Chapter 2: Eddie's Place

But never fear. Soon after I flew the coop from the preschool, I landed a job hostessing/waitressing at a brand new restaurant called Eddie’s Place. The commute to Eddie’s is a kick ass 20 minutes, which totally blew my hour and a half long commute to the navy job to smithereens. Plus, the earliest shift doesn’t start until 10 am, so I can still squirrel away all of my precious z’s sans problemo. Plus plus Stacey also got a job working there, which makes the work much more entertaining.

During the dawn of my Eddie‘s Place career, aside from a few irritating kinks in the computer system, and a hand full of ‘tude-toting, queen-ish customers (Whatever happened to the fear of the booger-burger?), everything was peaches n’ cream. The work was pretty easy and the rest of the employees were a lot of fun to hang out with, especially the other hostesses, Veronica and Kayla.

The honeymoon phase didn’t last long, however. Eddie, who shall hereby be known as E.G.G. (evil, gay giant), turned out to be a little, money-grubbing whore. First, he cut our hours, then he laid off Veronica, then he took over the dinner shifts (the better tipping ones) by working them himself (bee tee dubs, Eddie gives the tip money he receives during his shifts to his cabana boy boyfriend as his “salary,” who he has playing Cinderella washing dishes because he also laid off the original dishwasher).

Plus, Eddie likes to berate the hostesses in front of customers and seems to think we all have the brains of bowls of oatmeal. Quote: “Michaela, when you run out of quarters, you can use dimes and nickels instead…because two dimes…plus a nickel…equals 25 cents!” Good to know E.G.G. And that’s coming from a guy who was born and raised in Philly, yet still managed to misspell Philadelphia, as in Philadelphia cheese steak, on all of the menus. Today’s soup is cream of dumb ass.

I still work there but I am hotly searching for new employment. Now, I just spend most of my time at Eddie’s Place fantasizing about cracking E.G.G. over his hard-boiled head with a frying pan. The guy is a millionaire! He had been retired for three years at the age of 45 and just got bored! And that’s why he decided to open a restaurant! Purely for ha ha’s!

Grrr…

Marathon Recap:

Ok. I need to do oodles of back tracking. So much has happened over the last couple of months! Gahh! So let the recapping begin!

Chapter 1: The Preschool

In the beginning of January, I was briefly employed as a Catholic preschool teacher. This job lasted for a whopping two whole days. Why only two days, you ask? Well, let’s just say, I wasn’t cut out to spend nine hours a day brandishing my power as an “authority figure” as I stifled the imagination of three year olds, all in the name of Cheese-And-Rice Superstar. Call me crazy, but I think three year olds should spend the bulk of their time playing games and making messes, not sitting silently while they complete work book exercises.

So yeah, that job bit the dust.

Buggy buggy

In Hollywood, you’ve got show-stopping performances and eye-popping beauties. But what about those Hollywood beauties whose eyes just pop? Some celebrities are recognized by their plunger lips, or by their adorable pair of dimples, while others are distinguished by their bulging peepers. The bug-eye feature is very hit or miss, however. On one hand, bug-eyes have the ability to create unconventional gorgeosity in a person, but on the other hand, they are also capable of making good faces go Muppet.

Christina Ricci falls into the former category of bug-eyed celebrities. Her sizeable peepers are reminiscent of the large, doe-eyes of Disney Princesses like Snow White and Ariel, and they only enhance her level of attractiveness. Fittingly, Christina made her acting debut in the film “Mermaids” starring opposite Cher and Winona Ryder. Since then, Christina and her Bratz doll eyes have been featured in over 30 films, including “Speed Racer,” “The Opposite of Sex,” and of course, “The Addams Family,” in which her giant peepers traded in their doe-eyed sparkle for dreary stoicism as the all together ooky Wednesday Addams.

