"Great Mint Taste" (Check)

Sometimes I wonder about these brilliant large corporations and their packaging genius. Logically, I have an example. (Although it would be funnier if I wrote a blog with a bunch of broad open-ended statements that offered no explanation, citations, or anything related to the thought.) I was looking at a tube of Colgate toothpaste and there was a checkbox on the back next to the extremely fucking excited words "GREAT MINT TASTE!", and the box was checked. Why a checkbox? Would they want to admit the mint taste was less then stellar and leave this box unchecked? I just do not understand this one.

Some other examples of packaging I do not understand:

1)The current "no trans fat" rage. I don't even know what the fuck a trans fat is. But I know when I see it on things like potato chips and wheels of cheese, and see it on a KFC commercial, I do not suddenly think "Wow, self, this food must be fuckin HEALTHY now. This will be all I eat. That and toothpaste, but as long as the mint box is checked."

2) Unrelated foods with recipes on them for something else. The other day I bought a loaf of bread, obviously for the bread purposes (sandwiches, toast, sexual deviancy, etc.) but did not even realize until I got home that I also had grilling recipes for various types of chicken, and an APPLE PIE RECIPE!!! Did either of these mention use of the bread? Of course not. The kind bread benefactors just wanted to make sure I enjoy chicken and apple pie.

3)Laundry detergents talking about their "BOLD NEW MOUNTAIN FRESH AROMA!" What the fuck does that mean? Am I going to smell like I live at the timber line in the Rockies? Or will my shit just smell clean? Brawny paper towel man or not homeless? As long as my clean clothes do not smell somewhere in between Pine-Sol and death that works for me.

So in this last week of homelessness, I have been living with new friends Zed (yeah, that's right...the letter Z in French....a pretty badass name if you ask me. I personally think while his endeavors into the philosophical world are to be admired, he could totally be a spy...or a ninja or something) and Meredith in their Venice bungalow. It is a sweet little place, complete with a tiny little garden area, some rooms and whatnot, and canadian people across the way. Unfortunately, they are moving out and already promised the place to someone else, but if not it would have been the nest home search ever to just move in here....hell, they are even selling the moajority of their furniture. But the fact that I have been staying here just totally holds the power of networking in perfect place. Follow this diagram if you might:

TIM--->DEREK (roommate at 742 met on craigslist)--->ELIOT(Derek's friend)----->ZED+MEREDITH(Eliot's Homes)---->JESSICA (new roommate, friend of Meredith)

So, just by creepily finding a roommate for 742 on craigslist, I fell into my new housing situation, made some friends and learned how to make chicken from a loaf of bread.

On the movie/TV/haiku writing front, I am pregnant with ideas. But unlike writing this crap, I am not really sure that you just sit down for a few minutes let your mind vomit onto the screen, don't edit, spell check, or do anything else and let it be done. You have to follow a story, develop characters, avoid actual vomit on the computer (from all the drinking you do to be creative), and steer clear of ethnic slurs for an entire script. Tough burdens, right? I will let you in on my first attempt at a movie script:

THE AWAKENING

(camera pans out ((is that where it like pulls out?)) on two ((or three? would three be better?)) skeletons fighting over a bucket of chicken and a slim jim)

That was it. Then I tired of the creative process. Or I was not writing a movie about skeletons fighting over chicken or slim jims. I don't foresee myself getting into the horror genre, seeing as every scary movie (including spoofs Scary Movie 1,2, and 3) that I have seen in the last 24 years has made me pee in my pants. Once I just had to go to the bathroom more than I knew at the time, but the other times I had urine frightened out of me. I guess I will just have to stick to what I know when I am writing: sportscenter cliches, the movie Blue Streak, and slang terms for sex acts. (Blue Streak II totally needs to be written. I know the greatest film ever needs a sequel)

BYAH!

Sometimes, you just need some cheese

Last week, I had just finished a rough Saturday of...well...okay it was not so rough, I had just laid on the beach all day. But, I decided I needed to deviate from my homeless diet of PB&J and I stopped at a local Santa Monica eatery called Norm's. Norm's motto, you might ask: "We are just like Denny's, but called Norm's. Fuck You". (If I own a company, I will also include curse words and other vulgarities in the motto) So I glanced at the voluminous menu (four pages of delicious and gastrointestinal problems waiting to happen) and my decisions of what to order may have caused the waitress who took my order to believe that I knew some secret about cheese, possibly even it's abilities to increase one's life expectancy. Because I knew all along when I went in that I was really feeling a grilled cheese, so I ordered one of those. Then I saw one of my faves on the menu, Mozzarella Cheese Sticks, so I ordered some of those. Let me just say, it may have been a tad much on the cheese front. But hey, sometimes you just need some cheese. And no, I was not successful in eating all the food, much to the happiness of the homeless man sitting uncomfortably close to my left.

