Mon, 12 Aug 96
The past two months have been difficult ones for BJR, who
has seen his third person self-referential style bastardized by Bob Dole, and
who has had to endure a sixty day "American Association of Amateur
Writers" strike. The Association, realizing that in being Amateur,
they would never make any money, went on strike and refused to write any more
material unless paid. Being a union member, I had no choice but to cease my
brilliance for a period of time. Luckily, the union resolved things by
agreeing to accept three times their previous salary in return for services.
The hundreds of letters and pieces of email I received
tugged at my heartstrings, your offers of first born children and grosses of
Corn Nuts did not fall on deaf ears, but as a loyalist to the proletariat and
free enterprise, I held on. Finally, hear is the panacea for your
patience and virtue.
Stand back, because I'm about to spew.
Last episode, our superhero and all around great guy (that
would be me) was ending the month of May with a brief week in California and
beginning his marathon stay in Austin, Texas.
Trilogy is semi-infamous for it's awards dinners which tend
to be a night of celebration and recognition of "heroic" deeds done
by Trilogy employees. So, John Lilly, Goop (Lilly's roommate), and I decided to
one-up the company and throw our own "TU awards" dinner the week
before.
"TU" is the class of 50 people who started one
year ago at Trilogy – a dangerous set of people who can take anything simple
and turn it into a riot. The awards dinner was basically a roast where
everyone presented awards to their "friends" at work, none of which I
can actually print in this family oriented newsletter. They ranged from
extremely personal to outright slander. I can't even mention any of the
awards I received... The night ended with a single hand of blackjack in
which the stakes were defamation of an automobile for one participant and the
cost of 50 trips toVegas on the other.
The next week, Trilogy has it's regular awards dinner in the
Hilton in San Antonio. I had to wear a tux for the third time in my life
- I must admit I looked quite handsome, though. I even got a chance to
properly show off my pocket watch.
Work at Trilogy continues to resemble a blurry stream of
torture and self-inflicted intestinal wounds. But I'm almost Platinum on
American Airlines.
I did spend a week in Colorado hiking and camping in the
Rocky mountains, which was incredible. Colorado is a lot like Texas,
except people in Colorado hate Texans and will shoot them on sight. The
first night of vacation, I ended up in Trinidad, Texas, which I found out turns
out to be the sex change capital of the United States. There was a
wedding at the hotel we were at, and I never did get a look at the bride or the
groom...
I also ended up in Taos, New Mexico. Very cool.
After a "different" New Mexican style dinner, I went back to the
kitchen and asked about the differences between California style Mexican food,
Tex-Mex, New Mexican Food, and traditional Mexican Food. The large man
dressed in white looked at me strangely and said, "You might want to ask
the cook." I then noticed
he was washing dishes.
Since about March I've been looking for a house to lease
with three of my co-workers. We tried everything. Newspapers.
Realtors. We even tried threatening people who lived in houses that were
rented. No luck. Finally, we found a mansion, complete with a hot
tub on a deck, the best view in Austin, vaulted ceilings, and a full staff of
servants. So to avoid being crass and mentioning how much rent I will be
paying, I'll use different numbers to illustrate the bargaining process for our
lease:
The house was advertised as being for lease for $450,000.00
a month. However, we were not about to
pay that, and offered 0.65 and some chewing gum. The owner, though his
realtor who talked to our realtor who called me, said that he would meet us
half way at $449,999.00. We took back the chewing gum. Then, in an
unforseen incident, he caved in and we've signed the
lease. Yes.
My new mailing address as of September 1 will be:
BJR (same name)
Rollins Manor
5813 Long Court
Austin, TX 78730-5058
In summation:
This newsletter has taught me one thing: it's a lot
easier to be funny when you're only talking about one month. That way you
can make up a lot of stuff, lie like crazy, and basically get away with
murder. Two and a half months is too much time to make funny and still be
informative.
BJR