I watched that last night. Great stuff. Totally interesting how Cruise stops at traffic accidents because he's the only one who can help, because he knows how to create new realities. Is this partly an effect of playing the hero in too many movies?
What's funny is that he really has rescued people from burning cars and changed old ladies' tires, etc. -- he's notorious for stories like this. Of course, each of them came immediately after a bout of very bad press, usually involving his sexual orientation.
Wait, the narration isn't a joke? Holy shit.
Wait, this is an internal scientology video?
The acronyms are especially weird. "Have you met an SP?"
"According to Hubbard, suppressive persons have a number of distinct characteristics:
1. He or she speaks only in very broad generalities."
What makes it perfect is the totally out of place "cha-chk!" camera-shutter noise after everything he says. "It's your responsibility to save the old lady from the space thetans! CH-CHK!"
Somebody said this elsewhere, but how awesome would it be for the rights holders to the Mission Impossible theme to sue?
This genetic entity carries engrams (negative mental pictures) picked up all along the evolutionary track. One of those engrams goes back to when we were actually clams, the bivalve type (yes, Hubbard actually said that mankind's genetic entities had evolved through a shellfish stage).
According to Hubbard, as clams, we picked up engrams due to pain from opening and closing our hinged "shells." Hubbard said when this pain engram is remembered ("restimulated") in humans, our temporo-mandibular joint (TMJ, or jaw joint) hurts.
Hubbard also said one's clam engrams could be stirred up and restimulated by seeing someone opening and closing their hand, in the fashion of a clam shell opening and closing, or when hearing a snapping sound, the sound our clam engrams fearfully remember from the days when our shell snapped closed to avoid predators.
THREAD JACK
||
I need career advice. I got offered a job today, for which I did not apply, as a personal assistant for a one-man non-profit. It sounds like I'd have to do some personal tasks for him (low-hanging-fruit, I know), because part of the salary would be paid by him and not the non-profit. I think he makes his assistant put out his annual New Year's letter. I think it's been hard for him to hold on to assistants, because he wants someone literate who will be nice to talk to but who is able and willing to do the crap office work too.
Not having co-workers sounds like it could be awful. I met him for breakfast, because he said that he was interested in helping me out generally. He said that he had a certain empathy for me, having left law school, since he'd done the same thing after one year before moving on to a degree in urban planning.
Thoughts? My gut is to run away, but I want to do that as gracefully as possible and hold out the opportunity for networking or whatever.
|>
11: Oh my.
12: Maybe ask nicely if he could put you in touch with a former assistant or two to talk more about what's involved?
12: BG -- I had an experience when I was fresh out of college with an older rich guy (more low hanging fruit, you knuckle draggers) who ran a non-profit. He, too, wanted to help me out, buy me lunch to save me money, get me a job. This fellow is rather well known in certain circles and could certainly help a sister out. I ended up in full retreat when he began calling me to come have private weekend dinners at his house. Maybe I was wrong and unfair, but, you know, I know a little somethi' somethin' and dudes don't roll like that just to be nice.
So run. This is my opinion.
Talking to a former assistant sounds like a good idea. If he doesn't want to put you in touch with one, that's a clear warning sign.
Does this guy have a real office, or would you be working out of his house or something? That seems like an important factor.
I gave him my resume on good paper yesterday. He's fusty enough and clubby enough that a plain old e-mail probably wouldn't have been the right thing. I got an e-mail from a friend of his in New York asking me to send my credentials, if I'm interested. She was going to print them out for him. I'd met her at the same party. I sent a copy of my resume and said that I'd need a few days to think it over.
for which I did not apply
Getting basic stuff out of the way: How did you come into contact with hi and how did he know to offer you a job?
Working out of his house. oudemia, can you e-mail me?
I met him at a ball given by my godmother. He was on someone else's guest list though.
I bring this up purely for comedy effect rather than as actual advice, but I worked with Idealist representing a celebrity who had installed two-way mirrors in his summer house so that he could take naked pictures of his assistant without her knowledge while she lived in his house working on a book he was writing (No use googling, we successfully kept it out of the papers. She did make a whole lot of money on the deal.) So, you never know what people are going to do.
For the little that it's worth, BG, I select "run" in this scenario because (i) them guts is often reliable on these questions and (ii) there are so many ways this could go wrong-- the guy could be straight-up sleazy, or could have a hard time seeing the difference between what he's entitled to for his money and what he's not, and so on. Or could be a pain to work for. Talking to former assistants sounds like a must.