As I write this, I have continued my apartment search. After another disappointing turndown from a place with roommates already there, I decided I had tired of the Bachelor type selection, and could no longer wait to see if I had been given a rose that week, plus unlike the other potential roommates, I will not "give it up" just to get a room (and by "it" I mean $200 extra dollars) It took too long, it is far too difficult to meet people for seven minute periods at a time and come across as not a tad overbearing in an effort to convey your personality while at the same time seeming chill, and not to mention everyone seems to want to take two weeks to pick someone. Which, much to my chagrin, the overbearingness seems to be a problem for me when I try and show my personality right off the bat. What can I say? (probably less ethnic slurs...Tim...you idiot) So, no more rose ceremonies for me. I have set out on a search for an ideal one bedroom, which even at a greater cost, will be far better then dealing with this not-so-scrumtrilecent roommate situation.

After my two fun (stress-filled, annoying, stupid, lame, wack, silly, more ridiculous than France in a war) weeks of unemployment, I returned to the work force this week. I am working at a business management firm in Brentwood. Business management evidently means that I pay bills for people, and do pretty much anything else they want me to do. The girl I am training with whose job I will be taking (her name is Gila, and I asked her if it was like that monster, and I believe this perturbed her) has really been doing all the work, but I am getting a hang of things and occasionally being helpful. I am just waiting for the extremely bizzare client phone calls beyond activating DirecTV boxes, like when I will be asked to remove a dead body, kill someone, or walk a dog. I would only do two of those for work, because I think walking a dog is like a whole seperate job and totally not in the job description.

I just finished reading the book I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell by self proclaimed dickhead Tucker Max. I had heard of this book as he had been on the NY Times best seller list a couple years back and the other day (after I had gone to a sports bar by myself, for, of all reasons, to watch golf, and gotten pretty drunk) picked it up at Borders during my drunken mid Sunday (I also got a Sublime CD, a Bill Cosby CD, a Newsweek about societies in America and a book on screenplay writing) and proceeded to read it. First of all, this guy has one of the worst writing styles I have ever read, which I fault mainly on the fact that he is educated in the matters of law. Secondly, he thinks he is the most ridiculous person to ever live, and while I appreciate his tales and may have even given a tip of my cap to some, I refuse to do anything to the ground he has walked on. Thirdly, all the quotes from days and nights of extreme drunkenness are stupid, even if he did have a tape recorder. Sure, from time to time there might be a particular quote recalled from a drinking night ("Do it to it."), but entire conversations? I am lucky if I even remember speaking and generally have to piece my night together by looking at random texts I sent. So basically, this Tucker Max guy somehow caught on, but I am nonplussed. Nonplussed.

Until next time.

I’m Looking The Most Jewish I Have Ever Looked

So, one week is on the books of this “Cal-eye-forn-eye-a” grand experiment. And unlike when I last wrote about how I had a “job”, I now actually have a job. Like, a real one, where you show up for 40 hours a week and are appropriately compensated for doing so. Not one where you show up on occasion, work for a smelly lady who makes shitty, healthy, cookies (oxymoron anyone?) and then are promptly terminated for not looking at an entertainment center. But, I am still watching myself, like a angry vigilante watches over whomever he might be busy vigilante-izing, to assure I avoid being a total flake, which was thankfully pointed out for me by a smelly organic cookie woman (why does roughly 78% of my life sound fictional? Is character development really just a matter of getting these people on paper accurately?).

Some observations thus far:

z) According to two separate receptionists, I must be Jewish. I can only assume that they were Jewish themselves and inquiring to make sure they were keeping it in the faith. Because aside from the cheerios which are now beginning to abundantly sprout atop my head, I don’t think I have any other typical stereotypical Jewish appearance or mannerisms (normal sized nose, I did nothing stingy, I gratuitously ate pork products in their presence while mixing dairy and meat, etc.)(I’m just playing friends). I had to let them down softly and inform them that I was in fact part of a cult that worships the Kool-Aid man.

