Josh Reynolds

For those of you (Jessie) who might be interested:


CRUD: What is the significance of the name Geggy Tah?

Tommy Jordan: There's a new story that's come around since the original one. Well, of course, it was little sisters trying to say Greg and Tommy and their mouths couldn't quite form it yet. So, it was the mispronunciation of Greg and Tommy, but for a while we were touring with Sting and all his crew were Scottish. They loved our name. We thought, "wow, that's cool". People usually like the name once they get it, but usually it's kind of a puzzle. People think it Coup Detat or Geg Guitar or whatever. It turns out that in Scottish Geggy means mouth, and Tah means thanks - so mouth thanks. But, more specifically Geggy refers to "shut your geggy". So, it kind of like Shut Up Thanks. So, I like that as well. Since Geggy's not in the band anymore that's kind of carrying me forward emotionally.

I realize that the below is posted twice. I tried to erase one of them but Blogger isn't letting me.

I found this during my usual trolling through the day's press releases:

Guns N' Roses Not Able to Perform at Rock in Rio
Tuesday March 30, 6:00 am ET
A Message from W. Axl Rose


LISBON, Portugal--(BUSINESS WIRE)--March 30, 2004--Guns N' Roses will not be performing as scheduled at Rock In Rio - Lisbon.
The band has been put in an untenable position by guitarist Buckethead and his untimely departure. During his tenure with the band Buckethead has been inconsistent and erratic in both his behavior and commitment - despite being under contract - creating uncertainty and confusion and making it virtually impossible to move forward with recording, rehearsals and live plans with confidence. His transient lifestyle has made it impossible for even his closest friends to have nearly any form of communication with him whatsoever. Last time I talked to Bucket, he called to tell me he had bought a bootleg DVD off EBay and how proud he was to be in Guns and how impressed he was with everyone's performance. Then, in February we got word from Brain that Bucket had called him and said he was back in Guns!? Apparently, according to Bucket he had been "Gone" but had turned himself around and was really excited to do Rio-Lisbon and a European tour. Somewhere in the following month things changed once again. According to those who have actually spoken with Buckethead it appears his plans were to secure a recording contract with Sanctuary Records which I encouraged my management to make available to him, quit GN'R and to use his involvement in the upcoming Guns release to immediately promote his individual efforts...Nice guy!

There is not a member of this camp that is not hurt, upset and ultimately disappointed by this event, and more to the point - if not this individual, certainly this individual's choices. Regardless of anyone's opinions of me and what I may or may not deserve, clearly the fans, individuals in this band, management, crew and our support group do not deserve this type of treatment. We as a whole, definitely feel that we afforded Bucket every accommodation perhaps so much so that it may be that we or more precisely, I may have done Guns a disservice and unintentionally allowed Guns to be put in this position.

On behalf of Guns N' Roses and myself I apologize to the fans who planned to see us at Rock In Rio - Lisbon. The festival and its tradition mean a lot to me personally and I sincerely do not enjoy being robbed by one of our own of the opportunity to be the first artist to play it for the third time. I would also like to express my gratitude to those who chose to embrace Buckethead's role in Guns and support our new line up. We greatly appreciate Bucket's contributions and remain open to "discussions" as there are obviously several issues to resolve. In the meantime rather than dwelling on the negative, Guns will be moving forward and surprisingly (without giving away any details) this unfortunate set of circumstances may have given us the opportunity to take our recording that one extra step further. Regardless we hope to announce a release date within the next few months.

Sincerely,

W. Axl Rose

I booked twenty interviews last pay period. This pay period, so far, I've booked one. I'm in a slump. A bad slump. A 13 "No" 's in a row slump.

In other news:

Things are super messed up in the Sudan. Take note.

