Person of the Year, 2013

Many were in the running for the Goo Goo Muck's coveted Person of the Year. Perhaps that new Pope? The President or First Lady? A posthumous award for Nelson Mandela? Or any number of scientists, artists, athletes, or businesspeople who inspired, challenged, or led us this past year? The guy who played Billy Jack (R.I.P?)

All worthy choices. But they all share one disqualifying characteristic. They all did something.

This year's hero is John C. Beale, EPA official, and work-avoider extraordinaire.

While you were calling in to work with your "food poisoning" or "stomach bug," Beale convinced his bosses that he was a CIA agent undertaking secret missions and didn't show up for months. During the time Beale wasn't slaving for The Man, he "spent much of the time... at his Northern Virginia home riding bikes, doing housework and reading books, or at a vacation house on Cape Cod."

Beale was pulling in over 200 grand, which would make lesser men give up the grift and focus on doing a good job. Beale, however, realized those people are suckers.

Plus, once you have your supervisors convinced that you work for the CIA, it's kind of hard to dial back.

My previous working hero was Steven Slater, that flight steward who cussed out his plane, took some beers, flipped the double bird, and slid off the plane on the inflatable slide. But while Slater was a hero for expressing our frustration, Beale is a hero for pulling off the most audacious work-related scam ever. Sure, he's going to jail, but anyone who can pull off a scam like that deserves our respect, if only for the pure outrageousness.

How did it start? How did he convince himself that his bosses would buy his CIA story? How did that first meeting go? Was he nervous? Confident? Ready to pull the "Hey, I'm just joking, I'll get back to work now" card?

Hopefully he will stand up at the close of his trial and give us a breakdown of the entire escapade,  inspiring a nation in desperate need of heroes.

He spent much of the time he was purportedly working for the CIA at his Northern Virginia home riding bikes, doing housework and reading books, or at a vacation house on Cape Cod.
Read more at http://wonkette.com/536714/scammy-epa-climate-science-guy-was-basically-george-costanza#tPwZp9DMpb20tZtU.99

He spent much of the time he was purportedly working for the CIA at his Northern Virginia home riding bikes, doing housework and reading books, or at a vacation house on Cape Cod.
Read more at http://wonkette.com/536714/scammy-epa-climate-science-guy-was-basically-george-costanza#tPwZp9DMpb20tZtU.99

He spent much of the time he was purportedly working for the CIA at his Northern Virginia home riding bikes, doing housework and reading books, or at a vacation house on Cape Cod.
Read more at http://wonkette.com/536714/scammy-epa-climate-science-guy-was-basically-george-costanza#tPwZp9DMpb20tZtU.99

He spent much of the time he was purportedly working for the CIA at his Northern Virginia home riding bikes, doing housework and reading books, or at a vacation house on Cape Cod.
Read more at http://wonkette.com/536714/scammy-epa-climate-science-guy-was-basically-george-costanza#tPwZp9DMpb20tZtU.99spent much of the time he was purportedly working for the CIA at his Northern Virginia home riding bikes, doing housework and reading books, or at a vacation house on Cape Cod

He spent much of the time he was purportedly working for the CIA at his Northern Virginia home riding bikes, doing housework and reading books, or at a vacation house on Cape Cod.
Read more at http://wonkette.com/536714/scammy-epa-climate-science-guy-was-basically-george-costanza#tPwZp9DMpb20tZtU.9

The Mall Has It All

I have about a 20 minute window for shopping. Too much longer than that and I get sort of dizzy and bored and holy crap, why didn't I just order pants on the internet like a normal person instead of driving all the way out here on my day off.

This, of course, does not apply to the countless hours of my life I wasted digging through record and DVD stores, looking for that elusive catch that would make me a more well-rounded individual and, more importantly, the envy of my fellow nerds.

I didn't used to be this way. In fact, when I was in middle school I loved going to the mall. Loved it. In fact, the summer before high school a friend and I would spend almost all day there, even though we didn't have any money. I'd give the guy's name, but I haven't heard from him in years, and I don't want to sell him out in case he's running for office or something, you know? Me, I've got no prospects, so I don't mind implicating myself.

We would walk or ride our bikes there, which from what I remember was quite a trek. We almost always had less than five bucks between us, so we'd have to plot the best way to stretch it to last all day.

That was hard because we were addicted to video games. We'd usually start out in the arcade, which would take a couple bucks out of the pot right from the start, but what were we gonna do, not play Gauntlet?

