Startup Beatdown, Chapter 4: How to Be a Corporate Spy

Chapter Four: How To Be A Corporate Spy

Like many powerful people with questionable moral compasses, Sean Etin was a very paranoid man. Often, he spoke of crazy plots and conspiracy theories against him, whose authenticity I cannot aver to. I heard everything from catching a former employee wiretapping his house, to a daring act of corporate robbery, in which men in masks and business suits absconded with boxes of important legal documents. Of course, nothing so exciting happened while I was there.

Nevertheless, Sean Etin tried his best to guard against future acts of corporate terrorism. He had a systems expert, an African from the Congo (aka: Zaire) named Nabulla, who was often in the office, working on a security system of tiny cameras, located all around the outside of Mr. Etin’s house (and very possibly inside as well). Nabulla was a good guy, and we would often talk politics or about his home country.

“Being the son of a diplomat makes you very important in Zaire,” he once told me. “My friend, who was the son of a very important diplomat went to the airport with me, and demanded to be taken to some other city. So, the airport kicked everyone off a departing flight and flew us there immediately. We had a very nice time.”

He also once suggested I visit Libya. “People there treat you very kindly,” he said, not realizing I would probably be killed the second someone learned I was American. Or Jewish. Or (most likely) white.

Sean Etin also guarded against “revenge” plots from former employees (of which, I found out, there were many. In three years or so, they had about 100 employees, with no more than about 20 working at one time). Knowing how he treats people, I could only say that any safeguard was understandable. When I was first hired, I was asked to bring in my high school yearbook to prove I didn’t know three former employees that went to school there. “I had to fire them after I caught them snorting coke off the hoods of their car,” Mr. Etin told me. “Not that I necessarily have anything against drugs,” he added, in what I can only assume was an attempt to sound cool.

“It’s more likely they were fired for drinking coke inside their cars,” one of my office-mates, Perry once joked, knowing Mr. Etin’s propensity for (to put it kindly) bending the truth to fit his purpose. Not understanding how my yearbook could prove I knew these people (I didn’t), I nevertheless agreed to have my privacy invaded, instead of doing the smart thing by just saying that I didn’t own one.

My yearbook was promptly lost in the man’s giant pigsty of a house. “It got lost in the black hole,” Mr. Etin told me, motioning at the assorted boxes of crap littered around after I continued to press him on it. “I’m sure it’ll come up sometime.”

This was in stark contrast to whenever he couldn’t find anything for himself. “It’s GONE,” he would say loudly, and to no one in particular, whenever he couldn’t find what he was looking for immediately. “Yet ANOTHER object of my personal property SOMEHOW managed to walk out of my house.” He would then eye his employees as if we were filthy pickpockets from off the streets of Bangladesh. Of course, whatever it was he was looking for would eventually be found, as would my yearbook (months later).

The point, though, is that Sean Etin was paranoid, and no moment was more evident of this fact than the time I was thought to be a corporate spy . . .

It began during lunch. Everybody in the company was out to lunch, except for me and Perry, as we had brought our own. Perry, along with the other two members of the creative staff, worked in a secluded nook of a room at the end of the hallway that I worked out of. They had the best spot in the house, as they were often spared from the overall insanity of the office, and were, in fact, left alone sometimes for days at a time (besides my coming in multiple times a day to shoot the breeze with them). Oftentimes, I found them in there playing video games on their computers. Perry had recently broken his foot while saving ninjas from a burning car, and couldn’t really move around much. So, the two of us had our lunch in the back room, talking about video games and badmouthing the company. We were alone for perhaps a half an hour, and nothing out of the ordinary occurred, except for the fact that the Etin’s rottweiler snuck into the ‘work side’ of the house for some desperately needed attention and petting. Seriously, I’ve never met a more needy creature in my life (and, yes, I include myself in that statement).

The dog eventually left, as Flo and the rest of the employees began trickling in from their lunches. The muted echoes of a commotion came in through the walls, but at this point in our employment, both Perry and I knew not to get involved in anything that didn’t directly involve us in some way. As we were finishing our lunch, Flo poked her head in the door. “Did either of you boys go into the Senior Staff area while we were gone?” she asked.

The Senior Staff area was the large room at the end of the hallway where the ‘important’ people in the office worked (besides myself, the creative team, and one other person, this consisted of everyone else). I had been told at different times that due to the sensitive nature of the information kept there, I should never go in that room unless I had explicit permission, only to later be scolded for my constant asking to enter if I needed to speak to someone or get something. “Just come in!” they would tell me in exasperation. It was my general policy to stay away from this room (and most of the people that worked there) if I could.
We had answered “no” to Flo’s question. “Did you see anyone go into the senior staff area?” We told her that we didn’t. “Did you see anyone or anything out of the ordinary while we were gone?” I told her about the dog.

There was a heavy silence in the air. Perry and I knew that in the natural order of conversation, one of us had to ask the question, but we dreaded doing so, afraid of being sucked into whatever insanity that was happening on the other side of the wall. The need to ask this question hung in the air like a noxious, soupy fog, stifling me. It had to be asked, and finally, I did. “Why?”

“Because someone broke into Jim Heff’s computer and pulled some information. If you can think of anything to help us figure this out, let me know.”

Jim Heff, SeaShel’s paralegal, was a portly fellow and (I thought at the time) a nice enough guy. He was about my height, but outweighed me by at least a hundred pounds, and his face was piggish, with watery eyes and an upturned nose. For some reason, Sean Etin came to call him ‘the Heffster’ and soon, everyone followed suit, even though we could tell he didn’t particularly like it. Cruelly, some of us referred to him as ‘the Heffer’ behind his back, or simply as ‘piggy.’ I almost never spoke to him beyond pleasantries, mainly in order to keep me away from whatever litigation news he might feel free to share. In theory, Mr. Heff was the busiest and most important employee at SeaShel, as lawsuits seemed to be the only thing they produced, and the fact that it was his computer that was ‘hacked’ into sent everyone there into a tizzy.
I myself was pretty excited. This was certainly the most interesting thing to happen there since I joined. I was curious to know what happened and how it was done. Who could have snuck in, during the half hour in which there was the least amount of employees on the premises, knew which computer belonged to the paralegal, found whatever information he or she needed to get, escape, and do it all while Perry and I were there? I spent the rest of the day trying to figure the mystery out in my head. It was like those murder mysteries I used to attempt to solve as a kid – “A man was found dead from a stab wound, but no weapons were found. Next to him is a puddle of water. Nobody entered his house and he could not have hid the weapon. Solve.” I thought about the computer case, and quickly realized that I was the prime suspect. Perry, with his broken leg, never left the back room, and I told them so. In fact, the only time I had left the room was to go to the kitchen and microwave his food. Certainly, with Perry incapacitated and no one else in the office, I could have easily gone to Mr. Heff’s computer and took what I needed. Furthermore, I was relatively new there and was, at least in their eyes, a rapist, among other unsavory things. Lastly, I went to the same high school as the three former employees who were allegedly fired for doing drugs. Surely, I could have been a mole, implanted by them, waiting for the moment to strike . . .

Or, on the other hand, maybe the dog did it . . .

I reveled in being their prime suspect. It made me feel cool, and it kind of made me wish I actually were a corporate spy. I got a kick out of their pussyfooting around their thoughts of my guilt. “Are you sure you don’t have anything to add that can help us figure this out?” Their eyes implied other questions, such as “how could you be such a little shit?” and “why don’t you just confess already?”

And I didn’t care. Watching them squirm and follow false leads was cathartic. The idea that someone might have gotten their hands on something that could bring the company down was delicious. Plus, they might just fire me. This was the best day I had at SeaShel Productions . . .

This all changed with the thunderous arrival of Sean Etin. He stampeded in at 5:00 – a full hour before he usually stampedes in. “What’s this I hear about there being a corporate spy in my house? Flo, get everyone together. Now.”

We gathered in the Senior Staff area. Those employees who had their desks in there sat. The rest of us (excluding the hobbled Perry) stood.

“Okay,” Sean Etin said, “tell me EXACTLY what happened here.”