While you’ve got the unconventional eye-candy variety of bug-eyed celebs, whose breed also incorporates actors like Mena Suvari, Jonathan Rhys Myers, and Bette Davis (the original bug-eyed belle), you’ve also got the eye-spam strain of super-sized peepers. These bug-eyed chaps are often typecast as creepy, or crazed characters - think Steve Buscemi, one of the most talented American independent film actors, who nearly always plays either a neurotic, snarky loser or a sleazy, weasel-like scumbag as in “Reservoir Dogs” and “Fargo.” Then you’ve got Christopher Walken, a versatile actor who continuously creeps out audiences with his googly eyes and off-kilter deliveries in films such as “Sleepy Hollow,” “The Deer Hunter,” and “Batman Returns.” While it’s true that Steve Buscemi and Christopher Walken may look a bit like deranged Muppets, and you may not see them in leading roles all too often, but over the course of their prolific careers, these two actors have brought to life a slew of unforgettable supporting characters, who frequently steal the show.

And then, last but certainly not least, there is Marty Feldman, who puts all of the aforementioned eye-popping celebrities to shame with his epic set of protruding peepers. Marty is a London born comedian who began his career as a comedy writer for British television shows, including several Monty Python sketches. Marty made his American television debut in the late 60’s appearing on “The Dean Martin Show” and “Dean Martin Presents the Gold Diggers.” His popularity with American audiences soared, and in 1970 he was given the chance to star in his own television series called “The Marty Feldman Comedy Machine.” In 1974, Marty and his bug-eyes, which were the result of a thyroid condition known as Graves’ disease, landed the role that they were born to play, that of Igor (Eye-gore) in Mel Brooks’ “Young Frankenstein.” In the film, many of Marty’s lines were improvised, so when Gene Wilder’s character exclaims “Damn your eyes!” it was only natural for Marty to look into the camera and say with a puckish grin, “Too late!”

Unexpected Celebrity Career Changes

In the celebrity world, career dabbling is a relatively common occurrence. Once a person has risen to celebrity status, they have easy access to the necessary resources, such as agents, publicists, and various other in-the-biz connections, which will allow them to change careers almost as often as they change their bed sheets - think celebrities like Jennifer Lopez and Hillary Duff who oscillate between being actresses and singers. Career changes like these are especially made possible in today’s celebrity world thanks to contraptions like auto-tune, which has lead to the replacement of talent and skill with marketability as the key component in determining the level of success with a celebrity career switcharoo. Most marketable celebrities are able to make relatively seamless career transitions. Yet, there are definitely those select few…ahem cough cough David Hasselhoff and his musical stylings…who are either down right mocktastic, or beg the question, “What the hell were they smoking?”

Both are the case with two-time Academy Award nominated Joaquin Phoenix’s decision to abandon his acting career in favor of morphing into a snappily dressed, rapping grizzly bear. There is a lot of speculation surrounding Mr. Phoenix’s anomalous profession transition, however. When Joaquin first announced that he was going to scrap acting for hip-hop, most people drew the same conclusion: the boy is chock full-o-nuts, mm hmm. Yet after a recent Las Vegas performance where Joaquin dazzled the masses as he spit and sputtered robotic rhymes from three songs from his upcoming album (not to mention the grand finale when he fell off the stage, which proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that hip-hop is in fact Joaquin’s true life calling), it seems much more likely that Mr. Phoenix is pulling an elaborate Andy Kaufman-esque hoax with the help of his brother-in-law, Casey Affleck. According Entertainment Weekly, Joaquin reportedly told a source, “It's a put-on. I'm going to pretend to have a meltdown and change careers, and Casey is going to film it.” Apparently, Joaquin’s motivations behind this alleged career swap are both to satirize pretentious actors and to prank the paparazzi. At any rate, whether Joaquin’s rapping grizzly bear persona is for real or all for the sake of a Phoenix/Affleck mockumentary, either way it’s pretty entertaining.

