Tuesday, August 31, 2010

Small Places : Nick L Belardes [32 of 128]

  • "You're a baby. It's beginner's luck," I say. I turn to Vishnu. "You hung out in what place in New Delhi?" "The Punjab Potato," he says.
  • "It's a drink," Vishnu says. I grimace. "The world is full of many things. One experience is but a doorway to another," he says.
  • Mike: "I hate to be a ball breaker, but we do have a game to play. Break!" he yells and starts a new game. I have another agenda on my mind
  • "Joan's off the deep end," I say. "No!" Mike feigns surprise. "She's near meltdown," I add. Mike waves his hands, pretends to care: "Oooo."
  • Mulani nods: "It's Milt." Me: "If he didn't steal ideas, berate everyone and generally not let us do our jobs, maybe he would be likeable.”
  • Mike:"Managers like Milt aren't supposed to be likeable." Mulani: "Well Joan says she's calling in fifth-column action to see he gets his."
  • Mulani continues:"Well that's what she said when she was cursing like a sailor in the parking garage." OK, I'm curious: "What did she say?"
  • Mulani:"She said, 'That SOB is messing with the wrong bitch if he thinks I'm taking the fall again for his boyish grasp on the department!"

Monday, August 30, 2010

Small Places : Nick L Belardes [31 of 128]

  • "That is New Delhi. It is a place of ancient wonder. We even have McDonalds," Vishnu says. I am in awe of his city. He is in awe of the Web
  • He humbly accepts his Web pages as his creations, his work in the corporate sphere. I can see that. I extend an olive branch.
  • "Hey Vish, some of us are going to a bar tonight to shoot some pool. I thought you'd want to go." "Really?" he says. "You'd fit in," I say.
  • There are now two preying mantis. They're statues, pale green, eyes like opals, with arms tucked in quiet worship of walls and windows.
  • I'm fascinated with their bug world. They seem to silently socialize as if my entire living room were a lawn filled with infinite dreams.
  • It's not that I always take time to think about little things. But adults no longer fascinated about small places in life tend to bore me.
  • I imagine the smallest boxing match in the world. The darker mantis knocks the block off its pale friend. They both wear tiny boxing gloves
  • At the bar Vishnu sinks the 8-ball before any of us get a chance to shoot. Mulani pouts, sticks out her bottom lip: "I didn't get a turn."

Saturday, August 28, 2010

Small Places : Nick L Belardes [30 of 128]

  • "I would never. I just know you're the new guy and wanted to say hi, Vish," I say. Vishnu: "I've been here four months."
  • He sits like the same preying mantis near my kitchen window. I can't ever tell that it moves, that it eats. I can't even see it blink.
  • Every once in a while I notice in the small places of my house where there used to be spiders are now broken webs picked clean.
  • "I just kind of wondered," I say. "Wondered what??" Vishnu sits up. His eyes are now wide. "Are you wondering the mysteries of the Web?"
  • Vish "Afraid customers aren't going to partake of the Buildicon web portal?" "Nothing of the sort!" I say. "Do you hate New Delhi?" he adds
  • "Let me tell you the streets are like gold. There are no huts, no barbarians, no Mother Theresa action figures, no cow trolleys...
  • "We have temples for old and new religions. We have Sikh temples that sparkle with white lights and Hindu temples like mountains in the sky
  • "We have an ancient red fort and much newer lotus temple that glows like a candlelit blossom on a serene body of water...

Friday, August 27, 2010

Small Places : Nick L Belardes [29 of 128]

  • Eleven.
  • I ask: "Does anybody know Vishnu's real name?" Mike: "I think it's Sam Vishnukuku." "Oh come on," I say.
  • "Seriously. Check him out. He seems to go into hibernation at his desk. You think he's sleeping but he's not. Not at all. It's perplexing."
  • Vishnu sits in near slumber. His screen changes. Updates are made, download buttons are created, links form. His lids are half-closed.
  • I can hear the mouse click, but Vishnu doesn't change position. His hand never seems to move. I swear his body is about to levitate.
  • Vishnu is from New Delhi, a city not filled with elephant tusks or nectar water torture. It's as advanced as the rest of the Free World.
  • He sits at his Web post like a guardian to a realm of many-armed gods and says, "You think I am sleeping but I am not.
  • What's your problem?" "I have no problem, Vish." "Yes, you are staring." "I don't know what you're talking about."
  • "You are staring at me because I'm Indian."

