The chronicles of CNN's boot camp known as The VJ Program. We Peon Warriors began meeting here to share humiliating and humorous stories about early encounters with CNN anchors, directors, producers and brutal cafeteria employees. We divulged what it was like to be broke, foolish and referred to not by name but by function.
And while we've moved on in life...the inner Peon still remains.
Check it, Peons: Your CNN Humiliation Compartmentalized
This one's for special, long-time reader we'll call Serm:
Picture it, CNNI Master Control. 1999. A hapless, hungry employee comes back from a disappointing expedition to the atrium to rustle up some vittles. Employee #1 says incredulously: "I can't believe it. Arby's ran out of roast beef!" To which Employee #2 says in a stupid, nasally voice: "Arby's ran out of roast beef? Why, that's like CNN runnin' outta news!"
And thus, an endlessly repeated techie catch phrase was born.
Surely you've all heard the cliche, "One man's trash is another man's treasure." Well, I was just reading through some of the top odd news stories of 2009 when I came across this:
A British academic who spent seven years collecting the dung of rare lizards in the Philippines was devastated when a clean-up team threw it out of his laboratory with the trash. "To some people it might have been just lizard shit... but to me it represented years of painstaking work," he said.
You see that? Cliches really are rooted in reality. Now if I could just find concrete evidence of someone actually blowing smoke up another person's ass, I'd be happy.
Incredible Real Estate Opportunity: just in time for Christmas! Spacious snow hut in the middle of Manhattan's beautiful Dag Hammarskjold Plaza. Unique floor plan, close to public transportation. Pet friendly. NO FEE! RENT FREE! Hurry! This offer won't last...
Since Christmas is almost here, I'm giving you Peon Confidential readers a lovely gift... Those of you who know me are aware that my mom is a crazy Finnish woman. She came to North America with 217 bucks in her back pocket, speaking three words of English. Over the years, she's managed to explore both her adopted home and the English language in fascinating ways. This woman doles out advice and opinions with a special flair. I'm sharing some of her greatest hits with you today:
1. ON GROCERY SHOPPING: I don't understand people who buy those big cans of things in bulk. Why do they do it? A gallon of cling peaches is such a big commitment.
2. ON AIRPLANES: I hate that airplane smell. You know what that smell is? I tell you. People fart on the plane and it goes into the ventilator system and zooms around and around. It has no place to go! It's trapped. The whole flight people are smelling the same fart. So that's what airplane smell is: recycled fart.
3. ON GETTING ME MY FIRST BRA: (Giving my 12-year-old, unicorn t-shirted chest a stern once over) Yeeech. Saara, you've got the little fat man titties. We're getting you a bra.
4. ON SEX: Hey Saara. Come here. Sit down. You know about the penis? You know about the vagina? You know about the penis going into the vagina? Well, don't do it. It is so boring.
5. TO MY FATHER'S FRIEND WHO TRIED TO GET HIM TO INVEST IN A PYRAMID SCHEME: You touch my savings, I slit your throat!
6. TO A WOMAN AT A PARTY WITH EXTREMELY LONG FAKE NAILS: How do you wipe yourself with those things?
7. TO MY FATHER AFTER HE PULLED HER AWAY FROM THE WOMAN WITH EXTREMELY LONG FAKE NAILS: Don't eat that casserole. I think she brought it.
8. ON THE NEIGHBOR: She's a loosey. What? Okay fine. Floozy, Loosey. I don't care what the English word is! She spread her legs for a fat man.
9. ON THE LOCAL SHERIF: He has a herpes. What? No a hair-peez! You know, a wig. Looks like shit too.
10. ON THE SMELL OF A CERTAIN CAFE IN ATLANTA: (Sniffing loudly) This place...This place...it stinks like unwashed vagina.
Don't ask why, but I went down a winding path of nostalgia yesterday that wound up at Scratch n' Sniff stickers. Then I found the above photo. It surprised me. Because I don't recall them making Scratch n' Sniff stickers scented like crabs, footballs and smelly sneakers. Must have blocked that out. So- In case these stickers are revived for a new generation, might I suggest the top 10 worst potential scents for Scratch n' Sniff stickers. Avoid these aromas at all costs:
1. Any communal phone in any newsroom. No amount of antiseptic wipes can knock out that nasty funk.
2. Rolling Stone Keith Richards' morning breath
3. A fart on an airplane
4. Microwaved tuna
5. The hallway in my building on a Thursday night. Some neighbor has decided that's the night to explore culinary treats plagued with waaaaay too many onions.
6. Port Authority, NYC
7. The third bathroom stall at my gym
8. An Irish pub just after last call and the lights come on
9. CNN's Hard News Cafe Brunswick Stew
10. Flop sweat during the 3rd hour of the Academy Awards broadcast. It has to smell in the Kodak Theatre at that point, right? With a roomful of losers? (Yeah yeah, it's an honor just to be nominated...)
Have I got news for you today! I'd like to preface this post by telling you that I try to do my part for the environment. I recycle my bottles, cans and newspapers. I re-use the plastic containers from my take-out meals. I use the subway. But I am deeply excited to take it to the next level...
An Irish company has created the world's first green vibrator!
DUBLIN (AFP) – When world leaders in Copenhagen argue for days in knife-edge talks to save the planet, what more fitting way to relieve the tension than an environmentally-friendly vibrator? The global sex toy industry is worth an annual 15 billion dollars (22 billion euros), and uses up a mountain of batteries in the process, many of which end up as toxic waste. But now one Irish company reckons they've got the solution to shake up the market: a vibrator they are calling the world's first-ever "green technology sex toy". The Earth Angel, described as "eight inches (20 centimetres) with a sleek white finish", is a wind-up vibrator which comes with a handle built into the bottom. "You just flip out the handle, grab a hold of it there, and you just wind it," said Janice O'Connor, the co-founder with her husband Chris, of Caden Enterprises which makes the gadget. "So for four minutes of doing that, you should generate enough power to give you 30 minutes of full-on, right-to-the top vibrations," she told AFP. She added: "I've only used it a couple of times, and it's fantastic. It's very intense, and sometimes, at the top level, depending on the person that's using it, it can actually be too intense sometimes. "That's why we have four different levels on it." The vibrator is made of 100 percent recyclable materials and the couple hope it will encourage sex toy fans around the globe to do their bit for the environment.
Three cheers for mother earth and good vibrations.
As we reach the bitter embers of this tumultuous decade, no two figures embody it better than White House gatecrashers Tareq and Michaele Salahi. They mirror everything we became in this decade: greedy, fame-hungry frauds. It’s the “fake it till you make it” adage personified. Even in an era where the internet makes it easier than ever to double check backgrounds, facts and figures, this attractive couple looked the part and that was enough. Whether it was a White House party, or in Michaele’s case, performing routines with the Washington Redskins cheerleaders. These two are fitting symbols of this decade’s deceitful behavior; reflected in inflated real estate values, fraudulent Enron projections, fictional memoirs and the desert mirage that is Dubai,with its indoor skiing rinks, man made lakes and 60 billion dollar debt that won’t be repaid anytime soon. Not only was fabrication rampant during this decade, it was profitable. Just ask Bernie Madoff.
We went to war in Iraq over phantom weapons of mass destruction and went to concerts by singers who don’t actually sing. We tuned into scripted “reality” shows and breathlessly watched manufactured news about the Balloon Boy.
We willfully ignored the truth when it didn’t suit our needs. We lied to ourselves as well as others. We spent more money than we had and we knew it. We demanded destination weddings we couldn’t afford and tried to keep up with the fake celebrity lifestyle we saw in glossy magazines. Then when it all collapsed, we pulled ourselves away from our flat screen TVs in utter surprise. The truth quite literally hurt.
So as we raise a toast on New Year’s Eve, let’s try to make resolutions we can actually keep. No reason to start the next decade with unrealistic expectations. We’ve had plenty of that already.
I present you with a list of women that I'm reasonably sure Tiger Woods has not slept with. It's not a long list. But it's what I came up with. And of course, I could be mistaken...
1. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg 2. TV Personality Barbara Walters 3. That Duggar woman in Arkansas with 18 going on 19 kids whose vagina is probably so cavernous that it: a) has an echo and b) could provide a safe haven for illegal immigrants. Alert Lou Dobbs. 4. Me 5. Rae Dawn Chong (Because he'd have to find her first. Honestly. Where has she been?) 6. French Canadian power balladeer Celine Dion 7. Dog the Bounty Hunter's Buxom Ex-wife 8. Famed CNN Cafeteria Hashslinger Roz 9. Judge Judy 10. Southern Cooking Personality/Flying Ham Victim Paula Deen
With just under a month before the start of a sparkling, new decade, I think it's time for a round up of the trends we've lived through over the past 10 years. I'll even admit to the ones I participated in, and the ones I managed to avoid:
A List of Trends I Managed to Avoid:
1. Crocs 2. Uggs 3. Freedom Fries 4. Wearing copious amounts of red white and blue clothing, pins, and other flag-related paraphernalia during the first 3 months after 9/11 5. Flipping over homes for profit 6. Foreclosure 7. Making a sex tape that was "accidentally" leaked/emailing naughty photos of myself that wound up online 8. Making videos of babies/kittens/dogs and posting them on YouTube 9. Sending said videos to cube mates, hoping they'd experience a "cutegasm" 10. Doing a "Single Ladies (Put A Ring On It)" homage 11. Carrying around a yoga mat 12. Ridiculously large/expensive handbags 13. Having a Destination Wedding 14. Showcasing "whale tail" with super low rise jeans 15. Twitter
A List of Trends that I Participated in Willfully:
1. Big, stupid sunglasses 2. Sequins in the daytime 3. The ironic t-shirt 4. Being shut out of/annoyed by the status quo and carving out my own niche as a result 5. Being a Permalance employee 6. Sneering at the plight of the uber-wealthy (post-financial collapse) 7. Over using the prefix "uber" 8. Celebrity schadenfreude 9. Writing a blog 10. Canceling my newspaper subscription because I get my news on line (plus someone was stealing it) 11. Bitching about Reality TV but still watching it 12. Obama mania 13. Palin mockery 14. Hanging out at NY restaurants/clubs with lame one word names (Town, Butter, Sway, Salt,) 15. Facebook
Since most people purchase music by cherrypicking singles now, the album is becoming a dinosaur. The idea of actually listening to an entire album as a cohesive piece of art instead of a collection of singles is antiquated. Who knows, this may be the last decade in which a Top 10 Albums List is even attempted. So I'm taking the opportunity while I can. Obviously, I'm no professional music critic. If you hate this list, or think I've missed something or added something absurd, go ahead and call me a jackass. It won't sting much. But make sure you tell me what you'd have chosen instead. I came up with this list through an unscientific process of looking through my i-tunes play counts, personal preference, and pure whimsy. Have at it, Peon Confidential readers:
1. Is This It? -The Strokes I had just moved to New York when this album came out. I remember standing in the Virgin Record Store in Union Square (which, sadly, like Foxy Lady is no longer there) listening to the whole album, start to finish, wearing those smelly public headphones. I must have looked like a moron, grinning, nodding and closing my eyes for the length of the album. And I'm glad I bought the import CD. The English album cover on the top is a million times more iconic than the American cover:
2. Chutes Too Narrow-The Shins "Garden State" is to "The Graduate" as The Shins are to Simon and Garfunkle. Discuss.
3. The White Stripes-Elephant Shrieking, sexy vocals, bluesy riffs, strange lyrics, red, white and black outfits. Plus, the Led Zeppelin influences are a treat for a Pacific Northwestern girl like me, where Gettin' The Led Out is a regional obsession.
4. Funeral-Arcade Fire
For the sheer number of instruments per song, people on stage and misty eyed hipsters in the audience.