You have a godmother who gives balls? That's cracking me up, but not in the low-hanging fruit way.
LB, defending the rich and powerful from the helpless and violated. Our blog is printed in the blood of innocents.
I wouldn't do it, BG, but I've had way too many bad experiences working for individuals. If the relationship is perfect, it can be nice, but if it's not, it's truly horrible.
The guy's not a celebrity, but he does have a house in New/port. I think that the friend in NY migh be that kind of friend, so I don't know. He's divorced and has kids, one of them is at prep school now.
He was on someone else's guest list though.
Oooh.
a book he was writing
Specifically....
Google-proofing is the funniest phenomenon evar.
Not him. No one anyone actually cares about, but a very recognizable name.
Google-proofing is the funniest phenomenon evar.
Particularly since it would (I assume) be trivially easy for Google to modify their search algorithm to compensate for it, at which point everyone would be fucked.
29: But it's funnier my way. (And if somehow I did have a real guess, which I don't, I wouldn't post it.)
But if "New/port" got parsed as, you know, N*wport, then "good/bad" would get parsed as "goodbad".
Anyway, this is a good reason to prefer the r-d-ct--n method of googleproofing.
21: You have a godmother who gives balls? That's cracking me up, but not in the low-hanging fruit way. It an annual Win/ter Sols/tice Ball. When she was affiliated with a House she and the Master had it there. It's very low key, but she used to go to something, now defunct, called Wal/tz Eve/ning, because she genuinely does like to dance.
I worked with Idealist representing a celebrity who had installed two-way mirrors in his summer house so that he could take naked pictures of his assistant
Let me guess, this isn't even remotely close to the bottom of the pit in terms of clients you've represented.
I imagine LB's client being the same person who built the punworthy sex grotto.
Alternately, he could be a dissolute aristocrat named Punworthy.
Not him. No one anyone actually cares about, but a very recognizable name.
Mr. Myxlplyx. Etaoin Shrdlu. Kai Ryssdal.
But if "New/port" got parsed as, you know, N*wport, then "good/bad" would get parsed as "goodbad".
True, but would this really be a problem? "Goodbad" would still come up in response to a search for "good."
Anyway, this is a good reason to prefer the r-d-ct--n method of googleproofing.
Yep.
Kai Ryssdal
Is that the fucker who tells me to "Make it a Good Day" on NPR's marketplace report in the mornings?
I dunno. You could say Big Tobacco trumps everything, but if not, that story's about tops for picturesque awfulness.
i hope to god it is Kai Ryssdal.
And y'all, that video is unbelievable. As are the gargantuan snowflakes falling at my house in Atl.
a very recognizable name
Sir Edmund Hillary.
When she was affiliated with a House she and the Master had it there.
Roger Delgado or John Simm?
I worked with Idealist representing a celebrity who had installed two-way mirrors in his summer house so that he could take naked pictures of his assistant
You hear about this sort of thing often enough that you'd think there was some short of shortage of ways to see people naked.
That is, Pat Riley was represented by LizB, and now is going to hire BosG.
"I remember back in the great porn shortage of oh-eight, people were installing two way mirrors just to look at some hooters" [/old man vioce]
It was John Wayne, and LB leaked the idea to Alex Cox.
So, this ball. Were the footmen kind of scaly? The coachman, beady-eyed? I think I heard about it.
You hear about this sort of thing often enough that you'd think there was some short of shortage of ways to see people naked.
There often is a shortage of ways to see certain particular people naked.
It was in a b*at club. No pumpkins were involved. It's the one I asked John to last year.
I keep thinking Tom Cruise looks/acts like Johnny Drama. Makes the video even more amusing.
And I like it when Kai Ryssdal tells me to make it a good day. Makes getting up before dawn almost worthwhile.
It's Mr. Mxyzptlk, but while I knew 37 looked wrong I couldn't figure out the correct spelling myself (let alone backwards) without the help of wikipedia.
It's Mr. Mxyzptlk, but while I knew 37 looked wrong I couldn't figure out the correct spelling myself (let alone backwards) without the help of wikipedia.
Goddammit. This is why Bat-Mite is better.
