Christopher

“Who’s on call in the States this morning?”

“Probably Randy”

“Well Jimmy’s got Insomnia, so he’s bound to be awake”

A dear friend of mine wrote a blog she never intended to publish. Like me, she sometimes uses writing as a form of therapy, just writing it down, getting it out, but not necessarily publishing it after.

Also like me; her blog is too closely watched to post certain things, especially about family or work. But it’s a great piece of writing and she feels like it should be online somewhere … and I agree

So she called on the Funky Brother for a favour … and when she asks, I always say yes

Welcome to the Hamptons … please check your morals, kindness and decency at the Door.  We appreciate your compliance.

My Life in the Chuck Palahniuk Novel

I should have sensed trouble when no significant others were allowed to come on the first corporate weekend I would be privy to.   And LS, JS, and JB opted Out of the weekend.  I knew it was going to be challenging, but little did I know it would be a hedonistic, masochistic orgy of gargantuan proportions.   This wasn't mentioned anywhere on the detailed itinerary that said "promptly" no less than forty-three times.  The itinerary was three pages long.

To stay afloat, I drank massive amounts of alcohol whilst smoking a cigarette in an orange, inflatable inner tube in the pool staccatoed by frequent trips to the bathroom with Nikki.   It helped build a protective emotional barrier between me and them with about the thickness and strength of tissue paper.  There was nothing I could do.   The animosity swept over me like a wave.

Israel, I have never met anyone more consistently malicious than you.  

Just to keep things straight.  MK and JL are fucking… oh no wait sorry, taking a stab at a relationship – look Giapetto, I'm a real live BoY!   DK and RT are [ew] fucking.  NG is fucking CD who was fucking LM but could fuck anyone at any time.  I was reeling.   I couldn't believe this was happening.  Experience repress experience repress.  Thank god, they had run out of employees for me to sleep with.   Enforced corporate copulation – the new black?

Enter: Kara's nervous breakdown.  Sobbing, snot, blood.  A proper London Cry off.  I want to go home.  I never wanted to see this shit.  Ever.   How am I supposed to work with these people after SEEING this.  I mean knowing of its existence is one thing but seeing it with my own eyes is another.  

Everyone including Pat being late because the directions she printed up were wrong.  We weren't late because Israel believes he's more intelligent than God, or at least mapquest.

Pat's dog in the pool – CD freaking

Carpooling with the Nazi

We're behind the hedges.  At World Pie eating the best eggs benedict of all time, salmon flavored like an everything bagel with a grilled cream cheese stuffed tomato.   With mimosas, bloody marys and then a pitcher of sangria. NG and my's only escape

I'm having trouble putting together the events in an order and temporal extent that makes sense.  I don't really know how long things lasted or when they occurred.   I know we never slept in our hotel room. 

My scallops taste like mangoes

That's cause they are manglops

What time is it?

About 12, I think

I wish it was later than 12 so the day would be more over

Waiting for RT and DK for forty five minutes at the post restaurant in South Hampton.  CD and IU feign homosexuality.   I exchange my Kir ROyale for a Bellini.  And DK and RT stumble in wasted.  Well, RT was wasted.   DK was mortified… and mortifying, a pretty eclectic dichotomy to pull off.  She asked me if anyone had replied to my Craigs List posting.  I asked her which one, thinking she meant the one about the apartment.  "The one about you ever finding a husband," she laughed.  Some of them are even difficult to reenact in writing.   Translation is moot for the majority of the offenses -  a leer, roll of the eyes, or curled lip lost in the text.   The words in print seem benign --- I guess you had to be there.

Be glad you weren't.

I wish it had just been boring.  I wish the constant barrage of insults were lame.   But they weren't; they were scathing and creative.  Tightly and courteously wrapped bundles of hurt.  Parcels of pain.   Another trip to the bathroom to erase my brain.

"They are just like Betty and Veronica. You know, the secret to Betty and Veronica is that they are drawn exactly the same but with different color hair. Just like Nikki & Kara."

