Category: art

Matilda Singing Rose Kornbluth lived for play dates with her best friend from Columbia Shannon, who turned her on to Shakira despite her Do It All Dad insisting, at first, that “Shakira is a belly-dancing lounge act for Saudi royals on holiday,” only for his daughter to fire back, in her standard hot pitch, effortless fashion, “Actually, Shakira is the most downloaded artist of all time, and those stats don’t lie, Dada.”

             Feeling good about being dejected in the presence of such all-natural sales star ease, Do It All Dad admitted defeat with playful, funny man charm by wrapping up a conversation he regretted getting into (for the most part) by now, saying back, “I wish Mama’s hips had concealed their ever-widening reality, already.”

            Do It All Dad also operated an IT staffing business, Stand Up Staffer, from home, placing front end developers, graphic designers, and now-UX designers throughout the Island of Manhattan. On Stand-Up Staffer’s business card was a long stage hook like the one they would use at the Apollo on Amateur Night; except in this pic, a bearded Millennial Mouseketeer stick figure hipster in glasses is getting hooked off into the loving, saving, life-enriching arms of Stand-Up Staffer.            The slogan for Stand-Up Staffer on the card states, “Been Talent Hooking Since Y2K,” before LinkedIn thought that leadership posts by Marc Cuban would make Jack Welch shake in his penny loafers, made out of Leprechaun gold teeth.

            Do It All Dad was also a part-time, open mike comedian in both LA and Manhattan before Matilda was born, so his daughter, Singing Rose Kornbluth (otherwise known as Grace In Motion) was bound to absorb her father’s always-on, constantly pitching leanings.

            When Matilda was only two, she could only string two words together, so her Do It All Dad would mold around those limitations, understanding the always-relevant adage “less is more,” especially when you’re in the pursuit of hooking a hiring IT Director’s interest in hearing about a hot-to-trot candidate over the phone out of the freaking blue, without making any contact prior or delivering a fumble-free first joke difference-maker, which determines whether you score a semi-respectable set with enough momentous, kickstarting oomph at another open mike in the East Village with five other struggling, aspiring stand-up comics stuck in their heads, rehearsing punch lines bound for comedic glory compared to your hack stabs at being professionally funny for five minutes straight at a time.

            Still, Matilda would always shine in the scripted lines her dad gave Matilda to score laughs with, at two, so she grew up trusting her Do It All Dad’s stand-up sales wisdom even more each day, yeah, yeah, yeah.

            Do It All Dad’s favorite routine at the deli back in the day, when Matilda was only two, was, “Hey, Matilda, what did Tyson Chandler give the Knicks?” And Singing Rose Matilda Kornbluth would take the nookie out of her mouth and say, “Bupkis, Daddy. Bupkis.”  

            When Matilda was five, her Do It All Dad enrolled his five-year-old in acting camp despite prolonged protests from Mama stating, with huffy, annoyed disgust, “But she can’t even read yet.”

            Do It All Dad snaps back with, “We’ll watch Rocky 2 together, for pointers.” Then, the next summer, Matilda co-stared in fifteen or more commercials uploaded on to YouTube for his Standup Staffer business, which later led to her Do It All Dad scoring a retainer staffing fee to place a VP of UX Design for a new food tech startup, FOODIEFRIEDNFORLIFE, based in the NOHO section of Manhattan. It billed itself as a lunch matching service for single working professionals who wanted to network with new business contacts over a shared ribeye for two, knowing that your vegetarian girlfriend never would.

            Plus, you could write off these pricy, big-deal-conjuring lunches as a new business development expense if you worked in B2B sales, account management for Madison Avenue, or as an Associate Editor for a major publishing business to woo literary studs on the rise who weren’t complete social spaz attacks off the page, who exuded more than 0.0 charisma off the page.

            Matilda’s favorite commercial for Standup Staffer included the one called Blonde Power, where she plays a star UX Designer who’s worked for twenty companies in five years, stating, “I fall out of love easily, like Trump.”

            Then, when asked why she decided to dye her hair blonde, Blonde Ambition says, “Guy software engineers prefer blonds, to feel smarter and superior. They’re nerds, remember? Plus, only ugly girls go to coding boot camp.”