So, Flo told the story. Sean Etin asked me the same questions I heard all day, and eyed me suspiciously. Not getting the answers he wanted, he moved on. “Do we know what they got? Do we know how they got it?”

“The only way the data could have been purloined was, ostensibly, through an in-house manner,” Marcus, the company’s vice-president said in his needlessly verbose way.

The company’s IT guy agreed. “It had to be done in person, on the computer.”

Sean Etin faced Mr. Heff. “Did you change anything on your computer since you got back, Heffster?”

“I haven’t touched it since I got back from lunch,” he replied proudly, probably not realizing that his statement also meant that he hasn’t done any work since then either.

We all took a look at his computer, and I was immediately crestfallen. Jim Heff’s computer screen was totally blank, with no open programs except for the search bar on the upper right side. In the search bar, Mr. Heff’s cell phone number was typed in. What was once a cool mystery became incredibly lame.

“Why would anybody search for Mr. Heff’s phone number?” I found myself asking, which was strange since I no longer cared.

“Whoever it was may have thought it was the fastest way to search for important documents or emails.” It sounded like they were trying to convince themselves that this weak excuse for an explanation made sense, but quickly moved on to a different subject before anyone could think about it too hard.

“Whomever hacked onto this computer was no neophyte. Knowing how to use this advanced search function proves that we were infiltrated by a professional.”

“Of course we were,” Sean Etin spat. “ knows that I’m the only person that can bring their evil company down. They know how close I am, and they’ll stop at nothing to stop me.”

It became obvious to me then that I was not the only one who used this event as an escape from the drudgery/usual insanity of work. The mystery. The intrigue. The feeling of self-importance. These things obfuscated any clear judgment. The idea that this was a prank, or a computer glitch, or that Mr. Heff accidentally pasted his number on the search bar was as impossible to them as it was for me to get excited about it anymore. Still, I tried. I don’t know if it was the disappointment of the supposed ‘mystery’ or if it was simply one of those moments where I felt the need to make an ass out of myself. Whatever the reason, I interrupted one of Mr. Etin’s spittle-flecked diatribes.

“I have something to announce,” I said, placing my fists on my hips dramatically. “I am the man you’re looking for. I am the corporate spy!”

Nobody expected this development. Sean Etin’s eyes bugged out as if I had just blown up a balloon inside his head, and his fatty face turned an even deeper shade of red. His natural inclination, to snap my head off my neck, was tempered with shock.

I continued, “Yes, I was hired by to infiltrate your organization after my three friends from school failed their mission. It was a simple matter of arranging to have Perry’s leg broken and waiting for everyone to go to lunch to strike. I knew that all I needed was Mr. Heff’s cell phone number to get everything I needed for me REAL employees! Bwa ha ha ha!”

I looked around the room. Most everyone was rolling their eyes or shaking their heads at my little display. Perry flashed me a look that said, “you are the stupidest person I know.”

Sean Etin’s expression did not change, however, besides his face now being tinged with a shade of purple. “You . . . you admit it?!?” he sputtered.

It took me a moment to soak the fact that he was still taking me seriously. “Sean, I was just kidding. I’m pretty sure real corporate spies don’t ‘bwa ha ha.”

His expression changed from shock to anger. “Well,” he snapped, “if you didn’t do it, maybe you can help us figure out who did. If this were a spy movie, how would you think this happened?”

“Sean, I’ll be honest with you. If I saw this happen in a spy movie, I would have walked out of the theatre and ask for my money back.”

“Well,” Mr. Etin blustered, “surely SOMEONE has something useful to say! We’re not going to leave here until we have this figured out!”

Though he wasn’t exactly true to his word, he did still keep us there until 8:30, trying to figure out in what way his enemies had gotten to him without outright accusing any of his employees of betrayal. I kept my mouth shut for the rest of the meeting. I had thought about making the suggestion to check the security cameras Nabulla had set up, but I remembered something from earlier in the day. For the first and only time, my dad drove to where I worked in order to take my car for an oil change. It was right before lunch. I pictured the grainy, gray footage from the security tape, showing me exchanging something small (my car keys) with a strange man, and decided to keep my mouth shut. By the end of the meeting, those of us who were standing were swaying in place, trying not to fall over. Sean Etin announced that anyone who didn’t lock the door after themselves would be fired on the spot. This meant, as the person closest to the door, I spent much of my remaining days there going up and down the thin, spiral staircase, opening the door for whoever needed to be let in.

***********

Months and months later, Perry called me to his computer. He had me sit down at his desk. “Press ‘control/spacebar’,” he told me. I did. The search feature came up. “Now press ‘control/V’.” I did and a set of numbers appeared in the search bar. “Now, imagine having tiny, chubby fingers that might actually press the ‘V’ and the ‘space-bar’ at the same time.”
I gave a little smile. “Case closed.”

Startup Beatdown, Chapter 3: A Steaming Pile of Goo

Chapter 3: A Steaming Pile of Goo

Above my desk in the hallway, there was a picture printed on a loose-leaf paper of a middle-aged man, whose tanned, wrinkled face was distorted into a fake smile. He wore a Hawaiian shirt and his wispy, receding hair was pulled back into a ponytail – or possibly a rattail. In this picture, he was surrounded by stuffed animals of Seashel Productions creative property, the ‘Googles from Goop.’ One day, I asked who this man was.

“That’s Jerry Gold. He created the Googles,” Flo explained. “If you ever see him in here, call the cops.”

Having already familiarized myself with the Googles at this point, I would have been inclined to call the police anyway (but only if a pillowcase of batteries with which to beat him were not readily at hand).

The ‘Googles from Goop’ were SeaShel’s only creative property. Apparently, a lot of work (not hard work, mind you) had gone into developing this property by a long string of employees that had long since left the company. A huge character bible had been written, and about 20 half-hour scripts were completed. These giant notebooks were kept under the watchful and paranoid eyes of Joel, the Director of Marketing, and he didn’t allow anyone else in the company to see a single page of Googles-related text. Now, if I were in charge of a creative property like the Googles, I probably wouldn’t let anyone see it either – if nothing else but for humanitarian reasons (and shame). Joel, however, had a different motive. Joel was the type of manager who firmly believed that knowledge equals power. He practiced this concept in a very interesting way: Instead of gaining knowledge himself (as far as I could tell, he had no useful skills and did nothing), he instead kept basic knowledge from others. Joel was supposed to be the pipeline between Sean Etin and the creative staff, which consisted of three programmers/artists and (supposedly) myself. As it turned out, though, any and all information that came his way, either from his boss or his underlings, stayed forever with him. Numerous times, I have heard Joel berate a member of the creative staff for explaining to Sean Etin what they were doing when he asked.

“When Sean asks what you’re doing,” Joel would state whenever someone is ‘caught’ divulging information to the boss, “you tell him that you can’t tell him and that he should ask me.”

Yes. Tell the man who signs your paychecks – a man who has no patience and an enormous temper – that you can’t tell him what you’re doing on his time, and to consult someone who doesn’t know himself.

I had very much wanted to get a hold of the creative notebooks Joel kept from everyone. I was the head (and only) writer and was morbidly curious as to how the previous creative staff(s) expanded on and (hopefully) improved upon Mr. Gold’s original book, which I had the displeasure of reading during my initial interview. More importantly, I wanted to do something other than photocopying, which I had been doing nonstop, 9 hours a day, for the last month.
Eventually, I got my chance. Joel came up to me one day, with a look that said, “you’re ready for this.” He was holding the immense character notebook in his hands, which he plopped on my desk with a mighty thump. “I need you to photocopy this,” Joel said, and walked off. So, for the next week, I photocopied, collated, hole-punched and put together a new notebook. When it looked like nobody was paying attention, I read as much as I could.