I doubt it, Teo. It's not about the particular woman, I'm guessing, as much as it's about the peeping itself. Voyeurism isn't about naked people as much as it's about watching someone who doesn't know they're being watched.
I just seems like there are perfectly good and much less risky substitutes for all these weird activities.
Voyeurism isn't about naked people as much as it's about watching someone who doesn't know they're being watched, and who is naked.
It's not about the particular woman, I'm guessing, as much as it's about the peeping itself. Voyeurism isn't about naked people as much as it's about watching someone who doesn't know they're being watched.
Seems like there are much easier ways to accomplish that than installing two-way mirrors.
"The risk" isn't the same thing as "watching someone who doesn't know they're being watched".
Any actual voyeurs want to weigh in on this?
(Probably not.)
Eh, I understand these things rationally, but I can't really sympathize, because all my fetishes are much more mundane.
You don't have to be a voyeur to understand the difference between, say, listening to your neighbors have sex and listening to an audio file online of people having sex.
I saw this crazy think on CourtTV with the writer James Ellroy. He was talking about his mother, who was murdered when he was 10. He spoke of her as a forbidden object of lust and hate, and attributed her death to his becoming a peeping tom and panty sniffer in his teens and twenties, that is he kept looking to replicate the "oh-god-it's-naughty-look-but-don't-touch" relationship.
because all my fetishes are much more mundane
Norming!
I lurk most of the time, so I sympathize. Unfogged is my one-way bathroom mirror.
You don't have to be a voyeur to understand the difference between, say, listening to your neighbors have sex and listening to an audio file online of people having sex.
Wait, I thought this is what I was arguing.
12: Robert DeNiro's character in Ronin had some good advice for occasions like this: "If there's ever any doubt, then there is no doubt."
James Ellroy
His autobiography spends a lot of time going over the stuff you discuss, as does some of his shorter writing included in Destination: Morgue!.
69: I love Ronin. I will watch it any time it is on. That and Young Sherlock Holmes. And Bring It On.
70: Not to mention all the murdered women and lost, speechless men in his novels.
70: I should read them. I found his candidness on a sort of icky topic somewhat compelling.
Also, 65 is very badly written. Thing not think. And attributed to her death his . . ..
64: People have a clear preference here? I don't think I do at all. It would all depend on other factors.
74: Hmm. Candidness is a word. Maybe a crappy word, but a word. (But yeah, candor is better.)
75: I would think that to a certain kind of person, surreptitiously spying on people you know in intimate moments is much more gratifying than spying on random strangers in similar situations. Not least because of the frisson of interacting with them in ordinary life while knowing things about them that they don't know you know, which we discussed at length in a slightly different context not too long ago.
I took AWB to be arguing that the attraction of voyeurism is entirely in the spying itself, rather than the identity of the victim, but now I'm not so sure that's what she meant.
Young Sherlock Holmes! Heartily endorsed.
listening to your neighbors have sex and listening to an audio file online of people having sex.
But you're listening to your neighbors have sex, just as you're watching the person naked. I could imagine someone who took a voyeuristic interest in listening in on h/h neighbors doing the dishes, or watching someone folding h/h laundry—get in touch with some of that sanctae simplicitatis! But that would be a pretty conceptual, nonsexual voyeurism.
76: I'll take your word for it, but the "ness" thing is a bit of a peeve of mine. Not that that's anyone else's problem.
I don't mean it has anything to do with the identity of the "victim." I don't know my neighbor at all. I think I've seen her poke her head out of her door once. But we share a wall and she giggles during sex. Her identity has nothing to do with the frisson I get from hearing it. She's a real live person, actually enjoying herself very near to where I am, and that's neat! (I'm not, like, jerking off to this, but I'm certainly not sitting there acting horrified about it or putting in earplugs.)
UPDATE: The same godmother says that if I think it is a recipe for disaster, it probably is. I have another career advice, appropriate e-mail to send question for a different job too--if anyone's reading, that is.
83: Would you describe yourself as a voyeur?
I met him at a ball given by my godmother.
This is cracking me up in the wondering if she sang Bibbity Bobbity Boo sense, or turned into a pumpkin at midnight. Which is a joke that's already been made but tough.
85: I dunno. Voyeurism is a spectrum disorder, right?
ok, I think I can construct the relevant choice to show are intuitions.
