The Wondrous Nothings

(From left to right) Kenneth, Herman, Phil, and Me

Another CT Update brought to you by the staff of highly intelligent squirrels who work at CT Headquarters.

Kenneth the I.T. guy comes into my office, his little squirrel paws flailing above his head, screaming something about how he didn’t mean to do it, that it was a mistake, please don’t fire him, two hundred and fifty kids at home, six wives, the tree mortgage, blah blah blah. So me, being head squirrel here at CT Headquarters, says, “Didn’t mean to do what?” And that’s when he takes me up to the seventieth floor and shows me the cables connecting the CT.com servers to the outside world. They’re all chewed through and I can see the unmistakable marks left by Kenneth’s squirrel teeth. “Did we forget to bring our lunch again today?” I say, and Kenneth just stares at me with this sheepish look on his face, his little squirrel whiskers all folded under his chin. “Chris isn’t going to be happy about this,” I say, and man, am I right.

A few hours later Chris is on his back under the hulking mass of CT.com computer servers trying to plug stuff back in. He’s all, Kid on the way this, and Haven’t-got-time-for-this-shit that. He doesn’t fire Kenneth, exactly, but lets just say, the department he transfers him too isn’t what one would consider “essential.”

“How do you guys expect to sell a new CD that is only available online if the computers are down?” says Chris. He’s got the fifty of us gathered together in the conference room for an emergency staff meeting. Chris looks around and calls on Herman from purchasing. “Herman,” he says. “I’m making you the new I.T. guy.”

To say that Herman is excited would be an understatement. He’s does this little thing where he chases his tail around the room for minute and then climbs up the table in front of Chris and wraps himself up in this cute little ball on Chris’ shoulder. We all know Herman is showing off, but he’s wanted this job bad, we all know it, he never shuts up about it. Everyday in the lunchroom, he’s all, I know computers better than anyone, I’m a level sixty on World of Warcraft, I had the first iMac, I was the first to have all of Chris’ albums on my iPod, yada yada yada.

In the meeting, Herman tells everyone that chewing though wires won’t be a problem with him, he hasn’t eaten nuts since the Apple II came out, and reminds everyone that that was like thirty years ago. Phil from accounting turns to me a says, “Really? This guy? Since when do we squirrels live thirty years?”

So, for a while, Herman does pretty good. He doubles Chris’ Twitter posts. Facebook calls and says they like how he’s customized Chris’ fan page and can they interest him in an extra twenty thousand a year and this whole winter/nut layaway plan. Herman, of course, reminds them he doesn’t eat nuts so the negotiations go nowhere.

When Chris finds Herman’s stash of squirrel porn hidden on a computer Herman thought no one checked, he’s even angrier than when Kenneth chewed through the wires. Next thing you know Kenneth is back from wherever he ended up, but this time with strict orders to wear this cute little squirrel helmet with a facemask during working hours so he won’t be tempted.

Chris bumps Herman back down to purchasing where he eventually falls, totally and completely, off the nut wagon. I find him stuffing nuts in with CD orders, nuts behind the coffee machine, he even tries to convince Chris to record some of his old CDs with lyrics about nuts. Sadly, Chris is forced to release Herman into the woods, which, happens rarely around here, but it does happen.

So, that’s the last few months. Kenneth is doing great, CD orders are up, and we continue to charge ahead boldly here at CT Headquarters despite Herman’s absence. God’s speed Herman. God’s speed, my friend.

The Squirrels.

It was week three in the life of Chris’ new album Rest of the Story, and everyone at CT Headquarters (who are, in fact, a team of highly organized and intelligent squirrels), looked around the office and noticed we were out of CD’s. “Quick, we need more!” everyone said.

But Books that are also CDs don’t grow on trees (trust us, we’re squirrels, we know a thing or two about trees), and it would take time to ship more from the super-cool Rethink designers up in Canada. ”We must have sold out at the Toronto gig,” said Stewart from Accounting, and after running the numbers he let the whole team know that yes, in fact, the band had sold out of every CD they’d taken with them to Toronto. “Tom at The Rex in Toronto called and said it was some kind of CD release sale record!” said Jenny from Marketing. “Apparently he’s sending us hats.” To which we all cheered, because everyone loves squirrels in cute little squirrel hats.

But what all this really meant was that we had to sit around on our little squirrel paws waiting for the new shipment of CD/Books to arrive, which meant there wasn’t much to do, which meant Chris was upset paying a team of highly intelligent squirrels to sit around the office and, in his words, “Just count nuts and shit.”

And then, a few days later, Chris walked in on Larry from HR and Jenny from Marketing actually counting nuts right there in the middle of the break room table, paperwork strewn all over the floor, fur flying everywhere, Jenny up on the table in what was obviously a compromising squirrel position. Needless to say, Chris wasn’t happy. “This is not a party,” Chris said to us after he’d gathered everyone together near reception. “This is jazz, this is serious business!” Fred from the Pop Music division stifled a laugh and the rest of us just kind of stared at Chris in that way squirrels do before they run off in three directions at once.

So, because we were waiting for CDs it was a slow CT press week. “Can’t send out to reviewers if we don’t have CDs,” said Guss in Legal, and we were like, “Tell us something we don’t know, Guss.” Man, that guy, always the wet squirrel to every party.

We managed to pull together a few things, more blogs chatting up the awesome CD design, a couple of choice album quotes that Vince from Finance wrote down on the office white board with his squirrel-sized Sharpie in hopes of lifting the general malaise of the team.

Then, Bass Player Magazine called. They wanted an interview with Chris and asked if we were interested. “Hells right,” we said and worked out out the details right there on the phone (July or August issue). After that everyone ran to find Chris to tell him the good news. He’d fallen asleep on the couch in the conference room, copies of “Best Baby on the Block,” “Baby 411,” and “What To Expect When You’re Expecting,” open and highlighted on his gently rising chest.

“He is so very tired,” said Walter in a thick German accent (he was visiting from the European office that week). “Let him sleep,” I said to the group. “Next week is going to be busy.” And with that, we all quietly scampered back to our desks. “This is jazz,” I heard someone say as we walked away, “this is serious business.” And I smiled, because they were right. And like that, the team was back in action.

Sincerely,

The Squirrels.