Jumping the Shark: The precise moment when you know a public figure has taken a turn for the worse, gone
downhill, become irreversibly bad, is irredeemable, etc.; the moment you realize decay has set in.
(i.e. Tom Cruise jumped the shark the moment he jumped Oprah's couch.)
John is about to jump the shark. You heard it here first. On Friday, the Harvard Lampoon called
the studio to ask if John would be willing to shoot Paris Hilton dressed as a refugee child for a spoof they're
doing on National Geographic. Now, this could be a funny lampoon of National Geographic, but as far
as everyone in the studio can tell there is nothing but bad things that can come out of this for John's
career, particularly given his reputation as a humanist "concerned" photographer. The problem is, we're
all pretty sure John has no idea who Paris Hilton is, or what this spoof is even about.
The message was relayed to him in Thailand, with long delays and static lines, and John kept asking over and
over again who the model was and what the Harvard Lampoon is....and then he told Sanja to try to schedule it,
but seriously, he doesn't seem to understand what it is at all, much less the ramifications it could have career-wise.
So, naturally, I can't wait to see if he's going to actually do this on Tuesday. If he does, I would like to be his assistant.
I love celebrities, and it would be the closest I can imagine getting to such a clearly bad decision.
So, John is returning from Thailand, and Monday he will be back in the office. The amount of panic and
tension that this has created is completely and utterly disproportionate to the event. We actually
had a staff meeting aimed at nothing but damage control. It was basically a crash course on how to
avoid disapproval and/or angry outbursts hurled in our direction. I mean, we work for John. He is not a
visiting dignitary. He is not Bono. Or William Hung. He is our boss, and people
seem to have completely lost sight of this fact in preparation for his return. Bill (intern) has
been forced to scrub the floors, clean the counter tops, file every single loose scrap of paper lest John returns to
deem the office "messy." Towels have been folded in neat little rows in the bathroom
and the sticky paste-like substance next to the sink that we have all grown accustomed to has been scraped
off, lest John sees it. The filthy dish towel (which James inexplicably uses to dry his face) has been
replaced with a crisp new linen (note to James: dish towels should under no circumstance be used on your
face). People are crippled in fear. Ok, that is an exaggeration, but not by much. Apparently it is in my
best interest not to incur the displeasure of my boss. I am sure I will though, given my complete and utter
lack of competency when he's around.
The office has been a very different place with John away. For starters, we have had several visits over
the past few weeks from Bob, our Mac tech guy. I can't imagine for a moment Bob and John being in the
office at the same time. It's about as good a combo as Rosie O'Donnell and Barbara Walters were on
The View. Where John is quiet and commands, well, fear, Bob is loud and, well, LOUD. Bob is
like an over-caffeinated, ADD-riddled 8 year old on Christmas Eve. Bob spends the day throwing balls of paper
at us, laughing riotously and sporadically and weaving tales of Sting and Paula Abdul (he serves as
sound tech for lots of celebrities. Note: Paula Abdul is not as crazy as she appears on TV). Bob is
paid $700 a day (more than I make in two months working days, nights, and weekends). And for this
$700 Bob basically disrupts the whole studio to the point where absolutely no work is done, and then tries
to explain technology to us in that way that tech people do - which is to say, we don't understand a
single thing he is saying.
What else. Sanja has been talking to herself. A lot. I never know if she is talking to me, if she is on the
phone, or if she is having a conversation in her own head that for some reason ends up being spoken aloud.
But as our co-worker Ted was explaining to me how to use one of our programs last week I seriously couldn't
follow a thing he was saying because of Sanja's running, incomprehensible commentary. Ted, for his
part, has been on the receiving end of a sh*t-storm lately, because, get this.......he took a day off.
Can you believe it?!? The nerve! Ted just finished up his three months of unpaid labor, and apparently
discussed with one of the higher-ups a schedule to work part time at night. So the day after his
internship ended Ted took the day off, and was waiting to hear what his new schedule would be. This break in
service might as well have constituted a national disaster for all the tension and stress it caused.
James spent 40 minutes on the phone with John (who, mind you, is in Asia) discussing what happened.
James: "John, I just don't know what happened. I mean, where IS he??"
John: "We need to get to the bottom of this!!"
James: "Yes John, we do! Immediately! I mean, why isn't he here??"
John: "I don't know, I'm in Thailand. I can't deal with this! But we need to get to the bottom of it!!"
James: "Yes John, we do!! I just don't know what happened."
John: "We need to straighten this out IMMEDIATELY!!"
(and so on)
Get to the bottom of this? Huh? Mind you, Ted had been "missing" for exactly one day, and we all knew he
was taking the day off. I am brand new and was already 'to the bottom of this'....uh, Ted took a day
off. One day after three months of round the clock service, before he started up on the night shift.
