Quick…Somebody Hit Me

Audrey Tautou

I just tricked myself into wasting 140 mind-numbing minutes watching The Da Vinci Code. 

The only thing controversial about that film is its place in legitimate cinema.  People make money making films like that?  Why the hell aren’t I making films?  Or you, for that matter?   Jesus, Mary, and Joseph I could do better filming myself sleeping for 140 minutes.  My story would be more plausible, my performance more believable.  I might even mutter some interesting dialogue in my sleep which would qualify me for an Academy Award for Best Writing in comparison with that Da Vinci movie. 

What’s-his-name was totally flat, but Audrey Tautou was totally hot (but silly, it’s a silly film)…because she’s French.  That’s all the film had going for it. 

I did wake up at one point and noticed Ian McKellen in the film.  That raised my hopes for a moment and I tried to stay awake to see what he might be doing in the film, but I drifted back into my coma during his first escape scene.  And that actor Paul Bettany, playing the flagellant Silas, wasn’t bad; at least he got to hurt himself during the film, certainly as a kind of atonement or distraction from the pain he was helping create on film.  (I’m convinced that all of Mr. Bettany’s blood was for real…maybe “sangreal”…as in the film…you know, the royal blood that I didn’t follow in the film.  Oh fucking stop!  I am starting to think like a Da Vinci Codean.)

Did I just use the F word?  That might change my WordPress rating. 

Anyway…that film was an embarrassment.  I can wake up tomorrow morning, get dressed up to play grown up, and whatever I do after that I know it will not be as bad as what was done when Ron Howard made The Davinci Code. 

Where is Ron?  I want to talk to him.   I’m going to take a nap.  Does he have a camera?

Related Articles

• The DaVinci Code IRL: Letters and Numbers Found on Mona Lisa (blippitt.com)
• Audrey Tautou’s Style Evolution (PHOTOS, POLL) (huffingtonpost.com)
• Ian McKellen has Signed on to THE HOBBIT Films (geektyrant.com)

Micro-Post

…not Micro Burst. Score so far today. Three swings, three misses. No sales. One out. Bottom of eight. (Tomorrow is the ninth, FYI.)

Year End Sales Update

I have no idea. Do you?

Unfortunately no need for any fun micro-posts describing sales today.  There were no sales. 

Watching some people contort logic so they can talk themself out of buying something they need is an eye opening experience.  Willful deception goes beyond people hiding from a problem or addiction, it functions quite commonly among business owners.  You want to slap them — slap them hard, very hard — and when they start to come around there will be no need to apologize.  You just tell them they were having a bad dream, a nightmare, and you woke them from it.

It can be very discouraging.  Don’t count on the intelligence of your client to be sufficient to understand and accept the benefits of good opportunities.  People are not wired that way.  People are neurotic and logically sloppy.  You have to learn how to be an accepted authority for these people, not a conscientious consultant.

Move on.  Tomorrow is only Thursday.  Only December 30.  The year isn’t over until the end of the day Friday.

Hang in There…Time for a Post.

Closely Resembles My Second Accident.

Nothing upbeat here.  Just hanging on.  This is December:  Started just over two weeks ago with the car accident mentioned in a post on December 11.  (Accident #1)

Six days later  while driving the rental car provided by the insurance company to cover my while my car was being repaired, I slide through a stop sign into traffic and get hit.  (Accident #2) 

A couple days later I get my car back and take it out in the field, happy to be back in my truck.  The happiness wasn’t to last long.  Halfway through the day I could not start my car and had to get it towed to the garage.  It turns out that a corroded A/C pump is keeping my car from turning over.  (Let’s call that an incident.  Incident #3)

No problem.  Get it fixed.  Drive a loaner from the garage.  While driving down 35E in St. Paul an aluminum shower surround flies out of the back of a pick up truck and hits my loaner.  I’m fine, but the car suffers dents on the hood and roof.  (Accident?  Incident?  What is that?  It is #4)

Frankly…it is difficult enough to close deals this time of the year.  It is much more difficult when you’re spending time waiting for tow trucks and car repairs.  Being in front of people is key to sales success.  A good attitude also serves a salesman well.  My attitude this month?  Well, did I mention that I have had the flu and now seem to be suffering some drippy relapse?  Let’s just say every day makes my attitude just a touch worse.  I am a grumpy, impatient SOB…but I put a good face on it.  In fact I think it might help me even a score or two.  I’ve found myself snapping back at knuckleheads a bit more easily recently.  It feels good.

