Cashback Stacheback

As Lucile Ball taught me at a young age: if you make a ridiculous plan, it’s best executed with friends. Around the same time, I also learned that baking soda and vinegar make a beautiful mess.

I hope everyone has the opportunity to have at least one workplace where they really get along with their coworkers. I’ve had a couple, but the most recent was a contractor position at Bing Cashback.

Although we supported a Microsoft product, we worked at a customer service outsourcing center. Bing Cashback is a shopping rewards program was a shopping rewards program. Basically, if people bought products through the website and didn’t get their rewards, we’d credit their account.

This was not a very stressful job, and my coworkers were about as laid back as people get.  When you don’t do face-to-face customer service, the high personal appearance standards traditionally enforced within the customer service industry can be ignored. This vacuum of personal appearance expectations is the baking soda of this story.

The vinegar is two trends popularized by the Internet: the ironic mustache (sometimes done without irony by misguided hipsters and dads) and combining multiple fast food menu items into a single dish. While KFC generated attention for its brand with the Double Down, it’s unacknowledged predecessor is certainly the McGangBang.

Not Usually Considered Inpirational

(Photo by http://www.flickr.com/photos/atablefortwo/)

In case you’re wondering, a McGangBang is constructed from a McDouble and a McChicken from McDonalds. To make your own McGangBang:
1 – Peel the McDouble apart between it’s two beef patties.
2 – Place the entire McChicken sandwich on top of one of the halves.
3 – Place the other McDouble half, atop the McChicken so that there is a beef patty and bun on each side of the McChicken.
4 – Your McGangBang is complete. Take a bite.
Eat Me Daily has a nice compendium on the McGangBang.

The Cashback Stacheback Competion Rules

1. Any man in the office is eligible to compete.
2. Participants will shave clean on an agreed day: known as the “Grow Day.”
3. Participants will not shave their mustaches clean from the Grow Day until the agreed shaving day: known as the “Reveal Day.”
4. The Reveal Day will include a Reveal Day Event known as a “Mustache Parade.”
5. During Reveal Day the competition will be judged by the Quality Assurance Manager.
6. The QA Mgr will judge the mustaches for greatness in the following categories: epicness, iconigraphicness, and face-appropriateness.
7. The prize to the winner of the QA Mgr’s judging will be the utmost respect of all the participants, followed by a round of glad-handing.
8. Any man who pledges to participate but shaves before the Reveal day will have to eat the Sandwich of Shame.
9. The Sandwich of Shame will be made by opening a McDonalds McDouble between it’s beef patties to insert a Jack-in-the-Box Chicken Sandwhich, a Taco Bell Fresco Taco, and a pouring from a bowl of Wendy’s Chili before the top section of the McDouble is restored as a lid.
10. Any man willing to eat the Sandwich of Shame has suffered enough, and will not be ridiculed further for his premature shaving.

Growing the Cashback Stacheback

The mustache growing season was a lot of fun, particularly with team members who had not grown a beard or mustache before. We took pictures every few days to document everyone’s progress.

The Sandwich of Shame

Tragedy struck in week two. Our friend and manager Andy had shaved after a mere 8 days at the behest of his fiance. She “couldn’t stand the sandpaper face.”

After a day of vehement disapproval from the remaining participants, we gave Andy a chance at redemption: eating the Sandwich of Shame.

That day for lunch, we dispersed to different fast food restaurants to gather it’s ingredients and reassembled in the breakroom to watch the creation of the beast. With Promethean interest, we looked on as Andy poured chili on a taco on a Chicken Sandwich inside a Double Cheeseburger. When he topped the monstrosity with the McDouble’s second patty and bun, there were cheers or joy. It was beautiful. The sandwich we’d only vaguely imagined stood manifest before our manly eyes.

Smushing the tower of food to a more mouth-size height, Andy opened wide and took a bite. Without a wince or complaint he chewed and swallowed.

He took another, more ferocious bite, and another.

