IT Happens Episode 2: America's Americans

Episode 2 (Start opening music) IT HAPPENS

Jericho is at home. He's sitting on $100 blue IKEA couch, drinking from 29 cent oddly shaped IKEA glasses, while using an IKEA catalog as a tablecloth on his $10 IKEA dinner cart. Jericho sighs as his phone rings, reminding him that his weekend is a facade. He picks it up.

"Helpdesk this is Jerry speaking, how may I help you?"

"Haaaallo, this is Changweng weng. I have phone which makes it bad time. It make me feel like I no work, but I know the phone no work, not me. (he laughs)."

"Ok Mr. Weng how..."

"Call me Changweng, you are not dog or child"

Jericho pauses.

"Ok Changweng, is there any reason why your phone is not working? Did you damage the phone in any way?"

Flashback to Changweng putting out a cigarette on his Blackberry while his ashtray is in his iPod Cradle

Flashback to Changweng showering with his Blackberry, using it as bar of soap and laughing when he figures out his mistake

Flashback to Changweng's wife, ZangZeng taking the battery of the Blackberry and using the empty side to pick up dog poop off their lawn

Flashback to Changweng throwing the Blackberry at his blindfolded kids running around the room. He hits one of his children who falls to the ground and yells "You are the black-ass-berry now!" The kids laugh hysterically.

"Uh...no way, Jose" Changweng laughs thinking he made a pun on Jericho's name.

"Changweng, can you please open the back of the Blackberry and take out the battery?"

Changweng grows impatient.

"Listen Jose, I don't do the job, you do the job. You get the money to take out, I take out and get nothing but wonderful family." Changweng laughs again thinking he made another joke.

"Changweng, there's no way I can help you unless you do some troubleshooting on your end. Since it's the weekend, I am..."

"Hold on cowboy"

Changweng picks up his ringing Blackberry, which is playing Shania Twain's song "That don't impress me much" and speaks in Cantonese. He hangs up the Blackberry and pauses for a moment. Jericho hears Changweng mutter softly to himself Cantonese which could be translated to "Son of a b****" in English. Then he hears the phone rustle for another 30 seconds and turns into a dial tone.

Jericho slumps sideways on his couch, watching re-runs of America's Americans on mute and slowly falls asleep.

Dream sequence:

Jericho is in the back of the line to audition for America's Americans. He's wearing a ridiculous outfit with ripped jeans, bicycle gloves and a piano belt. He is standing outside in a blacktop parking lot of a huge football stadium. It's a hot day as he notices sweat mushing up his oversized, bleached bangs. He taps on the shoulder of a young teen blonde in front of him.

"Do you know how long this line is going to take?"

The blonde girl turns around and lets out a Mariah Carie-ish high note screech and then turns back around.

Jericho stares at the back of her head, as if he had seen a ghost.

The thousand of contestants are herded into the stadium, as Jericho is smooshed in between the stampeding herd. He sits on one of the orange bleacher chairs as they announce which section will be auditioning first.

"We are going to be starting backwards today, section 100 will go first, then 99 and so on"

Jericho looks down at his ticket, which says section 1.

14 hours pass as the day slumps into night. Finally Jericho is on the field, in line for one of the judging booths. People are exiting to the right if they are chosen by the judge and the left if they are rejected. An obese man in a sombrero with a shirt that reads "I ate the last America's American" walks to the right with his hands in the air.

Jericho finally gets up to the judging booth. The booth has two judges, one overweight gray bearded Harvey Feinstein lookalike and a scowling older Indian woman. Jericho stands up to the panel and let's out the start of his song,

"You're just too good to be true, can't take my eyes off of you".

The Harvey Feinstein man stops him with his eyes wide open.

"Stop! You are exactly what we need!"

Jericho is ecstatic, all of his hopes and dreams of becoming a rockstar are coming true. First America's Americans, then MTV, then Radio City Music Hall, then world tours with Coldplay.

"You really think so?"

"No no, I mean you!" He points at the girl standing behind him who is completely naked, covered in body paint of President Obama.

Jericho screams and runs down the field in embarrassment. He falls over one of the contestants on the way. He looks down and it's Ariel from Marketing.

"It's you, I mean, you are you, I mean. Ariel what are you doing here?"

Ariel doesn't say a word, but instead unbuckles his piano belt and wraps it around his waist pulling him closer to her. She starts licking face, as Jericho looks at her puzzled. He shrugs and starts licking her back.

End of Dream Sequence

Jericho wakes up with his dog "Deeogee or D-O-G" licking his face. He spits onto the ground and flings the dog across the couch.