Imagine you have two options. (1) overhear in person someone you know personally and are attracted to have sex (2) listen online to a sex tape made by a famous person you are equally attracted to.
Set aside
1. Concerns about morality
2. Concerns about getting caught.
3. Concerns about any costs at all.
Now I can see preferring 1. Marginally. But normally concerns 1-3 are overwhelming.
The risk is the turn-on, no?
It must be for some of the people creeping around in bushes or whatever, but for me there's a pleasure in seeing something I wasn't necessarily intended to see that wouldn't exist if I were crossing boundaries to see it.
Voyeurism is a spectrum disorder, right?
Probably.
Actually, didn't we have a voyerism discussion on this blog before. Wasn't B involved, and wasn't the debate whether it was about power or sadism?
Imagine you have two options. (1) overhear in person someone you know personally and are attracted to have sex (2) listen online to a sex tape made by a famous person you are equally attracted to.
That gets us to intuitions about one of the issues, but to get to the other we need to contrast (1) with (3) listen online to a sex tape made by the person in (1).
The post was some story about a guy who'd put a camera in a shampoo bottle, and was filming his roommates in the shower.
Clairvoyeurs know when they will have disordered spectra.
I suppose we would have to contrast (2) with (3) as well.
88: I choose neither. I'd much rather listen to strangers.
Heh, and Idealist obliquely brought up the same story in the comments to the post.
While it's understandable that this thread veered off-topic, I think it's a real shame that no one has yet mentioned the fact that the video seems to be commemorating the fact that Mr. Cruise has won the FREEDOM MEDAL OF VALOR.
Freedom medal. Of valor.
I hate it when your soap leaves film.
95: but only when they're thinking about it.
I'd much rather listen to strangers.
Okay, but do you think the same is true of LB's client? I don't.
And I think 57 and 89 are right, from whatever baby-level psych/anthro/rocks for jocks course I took. It's not just about seeing naked people, because that's a dime a dozen. It might be just about seeing one particular person, or it might be about a class of person (roommates, women in general, schoolgirls.) And part of the attraction can be the risk, or the secrecy of invading a private boundary.
I've recorded sounds of me and Jammies going at it, and I use it as white noise to fall asleep to.
93: ooh, more intuition parsing! Its what I do best!
There are three things we might be testing for
1. The thrill of spying on someone you know personally.
2. The thrill of spying in person, and not on the internet.
3. The thrill of being the *only person* with this information.
So if (3) is the thrill, the online file is fine, as long as no one else knows it is there.
103 is basically what I'm arguing. The risk is part of the attraction, but probably not the main part.
But heebie, will you post it online?
Okay I have another question. I have a contact at a company which provides software solutions for drug companies. There might be the possibility of me working there in an entry-level customer servicey, helping doctors sort of way. This would be a good route, if I decide that I want to go into computer programming, and I"m really interested in health care stuff. The person I was supposed to talk to is away for a few weeks, because her father died. She responded to my e-mail that day, when her fatehr had died, and copied the HR director. I sent an e-mail sayign that I'd love to set up an informational interview. HR person e-mailed me back today (about a week later) and asked me to e-mail her my resume. If it's any good, she might call me in for an interview. I really want to meet with the personal contact first, because the HR person's e-mail was so diffident. How can I finesse this?
Has anyone suggested that BG get her own lawyer, hidden camera, hidden tape recorder, duct tape, Rohypnol, etc., and beat the guy at whatever his game turns out to be?
Heebie has been recording her and Jammies knocking boots FOR 24 YEARS!
111, she should be prepared, but she can't go all Hard Candy on him unless she can prove it was in self-defense.
It's very jerky and poorly spliced together, but you can just make out our kiddie private parts.
110: you can tell Jammies is great in bed.
Blackstone, on the other hand, knows lots of laws.
109: E-mail the resume and see what happens. It might take a few weeks to bang around HR anyway, but I'm unclear why you'd want to meet with the other woman first (wouldn't a contact mostly kick you over to HR anyway?)
Re: 12.
BG: Is his name E. Edward Grey, by any chance?
Blackamoors only know force.
BG, if it's a big place, you probably have to go through the same HR vetting anyway. Where you want your friends input/help is in interviewing with a particular group.
Based on what LB said in comment 20, this sounds like it could be a real money-making opportunity for BG.
BG isn't in New York, so I doubt she's going to work for Isiah Thomas.