Thursday, August 26, 2010

Small Places : Nick L Belardes [28 of 128]

  • And that's OK, except now he's wearing goggles to work. He's happy we're bringing life to the land of grey. But now I call him captain.
  • Up walks Kira de Frito. Dear me, did I forget to mention that she has a birthmark on her forehead? She's got that look in her eye again.
  • "You do not like me," Kira says. I say in reference to her birthmark: "You're so retro Gorbachev." She doesn't get it.
  • We battle with questions: "What did I ever do?" "You didn't like the song?" "Why are you so angry?" "Are you not a fan of musicals, Kira?"
  • Kira de Frito once starred in a Brazilian novella. I never acknowledge her stardom. So she's overly sensitive.
  • She bolts into Milt's office. "What's up with the colorful new ads?" I say to Mike. "It's like robots in dance gear."
  • Mike: "It's our new look and feel." Me: "Rainbows?" Mike imitates Milt Butterlink: "Make Buildicon recognizable with color."
  • He adds, "Milt can't choose one color so he goes with them all."
  • Milt's door opens and out pops Kira de Frito. She bolts for her cubicle. "What's up her pineapple?" Mike says.

Wednesday, August 25, 2010

Small Places : Nick L Belardes [27 of 128]

  • Mulani: "She's only clothed from the waist up, a corset." Me: "Right now?" I look. "No, you idiot. When they, you know," Mulani says.
  • As I sit down at my desk I suddenly realize that if Buildicon is the social heart of Americana I'd rather be in Brazil with Kira de Frito.
  • I want to be carrying around platters of pineapples, wear an oversized cabana shirt, and see Kira scream "Carnival!" in her coconut bikini.
  • I'd rather it be Mulani than Kira de Frito. Let's eat, let's dance, let's get away from the color grey in a seaside town filled with color.
  • Except there will be copacabana boys by the hundreds. I can't bear the thought of losing Mulani to a pineapple plate distributor.
  • "Ay!" I yell. "Is there no justice?" Mike looks at me. I don't think he cares that I yelled.
  • He's busy designing a robotic ad for Buildicon. Me: "Do we have to sing a musical?" Mike: "Yes. Can we make one up?"
  • Me: "Of course. I don't know any actual words or tunes. Do you?" Mike realizes he doesn't know any musicals either, but we sing.
  • He leads. Next door is the president's office. He doesn't say a word. He knows we're crazy.
  • He's also happy because I know Margo in Orders just intercepted a fax that he paid $300,000 for a turbo prop.

Tuesday, August 24, 2010

Small Places : Nick L Belardes [26 of 128]

  • Ten.
  • Today is like yesterday only worse. I walk up to Buildicon where a bum pisses on a tire in the parking garage.
  • Thank God I don't have a car. I say: "Don't you have a goddam outhouse? Or a newspaper? Or a friend to piss on?
  • Cause you're pissing me off!" He laughs in my direction. I snap out of it as Buildicon's self-imposed beauty queen,
  • Kira de Frito passes by. She builds spreadsheets that Mulani has to fix.
  • She talks to Brazilian product buyers, perhaps about lingerie. She's the Wicked Witch of the West Indies, kind of dark, with a hook nose.
  • Kira de Frito slinks by in a jaguar of an outfit, very catlike, with tight black pants and cleavage you could put a pineapple platter on.
  • By the copier Mulani tells me about Kira de Frito's crisis: "I will not suffer this one alone. She has to dance for her husband." Me: "No!"
  • Me: "He can't?" Mulani: "Nope." Me: "So she dances a jig each night before they salsa?" Mulani: "Every night." Me: "Horrible!"
  • I mean, don't get me wrong. Shake it don't break it. "But that's not all of it," Mulani says. I run the copier again to buy more time.

