The Best Hamburger

It's an analogy, don't get hungry.

I heard someone describe Steven Spielberg movies as great hamburgers and Stanley Kubrick films as fine dining. I can’t remember who said it, but I suspect it was somebody who lied about eating at McDonalds. I shouldn’t be glib. The person obviously put a lot of thought into that observation by attaching the word “movies” to Spielberg and unveiling the more prestigious term “films” for Kubrick. Having reviewed their bodies of work, I am comfortable saying that Spielberg definitely made some films and Kubrick released at least a couple of mere movies. I won’t sink low enough to accuse either one of making a flick. I’m too nice for that.

Where I went to college, at CalArts (California Institute of the Arts for short), we went with Andy Warhol’s “Art is a man’s name.” But I was in the animation program and we leaned towards Donald Duck in these philosophical discussions. The idea was that anything creative that human beings do can be labeled as “art”. Whether it’s “Leonardo da Vinci good” is up to the masses, the passage of time, or possibly those with an expensive degree.

It’s subjective, people! Like love. Or comedy. Or, god help us, candy corn.

What does this have to do with comic strips? I don’t know. This is what my brain does in the middle of the night when I should be sleeping. I think of my Design professor proclaiming that Salvador Dali was the great artist of the 20th century, not Picasso.

I think he was wrong about both of them. It was Charles Schulz. Charles Schulz drew abstract, passionate figures that resonated with the entire world, more so than Picasso. Surrealism? Schulz made the image of a dog on his back on top of his doghouse a common sight. An expected sight. So wild. Picasso and Dali were just better at design. It was my design teacher making the argument after all.

See? It’s all subjective. I’d give my design professor my thoughts on all of this, but he’s long dead from old age. I always think of my best retorts too late. Like, fifteen years too late.

We’re going to be a bit Tabby heavy with this posting, because I’m going over last August. Tabby chose to shine in August. This observation was made as we were cowering from a possible tornado during a storm that sounded like the rain had actually breached the roof. Customers were rushing in and saying we should be happy to be at work. I was not.

I didn’t have an umbrella, either.

I spent many years recovering from saying “yes” to questions posed by higher ups. When a manager actually announces that they have a question I’ll put serious money, up to five dollars, that they’re asking a favor.

Will you do overtime? Will you come in on Sunday? Can you delay your wedding until second shift? Will you temporarily become the manager of the worst store, yes, that one in the crime-ridden section of town that makes you question life itself, just for a few weeks, because the few weeks will turn into a few months and you will greet each day with the same kind of survival bewilderment as a wounded soldier crossing a vast desert? Will you?

These are all hypotheticals, of course.

I worked for one day at Universal Studios. One thing I learned during orientation was that the head of Universal at that time started out in a job like mine. I decided very quickly not to become him. I didn’t have the “can do” spirit to drive 45 minutes each way to earn minimum wage, which was really short sighted because I bet if I had worked hard and just hung in there I could’ve shown the world that the head of Universal’s unlikely career path was an absolutely unrepeatable fluke.

There’s a lot more to fitting into a job than the actual duties you need to perform.

Berle’s still in recovery from the prior week. I gave him a good two months off of the strip so he could recover, break more bones, recover again, then return. It’s not easy being the stooge.

Security questions are starting to want more information than I can provide. The middle name of my first grade school crush? I think computers think we’re all computers too.

I used to think people were being dramatic when they exclaimed that they were being punished for being nice. Then I worked with customers.

If you can bail water out of a boat faster than new water is coming in, then you have a career in retail.

I know a number of people who are working up to ten hours less a week while the stock price is higher than ever. “Less is more” is kind of a team designation. I’m on the Less team. I have no idea how to get on the More team because those players won’t even look at me.