For those office dwellers on the board, are there any colorful characters at your workplace? Daily annoyances?

Today, I've realized:

- This is the second time I've heard 'Baker Street' in 24 hrs

-The guy working nearby sounds just like a mellow version of Tony Clifton. I'd pay him a couple bucks to say 'I need this job like I need a shotgun blast to the face!'

The most intriguing person in my workplace confined herself to the funny farm several weeks back, so I have no good stories. Most of the good stories ended when the funny farm business became a reality. It wasn't so funny anymore once she really started cracking up.

Mr. Chimp tried to shoot my eye out with a rubber band a few hours back.

I do know of a person who works on a different floor, a man who eats so many mints throughout the day that you can smell the mints from far away. I hear that when he uses the bathroom stall he flushes many, many, many times - the number I heard was 14. Long enough for the whole room to reek of mints.

He's in finance. They call him "minty."

I've been sitting here, patiently, waiting for you to ask about him. Yes, "colorful" is appropriate, although I might go with VAGINA-OBSESSED.

Let's call him "Andy." Andy likes sports. Always talking about sports. Not that talking about sports is a bad thing. But he is one of those guys who reiterates all the silly facts that are spouted off during the time-outs of football games. Andy also suffers from Tourette's-like outbursts. For example, I was walking behind him towards the restroom one afternoon (our office -- perhaps due to heightened security -- locks the bathrooms at 5pm), and when he got to the door and found it locked, he pounded on it and screamed, "What the fuck!? C'mon!" He is weird. My co-workers who sit near him report that he often cusses at him computer screen for no reason.

Back to the vagina. A few months ago, Andy asked if I knew anyone who built websites. Foreseeing this question may end with me spending more time that I want to around Andy, I immediately said I knew no one. A week or two later, I hear him announce that he has a website of his "work." Out of curiosity, I check it out. Man, the dude is kind of creepy. It's a website of his paintings. They are all pretty vagina-centric. Anyway, I am not gonna link the website or the photos, 'cause I wouldn't be surprised if Andy clubbed me to death should he find out. But I did copy a few .jpgs of the paintings as well as his Artist Statement. Tell me if you think I am working with a nut job:


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Artist Statement
I am an untrained painter but have always lived as an artist. In my painting, I stick with basic colors and use life perplexing questions as well as scenes from everyday life as inspiration for subject matter.

From there, I paint . As I work , the basic idea evolves into the finished product. Through this process, I try to use the colors to move the heart and the title to move the mind so that as one views the art the heart and mind can come together and the viewer can experience a moment of personal truth; a view into the soul.

This process allows me to understand the purpose of art and, in turn, provides a purpose and meaning to life: evolution.



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Portrait of Anxiety





Broken Dreams





Friction





Man in Manhattan





A Moment of Clarity





Talking in My Sleep






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Creepy, right? Dude is going to axe someone one day. I can feel it. If "Talking in My Sleep," "Portrait of Anxiety," and "Broken Dreams" aren't cries for help (besides being awful titles for awful paintings), than I don't know what is...

This reminds me of an article I was reading recently about some of these obsessive collector types. I think one of the guys might've collected every piece of Yes memorabilia known to man; most of the other dudes seemed normal enough, in comparison to this one guy who collected paintings by known serial killers. He had a bunch of the John Wayne Gacy clown portraits and this guy even sent him pictures of his son for Gacy to do paintings of in prison.

Yikes!

mattw wrote:This reminds me of an article I was reading recently about some of these obsessive collector types. I think one of the guys might've collected every piece of Yes memorabilia known to man; most of the other dudes seemed normal enough, in comparison to this one guy who collected paintings by known serial killers. He had a bunch of the John Wayne Gacy clown portraits and this guy even sent him pictures of his son for Gacy to do paintings of in prison.

Yikes!

a friend of mine did write to gacy asking for a painting, but got some creepy questionaire asking for his address, weight, age, interests, and other really personal stuff. the dude said "no thanks!"

i think "andy" has a very good sense of color. i would say his skill as a painter is certainly above-average. but aren't good art and some degree of madness often intertwined?

I work with two menopausal women, so everyday I hear something about the office being too hot or too cold.

Every.


Day.

empty wrote:

mattw wrote:This reminds me of an article I was reading recently about some of these obsessive collector types. I think one of the guys might've collected every piece of Yes memorabilia known to man; most of the other dudes seemed normal enough, in comparison to this one guy who collected paintings by known serial killers. He had a bunch of the John Wayne Gacy clown portraits and this guy even sent him pictures of his son for Gacy to do paintings of in prison.

Yikes!

a friend of mine did write to gacy asking for a painting, but got some creepy questionaire asking for his address, weight, age, interests, and other really personal stuff. the dude said "no thanks!"

I can't think of anything more trite than being obsessed with serial killers. That's a very "junior high" pursuit. Of course, I'm probably into stuff that's more ridiculous...

There isn't anyone particularly interesting at my office. A couple of gun fanatics and several Christian fundamentalists, who have learned that I don't suffer their particular style of foolishness gladly. One of said people told me, while trying to convert me (I think), that she had seen a dead person come back to life. When I asked her if she was talking about zombies, she stopped bothering me.

spoot wrote:Mr. Chimp tried to shoot my eye out with a rubber band a few hours back.

This because Professor Spoot chimed into a grammer-logistic conversation by proclaiming the importance of ensuring that one's numbers are capitalized.

Like, here is a capital 2:

2.


Anyway, in the office there are a myriad of wonderfully eccentric characters. I may know of this minty fellow that spoot mentioned. There is a chance that he is the same guy that I heard GIGGLING in a bathroom stall, in that not-quite-wired-right way. Years ago, this same gentleman, in the midst of some non-attention-paying conversation (on my part) piqued my interest with this comment: "Maybe they'll butter the floors."

Believe me, there is no context that applies.

If it is not the same guy, yippee! Double the excitement!

Bambouche wrote:I've been sitting here, patiently, waiting for you to ask about him. Yes, "colorful" is appropriate, although I might go with VAGINA-OBSESSED......

......Creepy, right? Dude is going to axe someone one day. I can feel it. If "Talking in My Sleep," "Portrait of Anxiety," and "Broken Dreams" aren't cries for help (besides being awful titles for awful paintings), than I don't know what is...

Hmmmmm.....vagina obsessed.

Probably not any more or less so than Georgia O'Keefe, Victor Brauner, Otto Dix, Gustav Klimt, Salvador Dali, Egon Schiele, Cindy Sherman, Judy Chicago, Annie Sprinkle - I could probably list one of every other 20th century artist till my login timed out.....

I don't think it's creepy per se. If Dali or Dix were working in your office you may have thought them far creepier than "Andy". I think it's unfair to judge someone in terms of "going to axe someone one day" just because their "colorful", "like sports", have some pent-up anger, or are deemed by you to be "vagina obsessed" (how many hetero men aren't "vagina obsessed" to some degree?).

Was Gustave Courbet "vagina obsessed" for painting "The Origin of the World"? And did that make him "creepy" or threatening to the people around him? How does history usually address this scenario later?