Congratulations on Your Firm Handshake!

At the end of the interview you'll stand up, stretch your arms way above your head and scratch your stubble.  Then you'll let out a long belch and scratch your groin, just for good measure.

"That's what's up," you'll announce to the stuffed shirts you just talked to about your relationship with P-funk for an hour and a half.  "That's how I do."  They'll look at you like you're the most offensive retarded baby they've ever met, like if you were to kill yourself right then and there they'd be overjoyed, but when you stick out your hand and they take it, you'll grip just right and give them a quick two-pump.

When you release the head stuffed suit will look at his hand, then look at you, then shout:

"YOU'RE HIRED!"

You'll do the "two-snaps and a twist" move and then, while holding your palm up to his face, scream "I KNOW IT BITCHES!" at allcaps volume before running out of the room, laughing like a horse, leaving the interview staff behind you baffled, wondering what just happened, why it happened, and what they're going to do with someone as worthless as you in their company.

"Handshake coordinator?" the lead stuffed suit will ask the interview room, to an audible cascade of shrugs

Congratulations on Your Firm Handshake!

Congratulations Blind Pilot!

Today terrorists are going to attack a plane (great work, TSA) and, through the use of some sort of "eye poison," kill everyone on board, including themselves.  The only survivors will be you, a blind man who plays piano and digitally stimulates women for a living, and a four month old baby whose eyes won't have been developed enough to receive the "vision toxin" that Al Qaeda released on the plane.  This will lead to a lot of awkward feeling around after the initial chaos, followed by you sitting down in the pilot's seat, putting on the pilot's headphones, and asking the control tower:

"Uhh, Sky Boss, how do I land this plane?"

"What?" the control tower operator will ask.

You'll briefly explain to him what happened and he'll listen, silently nodding, until you're done.

"Well, I could let you die," he'll say in an announcerly voice, "but I'll be damned if I'm going to let Al Qaeda kill another baby.

"AMERICA!" you'll shout in response.

When you quiet down he'll walk you through the various switches on the console in front of you, directing you to, at the right moment, flip off the autopilot switch and then, soon after, push the land button.  You and the baby will land safely and your regard for professional pilots will be forever shaken, colored by the knowledge that their job could literally be done by a blind man being given directions by a depressed alcoholic hundreds of miles away.

Congratulations Blind Pilot!

Congratulations Public Art Lady!

Today the streets of Minneapolis won't be their usual frigid, winsomely constructed bittersweet open air harems for kind hearts and sad eyes.  No, today they'll be transformed through the combination of your nudity, one hundred and fifty pounds of copper wire, and an electrode crammed into your vagina with a readout screen linked to your forehead.

It's all part of a public art project you've recently received funding for, marginally endorsed by The Walker Center, that you've set up to blow some minds.

"People constantly look at women and valuate them for their sex organs and stuff," your hastily written online mission statement will announce.  "I'm gunna (sic) giv e'em (sic) an opportunity to really understand what's going on inside my uterus and what's 'on my mind.'"

Your statement will go on to misquote and decontextualize a number of prominent feminist theorists and artists, but the overarching mindset behind the whole project will be extremely clear: you want to make a statement about how women are seen in public as marginal commodities instead of citizens.  You plan to make your point by standing outside various grocery stores while covered in copper wire (which you hope will act as an insulating agent to prevent permanent tissue damage) and display images generated algorthymically from the moderate electrical currents coming out of your pussy.  The images will look like a more abstract version of the visualizations that i-Tunes used to make, back in the day.  You know, the ones that stoner kid from your dorm would insist on putting on during any sort of major party, just before the room cleared out.

Today you'll begin your project by standing outside the Wedge co-op in center of the Lyn-Lake area.  The Wedge storefront will offer little in the way of shelter from the elements, so you'll only last about twenty minutes before the shift manager, noticing the early signs of frostbite and hypothermia, will have two employees drag you inside.  She'll have them place you in the back office, where you'll be kept under blankets as you explain your project to the shift manager.  She'll nod and give you some feedback, recommending that you wait until summer to try the project out, and that you get your exhibit floor space at somewhere less competetive than The Walker.

"New York loves vaginas," she'll say as she pats you on the legs.  "And they love heavy handed art.  You could do really well there."

