During these dark, feces-filled times that we call April through July (Most Glorious Draft Weekend aside), one must find cold comfort where one can. There is reading (I just finished Orlando Figes’ “The Whisperers: Private Life in Stalin’s Russia” – HIGHLY recommended), and there is prestige television. From the highbrow, slow burn perfection that is The Americans, to the lowbrow, gonzo joyfulness that is Archer, now having moved to Los Angeles to go all Magnum, P.I. on a mofucka.
As most of you know, one of the recurring gags is Sterling Mallory Archer’s voicemail fakeouts:
Which got my addled mind to thinking in the shower earlier this week about the most fun voicemail and/or answering machine message you ever came up with. Mine was one I never actually implemented, since it was the collective answering machine era (fuck you, I’m old) and my tight-assed roommates didn’t think grandma would appreciate the Eddie Vedder fast-delivered opening lines from “Porch”:
What the fuck is this world
Runnin’ to, you didn’t
Leave a message, at least I
Coulda heard your voice one last time [BEEP!]
I’m sure the much more intelligent and creative ranks of Most Glorious Commentist Party can and has done better. So…let’s hear it!
Not a clever message on my part, but a brutal attack on my soul. There was a girl I’d been hooking up with on occasion, but not someone I was remotely looking to get involved with. I was sitting at work one night when my pager went off (shut up) and I saw that she had left a voice mail. I called to play it back but all she left was the beginning of “With Arms Wide Open.” Making someone listen to Creed is crime enough, but it was the obvious implication of the song that instantly turned the contents of my stomach to water. Rarely have I felt that same combination of simultaneous relief and fury as when she started laughing and admitted she was fucking with me.
When my daughter was between 8 and 10, we used to change her mother’s ringtone to the absolute worst (a Fresh Aire kinda shit and a ghastly merengue come to mind), and then call her when she was at crowded places (market, bank, hospital).
Oh! I just remembered my favorite voicemail story.
When I was a kid, we hired this speech therapist for my brother. Back then, all voicemail messages were on cassettes and most had a limit at which they’d stop recording.
This woman would call, get the machine, and just decide to start a monologue as if you were there listening, get cut off by the machine, call back, and KEEP GOING. I can’t recall if she ever got up to three messages or more, but she never seemed to realize that we didn’t want to listen to her droning on forever.
This is also the story of VMs while working in an engineering office.
At work, we get to choose a picture for our contact information. I’ve mostly left it blank despite getting a couple prods from people above me to add one.
But I’ve changed my mind and now am uploading pictures of various internet memes and inside jokes such as Screaming Marmot and WHARGARBL dog. I think I’ll use The Fox-Eared Asshole next.
Since my VM is linked to work (the f*cking worst)…
“Hello, you’ve reached [redacted’s] phone. He’s not here to take your call at this time; so if you leave a message with me, I’ll be sure he gets back to you.”
I still get a shit ton of voicemails asking me to inform myself to get back to a client/colleague (hilarious that they think I have an assistant of any sort). And I don’t call anyone back.
Email or die, motherf*ckers. I need records of what was said to make sure your project isn’t f*cked up from the start and you can’t try to f*ck me running with your ridiculous requests.
Ughhh…sorry…work nonsense.
The corporate world is basically human pathology magnified to absurdity. I’m amazed at how many people I work with who automatically use empty corporate jargon without a hint of irony.
I am not sure if this comment gets my buy-in. I think we should table this comment and possibly workshop it at a later date. We can empower it to move the needle and take it to the bleeding edge through synergy and moving hay through a scaleable best practice. I’ll run it by my tiger team.
“Ping me when you’re ready so we can touch base.”
“Ping me when you’re ready so we can touch base.”
“Ping me when you’re ready so we can touch base.”
[faceless figure in a suit appears in mirror and slices me to death with paper]
Christ, I shudder at the thought of the days we had to communicate WITHOUT e-mail. I’d kill myself if I had to go back.