Monday, August 23, 2010

Small Places : Nick L Belardes [25 of 128]

  • Nine.
  • 2 am: I dream about my dead ant farm. I am inside it, lost. There are no ants to show me the way,
  • only plastic walls and hulks of dead ants. I split open a dead dried ant and make a sort of shaman costume that I wear while I explore.
  • I commune with their dead consciousness. I find a room with ant eggs stuck to the walls and ceiling. One is cracked open.
  • Black lifeless eyes stare out at me. I am them. In my shaman ant dream I grow thirsty. I use two broken antenna as divining rods.
  • I dig and water springs out. I wake up having wet the bed. Milt's eyeballs are nearly touching the new ant farm I bring to work.
  • "Where are the ants?" he asks. "I just mail-ordered them," I say. He seems more impatient than me about the ants arrival:
  • "When will they come?" Me: "Any second now." Milt stares for minutes on end. I finally get the ants and dump them into the ant farm.
  • They spread throughout like they'd just been on vacation and start digging tunnels. I watch the ants watch me.
  • I think they can see me. They gather at the plastic walls. No wait. It's the dead fly I put in there. Never mind.
  • After lunch I see the ant farm is a complete wreck. All the sand walls have collapsed. There's no movement. A Post-It reads: "Earthquake."
  • Milt walks by. He doesn't look at me but snickers to himself. I follow him to the bathroom where I can hear him laughing insanely.

Saturday, August 21, 2010

Small Places : Nick L Belardes [24 of 128]

  • I suddenly want to create diorama of pink packaging corporate puppets, not merely for my entertainment,
  • but for all bored Buildicon workers. What do you think if you see pink packaging sponges with faces:
  • felt-pen grins of asinine pondering and surreal cartoonland pontifications?
  • Mike and I design a character in this pink sponge puppet named Blockhead Joe. Much of his story is simple. He marries Airhead Pam.
  • Blockhead Joe and Airhead Pam have a grand wedding. They appear on a sitcom. He cheats on her. She cheats on him. They have baby larvae.
  • We put up a 'Free Larvae' sign. They're made out of packaging popcorn. We draw faces on them so each one is unique.
  • Glen quits his job in Tech Support and takes his larvae to Mississippi. I soon get an email: "We're here!" I never hear from him again.
  • Airhead Pam gets murdered. Some of the larvae turn into spawnlings that are Styrofoam, half sponge. Blockhead Joe gets framed.
  • Blockhead Joe gets kidnapped. The ransom is twenty bucks. Body parts begin to arrive. How do I get away with this you might ask?
  • I have no idea how I get away with this sponge show other than the four workplace axioms I defined earlier.
  • I'll do some real work tomorrow.

Friday, August 20, 2010

Small Places : Nick L Belardes [23 of 128]

  • I'll think up copy for an ad, sure. This industry is so C3PO. We help protocols speak to each other. He was a protocol droid.
  • We translate. We can buildicon that gizmo. We can help protocols speak to one another.
  • Only, like C3PO, I can't help but feel impending doom when I think.
  • Eight.
  • The day I saw boxes filled with pink sponge packaging I stared in wonder at the little rectangles. Here was my temporary answer to fun.
  • Most corporate folk consider 'fun' a ludicrous non-serious detrimental work behavior.
  • Creative marketing people are freaks who live for fun. Fun: more than just ball-game beer. Sorry to offend you simpletons.
  • Fun is a complex process often meaning hyperfocusing on the mundane. There is something inherently appealing in a block of pink sponge.
  • In and of itself it has no real value other than as a packaging product. You stuff them into empty spaces in boxes.
  • They fill voids. Yet I see living shapes. I decide the sponge rectangles will make nice puppets.