America's Americans blares in the background as the 3 judges give their verdicts to a skinny blonde girl.

"I don't know man, seriously bro, not sure guy"

(The woman judges stares at her huge soda glass) "I think, I think,” "Who thinks?" "I think” Then she passes out over the table.

"I want to stick you like a frog, cause you sounded like a toad up there. I don't want to be mean, but you could have been replaced by a filing cabinet and I would have enjoyed it more"

The contestant talks back, "Well you're just a bitter old man who doesn't know anything about style. I'm getting married next week. My hubbo thinks I sing good"

"Oh shoot a hole in a window and jump out of it. Why don't you go get ready for your wedding, Big Lots is having a 50 cent sale on wooden sandals and cat litter."
“I mean look, you sung so softly, I was waiting for Clay Aiken to come out with a tiara singing lead.”

Jericho stands up to go to the fridge and his phone rings

"Haaaallo, this is Changweng weng. My TV box is not making cable, now it's just making snow. Maybe you can shovel my box?" He laughs.

Jericho looks at his dog who is licking its lips and sighs.

CUE CREDITS

Unfortunately this story isn't far from experience as I tried out for American Idol in 2007 at Qualcomm Stadium in San Diego. It was 80 degrees and I did wait 14 hours to audition.

IT Happens

I have been working in IT for a long long time (maybe too long). My friend calls the IT department the "Land of the Lost Toys" and IT being "a career made for social misfits". His words, not mine (though I will not disagree). I think of it more of a playground for slackers who love surfing the web and taking extra monitors home. Back to the point.

From my travels in the IT job arena, I have come upon some of the most fascinating characters and decided it was not enough to just enjoy these bizarre fellows in my head. I have started to write a script/story about these people hoping to turn it into some sort of web tv show (like my fav clarkandmichael.com) in the future. If there are any TV execs interested in this premise, I will sell out faster then you can write a check. Here's the pilot, hope you enjoy it!

IT Happens - Pilot - Episode 1

Jericho sits in front of the computer, wearing a bluetooth headset and staring at two wide flat screen monitors. Outlook dings after each message as he watches his folders grow with new emails. His eyelids slowly grow heavy as the office noise turns into silence. He looks at his cubicle wall with his “IT Tech of the month” awards with a cheesy cartoon turtle giving thumbs up. Then he pans over to a picture of himself and his girlfriend at a company picnic holding a sock monkey she had won. Then he looks over to the printer on his desk where the sock monkey is sitting with its legs over its head. The office noise starts to creep back as he hears a buzzing noise in the distance.

He stands up.

He passes by cubicle number 2, Duck’s cube. Duck’s real name is David but decided to legally have his name changed to "Duck" since “all of my bro’s call me that” as he explains. He didn’t even look like a duck, more like an inbred Tasmanian devil. Duck sits slouched as far as a cheap office chair allows. He sits with a wrist guard on each hand, video game controller on the left and a very complicated mouse with multiple buttons on the right. He is playing an online zombie shooting video game and his character is a girl in a bikini shooting a bazooka. As Jericho walks by, Duck stomps on the ground and an Excel sheet pops up.

“Pretty rad, huh? Everytime you step on it, an Excel sheet pops up”

Jericho continues to walk without acknowledgment, tripping over a plastic Star Wars light saber which makes the woosh sound as he kicks it aside.

"Don't f--k with the force" Duck says under his breath.

The noise still buzzes in the background, slowly growing louder.

He passes cubicle number 3, Jule’s cube. Jule is on the phone with a customer. She has a distinct southern drawl that's cloaked by her gum smacking.

“Listen sweetheart, computers aren’t magic. If you deleted a file, it’s done deleted. Maybe next time you’ll think with your head instead of your ass. Hold please. “

Jule looks up at Jericho.

“What’s up righty?”

He glances at Jule’s “I (heart) Lefties” banner on her wall.

“Do you hear that sound?”.

Jule waves her finger in the air and clicks her headset.

“What’s up friend?!” She exclaims in a child like manner.

“No you didn’t! You’re such a tramp. I’d totally let the tires out of his trunk, if you know what I mean!”

Jule cackles while toggling through multiple webpages. Facebook, Myspace, and Friendster appear to be the obvious suspects.

Jericho looks at a framed photo of Jule’s husband, in an orange vest, holding a decapitated deer head with strung out eyes and the grin of a psychopath.

Jule clicks her headset again.

“I told you it’s not Ju-well, it’s Jule, like Orange Julius, minus us” she guffaws in a ridiculous tone.