The notebook was about one-thousand pages long and introduced about three-hundred characters. In addition to Stoogle Google, the character I was introduced to in Mr. Gold’s original (self-published) book, they invented five other Google characters. Their body shape, facial features and expressions were all used from the same cookie-cutter – they were all four-eyed, overweight aliens covered with two-tone, fluorescent fur, and the only way to tell the difference between them was their color. One was orange and iridescent yellow. One was pink and purple. All were hideous. They had thin, rubber-band-like arms that extended out of the bottom of their heads, where their necks should be, but aren’t. Like a Mr. Potatohead, their large feet seem attached to their butts, as they have no legs whatsoever. They wore no clothes, save a pair of sneakers that can, at the most kind, be referred to as colorful. But since I’m not kind, I’ll describe it this way: It was if God took a look at his monstrous creations, got sick to his stomach and threw-up rainbow puke all over their shoes. Attached to their shoes (I kid you not) was a compass. Mr. Etin planned on marketing these shoes to children when the Googles became a big hit.

“Imagine it,” he would say emphatically, counting the imaginary money in his head. “What kid wouldn’t want to be the first kid on his block to wear these shoes?”

“Probably the same kid who doesn’t want to be the first kid on his block to be beaten up,” my friend at work would answer after Mr. Etin would leave the room.

There were many other characters described in the notebook as well. About half of the binder was filled with character descriptions of woodland animals with such creative names as ‘Randy the Raccoon’ and ‘Tammie the Turtle.’ These character descriptions would be about eight pages each, and would go into minute detail about each animal’s family dynamic, favorite music, and even whether they drank, smoked or did drugs (surprise! – none of the woodland animals in a property for pre-schoolers smoked crack). The format of these write-ups was obviously from a template someone got from the Internet, as it seems unlikely a deer’s sexual orientation or menstrual cycle will come up in a story . . .
There were also a group of children introduced in the notebook, named the GooKids (I feel dirty just writing it), and hundreds of assorted aliens from many different planets. They basically expanded Mr. Gold’s concept into a sprawling, messy universe, where it was impossible for characters to interact in any way – but if I were to boil it down to one sentence, it would be this: Naked aliens take children to a secret place in the woods and teach them the ways of the world . . .

Even though they only had one creative property, Seashel Productions kept their fingers (or dicks) in a lot of pies. They had Googles music (look it up on iTunes if you feel like torturing yourself in thirty second intervals), websites, animations, video games, stories, merchandise, and even their own security technology (which might actually make them money someday . . .). To their credit, I would say that their scope of products is impressive, if only the Googles concept weren’t total garbage. It’s like starting a Disney-like multimedia company, but instead of Mickey Mouse being the creative heart, they instead used a rusty bucket of semen.

With all this potential merchandise and products, Seashel Productions put 95% of their energies on producing one thing – lawsuits. As I came to learn, Sean Etin loved suing people. I honestly think it makes him hard. One time, he told a gathering of employees his philosophy. He stated, “I don’t know about you all, but when someone tries to hurt me, I knock him down and do everything I can to make sure he never gets up.”

That would be all well and good, except his definition of ‘hurt’ included looking at him the wrong way and nothing at all. I had never met anyone more obsessed with ruining people’s lives than this man. He was the sort of person that derived pleasure out of confrontation, but more importantly, it gave him a feeling of power to be able to control men’s fortunes (or lack thereof). I had no idea how many lawsuits this man was fighting. I didn’t want to know. Lawsuits scare me, and I know the less I found out about the inner workings of the company, the less likely I would be asked to testify (and, most likely, told to lie) in any given court case.
There were two court cases that were inescapable if you worked at Seashel. One involved a massive Internet corporation that used a very similar sounding website name. Apparently, Jerry Gold bought the website googles.comm months before a certain multi-billion dollar Internet company bought their own similar sounding website address. When Sean Etin bought the rights to those horrible ‘Googles from Goop,’ he became the owner of the Googles website. I honestly have no idea if Sean Etin bought the property with the specific plan of suing the pants off that certain extremely rich Internet company, or if he really believed in the Googles as a merchandisable product. All I know is that by the time I joined the company, Sean Etin was taking the lawsuit personally.

“It’s my job to take down the evil empire,” he would say heroically. “And I’m going to burn them to the ground!”

The other litigious battlefront Seashel Productions was fighting on was against Jerry Gold. According to Mr. Etin, Jerry Gold served a couple of years for cocaine possession, and came up with the Googles concept in prison. Now, if I were stuck in prison and had to create a fantasy world to distract from the reality of unwanted anal trespass, I’d like to think that my fantasy would be better than the reality, but to each his own, I guess.

I don’t know if the prison story is true, as Mr. Etin had a tendency to make up whatever story was convenient to his present situation, so long as the person he was talking about was not in the room. I have heard obvious lies about co-workers come out of his mouth, and have heard secondhand lies about me (for example: my eventual quitting was an elaborate ploy to get more money from him, and that I later called, begging for my job back . . .).

Jerry Gold was suing Seashel Productions and Seashel was counter suing him (or is it the other way around?). I also heard that Jerry Gold has his own lawsuit with that giant Internet company. It is a complicated web of sewage, and I did my best to distance myself from the whole mess. Alas, this was not meant to be. An important court date was fast approaching and Sean Etin’s lawyers needed every single email Jerry Gold sent to Sean Etin or Seashel Productions. So, I was taken off photocopying duty for a day and brought to a usually locked storage closet, where I was told to organize an enormous stack of printed emails in chronological order. The sheer number of papers, strewn in foot-high piles, was astounding. Obviously, Sean Etin and Jerry Gold’s relationship had been much friendlier in the past (though, I was sure, no less demented). Flo left me alone with a warning:

“If you’re caught reading any of these emails, you’ll be fired on the spot.”

It was good to know I had an out.

“How am I supposed to organize the emails without looking at them?” I asked, more out of curiosity than anything else.

Flo softened. “It’s a kick in the teeth, ain’t it? Let me know when you’re done,” she said in her southern twang, leaving me alone to do what I wished.

So, I began organizing the stacks of emails. The first thing I noticed was the sheer amount of correspondences Jerry Gold could write in any given day. He averaged about three or four, but I sometimes saw days in which he sent around ten. These weren’t short emails, either; most filled the page. They were sent at all times of the day, many at three or four in the morning. I recognized the pattern from firsthand experience – this man obviously didn’t have a job. I became more and more curious about Jerry Gold. What possessed a person to come up with an idea as ill-conceived as the Googles from Goop? These emails were my best way of finding out, and I soon began scanning their bodies.

What I found shocked me. Jerry Gold, a man who, according to his photo, should be in his fifties, filled his emails with puns that would make a six year old shake his head in shame. This was an average email he would write (shortened, for your benefit):

Dear Sean,
Goo day! How are you? I hope you are goo! I read the notes you sent me and I thought they were goo. I think the Googles are going to be huge. Children need a show that will make them feel goo about themselves. I have to go now. Goo bye!

Sincerely,
Grandpapa Goo

Every single one of his hundreds (if not thousands) of emails contained the word ‘goo’ at least once (but usually much more), and every single time it was used as a pun on the word ‘good.’ There was never an “I have to ‘goo’ now,” or a “soon we will reach our ‘gool’.” It was a sad kind of insanity, and I suddenly felt very sorry for him. I also felt sorry for Sean Etin for the first and only time. He had to read every one of these emails, for years and years on end.

I continued scanning his emails as I put them in chronological order, and began to read the frustration in their tone, as the years went by. The last few emails read like this:

Sean,
What the heck is going on here? You’re not responding to my emails and nobody in your company is returning my calls. THIS IS NOT FUCKING GOO! If you don’t respond to me now, you’ll be responding to my lawyers later.

Jerry “Grandpapa Goo” Gold

Jerry Gold obviously cared and believed in the property he created (allegedly in prison). I could tell that he would never give up his lawsuit. Sean Etin would also not give up, because that was simply not the kind of person he was. It was like they were locked in an epic battle to the death, all over the ownership of a turd.

By the end of my job task, I was contemplative and frightened. A long-held dream of mine is to create my own creative properties. Is Mr. Gold a glimpse into my future if I continued to pursue this dream? Is it worth the trouble to spend your life fighting for your creative property when businessmen like Sean Etin will do everything in his power to take it from you? They are tough questions that I still struggle with.