Here’s the score.  I have three days to close about two weeks worth of sales.  Can I do it?  I don’t know.  But tune in here.  I will keep you posted.

WWWLD?

Related Articles

• reality check (musingatgrace.wordpress.com)

Tips for Winter Pedestrians [Non-Sales]

From snowbound Minneapolis, tips for winter pedestrians.  A bonus post.

Winter Walking. Doing it Right!

It is difficult to get around Minneapolis/St. Paul these days.  (I’m not sure what is going on out in the suburbs and, frankly, I don’t care.)  Some people appear to be blissfully clueless about this fact and others seem unprepared to deal with it.  The combination of the two make a difficult situation worse for seasoned clued-in Minnesotans.  So some tips.

First, don’t wander out into the crosswalk or off the curb until you know you want to actually cross the street.  Standing on the edge of traffic seems to indicate that you might think about crossing.  Stopping, starting, stopping again, and doing a loop or two only makes drivers want to hit you more.  Stay on the curb if you’re going to chat with your friends.  You can decide where to meet for coffee on the sidewalk.  In short…keep moving or get out of the way.

The second tip is directed at joggers and to a lesser extent bicyclists.  Joggers:  Why do you choose the city’s busiest streets for your morning jog?  There really isn’t room for us to admire your spandex gait even during the less snowy summer months, but when four lanes have been narrowed to two-and-a-half, please…jog elsewhere. 

Kind of the same thought for bicyclists.  I rarely see bikes stop for stop lights and stop signs anyway so why do they choose the main roads to ride on when one block over is an empty lane only held up by stop signs they will ignore?  Roll through the signs.  I’m all for it.  (Really.)  Winter or in the less-snowy months of summer.  Either or.  But especially now — when four lanes are down to one-and-a-half — it is hard to get around you. 

I WILL give bicyclists this, however, they need plowed roads to move on.  So I understand, but I’ll complain anyway.  All in all, I like bicyclists, even if they give me the finger once in a while.

Tip for New Winter Walkers:  DO NOT WALK LIKE A PENGUIN.  You’ll fall over and hurt yourself.  The best advice for walking on slippery surfaces is to keep your step light and moving.  Don’t walk with your hands in your pockets.  You need your hands free so you can move your arms for balance.  Plus, if you fall while your hands are in your pockets, you’ll get hurt.  You want your hands to grab on to something or brace your fall. 

Another tip for winter walkers:  As long as your feet are below you, you have a chance.  You might look like a cartoon character ready chase a roadrunner with your feet spinning a jig, but as long as they are moving and stay below you, there’s a good chance you’ll stay upright.  That’s what matters.  If you try to lock up to stable up, you’ll topple.  (You should never feel your butt clench when walking on ice.)

Finally, learn from experience.  Crusty ice might be safer than a cleared sidewalk with a light coating of snow, for example…in fact, it often is.  But that’s not the kind of experience I am talking about.  Learn from the experience of fellow walkers AHEAD of you.  If you see fellow pedestrians falling on the corner ahead of you, take notes. 

I hope this bonus post was helpful.  Back to my eggnog.

Related Articles

• Pedestrian safety is a two-way street (theglobeandmail.com)
• December Most Dangerous Month For Pedestrians (sfist.com)

Creeping up on Christmas Eve [Non-Sales]

There are not enough photos taken of simple things like empty streets and plain buildings. 

I suggest we make an effort to capture more of the mundane.  Focus on unstaged photos.  Instead of you and your friends acting cool for a photo at the bar, just take a picture of the bar.  We have too many auteurs out there and auteurs rework the world to fit an image.  We don’t need that for the record, we need pictures of sidewalk cracks instead.  I am convinced we are coming up short on our stock of simple, uncomplicated photos.  Plus it suits my photography style better.

