricity fuels the asylum's hi-tech security system that keeps the nearby neighborhoods safe from menaces like Frank Hawkes (Academy Award©-winner Jack Palance, City Slickers) and 'Preacher' (Academy Award winner Martin Landau, Ed Wood). Meanwhile a new doctor, Dan Potter (The A-Team's Dwight Schultz), arrives in town with his family, but the inmates don't take kindly to his presence and believe he has killed off their former therapist. Suddenly a power outage leaves the town in chaos...and now the maniacs are free to roam the streets and hunt down the man they believe has invaded their lives. With the area quickly descending into riots and chaos, the innocent few must fight for their lives when they're left terrified, cornered and Alone in the Dark! One of the most memorable and terrifying cult horror films of the 1980s, this white-knuckle shocker from director Jack Sholder (The Hidden) features shocking special effects from Tom Savini (Dawn of the Dead, Friday the 13th), delivering one seat-jumping scare after another along with a thick vein of sly, pitch-black humor. Turn off the lights and watch...if you dare!"

Alone in the Dark (2004)
Dir: Uwe Boll
Synopsis: "Edward Carnby (Christian Slater) is a private investigator specializing in unexplainable supernatural phenomena. His cases delve into the dark corners of the world, searching for truth in the occult remnants of ancient civilizations. Now, the greatest mystery of his past is about to become the most dangerous case he has ever faced. With the help of his ex-girlfriend, archaeologist Aline Cedrac (Tara Reid), and his bitter rival, government agent Richard Burke (Stephen Dorff), Edward is about to learn that just because you don't believe in something doesn't mean it can't cannot kill you."

Advantage: Alone in the Dark (1982)
I remember trying to get in the panties of this girl in high school, and she absolutely LOVED Christian Slater; I think it had something to do with his role in “Pump Up the Volume.” I tried one time to suggest that she was more enamored with the character he played, rather than the actor. I’d long since left her behind for other conquests of the day, but when the news broke about Slater biting some dude on the titty, I immediately thought back to her, and wondered if she still had an infatuation for him. Are Slater & Tara Reid, as directed by Uwe Boll, a better evening’s viewing than Pleasance, Landau, and Palance, with Savini special effects? I submit that they are not.

Nightwatch (1998/2006)



Nightwatch (1998)
Dir: Ole Bornedal
Synopsis: "This edge-of-your-seat suspense thriller stars Ewan McGregor (Star Wars: Episode I, Little Voice) and Nick Nolte (Simpatico, The Thin Red Line) leading an exciting Hollywood cast! Martin (McGregor) is a cash-strapped law student trying to make easy money as night watchman at the old city morgue. But Martin's peaceful graveyard shift fast becomes a time of terror when a serial killer begins wreaking havoc after hours and leaving behind clues pointing to Martin's guilt! Also starring Patricia Arquette (Bringing Out The Dead, Stigmata) and Josh Brolin (Hollow Man, The Mod Squad), Nightwatch is a stylishly original motion picture that leads you on a shocking series of twists and turns!"

Nightwatch (2006)
Dir: Timur Bekmambetov
Synopsis: "The forces of Light and Darkness have co-existed in a delicate balance for hundreds of years...until now. Even as the Night Watch polices the Dark Others - among them vampires, witches and shape-shifters - a chain of mysterious events triggers a dreaded, age-old prophecy: An immortal with special powers will come to switch sides, shattering the balance and unleashing an apocalyptic war unlike any the world has ever known!"

Advantage: Nightwatch (2006)
The 2006 film is remniscent of films like "Underworld" or "Blade," and plays off of themes that have been introduced as far back as "Nightbreed." The 1998 film just misses the mark, being a less-than-impressive remake of "Nattevagten," a 1994 Danish film.

Kicking & Screaming (1995/2005)



Kicking & Screaming (1995)
Dir: Noah Baumbach
Synopsis: "Paralyzed with post-graduation ennui, a group of college friends remain on campus, patching together a community for themselves in order to deny the real-world futures awaiting them. Academy Award-nominated screenwriter Noah Baumbach's hilarious and touching directorial debut was one of the highlights of the American independent film scene of the Nineties, speaking directly to a generation of adults-to-be unable to reconcile their hermetic education experience with workaday responsibility, and posing the eternal question, 'Where do we go from here?' Stingingly funny and incisive, Baumbach's breakthrough features endlessly quotable dialogue delivered by a stellar ensemble cast."

Kicking & Screaming (2005)
Dir: Jesse Dylan
Synopsis: "Will Ferrell's trademark off-the-wall lunacy kicks in for a comedy sure to score big with the whole family! Phil Weston (Ferrell) is a mild-mannered suburban dad - who's suddenly transformed into a caffeine-fueled sports maniac when he becomes the coach of his son's unruly soccer team. But when the championship pits his underdog team against the squad coached by his own domineering dad (Oscar winner Robert Duvall), it's game on for the most uproarious mismatch of the season! Suit up for fun, Ferrell-style, with the comedy Ebert & Roeper give 'Two Thumbs Up!'"

Advantage: DRAW
... and not in a good way. I suppose that I left my self-righteous angst & worldly disillusionment behind on my college graduation day back in the late 90s, far too long to be impressed with the 1995 film anymore. And I just can't be impressed with Ferrell's mug-and-holler style of comedic acting. So neither film gets a strong nod here, only a strong "meh," with a side order of "feh."

Spellbound (1945/2002)



Spellbound (1945)
Dir: Alfred Hitchcock
Synopsis: "Dr. Constance Peterson (Ingrid Bergman) is a dedicated psychiatrist who puts all her passion into her work - until she falls in love with Dr. Edwards (Gregory Peck). Unfortunately, it soon becomes clear that Edwards is an impostor - an amnesiac - who may or may not be a cold-blooded murderer. Pursued by the police, Constance must decide whether to turn in her mysterious lover... or risk her life by trying to unlock the dark secrets in his mind."

Spellbound (2002)
Dir: Jeffrey Blitz
Synopsis: "Spellbound follows the lives of eight young Americans who share one goal: to win the National Spelling Bee.

"Think this sounds boring? Prepare to be blown away. The Bee is as intense a competition as any Olympic match, and for the spellers and their families, the stakes are just as high. The unbearable pressure becomes even more extraordinary as it is felt by ordinary teenagers.

"Watch as the Bee becomes a dramatic backdrop for the bigger story about kids and families today as we discover that within the roller coaster ride of the National Spelling Bee can be found the heart of America."

Advantage: DRAW
And here's a draw in a good way. Both films are successful on their own merits. Spellbound 1945 is, well, Hitchcock; a lesser known film from the master, but a solid entry into his canon nonetheless. Spellbound 2002 is a solid documentary, shedding light (as most successful documentaries do) on a very interesting, unexplored topic, that being the surprisingly competitive world of the spelling bee. Hell, I remember a late night study session watching one of those on ESPN and seeing a kid pass out from the pressure. Like any good documentary, this one doesn't choose sides, opting instead to let the story speak for itself.

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