Thursday, August 19, 2010

Small Places : Nick L Belardes [22 of 128]

  • I don't make as much as my cab-driving father did back in the 1970s. He didn't have a degree. So where's the money? At Buildicon?
  • Not in this job where ant killer Milt Butterlink gets 110,000 clamshells per year. Now I think I need to explain my take on advertising...
  • Advertising. It's what fills sports stadiums, magazines, computer games, TV shows about nothing. It's a numbing new take on dish soap.
  • Can you feel orgasmic about advertising? Sure you can. It gets ladies and gents to wash in adorable new ways and makes you coo and googoo.
  • It's about interactive thinking. We need subliminal Buildicon messages that spin heads like soap bubble carousels in mindless playability.
  • Ad creation takes enlightenment about the corporate world. A true mystery, yes. I work in a corporate world where everyone thinks
  • I'm weird. No mystery there. Though I don't think my dead ants thought I was weird. Milt wants me to think up an ad concept for
  • Buildicon's wireless recordable transmitter devices. It's for industrial data, like evil robots.

Wednesday, August 18, 2010

Small Places : Nick L Belardes [21 of 128]

  • I buy an ant farm and name all the ants inside after me. I call them my collective consciousness.
  • They're all named Willie. I talk to them. I take the ant farm to a coffeehouse.
  • I get a mocha, smile at the ants, read the paper and feel like God spinning planets on his fingertips.
  • What else can I do but bring the ant farm to work? Workers come, stare into the little cubicles of sand. They wander off. I feel giantish.
  • Soon I come to work and the ant farm is filled with water. The ants float hopelessly, lifeless. Milt walks by, winks.
  • I stop bringing salsa. Milt is in his Benetton sweater attire, probably bought at the Cusack Movie Collection auction from High Fidelity.
  • He oozes seedy Hollywood. He declares himself a big fan of Japanese samurai movies. He currently reads,
  • "Samurai Stories and Other Decapitation Romances." I hate him.
  • Seven.
  • Most jobs are about nothing. The corporate world is no savior from that. I mean, what are we but a slowly drowning ant farm, anyway?
  • I have a college degree, a marketing background that you can't laugh too hard at. But I make a mere 34K per year. I don't even have a car.

Tuesday, August 17, 2010

Small Places : Nick L Belardes [20 of 128]

  • Back to number two.
  • Early on at Buildicon, Mike said: "You've only worked a week and you're already stinking up the office with that salsa!"
  • It's such moments where I'm most calm. I stood next to a big bowl of my salsa. I calmly handed Mike a tortilla chip. He raised an eyebrow.
  • Mulani then stepped from her office. Two eyebrows went up as Mike dipped. He took a bite. He chewed. He double-dipped and that was that.
  • Mulani smiled as she tasted the salsa. Soon afterward I couldn't keep middle management fingers from greedily grabbing food from my desk.
  • Everyone stopped by but the corporate prez. He's kind of like one of those weird beasts in Star Wars than can't be swayed by the Force.
  • This Force was a salsa I swore, "I will never share such a guarded secret with others."
  • Ten days later I posted the recipe on willieboy.com.
  • By the way, in regards to the fourth workplace axiom, after three weeks of exceptional behavior, slack to your heart's content.

Monday, August 16, 2010

Small Places : Nick L Belardes [19 of 128]

  • The idea is nothing is serious. So statements become flirty, bombastic, sexy, overly offensive, sexually humorous, odd-gestured signals.
  • Mulani pretends to be a victim, though really she is just as strange as Mike and I when it comes to increasing sexual tension at work.
  • Example: Mulani walks up to Mike's desk: "Can I see the report?" Mike: "Not sure I wanna share unless you're blindfolded." Mulani: "OK."
  • And then she rolls her eyes right after licking her lipsticky red lips and walks back to her office. It's an hourly routine. So we cope.
  • Example: Mike: "Got the plotter to work. Says it needed less suckage." I reply: "Who would have thought anything would need less suckage?"
  • Mulani and Joan both roll their eyes and tell us we're sick. Truth? They would be bored if it weren't for our sexual tension statements.
  • Same phrase by Doug in shipping? Forget it. Mulani prefers jokes from non-creepy guys. Besides, these are matter-of-fact axioms to live by.

