Another Hero
U.S. Citized tires of feeling unwelcome upon return to own country… Hilarity ensues.
http://nomadlaw.com/2010/04/i-am-detained-by-feds-for-not-answering-questions/
I was detained last night by federal authorities at San Francisco International Airport for refusing to answer questions about why I had travelled outside the United States.
The end result is that, after waiting for about half an hour and refusing to answer further questions, I was released – because U.S. citizens who have produced proof of citizenship and a written customs declaration are not obligated to answer questions.
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“Why were you in China?” asked the passport control officer, a woman with the appearance and disposition of a prison matron.
“None of your business,” I said.
Her eyes widened in disbelief.
“Excuse me?” she asked.
“I’m not going to be interrogated as a pre-condition of re-entering my own country,” I said.
This did not go over well. She asked a series of questions, such as how long I had been in China, whether I was there on personal business or commercial business, etc. I stood silently. She said that her questions were mandated by Congress and that I should complain to Congress instead of refusing to cooperate with her.
There is also a wonderful list of replies to the folks calling him a… wait for it… DOUCHEBAG for refusing to answer some questions.
HEY BUDDY!! GOT A JOB FOR YA!!!
Tech Recruiters: I have great pity for these fine folks – it seems like a horrible job, and I suppose that they behave the way they behave because of behavior on both my side of the industry and the employer side of the industry. But, MANOHMAN, can they be annoying and weird.
Two days ago, I updated my Front End Dev resume on Monster.com. I opted to leave it “searchable by employers” but what that means is “have 20 recruiters call me regarding jobs that I’m not qualified for”.
Not only am I getting calls about .net gigs and email about managing a C# team in Torrance, but I think I’m being stalked by one guy who actually sent me a poem via text-message.
And I (block)quote:
Dean, don’t be mean
i gotta crazy job for u
crazier than charlie sheen.This is the jam
with a bit of penut butter
smashed with hamDean let me tell u about all the goodness i got in between!
True story. Really. It’s on my phone. I’ll show you sometime.
Each and every one of them leads with a variation of this line: “Hey, buddy, a colleague of mine just handed me your resume and I’d like to discuss a position that I think you’re a great fit for. Gimme a call back at Desperate Recruitment Solutions…” The ones who email me send a robot-killer: “A colleague of mine just handed me your resume and I’d like to discuss a position that I think you’re a great fit for, please send me your resume.”
They probably mean “updated resume” but still.
Here’s the problem with all of this. Up until a year ago, I’d been out of work for just about two years. That includes any showbiz stuff. I was scouring the boards… there was nothing for front-end guys. Now I have a very nice gig, but we are just now tying up the loose ends created by that nightmare. What I learned about these tech recruiters is that they do not have jobs that you are a perfect fit for. They are at the worst lying and and at the least just playing a numbers game – compile enough resumes and ‘heads’ and eventually, one will hit and their company will make the arm and leg they charge companies for their “service”. One place I worked was paying the recruiter $60/hr for my $30/hr job. And I never met the recruiter. They just sent my resume over.
I say “just” as if that’s nothing. I understand that one must cull through a billion submissions, but… just sayin’. It’s good money if you can get it.
The poet who is stalking me said he has a front end gig for me that pays 110k. There are no front end dev positions paying 110k. Not U.S. dollars, anyway. Yet.
As soon as a company passes on your resume, they are impossible to get on the phone. I actually made it in to the office of one recruiter and it was like the call center in Slumdog Millionaire. A big dry-erase board with goals and “this weeks winners”. (by the way, if you are a ruby or .net developer, you win at life). A bell was rung when someone filled a position. Horrible.
The experience that really soured me on them was the guy who was buddy, buddy, buddy with me – “they want someone with a sense of humor, buddy” and, after my phone cut out on his boss once, I wrote an email, apologizing to her, ending the email saying that I’d purchased my phone plan from a guy in Nigeria who also promised me 30 million dollars. Cute, right? “I’m sorry that our call ended so abruptly. Service in Los Angeles is maddening. I hope we can talk again soon. I don’t understand why service is so bad, etc. …” Starts off nicely and culpable and then adds a quick little “joke”. No poem… nothin. Right?
