Say what you want to say

Posted by random olio

“Say what you want to say.” I love this line from a Saturday Night Live skit. How many times in life do we say what people want to hear? Do you want to go out with me? Inside you are saying: “I am too tired, you bore me, I just need some time to myself.” Instead of being honest with others, we say yes, we go, and sometimes we wish we had just stood up for ourselves and said no. This skit shows how exhilarating it would be if we just said what we were really thinking.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dow2GiOmbZY

Do you feel invigorated after watching? While I am someone who is more often than not going to tell you no and be completely blunt and direct about it. However, even for me there are times when it feels awkward, or when it feels like it is the right thing to do to say yes and go along with things. Usually when we are in those situations we feel how wrong our decision was and that we should have listened to our gut the first time. It is better for us all to: “Say what you want to say” rather than say what we think others want to hear.

What do you think?

A**hole Brown

Posted by random olio

Last week we had dinner with good friends. Somehow during the conversation Comcast came up. Who has not had a problem with Comcast at some point in their television or internet days? They have a monopoly in most local areas. I know we have had no luck in our area. We either have Frontier (an offshoot of Verizon Fios) and Comcast. Frontier was not any better than Comcast in terms of customer service. If you do not use Frontier or Comcast, you have to go with a television service (like DirectTV) and a different company for high-speed internet.

In any case, my friend shared this hilarious story, about a Comcast customer who received their bill and the name on the bill read: “Asshole Brown.” Crazy! Take a peek at the link for an image of the bill. It makes me laugh because it is what I have wanted to say back to Comcast. While we do online bill pay, I wish I could make the payment to Comcast say: “Asshole Comcast.” We have called every month over the past year because every month our bill is not correct.

If you do an online search for “Comcast customer service issues” you will find over 3 million results. Such as this one where a customer recorded the phone calls he had with Comcast. I wish we would have done the same thing!

At the moment Comcast is trying to purchase Time Warner Cable, which would make the worst cable provider (customer service wise) have that much more control. Hopefully, if the deal goes through, Time Warner has some sort of interest in the customer. In an era where the customer comes first, Comcast has a lot to learn.

Hopefully Comcast figures out how to stop calling their customers assholes. It will not help their already pissed off customers. A few items to note, Comcast, you: 1) need better customer service 2) should not call customer’s assholes 3) should fix their bills, and follow through with what you say you will do. Not too tall of an ask, right?

#comcastsucks

Boss Baby

Posted by random olio

It is Friday, it has been a long week, and I have a hunch we all need a good laugh. Somehow office banter, jokes, and odd behavior keeps the workday light and potentially fun. Chris and I have been catching up on our DVR and old Saturday Night Live episodes. Since the entire season had already recorded, we watched it backwards, and eventually got to the episode with Louis CK. I have always found him funny, and this particular skit made me laugh.

(Apologies for the ad that you have to allow to play before watching.)

Maybe it is not your kind of humor, but I had this strange desire to try to pull it off in the office for a day. My problem: I would not be able to keep a straight face, and would bust out laughing on my first try.

Have a wonderful long weekend (if you live in the US, and have Monday off).

Are you into Orange?

Posted by random olio

We just finished Season 2 of “Orange is the New Black.” The show is clever, fascinating, complex, and while maybe you figure out the surprises, it still entertains. I remember after watching a few episodes of the first season, I point-blank say to Chris: “I never, ever want to go to prison.” What hell it must be. I am sure that every prison and jail is different, especially depending on its level of security. Regardless of whether it is maximum or lower, I want nothing of it.

“Orange is the New Black” showcases a women’s prison and I can only image what it is like to mix women and men that are locked up. Maybe that is not even possible, which tells you how much I know about prisons…but this blog is not about how much I know about the incarcerated. I did a stint in college for what we called “Community Service” with a local juvenile correctional facility. I facilitated poetry and writing courses with the young men that were in the facility. It was fine to me. I never really felt unsafe. I was definitely a minority, and most of us that frequented were white in a mostly black facility. These boys craved interaction, and having someone focus on them, and so most responded well and seemed quasi interested. Maybe they were just bored, or maybe they had never really been exposed to writing, poetry, and their feelings.

While I was at a fairly nice liberal arts college, the surrounding community was not as affluent, and mostly farming. I am not sure what access they had to literature or exposure to their own writing. Yet since they had plenty of time to themselves each day, writing might have been just what they needed to process their thoughts. And, maybe it was just a way to have interactions with individuals from outside the facility.

Back to the women’s only prison. “Orange is the New Black” was created by Jenji Kohan, the creator of “Weeds” and she is clever. She has taken a mostly unknown cast (with the exception of Jason Biggs, Michael Harney, Laura Prepon, and Pablo Schreiber). Taylor Schilling plays the main character and she has definitely made a name for herself.

If you have not seen it on Netflix, you will want to spend a weekend or two this summer watching both seasons. It will make you appreciate all that you have, your safety, and that being good is not without its benefits.

Love Life or Love Life

Posted by random olio

I love a good oxymoron, a play on words, anything to get my brain to think and wonder. Rob Lowe’s newest book is called: “Love Life.” His title could really be more about his wife (the love of his life), about his love life, or what I think he really meant, which is to love the heck out of the life that is in front of us. In any case, Love Life is an interesting and thought-provoking memoir. I was a fan of his first autobiography, “Stories I Only Tell My Friends.” See, I like Rob Lowe. He plays interesting characters. From West Wing to Brothers and Sisters to Californication to Parks and Recreation, not to mention all the movies he has been in. Does Outsiders ring a bell? He does not play the same character again and again (as some actors tend to do), and I love that about him. When I happened across his first book, I thought it would be an annoying, pompous book from a famous Hollywood actor. It was nothing like that.

The writing is good, and while I do not know if he actually wrote it (who ever knows these days) it was still a compelling memoir of his life. He is very transparent about himself, his pros and cons, and you can tell in everything he says how much he loves his wife, two sons, and how important it is to him to be a dad. I loved this quote on the very first page:

“I think it was Alfred Hitchcock who said 90 percent of successful moviemaking is in the casting. The same is true in life. Who you are exposed to, who you choose to surround yourself with, is a unique variable in all of our experiences and it is hugely important in making us who we are. Seek out interesting characters, tough adversaries and strong mentors and your life can be rich, textured, highly entertaining and successful, like a Best Picture winner.” Page 1

It really makes you think about who you surround yourself with, and that while we do not always have a choice of who we interact with each day, we should focus on the situations we can control. Lowe never wanted to live a boring life, and neither should we! So get rid of the boring, the dull, and the uninspiring and bring on the adventure.

And, if you never take the leap and have more adventures, then you may never see success. Sometimes you have to have a few failures to find the gem. He discusses the different shows or movies he was involved in that did not make it off the ground, were cancelled, or just did not get the ratings.

“Maybe I’m in denial, but I don’t believe in ‘flops.’ You try something and it may not work. You try something and this time it might. You never know, and you have no choice other than to keep trying. The only time you flop is when you don’t learn something.” Page 148

Sort of like the Coldplay song, “Fix You” with a favorite line 0f mine: “If you never try you’ll never know.” I strongly believe that the tough times and disappointed moments turn into beautiful works of art. Sometimes we just have to have extreme patience as we go through the growing pains.