7) Some of these L.A. people are fruity as they come. There is no way around it. They are like a freshly stocked produce department at Whole Foods.
LMCXVIII) Having the beach nearby is about as awesome as finding two rare albino pandas getting it on your backyard, you know, since they are all endangered and never want to make babies, and the albino thing would make them even rarer. Which means cash money. Don’t mind the fact that they are bears, just get them some more bamboo, scented candles, and get the fuck out of the way, you inglorious prick.

11011100) Wearing the t-shirt I am currently wearing, which features a picture of Christopher Walken atop skull and crossbones and says “Fear the Walken”, may in fact be the best single way to meet people. I went down to the promenade in Santa Monica this evening and no less 15 people commented on either my shirt, Christopher Walken himself, some combo thereof, or the political consequences of having a lady president. It only could have been better if the Walken man himself would have seen me. Now that would have been a tale. Because I do not really fear him, so much as think he is awesome.

405) The 405 freeway should be eradicated, or merely recognized for what it is, which is the world’s first North/South parking lot. Also, people make fun of you for calling those roads of fast travel “expressways”. They also make fun of you for not doing yoga, getting massages, or eating organically. Then I in turn make fun of them for some general fact about their appearance (like their hunchback..alright so I have yet to ever get made fun of by someone with a hunchback, but if I do…look out hunchbacky), or their deaf cousin. When they say they don’t have a deaf cousin, I usually resort to a tale about myself and the person’s Mother. That’ll show them to make fun of me.

iii) Everyone here seems to be in the “business”. That is why I eagerly avoid mention of the fact that I have up to seven times made people laugh before, and once even achieved this with something I wrote, or that I have plans of aiming for a second or third time while I am out here. That way the only business I get caught up in is when I accidentally realize I am a major kingpin in a prostitution ring, when the whole time I thought I was just setting people up and due to the success of the relationships people were then paying me money.

AAA) People in Los Angeles are evidently quite into living beyond their means. A movie is $10.75 (so if you are a lady and I take you to a movie and pay for you, you are doing okay for yourself. Actually, that holds true anywhere, but here movies are evidently gold. Which makes very little sense, as it is not like they have to ship them anywhere), single bedroom apartments on the Westside are crazy expensive, everyone loves shopping at Whole Foods, and I went up to someone to ask them a question the other day, and they automatically (and correctly I guess) assumed I was homeless and gave me $5. So, naturally I did not ask them anything.

Well, Now I am Just Homeless

So, as one the luckier people around, I did fall into a part time accounting job in my first full day in the Los Angeles area. At least someone called it luck, I call it more or less that four years of accounting firm experience that looks extremely desirable to someone looking for a semi mentally disabled bookkeeper. I can definitely play that role, and with great ease I might add.

But yesterday was not all (umm…flowers and candy? I cannot think of two things to pair here…) escargot and garlic butter…ewww…ummm Fun Dip and candy stick…(eureka!). After finding out about my employ, I began more intensely looking for a place to live. At first I had this glossy eyed dream of getting my own place, but then I realized “Hey! That costs a lot of money, you dirty hobo!”. Soon after I began looking on craigslist for people looking for roommates…so I found a guy, and with the chiding of my new found friends I made at Starbucks, I was encouraged to contact this man since he lived in an excellent neighborhood. I did so, and within an hour I was over at his place.
As I walked in I immediately knew that this was not the “BEDROOM AVAILABLE IN AWESOME TWO LEVEL APARTMENT WITH GREAT AMENITIES!!!”. It was a crappy little place with dirty carpet, odd furniture and fixtures, and an odd 35 year old man from Wisconsin who looked and acted far too much like a creepy Gary Busey (yes…a creepy one…not even normal Gary Busey). This guy had shifty eyes, no sense of humor, his 1985 Nordic Track (my kind natured ribbing about it being 2007 nearly drove him to kill me), and the ability to probably have killed me without anyone knowing where I was. At the end of my “tour” (awkward glances around the rooms, me looking for places to escape) he said he just had three questions to ask me before I left.
GB: So, you don’t smoke right?
TCR: Nope, I don’t.
GB: It’s fine if you do (motions at ceiling for no reason), you just have to do it outside. Question two, do you do drugs?
TCR: Again, that’s a…
GB: (interrupts) I mean if you want to smoke dope and come back here, that’s fine, just don’t do it on my property…well, my landlord’s property. Thirdly…no gay hot sex anywhere on the premises
TCR: (picking up jaw off floor) Really I don’t plan on having gay hot sex anywhere
GB: (extending hand for handshake) Well, I think you are looking like a prime candidate (for what???)
TCR: (shifting nervously, eyeing door) Ummm…thanks. (Things I should have said: I think I might give up this dream and move home. I was thinking about suicide too…so umm yeah, talk to you never)

