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Three plays co-written with Mike Davis-

Crenshaw Family Reunion

Beauty and the Deceased

Night of the Livid Dad (one-act)

One play co-written with Kathy Holland-

Warren’s Peace

Are all available at:

Coming Soon: A new one-act co-written with Kathy Holland-

Jobbed

Will be available at:

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&field-keywords=quentin%20tippler

Novels under the pen name Quentin Tippler-

Hats Off For Homicide

And Coming Soon:

On the QT: The Collected Short Fiction of Quentin Tippler

Are for sale at:

Novels under the pen name Carl Stafford-

Son of Mann

And Coming in 2014:

Grandsons of Mann

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&field-keywords=carl+stafford&rh=n%3A133140011%2Ck%3Acarl+stafford

Anything But Objective

There was a time that I was regional manager for a string of bookstores. The responsibility of hiring new employees was mine and I took it very seriously, poring over resumes looking for inconsistencies, checking references, etc. But there was always one item at the top that you could skip over, that being "Objective". It was always the same basic statement. It would be some variation on this...

"My objective is to join a company that would allow me to use my skills in a manner that would be mutually beneficial, in a position that offers financial rewards and possibility of advancement."

And if you believe that one, I've got some Blockbuster Video stocks I'd like you to buy. Often, after an extensive interview process, the best candidate would show up for their first day of work dressed for anything but success, toting an attitude last seen during a Richard Burton whiskey bender, wondering at what point I would acquiesce and offer them the position of vice president of Exxon.

What would an "Objective" look like if we were to be completely honest? I thought it might go something like the following:

I want a job where I can make the most amount of money for the least amount of work. I want a salary that can maintain an opulent lifestyle, while giving me responsibilities so small it would embarrass Paris Hilton.

As for the benefits, I want it all. 401k, vision, dental, short term disability, long term disability, and a health care plan that recognizes lasik surgery, hair transplants and penis enlargement as a right and not a privilege. Give me a prescription drug benefit that would make Johnny Cash come back to life.

I want the corner office, with the private bathroom, and a window. Not facing the dumpster, but the parking lot, where I can see my Porsche. You guessed it…company car. I’m going to need a laptop that I can take home for personal use, and yes, the file you’ll see marked Naughty Nurses is a business proposal.

Give me an expense account, a generous one, with cash advance capability. I’ll turn in receipts to an accountant that understands that sometimes, the way to land the big customer means high priced hookers and high quality blow.

I’ll require a female co-worker…blond and blue eyed, with breasts the size of my head and a butt that’s shaped like an apple. I don’t mind working for a woman…as long as she’s the sort of supervisor that rewards an average amount of effort with concert tickets, sizable bonuses and enthusiastic oral sex.

I’ve taken sensitivity training, so I have learned that women don’t like being called bitches and sluts. I now confine myself to terms like “broad” and “skirt”.

I’m not a big picture guy, and I can’t be bothered with details, so I will need a personal assistant that “gets me”…and gets my dry cleaning.

And you, human resources person, need to realize that my habit of exposing myself to clients and co-workers is just my way of saying I’m excited to meet you…really excited.

I’ll start every morning at eight…I’ll start getting out of bed that is. I should be into the office around nine, unless I missed the local scores on SportsCenter, in which case, let’s say 9:15. I’ll be in deer camp up north every November and down south every February for spring training, and is there any point in coming in between Christmas and New Years?

I know you’re thinking about asking me to start Monday, but could we make it Tuesday? I’m having the guys over on Sunday for the game, and Monday morning I’m going to have the hangover they saved for Judas.

So, do you think I'd get the job?

Please consider these other items written and/or performed by Marc Holland:

Live performances at:

Three plays co-written with Mike Davis-

Crenshaw Family Reunion

Beauty and the Deceased

Night of the Livid Dad (one-act)

One play co-written with Kathy Holland-

Warren’s Peace

Are all available at:

Coming Soon: A new one-act co-written with Kathy Holland-

Jobbed

Will be available at:

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&field-keywords=quentin%20tippler

Novels under the pen name Quentin Tippler-

Hats Off For Homicide

And Coming Soon:

On the QT: The Collected Short Fiction of Quentin Tippler

Are for sale at:

Novels under the pen name Carl Stafford-

Son of Mann

And Coming in 2014:

Grandsons of Mann

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&field-keywords=carl+stafford&rh=n%3A133140011%2Ck%3Acarl+stafford

Saturday, June 2, 2012

Thin the Herd

There is a problem with health care in this country. Is it too expensive? Yes, it is, but that’s not what I’m complaining about. Are there too few people that have it? Yes, that’s true too, but that’s not what I’m talking about either. The problem is, the health care system in this country is saving the lives of too many stupid people.

