The Taco Bell Team
On the way home from work, my bus drove past a Taco Bell that had this sign on their window:
"Now Hiring: New Team Members"
Coming to a sports arena near you: the Taco Bell team. Someone answer me a question. Why does everything need to be a team, and why does everyone need to be a part of it? And did Taco Bell become an alternative to gang membership without me knowing it? You can't just be a human being who works a job for cash?
Taco Bell should go all the way. They ought to give out colored armbands, recite their own mantras, have secret handshakes, and require that all "team members" get special tattoos. The tattoos should fit together, so when everyone who works at Taco Bell gathers in a circle and holds their fits together, you see a big, iron cross formed out of two burritos. And they can have their own rules.
Here are the rules of Taco Bell:
- The first rule of Taco Bell is - you do not talk about Taco Bell.
- The second rule of Taco Bell is - you DO NOT talk about Taco Bell.
- Third rule of Taco Bell, someone yells "Stop!", takes out their wallet, pays for the fucking taco, the order is over.
- Fourth rule, only two guys to the nachos station.
- Fifth rule, one soft taco at a time, fellas.
- Sixth rule, no shirt, no shoes, no service.
- Seventh rule, shifts will go on as long as they have to. We'll serve burritos for breakfast, for Christ's sake.
- And the eighth and final rule, if this is your first night at Taco Bell, you have to try some of that nasty-ass guacamole.
Everyone wants to be "part of something bigger". Can I tell you how bored I am of people wanting to be "part of something bigger than just you and me"?
If you want to be "part of something bigger", nail yourself to a fucking blimp. People who state this desire are both lacking in self-esteem and pretentious as hell. Pretentious, because they think they're actually going to contribute to anything and make it bigger in some attribute other than size. Lacking in self-esteem, because they think being lucky enough to differ from most other clumps of atoms in the universe in the minor respect of not being an inanimate mass, well, heck, that just isn't good enough.
I guarantee you that anyone unusually eager to be "part of something bigger" is short on something. And whatever they're missing, they think they'll get it as part of some kind of human Voltron. I can picture it now: a big robot walking around with a guy wearing a "save the earth" T-shirt as a left leg, and a chick in sandals as a torso. Individually, they were losers. Together, they're even bigger losers!
You know who's part of "something bigger"? Siamese twins. Well, you can call it "team building" to grow up with someone who shares the same butt cheek. I call it a monumental pain in the ass.
Another thing I'm tired of is people who are "humbled". They usually say it in this type of context:
"Getting voted by the entire Western Hemisphere as the most beautiful person in existence was such a humbling experience for me."
Would someone tell me why this is humbling exactly? The last time I saw a dictionary, I noted that the verb "humble" meant to "destroy the prestige of". How much prestige is destroyed when several continents declare you officially spongeworthy?
Someone who tells you they're "humbled" by something is lying to your face. The best you could say is that they're mildly embarrassed by how superior they feel.
You'll notice, of course, that no one actually does say they're humbled by anything, except for Hollywood celebrities. It's their way of bragging and kissing ass at the same time. They get to call their TV movie of the week about Cancerboy versus the Big, Bad Polluters the greatest work of drama since Shakespeare, and they get to kiss the asses of their co-hacks. In turn, they believe, their ass kissing makes them even more noble human beings. What kind of person dishes out such heartfelt compliments, after all? Why, someone who's generous!
That's another word these Hollywood types spit out like a bad prostitute.
"She was such a generous actor!"
(And notice if you call an actress an "actor", you get to double your pomposity.)
An actor is generous if she stops acting so goddamn great for one minute and lets you ham it up for a while. Here's what a film historian wrote about Jack Lemmon:
"He was also a skillful, solid, generous actor who allowed others
who weren't nearly as talented as he was to shine."
I guess when you freak out and destroy a greenhouse looking for booze, nobody wants to tell you that you did a good job in terms of acting. You must have been "generous" to the set decorators for allowing them to set up all that crap for you to knock over. Nobody wants to admit that acting is ultimately an individual sport.
Some Hollywood studio ought to put a sign at their front gate that says:
"Now Hiring: New Team Members. Pays $20 Million."