After that I was not entirely sure I wanted to live with anyone, but by the end of the night I had checked out an awesome place in Brentwood with some cool guys who lived there…they have many people to choose from…I just hope I stuck out enough in their minds with my witty banter/racial slurs/magic tricks/ omelette making.

So, my job is a QuickBooks job I do out of someone’s house. And as if L.A. people were not centrally driven toward the fruity mean in the first place, this woman’s business is making organic cookies and selling them to fru fru stores like Whole Foods…she had awful body odor and a desire to pay me $18/hour for 20 hours a week and thought I was great…and hilarious…which is always a start. If I can meet everyone here, maybe the same impact will be felt throughout. Actually though I am pretty sure that most of the time she did not realize my humor was actually mocking her, but whatever works.
This weekend the main goals are finding a place to leave and showing off my muscle less, pale body down at the beach. The real daytime drama everyone has been waiting for. Also everyone here keeps calling me a writer, but until that is what I get paid to do I would just like to get called a “liver” (not like the organ…I do far less filtering) or “survivor” (not like the TV show, I am way more awesome). Don’t paint me with your brushes.

Oh man Oh man

To ruin all excitement, yes, I have arrived in Los Angeles. “The City of Angels”, “Where the Angels Used to Play Before they Moved Nowhere but Somehow became ‘of Anaheim’”, “The Place Where that Rodney King Shit Went Down”. As the Tupac song title said, “To Love and Die in LA”, well I aspire to do pretty much 100% living, and 0% dying, but even the best laid plans fail from time to time I guess. More on this LA shizzle in a bit.

-There was a city I encountered by way of road sign on my recent journey, I believe in Nebraska, called “Waukee”. I half thought I should stop there and let the city council know of their new tourist program and slogan (all the while charging them some grand, grand fee, either money or a large number of hamsters). “Come to Waukee…less Mila, more Waukee”. Alright, so that sucks. Give me a break. The only human to human contact I have had the last few days have been with people at gas stations, Subways, and hotel desk front counters. Had I bounced this idea off an actual person I knew, they would have told me how stupid I sounded for sure. Enough of your lip.
- I heard the Stevie Wonder song, “Isn’t She Lovely?” Ummm, Stevie, you are blind. Should the song not have been “Is She Lovely???” The lyrics could have been appropriately changed to “Is she lovely? Because I think she’s wonderful.” If he wanted to keep it with “Isn’t she lovely”, he should have lyrically worked into the song how long he spent feeling her face, and how compared to the countless others he had felt, she was definitely lovely.

Here are the grades for all the states I drove through:
Illinois(D) - I was basically familiar with the area I drove through in Illinois, but the weather was AWFUL. The rain was so bad at one point that I could see barely five or so feet in front of my car. And the terrain is fairly boring.
Iowa (C+)- Yet another state which offers very little to look at in terms of terrain, BUT as I mentioned previously, there were about seven cute girls at my gas station stop in Des Moines, which must count for something. Also, slight kudos to Iowa for offering wireless internet…but at rest stops. We all know what goes on at rest stops, or the stereotype…and it is something besides bathroom breaks (at least according to There’s Something About Mary). Had I been further from home and thinking someone needed to contact me by way of the internet, I for sure would have tried to access this internet from my car.
Nebraska (C-)- Someone in Nebraska should start a hooker farm alongside the road or something. It would be a welcome sight after looking at all that corn and livestock, not to even mention the putrid odor. The one redeeming quality was the surprisingly cool downtown Lincoln, which moved around crazier then that Bacardi mojito commercial. Luckily for me, I am not cool, and sat in my hotel room watching TV and fiddling around online. Plus I remembered all that unemployed stuff. Every dollar I spend is a dollar less that I have. No, no, no…I guess that is how it always is, what I meant is that the money supply is not going back up yet.
Colorado (A-)- Wow. Now I understand why my parents moved to this state for a little while to make a couple awesome children (me and my big sissuh). Actually, no I am not sure they ever really explained what they were doing out there…I might have to ask. But after all the flat terrain of Iowa and Nebraska, Colorado was definitely like whoa. The Rockies were crazy, the driving was actually interesting- large mountainous, curvy climbs followed by down grades of up to 7% where truck drivers would freak out because they were all of a sudden going way too fast…then I would glance at my speed and realize I was going way too fast as well.
Utah (D-)- The scenery is nice, but there is nothing here. Is this really where God wanted the Mormons to settle, Joseph Smith? Well then maybe you should have actually settled it.
California (C-) – It was all windy and shit and boring until I hit LA (no, I am not bored of writing about driving, why would that seem like a boring topic. Silly.)