I later told my friends at work about the emails and from then on, we would use ‘goo’ puns ourselves. We called where we worked the ‘goolog’ and our employers the ‘Goostapo.’ When I told one of my co-workers that I was quitting, he gave me some words of advice for when I tell Sean Etin: “Tell him to goo fuck himself.”

The Startup Beatdown, Chapter 2: The Next Jeffrey Dahmer

The Startup Beatdown Chapter Two
The Next Jeffrey Dahmer

I came in for my first day of work, not knowing what I would be doing, or even where I would be sitting. All I knew was that, for the time being, I was to be reporting to Flo, the company's office manager. The problem was that Flo wasn't in. I didn't see Sean Etin either, which was strange, considering we were all working out of his house. I was lost – I didn't know what to do, where to go, or who to ask.

There were about 10 workers stuffed into the crevices and strewn about the hallways of the "office area" of Sean's house, but none of these people were exactly rushing to my aid. Nobody introduced themselves to me. Nobody asked who I was or why I was standing around aimlessly. All I got was a few furtive glances and a cold reticence that made me think I was not wanted. There was something else. Something in the air. I tried to attune my little-used empathic senses. Did these people . . . hate me?

I finally saw a familiar face walking down the hallway – Rita, the HR Director, who I met during my marathon interview a week earlier. She was a blond, middle-aged, somewhat heavy-set woman with gobs of blue mascara surrounding her steely eyes. I later found out she was Sean's little sister. I wished her a good morning, hoping my minor pleasantry could expand into more serious business – such as which desk I can sit at so I could at least pretend to do work. My greeting, however, was met with a look of unmasked repugnance and sheer hostility that I imagine would normally be reserved for a butcher of children and fans of certain reality TV shows. She walked on, eyeing me as if I was a piece of shit under her shoes.

I guessed she would not be the one to go to for questions.

I had decided to settle myself at what I hoped to be an unclaimed desk in the hallway, just so it would look like I wasn't milling around on my first day (-- that would come later). I opened up 'Indigo Children,' a hippie-dippy book about the auras of modern children (they're indigo!) that Mr. Etin gave me during my interview (and was later paraphrased for me by a fellow employee as "children are more spoiled now, and should be rewarded"), and put on my "I'm-doing-important-work-here" face, hoping to fool anyone who looked my way.

After a few minutes I heard, "You're not doing anything now, are you?"

The question was asked by Perry, a lanky guy, about my age, who was one of the programmers for Seashel's websites. He asked me to do some simple internet research on children's websites for him, and happy to have something to do, I quickly obliged. This hour of research would be the last time I did any work that involved me using an iota of brain power for the next several months.

Flo arrived at around noon, and started showing me my daily tasks. They included:
- Printing out Sean's daily horoscope and adding them to his horoscope folder.
- Feeding the company's pet chameleon crickets.
- Feeding the crickets yellow, booger-like crystals because (FUN FACT!) chameleons only eat creatures that are alive.
- Any bitch work nobody else wanted to do.
She then handed me two tall stacks of glossy papers and a can of aerosol spray
glue and brought me into the kitchen, where I was to spray one sheet onto the other. Nobody spoke to me for the rest of the day and I left work with sticky hands and a massive aerosol-induced headache.

After two days of "work," I still wasn't one-hundred percent certain if everybody hated me in particular, or if the place was just unfriendly in general. All I knew was that, as a former intern and someone who had oversaw interns at my previous job, I was doing intern's work. The fact that I was getting paid for this strangely didn't make me feel any better. I was willing to do this sort of work for a limited amount of time, but only because I was promised by Mr. Etin before I was hired, the opportunity to prove myself creatively. I didn't see Mr. Etin at all until the end of my third day, when he bustled in as everyone was getting ready to leave. He kept everyone there and began going on about how the "pendulum was swinging" and important litigation news that he couldn't talk about, spittle popping out of his mouth. Nobody looked impressed, and I got the feeling they had all heard this sort of speech countless times before. In fact, I had heard this same speech during the course of my interview. An hour later, when he finally ran out of steam and let people go home, he pulled me and Joel, the head of Marketing aside and told us to stick around.

"Joel, you've met Danny, right?" Sean asked.

"Yeah."

"Good. Danny here is a film genius and he'll be doing creative work for us."

Before I had time to feel good about that statement, Joel exclaimed, "What?!? No, Sean, you can't just put people in my department without telling me."

I felt uncomfortable. Sean obviously didn't tell Joel whatever ill-defined plans he held for me, which I guess was fair, since I didn't know them either. I was witnessing the beginning of a power struggle. Fortunately, before they got into it, I was excused and ran off.

The next day, I got called into the kitchen by Joel. Rita was sitting next to him, and my resume was on the table. They had me close the door and sit down.

"I don't know what Sean told you," Joel began, "but you're not going to work in my department without my okay."

"All right," I said, not sure what was going on.

Joel, only slightly shorter and slightly less stocky than Sean, began going down my resume, line by line. "What does it mean to 'provide coverage for new submissions?'" he would ask, wanting an explanation of every job task, degree, skill and hobby on my resume. I sat there and answered him.

"It says here, that you listed 'drawing' under hobbies. Are you any good?"

"No," I answered truthfully. "I like to draw, but I'm really only a doodler."

I pulled a few sketches that I happened to have in my backpack and showed him.

He took a quick look at them and said, "Yeah. You should have put doodling on your resume. Not drawing." He then took out his pen and crossed "drawing" off my resume, and wrote in "doodling."

Happy that he found something to embarrass me with, he continued. "Now, you do realize this is a children's entertainment company, right?" That was the one aspect of the company that I was sure of, having read about their creative property, the Googles, during my interview -- though I was confused on how they were going to entertain children if they would rather busy themselves with preferable activities such as rubbing their faces against the sidewalk, and eating paste. "I ask," he continued, "because the movies you made were very dark."

Things were finally beginning to make sense.

"You saw my movies?" I asked.

"Everybody here did. Now, I'm not saying they're badly made, or insulting your artistic talents, but we thought your movies were extremely disturbing and not appropriate for children. I just want to make sure we're not hiring the next Jeffrey Dahmer."

Now I got angry. I may be a mass-murderer and I may keep the bodies stored in my fridge, but I do NOT eat them! Perhaps I was overreacting. Maybe Jeffrey Dahmer made some movies that I was unaware of, and the comparison was apt. Nevertheless, I tried to defend myself. "Those films and videos were meant to showcase my experience in directing and editing, and not meant to showcase what I'd be bringing to the company content-wise. Those movies are not meant for children and I only sent them to Sean because he expressly asked for my reel."

My reel consisted of about 10 short films and videos I made either during or shortly after college. Every movie was a comedy (usually involving me making an ass of myself), and I never had to defend their "darkness" before (though they have been accused of being sexist . . .). In fact, compared to most of the student films I saw and worked on in college, my movies were marshmallow fluff. Out of curiosity, I asked what everyone was offended by.

"Where to begin," Joel said, seemingly shocked that I would ask such a question. "There's that movie about sock puppets being murdered."

It took me a moment to realize that I was supposed to defend myself at this juncture. "It's a slasher movie starring sock puppets," I said, thinking that was all that needed to be said. It obviously wasn't, since Joel and Rita kept looking at me. "It's a comedy."

"Okay. Then there was a film about a serial killer."

This one I really did need to explain. "A serial killer brings a date home and has to frantically hide all the bodies he left scattered around his apartment. I unfortunately ran out of film while shooting, and I never shot an ending. But it was supposed to be a dark comedy."

"Well, it just came off as dark," Joel said, and to his credit, I could agree with him on that one.

"What about the movie about rape?" Rita asked. This was apparently the big issue, which I thought bizarre since I had no idea what they were talking about.
"I didn't make a movie about rape."

"Yes you did," Joel said. "The movie about some woman being pulled over a bed and pounded from behind. This movie was so graphic that all of the women in the office had to leave the room."