We could usually go to a couple of the stores in the mall with single games and say the machine took our quarters and get a refund. The managers didn't really believe us, but we'd usually be able to get 50 cents out of that which was enough to keep the video game shakes from returning. If that didn't work, or we felt we had gone to that well a little too much, we could always play the video game systems in Sears, but that was a desperation move, sort of like alcoholics drinking vanilla extract.

Far away from Bradenton, in a wonderful land called California, the Summer Olympics were taking place. The commie countries had boycotted the games, giving America a huge advantage. Why did this matter to two kids in Florida? Well, McDonalds had a scratch off game where you'd win free food whenever America won an event. We'd buy a drink or small fries and almost always end up winning something else - thanks Carl Lewis! When people talk about missing the Cold War, I know exactly how they feel.

After our meal, it was time to hit the movies. We would hang around the outside of the theater until we found two ticket stubs on the ground, which was fairly easy, as nobody cared about littering back in those unenlightened days. We'd show them to the guy at the front, telling him we left to play video games if he ever asked, which hardly ever happened.

Once we got inside, it was relatively easy work to get into whatever R rated movie promised gore or nudity.

And the mid '80s were a glorious time for teen boys at the movies - Porky's rip offs, slasher movies, barbarian movies - you pretty much couldn't lose.

Like all good things, our Celebrated Summer at the mall had to end. One day the theater changed ticket colors,  so when we walked through, the ticket taker called the manager.

We were told to sit in a chair and wait for the manager. Naturally, as soon as ticket guy's back was turned we split up and took off running. I thought I had it made until I felt a tightness around my neck. Ticket guy had some good hustle and caught up to me, grabbing me by the back of my collar and throwing me to the floor.

I was hustled off to the security office and my parents were called. I was banned from the mall for a year. I'd like to think I didn't rat out my friend, but I don't really remember, so who knows. I probably told my parents it was all his idea.

I'd also like to think that this scare taught me that you can't get something for nothing, and scamming free food and movies was no way for a man to live, but that wasn't true at all.  In fact, in just another three or four years, my mom would get a call from the cops telling her that I had been arrested for stealing a pizza with another friend. But that's a story for another time.

Man, was I a shitty kid.

Sale!

For about two years I was a stock boy at Ben Franklin, a store named after one of our nation's most kick-ass founding fathers. I have no idea what Mr. Franklin had to do with selling arts and craft supplies, but I suppose he needed something to do when he wasn't perfecting his electricity shooting kite or helping Paul Bunyan build the Grand Canyon.

One day I was told to stock the googly eyes, STAT. To those of you not in the craft business, googly eyes are...well, they're googly eyes. Little plastic moving eyes that you glue on stuff. Say you've got a pet rock or a sock puppet. You've painted, glued, crafted the hell out of it, and it looks pretty cool, but there's something missing, some spark of life, some vital essence not there. Glue some googly eyes on that sucker, and the Frankenstein feeling of creating life out of previously inert materials flows through your hands. And they all laughed at you at the university! The fools! They called you mad? You'll show them all! Arise, my sock puppet! Arise and taste the sweet breath of life!

So the things were not without their uses, but they weren't really a hot item. People would buy a pair when they needed them for a project, then the rest of the eyes would sit on the pegboard shelf, gathering dust and staring at you as you walked down the aisle.

"Make sure you bring everything out from the back," my manager said. "There's a sale in tomorrow's paper."

"Oh yeah?" I tried to give my question just the right amount of interested inflection, letting my boss know that I genuinely cared about the inner workings of Ben Franklin and the craft business in general. Meanwhile, I was trying to remember the lyrics from "Ace of Spades" and imagining what various cashiers would look like naked.

"Oh yeah," she said. "They're gonna be buying them up like crazy tomorrow. Look."

She showed me the advertisement. Googly eyes 50 cents.

"Wait. These eyes have been 50 cents since I started working here. And anybody that would care about our ads would know how much they are. These people are in here all the time."

"Just wait," she said.

Sure enough, the next morning the old folks came stampeding in at 10 on the dot, heading straight for the googly eyes(It was always exactly 10, because they'd start gathering outside the doors about 15 minutes earlier, their agitation increasing every minute they were locked away from their poly-fil, silk flowers and precious googly eyes. At 9:59 they'd start making exaggerated gestures towards their watches and at the digital bank sign across the street. These are the people, you would think, that won World War II and beat the Great Depression.).

I was up at the counter pretending to sweep and asked a lady why she bought 4 pairs of googly eyes.

"They're on sale," she exclaimed. "They're only 50 cents!"

"What are you gonna do with them?"

"I don't know...But they're on sale!"

Figuring this was one of those Spinal Tap "This one goes up to 11," moments, I wisely kept quiet and pondered the power of advertising.