My first night here come and gone, it was okay. Naturally I felt a little anxious seeing as I had actually arrived and had very little clue as to where to go or who to turn to, but then I remembered it was 2007 and Eileen was able to come through with some internet aid and Paul’s friend who he knows out here, I was able to find an okay hotel in a safe neighborhood. Now I sit in a Starbucks in Culver City, CA, right across the street from Sony Pictures Studios, basking in the mid 70’s sunlight, looking at the people walking by, applying for jobs and looking for potential places to live (dumpsters, old refrigerator boxes, clown cars). If anything I am the homeless person around here with some of the nicest possessions.

Homeless and Unemployed

Strangely my google search of "homeless and unemployed college graduates" returned very few results, BUT I am going to go out on a limb and say that from this time last week, when I had a job and a roof over my head, to my current status of having no job and no home, I have jumped into a very small percentile. A bracket so small, it is like the empty set.

This past weekend was my last in Chicago for a while, and while it was a great time, the end was so bittersweet. Although I know it is not the actual "end", since I am not going on a Kevorkionic journey, but rather moving away. It did not really hit me until I was saying goodbye to all my close friends how sad it makes me to leave them...it would really have been much kinder of all of them to simply come with me. No big deal for anyone, right?

As today was the first day of this cross country drive, I got to drive through some exciting places...Iowa "We've Got Corn....eh, Fuck You" and Nebraska "We're Boring so You Don't Have to Be". Some of the highlights of my Iowa drive:

- I accidentally listened to a Christian Rock station for like 20 minutes
-I got a full tank of gas for $34
- The gas stations were mainly called "Kum and Go" (what would be a dirty joke with that as the punchline? answer at the end)
- Des Moines, Iowa is full of cute girls, stopping at convenience stores to peruse Starburst

The only place I stopped in Iowa was to get gas at the Kum and Go in Des Moines. Here I experienced the ugly underbelly of Des Moines- a fairly plain looking man going around from garbage can to garbage can collecting cans. Someone even walked over to him and offered him cans from their car. I avoided eye contact with him and gave him my full can of Red Bull to avoid confrontation, since I knew he would want the valuable aluminum.

On the road I passed many of those trucks marked "Oversized Load" or "Wide Load". 90% of these have these tiny houses on them- just as long as a semi truck and a tad wider. I really do not understand who is moving these houses around. Do people really think, "Our house is so nice, we better throw it on a truck and move it wherever we live next? There definitely will not be any fine rectangular , one story homes the next place we live." I understand I am a huge idiot and this is not the real reason these fine "mansion like" homes are on the move, but do not let me know the real reason (at least not publicly, just fire me an e-mail at tradway@hotmail.com)

I am currently sitting in my ballin ass 11th floor room in dowtown Lincoln, Nebraska enjoying the internet access, fine view, and thinking about finding some food to eat soon. When I arrived here, a positive, hopeful about the future traveler, I thought about wandering to grab a beer at one of the nearby "hotspots" (Read: a bar that may or may not have over three types of beer and A LOT of corn based products), now I am unsure about this plan. I just remembered I am homeless and unemployed and therefore public is awkward, I have to ask for change, wear tattered clothes, smell odd (since I have yet to shower form my day in the car, I actually have this one handled), and dig through garbage cans for food.

Answer (to dirty joke punchlined above): What do you call it when a man goes to a woman's house for sex and then leaves directly afterwards?

Talk to you again soon, home slices.