Right On Target

It wasn't the first time I had done this, I'd sat down at the Target application computer before with bad intentions. But, I had to do it again, just to see if things had changed.

This time I was a little deeper into the Northern Suburbs due to a 6 month closing of my main location while they build one of those mega-ones that will have groceries, foot massage stations and rooms for rent in the back but it's difficult to gauge who thinks what where these days so it makes no nevermind, plus ... it's all piped through the mainframe anyway.

The application station (hey, that rhymes!) was red I'm pretty sure. Like most of Target, you walk in and out of that place to buy some toilet paper and a James Blunt CD and you feel like you were just part of a video shoot for the White Stripes.

Speaking of James Blunt, did you know that he swears like a motherfucker?

I couldn't believe it ... my wife wanted me to listen to his CD and I was apprehensive because of minor shit like, his name, his picture on the cover and the sanitized sound of polished folk pop rock without the brain damage that I generally enjoy. It sounded pretty safe.

I'm listening to the Big Hit that feels RADIO FRIENDLY for any mainstream radio station on the planet, you know, something about something being beautiful (?) and I could swear to God that he said the effenheimer.

I ask my wife, "Did he just swear?"

She said "Oh yeah, he swears all over this record."

I said "Why, he doesn't seem like the type."

She said "What do you expect, he's irish."

I said "What the fuck is that shit supposed to mean Honey?"

But, you know, he is swearing yet it doesn't totally sound like he is. He's that fucking good of a singer. You know, like that the wedding band in Old School where the sleazy singer is throwing fuck fills into Bonnie Tyler's Total Eclipse of the Heart causing some quick double takes from the guests.

But way smoother, in fact, he's smoother than baby shit when it comes to filling a catchy pop song with fuck this, fuck that ... it may be a first. I haven't really followed popular radio since Kansas warned me about the Point of Know Return so many times that I sold my fucking receiver and bought an integrated amp without a tuner so I didn't have to hear shit like that at home anymore.

!!!!!!!!!! Audio Geek Break !!!!!!!!!!!!!
(Kenwood, you know the one, it ran 150 bucks at Sound Inn Music on EZ credit; they gave you that funky credit card with a picture of George Washington smoking a doobie without asking your age or checking ID. The salesman looked like Lindsey Buckingham and he treated you like you were the shit and when you told him you and your friends had tried some home recording on the TEAC cassette deck you got later he giggled and asked you if you were all getting "silly" and that's when you started to back away slowly for the door and then when you were late on a payment that guy drove up the alley and started questioning your brother who was a little ornery because he was changing out the rear differential on a '67 Barracuda with a set of cheap tools from Champion and he ended up chasing him off with a tire iron.)

So ... where were we ...

Okay, ummm, James Blunt ... Target. Oh yeah, Target.

So I sit my ass down at the White Stripes Application Station and started applying for a postition.

Like I said, I'd done this before, maybe 3 or 4 years ago when we were still at the Honeymoon stage of living in a Facist regime.

I give my name, address, phone info etc. (I can't remember if I used my real name or not ... wait a tick ... what is my real name?) then comes the $24,000 Question (I'm estimating that being the average salary at Target, couldn't seem to Google it, found Wal-Mart, the average annual there is $13,861) and social security number (or some number, maybe I used Hurley's (the big guy from Lost and also the pot dealer from a Curb Your Enthusiasm episode where Larry David goes to buy pot for his Dad's glaucoma and I think he picked up a hooker so he could use the Car Pool Lane because traffic was heavy) winning Lottery number.

"Will you take a drug test?"

I sit and look at this for a while and wonder how Thomas Jefferson would answer it. I like to throw Jefferson's name around like I know more about him than I do. I mean, we all know enough about him to know that the guy was a visionary, especially in the area of everybody's favorite "F-Bomb" ...

Freedom.

I mean, sure, his ownership of slaves clouds that a bit in the modern age but, again, I've been meaning to read a book about him someday. I was browsing for one at that bookstore at St. Anthony Main, or is it Riverplace? Doesn't matter, think it's been closed for a couple decades. Maybe I'll hop on Amazon. Any top reviewers out there who could recommend a kick-ass Jefferson bio for me?

Okay, any regular people? That might be be better.

And what's the Hemp connection with TJ anway? Was he just a straight-laced slave owner in a powdered wig making rope or was the Dude up against the stem?

I think Karl Rove would have had a field day with this guy.

So there I am ... reading this question over and over. A line of Spanish speaking people behind me are getting impatient.

I click >>>

No

The screen freezes in time, it seems like it's forever but it's probably more like 10 seconds.

Then for a second it goes blank ...

then it displays a message that I can't remember but it was something to the effect of ...

"Now get the fuck out of here."

And that's the exciting story, have a good one.