The Audacity of the Masses

Throughout my career of working in movie theaters, I have accumulated a treasury of titillating tales showing the dark side of the creature known as Man. Now, when I say dark side, I don't simply mean a basic idea of evil, but rather an hash of the smaller things that compose the lives of us all. Over my years I have seen examples of hubris, malice, self-infatuation, slobbery, sloth, stupidity, another thing starting with an "S," arrogance, and above all ignorance. Perhaps I will eventually sit down and write a seven volume epic about my journeys throughout the life of a cinema worker, but not now. As of this entry I will regale you with three short anecdotes which occurred within the last month.

Usually people complain when we as employees do something less than productive, or for some ridiculous reason they do not get their way. But in some strange and rare occurrences they complain because we were simply doing our jobs. On Sunday the 16th of January 2011, a manager of mine; Ware, the magenta-haired Alyssa, and myself received one of this enormously stupid complaints. The three of us were standing at podium enjoying some Earl-Grey and raspberry scones, and Alyssa was notifying us on her theater work in the West End. Wait, no that's not right. Ah, yes. I had just returned from taking out some trash and didn't want to go back into the concession stand yet. The doors leading to the dumpster are right next to theater 11, which was showing Black Swan that week.

A small woman wearing a yellow jacket, and toting a large popcorn walked up to us with a slightly smug look on her face. She complained that she kept hearing the door open and closing during the movie and it was very distracting her from watching "Swan Lake." I followed this stupid remark by telling her, that those doors are used by employees so we were able to leave, or take the trash out. It is not a large grapefruit or bottle of Pine-Sol, I can't stress that enough. She went on to say rather indignantly that perhaps we shouldn't use the door while the movie is playing. Also customers use those doors from time to time, it's clearly labeled as an Exit. Did she expect us to bar anyone from leaving that way? Hopefully she went home, realized she was terribly wrong, and sat in shame.

The other two events happened within hours of each other, so as can be assumed, my limits were being largely prodded. I had made it though several hours of a shift , but fate decided it wasn't meant to last. Within the yellow light of the early afternoon waddled in Ms. Butterslob. She stood slightly taller than Gimli son of Gloin, with some owl-eye inducing glasses, and a grimace that would send wombats whimpering without weather-proof wallets. She looked me in the area of my face where she believed my eyes to be, and ordered a medium drink and small popcorn.

I handed her the drink and popcorn, and she handed over the money, and I gave her the change (if only I knew that she didn't deserve it.) After getting her popcorn she vigorously took the bag and dumped a large portion of the contents onto the Formica infront of me and said "Pick that up." without an ounce of regret or sympathy. If that wasn't enough, she went and complained to my friend Danny who said she complained that:

1. I gave her too much popcorn

2. The popcorn was too expensive

If both of those were the case, why did she chuck out two dollars woth of corn? Perhaps she reached a point in her life where she decided to spite everyone as much as possible without them killing her outright. I think her days are numbered.

The other story from that day concerns someone closer to the womb than the tomb. An hour or so after the Ms. Butterslob incident, a young land around the age of ten wearing a cap in a jaunty way came up to my register. He ordered a cherry Icee, which was fine and not complicated in anyway, so I got it for him. His first strike was the fact that when I turned around to give it to him, he said he wanted a large. So, I had to make another cup for the punk. While I had my back turned he placed his money on the counter, which helps speed up the process of selling. Yet, when I gave him his drink and picked up the bill, there was an odd weight to it. I opened up the folded bill to find that it was wet, seeing my reaction to the damp nature of the money the idiot boy informed me that he dropped in the toilet before coming to the register. My mouth was agape. This child was so blindly stupid to the disgusting state of his currency that he did not realize he was holding something that shared water with human excrement. I was far to blinded with rage to further deal with the child, so I banished him away from my sight. It seems that the majority of generation X's rebellion made them into some rather sub-par parents. Who don't even tell their children not to pay with toilet money.


Now, had it been in a bidet, I might have been more accepting.

Pork Chops and a Possible Faux Irish

Asado is a technique for cooking cuts of meat, usually consisting of beef alongside various other meats, which are cooked on a grill (parrilla) or open fire. It is considered the traditional dish of Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, Chile and southern Brazil. (definition from Wikipedia)

This was my last meal eaten upon the evening of the first Friday of December in the year of two-thousand and ten. I chauffeured myself to my friends Ricky and Tracy’s house for supper, and entertainment via Mystery Science Theater 3000. As I entered Ricky sat at the kitchen table chopping up portions of a hog like a street side butcher in Vienna during the 1900’s. Though he had all of the ingredients necessary to make the meat portion of the meal, we didn’t have any tortillas to go with the meal.

