Have you ever done something for your employer that was so embarrassing that you cringe to remember it 25 years later?
ABC is “re-imagining” the television series V, which originally ran around, what, ’84, ’85, originally on NBC? Anyway, I had just got out from the Army. My job skills pretty much consisted of killing people, which, unless you’re whacking people for the mob in Chicago, which is what a buddy of mine ended up doing, your career choices are pretty limited.
I took a job as Assistant Manager at a B. Dalton Bookseller (Yes, that would be me in the middle row on the left with dark glasses on. Click on the picture for a bigger view.). Now, one of the things you may have noticed is that when a new television/movie property comes out, there is tie-in merchandise, which includes books. As part of a big promo for the series, the local network wanted to do a big V event.
The network actually sent out a alien uniform from V for one of us to wear for the event. I swear to god as my witness, I’d sooner die than wear this thing. Unfortunately, my manager was a seriously skinny little rat, and his wife was an elephant, so neither of them would fit in the costume, so my lovely staff told the network that I’d be wearing the costume. Of course, they didn’t tell me until the day of the event.
I don’t know if you remember these uniforms, but they were sort of the color of an orange gone bad, with funky padding in random places. Basically a modded mechanics uniform. And, thank god, I had dark, dark glasses.
So I end up in the front of the store, totally bewildered, dressed like a mechanic in a dead orange uniform, with television cameras stuck in my face, and an interviewer wanting me to talk about how exciting I thought the show would be.
Okay, that was bad enough, but then, our usual sci-fi geeks who saw the event, then ran home and got their cosplay outfits. So, in addition to the cameras in my face, I’m surrounded by Dr. Who, Star Trek, and various other aliens with blue faces. God, I wanted to strangle that girl in the Dr. Who outfit with her own scarf.
You know my love of taking photos? Yes, there’s a picture of me in that damn uniform, no, you will never, ever see it, and yes, if you do, I will personally, permanently hurt you.
Remember how I said my only other job skill at the time was killing people? This was one of those times where I gave it serious, serious thought about exercising that particular job skill. I spent hours in front of that store, imagining wiping out everyone with an M-16 and hand grenades.
As a result, there is no way I’d ever watch the new series. Unless they have hot chicks on it. And there would have to be nudity. Serious sex scenes involving blue people. And violence involving Dr. Who and Trekkies.
Okay, okay. I’d settle for hot chicks. But they’d have to be in bikinis. Washing cars.
Here’s the rest of the depressing article. Remember, tobacco, alcohol, human papillomavirus, ultraviolet light, vitamin A deficiency and immune system suppression. And the oddly missing genetics and/or family history of cancer. Pretty much life in general unless you live in a cave. Kiss your ass goodbye, and bid farewell with a pipe and a blindfold.
The CIA hired Mulholland to explain techniques of sleight-of-hand and surreptitious signaling so that agents could use them in the field. His text, which was originally supposed to have been destroyed, has now been recovered, declassified, and reprinted as “
.” It deals mostly with basic stagecraft, minus the stage. If, before you struck a match, Mulholland advises the reader, you had stuck a pin into the back of the matchbook, it would be possible to pull the pin out with the fingernail of the left ring finger, the whole maneuver physically concealed by the matches and psychologically concealed by the broad, open gesture of lighting a match.