I still had no idea what they were talking about. I searched my memory and finally remembered. There was movie of mine with a rape scene. "You mean my documentary on the making of someone else's movie?" I asked.

In college, I taped behind-the-scenes footage of the making of a friend of mine's film. His film was a dramatization on how women in abusive relationships usually don't leave the men that mistreat them.

There was a moment of pregnant silence. "How were we supposed to know it was a documentary?" Rita finally asked.

My answer came quickly, with mild exasperation in my voice. "Because it said so in the beginning of the doc and was filled with talking heads who talked about the making of the movie." Anyone who watched it for more than a few seconds would be able to see this. Then it came to me.

"Did you guys even watch it?" I asked.

There was more silence.

"Well," Joel said sheepishly, "some of it."

Perry and the other young co-workers that I eventually befriended later filled me in on what happened. As it turned out, the Friday before my first day of work, Sean called everyone in to his office to watch my reel. As is his custom, he called everyone in as they were getting ready to leave for the weekend, and promptly left them alone to watch the movies, with no explanation why, or an apology for making them stay late. My reel is made up of about an hour's worth of material, and for many months I believed they did what I would have done in that situation – skim it and leave as soon as possible. I had assumed that they had it on fast-forward and pushed play on the most visually jarring images – the sock puppets being murdered, the serial killer, the rape – which helped enforce in them a belief in my sick, twisted lust for violence and rough sex.

As it turned out, though, the events of that night played off a lot more sinister. I found out weeks before I left the company that Marcus, the (then) Vice-President of the Seashel, had seen my reel before the public viewing and for reasons that had nothing to do with me, did not want me hired. Marcus was in charge of the remote the night my reel was shown, and cherry-picked only the scenes that made me out to be a monster (or, if one were to think about it rationally, a guy that made 'rated R' movies). In fact, I heard he showed the rape scene three or four times, rewinding it before asking the gathered staff if they wanted to work with a rapist (confusing the author with the speaker and the speaker with the actor and the actor with the character – but whatever). One woman who worked there did not, and actually quit because I was being hired – though during the time she worked with me during her two-weeks notice, she was very nice to my face. Marcus, meanwhile, went on to show the shareholders my reel, trying his hardest to get me fired behind the scenes. Again, to my face he was very nice.

I knew now why everyone hated me. I was an ignorant pariah, unaware that the scarlet "A" was on my chest and the mark of Cain was on my forehead. I spent the rest of the week trying to repair my image the only way I knew how – by buying snack food for the office. It actually worked pretty well, and my co-workers, regardless of whether or not they liked me, would at least talk to me for pretzels and cookies. That was enough. Beyond the interview with Joel and Rita, nobody ever brought up my movies again, but I could tell that in the back of many of their minds, I would always be "the Rapist."

Sadly, this is not the worst thing I was called during my time working at Seashel Productions. Not even close.

Startup Beatdown, Part 1: The Interview

I sat in Sean Etin’s cluttered office, reading what I thought was very possibly the worst thing ever written. It was the story of Stoogle Google, a furry, multi-colored, four-eyed alien that lands on earth and secretly befriends a little boy. Ignoring the always-dicey ‘secret-relationship with a minor’ plotline, there were numerous problems in the book, the most glaring being a syntax error in the first sentence (with more scattered throughout). The cover art, obviously drawn by the author, featured the pear-shaped alien posing awkwardly in front of a Photoshopped outer-space background. So, drawing and writing obviously weren’t this man’s strong suits. “Maybe he was good with animals, or something,” I thought as I tried to speed through it . . .

I looked up at the clock hanging in Mr. Etin’s office and let out a groan. I had been left alone for the last forty minutes, and was well into the third hour of my job interview. Had they forgotten about me? Did I get lost in the shuffle? It was entirely possible. The place was a chaotic maelstrom of activity and crackled with an intense energy. Something very important was happening in the company that I did not understand. Something to do with emergency meetings, lawsuits and replacing board members. Mr. Etin was in attack mode when I first met him, spitting out a dozen names and phone numbers from memory in quick succession, as he briskly walked through the hallway, West Wing style. Before that, my first of what turned out to be four interviewers, Flo, was called away two or three times during our meeting to deal with some crisis, leaving me alone in a tiny kitchen, with nothing to do but stare through the window at the hundreds of geese congregated on Sean’s lawn, decimating it with their feeding.

It could be that they were testing me. I had read that sometimes companies purposefully put their potential hires through uncomfortable or strange situations in order to gauge how they would react. It’s possible. Leaving me alone with a book whose very letters and words seemed flecked on with fecal matter, and, I thought, would probably make my ass dirtier had I used its pages as toilet paper, for seemingly no purpose seemed a little odd. Was I supposed to seek someone out and remind them I’m here? Am I supposed to wait patiently for Mr. Etin to return? And what about the book? Beyond its obvious test to my intestinal fortitude, was reading it a test as well? If Mr. Etin, God forbid, asked me what I thought of it, I could be in big trouble. He could be testing my tact, my honesty or my taste. Or, worse yet, maybe he didn’t know it was horrible. I began sweating under my itchy gray-brown suit as I tried to come up with the most diplomatic way of saying the book wasn’t fit to prop up furniture. I really needed this job . . .

****************

All of my life, I wanted to make cartoons. I grew up in the 1980s, the Golden Age of violent, cheaply-animated, but ultimately enjoyable cartoons. I avidly watched GI Joe, Transformers, He-Man, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Visionaries, Thundercats, Sivlerhawks, Challenge of the SuperFriends and even Go-Bots. Basically, if it was on TV, I’d watch it, and with great interest. Every day after school, I’d invite my friend over, dump out my box of GI Joes, and we’d make up new, violent adventures. These practices ended up having a pretty large effect on both of our lives, as I tried my hand at turning my love of children’s animation into a profession, and my friend later joined the army . . .

In college, I transferred into NYU’s film and TV program, where I studied animation, script writing, storytelling, production and editing. I stayed in New York for the summer and interned for Sunbow Entertainment, the company that made so many of the cartoons I loved as a kid. I continued to intern there until I graduated, and later, was offered a job as a Creative Assistant, where I scouted for new projects, spoke to agents, story edited scripts, and learned the ropes from a really great boss. It seemed like I was quickly climbing the ladder, and would soon fulfill my dream of developing and producing my own show.

As it turned out, I climbed the ladder too quickly. Shortly before I joined, Sunbow was bought up by a German conglomerate. This move confirmed what I had already suspected to be true: Germans and children’s cartoons don’t mix. The first thing they did was take a look at the bottom line: “Ach du lieber! These employees who have been making successful children’s shows for the last 20 years are costing a lot of money!” “Ja. Let’s fire them and get down to real business,” I’m sure they said, as they got ready to schizer in their secretary’s mouth. So, they fired all of the long-term employees that made the company great. The next move the German’s made was hiring the CEO’s childhood friend to be the COO. Here’s another helpful hint to those that are reading this and happen to own a company: Don’t put a known drug addict in charge of your company’s money. The COO, working out of the conglomerate’s London office, quickly proceeded to drive everyone crazy. The story goes that one of Sunbow’s properties drew interest from MTV. Contracts were drawn and everyone was ready to head into production. All they were waiting for was the COO to sign the papers, which he was too strung out on Codeine and Morphine to do. After two weeks of waiting, MTV took their business elsewhere. So did the creator of the property. So did many of the remaining employees, who knew a sinking ship when they stood on one, and jumped to another company. When I started as an intern, there were about 20 employees working out of the New York office. By the time I joined as a fulltime, paid employee, there were only four. Soon after that, it was just two – me and my boss, who I could tell was absolutely miserable working for the Germans and their drugged-out, incompetent moneyman. Within months of my hire, she left for a cartoon company in England, bequeathing me as the sole employee of the New York office, and in charge of all creative decisions.

