Washed Weekly: Touching Hearts, Martinis, & Parking Lot Wars
A freaking packet, yo.
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Get Up And Teach Him Instead Of Handing Him A Freaking Packet, Yo
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Over a decade ago, one of the most important viral events went down in my hometown of Duncanville, Texas. A young man, Jeff Bliss, had finally had enough. After years of watching teachers teach to standardized tests and hand out freaking packets to uninspired students, Jeff went off.
Let the riot be the rhyme of the unheard. In 2013, Bliss Mania swept the country. Online discourse completely shifted from drone strikes to the failures of No Child Left Behind. He even made Tosh.
We finally made it. Move over Brian Boddicker, Greg Ostertag, and Todd Van Poppel, the face of the Duncanville Panthers has long blonde hair and tells it like it is. In my pre-content life, I even had the pleasure of meeting Jeff as I noticed him walking home from school one day.
Yeah, I was leaving the golf course and pulled over to take a picture with a high school-aged viral sensation. You would’ve done the same thing. Sure, most of my offline friends from college had zero context for me posting this, and I definitely fielded a few “What was that?” texts, but I stand by my decision.
From time to time, Jeff and his legacy will pop up on the timeline, and it always makes me smile. The legend of Bliss gets exposed to a new generation and we are reminded of the greatest generation of Internet. When I was sent this video no less than 29 times this week, I just about fell out of my chair:
Wow. His legacy not only lives on, but it grows stronger. I don’t know where Jeff is now, but I hope he’s doing what he loves. Truth to power.
Leave The Martinis Alone
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I took my first sip of a martini at the age of 4. At least, that’s the earliest I can remember doing it. I remember playing on our front lawn and running up to the porch to take a sip of my dad’s water. It was a double old-fashioned glass filled with gin, olives, and ice. It not only tasted wretched, but it caused me to approach glasses and water bottles of clear liquid in a much more hesitant way.
Growing up, I assumed that’s just what you did when you got older. And when I got older, that’s when I realized that that’s what everyone’s doing.
After emerging from consecutive summers drenched in Aperol Spritzes, the world moved its collective consumption to espresso martinis who haven’t faced much opposition until the recent Guinness resurgence. Somewhere in that timeline, however, martinis became more and more desirable without ever actually becoming the drink.
When first imbibing, we all follow somewhat of the same process when it comes to these. It all begins with an absolutely filthy and briny vodka martini with olives, maybe even blue cheese-stuffed. Then, you dabble with a twist. Maybe you like it, maybe you don’t. And then you begin to drink more gin martinis to give an air of sophistication. Suddenly, all you’re drinking is gin martinis with a little vermouth. You’ve honed in your favorite, you’ve honed in your jet fuel.
But, unfortunately, all good things come with baggage.
Over the last couple years, a trend on Instagram has emerged that won’t go away any time soon. Of course, I’m talking about martini (and other cocktail) recipes based off “it” foods.
Here are a few examples:
I want to be crystal clear here and I will not stutter: We are simply not doing this.
Like you’re seriously going to make a reservation two months in advance, spend an hour getting dressed, Uber to the restaurant, wait for them to prep your table, only to sit down and order a parmesan-infused vodka Cacio e Pepe Martini that’s going to leave a peppercorn between your teeth the rest of the evening? Yeah, okay.
The former waiter in me can’t shake the idea of my tray smelling like fish because some of your Spicy Sushi Roll Martini spilled on it while I approached the table. The pain in my eyes while I tip out the bartender: “Hey man, I’m sorry that table ordered so many Spicy Rigatinis tonight, they were relentless.” It’s depraved behavior.
Me? I’m not a martini snob. Sure, I don’t love them that dirty anymore and I pretty much only order Gibsons when available. But overall, you won’t find me cosplaying Mad Men characters with my at-home bar cart and Bing Crosby playing. Sometimes the best-tasting drink is the one most readily available — and that’s okay.
But when we start dressing up liquor with what essentially equates to a chopped salad marinade, that’s where a line needs to be drawn. We all emerged from The Great Bloody Mary Over-Garnishing of 2015 and it’s now time we band together and decide that food and drink must remain separate entities.
I don’t know when and I don’t know why, but there will be a time where we look back on this trend and realize how bad of a look it was for our generation as a whole. We may be remembered for being assholes, but at least the very least let’s not be remembered for being the assholes who infused their gin with smoked salmon before dinner parties.