This didn’t used to be a problem! Once upon a time, when a stupid person did something stupid and got hurt, as they are want to do, they died. Thin the herd a little bit! Now, it’s technology like crazy, and stupid people’s lives get saved, so they can go on doing stupid things. And you know, Stupid Guy is going to meet Stupid Girl, and one of them will say, “I’ve got a great idea! Let’s get married!” Great! As dangerous as one stupid person is, now we’ve got another moron telling ‘em, “You know you’ll blow your fingers off if you hold that firecracker when you light it. Hold in your teeth”. It’s not stupid plus stupid, it’s stupid times stupid. Now, we have stupid to the second power.

We know they’re going to have kids, don’t we? Now we’ve got stupid times stupid times stupid, stupid cubed. We all know that smart people can have stupid kids. My parents made me add that last line. But, stupid people almost always have stupid kids. We could end up outnumbered!

It’s our own fault, too. When our ten year-old acts like a ten year-old, we say, “Why don’t you grow up?” When Adam Sandler acts like a ten year-old, we give him twenty million dollars a picture and his own production company.

Fortunately, there are a few signs that you’re dealing with a stupid person. You ask the average guy something he doesn’t know, he’ll scratch his head like he’s trying to stimulate his brain and say, “Gee, I don’t know.” Stupid guy says the same thing, but scratches his belly. What, are your brains in your appendix? And good luck to you if you’re talking to the guy who scratches his ass while answering.

Stupid guy is the one in front of you at the register at the dollar store asking the clerk, “How much is this?”

Stupid guy is wearing the “I’m with stupid” T-shirt…inside out.

Stupid guy watches sports on TV, like we all do. But when the instant replay comes on, he figures, “Well, maybe he’ll do better this time”.

It’s popular these days to blame our problems on popular music. And I’m going to do the same thing. Have you heard “Jesus Take the Wheel”? Carrie Underwood sings about a girl whose car goes into a spin and she throws her hands up and says, “Jesus Take The Wheel.” You just know somebody stupid is going to try it! You can almost hear Jesus saying, “No! No! You hold onto the wheel, I’ll help you!”

Besides, what’s he supposed to know about driving? I have it on good authority that Jesus walked everywhere.

Please consider these other items written and/or performed by Marc Holland:

Live performances at:

Three plays co-written with Mike Davis-

Crenshaw Family Reunion

Beauty and the Deceased

Night of the Livid Dad (one-act)

One play co-written with Kathy Holland-

Warren’s Peace

Are all available at:

Coming Soon: A new one-act co-written with Kathy Holland-

Jobbed

Will be available at:

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&field-keywords=quentin%20tippler

Novels under the pen name Quentin Tippler-

Hats Off For Homicide

And Coming Soon:

On the QT: The Collected Short Fiction of Quentin Tippler

Are for sale at:

Novels under the pen name Carl Stafford-

Son of Mann

And Coming in 2014:

Grandsons of Mann

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&field-keywords=carl+stafford&rh=n%3A133140011%2Ck%3Acarl+stafford

Cap and Frown

Last week I attended my daughter’s commencement exercise. The shining faces of the graduates looked to the future with a mixture of ambition, enthusiasm and hope. The speeches given by the valedictorian and the local politicians echoed those sentiments. It was actually kind of shameful. After four years of facts and figures, years where they were encouraged to seek the truth, why did we end their high school career by filling their heads with lies? Oh, if only the speakers had been hooked up to a polygraph, I’m certain the speeches would have come out more like this...

I’m State Senator So-and-so. It’s not a pleasure to be here, sweating my behind off in this robe and ridiculous cap. And this special certificate you gave me? Seriously, I get more excited when the vending machine gives me two candy bars for the price of one.

As you go forward into the world, remember your dreams. You might even want to write them down, because in a couple of years that will be all that is left of them. It’s wonderful that you worked so hard for your grades, but we forgot to tell you one thing. It doesn’t make any difference.

