My bullshit detector broke

I watched Richard Linklater’s “Slacker” on DVD a few nights ago, curious to see it again after living in Austin for five years. I’d seen it twice before, in Nebraska, so I watched it this time not for its content, but for a chance to check out the landscape of a city nine years before I lived in it. It didn’t fill me with envy, to say the least. Sure, there’s lots more traffic now, and a lot of bars and clubs used as locations are now Starbucks, etc., but is 1989/1990/1991 Austin somehow aesthetically superior to 2005 Austin? I have absolutely no authority to answer this question, having only lived in Austin since 2000, but I have a sneaking suspicion I’m right, so I’m going to answer the question anyway. The answer is no. Old Austin is not better than New Austin. And, judging solely from the predominance of white-man dreadlocks, horrible fashion choices, and lack of hygiene on display by many cast members, I’m going to have to say that New Austin is hugely superior to Old Austin. But that’s because I’m part of the problem, right? I’m one of the assholes who had the audacity to move here and help ruin things for a lot of aging hippies and punk rockers who never leave their fucking houses anyway. Yep, I’m one of those pieces of shit who destroyed this odd little college town, poisoning its feisty independent spirit, helping to turn it into, may God have mercy on my soul, a MEDIUM-SIZED CITY!???&*!!!! What a complete piece of shit I am. How dare I? How dare I, indeed?
In all fairness, it wasn’t “Slacker” that caused this irritation, but an extra on the disc, a ten-minute trailer for a documentary about a beloved restaurant/bar near UT’s campus, Les Amis, that is now a Starbucks. I can feel sympathy pains. I hate that independent, Mom and Pop stores are dropping like flies, Wal-Marts and Best Buys and Starbucks and Barnes and Nobleses taking their places. I fear that in 100 years the entire Northern half of the U.S. will be one continuous strip mall, from coast to coast, and the entire Southern half will be a parking garage for the strip mall. But that’s not what this documentary, or at least this trailer, was really about. Sure, that was its supposed pretense, but the utter fucking whinefest about Les Amis’ demise was really a bunch of aging hipsters’ crybaby tantrums about not being 23 anymore. Boo hoo, this bar I really liked is not there anymore, though even if it was still there, I’m too fucking old to be there since it’s located two blocks from the fucking university. Boo hoo, I have a beer gut, I’m balding, and I have teenage kids. Boo hoo, I’m not fucking cool anymore. That must mean that Austin sucks now. Boo hoo, I sit on my couch, smoke pot, and watch TV all night, every night. That must mean there are no more bands that are any good, no more clubs worth a shit, nothing left in Austin to do. This town’s been picked clean by scavengers from California and the Yankee states (a common complaint that makes no sense. In the five years I’ve spent in Austin, most of the out-of-state license plates I’ve seen are either from New Mexico, Oklahoma, Louisiana, or, would you believe, Nebraska. The next person who bitches about Californians ruining Austin should picket in front of my apartment. I see at least ten Nebraska plates for every California plate). I’m sure every city has a tired group of morons ranting about how cool it used to be. “You should have been here in 1926. This town was really somethin’ then.” In Austin, it’s an epidemic. In my opinion, a city is defined by its people and its landscape, not its places of commerce. P.S. Louis Black is an insufferable blowhard and the Austin Chronicle sucks.

Here’s some more idiocy. My wife received this piece of junk mail yesterday, junk being the operative word. I quote:
“If ‘sexy high-heel shoes’ are four of your favorite words…
If you believe a girl can never have too many handbags, dresses, t-shirts, or lacy underthings…
If you know that shopping is one of life’s most fabulous pleasures, then…
YOU ARE VERY LUCKY!
Announcing Lucky.
The Magazine About Shopping.”
I’m not going to get into why this is so terribly revolting, because it’s fucking obvious, but if this sounds like a great magazine to you, I hope your death is terrifying, painful, and slow.