As Ricky was cooking the young lass Tracy and I ventured off to the local grocery store in search of unleven Mexican bread and some cow’s milk to make some hazelnut cocoa with. Being early December, stores are splattered with flashes of red and green in a vain attempt to force people into celebrating Jesus’ birth, but you know, without the Jesus part. Tracy and I spoke of Christmas trees of years past, and how as we grew older our relatives traded in for a more artificial stock, extending the whole plasticly-fakeness that goes with Christmas when you become an adult.

The store had felt the need to have two out of it’s three doors closed, causing a proper fire hazard. We journeyed forth to the baked good section, Tracy used her optic spheres to spot what she believed to be miniature Christmas trees. Yet, as it happened they were simply rosemary bushes, leaving the both of use feeling quite the fool.
We scurried away in embarrassment.

We did eventually find some pine trees, but they were a little on the Charlie Brown side. But, no amount of flailing our arms wildly made it any better. For a reason unknown to us, the pine needles were decorated with a fine layer of sparkly glitter elements. The best I could muster was that a fairy drank too much raspberry vinaigrette and had a liquid laugh in the arboretum.

Following our arboreal observations we each took our one dairy, and one baked product and scuttled off to the registers. Our cashier was a squat young man with a bush of brown hair adoring his head. Overall all he was unremarkable, except for the fact that he spoke with a an Irish accent. Solely based on my aural skills his accent was pretty good, used the soft vowels, and dropped the “h” in any words containing a “th” at the beginning, they were both there.

He almost had the two of us fooled, except that what sprang from his noise hole was not something that sounded like an Irishman, but rather a crappy television stereotype of an Irishman. I revealed him that I was partially Irish, and he started asking things like “you like fighting a lot of people?” and “You like drinking?” This these things that were usually attributed to the Irish by people who made them build the railroads out to California with the Chinese. Following his statements I replied with a “no,” but I said I did suffer from the crippling Irish guilt, like all mean from the Emerald Isle. He seemed to not know of what I was speaking. As a result Tracy and I became rather skeptical of whether or not he was what he made himself out to be. I decided that he wasn’t. An Irishman without Catholic guilt? That’s like a comic by Stan Lee without an excessive amount of exclamation marks.

Days of Pinewood Thunder

I come from a line of men who had achieved the all-high title of becoming an Eagle Scout, my brother was one, and my father before him. Perhaps there were others before them, but I can’t be bothered to look back any further in my family line, as that requires a mild amount of effort. Though I never made it to the rank of Eagle Scout, I was a member of the Boy Scout’s equivalent to pre-school: the Cub Scouts. Though I would never reach the ranks of men such as Gerald Ford and Elmo Zumwalt, I could still make one hell of a balsawood aero plane (provided easy to read instructions were included) and design some pretty creative Pinewood Derby cars.

Life as a Cub Scout wasn’t exactly as hard as living as a serf in the middle ages, but it had its ups and downs making construction paper turkeys did take its toll on me after a while. We would meet once a week, usually at someone’s garage, though perhaps sending a group of children to a stranger’s domicile wasn’t perhaps the best idea of how to get the kids out of the house on Saturday afternoons. The actual activities we did remain a mystery to me, perhaps they were so traumatizing that my brain blocks it all out so I can’t be bothered by it.

I seem to remember participating in some kind of contest were we would have to accomplish, like bird watching, knot tying, personal hygiene, and finding mint vinyl records of Roger Whitaker’s entire body of work. Anyways, following some kind of assignment, we would be rewarded a certain number of points, with which we could redeem for a (not so) fabulous prize. Then for a few weeks of taking on assignments to do the things Cub Scouts do like, wildlife exploration, delivering small packages to the backs of warehouses, and continuing the search for Jimmy Hoffa. Eventually I was able to choose a prize from the fabulous selection of assorted crap that which likely didn’t cost much money, so that the den mothers could spend the money on online poker (which didn’t exist back then.)