5. Girls Can Tell-Spoon This band manages to turn a song about dad's fitted shirt into a rock anthem. Now that's cool.
6. Speakerboxxx/The Love Below-Outkast Incredible mix of styles from Andre 3000 and Big Boi. "Hey Ya" is perhaps the best single of the decade. I can't picture any other song that could have moved a roomful of dull, pasty CNBC employees at a boring holiday party in a New Jersey hotel to get up and "shake it like a Polaroid picture". Yes, this happened. I witnessed it with my own eyes. Plus, if you never saw this Peanuts remix, do yourself a favor and check it out:
7. Back to Black-Amy Winehouse Show me a woman who hasn't lived Amy's songs at least once and I'll show you a liar.
8. Alright, Still-Lily Allen Yeah, yeah. I can hear the groans from you serious music fans. Well, to borrow the title of another Lily Allen song, Fuck You. This album is like candy. Every song is a delicious pop confection, and the sly lyrics are hilarious. Plus, Lily is my kind of pop star. She never hides behind any sweet, virginal facade. She misbehaves with rock stars on first class flights to Tokyo. She makes an ass of herself at awards shows. She talks shit about other famous people. What's not to love about Lily?
9. Franz Ferdinand-Franz Ferdinand- Just because almost every song on here is a summons to the dancefloor. Which shouldn't really be a reason to put it on this list, except that I am a really fucking bad dancer. So this is an achievement. I'll hear the opening chords to "Take Me Out", and think, "Yep. I've been served. It's a sonic subpoena." Then off I'll go to embarrass myself in front of strangers. (See also: their follow up album "Tonight" which offers up sonic subpoenas "No You Girls" and "Ulysses".)
10. Music For Men-Gossip Beth Ditto is the most original front person to emerge in years. Now that I think about it, this decade launched quite a few interesting female singers, and not in the tedious, yeast infected Lilith Fair way: Beth Ditto, Karen O, Lady Gaga. Whether or not you like what they do, they're certainly doing it in a unique way.
Honorable Mention:
Less Sophistication-The Jessica Fletchers
Very few people have heard of this band. This album doesn't have a single review on i-tunes. But I love it. It's the sound of a sunny Midsummer Night festival. And how can you not love a band that takes its name from your granny's favorite mystery program?
So- Every so often, there will be a news report about some deluded individual who sees either The Virgin Mary or Jesus in a potato chip, a pizza pan or an egg sandwich. (For some reason, these people never see Moses or Elijah.) The blessed item will often be placed under a glass pie cover to respect and preserve it. Citizens of the hamlet where this miraculous sighting took place will gather 'round it, bearing witness to religious history. (These sightings rarely happen in large cities, presumably because people are too busy to notice such things.)
Well, it's happened again.
This time the lucky visionary is Mary Jo Coady of Methuen, Massachusetts, who discovered the face of Jesus on her iron. (See above photo)
Now, maybe I'm not as sophisticated as Mary Jo Coady, but I don't see it. And I've really tried. But all I see is a burnt iron, and I worry about what happened to the clothes she was ironing.
Then I tried to picture the timeline of this miraculous event. Since I wasn't there, I have to fill in the details from my imagination. So I figured the timeline might go something like this:
9:30am: Mary Jo Coady finishes a hearty breakfast, in which for a thrilling moment she thinks she's seen the Virgin Mary in her Eggo Waffle, but ultimately concludes that she was mistaken. She sighs.
9:45am: Mary Jo Coady goes to the laundry room, wearily piling up the clothes she has to iron. She puts on the Adult Contemporary radio station ("The Greatest Hits of Yesterday and Today!") to put a little kick in her step.
10:00am: Mary Jo Coady begins ironing.
10:15am: Mary Jo Coady gets distracted while reminiscing about her exciting and educational trip to Colonial Williamsburg two years ago. The result is that she burns her favorite Quaker Factory sweatshirt.
10:17am: After a brief moment of grief, Mary Jo Coady turns that frown upside down. Because she examines her iron which reveals...the face of Jesus.
10:25am: Mary Jo Coady calls up some friends and tells them about the Heavenly Glory in her laundry room.
11:00am: Mary Jo Coady's coffee klatch descends upon her house to inspect the Blessed Burnt Iron.
11:30am: Over a cup of Maxwell House and pie, one of her friends (the wacky, crazy, fun gal--she's a hoot!) throws out the idea that they should contact the local news station.
11:40am: More coffee.
12:00pm: Amped up on Maxwell House, Mary Jo Coady calls the local news station. The Assignment Desk is enthralled by her tale of religious imagery in domestic drudgery, and they send a reporter to her house.
Thus, Mary Jo Coady has cemented her place in local news lore...