"Just stare at them. It's fun."

"Oh, I am riding with the gruesome twosome."

"I love you." – from the lips of a person without a soul into the face of another

After passing a sign that says Littering is Unlawful.  "Kara… duck."

Everyone texting each other at dinner.

On 7/9/07 , Nikki G***k <nikki.g***k@****.com> wrote:

perfectly done, scattered about like the weekend itself. the thing about it is, there is so much more uncaptured. doing a line with the ceo. the dirty talking gps. trip to the hospital. howard taking his shirt off. you giving a guy his business card back. LM freaking out about learning to swim. JL sleeping through it all.

i'lll think of more

There were two good things that came from the weekend:  My tan.  And that no one had any idea I was freaking out.  Except Nikki, Chris and to some extent JL.  Who was trying to trying to figure out what it was that was upsetting me.   A relationship perhaps, or my family.  He tried to convince me my problem stemmed from my relationship with my parents.   What a twat.  It was like he was oblivious to the entire weekend.  Maybe he ODed on xanax which is why he was asleep the entire time.   He also tried to lecture me over a sixteen dollar burrito, which didn't go over well.

Someone went to the hospital.  It wasn't me.

One night, we went to a chic restaurant/club to eat on the beach and watch fireworks.  I sat there with a dollhouse smile plastered on my face.   My heart was breaking.  The sun went down, the moon came up, the fireworks went off.  Everyone was plastered again and dancing.   I was immobilized by shock.  What was happening.  I had ceased to function – I was checking out in a way I never had before.   My mind was backing slowly away from the mayhem. 

A man said – hey eat this brownie.  I said – no thank you.  His friend on the other side hitting on me, I think, giving me his card telling me to call him.   It said LITMUS on it.  The card sat between my finger tips of both hands, the polite way in China.  I looked at the front, turned it over to the back – I have to tell you, I don't think I'm in the proper state of mind to accept this, I said.   I could feel my eyes sort of glaze over.  I wanted them to roll back in my head.  I was running on crisis mode.

I will never post this blog.  I will show this blog to very few people.   I am embarrassed to be working for this company.  I don't know if I should quit now I saw all this.  I don't know why anyone would want me to see this.   I am constantly asking myself – is what these people doing something that could be done in front of my mother?  It seems to be an efficient tool to figure out very quickly what actions and commentary is within the realm of acceptable.

I never had to ask myself this question.  There was no doubt in my mind none of it was.   But there was no escape.  I was trapped there until late night Sunday. 

I'm a strong person who rarely needs someone to take care of me.  But today I took the day off.   I'm completely flabbergasted.  I feel like I should check myself into a mental institution.  Or rehab.   I need to sit in a wheel chair and look out the window for the hour blocks of time.  But I can't do that now.  For tomorrow I have another day at work.   A job that I loved more than anything.  This weekend has endangered my unwavering faith in my position at this company.   And forever shaken my soul.

Walking around within the bowels of the new Wembley Stadium, stepping over power cables and dodging out of the way of passing fork lift trucks, I find myself contemplating on how quickly my working life has changed. A few months ago my normal working day would have consisted of taking and logging helpdesk calls, talking to clients about my company’s online image hosting service and updating the company intranet with a brand new organizational chart. But now I’m back stage at the biggest Stadium in Britain, in the middle of gearing up for a huge concert to honor the memory of Diana, the peoples princess.

The Friday before last I was enjoying one the many benefits of my new job by swanning around the guest area of the wireless festival in Hyde Park, at one point bumping into Amp Fiddler, managing to say hello and shake his hand. It was an enjoyable way to spend a Friday evening; seeing Pharaoh Monch, Kelis, Mark Ronson, Faithless and, of course, Amp Fiddler, who was absolutely amazing to see perform. Absorbing some live music, meeting new people and making new friends, finishing the night off in a converted bus, adorned with Ray Bans logos, that had been turned in to a makeshift disco. Getting down with my bad self and downing my 13th pint of the night.