Oh, but wait…I was going to write about creeping up on Christmas.  I always like to use the word “creeping” when I can.  It runs a chill up the ex-girlfriend’s spine.  Ah, just kidding.  (Never could take a joke.)  I’m just sitting here in my wool check shirt feeling all Santa Clausy thinking about all that I have to do this weekend.  So much better than thinking about what I have done.

Take this for example:  In the last two weeks I have been in two car accidents and blown out a starter.  I have driven three cars that are not my own.  Loaners, rentals.  I have managed to suffer through the flu and I even went to the dentist.  It is hard to find a silver lining, but perhaps we can look at sales…no, let’s not.  It is difficult to sell this time of the year unless you’re selling junk that might become gifts.  Practical things like advertising are low on a business owner‘s interests now.

So what do you do?  Take pictures.  Not pictures of some crummy kid opening a gift, but a picture of the front yard.  Empty, dark, cold.  The forgotten front yard, especially this time of the year.  Who will remember the front yard?

That Awkward Age

Not Me. Not Yet.

A lot is written about the awkwardness of the American teen years, especially the challenges of early teen  junior high years.  An almost ubiquitous social angst about these years makes the whole thing feel like hype, like a scripted rite of passage.  What is so awkward about middle school?  Come on…it is difficult to take seriously.  I know problems and challenges lurk out there, but the solution seems to involve a neurotic preoccupation with social structure.  I am at least a decade or two removed from those years anyway and so I want to talk about something much less understood and certainly much more underappreciated.

I want to write about another awkward age, those years between adulthood and something else that comes later.  I catch myself thinking about it more and more often as I feel caught deeper in those transition years.  A couple years ago I took offense, somewhat, to being called “sir,” especially by twentysomething women.  Now I feel offended if they don’t.  I’ll still buy you a beer and make your day, but call me sir before you call me “hey you.” 

But things like “sir” are easy to spot.  I like the more subtle signs of transitional awkwardness. 

Tonight, for example, I was at the grocery store — I like grocery shopping — and I was feeling very outgoing when I pulled up to the sour old bag at the check out line and thought I would make a little comment about the contents of my cart.  I had managed to pick out a six pack of bottled water, a bag of frozen peas, two cans of condensed soup, and a cookie.  I thought I would strike up a conversation, the way old people do, by saying something like:  “When my cart looks like this I know I should have made a list!”

Now that’s damn funny.  Clever.  A great conversation opener.  Ha, ha, ha!  Look!  I came to your store and this is all I managed to pull from the shelves.  Oh, boy, won’t I be disappointed when I get home and realize I needed toilet paper, too!  Ha, ha, ha!

The old gal behind the cash register — clearly old enough to appreciate my folksy charm — didn’t even bother to roll her eyes.  Instead she complained that my six pack of water wasn’t ringing up correctly. 

Huh?  That’s it?  I’m supposed to be practicing for being older just as a teen practices to be an adult, but what can I learn from that lesson?  Someday I might be sitting on a park bench somewhere and my whole day might depend on me being able to come up with inane little comments like:  “Sure do miss 1999.”

Tomatoes!  That’s what I should say…just tomatoes…and see where that gets me.  Just be nutty about tomatoes.  Something needs an explanation point:  Tomatoes! 

For the record…there was a  cute twentysomething behind me in line tonight and she did smile.  (I still got it.  Tomatoes!)

Every so often…

…I write some really bad posts.  Isn’t that true?  I don’t always read my posts and that isn’t good for you, my reader.  If I cannot make sense of my post a day or so after posting it, I doubt you can either. 

Here is my suggestion.  Scroll down through the posts.  Read them all.  There are some real gems buried in this blog.  Real gems.  Look at the tag cloud — or whatever it is — if you need to take a short cut.  But scroll and read.  Then tweet and retweet.  I only get better knowing I have a reader out there.

My Pet Bug

Rough couple of weeks here at A Little Tour in Yellow.  Two car accidents (within six days), a nasty cold/flu, and I finally kept an appointment with the dentist.   And look at the calendar. We’re in sales, remember?