“How is it?” the crowd asked. “It’s actually pretty good…[another bite] well, let’s say not bad.” Everyone smiled and laughed. Though it sounded completely gross, most of us certainly wondered “What did it really taste like?”

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
That’s when the truly amazing began to occur, we realized that Andy was experiencing something none of us would. Not only was he honorably devouring the Sandwich of Shame, but he was also going where no man had gone before. Andy was a palette pioneer, an epicurean explorer, a culinary conquistador.

In the 3 minutes it took him to level that leviathan, he transformed from pariah to patriarch. During that lunch, and for the rest of the time he was our boss, Andy was a hero.

The Taste of Victory and Regained Respect

There were other heros as well. Ashkan’s thick and full “Mario” mustache, Matt’s late but effective entry into the competition, and Joey’s gung-ho grow are some of my favorites. In the end it was Thom’s double racing-stripe fu-manchu that best embodied the audacity and absurdity we were trying to capture. He was declared the winner. On myFlickr you can find a full set of both the Growth Progress and The Sandwich of Shame. Special thanks to Dan who took most of the pics and participated. Sadly, the photos of him during this time are lost to antiquity.

Finally, this week marks the one year anniversary of Cashback Stacheback Competition: Guys, thanks for all the memories.

Record in a Day: Country-Folk Sunday in August

Last summer my friend Jonathan, his brother Jacob, and I were in a conversation in a coffee shop about making music in a fast, organic way on a Sunday afternoon. We started talking about how much fun it would be to cut a record in a day. Then we started talking about how we could make it happen.

Soon we settled on a roots-rock/county/folk style and decided we should each bring some songs we’d want to do in that style. We agreed that we’d gather other interested parties and meet at Jonathan’s house in one week for the purpose of making a record in a day. In a session later titled “Country-Folk Sunday in August,” I met with Jon, Jake, their Dad Scott, Clay, Ivan, and Jenny in a living room in South Central Seattle.

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These are the results of that meeting:

Wish You Were Here [Pink Floyd]
Going North [Missy Higgins]
Can't You See [Marshall Tucker Band]
Straight-Mouth Stomp [16 Horsepower]
Sweet Ann [Benji Jones]
Gun Street Girl [Tom Waits]
Jam [Artificers]
Will The Circle Be Unbroken [The Carter Family]
God Bless This Mess [Sheryl Crow]
Folsom Prison Blues [Johnny Cash]

Are these songs radio quality? No. Will they make us famous or have clubs clamoring to have us grace their stages? I doubt it.

So why did we do this? I’d like to think we did it for reasons made famous by Steve Albini. In this video Albini talks about making “Demos” in college. These were not created to demonstrate anything. Instead these recording were “keepsakes” and “evidence” of the existence of groups of friends that made music. These recording linked above are artifacts pointing to specific time and a place in our lives, when we were friends living in the same area, making music. Based on this, we took the name Artificers.

There are two originals, but most of the songs are covers we thought would be fun.

We had a lot of fun bringing these songs to their creaky, flawed life. Although we mainly recorded these for ourselves, I share them here because I hope the fun we had making them rubs off on you. Maybe you can join us next time we cut a record in a day.

The Man Who Fell on Chevy Chase

I asked my followers on Twitter and Facebook to share their favorite Chevy Chase moments with me so I could shape their memories into a story. This is the result of that experiment.

Did you know that Chevy Chase hasn’t had a significant roll in a movie since 1998? What happened to the career of the star of some of the most beloved comedic films of the modern era? This story speculates that someone fell on Chevy Chase.

The Man Who Fell On Chevy Chase

There was a man, a man who fell, and while many men have fallen, very few have fallen so far and landed as well as the man who fell on Chevy Chase.

Though he was a natural at golf and would grow into a well-meaning, if incompetent, father, Douglas Otterburn was a teen during the Nixon and Ford administrations. He watched the pratfalls of his future landing pad every weekend that he wasn’t spending time with friends at the local arcade or playing in rock bands. While he might occasionally read his father’s paper or watch the news, most of the important stories seemed to come to him. Any he’d missed, would be covered hilariously by Weekend Update on Saturday Night Live.