UPDATE: Here I thought my Eggo Waffle bit was sarcastic, but now I find that in Port St. Lucie, FL a woman just sold a pancake that she claims shows a vision of Jesus and Mary. She managed to make a 338.00 windfall from her Holy Pancake.
The Peon Confidential hiatus is over, just in time for me to assist you with your Black Friday shopping questions. And in particular, your porn shop questions...Okay, it's really just the answer to one porn shop question. You see, I went out with some pals recently and learned the answer to a mystery that's been haunting me for far too long.
So, a couple years back a former CNN peon and myself had tickets to a concert at Madison Square Garden. We get there and find that it's been cancelled. Devasted but still in search of fun, we popped into a porn shop around the corner. Within this porn shop we found the usual merchandise: blow up dolls, DVDs, vibrators and those weird plastic pussies that truly creep me out. You know what I'm talking about? They're just these cooters that come in a box. They aren't even attached to a plastic woman. I hate to think about tragic, lonely men pounding away at these things, then rinsing them out and putting them away in their Kmart dressers for use later.
I do not know what I would do if I were dating someone, opened their dresser drawer and found one of these pathetic fake snatches. I suspect the reaction would be the same as when I found a massive roach in my New Orleans bathroom. It was crawling on my toothbrush. Then when I tried to throw out the toothbrush with roach attached...the motherfucker flew at me.I ran out of there so fast that I slipped and banged my head on the wall. Then I called for backup. I'm a tough woman but I have my limits.
Okay. So. Back to the point... There we were in the porn store.
And in the midst of all these seedy sundries, we see three massive stacks of...Delta Burke's book entitled,
"Delta Style: Eve Wasn't A Size 6 And Neither Am I."
We could not figure this out. Who would buy this book here? Does Delta Burke have an audience we don't know about? Do perverts read uplifting celebrity accounts about learning to accept their fat thighs? But mostly it was just an overwhelming thought of...why?
Well, I finally got my answer the other night.
Turns out that in certain places, there is a 70-30 law. Meaning that at least 30% of the merchandise in a porn shop needs to be non-porn related. So Delta Burke and her uplifting book were helping these porn purveyors uphold the law!
Mystery solved. And with that, I'm off to slice a piece of pie for breakfast.
Happy first official day of the Holiday Season to all of you!
Hello Peons!
Just checking in with you to tell you I'm not dead. Neither is the blog. What's dead is my computer. But it's with the nerds at the Mac store, where I can only hope they are treating it with as much love as I do. I cannot tell you how forlorn my desk looks now, with only a cookie crumb infested keyboard on it.
Until my computer and I are reunited, I'd just like to leave you with this bit of information: Southern Cooking Personality Paula Deen was smacked in the face with a ham yesterday.
Back soon with more of the useless shit you've come to expect from this blog...
(Enjoy today's Large Print Edition. No need to dig out those reading glasses. No, I didn't do this on purpose. Not sure what I did wrong, but I can't seem to fix it.)
So- I just read this from the Associated Press:
BROWNSVILLE, Texas – A 19-year-old Brownsville man is jailed on a drug charge after he allegedly went door-to-door trying to sell marijuana. A Brownsville police spokesman says Anthony Carrazco's alleged scheme went awry when he knocked on a police officer's apartment door.
Now, this fellow is an idiot. (Almost as idiotic as a person who can't fix font issues on their blog.) No question there. But it got me to thinking about other goods and services that are best not sold door to door. I came up with this list:
1. Opened tubes of hemorrhoid ointment, accompanied by an offer to help with application
2. Lederhosen
3. "Manager's Special" Ground Beef
4. Dentures
5. Opened boxes of Tampax, accompanied by an offer to help with insertion
6. Internal Organs
7. Whoopie Cushions
8. Tubas
9. Monkeys (That didn't stop 70's cult leader Jim Jones from doing it, however)
10. Opened jars of Vaseline, accompanied by an offer to help smear it someplace
So-
A certain bespectacled, grey-haired curmudgeonly pal of mine had a back stage pass to Metallica at Madison Square Garden last night. (Another pal was in charge of tuning guitars for the band.)
Afterwards, he showed me the above badge and I immediately said,
"Oh, that's subtle."