I am in a good mood today. I mean except for the two times I snapped at my coworkers. There really is only so much one man can take. I have a lot of patience sometimes but today was not a good day to step over into my danger zone. The first incident happenend when the boss and the Crafty Irishman(who is kind of deaf) were having a conversation and instead of one of them going over to where the other was sitting, the boss was just yelling all this information really loudly. This was going on for about 5 minutes and was just driving me totally banannas. Finally the 2nd Boss says "Hey c'mon! People are on the phone here.". Boss 1 says " He's deaf! What am I supposed to do?" which is where Josher stepped in. "Perhaps one of you could stand up and walk the ten feet over to the other persons desk BECAUSE WHEN YOU SCREAM LIKE THIS IT'S REALLY DISTRACTING!" which has shut them up. As you know, quiet isn't an adjective used to describe me very often and when I really put the diaphragm into it people listen.

I was feeling pretty good about this and then about an hour later J. and I got into an argument about the guy who made the documentary about going to McDonalds every day for a month and how his health deteriorated. So we're going back and forth and I'm trying to make a point and J. keeps cutting me off and talking more and more until finally I say "J., you are an exasperating person to argue with since you never let the other person speak and make their point.". So I made my point, which of course had no effect, but still just getting it off my chest made me feel better.

3 hours of CEO'ness left.

You know how some people get a phrase and it just becomes their own personal cliche? For example there is a guy in my office who cycles through them bi-weekly. For a few weeks he was saying "Ok Mike, this company is right in your sweet spot." and "Working with lobster is really that guys sweet spot." and so on. Recently it's changed to "smell test". Like, "That just doesn't pass the smell test with me.". I am so sick of smell test I want to throw CEOcast out the window.

New York Post Online Edition: news

Nothing says a good day at work like arguing with your coworkers about sexual harassment. I need to buy that cubicle.

Beetle Bailey trivia has come unbidden into my life!

Before I get started let me run down my the nicknames my boss gives all the employees:

Josh= Josher

Ken=Wealth


Gary=Cash

Dan= The Genius

Ed= Steady Eddie

Erik= The Champ

Cormac=The Crafty Irishman

Anyway, The Genius just game over and told me that Mort Walker, creator of Beetle Bailey, was stationed at Camp Crowder in Miss. when he was in the service. This, apparently, was the model for Beetle's Camp Swampy!

Hat tip to The Genius!

You know what freaks me out? What scares me the most? What makes me feel like a cornered rabbit about to eaten by a gigantic space bird?
Getting blown up by a suitcase nuclear weapon. God, that is some scary business.

I mean, I'm not so down with the post apocalyptic lifestyle. Actually, I'm not down with it in the slightest.

Jessie has joined the blogging ranks.

I spent saturday going to this comedy night in the theater district at a place called Don't Tell Mama!. My friend Nancy is visiting and her aunt is a stand up comedian and we got comped (comped? Who am I, Dean Martin?) at the club so she and I and Sterling went. The show was very very touristy New York. The MC was a gay, skinny, Mike Myers type who over emoted his way through "You guys are from Michigan! Wow!" and "Look over there! Gay hispanics! You guys kiss! Look people from Michigan! Two gay hispanics kissing!" You get the idea. For some reason the Michiganders volunteered that one of them had bought a thong earlier that day. So that got brought to the stage and then the MC put it in his mouth. Yes, you read it right. This comedy night was at a piano bar so some of the comics were musical comedy which has about a .00000001% chance of me liking it usually. For some reason comedy and music are often not complemetary bedfellows. For the most part however, the comics were pretty good including one guy who made me feel like a total nerd because I laughed at his Microsoft Word jokes. One thing that makes comedy so much more fun for me to see than music is that the sets are so short. You go see music and you are in for a 30 minute ride minimum. With comics it's a no muss no fuss up there do your bit get down and you've watched ten minutes maximum.

Today is another not so thrilling day of calling CEOs and trying to convince them to do interviews on our website. Hardly anyone is wearing green in the office today which is a shame. The one Irish guy I work with is wearing a pastel green coat with a pastel blue tie. Like Miami Vice in the bad way.

Mother Nature has deployed Operation I can't believe it is snowing AGAIN. Depressing. I had hoped to finally shed my long underwear for good and realize my yearly dream of waiting for the bus without pain. People are always asking me if the weather in Seattle was depressing and what I tell them is that rain and gloom don't bring me down. Walking outside and being in physical agony because it is either way too hot or Siberia level cold depresses me. The fact that 6 or 7 months out of the year I dread being in any environment that isn't climate controlled. That depresses me.