Do you remember that meat head in your geometry class? The one that doodled and slept when he showed up, which was rare? Well, you’re going to work at the same company as he is. You’re going to work overtime, sweat every project and neglect your family, all in the name of that promotion that’s going to make all that hard work worth it. Meanwhile, the meat head will leave early, spend half the day flirting with the girl that answers the phone and looking at pornography on his computer. Again, this is when he shows up. Yet, when it’s time for the promotion, who gets the coveted job? Well, the meat head does of course. Because his father either runs the company or golfs with the man that does.

Forget making a difference. As close as you’ll come is making the same mistakes in a unique manner. Turn around and look at your parents. That’s you in twenty years. You’ll marry badly at least once. You’ll drink too much. You’ll tell your kids, “Because I said so.”

Some of you will seek elective office, wishing to be among the best and brightest, to cure society’s ills. If you get there, after a long struggle, you’ll discover people with the intellectual curiosity of Paris Hilton and the morals of a hyena. Oh, and the meat head will be there, too. He might even be Governor Meat head by now. But you will have worked so hard to get there, you’ll have forgotten the good deeds you planned to do.

Your kids will resent what your generation squandered. You’ll hate their music. Yet, they’ll do their best in school and try to out-work the meat head in their graduating class. If they don’t succeed, they’ll comfort themselves with platitudes like, “Money can’t buy happiness.”

But as I look out over your faces today, I see the meat head, sound asleep in the third row.
I don’t know, he looks pretty happy to me.

Please consider these other items written and/or performed by Marc Holland:

Live performances at:

Three plays co-written with Mike Davis-

Crenshaw Family Reunion

Beauty and the Deceased

Night of the Livid Dad (one-act)

One play co-written with Kathy Holland-

Warren’s Peace

Are all available at:

Coming Soon: A new one-act co-written with Kathy Holland-

Jobbed

Will be available at:

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&field-keywords=quentin%20tippler

Novels under the pen name Quentin Tippler-

Hats Off For Homicide

And Coming Soon:

On the QT: The Collected Short Fiction of Quentin Tippler

Are for sale at:

Novels under the pen name Carl Stafford-

Son of Mann

And Coming in 2014:

Grandsons of Mann

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&field-keywords=carl+stafford&rh=n%3A133140011%2Ck%3Acarl+stafford

Obituary Wary

I’ve reached the age where I’ve started to look at the obituaries in the newspaper everyday. I’m still young enough where it’s a shock if a classmate appears, but I’m old enough that I’m starting to see former teachers and elders from church. After a while, I started reading about some of the strangers who just had an interesting picture posted next to the notice.

While I learned a great deal about the recently departed, I started taking the text with a grain of salt. It seems every father was beloved. Every teacher had a love for nurturing minds. Each person listed leaves behind a grieving multitude, who will never be able to replace them. How can this be? What did they write when Hitler died? “He was a good dictator”? “He made great strides in population control”?

When the old codger across the street from me died, all I could remember was how he used to put a traffic cone in his driveway when I held family barbeques, so no one would be able to back onto his precious asphalt in order to get off our dead end street when the event was over. I guess his obituary might say that he was survived by his beloved driveway, but I doubt it did.

Just once, I’d like to see a death notice that told the unvarnished truth. Something like...

In memory of Douglas “My Way or the Highway” Stevens

After a long illness, where he drained our savings with treatments that wouldn’t work, even though he knew he was a goner. Eighty-one years on the planet, though he claimed to be seventy-nine, like that would make a difference.

A pain in the ass to his wife and a puritanical scold to his children, Douglas looked at every situation and then did what was best for him. A lifelong resident of Milwaukee, he was known by few and liked by fewer.

He was a member of Kiwanis, Elk’s and Rotary Club, though the membership scoured their rulebooks looking for ways to get rid of him. Especially despised by the VFW, who remembered him as a coward first and a lying thief second.

He is survived by Mildred, his wife of sixty years, who really appreciates the break; His son Douglas Junior, who plans to mark the one-year anniversary of his father’s death by changing his name to Wilbur; and Albert, who will not attend the funeral because he’s still steamed about his father getting drunk at Christmas and calling his daughter-in-law Betty a whore.

Douglas will be cremated because he wanted to be buried. The family has asked that, in lieu of flowers, send a donation to finance the outhouse that will be built over the unused burial plot.

A memorial brunch is planned, where Duke, Douglas’s prized schnauzer, will be slow-cooked and eaten.

Please consider these other items written and/or performed by Marc Holland:

Live performances at: