when business and fun collide

Agent99 returns from a boston operative vastly feeling the effects of five+ solid days of hand shaking, massive amounts of dope and date bookin' on roughly three hours of sleep nightly. this is how we do in college entertainment, y'alllllll!

(i should add here that certainly not everyone is smoking sweet green at these events. just me. and a nice handful of folks i know. what everyone *is* doing, most certainly, is drinking. alot. that i can speak of.)

now, before i get further into this post, i feel compelled to mention that i've been working on some greenie brownies and am beginning to feel *very* good. i've been getting caught up on e-mail and the Mole came into the office and said, "i think i'm starting to feel these a bit." "yeah, me too. i've been listening to the roots and i can't sit my ass down! i've been slow-jammin' by myself all around the kitchen," as i gave him some of my step n' slide/tree pose/drop it like it's hot.

wanna see the steps to prep our snack? it's cool to be curious.


a simple box of brownie mix. just like mom used to make.


two bags of "get me by". and let me tell you, when my guy tells me, "no, baby, don't buy a bunch of this shit from me. this just some get me by," i know he ain't playin. he's well aware of my propensity for smoke and quality judgment thereof. this is the man who calls me immediately when "the good shit" arrive. and he delivers to my crib. yes friends, not only in the massive city of chicago do i have my own personal cabbie (see references to Gonzo), i also have a guy who delivers sweet green to my home addy. it's a godsend.

please, conservative readership, don't wig on me now! perhaps take a moment to say, why, that Agent99 can be so clever in her blog. might marijuana not be the evil we've always thought? i must tell that i no longer drink and my only vice is a kind natural herb. and i will further say that a calm, funny stoner is much preferable in my book to a loud, confrontational drunkard. knowwhati'msayin?

so, after you hook up some of your lesser dope (and i really recommend this because if disaster befalls your baked snack, you don't want to be out some serious outdohh on a grievous stove choice), grab the grinder and get to work.



we elected to load up only half of the pan with our herbal additive. again, this is from me having past bad episodes with ruining good weed and having nothing to show for it. Interestingly enough, the half sans dope turned out really flat and dry, cookie-like. the side enhanced is much better in the moist and chewy factor.

and it's doin' its job.

so, i had biz up east and i think i best give a peep into this subculture. it's certainly like nothing i've ever experienced in my working life (or any place in my life, for that matter). um, let's see. it's the only place i can think of that pits traveling vaudvillians of the likes of hypnotists or guitar strummin' crooners against inflatable lazer tag stadiums with wax hands clapping away in a steel cage match for their sole source of income (all in a padded cage, fully insured to minimize the possibility of accident or fatality, of course!). follow? living folks who perform a variety of acts are hustling against dudes who are carnival specialists to grab up as much share in this market as they can. they're depending on making contacts at these conventions, and while i'm depending on them, i'm also depending on me and my ability to close the sale, so to speak, for the benefit of us both. i handle the bookings for a roster that's a mix of the live and breathing and the portable equipment. we collectively belong to this large trade organization that joins colleges with agents and vendors who provide every whim and fancy to enthrall the young academics from alaska to maine. the organization separates itself into regions who have their own conventions every fall. this is why i was in portland in november (reference my fierce pics of seattle and the oregon coast).

then, there is the gigantica national convention. last year in minneapolis, this time around in boston. i hadn't been through boston since i was 10, and even so, it was en route from logan airport straight out to the cape, so i'd never really seen the city. and, yeah....i still haven't really seen the city. the conventions are *time intensive* and escape from the hotel/convention center/rotunda/walkway/skyway/underground railroad tunnel escape system roads one must journey daily to conduct one's business is usually limited to a two hour dinner on the town. if you can squeeze that in. so, you find yourself navigating the same three square mile radius with, in this case, around 3,000 other versions of you wearing college sweatshirt/business suit/hipster duds/fashion emergency costumes for a long weekend that somehow feels like you've gone through a full-blown summer camp experience in a few sleep-deprived days.

oh yes, i must take a subject break and make record of this chat i just had with my man.