Now, while Joaquin Phoenix’s outlandish career change may be a giant sized practical joke, other celebrities like Kevin Federline are very serious about their latest vocation endeavors. K-Fed, everyone’s favorite former backup dancer/second rate rapper, is stepping up to the profession plate for a third time. Kevin is looking to redeem himself for his first two career strike outs with a hit as a children’s clothing designer. That’s right folks, the former Mr. Britney Spears is going into the tiny tot costume business. Kevin’s design plan hasn’t been set in stone yet, but according to the MTV Newsroom, Kevin has been chatting up fashion executive Gerard Guez about the launch of his proposed line of children’s clothing, which he aims to make affordable yet stylish. So what can we expect from the man whose debut album pales in comparison to even that of David Hasselhoff’s? Probably something along the lines of a Baby Gap stocked with an array of tiny wife beaters, baggy baby jeans, and heavy gold chains…perfect for teething.

Another celebrity to take a stab at an unlikely, vocational alteration is Kevin Costner, who recently expanded his field of dreams to include lead singer of the country-rock band, Modern West. According to People Magazine, Kevin has been playing music with some of his Modern West band mates for close to twenty years, but it wasn’t until this past November that the group released their first album, which features twelve songs, six of which were co-written by Mr. Costner. “I remember looking out into the crowd, thinking, ‘This just feels right.’” Kevin previously said about performing at an early Modern West show. Hey, the man’s career didn’t completely pull a Titanic after Waterworld and The Postman, so who knows, maybe Mr. Dances...err Sings with Wolves will be the next Garth Brooks.

Celebrity career changes are fairly common and some certainly work better than others. To conclude, here is a list of some of the more unexpected career alterations:

Kate Moss - actress (apparently she does have a voice)

Steven Seagal - singer with his gem of an album “Songs from the Crystal Cave”

Lance Bass - astronaut (N’Sync’s Space Cowboy must have really struck a chord)

Clint Eastwood - singer (Dirty Harry cut a pair of singles and a long playing record called “Rawhide’s Clint Eastwood Sings Cowboy Favorites” in the 60’s)

And of course the perennial favorite of career chameleons, Arnold Schwarzenegger, the former body builder/actor turned governor of California.

Frownie Brownie Oscars

Movies started out as a comic medium. With the birth of film around the turn of the 20th century, the first movies to be made were silent films, which relied heavily on comedic methods, such as slapstick and burlesque. Silent movie comic icons like Harold Lloyd, Buster Keaton, and Charlie Chaplin pantomimed their way into the hearts of Americans with their clownish, Keystone chase scenes and their charming characters like “The Tramp.” When reliable synchronized sound was introduced into movies in the 1920’s, comedy films could take humor to new levels. Jokes could now be incorporated into the dialogue and complex farces could be crafted. This would lead to the development of the subgenre of the comedy genre, called the screwball comedy, which gained prominence in the 1930’s with films like “The Awful Truth“ and “It Happened One Night.” Other groundbreaking screwball comedians, such as the Marx Brothers and the Three Stooges, emerged during this time period.

It is pretty clear that laughter has played a significant role in both the birth and the sustained popularity of film as an entertainment medium. So why is it then that when it comes to the Oscars, comedies tend to get the cold shoulder?

The Oscars have been around for more than three quarters of a century, yet only a handful of true comedies have managed to snag the big tuna, best picture prize. The most recent of which is Woody Allen’s “Annie Hall,” which won the best picture trophy in 1977. You do the math. That’s more than 30 years ago! While it’s true that 1998’s Oscar champ, “Shakespeare in Love,” can be classified as a comedy, this film is one of those sphinx-like, hybrid movies that is part comedy, part biopic, and part romance. Plus, it carries considerable tragic weightiness with it as well.

So after 30 solemn years, it would seem that the Oscars are long overdue to award an outstanding comedy film. Unfortunately, however, it looks as though humor will have to wait another year before it can even make an appearance at the Oscars, as apparently the Academy has fumigated for comedy this year and has removed all traces of laughtermites from the 2009 best picture line-up. The storylines of this year’s nominated films range from the heartbreaking journey of a young orphan from the slums of Mumbai in “Slumdog Millionaire” to an account of the tragically brief career of the first openly gay, American politician in “Milk.” These dramatic films may be wrought with emotional meatiness that tugs on heart strings, but let’s not forget that it is often comedic works that present the most lucid analysis of a society’s idiosyncrasies and apprehensions. Some fine comedy films to go unrecognized by this year’s Oscars include, “In Bruges,” “Happy-Go-Lucky,” and “Vicky Cristina Barcelona.” Two other noteworthy comedies that were at least nominated for Oscars are 2006’s “Little Miss Sunshine” and 2007’s “Juno.” These two films may not have been able to snag the best picture trophy, but they represent two of the more original and charismatic films to hit American theaters in a long time.