My buddy wrote back saying that his boss didn’t think I seemed professional. True story.
I guess I’m just sour on the flesh-peddler idea in general. Except for three people and you know who you are.
Now, if you actually DO have a front-end-dev gig in Burbank that pays over 100k/yr, please shoot me an email at my first name at this domain. Better still – a recurring t.v. gig that leads to a regular gig 2nd season leading to directing 2 episodes 3rd season. Howbout that, buddy?!
Why do we insist on treating each other like shit?
empathy, self-centeredness and other SAG member stuff
One of the best qualities of being human is empathy. We feel empathy for the people affected by the earthquake and tsunamis in Japan, but, other than write a check, we are unable to actually do anything to help out over there. Jamy Ian Swiss has a great presentation about empathy and its place in effective advertising and, of all things, good magic.
The “situation in Japan” is terrifying and confusing, especially because of the nutty bias against all things nuclear. Digression: I had an episode this past weekend listening to a reporter from CNN actually say “There’s nothing happening now, but some believe there could be a meltdown!” Last night, as I was torturing myself with Rachel Maddow, she was (condescendingly… go figure!) ‘splaining how nuclear reactors work – “…instead of an explosion, the rods create heat, which creates steam…” Because, as we all know, nukes are only capable of those two things.
Instead of being able to DO something – Instead of being in a position to help, we scare ourselves with stories that big bad radiation is coming and that we need to stock up on iodine or iodide or kelp or kelp iodine or… SOMETHING… ANYTHING… from Whole Foods. It can only be from Whole Foods because, well, it’s Whole Foods. After discovering that, OH, SLUG ME IN THE CUNT! WHOLE FOODS HAS BEEN SOLD OUT OF KELP IODINE SINCE SATURDAY AFTERNOON!!!!, we too, can now be (big sigh of relief) victims of the earthquake and tsunami. We can take part. We can suffer, too. “Hey, Japanese people! Lookie here… I’m in peril, too! See, I can’t get kelp iodine!!!” It’s also a way to inject some order into a weird, random event. Instead of not knowing what is going to happen. Instead of uncomfortably drifting in the wind of wait and see, we now have a task: GET ME SOME FUCKING IODINE!! STAT!!!!
It happened after 9/11 – An actress on a t.v. show hired private security guards because “they hate our media”. For weeks after the attacks, a Jewish community center down the street from where we were living at the time, used pylons to block off a lane of traffic in front of their building because they felt they were a possible target. People wouldn’t go to work in tall buildings across the country because, not only did they work in the tallest building in their city, there was a reason for terrorists to fly planes into their business, too. The movie studios “got tough” about identity and made actors miss auditions. Everyone began playing “If I were a terrorist…” You can tell when there’s a game of “If I Were A Terrorist” being played: Someone says “A terrorist could just…”
My most excellent acting teacher, Howard Fine (not the stooge, no) used to harangue us with “comfort is a false god: don’t pray to it!” (I suggest adding “don’t pray to anything” for good measure, but…) It’s a great thing to remember when we are made aware of random events. I say “made aware” because random events are happening so often that referring to them as random may be a mistake. We have literally awesome technology that allows us to be aware of things that are happening anywhere and everywhere in the world. There are always nutty, horrible, unexplainable and scary events going down. It’s a great tool, but we often forget that there was 24 hour news before 24 hour news channels. Plus, because we are now used to receiving immediate and accurate information, as Tom Petty once told me: The waiting is the hardest part. If there is no resolution within my attention span, I’m going to create some resolution, by gum!
Me and my SAG member buddies are especially self-centered. Not necessarily a bad thing. Along with chiseled abs for guys and, um, chiseled abs for the ladies, being aware of feelings is one of the main job requirements. We have to self-examine and figure out where we are emotionally, not only because it’s good for the “art” but because everyone around us lies. (Great job… Fat? You? No… That was your best work… We are behind you 100%… The guys at network are talking another season… etc.) Also, since we’re never working, we create these little tiger blood dramas for ourselves to star in. Convincing yourself that you can only eat a type of chicken sold at one store keeps oneself distracted from the fact that you haven’t been on a set in 10 months. This is all yet another episode to convince me that things were easier when religion and the religious were clearly defined. The downside to fewer people believing in that stuff is figuring out who is doing something because of “faith”.