“I’m Chevy Chase and you’re not,” began each romping reinterpretation of the week’s headlines. This fact became all the more real to him when he met the comedian in ’77.

Doug ran into Chevy in a pub in Martha’s Vinyard shortly after Chase left SNL for Hollywood.

Interested only in letting one of his heroes know how much he appreciated him, he approached the rising star.

Perhaps, he had downed one too many, but the man who was blazing a much-followed path from SNL to the silver screen was devoid of kindness and understanding when speaking to his fan.

“Mr. Chase” he said and paused to allow his target to refocus his attention, “I wanted to say that I’m a big fan.”

“Sounds like another Landshark,” Chase remarked and his friends had a big laugh. Afterwords, they mocked Doug and rudely interjected any sentence he tried to utter.

Unable to converse with his celebrity idol, Doug gathered his dignity and vindictively fired a parting shot before leaving the bar: “Good night and have a pleasant tomorrow.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

While Chase went on to great successes in Caddyshack, Fletch, and the National Lampoon Vacation franchise, Doug moved to Vegas and lived a quiet life in the hospitality industry. Even though he knew that the house always won, he gambled away the majority of his paychecks and never really got ahead in life.

He had fun jamming with local musicians and occasionally sat in on bass or drums for a lounge act. It’s how he eventually met his wife.

She always liked the battery members of bands. Most of them are a little shy and she loved how much mileage she could get just by paying them a little extra attention. After seeing Doug play bass in one band, and happening to catch him on drums in another act the following weekend, she was too intrigued not to sit next to him at the bar after his set.

She could tell he was younger than her: not too much, 3 maybe 4 years.

“I think I saw you last week,” she said. “Do you play bass too?”
“Yeah, I fill in on bass for Pocket Pair and, obviously, I drum with these guys.”
“What else are you into?”
“Well, I work at a hotel.” Doug decided not to mention gambling as his other hobby.

He tried to pay her more attention but he was starting to wonder if many musicians were gamblers. Is there some common thread between them? Do musicians and gamblers both value getting by on skill and intuition over perseverance and scholarship. Why am I thinking about this, he chided; there’s a perfectly good-looking woman talking to me.

She had ended up at the show with a friend, whose boyfriend ran lights, but she really wanted to catch the end of the Lakers/Jazz game. Both she and Doug agreed that those teams should swap names already. LA is practically a desert and there no significant Jazz scene in Utah.
“If I’m gonna be stuck here,” she said, “at least I’m stuck here with someone who has some sense in sports.”

An idea came to Doug, but should he dare to speak it?

“I have a car,” he said.
“What?” she said. She understood Doug’s words, but reflexively replied with a question since she was somewhere in between the moment of perception and the moment of cognition.

“I have a car. I guess I’m saying you don’t have to be stuck here if you don’t want to be.”
“Let’s get out of here,” she said, “and my name’s Melisande.”
“I’m Doug. Let’s go backstage, I’m closer to the loading door.”

Five hours later they were watching the sun come up over the Grand Canyon. Fast forward another ten hours and they were back on the the Vegas Strip. Two hours after that they were calling their parents: Ladies and Gentlemen, I introduce to you for the first time, Doug and Melisande Otterburn.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

In 1997 Doug would see his high school hero again as Chase filmed his National Lampoon’s Vegas Vacation. Leaning out the window of the Luxor Pyramid for a better view of the filming below, he lost his balance and slid down the glass seven stories to tumble into the famous actor.

Hearing the squeaking of wool and skin against the glass and the rough impact of a body hitting pavement, Chase turned his head just in time to see Douglas Otterburn’s hapless mass before it swept the actors legs out from under him.

“I think that was my line,” quipped Chase, bruised but not injured. Though Doug was hurt and would soon go to the hospital, he had the presence of mind to reply:
“I seem to have been watching your instructional tapes.”