I tried to make the best of my situation and do as good a job as a 23-year-old creative executive with no staff and no contacts could. I got in touch with creative folks and their agents, and tried to make cartoons that I would want to watch. Deals always petered out when the COO got involved. I stayed there for a year and a half and finally got so sick of the incompetence that I quit. As a strange coincidence, the day I left was the same day that the CEO of the German conglomerate stepped down from his post. It turned out that he got in trouble in Germany for major tax evasion and had to flee the country. The COO, whom everyone knew had a drug problem, was fired a short time later. Sunbow officially closed its doors about a month after that.

I had meanwhile moved to LA, ready to work for an animation company that wasn’t run by Germans. I thought with my unique experience and resume, I’d get a job in no time.

That turned out not to be the case. I sent out hundreds of resumes and used the contacts of my original, good boss to meet with some of the most important people in the business. Though they gave me their time and their advice, they could not give me a job. I didn’t gave up hope, though. I knew somebody would have to offer me a job at some point.

Again, I was mistaken. I didn’t get a single interview in the nine months I was in LA. I was quickly running out of my savings and decided enough was enough. If I were to be unemployed, it should be in an area where the air was clear, the traffic didn’t drive me crazy, and the people weren’t two-faced, image-obsessed scumbags. Furthermore, it should be a place where I knew my food and board would be free. It was time to move back in with my parents. So, I packed up my car and drove 3000 miles across the country, back to suburban Maryland and the very house I grew up watching cartoons. As a final ‘fuck you,’ I got a call on my cell phone as I was driving through Nowhere, Oklahoma. It was an animation company wanting to interview me, but only if I could make it the next day. I hated LA.

Things began to turn around in Maryland. I put a tourniquet on my cash flow problem, and continued to send out resumes online, changing my address to LA, New York and anywhere else that had a job that was somewhat related to what I wanted to do. My plan was, on the off chance someone would actually contact me, to fly, drive, or run to where the interview was to be held, and pretend to live there. Then, in the two weeks I said it would take me to quit the job I didn’t have, move there.

For some reason, my parents had a problem with their 25-year-old son and former creative executive living in his old room without a job, so I also applied to area jobs that I felt I could be somewhat competent at. Within a couple of weeks, I got calls for interviews, both in the area and in New York. It seemed like a matter of time before I was to get something. It was either going to be a cool job in New York, where all of the money I earned would be drained away towards an exorbitantly priced, miniscule apartment, or a crappy job in Maryland that would allow me to save my money. I thought to myself, “if only there were cartoon companies around my parent’s house. I could stay here, replenish my now nearly nonexistent savings, and get some more experience for my resume. I wish that were possible.” Incidentally, I think in a very unrealistic style. . .

I was ready to interview with Blue Sky Studios in New York, but it got postponed at the last minute. Strangely enough, I got a call on my cell phone that very day from Seashel Productions, a children’s entertainment startup company housed not 5 miles from my parent’s house. They wanted to interview me.

A higher being (God? The devil? Bob?) heard my wish, gave me just what I prayed for, and then laughed maniacally when I realized that I wasn’t quite being specific enough . . . But I’m getting ahead of myself . . .

****************

Sean burst through his office and rushed to his desk. “You finished reading yet?” he asked, as he power-walked to his chair.

“Yes,” I lied, praying there were no follow-up questions.
“A piece of shit, right?”

I breathed in a sigh of relief. “There were problems with it,” I replied, wanting to sound at least a little diplomatic.

Sean Etin was a big man. Tall, thick and wide, he had a classic ‘bodyguard’ build and kind of reminded me of that bull Bugs Bunny sometimes fought in those old Looney Tunes shorts. He had a barrel chest, and a barrel stomach to go with it. I had already pegged him as someone who used his intimidating stature as a tool to get what he wants. I probably would have hated him in high school. He was a top-of-the-food-chain kind of guy, and not afraid to stomp on a few throats. He was in his late forties, with neatly trimmed, short brown hair combed back, and wore an expensive suit that did little to hide his immensity. His large, potato-head was accentuated by pocket of fat hanging under his chin. He crossed his thick, sausage fingers and told me a little about himself.

This was his fifth startup company. He was a millionaire by the age of twenty and tripled his money with his second startup company a few years later. He lost all of his money in his third and forth startups. The point of the story, he said, was that he knew how to run a startup company. “Well, half the time anyway,” I thought to myself. He had just gotten out of the real estate and land development business and proudly stated that he developed his mansion, where we were interviewing and where his company worked out of, along with all the other mansions in the area.

What he didn’t tell me was what the company did, and what I would be asked to do if I joined.

“This is a startup company, and you’ll be asked to wear many hats,” he would say when I pressed him to what exactly I’d be doing.

He passed me back to Flo in the kitchen. I tried to ask more questions as to what the company did. I heard things about websites, music, technologies, TV shows and merchandise, but nothing in terms of a business plan. I asked about who was in charge of the creative decisions. That would be the head of marketing (which, for those that know, is never a good sign). She also warned me that Sean was a very difficult guy to work around, and if I couldn’t work in a high-stress environment, I should just walk away. “Sean can be gruff and sometimes verbally abusive. But he’d never hit anyone,” she said. I found the fact that she needed to say that worrisome. She continued, “If he ever hit me, I’d quit on the spot.” “No,” I thought, as I scanned her tiny body, “if he ever hit you, you’d be dead on the spot.”

I was into the forth hour of the interview, and was passed off once again, this time to Sean’s wife, Shelia. I was very tired and didn’t know why I had to be interviewed by the boss’s wife. I asked her what she did at Seashel, and she told me she didn’t work for the company. She very politely asked me for my resume and scanned it for a second.

“I didn’t know you also made movies,” she said.

Crap! I accidentally gave her my ‘production resume.’ In addition to the resumes with different cities on them, I also made a ‘production resume’ for when I applied to jobs like director or editor. This resume listed the assorted films and videos I made while I was in college and couple made just for fun. Most of them consisted of me making an ass of myself.

News of my production experience spread fast. Flo came back and asked me why I never mentioned I had video experience. I was pulled aside by Rita, the head of (and only member of) Human Resources and she asked me about the disparity between the two resumes I had. I was in trouble. I told her that I didn’t think my production experience was relevant to an office job and explained to her that I accidentally handed Shelia the wrong resume. Sean came in to the kitchen and told me he wanted to see my reel and to drop it off to the house the next day.
I was finally allowed to leave, five hours after the interview began.

I went home and cobbled together my assorted films and videos onto a DVD and delivered it to Mr. Etin’s home on Saturday, along with a spec script to show I could write for children’s television. On Sunday, I got a call from Mr. Etin. He was extremely impressed by my movies. Especially my music video to “Lady In Red,” a project I put together just for fun because the inherent sappiness of the song made me giggle. “Chris DeBurgh is my favorite singer of all time,” Mr. Etin explained. I didn’t tell him that the video was a contemptuous parody. “We’re going to need someone with your talents and experience very soon,” Mr. Etin spat into his phone. “We’re this close to being out of our start-up phase in the company, and we’re going to rush into production.” With what, I was still unclear about. “I’d like it very much if you were to work with us.”

And with that, I began working for Seashel Productions, the worst company in the world . . .

CatP.A.C.K.

I hardly ever remember my dreams anymore. About ten years ago, I had a series of dreams that were so mind-numbingly dull (ie - a dream about drinking milk; a dream that factually taught me the proper way to make pancakes, etc.) that my brain simply made a decision -- if my dreams aren't worth remembering, I simply won't remember them. So, from then on, I'd remember perhaps a dream or two a year.

Last week, I had a very vivid dream, and it wasn't boring. I dreamt a TV episode. A pilot, in fact, to a TV show that doesn't exist. In its entirety.

Now, this wasn't a dream of me watching TV. And it wasn't a 'behind-the-scenes' making-of an episode. It was an episode itself, played (with no commercial interruption!), for sole purpose of entertaining my unconscious brain.

The show was starring me, my brother, my dad and ten talking cats. We were a crack squad of do-gooders who were all that stood between an evil zombie horde and total world domination. You read right (I assume) -- it's a show that pits the male members of my family and ten talking cats against zombies.