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Our Parking Lot is a Warzone: A Timeline
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I sit at my desk as I write this and look at the window where my vehicle is occupying the number one primo spot in our parking lot. It’s a beautiful sight, but it’s a rare one, too. I typically have to settle for a tier 3 spot in the lot, and occasionally I have to park on the street.
A recurring topic on Circling Back the last couple weeks has been the parking lot situation at Washed Media. It’s devolved to the point of me feeling compelled to write about it, so here we are.
To set the stage, we have new neighbors that moved into the building across the lot from us about two weeks ago. We occupy one building of a small, three-building office complex. Each building is a stand-alone structure. I just counted through the window and there are a grand total of 16 parking spots in the lot, plus one (1) handicap spot, which is directly outside our entry point.
Some quick math says each office is allotted about five spots. Building C is the largest of the three so we’ll give them the extra spot. Six, five, and five. Seems fair.
Our lease states that we are guaranteed five spots in the lot. That works out quite well since there are exactly five people who work in our office. Should be no problem! There are, of course, times when guests park in the lot, the occasional contractor hangs around for a few days, and we have a landscaping crew that stops by about once per month. All very normal circumstances that we obviously don’t mind.
Unfortunately, it hasn’t been quite so easy. The following is a timeline from the moment we knew the vacant office had a new tenant, to today. And today, my friends, it's a warzone out there.
January 13
It became clear that we had new tenants as a swarm of contractors descended upon our complex like a half-off sale on square-toed boots in Lubbock, TX. I’m talking three weeks straight of a parking lot full of F-250s and Silverados parked in parking spots and all along the fire zone adjacent to their building. Demo crews, drywall subs, a commercial painting outfit. The works.
It wasn’t only an impossible time to find a spot in peak work hours, but simply backing out of a spot, if you were lucky enough to grab one, became a real bitch, too.
These contractors, subs included, laid claim to our parking lot for the next three weeks, absolutely gutting the already nice office space across the way.
February 3
The tenants moved in.
It’s a small company, probably only about four or five people deep. Their arrival times vary quite a bit, with the earliest being around 8am and the last one some time after 9:30. This straddles our arrival times. Will is usually the earliest to the office, getting here around 8:15. Brett is usually behind him with a 9am arrival. The rest of us show up around 9:30.
The earlier arrivals begin taking the spots right in front of our office. While these spots are also the spots closest to their entrance, they’re merely steps from our front door. If each unit was to receive assigned spots, these would clearly and sensibly go to Washed Media. There’s nothing actually unfair or outright wrong about this practice, but it does get our attention.
February 13
As Randy was leaving the office on that Thursday evening, he snapped this alarming picture and sent it to the group.
This new company, who had been here only 10 days, had these two “Reserved Parking” signs audaciously installed in the lot – the only two of their kind in the lot despite the other two companies’ longstanding presence here who have been selflessly sharing spots for the last three YEARS.
February 14
I email our property manager to ask about the signs to make sure everything is on the up-and-up.
February 18
Our new neighbors’ first arrival gets to the office before Will. They take the primo spot directly in front of our office, leaving their two brand new reserved spots vacant.
February 18
Same shit happened.
February 19
Same shit happened.
In the afternoon, we noticed that the early arrival moved their vehicle from the primetime spot in front of our office to one of their reserved spots that had been available all morning long. Just sitting there waiting to be taken by their employees while we were forced to park on the street. As gentlemen, we honored the “reserved” sign.
It would seem that this person was saving one of their reserved spots by occupying a non-reserved spot until everyone in their company had secured a spot in the lot.
Bush league.
February 20
Same shit happened.
Here’s the cherry on top of this shit cake: They haven’t so much as said hi to us yet. We’re a group of nice young men just trying to record a couple podcasts in here. We’re nice. We’re handsome. We’re non-threatening. We run a fun company. We organize happy hours for our neighbors (most don’t show up but we try anyway).
Their mailbox is right by our front door, so they walk right by our door daily and keep their heads down. They drop their trash in the bin outside our door every day, too, with nary a peek through our window to see who’s inside. We can’t get a “hey, neighbor”? Not a wave? A head nod?
This aggression will not stand. We must return fire.
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Time to start leaving bad reviews with the Better Business Bureau
The only solution is to go over with a few beers, establish yourselves as neighbors, and break down and solve the parking situation in that moment. If not - in the words of Fred Durst, you have justification to rip someone’s head off.