Going, going, gone
Two more days of work, two brief media appearances, and then off I go for a weekend in the Hamptons with a few friendly colleagues.
A conference call this morning with the board, who are coming around to being properly appreciative of the company's direction and the hard work its CEO has put into guiding it that way. For most of the time, I doodled and read yesterday's boxscores, and let them argue among themselves about what to do next. They like to feel listened to and appreciated in turn - remarkably easy to accomplish over interstate phone lines.
CNN tonight, only a debate segment on some hotshot journalist du jour's talk show, but it's primetime and should be a prime bluster opportunity. I'm going up against a rising star in the genetics field, a telegenic scientist from Belgium or wherever - he'll wipe the floor with me. Can't wait. I'll do my best to get in my main talking points: mutant registration, "a success upon which we can - we must! - build toward deeper understanding, closer cooperation, and stronger security"; Jacobs, "a brave leader who has called Americans to consider what is most important to the nation's prosperity"; Lowe, "whom history will judge as having presided over the most difficult questions this country has ever faced, and with admirable dignity and grace under unimaginable pressure"; and so on and so forth, and I cannot snicker, cannot roll my eyes. (Haven't yet, but you never know.) I'll be sober and sincere, but increasingly flustered and angry as the egghead digs into me, as I'm sure he will, and more power to him, playing into the game that way. All I have to do is tie my hyperbole to all our opponents, go down in flames in the face of calm and rational science, and thus add another stain by association.
Tomorrow night I'm doing an in-studio interview for something called The Colbert Report. Bumped Ralph Nader (what a joke he is) for the privilege. Jamie's a fan. He told me yesterday that under no circumstances am I to mention bears on-camera. Must be something to do with that attack in Tennessee. Also, the host apparently only plays a bombastic, closed-minded pinhead on TV. Well, so do I. Should work out just fine.
Then . . . then. A half-day at work on Friday, to beat the traffic, and I might as well give Zoe McMillan - Zenith - a little more lead-line. Move away, move back, move at random, keep her guessing . . . Pigeons given randomly dispensed corn will peck that key to death, literally, because the unpredictability fucks with their featherheads and they just can't stop. Same principle works for slot machines (will this be the pull that scores you a jackpot? What about this one? Or this one?) and, sometimes, the oldest game in the books.
I deserve a few days out of town, and the time away should afford me clear space in which to think about what to do next - not with the company, not my public and professional responsibilities, but my other ventures, the secret and the oh, so private.
A conference call this morning with the board, who are coming around to being properly appreciative of the company's direction and the hard work its CEO has put into guiding it that way. For most of the time, I doodled and read yesterday's boxscores, and let them argue among themselves about what to do next. They like to feel listened to and appreciated in turn - remarkably easy to accomplish over interstate phone lines.
CNN tonight, only a debate segment on some hotshot journalist du jour's talk show, but it's primetime and should be a prime bluster opportunity. I'm going up against a rising star in the genetics field, a telegenic scientist from Belgium or wherever - he'll wipe the floor with me. Can't wait. I'll do my best to get in my main talking points: mutant registration, "a success upon which we can - we must! - build toward deeper understanding, closer cooperation, and stronger security"; Jacobs, "a brave leader who has called Americans to consider what is most important to the nation's prosperity"; Lowe, "whom history will judge as having presided over the most difficult questions this country has ever faced, and with admirable dignity and grace under unimaginable pressure"; and so on and so forth, and I cannot snicker, cannot roll my eyes. (Haven't yet, but you never know.) I'll be sober and sincere, but increasingly flustered and angry as the egghead digs into me, as I'm sure he will, and more power to him, playing into the game that way. All I have to do is tie my hyperbole to all our opponents, go down in flames in the face of calm and rational science, and thus add another stain by association.
Tomorrow night I'm doing an in-studio interview for something called The Colbert Report. Bumped Ralph Nader (what a joke he is) for the privilege. Jamie's a fan. He told me yesterday that under no circumstances am I to mention bears on-camera. Must be something to do with that attack in Tennessee. Also, the host apparently only plays a bombastic, closed-minded pinhead on TV. Well, so do I. Should work out just fine.
Then . . . then. A half-day at work on Friday, to beat the traffic, and I might as well give Zoe McMillan - Zenith - a little more lead-line. Move away, move back, move at random, keep her guessing . . . Pigeons given randomly dispensed corn will peck that key to death, literally, because the unpredictability fucks with their featherheads and they just can't stop. Same principle works for slot machines (will this be the pull that scores you a jackpot? What about this one? Or this one?) and, sometimes, the oldest game in the books.
I deserve a few days out of town, and the time away should afford me clear space in which to think about what to do next - not with the company, not my public and professional responsibilities, but my other ventures, the secret and the oh, so private.