I eventually spent my hard earned points on a Nickelodeon trademarked wide-ruled notebook. Why you ask? Well I will give you a speculation of mine. I had enjoyed the life luxury known as basic cable in my early childhood, but then came the dark ages. During a several year stint, my parents decided to no longer pay for cable, and had our television reduced to a measly twenty channels, including three Spanish-language networks, and Catholic public access. In my desperation for children’s entertainment, I grabbed the notebook, believing that inside there would be a screen which would play any of the network’s shows at my leisure. Alas it was just a regular notebook which I filled with crap like this:
As previously stated, I am lacking in the physical ability department, but that doesn’t mean I’m not a productive individual. What I lacked in physical prowess I could usually make up with creative skill, or whininess. Every year there would be a Pinewood Derby competition amongst the regional Cub Scout dens, where in we would see who could design the fastest car. When assembling you car, there were two kits, one which contained a solid block with pegs, weights, and wheels, for when you wanted to carve your own design for the car. Or you could simply take the pre-cut car and paint it whatever color you want (these are what the loser kids used). I am no expert in aero dynamics, but I did know how to change a block of wood into something a bad art critic would deem to be a masterpiece.
My first car I had transformed into a cartoon cat and dog watching a television while sitting on a purple couch. The cat and dog were a toy I had received from Taco Bell kid’s meal, as opposed to an extra cup of cheese, which became an unwanted item during some visits. Though the car wasn’t exactly the Mach 5, it did catch the judges eye, enough so to win me first prize in the most creative design competition, a prize awarded so that the socially awkward kids would have something good to feel about. The following year I entered in again to see if I could once again obtain the title of “most creative design,” falling in line with the previous year’s motif, my second car included kittens bowling. Daring, if not strange. I eagerly awaited for the judges to call my name, but alas like all my childhood dreams, it was crushed, preventing me from ever daring to dream again. But the thing that grinds my grits the most is that the kid who won the most creative award, obviously didn’t design it himself, his dad did it, or his dad paid some Audi mechanics to design it for him.

Alejandro's Anti-Amazing Athletic Adventures No. 3: The Wally Whale

Though I was not the most athletic of children in the greater New Braunfels, and Comal county area as a lad, I did participate in a series of sport related teams, all of them losers. During what I believe to have been the summer afternoons following fifth or sixth grade, my mother would take me along to the Landa park pool, where I was forcibly entered into the world of underwater gladiator battles. It was either that, or the local swim team.

If it is not currently a publicly known fact; was heavier set as a young adolescent than I am today, despite the fact that I have somehow grown up to be a human-lemur hybrid. My physical stature prevented myself from being terribly strong, adept, agile, or quick, so I would have to use my wits to move ahead in sports. Perhaps I should have been entered into a crochet class instead, as my lack of natural talent might be better applied to making hats and tea cozies.

Anyhow, I was forced onto a local swim “team” which had practice every day in the eastern side of the Landa Park Olympic pool. Why I was entered into this particular athletic activity still remains a bit blurry, like an Avant Guard film’s still life image. But, the reason more than likely was that my mother would have been at the pool anyways, and she didn’t want me sitting at home watching the Pokey-mans during the afternoon after my book learnings. So, there I was placed upon the concrete slab which surrounded a rectangular body of water which may or may not contain a certain yellow liquid within its walls, and I wasn’t about to dive in with my mouth and nostrils agape.

I remember there being three coaches, a man I may falsely remember as being named Doug, a overly tan woman, and an old man who was possibly at one time an Olympic swimmer, but I never saw him get into the water. Come to think of it, I don’t believe that any of the coaches got into the water, not even to show a swimmer how to properly perform a swimming stroke. This lack of interactivity is likely what led me to dislocate my shoulder for the first time, whilst mid-stoke.
I was assigned to do several laps using the butterfly stroke, wherein one propelled themselves forward by turning their arms in a circular fashion with them out in opposite directions. This movements requires a great deal of strength in your shoulder muscles, otherwise you will simply look quite the fool flopping about slowly in the water. About midway though a lap, I attempted to further myself through the water when I felt something happening to my left arm. The sensation isn’t entirely describable, just imagine squeezing a baseball until it pops out of your hand, that’s essentially what happened to my left shoulder. There I was in the water, wounded and unable to continue utilizing the stoke which had initially debilitated me. I believe this was a good sign for me give retirement a try.
Though we were dubbed a “team,” I don’t recall us ever competing against any other group of swimmers. Perhaps they felt I was simply a novelty and would only bring me along to their meets if they knew they were going to come in dead last, and they didn’t want the good swimmers to be embarrassed. As we were a “team,” we were given a mascot, and predictably it was a dolphin (big surprise.) As previously stated, I was far from the thinnest child about, so being hydrodynamic was not in my design. The rest of the male swimmers were of a slim build, and always equipped a pair of Speedos for a reduction of traction in the water, I would not follow in their example. There was a kid who was later to become my semi-friend who always felt the need to point out me being heftier than the rest of the water urchins. He would often remark “We are all the dolphins, but you’re; The Whale.” While cocking his head back to look up to the sky as if to see whether or not the all knowing seagull god was pleased with his insult.

