Dadaist Should Haves

Working at the corporate office of a major company is a little surreal to begin with, but when people refuse to accept the surreality of the situation and try to behave with some semblance of normalcy, it's like watching a family having a picnic on an industrial dump site - a family on fire.

There is this pressing desire, nay, more than a desire, a freaking mandate from the heavens above to add to the already nostril high levels of ridiculousness here. I would like to do things like walking into the men's room and screaming, "why is it bleeding?!?"

Again, I saw a young man in a suit and visitors badge sitting at a table and facing off against two minions of the empire in a battle for the soul known as an interview. It took a lot for me not to open the door, sit down on the side of the well dressed young chap and tell the interviewers that I was sorry I was late, but I would be representing the interviewee. I would then pantomime opening an imaginary briefcase (the imaginary dial lock set to open at 1 2 3 4), lick the tip of an imaginary pencil and assume the 'ready to take notes' position.

But I kept walking down the long hall that reminds me so very much of the Death Star hallways. Two men, dressed strikingly similar and of similar heights and builds, walked around the corner. I got a heavy The Shining feel from these guys, and again suppressed an urge to say, "come play with us Danny." And then throw out a "forever" all spooky like with my eyes wide.

But the crazy surreal thing was an audition that I had to go through yesterday - here at work. The creative team is producing a video to send out across the country, I was asked if I wanted to take part, and I thought that sure, it'll be a lark. I did not realize that there would be an audition involved that required my reading out some of the worst written lines ever. I should have walked into the room, cleared my throat and said, "for today’s audition I've prepared a monologue," and then launched into a thing about a poop fetish.

The representatives from the creative group got involved in a lot of bad film student talk (I should know, I was once a bad film student), and while I didn't want to ruin the excitement these guys were dousing themselves in, I really wanted to verbalize my disappointment in such a bad script coming from the creative department.

But, I realized that a lot of this was jealousy that I wasn't in the creative department myself, so I went into my audition scene as if I was all coked up. It got a laugh, and I find out tomorrow if I get the part. Keep your fingers crossed…

Sorry diary, I gotta get back to calling some folks and pretending that I'm from the Czech Republic...


Song Stuck In My Head Right Now: "Eurotrash Girl" by Cracker.