Jericho pushes off of Jule’s cube like an Olympic swimmer.

He approaches cubicle 4, Darren’s cube. Darren is as Anglo as a bag of Doritos but continues to think he has a place in the Asian community. Darren opens the tightly squeezed mini fridge under his desk only to have food spill out, including 2 huge bottles of green tea, an unwrapped package of tofu, edamame that sprawls out all over the floor and a bottle of Teriyaki sauce that says "Speedy Panda Tangy Teriyaki” on the side. Darren is wearing a shirt that says "Yellow is the new black"

“Darren. Do you…”

“Excuse me? “ Darren scowls at Jericho in a goofy matter.

“Sorry…Mah-Feen, do you hear that noise?”

Darren wants to be called "Mah-feen" because he thinks it’s an ancient samurai name, but in reality it just means “muffin” in Japanese. The Japanese accounting team had fun with him on that one.

“You mean the sound of nourishment?” spews Darren as his personal microwave dings. He brings out a huge bowl of noodles that says “Sam Woo’s Cheese Ramen” on the side.

“This is why the Korean’s don’t get cancer” he says as he plunges chopsticks with a rubber band tied at the ends into the bowl.

Jericho walks away with an extra layer to his glaze.

The next cubicle is inhabited by Rico, a 50 year old Guatemalan with five kids, a wife and sadly ironic "Rico Suave" tendencies. Rico is not in his cube. Jericho looks at his cubicle wall and notices rows of pictures, each marked into categories: Sales, Marketing, Accounting, and Human Resources, each with 5-6 pictures of different women in the office. Some pictures appear to have been taken from the employee photo page on the internal website. Jericho sees a framed picture of Rico and his wife waving from a pool with a poorly cut magazine picture of Eva Longaria replacing her head. There is an opened box of powdered milk next to a half empty bowl of purple cheerios. Jericho glances at a chat window that reads "It was like the Accused but only if she had liked it". Jericho moves on. The horns of Mexican radio music was not the high pitch squeal he was looking for.

Jericho passes by the office of the boss, Shane, who is on his headset talking about some sort of sport. He's shooting baskets at two Nerf hoops simultaneously at each end of the office. The walls are covered with framed baby pictures, with some overflowing to the bottom of the desk. He has a baseball cap on a mantle that says "FUCLA" due to a dreadful year of admissions for white males to UCLA. This was the reason he felt for not getting in, though it was really due to his panel interview being filled with apathetic responses of "Cool, cool" and yawning during empty silences. Shane finally threw both Nerf balls in both baskets simultaneously and stood up with both hands in the air. He looks at Jericho who is staring at him and then proceeds to yawn. "What's up Jericho?"

"Just wondering if you know what that sound is?"

"Ahhhhhhhhhh, nope. Anything else?"

"No, that's it"

"Cool, cool (yawn)"

Jericho passes by the plump plant watering lady who has a jet pack of water and a long metal rod sprayer. He didn't even know the plants were real.

On the other side of the room he sees Ariel at the copier, she's a cute, petite asian girl from Marketing who he has had a crush on for over 2 years. She looks up and smiles at him. As he smiles back he drops his PDA phone to the ground as his battery and case explode like watermelon seeds.

As he stands up Jon who works in Facilities is serenading him with the Seal song "Kiss by a rose" He pushes him back:

"Hey man, don't push me, you're the one falling (and winks)"

As he stares at Ariel walking away, Jericho responds, "Do you know what that noise is Jon?"

"What noise? You mean the sound of Rico breathing heavy?"

Points to Rico, who has his arm leaning over a very uncomfortable Marketing intern pinned in a corner. Rico grabs her arm and tries to spin her around as if they were salsa dancing and the intern immediately stomps off.

Jericho scours the office looking for the noise, looking up and down the halls of the cube farms. Then as the sound grows louder and louder he discovers the noise. A co-worker passed out on his keyboard as a trail of Z's scroll across an Excel document.

Big font letters - IT HAPPENS (cue music now, I'm thinking of a shameless plug of my band Lonely Mattress Salesman with the song "You are no better" myspace.com/lonelymattresssalesman).

We are all heroes in our day to day lives. Some people fight fires, some volunteer at a local retirement home, some run for mayor of their city. Unfortunately our hero does none of the above. Instead we have Jericho James. An average Joe who has the most mind-numbingly monotonous job of being a IT Computer Tech at a not so high-tech company. Jericho barrels through his life of monotony only to dream of becoming a rock star. In the meantime Jericho lives a life with the slogan “IT Happens”.