On to happier subjects...

From Drew's blog...

The clerk at the front desk of The Chicago Children's Museum told us that normally, adults who are NOT accompanied by children are not allowed in the Chicago Children's Museum.

"Is that to keep, like, R. Kelly out?" I asked the clerk who was not amused. However, there is an exception for the Sesame Street Exhibit.

As they say in blogging parlance, read the whole thing.

Oh, Nic!

Courtesy of The Head

Tonight at the corner of Manhattan and Freeman in Greenpoint...


NEW TAAFFE

With your hosts:DJ Justin Vandervolgen (!!!, Out Hud, Generally a nice guy)

DJ Fishguts and Chocolate (!!!, The 'Plants, Free Blood)

DJ Punish the Pope (!!!, Out Hud, LCD Soundsystem)

Yours truly will be manning the door from 11 to 1 so come on out.

2 dollars to get in.

2 dollar beers.

Tommy's Tavern

I went out with my friend Kristy last night to this bar called Moe's in Brooklyn. While it was a racially diverse mix of people(good) it had a crappy DJ that played much too loud(bad). One thing that New York definitely has too many of is DJ's. I don't want to come off all cranky, but give it a rest people. I don't need a DJ at the coffee shop in the morning and please let me know who finds a DJ at a gym to be a selling point. I suppose people must like it though because there are people out there making a living DJing and people seem to still eat up sitting at a bar listening to them do their, 99% of the time boring, thing.

We ended up leaving Moe's and going to one of my favorite bars called Freddy's. Freddy's always has the best home videos that the bartender supposedly made and edited playing in the bar. The last time I was there I saw a shot by shot comparison of the new and old versions of Psycho. This is alot more interesting than it sounds. Really. Freddy's is also one of the bars that will be razed when the Nets build their stadium.

Perhaps Jimmylegs has a good stadium resistance link.

Ed Koch reviews The Passion.

Thanks Gothamist.

My cell phone bill is all kinds of messed up. On 1/28 I called up to pay my bill in a responsible fashion and the automated voice message said that I had just made a payment of 320 dollars. This is untrue. First, I don't talk on the phone that much. With my plan that would mean that I spent something like 300,000 minutes on the phone. So being a good Cingluar citizen I waited until I could talk to a representative and they said that a Joshua Reynolds had made a payment in that amount. So of course I said that I wouldn't turn down free money but it wasn't me. The guy said he would start an investigation and call me back if he found something. I figured whomever had paid the 320 dollars would eventually wonder where it had gotten too and that in a week or so I could get on with paying my usual 58 dollars a month. I hadn't heard anything in 5 weeks so I started to get excited that I wasn't going to have to pay my cellular bill for a few months. Then today I got my reminder phone call from Cingular that I owed them money. I went online and looked and it said that I owed 207 dollars!!! Zing in the bad way. So after dealing with one of the Cingular operatives I finally realized that they had corrected my account but had never informed me so I had four months worth of charges on my bill. Sigh.

I'll be hosting Sam Jayne's night at Pianos on Wednesday the 10th. You should all come down in spite of the fact that, I, uh, haven't, um, prepared anything! I will most likely be skidding past only on the merits of my own charm but I plan on taking alot of ginseng and saw palmetto so I don't anticipate there being any real problems.

The performers besides me are going to be the aforementioned Sam Jayne, TK Webb, Miguel Mendez, and the Mountain Men.

I found this press release going through my daily rounds today.

World's Funniest Cop Uses Humor on the Job

I hope to have my very own press release "World's Funniest Financial Researcher Uses Humor on the Job"

I got this email today:

Please tell ten friends to tell ten today! The Breast Cancer site is having trouble getting enough people to click on it daily to meet their quota of donating at least one free mammogram a day to an underprivileged woman.

It takes less than a minute to go to their site and click on "donating a mammogram" for free (pink window in the middle). This doesn't cost you a thing. Their corporate sponsors/advertisers use the number of daily visits to donate mammogram in exchange for advertising.