Did you get that thing I sent you?
?204730
WE NEED TO RUN THIS UP THE FLAG POLE TO CORPORATE ASAP!
My aunt’s current voicemail isn’t a hoax, she just genuinely doesn’t understand technology. It’s something akin to this:
(two or three seconds of background noise)
“Hello?… Hello? I can’t hear what it’s saying… Hello?
(more background noise)
“No, I can’t understand it. If you can hear this, leave me a message, and I’ll call back. Sorry.”
(more background noise)
(ends)
Evidently, she tried recording it on speaker, couldn’t comprehend the magic voice from inside the phone, prompting her what to do, and then when she couldn’t figure out how to erase it and try again.
“I haven’t had that exact experience, but I am familiar with the phenomenon of having electronic equipment communicate with me. Sometimes it’s better to just ignore it.”
– Ryan Fitzpatrick Bateman, rubbing some half-healed animal scratches on his forearm
I really just want a full season of Archer and Babou.
Also very happy that Everton sacked Roberto Martinez today. WOO!!!!!
“A lot of people have wondered whether I played a role in John Fox getting dismissed from the Broncos, and I won’t deny that John Elway and I had conversations about the subject. But I haven’t been directly responsible for anyone getting sacked since college.”
– Peyton Manning
That is fucking beautiful.
I actively look for moderately appropriate moments in real life to begin shouting “Serpentine, BABOU!!!!!”
Oh my God! He remembers me!!!!
“It’s like Meowschwitz in there.”
“Who there? Who there this time?”
– Sir, Benjamin Roethlisberger, Sr., OBE
It was sort of backward for Elaborate Voicemail Hoax, but a friend of mine used to always play his voicemails on speaker. So I called him when I knew his phone would be off (movie with uptight bitch girlfriend) and recorded the first thirty seconds or so of Tupac’s “Hit Em Up”. Apparently the look on Bitch Girlfriend’s face when “FIRST OFF, FUCK YOUR BITCH AND THE CLIQUE YOU CLAIM” blasted out was pretty priceless
https://youtu.be/41qC3w3UUkU?t=11s
I like we consider turning off your phone in a movie theater as caving to an uptight bitch girlfriend.
Oh no, the phone-turn-off thing had nothing to do with her or her bitchitude. She was just a massively unpleasant person.
“I left a pretty detailed message on my lawyer Harold Carnes’ machine, detailing all the murders and executions I’ve been engaged in, leaving nothing out, thirty, forty, a hundred murders, talking about leaving bodies at Dunkin’ Donuts parking lots in Midtown and dissolving them in bathtubs in Hell’s Kitchen and signing off by concluding ‘Uh, I’m a pretty sick guy.’ He thought it was pretty hilarious when I saw him for lunch the next day at Da Umberto’s.”
– Ryan Fitzpatrick Bateman
I wish I had a great story to tell but sadly I’m boring. All my voicemails followed some form of “Hey, leave a message.”
Not a voicemail message, but an elaborate prank played on me.
I was a senior in college, and had an older girlfriend back home – and she was supposed to come down on the weekend. Left me this voicemail on our apartment machine – in those days the machines used tape cassettes. So my best friend stops by and my roommates play him the message.
So, later that night I am at a party at my buddy’s fraternity with my roommates. My buddy pulls me over and goes, “Hey man check out this song.”
Yup, they played the message over the speakers in the party room – with about 100 people in attendance. I was so impressed that I couldn’t even get mad.
I did get drunk.
But the important question is…
Did you get anal?
Not that night
Still counts.
what we attorney types call “laying the foundation” amirite??
Kellen Clemens couldn’t even lay a foundation.
http://cdn0.sbnation.com/imported_assets/1769001/803106625.gif
Fozzy wasn’t even very sore afterwards either!
“My buddy’s fraternity”
Outside of Baltimore, we just call it Cell Block D.
Nice!