Pure aggression

Artist's rendering of me angry in Los Angeles

It's no secret that I am a child when it comes to dealing with anger, rejection or humiliation. When I was 12 I kicked a hole in the dry wall because my beloved Lakers lost the NBA championship to the Bulls. Granted, I was literally a child at the time but things haven't really gotten better into "adulthood".

So with that in mind let me indulge myself by publicly mocking the manager of the NuArt Theatre in Los Angeles, California. Why? Gather 'round, children:

Recently, I went to L.A. with FOJ partner Bobby and 2 other friends. We did typical L.A. things like swim in the ocean, ogle wanna-be actresses on Hollywood Blvd and eat overpriced things. One night for laughs we decided to go to the NuArt Theatre to see a midnight screening of the cult "classic" "Rocky Horror Picture Show". Now, I've seen Rocky Horror many times both on video and live and am well aware of the inherent annoyances of listening to pasty white nerds yelling things at a screen that can't respond to them. That's all fine and tolerable. What I don't have patience for is bloated, washed up managers putting on a show for half naked teenagers just to stroke his crumbling ego.

We first caught wind of said manager when we arrived early to the theatre to pick up our tickets. Since I work for the same company I knew I could get in for free so I called ahead to make sure we could get some free tickets. At least I tried to. Their direct line went automatically to voicemail repeatedly so I just left a message and hoped for the best. It is important to note that at this point in the story I am not angry that they aren't answering their phone just concerned that I will have to sweet talk the box officer when I get there so as to avoid paying $10 for a ticket. When we arrived at the box office I explained the situation to the girl in the box office to which she politely (keyword politely) asked if we answered our phones in Seattle on shift. I told her we did and she seemed surprised by this but not in any way angry or offended. She even gave us advice on where to get food in the area. We went inside to use the bathroom and were greeted by a smile-less lumbering sack of a dude named Marc. He informed us with a minimum of effort that we could just use the bathroom quickly but then we had to leave. Fair enough. I'm used to the jaded cynicism that goes along with dealing with the public on a daily basis. I then witnessed him accosting an old man for not having his tickets ready and mentally made fun of him. We got our (free) tickets, got some food and came back for the midnight madness.

Upon my first spotting of a fat, pale nerd awkwardly yelling directions to the underage crowd I should have followed my instincts and fled to do something more fun like getting hit with a bag of oranges. But I ignored those evolutionary instincts and stuck with it. We finally got ushered into the confines of the NuArt and took our seats in the very back row.

We were then subjected to about an hour of "comedy" from a man who might have once had a promising career as a host at a TGI Fridays but got caught up in the world of comedy after being inspired by Dane Cook and turned his back on any sort of steady income. Since he's old enough to buy beer for the 18 year olds beguilingly in charge of security he gets to do what felt like a 2 hour long "set" of rape jokes, ball talk and jokes that were essentially tarted up versions of asking the audience if any niggers were in the crowd.

Then he cleared the way for some good ol' fashioned corporate shilling from our buddy Marc, the manager of the NuArt. But before the DVD hawking could begin Marc felt the need to single out "the folks from Seattle". At this point I figured we were just in store from some zingers about Starbucks, Kurt Cobain, flannel, rain or all of the above. And yes, we did get subjected to a couple of those innovative jokes. But then he called us motherfuckers for "making fun of the staff for NOT ANSWERING THEIR FUCKING PHONE!". Yeah, fuck us, right? For making conversation. He then proceeded to rip on us and our home theatre some more. We all pretended to not be from Seattle right quick and waited out the verbal lashing from the manager who was clearly a failed actor of some type struggling to deal with the fact that he sold popcorn for a living at the age of 40. I mean, fuck that guy. We simply explained the situation of not being able to get on the phone with anyone in order to get in for free, not to rip on them for being lazy assholes.

Then we watched the first hour of Rocky Horror before leaving in a huff. Anyways, I just want to re-state that THE (assistant) MANAGER OF THE NUART IS A HUGE ASSHOLE AND SHOULD GET THE STICK OUT OF HIS ASS AND LEARN HOW TO DEAL WITH THE WORLD BETTER. Thanks for the free tickets, asshole. Hope the 15 year old pussy was as good as you wanted it to be. Good luck on that next audition.

Suck my rain soaked dick,
Jason