For the remainder of the shoot that day, Chase would crack up as soon as he considered how preposterous that a man would stumble seven stories down the side of a hotel and bump into him.

Maybe he was feeling slightly guilty for the continual amusement Doug’s tumble had brought him, but the next day Chase developed an interest in how Doug was doing in the hospital. He decided to visit him after a morning shoot wrapped.

He brought an autographed headshot and a small bouquet of flowers with him as he entered the hospital.
“Surprise!” Chase said as he entered Doug’s room, but the surprise belonged to him.

Doug’s leg was suspended in a cast and he was a little hazy from medication, but he could tell the actor got more than he bargained for in this visit. Chase spoke first:

“Melisonde? Is that you?”
“Hi Chevy, it’s been a long time.”
“Steely Dan, wasn’t it.”
“Yeah, I remember.”
“Me too.”

“So I guess you met my husband.”
“He’s a lucky guy, but I thought that was just because he only broke a leg.”
“Ha! I think I remember telling you that once or twice.”

“Those were good times,” he smiled.

Doug thanked Chevy for coming to see him. Chase sat down and spoke with Doug and Melisonde at length: about Vegas, making movies, the differences in rock and jazz drumming, and how Melisonde and he dated a few times before he made it big. They had been married a few years at that point, and Doug knew she spent some time in New York City. He’d never pressed her for her dating history, but still, if your wife dated a celebrity you expect that she would mention it at some point.

Doug was charmed: charmed to the extent that he decided not to bring up the other time he met Chase in Massachusetts. “He’s not even the same guy anymore,” Doug thought to himself.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The meeting with Doug and Melisonde in the hospital infected the actor with a gravitas never before seen in his personal life. This meeting with an old girlfriend and her husband caused the actor to reconsider many of the choices in his life.

Chase’s long career began to evaporate after Vegas Vacation. With nothing else on the horizon he looked at the script for Dirty Work. Upon reading it he discovered that not only does his character die, but he dies off-screen!

“Sure,” he thought, “it’s a good joke that way. The doctor’s death garners a single sentence, a passing mention, delivered in Norm McDonald’s trademark deadpan. I’ll be gone as quickly as the mother in Virginia Wolfe’s To the Lighthouse.”

“While part of me says, ‘That’s no way to kill a character played by an actor as famous as Chevy Chase,’ perhaps this is my fate. Maybe I’ve made my big noise. A drum resonates long after it has ceased to be heard, am I that drum? Perhaps it’s time for me to do the same. I can fade away, or I can just continue on with my work invisibly, off screen.”

While several of his peers like Steve Martin and Bill Murray are enjoying a career Renaissance, Chase languishes in obscurity.

Or does he languish? What if he is flourishing . . . off screen.

Goodbye Kiss

Here is a song I recorded under one of my pen names: The English Bob. Some people who studied with me in Vienna may remember that I like to make up silly songs about beverages and desserts and then sing them with a British accent. Now I’ve done it with a love song.

I dialed the accent back a bit for the recording, but there are parts where it still comes through.

While an artist is allowed a little embellishment, the lyrics are mostly true. I have trouble remembering peoples’ names, and this it is extra embarrassing when I can’t remember the name of a girl I dated or kissed.

Has this benefited me in someway? Perhaps. Forgetting a girl’s name not only reduces the pain of that relationship’s termination, but it also prevents you from becoming a kiss-and-tell.

Goodbye Kiss
written by Benji Jones

give a goodbye kiss to the girls I miss
with the passing of time they fade from my mind

there was a girl with a right nice fanny
she worked in sales with skin quite tanny
but we
had a future we could not see