Mole: oh wow, i think i'm really high. (gazing at WeeBeastie and stifling back laughter) i was just thinking what if you were in a forest....

Agent99: (stopping her blog typing and swiveling around on the chair) ooh, go on. this gonna be good!

M: (totally cracking up) i....i ....i was trying to think of something.... (more laughing)

A: (enjoying this immensely) you mean about WeeBeastie? was she up in a forest? (totally losing it)

M: ..... i don't know....

A: no, no! keep on with it! i like where this is going! what was WeeBeastie doing?

M: i think i was trying to say what if you were walking through a forest and instead of stumbling upon a pack of big animals, like bears, you came up on a group.....(he's dying laughing again)

A: of her? a bunch of terriers?

M: yes! or, like if she were what was considered really fierce, like she would tear in to you and bite, and we had her here? ....it'd be like having a bear up in our house!

Mole still laughs his ass off, all the way to the freezer to resurrect a box of fish sticks. Agent99 returns to her blog.

that's a good segue to mention what's cooler than cool about doing a job in this highly unusual atmosphere. the people. i feel pretty qualified to speak of good working situations versus ones where i've definitely had to play the game not in my own persona. now, i'm an actress, and i still have some chops in that department, but too much acting too far away from your true blue ain't the way i want to spend my life. certainly, any job involves some game playin' (in my case, the "business mask"), but this is the only time i've been banking my livelihood on allowing my work behavior to skirt to the neighborhood borders of 'what you see is what you get'. it makes things much more relaxing for me. from all the previous advertising jaunts to rinky-dink flyover cities, at least in this line of work i get a bone thrown my way occasionally and hit some urban locales that i'm interested in seeing. and you really do find yourself in class reunion mode when you encounter these folks. there are agents i see at every single conference i hit and some are only at certain regions. an early conference pal who produces a rock explosion showed up this round, and i hadn't seen her "in the circuit" for ages, so it was very cool to reconnect. some performers seem to creep around given areas more than others. there's a cool band i see at one of my regions, and usually at this behemoth national extravaganza. really, the big turn out is here at the national gig. because you're in the mix with alot of creative types, you're guaranteed to find someone to discuss any topic with, in complete seriousness. you'll pick up conversations that ended six months prior. occasionally a year prior. there will always be an opportunity to throw a three dice/three dollars game similar to dreidel. someone will inevitably be interested in your deep dark secret of sorority life and will pry the secret handshake out of you in a moment of weakness, your judgment clouded by the haze from the city in the sky. the hotel barney fifes will "bust" the final night in the lounge. peeps will be taking their time rolling out of there, probably distracted by free cheese and cracker trays, keeping the embers of the campfire alive. these things are common fare and are good. never in my touring, non-equity performance as advertising executive could i have spent time on a *business trip* kicking it with likeminded fellows, tackling important issues such as the bathing habits of chinchillas, transcribing harry potter characters into this organization's dopplegangers, creating photo essays of the bar scene, strategizing over a schedule of events to shoehorn in a coveted cat nap -- anywhere possible. i'm by no means an open book in a work sitch, but at least here it's not uncommon to have an ongoing discussion running with your seasonal cohorts about things rotating through your life. i had a few of the peeps question me on my standings in specific areas since we'd last met, pretty much picking up where we'd left off. it's a bit odd for work, but i dig it. where else have i been able to fan stalk a broadway star, skulk through bars of frat boys, or dissect the workmanship of a bicycle tire tube belt? are there folks there i avoid like the plague? a few. have i learned a fascinating amount of gossip and back history on this hoard of mismatched associates? you bet. are the comings and goings of the cast of players their own entertainment? happily, yes. overall, is it a sweet situation in which to earn some coin to live on? absolutely.

yeah, and i learned from a native how to bust in to this bad boy. it was a bit of a chore, but worth it. i learned to love the lobster on that childhood trip to the cape, so this was coming full circle.



i'm nowhere near recovered from this trip.