Mr. Bug

It is mid-December and sales quotas have to be made.  Participating in extracurriculars like impromptu car accidents, the flu or cold, and a trip to the dentist really doesn’t help.  And now we have the holidays.  What are the holidays all about?  There is too much stress in my world right now  to ponder it, so let’s talk about something that will make everyone happy, especially me.  Let’s talk about my pet bug.

This pet came to me much the way other pets have come into my life:  He just showed up.  I was sitting right where I am sitting now and I noticed this large thing on a window curtain.  At first I thought it was a spider, a really big spider for these parts.  If I had still been in Arizona I would have guessed it was a Black Widow.  I didn’t really give it much thought because I was in the middle of something important and spiders bring good luck, something I would eagerly welcome (my all-too-busy cat, now chasing birds in paradise, hasn’t been able to deliver much good will from the other side), so I let the “spider” hang there.

Eventually I went and checked out the “spider.”  It wasn’t a spider at all.  I am not quite sure what it is.  I have books about trees, rocks, birds, mammals, snakes, snails, and stars, but not one bug book.  These bug looks more like a “bug.”  It looks like it was manufactured by Mattel, which struck my paranoid streak a bit.  (Suppose it is already a crime to have bad opinions of Sara Palin and John Boehner!)  I thought this bug could very easily be equipped with microphone, camera, and transmitter.  So I studied it a bit.  I looked very closely at the bug, especially its eyes to see if it had bug eyes or camera eyes.  It had bug eyes.  But to be sure, I put my ear up to the bug and listened to it.  I was listening for something like the whir of a little cooling fan.  Nothing.  Bug silent.  Reassured, I returned to my work.

Inspired by unknown influences, the bug started walking across the curtain and I liked that.  He is a very cautious and deliberate walker, carefully choosing and then firmly planting each footstep.  I can’t say he moves very quickly walking that way, but he does move, and just when I was admiring his footwork…he fell off the curtain!  I heard a heart-wrenching “smack” on the floor and feared the worse forgetting that bugs can take falls no sweat.  My bug quickly found his feet and started to walk again showing no awkwardness or embarrassment whatsoever.  I advised the bug to stay off the floor because I walk in the room.

The bug heeded my advice.  The next night I saw my bug on the wall, walking very slowly and carefully again.  He has a tiny head and a rather large winged body.  His legs are long spindles, like they were made of fine wire with big bushy feet attached.  He also has two long feelers sticking out of his tiny head.  I’m not sure how he can’t have a sore neck.  I stayed where I was and enjoyed his company before he fell again.  I’ve decided that vertical terrain is not this bug’s natural domain.

My bug visited me again another night.  This time he was playing on the glass lampshade of a lamp I have next to my bed.  This was a real treat.  He threw spooky shadows on the wall and ceiling.  We both seemed to enjoy this, but my bug is all business.  After a minute or two he moved on and I learned that my bug can fly!  He isn’t the most graceful flyer, nor is he a distance flyer.  Flying really is “flying” for this bug.  Perhaps he learned that just falling to the floor was a little more painful than softening the fall by flapping his wings.  He ended up on the floor somewhere and I again advised him to stay off the floor.

No…I have not stepped on my bug.  I have been extra careful.  But I haven’t seen my bug in a few days now.  The last time I saw him he flew over and landed on the comforter that was up on my lap, just like my cat!  I thought for a moment that maybe Klick Klack Kitty Cat had been reincarnated as that bug!  I leaned over to the bug, “Kitty Cat, is that you?”  No response so I am fairly confident that Klick Klack Kitty Cat hasn’t been brought back to this world as a bug.  Kitty Cat did some serious damage to the insect world in Arizona, but down in Arizona bugs are big enough to put up a decent fight.

It was very sweet seeing my little bug jump up on the bed like my cat used to do and say hello.  I wasn’t sure what to do.  You can’t really pet a bug…they are so fragile…so I just smiled and waved.  “Good to see you, Bug!”  He hung around for a minute then flew over to the bookcase.  Just a short, non-imposing visit.  Very nice.