The idiocy never stops. I was in Fredericksburg, Texas yesterday with my wife, her sister, and her parents, so her dad could do business with a trucker (he designs truck trailers). First, we went to Enchanted Rock, which is awesome. I won’t go into why this enormous rock formation is awesome, for fear of sounding too much like some Zen-hippie-glory of nature asshole, but it’s great. Fredericksburg’s Main Street is another story. The town was founded in the 1800s as a largely German settlement, and the architecture is predominantly Germanic. This means Main Street is historically interesting, pretty, but full of tourists and touristy shops selling touristy knick-knacks. There is even a store that sells Christmas stuff. Year-round. I find this unsettling. Also, I hate knick-knacks. However, this wasn’t what disturbed me. What did disturb me was the amount of pro-vigilante gun violence knick-knacks nestled amid the folksy, cutesy items. Examples: In a candy store, predominantly filled with kids, stood a rack of jokesy bumper stickers. The most prominently displayed sticker featured a man lying dead in the street, covered in blood, another man standing on his porch, smoking rifle in hand. The sticker read: NEIGHBORHOOD WATCH. At a coffeehouse/smoothie/sandwiches shop furnished with folksy Old West décor, a real gun, albeit trigger-less, hung above the register with the legend: WE DON’T CALL 911. Is the tiny city of Fredericksburg, tourist trade notwithstanding, really such a hotbed of crime? What is wrong with these people?
In other idiotic news, there will be no new posts for a few days, because I am going back home to attend my father’s wedding.

Listening to: Lou Reed – Berlin
Roxy Music – Country Life
I guess I’m just in the mood for Germanic-influenced art rock tonight, possibly influenced by my trip to Fredericksburg. “Both albums are the aural equivalent of Phil Spector, Kurt Weill, and Rainer Werner Fassbinder playing got your nose” – Robert Christgau, The Village Voice*
Also, I like the partially nekkid ladies on the cover of the Roxy Music album. Tee hee.
Silver Jews - Starlite Walker

Currently reading: The Woman Chaser by Charles Willeford

*not an actual quote, but Robert Christgau is almost as pompous as Louis Black

Sendero Luminoso's abduction of James Van Der Beek foiled

Russell Crowe is a bozo.

The light! It burns my eyes! It burns!

I went to the eye doctor today and my eyes are still dilated. I look like I swallowed about 10 tabs of acid. The light bulb in the room I'm in is hurting my eyes. But that's alright. I'm getting new lenses put in my old frames next week. I'd been having a lot of headaches and trouble seeing in the distance, and now that will end. I had to drive home with those ridiculous plastic sunglasses on after the exam. You'd think people would know what they are by now, but about 20 people looked at me like I was wearing a hat made of neon penises ejaculating cupcakes. When I was stopped at a light, a woman sitting at the bus stop exploded in laughter, nudged the man next to her, and pointed at me. It was a good exercise for me in overcoming self-consciousness. Also, my wife laughed in my face when I came home. I tried to talk to her about what to have for dinner, but she told me, "I'm sorry. I can't talk to you in those things." It's a hard life being the man in the comically oversized fake sunglasses.

Listening to: Just Can't Get Enough: New Wave Hits of the 80s, Vol. 9 (containing the song that is a microcosm of the entire decade, but oddly enough not a hit, "Dancing in Heaven (Orbital Be-Bop)" by Q-Feel, possibly the most hilariously bad song ever written)
Led Zeppelin - Houses of the Holy

Currently reading: Nothing But Blue Skies by Thomas McGuane

Suck

The fine people at my old job are getting slammed with weekend work again
which makes me feel good about no longer being there, but the whole unemployment novelty is wearing off, and I'm chomping at the bit to once again regain a little financial independence so I can actually go out and do stuff and buy stuff and live a little bit. It is impossible to have a fulfilling life. It is impossible. I just want a job I can fucking tolerate. Is that too much to ask? I guess it is.