This conversation should have taken 40 seconds and included the seemingly obvious solution, which was to
call Ted and see what day he would like to start nights. Ironically, sometime during this pressure
cooker of a conversation, Ted called the studio on the other line, but the fact that he called was never
relayed to James or John, because nobody wanted to get involved in the sh*t-storm. Ted came in at 4:30 that
same day. Not really cause for such extreme alarm.
Actually, the studio seems to fall into full-blown panic mode over little to nothing routinely, so I
shouldn't be surprised. For example, everyone is in a full-blown panic over scanning. John has 30 years of
film scans that need to be edited, and apparently although they have been sitting untouched for, well,
the duration of my life and then some, if they are not attended to IMMEDIATELY there is going to be big
trouble. People are frantic. James is putting us on a schedule of hundreds of scans a week, which my own
pace can't even begin to accommodate. I actually thought James was going to make me stay all weekend to
do more scanning, which is crazy since there is no reason that this is any more pressing today than in,
say, 1982. Or 1994. Or 2006 for that matter. John actually got me on the phone from Burma and told me to
drop what I was doing immediately and get to the scanner. And since what I was doing was receipt
ordering/falafal delivery, I was happy to oblige.
The problem is this: New Yorkers, as a whole, are insane.
I have come to decide that there is no way around reaching this conclusion. Let me paint you a picture:
My friend Arty, a typical fellow, is heading to work. Which means he is heading to the subway. He might
even be listening to an iPod. In no version of this scenario is he harassing anyone. Yet what happens to
Arty as he tries to make his way to work? He gets punched in the back by a random man. Yes, punched in
the back. This does not stop or even particularly distress Arty. It surprises him, yes, but nothing
more. This is New York, after all.
I myself encountered a likely crazy woman last week whose ears were stuffed with cotton. Which, for those
of you who followed my adventures in Peru, might bring back memories of Lyle, the cotton-eared grandfather
who pulled out a knife when our bus got trapped in a mob of protesting Peruvian villagers. I miss Lyle.
My more recent cotton-eared friend simply wanted to talk to me about jackets – what I thought of her
jacket (was it too ‘young’ for her?), what she thought of mine (nice fabric, but did it require dry
cleaning?) and so on. Of course my answers to her inquiries probably didn’t mean much. She did have
cotton in her ears. Which I might want to consider myself, to screen out Sanja.
My friend Bill (and in this case by “friend” I mean random 19 year old who is also an indentured
servant) was recently harassed on the street by a man who took extreme issue with his shoes. Bill was
wearing unlaced, silver sneakers, clearly meant to be fashionable. And as he was walking along, probably
feeling good (or at least neutral) about his footwear, out of nowhere a completely normal looking businessman
starts yelling to him: “Hey, tie your shoes!” (note: It is clear that Bill has intentionally left his
shoes untied). “Huh?” says Bill. “They’re supposed to be like this.” To which the man becomes
infuriated. “You actually LIKE your shoes like that? Your SILVER shoes!? What are you, TEN!??” The man
was VERY angry with Bill’s choice of footwear, but what exactly offended him is hard to pinpoint.
This reminds me. (Ok, nothing reminded me of this story, I just want to tell it). A few weeks ago I was
getting a facial back in Boston, and I was led into what was clearly meant to be a relaxing atmosphere:
dimmed lights, low music, etc. And since I was in a relaxing atmosphere I myself wanted to be relaxed. So
as my facial-ist (is that a word?) hands me a small robe and tells me to take off my top and lie down
under the covers, I ask her "should I take off my pants?" I mean, I wanted to take off my pants. It
would be more comfortable under all those covers to have no pants on. "Uh, no, no, just your shirt."
Damn. Why did I even ask? Of course she would tell me no - as you recall, this was a facial, meaning she
would be dealing exclusively with my face. Under no circumstances would it be necessary to have my pants
off. So as she leaves the room I ponder my choices. Do as I am told (perhaps the wisest choice), or take
off my pants anyway, get comfortable, and hope she doesn't notice. Clearly I choose the latter. I
figured I would be able to take off my pants, hide them under my purse, and hurry under the covers before
she saw a thing. She would never know and never care that I had taken off my pants and disregarded her
explicit instructions not to do so. Well, I wish I had pondered my choices a bit faster, because by the
time I decided upon a course of action and got my pants off, the facial-ist re-appears to find me
inappropriately clad in the middle of the room. "Oh, ah, hi!" I say. "I just decided to, ah, well, take
my pants off...." Obviously. She looked none too pleased and a bit perplexed, but what can you do? I
don't believe this was ever an episode of Seinfeld, but it really should have been. George and Elaine
both would have taken their pants off in my situation.
Liz
p.s. Bob Barker is backing an "LA Pet Spay" law. I thought all (and by all I mean "none") of you might be
interested in that.
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