            So, Matilda was no stranger to performing and selling as she started the 4^th grade, especially knowing that her old-school go-to line (whenever her dear dada used to pick up her from daycare in Scarsdale Village after working for the man Robert Half in Manhattan) was, “Can I get a treat, Daddy? I was fuss-free today—fuss-free.”

             In short, Do It All Dad played a huge role helping transform his daughter into a supremely confident, effortlessly charismatic, logic-loaded, never too overtly wordy, dronish sales machine. As a result, it pissed off Matilda to no end when the Girl Scouts Of America denied her entry after se admitted to marching in the annual Israel Day Parade with her dear dada because it was insensitive to Arab Scouts in their troop (despite their alleged secular, wholesome girl-nextdoor leanings; despite there being a Planned Parenthood abortion referral fee patch in the works since full term abortions in New York State became Kosher in the empire state’s eyes under Governor Cuomo’s all-knowing watch, otherwise known as a cold-blooded Italian Reptilian, inside).

            Matilda fumes to her best friend Shannon over the phone about being denied more primo face time with her friend through the Girl Scouts Of America, saying, “Israel is not the country who fires rockets into their neighbor’s backyards, expecting nothing more than an Edible gift basket in return. Hamas terrorists in charge of their government are supposed to be trusted partners in peace, eight days a week, my chest.”

            Matilda’s also admitting to ‘Dude Looks Like A Lady’ being her most liked song on Spotify didn’t warm her up to the Girl Scouts Of America, either, especially since the Boy Scouts started admitting girl men like Juno into their ranks, too.

            Matilda Singing Rose Kornbluth was intent on revenge, now, for being denied more face time with her best friend in the universe, and launches Standup Sitter Club, an accelerated sales camp for kids which unmasks the power of cold calling for those interested in scaling their babysitting business to the next level. 

            Because of that, the head PTA mom calls for a sit down with Stand Up staffer who runs his own IT staffing firm from home, who gave his daughter the idea of recruiting burnt-out goodie-two-shoes from the Girl Scouts Of America in the first place.   Matilda started Cold Calling Camp seminar lectures with lines such as, “Smartphones Don’t Come With Balls To Make Cold Calls For You” and “You spent enough time on your ass doing more remote learning from home. The first rule of the Standup Sitter Club is: no chairs when cold calling.”

            Now the head PTA mom in charge of her local Girl Scouts chapter calls Stand Up Staffer to demand a sit down, threatening to report his daughter to the better business bureau for unfair recruitment practices, since Matilda’s Cold Calling Camp For Kids Camp depleted her group dry by offering commission-heavy rip profits.

            ‘Babysitter’ sounds so passé. Matilda’s stable network of enterprising babysitters were rebranded on LinkedIn as Creative Play Consultants.

            Stand Up Staffer meets the head PTA mom at a local coffee shop and says, “You can’t knock my daughter’s Cold Calling Camp For Kids. The only way to get ahead in life is to cold call yourself into stranger’s hearts.

            I wasn’t introduced to my wife of ten years through a friend. I didn’t swipe her over to my lap at a new cider bar opening in the east village. I didn’t overcome my zero confidence, shyness stutter from a fancy internship connection to the agent training program at the Creative Artists Agency.      I didn’t break through the soul-destroying, mentally crippling door of dependence on my parents to pay rent for my apartment in West Hollywood through being bequeathed some cushy IT Account Manger role to wine and dine IT Directors  who worked for wine distributor behemoth Southern Wine and Spirits, to secure more job orders to fill, without having to throw my balls on the line in the service of winning over the trust of new clients through sheer audacity and relentless, houndish delight while minimizing my sprinklings of spamish overtones until I became more polished inbetween.”

            Stand Up Staffer adds, “More importantly, your daughter Maya is making money at Standup Sitters, earning hefty referral babysitter fees up the wazoo.

            “Also, let’s not depreciate your daughter’s increased ability to listen better due to her hardcore cold calling camp training. That makes it easier for her to bear drawn-out conversations with you with more emotionally present awareness and concern the next time you start moaning on about your immovable belly rolls three kids later; or how life offers rapidly depleted meaning once your daughter outgrows the need for Mama’s nurturing hugs as you pop open another boozy mommy seltzer again, for head-lightening relief.”  

            PTA mom says, “If I can’t knock the cold call, then can I hit you in the face really hard, once? It might turn you on, actually.”

Michael Kornbluth