Here's the web site! Pass it along to people you know.

www.thebreastcancersite.com

Via Drew here is a google search on the burning question "the hell with it" vs. "to hell with it".

Like I said I am back in full health and I celebrated that yesterday with a big, exciting, men's fashion focus group! What better way, no? I had been walking through the Whitney Museum two saturdays ago(is it so bad that it only took me 45 minutes to see the Whitney? I'm not a lingerer.)when I got a phone call from a very peppy young woman who wanted me to participate in a men's fashion study and make 75 dollars for my time. I had to fudge the truth a little and say that in the past 3 months I'd spent around 400 dollars on clothes and that I shopped at the Gap, J Crew, and H&M. The woman seemed ultra pleased and said "I just know you are going to do what you can to be there and make me happy!". She was right.

I showed up the prescribed 15 minutes early and was immediately bummed that I had eaten dinner before I got there because they offered us sandwiches and other refreshments. There were seven of us in my group. We came in and filled out a form where we said our ages, how many people lived in our household, our income etc... And then Jean, our focus group leader, had us discuss where we shopped and what was important to us in the shopping experience. I had planned to kind of say what I thought they wanted to hear and just have fun with playing the part of someone who I in person obviously wasn't. Kathy dissuaded me from this with an imploring "Promise you won't lie once you get there?". and the very inspirational: "Be yourself tonight! You are an untapped market segment! You are like China to these people, and they don't even know it.". Thus, when we got to the part of the discussion where they asked me what was my favorite place to shop I answered truthfully, K-Mart. This isn't all the way true but "Rick's Army/Navy Store in Greenpoint" is not helpful to them at all. And, I do shop at K-Mart for socks and undershirts. Then we had to fill out a form that said how important certain factors were to us in the shopping experience from company policy to price and then we had to put a check mark next to the things that we thought were important that the our favorite place to shop got right. This was a confusing form to tell the truth. Not always having the "I shouldn't say that." light flashing when I need it I said "This form is pretty poorly designed. Who made this?" and Jean looked at me and said "Um, I did." which was pretty uncomfortable all around. I later on drew a little stick figure of myself apologizing to Jean on my sheet but decided that was a little stupid so I erased it. We then moved on to the actual looking at clothing and rating it as what we thought was the most expensive piece of clothing, what was our favorite, and what we would pay for it. We did this with jeans, undershirts, sweatshirts, and dress shirts. This process took about 10 seconds for me. I really didn't need to feel the fabric on some jeans to know that there is now way in hell that I would ever wear some of the stuff he threw out there. Actually, when asked why I didn't care for a certain shirt the only reason I could really give was that it looked like something that my mother would have bought for me when I was in middle school and said "You look so cute in this!" and I thought "BLEAGH...are you kidding me?", but I guess this (Ken just leaned over to me and said "I'll tell you one thing, these sun dried tomatoes sure are high in fiber content!") little insight into my psyche probably wasn't so helpful in either a marketing or business development standpoint. Finally it was revealed why we were there. A Japanese company roughly similar to Old Navy was trying to decide whether it was a good idea to expand to the American market. Uniqlo has stores in Japan, China, and England already and we were shown pictures of the stores in Japan also their mission statement. Jean asked if the mission statement resonated with us and it led me to wonder when has a mission statement for a casual clothing company really resonated with someone ever? Then we looked at some catalogs and said whether or not we would go to this store and where we thought it would best be situated in the New York area. Everyone in my group was very positive towards Uniqlo. This includes me. I suppose it's more of a light dusting of positivity since I don't really care but if they had a cheap sale I would buy something there although even if things were super inexpensive I would never shop at The Gap.

That was the end. We left, I collected my seventy five dollar giving my opinion fee, and I entered the subway feeling a flush of success.

I am back! The sickness has left me and only pure good Joshiness remains! I think that I was in the grip of some food poisoning brought on by some meatloaf. After two rather uncomfortable days spent sweating and fever dreaming I threw it off and now things are only looking up up up!

Ok, interactive fun:

Is "Oh, the hell with it" correct or is it "Oh ,to hell with it"?

Please leave your vote in the comments.

I meant to blog today but I went home sick. I don't feel well at all.