Watched the Oscars last night. Surprised to find out Counting Crows are still together. Not surprised to find out they're still hyper-shitty. I liked Chris Rock's monologue, but the audience seemed afraid to laugh. Celebrities are pussies. If they actually said what they thought instead of sucking each other's dicks all the time, I don't know how to finish this sentence but I would like them all much better. Memo to the Academy: Can we have just one Oscar telecast without having to see the horse-faced diva Julia Roberts, neither as a nominee nor presenter? Could a more despicable human being exist in the annals of celebritydom? I say no. If I were forced to stare into her soul, I would pluck my eyes from their sockets. She is a terrible demon from hell, a horrific creature who befouls and besmirches everything she touches. She is evil, I say, pure, unmitigated EVIL. Also a terrible actress. In addition, I'm pleasantly surprised a movie I think is great, "Million Dollar Baby," won the Best Picture Oscar. That never happens. Or does it? I did a little research, checking past Best Picture Oscar winners. Oddly, the last time a movie I thought was great won, it was another Clint Eastwood-directed film, "Unforgiven," in 1992. But who cares? Why am I still talking about the Oscars?

I watched these movies last week:
Toute Une Vie (Claude Lelouch)
The Manchurian Candidate (John Frankenheimer)
The Lovers on the Bridge (Leos Carax)
SubUrbia (Richard Linklater)

Listening to: Oceanic by Isis

Currently reading: The Moviegoer by Walker Percy
I didn't realize it until after I bought this book, but the binding is badly broken. Every time I turn the page, the previous page falls out. Hardened pieces of glue fall into my lap when I jostle the book too much. It's hard to read on the toilet due to its delicate condition. Somehow, this makes me feel a weird little affection for it. It's almost like the book is wasting away before my eyes and has chosen me for its last days on earth. The edition I'm reading was printed in 1971. Where did it live before it came to my place to die? Oh, the adventures it must have had, the journeys it must have taken. The highs, the lows. The glories, the misfortunes. You may be falling apart, little book, but your legacy lives in my heart forever.
(Don't tell the book, but it's kind of a pain in the ass to read in its present condition. Oh god, please don't tell the book.)

THE MUSTACHE SERIES

I am a roadie for Queens of the Stone Age.

Tell Jerome to put out some more crescent wrenches. And stop leaving five minutes early every day. You work until 4:00 and that means 4:00, Timmy, not 3:55. 

What have I done with my life? 

That new cashier is one foxy lady. If she didn't have two kids already, I would make my move. 

Where did I put my clipboard? Goddammit! 

We haven't sold any of the purple extension cords all month. The boys in Albany aren't gonna like that at all. 

Heil Krauter. 

Fascism? More like 'Stache-ism. 

World War II is gangbusters. I think I will invade Russia now. 

World War II did not turn out to my liking. 

This is what I want my mugshot to look like

I'm shaving my beard on the installment plan this week. Coming soon: hardware store manager circa 1981 'stache and ... The Hitler.

Now you're cooking with gas

Ever since I had to fend for myself in this world, I'd say about age 18, I haven't exactly been a dynamo in the kitchen. All through college, I didn't know how to cook a damn thing and I wasn't interested in learning. I got by on Taco Bell, Arby's, Amigo's, Burger King, Subway, Mr. Goodcents, frozen pizzas, hot dogs, Lunchables, deli meat (including the mysteriously monikered Old-Fashioned Loaf), cheese, the occasional apple, orange, and banana, and lots of beer. This may explain why my metabolism and cholesterol levels went berserk shortly after I moved to Austin, but it doesn't explain why it took me so long to get into cooking. Cooking always seemed vague, mysterious, and difficult to me. It seemed to me something that required specific skills, training, and aptitude I lacked, like being an airplane mechanic or a lion tamer. I could make scrambled eggs and grilled ham and cheese sandwiches, but I could do nothing else. Or so I thought. Really, my problem was that I was lazy and ignorant, that I had gone to college strictly to meet girls, drink a lot, and increase my record collection and see live music, that I wasn't interested in learning anything I didn't already know. It would be nice to go back in time, give a little more of a damn, and eat less Arby's, but I guess I have to make up for that (or pay the price) now. A few Christmases ago, I got a salsa maker at my aunt's house at the big Christmas Eve get-together. It had a vegetable chopper, jars, spices, and a recipe book in it. When I got back to Austin, I started making a different salsa every weekend. It was fun, I was gaining kitchen experience, and it was easy. When I quit my job in December, I made a deal with my wife. Since my unemployment was voluntary and since she would have to put up with a drunken lazy ne'er-do-well until I got a new job, I agreed to do the grocery shopping and most of the cooking until I once again joined the workforce. I've discovered something strange about myself since then. I love to cook. I love it a lot. Tonight I made a carrot/habanero soup that took about 2 1/2 hours to prepare. I had to buy a couple of things I've never bought in my life, such as leeks and sweet potatoes. I didn't even know what the fuck a leek looked like. It tasted awesome. I'm really happy about my newfound love for cooking because it means that I'm still capable of surprising myself, which is a nice feeling. If somebody had said to me, even six months ago, that I would be making a carrot/habanero soup, I would have told them they were making a very odd statement. Because that's a weird fucking thing to tell a complete stranger, isn't it? That's just odd.