I’m sorry that I haven’t seen my bug in a while.  I know most bugs don’t live very long.  (Sad.)  I wonder if my bug has already gone over to the other side and is now climbing walls in Paradise.  Maybe in Paradise bugs don’t fall off the walls.  I’d like to think so.

Take a Lesson From Victor Buono

You might not know the name, but I am sure you know Victor Buono. 

Victor Buono

A fine actor who played a wide range of odd characters in film and television.  physically he was a large man who let his personality grow to match.  You look at a guy like that and you see things working.  You see life with velocity and momentum.  And you wonder…what is it that makes someone like Victor Buono tick.

Anyone raised in Minnesota learned a lesson that I think Victor Buono understood instinctively.  In Minnesota you learn in your first winter driving season that even when things are just a little off, you can maintain control and get somewhere.  People who try to brake too hard or steer too sharply generally end up spinning or sliding in directions that they don’t want to go.  People who learn to relax when things slip and spin  rather than fight it tend to avoid mishaps and recover better when they don’t.

You can apply this same lesson to life.

Victor Buono grew up in San Diego and didn’t have winter driving to teach him anything about the importance of  easing back on your brakes and steering.  He was raised in a professional class family and I expect that he likely had a very controlled life laid out before him.  We often take the obvious route, the most travelled path, and for Victor Buono there were many paths like these for him to see.

Buono had been planning to pursue a medical career, in fact, when something happened — a visit by a crazy aunt, most likely (actually…I believe this IS indeed true) — and he found himself attracted to something different.

He discovered the joys of stagecraft, starting with a heavy emphasis on Shakespeare.  But he also discovered that he had a very unique presence.  His large and refined personality stood out when he tilted it a little.  People thought he was a little off, a little odd, different.  And rather than working to reign that in, he let it go and became successful and happy because of it.

Victor Buono, for example, played Edwin Flagg in What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? and won an Academy Award for this role at age 25.  A couple years later he was playing King Tut on the original Batman television series. 

Victor Buono had tremendous talent and people might think he wasted it on absurd roles and sold out to the 1960s television talk show circuit, but whenever I see Victor Buono I feel good.  I feel like I am seeing a person who found his place.  You want to be by people like this.  They are self-infected by their own ease and success.  Victor Buono might have been a little off kilter, but he knew well enough to affirm that uniqueness and in that way stay in control.

Recently I have been feeling more like Job than Victor Buono.  In fact, I had a moment today when I fully expected to hear a voice from the clouds command:  “Brace yourself like a man!”  I have been certain that both God and the Devil are testing me.  

Today, less than a week after the first car accident I have ever been in in my life, I slid though a stop sign and hit another car.  I got out of the car and felt absolutely deflated.  I cannot say I had any emotion one way or the other.  I looked heavenward and felt like I was overdue for some explanation, when I had this crazy idea:  The car didn’t stop because I tried to hard.  And then I had this goofy Victor Buono flash in my mind.

I don’t have the advantage of Victor Buono’s instinct, but I have had a little more time to figure it out nonetheless.  (Victor died when he was 43.)  It may not be as easy to do as it might seem, but the parts are pretty simple.  Follow your joy, your passion, and don’t let things that are a little off kilter cause you to over correct.  Am I right or am I wrong?  Maybe I just want to write about Victor Buono.  I don’t know.  But I am trying to explain how and why guys like Victor Buono can be a good role model. 

The universe is a pretty simple place, after all.  Things happen in patterns and cycles.  You don’t have to know the patterns and cycles, you just need to accept that they exist.  You have to trust that good feelings feel good for a reason.  Some of us instinctively have this trust, most of us don’t.  Victor Buono can’t defend himself against me — he’s playing campy roles in Paradise — but I’ll lay down a bet that he had the instinct, it worked for him, and he looks like a fun smart man.  I’ll adopt the Victor Buono approach to things.

In a nutshell, if you see success, emulate success, but most importantly note that success might not be most enjoyed in the results but perhaps much more in how it is achieved. 

The Tour Guide is going to sleep and hope for good dreams that will carry him into a more Buonian tomorrow.

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