Just Right for Chivas, and Here’s the Proof

Hot summertime in Southern California ... and a (formerly) young man’s thoughts turn to ways of escaping the holding cell that his job has become.

Is there no way out? Is there nothing else out there that beckons? Is this truly the end?

And then, as if by divine messenger, a friend sends an e-mail alerting me to a job announcement with life-altering potential.

The announcement dances across my computer screen in a series of tantalizing questions:

Do you dream of traveling the world? (Yes, yes!)

Do you have a sense of adventure? (Yes! I once hitchhiked from Omaha to New York and rode a donkey for eight hours across the high plains in Peru!)

Do you have the skills to seek out amazing moments and journeys that help to define a lifetime? (I don’t know what that means, but yes, I do!)

The questions are displayed against a backdrop of someone skiing, windsurfing and, from what I can tell, practicing yoga atop a sand dune.

The announcement comes from Chivas Regal, the Scotch whiskey people. They’re soliciting applicants for a new position: editor of something they’re calling the Chivas Life Guide.

Here’s how they describe the duties: “To travel the globe and capture those moments and experiences that help to make a lifetime extraordinary and then to compile ... the quintessential guide to living life to its fullest. The individual selected must be curious, intelligent and possess strong writing and research skills, as well as a strong sense of the world around them. Compensation is $100,000, which includes travel stipend.”

Offhand, that sounds pretty much like my job, except that where it says “the globe,” you’d substitute “Orange County.”

The coveted position won’t be determined by a random draw. Chivas wants applicants to provide a four-minute video that identifies their “qualifications, relevant experiences and anything else to give us a sense of who you are.” The video apparently will go a long way in picking the new editor.

Fair enough.

I have the broad outlines of my video already in mind. It will open with a shot of Marquette, Neb., a town of 200 where I grew up. In a throaty, earnest voice-over, I’ll narrate: “When we first moved to town, grasshoppers ran rampant. Crossing a cornfield from our house to school was like running a gantlet, as the frisky, hopping creatures would land on our arms and head. My friends shrieked and sought alternate routes; yet I fearlessly traversed the field and had perfect attendance in grades 3 through 6.”

I envision a quick cut to the Colorado mountains, where I used to ski. The shot will include me disembarking from a lift and knocking over several other skiers. Narrative: “The Rocky Mountains provide some of the most treacherous and unforeseen dangers on the planet. Without warning, the threat of injury lurks. It is no place for the timid.”

From there, it seems appropriate to update to California. I could re-create a scene from a summer or two ago, when a friend took me and my mother sailing out of Long Beach. An hour into the foray, I got seasick. Narrative: “The perils of sea travel are not enough to slow me. Here, I’m eating crackers to ease the nausea, all the while heeding the skipper’s instructions to ‘Keep your eye on the horizon!’ ”

Besides the video, Chivas wants applicants to fill out a lengthy questionnaire, addressing such personal issues as allergies, criminal convictions and bankruptcy filings.

No problems there. I’m clean as a freshly laundered shirt and twice as exciting.

People used to tell me I wouldn’t find the answers in a bottle of Chivas. Boy, were they wrong. For the first time in a long time, everything makes perfect sense.

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Dana Parsons’ column appears Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays. He can be reached at (714) 966-7821 or at dana.parsons@latimes.com. An archive of his recent columns is at www.latimes.com/parsons.