Alejandro's Anti-Amazing Athletic Adventures No. 2: Bodgedall!

Like most American students in the nineties and early two-thousands, I was subjugated to the humiliation factory that was dubbed “P.E.” which we all know stands for Philistine Experimentation. In actuality it stands for “physical education,” though it wasn’t particularly educational, it was required as some way of combating the ever-looming threat of becoming a human sausage that wears ill fitting shorts. So, once a day we would be herded into the gym where we would be given some kind of activity that might get the blood pumping and minds focused on our learning of how “simile” is spelled.

Anyhow, the children of my generation were still subject to torture by way of the child killing blood sport known to the world as “dodge ball.” This “sport” has been deemed so vile and savage that, many states now ban it’s use as a way to break children, and train them to become future soldiers in the war against the non-existent flying elephants. The version of the sport I played was fairly standard in it’s rules. The class was divided into two nearly equal teams, now by equal I mean equal in numbers, not in ability. Why it wasn’t uncommon for the gym teachers to place the athletic kids across from the geeky kids and band nerds, just to see them get pummeled into dust just for their own sick entertainment.

Dodging the balls reached it’s zenith during my sixth grade year, which I spent at Oak Run state penitentiary. My three gym teachers would usually find some kind of activity for the class to perform some kind of activity that included some kind of running around. The two most popular activities were indoor base ball (which featured 30 outfielders) and of course dodge ball. So, we would play the now banned sport an average of two times a week, I’m not sure how any of us children survived the horrid onslaught which was known to emotionally ravage most of middle-America.

Unlike in the olden days when the balls used were composed of a thick rubber material which pronounced a rather loud “ffuthummmm!” whenever they made contact with a surface, whether it be a brick wall or a child’s face. Yet, when it came time for me to come of age and step into the arena of death, they had been replaced with a much softer counterpart. The balls we used were comprised of foam, and a rather thin pleather covering, which came in two colors red, and blue. After about a week of use the foam balls were very likely to be skinned through many impacts with young children’s faces and kneecaps, so they became shapeless masses of foam flying about the gymnasium.

Seeing as I wasn’t the most athletic of students, it was more often than not that I wasn’t the most effective player of the game. The foam balls were apparently manufactured in a way that only children who played baseball professionally could throw them with any accuracy or strength. Try as I might, my noodley arms were unable to project the ball in a straight line, or at a speed faster than a moseying panda bear. The rules of the game state that if a ball is thrown and caught by an opposing player before it hits the ground, the person who through the ball is out. Following this guideline, I found it much more productive to leave the throwing to the fit kids. Where as I would go on to become the world’s fifth most important Star Wars fan, they would just become regional sales managers. Chumps.

Over the course of the school year, we were bound to play dodge ball more often than a southern state feels the need succeed, the coaches felt the need to spice things up a bit. So, there would be variations of the game, where the allotted lines of moment for players was changed up, or we were all required to wear Tibetan hats while playing. The main name I remember for a variation on the game was called “Queen Bee,” wherein we would have the standard separation, but one kid on each side would be required to wear a florescent vest. As if the vest wasn’t punishment enough, it was a rule that the opposing side could only win if they hit that person with the ball.

As a whole I usually lasted fairly far into the game, as I didn’t usually throw the balls, and rarely attempted to catch them. This came to become a fairly interesting point when in that particular sixth grade class it came time to play a game of Queen Bee, where Danielle (the girl of my interest) was the queen and I was on her side of the court. The game went underway and slowly the rest of the team was eliminated and only I and Danielle were left, any twelve year olds dream come true.