Saturday, August 14, 2010

Small Places : Nick L Belardes [18 of 128]

  • Six.
  • I've been here six months. I do nothing. It comes down to setting the mood. Ask yourself: "What can I do my first three weeks on the job?"
  • I brought four axioms for a better work environment and for better all-around 'inefficiency' when I first arrived at Buildicon.
  • Write these down, but not necessarily in this order. No sticky notes please. 1) How to increase sexual tension in the workplace.
  • 2) How to woo the corporate crowd with a tasty salsa 3) How to have fun at work and not feel guilty about it 4) The 'Three Week' rule.
  • Number four: Fake incredible work ethic. Act busy even if paying bills online.
  • Company prez should see you stay five minutes extra each day. Number three: Laugh. It makes people think twice about your state of mind.
  • Believe me, work laughter is impossible to achieve for most. I'll get back to number two.
  • Number one occurs with relative ease and is contrary to every corporate code ever written in the post "me" age.

Friday, August 13, 2010

Small Places : Nick L Belardes [17 of 128]

  • Five.
  • Mike stares into an outdated MAC G3. He downloads a Prince tune because we think a boyish secretary looks
  • like she starred in "Purple Rain." Our desks share opposite cubicle walls. We see each other working.
  • This is the part of the ant colony where mandibles are made out of Nerf. Mike's got a contract the rest of us don't have,
  • making him immune from the daily grind. Truth? He never has to attend marketing meetings.
  • Jealousy: Mike's strange anti-meeting immunity idol that he wears around his neck. It's a secret "Survivor" clause he can't talk about.
  • That doesn't stop me from harassing him each day. And it doesn't keep him from showing off his imaginary idol and thumbing his nose at me.
  • He pretends to take it off and wave it at me. I think hateful thoughts. He grins. Would he eat rat poop on "Survivor"? Of course he would.

Thursday, August 12, 2010

Small Places : Nick L Belardes [16 of 128]

  • "OK Mike, let's look at this really super cool design. I mean, you're really a genius. This is what we need! It's what I was thinking!"
  • Two seconds later: "Let me show you what I would do. I mean, this is a little too goo gah. You should have caught this bad vibe idea."
  • "Well yeah, we could use a little less of the trinky and the dinky," Mike grimaces, realizing he doesn't understand his own words.
  • Milt nods in agreement as if Mike finally understands the manager's enlightened marketing lingo. "Exactly. So make the changes," Milt says.
  • I'm bored with the nonsense of micromanagement and wander to the bathroom to wash my face.
  • I wonder: Is this everyone's mad corporate dream? Just as I demand to the mirror that I wake up, the bathroom door opens.
  • It's Glen from Tech Support. "Fancy meeting you here," he says.
  • "You know, it's funny how you can only take so much of work before you have to get up from your desk and attempt to piss it away," he adds.

Wednesday, August 11, 2010

Small Places : Nick L Belardes [15 of 128]

  • Second day in a row: "...catch phrases make for a real trinkydink kind...,"
  • Milt's glazed eyes stare wide-eyed at a sleepy marketing group. His dark brown hair is a mess.
  • He's wearing yesterday's Benetton sweater with multi-oranges, greens, blues, purples. A dull Japanese beetle.
  • His lips are swollen, while his cheeks puff out, boyish, chipmunky. They're reddened because he slept outside his mountain cabin.
  • Milt attempts to write copy. The ad design shows a metallic gizmo with Ethernet cables like tentacles: "Your Autolink Connection Solution."
  • He's re-written the ad copy five times. Each revision is as though he hasn't written the previous copy. Does he think we wrote it?? Nuts.
  • Maybe he imagines we're mutinous trinkydink catchphrase sailors. I can see the grimace on Mike's face as Milt sits behind him and banters.