Since this was the 'pilot episode,' most of the time was spent establishing the situation and introducing the characters. My dad, brother and I were freedom fighters dedicated to fighting zombies, who, as far as I could tell, had already taken over much of the world. We were squirreled away in our base of operations (which happens to be my parent's house), and much of the episode was about stopping the zombies from getting inside. The zombies came up with many assorted (and somewhat complex) schemes to gain entrance to our base, but they all failed (probably because zombies are not known for their brilliant tactical minds . . .). They finally decided to send ten werewolves into my parent's garage to, I suppose, ambush us when we went out to do grocery shopping or something. But my dad and I (I have no idea where my brother went) somehow managed to turn the ten werewolves into ten talking cats (I think it involved scratching the werewolves on the chin . . .). The ten talking cats then decided to join our team in stopping the zombies.

Each cat had a different, one-dimensional personality and the dream took its time to introduce each one. There was the leader cat, the warrior cat, the prissy cat, the scaredy cat, the wise, old cat etc. When it came right down to it, though, they were just cats. Besides the fact that they talked and had 'personalities,' they had no special powers, and, I have no idea how, against zombies, they could possibly be of any help. Case in point, when my character had to later investigate the garage again. When I came back in to the house, I heard the cats hiding. When I announced that it was just me, they all jumped out of their hiding places -- the pockets of assorted coats, hung on a coat rack. They all had the same cowardly reaction, except for the scaredy cat, who made a point of biting my finger in fear when he jumped down.

Here's the best part -- in my dream, the show had a name. It was called 'CatP.A.C.K.' I know that the acronym stands for something, but I have no idea what it could possibly be (Protectors Against Cranium Konsumers? People and Cats Killing (zombies)? Profoundly Awful Crappy Kaka?). I think that maybe 'pack' was harkening back to the fact that they were once werewolves . . . I don't know. I also don't know if this was supposed to be an action show or a comedy . . . What I do know is that I woke up with this being my first conscious thought -- "What the hell was that?"

It's weird -- I'd think that the lesson to this dream is that I watch too much TV -- but I don't even own a TV anymore. So, maybe what this dream is telling me is that I need to watch more TV . . . Or, maybe, this was my brain telling me that I should actually make this show. Maybe I'll dream more fully written episodes of 'CatP.A.C.K.' and just make the series solely based on what I dream about. In any case, stay tuned . . .

Transylvania Part 2 -- the Revenge!

Thursday, May 22, 2008


I'm still in Romania. It's still an interesting place. I'm still exhausted, but I'm trying to get the interesting things down before I sleep them out of my system. Here a smattering of the aforementioned interesting things . . .

- There are many, many peasants in Romania. I'm not talking 'poor people,' and I'm not talking 'pheasants' (though there are wild pheasants running around too). These people are straight-out-of-the-history-books peasants. They are exact replicas of the extras you see in movies such as 'Frankenstein,' 'Monty Python and the Holy Grail' ("I'm not dead yet!"), and 'Henry V.' They are people of the land, using the exact same tools and wearing the exact same type of clothes as their ancestors did a thousand years ago. I see some herding cattle across the street with a stick with a leather tail attached to the end. People with homemade pitchforks gather fresh hay and put them in horse-drawn carts. The most fascinating thing to see, though, is that they use actual scythes to reap grass on the side of the road. Honest-to-god Grim Reaper scythes. These tools have been around, unchanged, for thousands of years. The only difference that I can guess between these peasants and their great-great-great- great- great- great- great-grandfathers is that the newer models probably own cell phones . . .

- Speaking of cell phones, Romanian people REALLY like to use them. I know we Americans get a bad rap for being a 'rude' people (and maybe we are), but our cell phone etiquette puts theirs to shame (or at least should). Here are the cell phone rules for Romanians, as far as I can tell: 1. Your cell phone must have the most annoying ring-tone you can find and must be set to the highest possible volume. 2. Your cell phone must always be on. Always! Turning your phone off or setting it to vibrate will result in an immediate and agonizing death. 3. If your cell phone rings, you MUST pick it up, regardless of the situation. There are NO exceptions. On the first day of the educational symposium I was helping to film, schoolchildren were brought in to hear the stories of actual Holocaust survivors. During this three hour event, cell phones were going off left and right – and not from the students. From the teachers! One teacher excused himself from the room about six times, as his cell phone blared a techno beat with someone in a heavy accent screaming "HALLO? HALLO? HALLO?" It only got worse on subsequent days where there were only adults in the room. Every single symposium participant whose cell phone went off answered the phone. Most people quickly got up from their chairs and ran out of the room, putting the phone to their ears as they reached the door, and throughout the four day event, only one of participants looked guilty (she pulled the cell phone out of her purse, answered it, and very quietly, from her chair, whispered something to the effect of "I can't answer my phone right now . . ."). One of the helpers of the event, a Romanian kid of about 19 named Tommy, went with me and another American, Adam, to film a Holocaust survivor giving a tour of the city, talking about how things changed since the 1930s (Most of the tour went like this – "This house used to belong to the Long family. They were bakers. They had five children. They all died in Auschwitz. That house belonged to the Fried family. They made jewelry. I went to school with their daughter. They all died in Auschwitz . . . " (There were a few survivors, but not many . . .)). Anyway, Tommy had an expensive, shoulder-mounted video camera (the one I transported from the states), and whenever his phone rang, he would throw his camera off his shoulder and grab his cell phone, regardless of the fact that the survivor was in the middle of an interview. The American who was with me, one of Tommy's bosses, yelled at him. "Tommy, what the hell are you doing?!? Get off your damn cell phone!" Tommy would respond, "I cannot do this!" and looked at Adam like he asked him to castrate himself . . .

- Romanian radio is interesting. It seems like every station plays a random mix of Romanian and American music. The American music is a hodgepodge of songs that, for the most part, I haven't heard of in years. It's almost like we sold them wholesale to countries like Romania . . . I heard both Eddie Murphy's one-hit-wonder "Party All the Time" and Patrick Swayze's one-hit-wonder "She's Like the Wind" on the same day. I heard "Ice Ice Baby" and "What Is Love (Baby Don't Hurt Me)." I heard Abba and, what I think were the first few bars of an Elvis song, but the channel got changed. I obviously don't understand what the radio DJs are saying, but in what I assume to be a preview of the music played, he mentioned Britney Spears and Kenny Loggins in the same sentence. It's kind of funny how in the US, songs by Britney Spears and Kenny Loggins would be on totally separate radio stations (both of which I most likely would stay away from . . . ), but I think in Romania, there are absolutely no difference between a techno song, a rap song and an oldie. They're all just "American."

- It was sunny and pleasant every single day I was here (except for today), and thunderstormed every single night. The power went off in the town three nights in a row . . .

- One of those nights, Adam and I had the car we were using stolen. By Tommy. Here is the story: We had just finished the second to last day of the symposium, which was totally draining. Adam, Tommy and I decided to go to a restaurant and have some food before going back to the house and passing out for our 7:00 wake up the next morning. This was actually the first time I would be eating out since I have been here, and was looking forward to eating something new. At the restaurant, we met up with Daniel, the historian and curator of the museum, and a group of Israelis who were attending the seminar. We joined them for dinner. During the course of the meal, some of the Israelis mentioned that they never got to tour the museum and were leaving the next day. Daniel obliged them by giving them a tour after hours. So, Daniel and a group of Israelis got up and headed into his car for the tour. Tommy mentioned that he needed to get something from Adam's rental car's trunk and went with them. As we continued eating with the remaining Israelis, Adam looked out the window and said, "Is that my car?" I looked out the window too, and saw his blue Fiat leaving the lot. Tommy was a (more-or-less) trusted employee and we knew where he lived, so we weren't terribly worried. Plus, we had another group of guests to stay with, so we both kept calm. I assumed it was some kind of misunderstanding, and that, perhaps, they had taken that car instead of Daniel's. We finished our dinner and the rest of the Israelis left. We went to the lot and looked around. Both Adam and Daniel's cars were gone. The sun was setting and black clouds were forming overhead. We waited a few minutes outside the restaurant, but it soon started absolutely pouring, and we were forced back in. The power went out and the light from the bolts of lightning showed that the parking lot was becoming a lake. By this point, Adam was frantically calling Tommy and Daniel, but because of the storm, the phones weren't working (I know this because Tommy and Daniel are Romanians and would have picked up their phones no matter what if Adam had gotten through). Finally, after about 45 minutes of non-stop dialing, Adam got through to Daniel. "Daniel, what the hell happened? Tommy took my car and we have no way of getting home. Get back here now, and bring Tommy!" He hung up. We waited another half hour in darkness. Nobody showed up. Adam began to call again, and eventually got through. "Daniel, where are you? You're still at the museum! Get back here! NOW!" A short time later, Daniel and Tommy drove to the restaurant parking lot. It was still pouring. I got up to run into the car, but Adam stopped me. "For making us wait, they're going to have to come in and get us," he said. Daniel came in, sopping wet. "Where's Tommy?" Adam asked, angrily. "He will be picking you up now in your car," replied Daniel. "I now have to drop the Israelis at the hotel." And he ran off. He jumped into his car and drove off. Tommy followed him in Adam's rental. "What the fuck?!?" Adam cried. He tried to frantically call again, and eventually got through. Forty-five minutes later, they were back. I wondered what kind of excuse Tommy had for what just happened. The only thing he said was, "Daniel's car got stuck in the mud." I still have no idea what went on . . .