Awards shows and also I made an awesome sandwich

About the sandwich: Orgy of deliciousness. Get your bread, put a piece of Swiss cheese on top, throw some ham on there, some pineapple slices, some basil leaves, then another piece of Swiss cheese. Melt some margarine in a skillet, then grill the sandwich until the cheese is melted and the bread is golden. This sandwich destroys. Make it and you will believe. Don't thank me, though. Thank Martha Stewart and her food magazine my wife subscribes to. What can't that woman do (besides unclench her asshole and lighten the fuck up, I mean)? By "that woman," I'm referring to Martha Stewart, of course, and not my wife. Whew, dodged that bullet.

I'm going to watch the Oscars on Sunday. I watch the Oscars every year. Why? I don't know. For some reason, I'm compelled to watch them every year, and I'm entertained. I used to watch the Grammies and the American Music Awards and the Golden Globes when I was a kid, but I haven't watched these, or any other, awards shows for years and I haven't wanted to. I tried to watch the MTV video awards a few times in college, but I got bored and sleepy. Awards shows, in general, nauseate me. Celebrities are gross, rich, and needy. They have hollow, empty souls. They are attention vampires and creepy weasels who despise us while simultaneously hungering for our affection. And the most nauseating fucking thing of all, they need to get together for expensive, ever-proliferating ceremonies where they reward each other with shiny little statues and congratulate each other for being rich and famous and not one of us poor plebes. AND THEY EXPECT US TO FUCKING WATCH. "Hey, celebs," I say smugly back to my television before turning it off. "Fuck you, jerks. I'm not going enable your orgy of self-congratulation." But I'm powerless in the face of the Oscars! I can't look away! Why, god, why? It has nothing to do with my love for movies. The Oscars have as much to do with the art of film as John Stamos has to do with Abraham Lincoln's assassination. Don't believe me? Check out this hot streak of Best Picture Oscar winners for the years 1994-1998:
1994 - Forrest Gump
1995 - Braveheart
1996 - The English Patient
1997 - Titanic
1998 - Shakespeare in Love
The first three are turgid crap and the last two are entertaining crap. But they're all crap. And they all mean business as usual, congratulating us for what we already know. People are told the nominated films are the best of the year, and people believe it. What choice do they have? In most parts of the country, the public isn't given one. The studios think we're idiots and put low-brow garbage like "Fat Albert" and "Man of the House" and high-brow garbage like "The English Patient" and "Saving Private Ryan" and whatever the fuck else usually gets an Oscar nomination in every cineplex in the country while great, original, interesting films show for a week in an art theater in big cities and college towns if they're lucky and nowhere if they aren't. Why do studios and corporations despise us so much? If people were actually given a choice, if every movie was given the same distribution and ad campaigns, I think things would change. Maybe not a lot, but at least a few steps forward. What's the difference between a movie opening strong, then tapering off, like most mainstream movies do now, and a more difficult film opening slowly, then gaining momentum? There isn't any. But the latter situation is never allowed to happen, unless it happens by accident. I saw a great movie last year, "Crimson Gold," an Iranian film about a pizza delivery driver who snaps. I think a lot of people I know would really like it. It's exciting, unusual, not too cerebral, not too slow, and I think a lot of people could relate. It played at the Alamo Drafthouse for one night. In a lot of cities, and probably in every small town, it never played at all. You won't see it nominated on the Oscars. Meanwhile, "Forrest Gump" and "Saving Private Ryan" play in dozens of theaters in every city in the country and most of the world. No wonder so many people like those two films, when the competition is even several tiers lower and they're never given a chance to see something better. So fuck Hollywood and fuck the Oscars. But I'm a hypocrite. Must...watch...Oscars. Part of me watches so I can fuel my hatred of the modern Hollywood system, the cult of celebrity, and the mediocre, sentimental, patronizing, expensive shitballs of film that get nominated (though I happen to like a lot of the movies nominated this year, go figure). Part of me watches so I can make fun of moments like Halle Berry's hysterical, caterwauling overreaction to her win, Nicole Kidman's inarticulate, sanctimonious speech when she won ("I think the Oscars are important because art is important" or "aht is impohtant" as she pronounced it) and Billy Crystal sucking ass as host last year. But I guess the main reason I watch is because it's a bunch of famous movie stars and directors in one room and it's a spectacle. I like to huff and puff about integrity and art and the cancer of celebrity culture, but I'm a pop culture whore, too. My taste in art and entertainment is mostly for the small, the personal, the noncommercial, the archaic, and the weird. These are all fine qualities, but they do lack glamour. Every once in a while, I need a little glamour. So I'm still going to watch the Oscars, and I'm looking forward to it.