You'll thank her through chattering teeth as you flex your fingers, silently praying that they get enough feeling back for you to drink a cup of tea soon.

Congratulations Public Art Lady!

Congratulations Funky Paula Deen!

Paula Deen's racism has hurt some people, sure.  Hurtful words damage meaningful discourses and curtail important conversations, that's the way we work as social animals.  But there's an ironic silver lining to Deen's vapid, clueless, unintentinal hate speech.

We're not talking about the abstract "this sort of discourse, however ill-founded, promotes a national dialogue" kind of silver lining.  No, we're talking about employment.  Specifically, your employment.  Every time Paula Deen says something stupid, you get work.

When you were a young woman coming up through the ranks of the theater, you didn't think this would be your life.  Christ, who would think that?  You thought you'd be a tubby character actor who plays strong supporting roles in comedic films.  But as time went by you learned you weren't funny, and as more time went by you started to look an awful lot like Paula Deen from far away, which meant, you guessed it, you found yourself working less often as an actor and more often as a Paula Deen look-a-like and impersonator.

Work was pretty thin before Deen's struggle with diabetes became highly publicized a few years ago.  Even then, it wasn't great: a handful of cameos for various sketch groups, some internet video stuff, not a lot, but enough to live off of.  After her highly publicized racial comments, however, your cell phone started blowing up.  You became the single most sought after celebrity look-a-like in the greater Los Angeles area.  Not a week goes by where someone doesn't want you to come in to their office to help with their trust-building exercise, or teach their kids how to twerk Paula Deen style or something, but all this work comes with the stolid knowledge that one day, one day not too far off, all this will end.  You know it, your management knows it, the American people know it.  Eventually, you'll stop being sought after for some sort of psychic catharsis.  This knowledge has been weighing heavy on you of late, as you know that it'll be sooner than later that Deen will sink into the national subconscious and shift from being a national touchstone to being an irrelevant footnote in the history of intolerance.

But today the awful course of your sad little life is going to reverse with one little phone call.  It'll come from Paula Deen herself, and she'll ask you, through a veil of "sugah"s and "sweetness"es, that she wants you to be her in-house "helper."

"Well," she'll declare through a drawl thick as molasses, "I reckon I tend to say what I don't mean pretty often, as you've noticed, and I want y'all around to help me out when I do by makin' internet funnies."

You'll ask if she means funny internet videos.

"Yeah," she'll reply.  "Like, one of me and you rapping next time I say nigger or some such."

After that last sentence you'll hear a hand slide over the mouthpiece and a series of muffled curses punctuated by a phrase that will sound a good deal like "did it again."

"Sorry sugah.  Had a minor issue here.  Interested?"

You'll squash down your laughter and accept her offer, all but holding your breath to keep from laughing until she finishes saying goodbye.  Then you'll call your mom and tell her about the news, shortly before calling a black friend to talk through the serious guilt you'll feel over accepting the job offer.

Congratulations Funky Paula Deen!

Congratulations Cheezit Art Director!

Today will be pretty normal.  You'll wake up at nine, roll out of bed and get to the studio by ten, where your "models" will be waiting.  We put "models" in quotes because you photograph various shapes, sizes, shades, and conceptual iterations of orange crackers that sad people eat, so realistically, they're always waiting for you and a team of "make-up artists" to put orange paint and salt on them to make the whole cracker package a little bit more appealing.

When you arrive at work you'll begin your day the same way you always do: by checking your schedule to see just how many Cheezit boxes need to be done in a given day.  The answer today, as it usually is, will be zero, so you'll be left to decide between idly photographing Cheezits to potentially save yourself work later, or drinking alone in your studio during the day while your make-up artists play games on their i-Phones.  You'll choose the latter.  You often do.

This means that when you get home to your apartment tonight you'll feel sadder than usual.  You'll consider the gun in the drawer of your bedside table, a potential release, but you'll be so drunk by the time you get in that you won't even be able to stagger to your own bed to fall asleep.  You'll end up sprawled on the couch, remote in hand, desperately trying to figure out how to change the channel to something other than HSN.  A dreamless sleep will find you in the midst of a pitch program that you'll never fully remember, something about a man with a beard, perhaps, or a blonde woman, and some product other than Cheezits, a product that you might one day be called upon to design art for.

Congratulations Cheezit Art Director!