At the Oscars, it’s not just the best picture category that is typically anti-comedy. The best actor/actress categories also usually favor dramatic performances over comedic ones. Of the more than 300 acting Oscars that have been awarded, fewer than 30 of them have been handed out for performances whose emotional muscle had arisen mostly from the actor or actresses aptitude for tickling the audience’s funny bone. It is likely that this disparity exists on account of the perception that dramatic roles are more challenging to perform and are therefore more award-worthy. It may be true that for many comedies and comedic roles, the level of emotionality is about as weighty as Nicole Ritchie tied to a flotilla of helium balloons (take “City Slickers” or “Ace Ventura: Pet Detective” for example). Dramas and dramatic acting roles are capable of tapping into a broader and deeper range of emotions, which can include laughter and happiness, along with anger, and sadness, and the rest of the emotions gang. Whereas comedies and comedic acting roles tend to be restricted to communicating funniness, lest the humorific mood be spoiled. But this is by no means to say that dramas and dramatic roles truly are more laudable than comedic ones. The skill set used to craft commendable comedic performances is just different, that’s all. In fact, there is a saying that goes, “Dying is easy, comedy is hard.”

Perhaps the Oscars should take a lesson from the Golden Globes and create a separate category for comedies. After all, a distinct category for best animated film was made when it became apparent that animated films didn’t have a shot in hell of taking home an overall best picture trophy. So why not do the same for comedies? When Los Angles Times writer, Patrick Goldstein, posed the idea to the motion picture academy president, Sid Ganis, Mr. Ganis dismissed the idea, saying that if comedies have won the Oscar for best picture in the past, then why wouldn’t a deserving comedy be able to do so in the future? Well, Mr. Ganis, your response wreaks of the fumes of cop out. It seems pretty obvious that the message here is clear: Oscar is a drama queen.

I don't Tan, I burn.

It is officially official, Stacey and I have penetrated the inner swing circle at Henry’s, boo yah. No longer do we gawk Wilson from Home Improvement style at the swingers from our designated posts behind the dance floor’s partition. No siree, Bob. Now, when we make the swing scene, we roll patio side with our new, swingterranean chums, and it is glorious. We still look like buffoons on the dance floor, but it’s cool, a work in progress.

The swing dancers who frequent Henry’s Pub are like the cuddliest bunch of people that you will ever meet. They are all a pack of bouncy, saddle shoe wearing, teddy bears.

One such teddy bear stands out from among the crowd. His name is Tan and he is this scrawny, California born stick of energy who used to teach swing dancing lessons at UCSD but now works as a math teacher for rich folks’ kiddies down in Brazil.

Unfortunately, however, Tan was only in San Diego for about a month while his Brazilian school was on vacation. Nevertheless, I still got to get plenty of top-notch dances in with him before he had to fly the coop.

One Tuesday, I had to cut swing night short because I had to rise and shine at the ass crack of dawn the next day for a job interview. My Tancing buddy was not pleased with my early departure plan, so I pinky swore that we would dance together the next night until the sun came up. This was probably one of the more ill-advised phalange contracts that I little fingered my way into, since I’m fairly certain that it is Red Bull, not blood, that streams it’s way through Tan the man’s veins.

The next night was so much fun though. The festivities commenced with a swing dance lesson at UCSD conducted by two of Tan’s old chums and was followed by a trip to the Firehouse where Stacey and I dazzled the masses with our new swingtastic dance moves…and by “dazzled” I mean continued to look like buffoons.