I was asked to help to Diana team a few days ago, after helping with a lot of problems the team had experienced whilst setup in my office. I was called saying they desperately needed my help and within 30 minutes I was onsite, being grilled by the security team and given my pass and day-glow yellow tabard, both of which needed to be worn whenever onsite, for safety and security reasons. The enormous backstage area, which I assume must be a staff car park of sorts when not being over run by a music concert, was a bustling hive of activity. Reminding me of the hanger scene before the last battle in Star Wars; dark, busy, cables everywhere and huge machines moving around, I walked around in child-like awe. Makeshift cabins had been setup and huge sections of stage were busily being assembled by hordes of day-glow yellow tabard wearing technicians. In one corner, a caged area had been set aside for the stage visual and filming team, several jaw-droppingly big screens filled an entire wall, with stacks of menacing black recording and editing equipment, the whole things looking like a hi-tech, brighter version of the bat cave. I made my way around to the back of the area and passed in to the far more seemingly serene office area, with various maze-like corridors stretching out in every direction, along which bored looking security men guarded various doors with makeshift signs reading BBC, MTV and VH1 amongst others.

The work on-site was hard and rewarding, the kind of “frontier” IT that I hardly ever got to do in my last company, making discreet make-shift networks out of begged borrowed and stolen kit, trying to get PC and Macs to talk to each other and share a printer. Fixing every niggling problem the Wembley IT staff had thrown at me. I managed to get the whole thing setup, working as best I could, and leaving there with everyone happy.

The team asked me would I be able to work on the day of the concert itself, just incase anything might go wrong, I tired to look professional and say “well if they needed me, then of course I’d be happy to give up my weekend for the good of the cause”, trying as hard as I could to stifle the school girl screech of excitement I felt welling up inside me. I’m not sure how much of the show I’ll manage to catch, but the idea of being in the same area as P. Diddy, Kanye West, Joss Stone and Tom Jones to name but a few is more than enough to make up for me loosing my day of rest.

Being a walking embodiment of the age old adage “it’s not what you know, it’s who you know”, I attended the press screening of the new Transformers movie a few days ago. With security tighter even than that of Wembley Staduim, handing over any Phones or PDAs, and given a ticket to retrieve them after the viewing, going through a security check in, being searched and given a once over with a metal detector before we could even buy popcorn, I knew this was quite a big deal. I didn’t expect the Director, Producer and key cast members to be there, but there they were; all ran in front of the screen to say hello before the film began. I haven’t been to the cinema in over three years. I love movies, but hate the cinema. Too many people talk, or leave there mobiles turned on, or worse actually use them while the film is on. To avoid getting into any horrid situation with the youth of today, I avoid the cinema like the proverbial plague. But this was different; half press, half fans, all very excited to see this blockbuster a good month before it officially gets its celluloid outing. We clapped, we laughed, we cheered, it was a great atmosphere, and I have to say, great Film. The director; Michael Bay has made some good movies in his time (The Rock, Bad Boys) and has had his fair share of turkeys too (The island .. and don’t even get me started on Pearl Harbor) but with Steven Spielberg as “hands-on” executive producer, I feel he had been kept on a bit of a tight leash and told to go easy on the cheese. Even running at over two hours, this monster of a CGI mash-up fearuring everyones favoutie robots in disguise, was one the most exciting pieces of film I’ve seen in a very long time. I might even go as far to say that it’s the best action film I’ve ever had the joy to watch. This film is going to be HUGE, trust the funky brother here, dear reader; it’s going to break box office records all over the world set a new standard for what you can do with Computer Generated Images.

Sitting here at my desk, polishing off this here blog whist simultaneously configuring a new users blackberry and checking if anything new is happening on Fezbook or Myspaz, I still have time to feel quite excited about this Sunday; even though I have a friends birthday to celebrate, a christening to attend and an appointment at DUST to DJ, I know I’m going to have a fun time, tired as hell as I may be, it’ll be a blast … it always is these V.I.Pizzle days.