P.S. Can someone please kill Barbara Walters already? Her pre-Oscar interview show is a vomitorium of ass-licking. I know she used to be a serious journalist, but last year she interviewed Shrek. Any journalist, especially one who's interviewed Arafat, for chrissakes, who spends twenty minutes talking to a cartoon character in a barely disguised shill for an upcoming movie is no longer a journalist. She's now a publicist. Have some dignity. Have some dignity.
P.P.S. Dear Al-Qaida,
For your next terrorist attack on our soil, may I suggest flying a plane into Joan and Melissa Rivers? No innocent people need to lose their lives, and you would still be making a statement about destroying our culture and way of life. Can you please do this before they take to the red carpet Sunday night? Thanks. Oh, and when you're done, please disband. I'd appreciate it.
Your friend,
Tony Danza

Listening to: Salamander by Doug Gillard and the first three Flaming Lips albums

Zap! Splurt! Zort!

One of the big problems with being unemployed is trying to wring a little meaning out of the weekend. How can you look forward to that break in the routine when you no longer have a routine? The answer: Create a mind-numbing, thankless routine of your own! Here's how I spend my average weekday: Drag ass out of bed at noon. Eat cereal. While eating cereal, watch another horrible episode of MASH. After contemplating Alan Alda's perpetual liberal outrage, peppered with sub-Groucho one-liners to help the medicine go down, take a shower. Spend as long as you want in the shower because you're not late for work. Run errands. Sometimes eat lunch. Sometimes skip it. Look for jobs on Internet. See jobs you could get but don't want. See jobs you want but can't get. Figure out how many more months you can coast. If you spend exclusively on rent, bills, and food, maybe you could coast six months. Think about all the music you want to buy and restaurants you want to eat in. Get tired of coasting. Look for more jobs. Find nothing. Listen to music. Wife gets home from work. Cook dinner. Eat it. Hang out with wife. Wife goes to bed. Get some writing done. Listen to more music. Read. Drink. Play Sims 2 or Hoyle Casino on compute-bot. Go to bed at 4 a.m. Repeat until Friday.

Hey, everybody, check this out.

Listening to: Oh No! It's Devo by Devo. I've always liked this album, but tonight it sounded like the greatest music ever made by man, machine, or man-machine. Will it ever sound as good again? Oh, the fleeting happiness of existence. Such is life. Such...is...life.
Currently reading: Poachers by Tom Franklin
Movies watched:
On the big screen: In the Realms of the Unreal (Jessica Yu)
On video: Tokyo Story (Yasujiro Ozu)
The Cloud-Capped Star (Ritwik Ghatak)
Dreams (Akira Kurosawa)
The Bad News Bears (Michael Ritchie)