I have entered dawn to dusk dissertating phase, which really, just dawn to dusk? That's as nothing! Days are short this time of year! And yet, boy, my brain done felled out today.
I take it dusk to dawn is for commenting.
got to have an orderly division of labor, teo.
Imagine you have two options. (1) overhear in person someone you know personally and are attracted to have sex (2) listen online to a sex tape made by a famous person you are equally attracted to.
And how do we begin to covet, Clarice? Do we seek out things to covet? No. We begin by coveting what we see every day.
118: The contact has openings in her group, and she has hiring authority. The contact said that she'd be "delighted to meet with me." The HR person sounded, meh. Less enthusiastic about just talking to someone interested in making a transition.
The company is growing quickly, but it's still privately owned. Godmother suggests meeting with contact, her personal friend, first.
Should a mobile Peeping Tom get a Kia Spectra?
Speaking of Toms... a friend of mine worked on WotW. Tom Cruise is not insane. He is batshit insane. And tried desperately to upstage Dakota Fanning at every opportunity. Unfortunately for him, she has talent.
129: Do you have to go through HR first before the groups get a say? If so, I'd say e-mail the HR person your resume and go from there. If not, maybe wait until your contact comes back to work, then pick things up directly with her.
Imagine you have two options. (1) overhear in person someone you know personally and are attracted to have sex (2) listen online to a sex tape made by a famous person you are equally attracted to.
All else being equal, #1 would be far more interesting at first, since it could be compared and contrasted with what I know about her everyday personality, but then it would lead to overwhelming jealousy. So #2 would be more enjoyable in the long run, because I don't really mind if someone other than me is having sex with Scarlett Johansson. It was bound to happen sometime.
132: You choose not to believe me. My depravity has well-guarded borders.
134: I don't know. It's just supposed to be informational anyway, and teh HR person seems to be wanting to evaluate me as an actual job candidate. Much scarier, because I just want to learn a bit about the company and the industry.
I just want to learn a bit about the company and the industry.
In that case, I don't see why you would have to deal with HR at all. Just do an informational interview with your contact whenever that's possible.
BG should go to HR first, while telling the contact that she's doing so. If HR drags their feet, the contact might be able to speed things up.
well-guarded borders.
I've heard that a lot of Minutemen are swarming those borders.
If the contact has hiring authority, what's the harm in also sending this HR person your resume?
Godmother suggests meeting with contact, her personal friend, first.
I vote to follow Godmother's advice.
If I was the contact, I wouldnt necessarily like you going to HR when we were going to meet.
I guess the real question is why the contact copied the HR person on her response to BG's e-mail.
119: [Fill in the blank] minds think alike. That is exactly where I went to as well.
I think that she copied the HR person, becasue she didn't want to leave me hanging for the three weeks or so that she'd be out of commission because of her father's death. Because she copied teh HR person, I felt that I had to follow up, but I kind of wish that I hadn't. It would eb so much nicer to bring a resume in and have a nice chat and then have it forwarded to HR.
It would eb so much nicer to bring a resume in and have a nice chat and then have it forwarded to HR.
So do that. I doubt anything you do with the HR person now is going to ruin your ability to meet with your contact later.
148: I don't see any reason why you can't still have the nice chat. For what it's worth I've done some related work. I don't have many contacts out your way these days, at least not off the top of my head, but you're welcome to email me about any of it if you'd like.
Seriously, I don't see why these are mutually exclusive options.
I just worry that if the HR person decides that she doesn't want to meet with me, then the personal contact won't be in a position to hire me.
152: They aren't, unless things are quite odd at the company.
then the personal contact won't be in a position to hire me.
This would be the one with hiring authority?
154: But doesn't the contact have hiring authority? How much trouble can HR really cause? And besides, even if the HR person decides not to meet with you, you can still talk to your contact when she comes back in a few weeks and she can get the ball rolling anew if she wants. I seriously doubt a rejection by HR now is a fatal blow to your chances forever.
154: Typically it isn't that simple, at least in my limited experience; HR may guard against nepotism and fulfill a gatekeeper role for fluff and bad candidates. However, if a team or team member really wants someone who doesn't come through standard call for resumes, HR would be under pressure to justify blocking it.
I'm assuming no weird turf wars or whatever.
teo, in a dysfunctional and/or really freaking big company case, you can hardly underestimate the amount of trouble HR can cause. However, I don't see any reason to assume that.