The coaches decided to try and finish the game quicker by allowing the opposing side to move up to a distance were she and I were only a meter away. As we moved around trying to catch the balls being hurled at us, I had to stand in front of her so that I would absorb any accurate throw. Yet, alas! After months of being quite clumsy, I at long last was able to have a proper reflex reaction to an object being thrust at me. So I heroically dodge a ball, which whizzed past me and smacked Danielle right in the face. Super-smooth wasn’t I?

Tips For Being Wonderful

Over the years people have often come up to me and said “Alejandro, I need your help!” these people are often quickly carted away to their appropriate mental institutes, or a local Arby’s. What I have been able to ascertain from their loud bursts of noise emitting from their mouths was that they wanted to know how they could somehow become more like me. They want to be more like me? Perhaps I hit my head too hard the last time I dove into that shallow pool, but perhaps I heard them correctly. So, despite the voices in my head arguing against it, I am going to give you all a few tips on how to become more fantastically wonderful. By my standards anyways.
1. Drive A Vintage Non-Muscle Car
Old cars are cool, but you don’t want to be some kind of brock-jock, jammin’ around in his 1972 Charger. Who wants to be cool when you can be a geek? Perhaps you shouldn’t answer that question. Anyways, simply pick an old car to drive around in. When you are driving, you should act like you just exited a time portal, and you just arrived from the year in which your car was popular. My choice is the Datsun Sunny 120Y. A cool little car with about 80 horsepower, not that really matters. It’s look just shouts “dork” and that’s the exact look I go for, because I don’t like being hip, or someone’s bro, it’s just weirdness that fits who I am. Also, when driving your car of choice, you are only allotted to listen to two musicians from that era. With my car, I am only allowed to listen to 8-Tracks by T-Rex and Roxy Music. You’ve got to have boundaries.

2. Have a Mustache For Every Day Of The Week.
All powerful men have had mustaches, Joseph Stalin, Saddam Hussien, Adolf Hitler, Burt Renyolds, the list goes on. But why settle for just one stache’ when you could have one every day of the week? I propose a new system of days of the week. Instead of Monday, you refer to it as “Handlebar,” and Thursday would be “John Waters,” just think of all the fun you could have with seven constantly morphing mustaches. Why I can think of two things off of the top of my head, and both include pomade.

3. Box A Bear
Don’t question it, just do it. Is there better way to impress the ladies? If there is I haven’t heard it. Set up an exhibition match against any local bears, and everyone from miles around will gather and see the two of you duke it out in a fashion that will put great big patches hair on your chest. Now, you might be afraid that Mr. Bear will maul you, leaving you a pile of incomprehensible bits of meat. There is a way around this though. If you get some of your goons to go ‘round to the bear’s house while he is at work, and kidnap his family, and have them leave a note saying he should take a dive, otherwise they will be called the Bloodstain bears. If successful the bear will have no other choice but to lose to you, thus giving you a fantastic sense of dominance over all God’s creatures.

Alejandro’s Awe-Inspiring Album of Snapshots

As I putter around life, I often go equipped with my photo-apparatus, or failing that, I will have my camera telephone. I decided that I should put them on display for all to see.

“Mind Over Matter”
I found this poor fellow in the parking lot next to the garden center at Denton’s super Wal-Mart. One can only imagine how this package of cheese met it’s demise. Perhaps it had a hit placed on it by some cottage cheese, we may never know. Yet, we do know that it is magnificent.


“Four Letter Word”
One night I attended my chum Ricky’s house for a heated game of Scabble. With the first draw of the bag, I was able to spell the word Stove, leaving the letters of L, D, & K still within my possession. I eagerly reached into the velveteen bag and drew out four new letters to add to my collection. The bag gave unto me F, U, C, & I. With my new letters I was at long last able to spell out the swear word that always runs through my mind while I play Scabble, as I am as good at it as a sloth is good at being quick.


“Chilly Swede”
Even action stars need a scarf from time to time.


“A Grand Spectacle”
Located in the restroom near J.C. Penney’s at the golden Triangle, I dub this the brave man’s toilet. As only a man who has neither fear, nor shame will be able to use it in all its glory. I myself was not worthy of even standing near it’s magnificence.

“Fun Time Box”
Oh the joy of joys that lay within this magical box that was on sale at A Half Price Books in Austin, TX. I dared not buy it as I do not know how I would respond to finding a used copy of Gili, Kazaam, or Chairman of the Board. I decided to leave Pandora’s video box unopened.

“Dumpster Wally”
Found ‘em!