Unfortunately for the cynics, people are basically good. Even without a man in the sky. Thanks to humans, life is better now than it’s ever been.
The sky will fall when it falls. Every generation believes they’re the last generation of humans to walk the earth. It’s sexy. “Hey, my generation destroyed humanity! How rad is that?!”
(rad, get it?)
what’s the harm?
I just read another article about another person who did something horrible in the name of god. She killed her child* because she thought he was possessed by the devil.
Of course she’s insane, probably schizophrenic as they often have lots of wacky god stuff and voices going on, and the bible really only helped her get the idea to kill her child but….
Imagine if she’d done something “good” for the kid or something positive and then said it was the jesus who made her do it. We wouldn’t stop hearing about it. There would be feel-good pieces on the news and in the papers all about the sweet woman with the two kids who feed all the stray cats and horses on her block because the jesus is telling her to do it.
Right? Right.
We can’t have it both ways, can we?
“There are two sides to every issue: one side is right and the other is wrong, but the middle is always evil.”
Ayn Rand
*the three year old was murdered slowly and painfully, over many days.
The “Gluten Allergy” seems to be all the rage among the hipsters in the world. My favorite podcast, Skeptoid, takes a look at what Gluten is and what the *real* allergy to Gluten consists of. The important thing about diets to remember is that once you become conscious of what you are eating, you eat less. Period. The way to lose weight is to ingest fewer calories and exercise more. Next caller.
Also, never buy a house.
simple and hilarious
I came verrrrry close to having an episode watching this.
Joey Fatone sings my song (1/2 my song)
I am so famous and relevant.
Here’s Joey Fatone from that boyband, nsync, i think… onstage with Steel Panther singing the tune I wrote with them.
Elena Verdugo
One of the many benefits of hooking up with my most awesome bride is her family. I’m fortunate to actually love my mother in law and Jessie’s grandparents, Elena & Rosie are wicked cool.
Elena is Elena Verdugo. If you are old enough to remember Marcus Welby MD., you know who she is. If you’re old enough to remember Abbot & Costello meet Frankenstein, you know who she is. Yeah. Totally awesome.
Our friend, RRG, just sent us an episode of Celebrity Bowling Elena Verdugo and Ed Asner “competing” against Lorreta Swit and Gavin McLeod (guess when it was shot). Here are some screen caps.
The cool “tricycle” thing is one of the prizes. The announcer says that you can “help ecology” by using one.
I guess it worked, because the impending ice age never came.
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- Elena Verdugo readies herself
Enron – We’re All Aware
A long, long time ago… before you were born. I did a commercial for the then viable and exciting Enron. It was directed by Tony Kaye (American History X… not the occasional keyboard player for Yes, though he told some people he was). I thought it might be a funny thing to have on my internet powered web site, but it is the only Enron commercial that is NOT available on the internet powered web.
There is one place where it is available: http://www.advertolog.com/enron/adverts/were-all-aware-1818655/
I went on the internet way-back machine and tracked down the web site: askwhy.com and all the horrible 2001 cutting edge FLASH glory that the site was. No dice.
We’re all aware that I don’t want to spend 40 bucks to see an idealistic me 11 years ago, right? Right?
what a week!
Wow. It’s been quite a week.
- The bride and boy are ill. In the bad way.
- Security Edition cards were linked on an extremely popular blog called Daring Fireball.
- Lawrence O’Donnell had Penn and the hero, John Tyner, on his show and they talked A LOT about the Security Edition cards.
- Penn went on the Wolf Blitzer show and basically did a commercial for the Bill of Rights – Security Edition cards.
Nuttiness. In the good way. Except for the bride and boy being sick. That is no damned good. I think we’ll just end up going to Marie Callendars for bird slaughter day. I’m taking the lad by the grandparents.
In other news, I did an interview with a very nice young person at the Horror Hound convention. He put it up here:
http://moviemeltdown.libsyn.com/.
There’s good stuff about the convention and, most importantly: ME!
cough.
Happy turkey slaughtering. I, along with most everyone else who has a non-retail job, have the next four days off and that is good schtuffs.
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