Send the resume to HR- the contact cced HR so it's not like you're going around her back in doing so. If HR doesn't respond, still contact the contact in a couple weeks because informational interviews don't require HR approval anyway. HR may just want to have your information on file if contact does decide to hire you.
Also, even if HR doesn't like your resume, someone with hiring authority can ignore that. In my current job switching, I'm sure that I wouldn't have passed HR muster based on the job description that was written- for one thing, nowhere near the right number of years of experience (I had 3 unless you count grad school, job listing said minimum 8) but the scientists totally overrode that. If your contact has hiring authority, it won't matter if HR didn't get back to you at first- they'll get back to you if contact tells them to.
149: Thinking over my job history and my general track record dealing with bureaucracies, probably my advice was no good. It made sense at the time, though.
Seriously, you people give the worst job advice ever. Have any of you had a job before?
In general, lean on the personal contact. Avoid HR as much as possible. I'm not sure how to finesse the situation you're in now, BG.
Informational interviews usually aren't, in my very limited experience. If you are meeting someone who isn't a personal friend, they are sizing you up and you'll set that hard-to-change first impression. My advice, BG, is to do the informational interview, but prep for it just as you would a real interview. Know the company as well as you can. Know the industry as well as you can (who else is in the same industry, last couple of news articles about them). Have 1-3 sharp-ish questions. Have some thought about what you This is usually enough so that a) you will get more out of the information part of the 'informational interview'
With respect to the some-what odd non-profit job, I think a real question is what type of job you want ultimately. Do you see this as a destination, a stepping stone, or an experiment? If the appeal is that this guy can help you achieve other goals (make an introduction so you end up a program manager at a bigger non-profit, e.g.) you really need evidence for his prior ability to produce for assistants. How, substantively, did he help them? It may be you can get those benefits just by being a friendly social contact...
Oh, I agree that one should avoid HR as much as possible, but once they've asked for a resume you can't really blow them off without hurting yourself. BG wasn't the one that got HR involved in the first place. I suppose you could stall them until your contact has returned so you can give her the resume and she can forward to HR as appropriate.
I've recorded sounds of me and Jammies going at it, and I use it as white noise to fall asleep to.
There is a French movie at the beginning of which a guy's girlfriend breaks up with him mostly because he had made audio recordings of the sounds of them having sex. He takes a job as a highway worker and while doing some maintenance work on the side of the road someone throws a CD out of a van and the flying disk cuts off one of his ears, which lands on the windshield of another car driving by. The rest of the movie consists of him desperately trying to get the ear back while trying to reconcile with his girlfriend.
Fletch:
"You are not recording this, are you?"
"No, no, dont be silly."
169: It's cute when the older crowd chimes in with movie quotations from the 1980s.
BG: I agree with SP in 161. Send the resume to HR, CCing the contact. HR likely just wants to have it on file, at best would just forward it to the contact anyway, and won't act until so instructed to act by the contacted with hiring authority.
(After that, background checks can screw you with HR, but cross that bridge when you come to it. That said: I'd advise against writing "Bostoniangirl" on the resume anywhere, just to CYA.)
I got an e-mail from a young woman today who was just promoted to partner. She's totally got it together--whip-smart, industrious, organized, etc--and she was taking the commendable step of reaching out to other partners to learn from their early experiences and "maybe avoid some avoidable mistakes".
Oh, the warnings I could give you, young lady! Starting with: take not that first sip of demon unfogged!
Anyway, it just occurred to me that this woman is, IIANM, a college classmate of BG. No particular moral to this story; I just thought it would be amusing if we were all mutually acquainted.
I cannot believe that I watched over half of that Tom Cruise video.
Creeeeeepy.
Is this really Bruce Springsteen's own YouTube account?
Knecht, you're really depressing me.
"10: "Somebody said this elsewhere, but how awesome would it be for the rights holders to the Mission Impossible theme to sue?"
That would suck: why would you want the people making fun of Cruise to be sued? (Especially since they'd lose, since using a full piece of music without permission isn't protected fair use, no matter that it's for satire.)
Alternatively, if the music were part of the original video, I would tend to assume that Cruise, both being aware of it -- he's a hands'on guy -- and a business guy -- (running UA now) -- would have obtained permission.