Mucho Maas

A few weeks ago I was on my way back from an early lunch break. As I got near our office, a guy wearing a Treasure Island Media “BUILT TO FUCK” t-shirt and an intense stare comes at me, a bit too close, and says, “You know where there’s a bar around here that’s already open?” I did, and I sent him on his way.

I got upstairs and went to Nick. “What the hell did you do to that guy that he needs to start drinking at 11 a.m.?”

Nick was confused. “I haven’t had any interviews yet today.”

He was just a fan, walking around in a T.I.M. shirt. I always forget that I work for an entertainment company, and that we have things like fans. Fans are for rock groups and movie stars, not for an office full of people just doing what we love to do. It was an interesting moment for me to have a symbol of the thousands of people who also love what we do walk by and ask me for directions.

Since then, I’ve almost reached a Crying of Lot 49 level of Oedipa Maas paranoia. However, instead of seeing the Trystero horn or the W.A.S.T.E. emblem, I see the Jolly Roger totem. Everywhere. Stickers on pickup trucks, flags in tattoo parlors, t-shirts, pirate ships, everywhere. There’s a pirate store in San Francisco, and I sometimes wonder if they’re fucking with me.

This morning Paul forwarded an email to me. One of you saw a picture of Jim Verraros, some gay pop singer-icon-thing that I’d never heard of before, but who is apparently big with the N’Sync crowd, wearing a Jolly Roger shirt on the cover of his “remix” album. The question is this: is this wee twinkie a fan of ours, surreptitiously throwing a bareback shout-out, or did his stylist just happen to be into pirates that day?

Just something to ponder while you tryptophan yourselves into a coma over the weekend. Happy Thanksgiving.

xox