That's it for now. I'll probably write one more post about my Romanian trip, including my adventure riding a horse and a few other stories. Stay tuned!

Transylvania

Sunday, May 18, 2008

My trip to Romania got off to an inauspicious start. I arrived at the Newark airport over two hours early and was past security and in my departure area with about two hours to spare. I purposefully packed everything into a carry-on bag and a camcorder bag because I had a transfer in Dusseldorf and didn't want anything to be lost or smashed, but my bag was three times the weight limit (and, according to the customs lady, too large anyway), so my bag had to be checked. Nothing I could do. So, I checked it in, and if my camcorder, or my boss's laptop was damaged as the assorted workmen of the three airports threw my bag around like a sack of potatoes, I left it to the fates to decide if it was lost or damaged. I kept my camcorder bag, which contained a brand new, professional camcorder, which my boss, Alex, received in the mail right before my journey . . . at least that would be safe . . .

At Newark, I decided to kill some time by going to the only restaurant that was in the area – a Sam Adams Lounge. I ordered a chicken sandwich and a lager. I drink beer about twice a year (I actually can't stand the stuff), but for some reason beyond me, decided to order a tall glass. I was going to Germany, then transferring to Hungary and driving to Romania. The heart of beer country. The idea of going to some American joint and ordering a beer right before my flight hit me on an ironic level. I need to work on curtailing this aspect to my personality . . .

Sitting in my seat on the waiting station, I was called by the intercom to the check-in desk shortly before the flight was to call passengers to board. Apparently, I was supposed to go straight up to the desk and get a new ticket, but (even though this was explained to me) I didn't do it because I didn't understand. So, with a few minutes until the plane boarded, I was called by intercom to arrive at the desk. I went to the desk and they said to me (in a thick accent that I didn't understand, but assumed to be Welsh) that because I didn't 'check-in' I was to be given the last seat available on the flight. The woman said, "I'm sorry, but it's going to be a 'metal' seat." She handed me my new ticket. I was confused. Why was I being given a 'metal seat'? What did that even mean? Was there a seat made of cold, rusted metal on the side of the plane for the last person that signed in? Why would any company do this? I stood at the desk and asked, "what does this mean?" There were four ladies at the desk, but they all ignored me. I stood there for another minute and repeated, "what does this mean? 'Metal Seat?'" Finally, one of the ladies looked my way. "What?" she said. "What does that mean? A 'metal seat.' What does that mean?" The woman (who was African-American and obviously not Welsh) explained. "She didn't say 'metal.' She said, 'middle.'"

"Ohhh," I replied. This was not a good start . . . If I couldn't understand someone who could technically speak English, how was I supposed to get by in Romania?

I got in the plane and sat in my middle seat. Not only was it between two people, but it was between two people who also happened to be in the aisle. In other words, I was the person as far from the windows of the plane as possible. It was okay. The people sitting next to me didn't' say a word to me (I prefer this) and there was not a single screaming baby on the plane. In the 8 hour flight, I probably got two to three hours of sleep, before I rushed to my connecting flight in Dusseldorf to Budapest.

It was kind of weird. The flight, much like the one from Newark to Dusseldorf, was in two languages. In fact, it was in the exact two languages as the previous flight – German and English. I wonder how the Hungarians on the flight felt about this – flying to their own nation and not hearing their language on the flight. Not my problem, I suppose . . .

I had time to kill when I arrived in Budapest. The guy who would be driving me to Romania would not be arriving for another few hours. I've heard a lot of talk about the 'Americanization' or the 'Capitalization' of the world and how bad it is, but let me tell you – when you're travelling to another country, totally exhausted, alone and unable to speak the language, you're damn thankful that everyone in the airport speaks English and that there are places to buy a coca-cola.

After a couple of groggy hours in the Budapest airport, the guy that was to drive me to Romania arrived from his flight and we went off in a rental car (a Fiat!) to Romania. The roads of Eastern Europe are exactly as I remembered them from ten years ago – terrifying. They are rickety, windy, one-lane roads with no speed limit. If you were stuck behind a car or truck you didn't think went fast enough, you could overtake them by going into oncoming traffic. There were a couple of times we were almost clipped by mac trucks . . . Fun!

Transylvania's an interesting place. The area is beautiful, with green, rolling hills, and there is lots and lots of open land. The towns themselves, though, are literally crumbling apart. I'm pretty sure there hasn't been a new building built in the last fifty years. Everything is dusty and in some places, if you touch a wall, it will literally crumble in loose concrete chunks. Everyone here is nice enough, and most people speak at least three languages – Romanian (which, I found out, is closely related to Italian), Hungarian (which is closely related to nothing), and (thankfully) English. Some of the younger people speak English fluently. I've gotten by, so far, knowing about three words of Hungarian. "Yes," "good" and "thank you."

Here are some other things I've noticed about this place – People don't smoke as much here as I thought they would. I'd say I see people smoking more in New York than Romania on any given day. Storks are common here and they build nests of about six feet in diameter on top of telephone polls. They make a weird clicking noise that sounds like a party-favor. The frogs here sound like ducks. I hear quacking at the nearby pond and there's nothing there but frogs (which, when we first arrived, a young man was firing at with an air rifle. This was seriously the first thing I saw when I got out of the car . . .). There are tons of stray dogs. Nobody owns dogs as indoor pets, and they would probably be kicked or shot if they were to enter a house. They are outdoor animals. There are stray cats too. And chickens. Lots of chickens on the side of the road. There might be a few stray people too . . . This is definitely not a wealthy area.

The town is made up of Christians and Gypsies. I think the groups keep pretty separate, but I didn't see any ill-will expressed from one group to the other. The Gypsies are exactly as you'd imagine them to be. The women wear bright, flowery muumuus with red babushkas. One of the men I saw was wearing a fancy top-hat with a wife-beater and had a salt-and-pepper handlebar moustache. He was driving his family on a horse-driven hay cart. This is a fairly common sight here. At parties (I've gone to two so far), Gypsies are hired as entertainment. A family of male Gypsies play the fiddle, bass and accordion, led by an old, snaggle-toothed man. A boy, no older than ten, was also in the band. They were excellent.

Every meal – breakfast, lunch and dinner – is served with a shot glass and a small bottle of slivovitz. I think if I stay here much longer, I'll get sick of the stuff . . .

Everything here is fresh. I am pretty sure there is no grocery store in town. The eggs come straight from the family's chickens. The chickens come from the family's eggs. In the afternoon, I walked outside the house, and two freshly-skinned lambs were lying on the table. Blood was literally dripping from the table's cracks and onto the ground. Later that night, we had lamb for dinner, served on that very same table . . . it was actually pretty tasty . . .

I guess that's it for now. So far, as far as I know, I have encountered no vampires . . .