Afterwards, we went downtown to hang out at the condo where Tan was staying while we was in town. Tan’s two Brazilian friends, who accompanied him on his trip back to SD, had us in stitches laughing all night regaling us with tales of their sleep walking adventures and near death experiences. There’s just something about animated broken English that makes me happy.

Anyways, at around 3 my goose was cooked (didn’t quite make it ’til sunrise, but close enough) so Tan drove Stacey and myself back to our apartment, sweet, apartment.

Then, about half an hour later, I got a call from Tan asking me out to lunch with him the next day. Mmm I’ll have the “Oh crap” mixed salad with a side of curly, “I think this is might be a date” fries.

Order up.

Yep, totally was a date. After we finished lunching at the Tai restaurant in Hillcrest, we took a leisurely stroll around the block, where crouching Tan, hidden motive made his move. The gist of the happening was…

Tan: “So I’m in the market for a girlfriend, any takers? …Bueller?”

Actually, if truth be told, Tan the man was out shopping for a wifey (I don’t know what it is about San Diego, but I have met so many early nesters out here!).

Frick on a stick. I felt so bad. I wanted to let the little guy down easy. He is so genuinely sweet, but I was so genuinely uninterested. Therefore, I went into “Ward off unwanted male attention” mode and applied a generous helping of “Let me tell you about my fake boyfriend” cream to the infected situation (Side effects may include: headache, nausea, sad puppy dog eyes, and persistent awkward silences).

After a solid ten minutes of side effect number 4, my dancin’ friend bounced back and we ended the afternoon with pleasantries and a friendly hug.

Thumbs down for date sniping.

The Fam Came Out West!

So yes, the whole fam, brothers and all, came out west to visit me over the holidays.

It was great having them all out here…for the first five minutes.

My family is uberly sarcastic and competitive with one another (there was a code orange situation between my brothers over a bet to see who could name the most Samuel L. Jackson movies) and when we are forced to cohabitate tight quarters with one another for extended periods of time, such as hotel rooms and tiny rental cars, the mood is often tense and hostile.

(Side note: why is it that practically every guy I know secretly lusts after Samuel L. Jackson? I wouldn’t be at all surprised if the almighty Shaft was the surreptitious star of many a chicken choking fantasies. Let’s not forget that this is the man who brought us the film Snakes on a Plane. Wince.)

But no, all in all, I had a great time with the fam and we got to do a lot of fun-filled family activities. The most sock rockin’ of which were going to L.A. for a day, spending an afternoon south of the border in Tijuana, and lunching at the Kansas City Barbeque, a.k.a. the Top Gun Bar.

While I uncompromisingly publicly deride the lofty level of fromaginess of what is quite possibly Tom Cruise’s most immortalizing of movies, the truth is that my mockery serves as a flimsy shroud for my covert adoration of Top Gun and all things Cruise related. As far as I am concerned, Tommy boy can spring a crazy leak on as many of Opera’s couches as he likes and I will always support him, even in his choice to rob the cradle of Mushy-Face McHolmes.

Spending the day in L.A. was so fantastic! My body was peppered with goose bumps the entire time. Mostly at the thought of having a close encounter of the celebrity kind (Unfortunately, however, we did not see a single celeb…not even a double D-list star like Anna Faris), but also because I think L.A. is going to be my next life pit-stop after my Sandy Eggo coach turns into a pumpkin.

The greatest part of going to L.A. was visiting the Kodak Theater (for those of you who don’t know what that is, the Kodak Theater has been the casa of the Academy Awards for the past 7 years). It was magnificent. The entire time I was there, I was fighting back the urge to either burst into tears or defecate my pants, like an overly enthused, pants-wearing monkey. During the tour, I sat in the front row, 4th chair from the right (if you’re facing the stage) and now, I so can not wait for Oscar night to see whose caboose is parked in my seat!

Starry eyed sigh. No matter how many times I brush my teeth, I can’t seem to get the taste of Oscar ambrosia out of my mouth. Mmm minty fresh pipedreams.