Another girl had a mouth worth keeping
we got along when we were sleeping,
how come
she didn’t like where I came from
felt like a bum,
how could I have been so dumb

give a goodbye kiss to the girls I miss
with the passing of time they fade from my mind
I’ve been there had my fair share
but it ain’t the same when you can’t remember their names

one young love just wasn’t ready
thought maybe we would make it steady
but I
never really became her guy

another girl who loved attention
would do some things that we won’t mention
and with a frown, I let her get me down,
felt like a clown, but (you know what)
I still see her around (fades from my mind)
I still see her around (fades from my mind)
I still see her around (fades from my mind)

there was a girl who I drove away
through an endless insistence that she might stay
I’s looking for love where I could hold her hand
she was looking for a boy and a one night stand

give a goodbye kiss to the girls I miss
with the passing of time they fade from my mind
I’ve been there had my fair share
but it ain’t the same when you can’t remember their names

give a goodbye kiss to the girls I miss
give a goodbye kiss to the girls I miss
give a goodbye kiss
give a goodbye kiss

I looked for a some free ways to host mp3 files permanently, but I wasn’t satisfied with any of them so I made the song the soundtrack to a slide show and threw it up on YouTube. I’m open to any suggestions people might have, and I apologize to anyone disinterested my recent travels with Alicia. Let me know if you’re interested in an mp3 of this song: I’ll find some way to get it to you.

Interviewed by Death

My back catalog of material that I haven’t shared or have only shared with a few of you increases my ability to posting something every week.  This has been one of my most popular snippets in the past.  Obviously, it was written before I met my wife.  I hope you like it.

The Speakers in this dialogue are[Death] and =Benji=

[And now that you have come to die, what did you miss?]
=I never saw Nights of Cambria.=

[Were you a big Fellini fan?]
=I don’t know if you could call me a big fan, I saw most of his middle period…La Strada to Satyricon, but I never saw Nights of Cambria, never really knew what is was about, just saw some screen shots and snippets. There was a circus…I always loved Fellini’s circus.=

[What else?]
=I never saw Welles’s Macbeth. I saw The Trial, F for Fake, Ambersons…I saw Citizen Kane more times than I kissed a new girl. But I never caught Macbeth…strange because it was my favorite Shakespeare.  Somehow I sort of felt like I’d already seen it.  Powerful, tragic, propelled to greatness by the women in his life, yet destroyed by his own inability to filter what they say.  This is my own narrative, I share it with Orson, and others I’m sure. There is enough there for many of us to posses it simultaneously.=

“In this prescient,
quarter-revolution,
I would spend
my heaven.          ”

[If, for eternity, you were stuck in one moment, which would you choose?]
=I’d be in a coffee shop in Salt Lake City with the Co-Cz World Book in my hand, but I’d be through reading aloud the article on Jim Courier. I’d be reshelving the volume, when Becky Westbrook kissed me on the left cheek. I’m not sure if I’d actually want to see her, but if I could just remain suspended in the turning towards her, knowing no one but her could have kissed me so gently and so sweet, without warrant or precedence except an overwhelming desire to touch me with her lips. In this prescient, quarter-revolution, I would spend my heaven.=

[You love her, huh.]
=Sometimes I imagine myself in a conversation with her fiancé Seth, who I’ve never met, and I want to ask him if he believes in God. In my mind he doesn’t answer, but asks me “Do you?” and I tell him “I do. I believe there has to be a creator, some shaping force guiding the course of the Earth…because if you tell me that someone as special, unique, and aMAZEing as Becky Westbrook emerges from happenstance, I’ll call you a liar. Luck doesn’t produce that. Luck is just knowing her. Even if she doesn’t believe, or know what to believe, her existence makes me believe.”=

Sandcastles

Hello all. This is the inaugural post to my creative projects blog.  I’ll share things I make by myself here, but I also plan to share group collaborations with my wife and friends.

In his acceptance speech for his Honorary Oscar Robert Altman compared making movies to building a sandcastle with friends in the morning then sitting back with them and watching the waves wash it away in the afternoon. “But the sandcastle remains in your mind,” he concludes. If you are lucky like he had been, you’ll gather your friends again and make other ones.

Getting famous enough to make a living doing creative work might be nice, but I’m more concerned with making group memories. I’ll look back at these things later in life as artifacts of friendship and mutual love.

People move on, time slips away, but love is forever – I hope this blog helps all of us remember that.