Reporters Gone Wild, Meow Style

This is the story of three editors and a vendor. See what happens when writers stop being sober and start being: drunk.

Mark, Jay, Matt and I got an invite from Marilyn Monroe on the Las Vegas Convention Center floor to attend an open bar at the Hooters Hotel and Casino. This screamed class to me. Of course we were going. Marilyn Monroe + Hooters girls + Open bar = Mandatory attendance.

The liquor was provided by a company called ShowRack which Matt kept calling ‘the RackShow.’ Classy AND appropriate.  I started the evening off by ordering a Bud Light then changed my mind to a Jack and Coke. I got both anyway. I’d been at the party 45 seconds and I was already double fisting. Yup. That’s just the way we roll.

Three shots of whiskey and three glasses of Jack and coke later — I was chasing shots of Jim Beam with Jack and coke, which is always wise — the open bar closed an hour early. Daunted, but determined, the four of us wandered downstairs to the Hooters bar to keep imbibing what I like to call ‘adult soda pops.’ Which we did. For a long time.

Eventually, Queen’s ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ start blaring over the PA. We’d been loudly drunk for a while now, but hadn’t reached abnoxious quite yet. That all changed with one word: Meow. Jay, a non-journalist, but all around great guy had been kind of quiet while we were at the bar. I thought he was just hammered, but I now realize he was simply biding his time. Waiting for the right moment to make his move.

“I see a little silloutte-o of a man/meow meow MEOW/meow meow MEOW/Can you do the fandango?”

You know that surprised look that you sometimes get on your face when someone drops some knowledge on you after drinking for a while? He got it from the three of us in spades. And thus began the long and magnificent decline that lead to the videos you see here.

We must have sat at the bar and meowed for a solid two and a half hours. We drove patrons away. Bartenders tried to ignore us. Hookers looked for easier pray. And still, we meowed. No song was untouchable. Eddie Money? Journey?Alice in Chains? Barry Manillow? Meow.

Finally, Tom Petty slithered down from the speakers to where we sat at the elbow of the bar. I remembered my phone and its video capabilities. I started filming.  I don’t fancy myself much of a documentarian, but had I actually been doing a study of the affect of the word ‘Meow’ on drunk reporters in concert with music that is easily parroted, I’d be booking a flight to Cannes. As it is, cell phone video. 15 second clips. I hope you enjoy.

Interview, exposed

True story.

I had two interviews for a new position at work today. It’s a lateral move to a new group, but, for me, it’s the right thing to do. I’ve been looking to get out of this position and into a new one for a couple months now.

The first interview was this morning with the editor who originally hired me to work for the company two years ago this month. We had a half hour scheduled, but talked for an hour. I felt confident leaving the conference room. “I’ve got one more internal candidate to interview today, but I’m sure you’ll hear back from me later.”

Feeling good.

Sure enough, around 2 o’clock I got an email from the editorial director of the group – that’s two steps up the food chain from my position, my potential new boss’s boss. She, the editorial director, wanted to meet with me around 3:15 to talk about the position — give me her spiel and ask me a few questions.

I talked to her for half an hour. It went well, I think. She made it sound like I was part of the team already. “We’ve just got to talk to HR about internal transfer processes and notice for your current gig. We’ll talk soon.”

Jubilation.

Fist pumping. Chest thumping.

Thoughts of nasty emails I’ll likely never send.

Good times. Good times.

I left and went home. I took off my coat and set down my computer. Walked to the bathroom and went to undue my fly.

It was already down. And had been for about three hours – including the whole time I’d been interviewing with the editorial director.

I didn’t notice her peeping at my dong, but I was sitting with one leg crossed, crotch flying. Willy waving in the breeze.

It’s good to stay humble.

Still here. Brilliance from The Onion

I’m still here, but I’ve been focusing  on a different creative endeavor that I will — hopefully — post parts of here once it reaches a sort of critical mass. It’s selfish and navel gazing-centric, but I’m ok with that. More on that as it develops.

In the meantime, enjoy this post from The Onion: Pitchfork Gives Music 6.8. My favorite paragraph:

“Coming in at an exhausting 7,000 years long, music is weighed down by a few too many mid- tempo tunes, most notably ‘Liebesträume No. 3 in A flat’ by Franz Liszt and ‘Closing Time’ by ’90s alt-rock group Semisonic,” Schreiber wrote. “In the end, though music can be brilliant at times, the whole medium comes off as derivative of Pavement.”

Any time Liszt, Semisonic and Stephen Malkmus can be worked into a single quote, I’m game.

The Dramatic Chipmunk

If you haven’t seen it yet, you should. The funniest clip I’ve seen in a long, long time.

Enjoy the Dramatic Chipmunk

Five seconds long. You’ll thank me later.

I’ll be home soon, Google reader

My Dearest Google Reader,

I’m sorry I haven’t been using you much lately. You know that you’re still my source for news, blogs and music updates from around the world.

I realize I’ve been neglecting you, but my boss is riding me hard. I’ve got a big project at work that needs to get finished this week.

I swear I haven’t been using Digg or Bloglines or even the RSS functionality in Firefox. Baby, you’re my one and only. Your XML feed aggregation is still just as sexy to me as it was the day I first subscribed to Google news. Your filters and – ahem – easy functionality keep me coming back for more.

How else am I going to read the BBC news? Or get snarky comments about technology from Gizmodo? You introduced me to Gizmodo. I couldn’t read it anywhere else without thinking about the good times we had.

You remember the day you brought me a video of a man having his head swallowed up by the butt of an elephant. We laughed for hours about it. I couldn’t do that with just any old RSS feed – you make it special.

So just let me finish this project – it should be done soon. Then it’ll just be you and I basking in the soft glow of the computer screen, smoking cigarettes and reading about archeologists with funny names again.

It won’t be long now. So just enjoy your downtime and I’ll be back before you know it.