Tuesday, August 10, 2010

Small Places : Nick L Belardes [14 of 128]

  • Four.
  • Guy: hair stands on end, metal glasses on a long pale nose, faded Hawaiian shirt and book, "Massage Mataphysics" tucked under scrawny arm.
  • He follows me. I get a hot dog and he's reading that book. I'm in a cafe looking for a muffin with more than two blueberries. He's there.
  • The next day I see him just as the Winona Ryder look-a-like girl behind the coffee counter says: "My boyfriend has a catheter."
  • She continues: “Its a skateboard injury. The skateboard stood straight up on him in the half-pipe and he injured his dick.
  • Want the usual?”  I grimace. I notice he is reading that book. I finally realize he works less than I do.
  • He must be an agile downtown business escape artist. I want to become efficient as such an expert corporate Houdini.
  • Alakazam! Alavamooshka! I can't get away from time: 8-hour day, 1-hour lunch, two 10-minute breaks, boss comes in at eight,
  • I come in at seven. I'm a bug. Stomp me. 

Monday, August 9, 2010

Small Places : Nick L Belardes [13 of 128]

  • Milt: "What I want to tell you is we are like tractors. We're not bugs. Everyone here plays a vital role in unearthing our marketing core."
  • All I can gather is I'm some kind of marketing backhoe operator and I need a hard hat to withstand Milt's dense communication methods.
  • I'm starting to lose consciousness again. Vishnu looks fish-like. His eyes roll and bulge. The gills I imagine on his neck twitch and gasp.
  • Milt: "Let's get to advertising." Micromanaging his creative team means we don't create a piss in the toilet. He doesn't realize this...
  • So he begins to criticize his own advertising tag lines, “I want you all to know that too many catch phrases
  • can make you sound like a real trinkydink kind of a company.” I write furiously in my notepad.
  • I've been putting together a book of senseless micromanager quotes and Milt has just laid a doozy on me.
  • It's right up there in the cloudy angelic fields of marketing nomenclature: "A trinkydink kind of a company." I'm almost jealous.

Saturday, August 7, 2010

Small Places : Nick L Belardes [12 of 128]

  • I sketch an image I know he thinks are notes. If I can stay awake long enough to finish
  • I might put it in a frame and hang it above my desk. "Is this a marketing plan that crawls all over you?" whispers Joan.
  • It could be a real insecticon buildicon modicon. I keep drawing. "Ha! You guys are all geniuses and yet you're not getting the picture.
  • I don't mean caterpillar in the insect sense of the word," says Milt.
  • He thinks we're all idiots because we didn't attend NYU or have lunch at the World Trade Center before it blew up.
  • “Theyre not cultured,” he says to the prez behind our backs. “Theyre small timey, loosey goosey and flashy pants non-extraordinaire.”
  • He just wants us to be freakin superstars like him. This man who supposedly once made chocolate macaroons with the likes of Bo Derek…
  • This man who claims to have single-handedly invented all Adobe products, and who once walked on the moon in a G-string Soviet flag.

Friday, August 6, 2010

Small Places : Nick L Belardes [11 of 128]

  • Why is it important to tell you? Because this happens every day, five days a week, blah blah weeks per year. Every single grey cubicle day.
  • Milt Butterlink is always second-guessing himself, his intentions, his copywriting, his morning coffee flavor,
  • but not always in that order. I imagine a small place in a bug colony.
  • Milt, with no feelers would try to lead us to the productivity room. We'd end up eaten by birds.
  • Milt only uses ideas he steals for his own. He passes those straight on to the company president. That would be the enterprise level.
  • Milt's Document: "Caterpillar Marketing Plan: Budget and Style for Buildicon's Gadgetary Future."
  • He has an excitable look on his face. It's an energy no one in the room draws from.
  • His eyes twinkle with nonsense as he leans in to let us know he is working on a major project.
  • "This is the most important document to come out of Buildicon. Any leak, our competitors could destroy what is noble and true about us."
  • I look at the document. It's gobbledy-gook can't be interpreted. I suddenly imagine caterpillars crawling out of Milt's ears.