And he said "What do you mean?"
I said, "Well, that's clearly a pussy."
He said I was wrong. Crazy in fact. And no, he was not being ironic. Of course, he was still a little drunk. Maybe he will sober up and see the truth.
Admittedly, I am painfully aware that us women are shaving/waxing/plucking/laser beaming our nether regions now, so perhaps this photo does not automatically conjure up genital visions.
Point being...
Cast your vote now!
A. Yes, that's a Hairy Clam
B. What the hell are you talking about, you lunatic?
C. Don't I have better things to do?
You know, I have enough people trying to make me feel guilty: PBS with their fund raisers, my mom on the phone, Hallmark with their insistence that I'm a bad friend who doesn't care enough to send the very best if I don't buy their cards. Now Facebook is joining the guilt chorus. I see in my suggestions column that they've taken to putting a friend's face there and saying, "You haven't connected with ___________ on Facebook in a while. Send______________ a message." Better yet, they put: "Help make Facebook better for her."
What is the meaning of this shit? How did I become a Facebook charity work volunteer?
Why is Facebook telling me that I'm an uncaring asshole? Facebook is like one of those irritating, overbearing moms who always tried to mediate grade school conflicts:
Irritating, Overbearing Mom: Wendy, why can't you just forgive Saara for trying to steal your Little Pony, even though I'm sure her family can afford to buy her one and it was very rude of her.
Wendy: No! She's fat and ugly and I hate her!
See? And I understand Wendy's outrage. Truthfully, I still hate her too. Plus, I already had a Little Pony, I just took hers out of spite. And I'd do it again, bitch! So Facebook, stop dropping unsubtle hints about friends I may be neglecting. But if you still want to emulate an Irritating, Overbearing Mom, at least have the courtesy to carpool in an unflattering velour tracksuit, bathed in Elizabeth Arden perfume while you're doing it.
You know the only thing worse than your favorite bar going out of business?
Your favorite bar under new management.
For many years, there was a fantastic New York bar called Under The Volcano on 12 E. 36th Street. It was a murky joint that took its name from Malcolm Lowry's 1947 book about a depressed alcoholic expat in Mexico. There were incredible Dia de los Muertos creatures placed in strategic locations. Candles dripped wax all over the bar. The music was great. The staff could actually translate and explain the literary relevance of a famous quote from the book, which had been painted on the wall: LE GUSTA ESTE JARDIN? QUE ES SUYO? EVITE QUE SUS HIJOS LO DESTRUYAN!
In a dull part of Midtown, this strange place was a beacon of cool in a sea of boring, charmless pubs. Instead of office drones knocking back Budweisers, you'd find punk pioneer Legs McNeil sneering at everyone in the corner. (Okay, I only witnessed this once, but it still counts.)
Well, I went in there recently, and the whole place had been revamped. There were flat screen TVs blaring college football. They'd replaced the spooky amber windows. They'd removed all the Dia de los Muertos art and the dripping candles. The music was shit. They'd painted over the famous quote on the wall.
And yet they've kept the name "Under The Volcano". Why? What the fuck is the point? It's false advertising. Just go ahead and rename it Andy's Ale House or McDuffy's or some other shit.
I won't be back.
Anyone else have a similar story about your favorite bar?
UPDATE: Not sure if the new management reads this blog, but I walked past this place a couple days ago to find that that they've changed the name to The Archive.
Well I am just beside myself.
It used to be that in this world of uncertainty, there were still a few precious things you could count on to remain unchanged:
1. That gross liquid discharge on the top layer of yogurt
2. Acoustic guitarists in Hawaiian shirts playing Jimmy Buffet songs at Florida beach resorts
3. The Hooters Outfits
The original Hooters outfits are the gold standard: Orange, camel toe-inducing shorts, tight tank top with the owl eyes stretched out over pendulous/surgically enhanced tits and of course, the shiny beige pantyhose. This sublime workplace attire was a source of national pride. Now they've gone and changed it to the monstrosity pictured above. Why camouflage? These women do not need to hide in a Vietnamese jungle. They need to serve me fucking hot wings and beer!
Damn. Another piece of iconic American fashion history is relegated to the dusty recesses of our collective consciousness...