Thursday, August 5, 2010

Small Places : Nick L Belardes [10 of 128]

  • He's probably digging a tunnel to nowhere with those bare wooden hands like shovels. Very time efficient. Very Frederick Taylor.
  • Today Milt passes out another document. In case you didn't know, he's the one who puts us in
  • our cryogenic state every Tuesday.
  • There are always two boxes of donuts that we inject straight into our bloodstream so we can crash at just the right moment of diatribe.
  • I imagine myself in the middle of the conference room table--the donut my life preserver. A current of normalcy pulls me out of the room.
  • I wash ashore where marketing is of the cowboy and jeans 'no bullshit' variety. Mulani senses my imagination and showers me with smiles.
  • Back to semi-reality, Milt pushes papers in front of us. Always scheduled at 11 a.m., our weekly meetings never start until lunchtime. Why?
  • Reason No. 1: Milt sends an email to the entire marketing department at 11:19 a.m. stating, "I want you all to be freakin' superstars."
  • Reason No. 2: Meeting has been delayed because he needs to discuss, er, micro-manage magazine ad designs with me, Joan and Mike Neversmith.

Wednesday, August 4, 2010

Small Places : Nick L Belardes [9 of 128]

  • Never before has such a re-animated corporate dialogue risen from such a cramped meeting room insectoid. He is what Buildicon emulates.
  • Milt Butterlink: As I fall asleep, this is the man who has prepared pages of notes simply to unravel the mystery of the color orange.
  • "Team, we'll get a new color though I know you're attached to your tangerine polos. Orange is an out-of-fashion corporate-color faux paus."
  • Milt Butterlink begins to look more wooden, like a stick bug. Like five stick bugs all wrapped into one, with large pinecone hands.
  • He's got big grey eyes and large lips; his cheeks puff out above a weedy sidewalk of chest hair that springs up through his v-neck.
  • His hands don't look like flesh at all but dry and wood-like, as if unfinished, stuck onto his body: lost boy bug monster. God only knows
  • what he does with those hands in the Greenhorn Mountains, where he commutes from everyday and lives with his wife and two small children.

Tuesday, August 3, 2010

Small Places : Nick L Belardes [8 of 128]

  • I glance at my watch. He's at least thirty minutes from point of consciousness.
  • Mulani is half-Chinese, a valley girl all the way with her pigtails and bubblegum chewing. She's lost to the marketing manager's monologue.
  • In her wide-eyed state she concocts a plan to make it with Michael Jordan.
  • She's knows kissing me put her at only 2.5 degrees of separation. How do you break into 'no' degrees of separation? I wonder with her.
  • At least we're brainstorming. "He's old," I said at lunch yesterday. She set me straight, said Joan,
  • our project coordinator, is in lust with Sean Connery. "And he's at least three times Michael Jordan's age."
  • Is my heart rate in the low 30s? As our marketing manager “Blahs” I think about the Giant Root Borer, the largest beetle north of Mexico.
  • Our marketing manager's name is Milt Butterlink. He's the proud corporate embodiment of a big dumb B-movie monster bug.

Monday, August 2, 2010

Small Places : Nick L Belardes [7 of 128]

  • Why does the company secretary keep a copious supply of lollipops on her desk? Company prez says, "I need a form." She licks her lips.
  • Theyre doing it.  And so the candy, the lollipops, they keep workers working along with their abstract naughty thoughts. Enough.
  • I have to go to a meeting.
  • Three.
  • Of the eight people in the meeting room who appear to be in a state of cryogenics, three of us seem worse off than the rest.
  • Vishnu rolls his eyes as if slowly awakening from a month of freezing-tube paralysis. Theres no hope for him.
  • His karmic voyage to a land of the sleep gives him a strangely peaceful look as if he's an
  • all-wise-half-listening webmaster from New Delhi.