Working for the weekend: Job 6

Summer came around again and I decided to rent an apartment and stay in Lincoln. I finally made more than one friend and had something to do with my free time, and the homesickness for Bridgeport was gone, never to return. I found a junky little basement apartment that was relatively cheap. It was ugly as fuck, I had no furniture except for a three-legged chair and an air mattress, the bathroom had no door, but it was my first apartment, and I loved it. I needed a job. My parents were helping out with the rent until I found a job and my "walking around money," as Ray Smuckles calls it, was zero. I tried hard to find a job. I scoured the want ads, filled out dozens of applications, dropped them off, and sat around the apartment, waiting. The phone did not ring. I repeated the process. The phone did not ring. I repeated the process. The phone did not ring. I repeated the process. The phone did not ring. I repeated the process. The phone did not ring. Will I get tired of typing the same two sentences before you get tired of reading them? Answers in next week's USA Weekend. Was I that unemployable? I was having the worst luck of my life, to date, in finding a job. My parents were getting tired of covering my ass, and I was tired of getting my ass covered (though I have no current problems with receiving handouts. If you'd like to chip in, leave your e-mail address in comment form under this post. I will get back to you about receiving the handout. Thanks in advance.). Desperation led me, once again, to telemarketing. But don't worry, everybody. Dry your beautiful eyes. This would prove to be the shortest rest stop on the trail of tears that is my resume. I worked for this telemarketing "outfit," as my father refers to every business, for a whopping three days. Three days of pain, misery, and degradation that made the Vietnam War look like a blowjob and a refreshing glass of cider. (At least for me. Vietnam was extraordinarily easy for me, due to the withdrawal of U.S. troops four years before my birth. Thanks, America. You're alright.) The advertisement for the job taunted me for about a month. I knew it would be easy to get. My financial woes and freeloading could end, and I could buy books and CDs again. But I would have to put the enormous veiny swollen member of phone sales back in my mouth and swallow its bitter issue. After two and a half months of unsuccessfully looking for a job, I got on my knees. (Why is this post so phallocentric? Could it be the surplus of vodka in the apartment, rendering all dick jokes hilarious? Answers in next week's "Cheers and Jeers" in TV Guide. Prediction: jeers.) I drove to the building's location. It was a strip mall in a part of town I'd never been to before. This part of town was hideous. I saw lots of children in the neighborhood, and they were all phenomenally ugly. This sentence should mean something, because I think most small children are cute and adorable and refreshingly honest and spontaneous and all that other bullshit. These kids were monstrosities, however, born from some colossal mutation in a genetic code apparently confined to a single zip code. The other businesses in the strip mall included a sporting goods store, a toy store, and a bail bondsman. They hired me without an interview and told me to start right away. The office had lots of empty carboard boxes stacked around the very small room. This should have been a sign. What kind of a sign, I don't know, but lots of empty boxes scattered haphazardly around a room sends me some kind of signal. My interpretation: Your paycheck will bounce. Run away. Fast. My boss had a mustache. (Another boss with a mustache or goatee? What the fuck? This would be the final occurrence of that particular coincidence. All my future bosses were either fully bearded, clean-shaven, or women.) I was given a script and told to sit at the only empty phone. The other three phones were occupied. Yeah, that's right. Three phones out of four. For a job that had been advertised for a month before I applied. My stomach dropped. At least I was selling something that didn't make me feel like a worm: tickets for a charity dinner for the fire department. This also seemed odd, however. The dinner was a month away, but the job was advertised as an ongoing, permanent type of gig. What else did they sell? I was never told.
I remember very little about two of the other three telemarketers, except that they were middle-aged women who kept to themselves. The third guy, however, was a titanic asshole. He looked like he was maybe ten years older than me, and he had a mullet. I bring this up reluctantly and feel it's important as a means of physical description, but, please, can we think up another word for "mullet" and stop laughing about it? The word "mullet" got to the "show me the money" stage at least two years ago, and is more nauseating each day. People lacking in wit, timing, humanity, and interest throw the word around constantly, hoping for a quick, empty, undeserved laugh from their peers. The word is boring. The jokes are boring. Move on to something else. (I suggest dick and fart jokes. Timeless, baby, timeless.) Anyway, this guy hit my shitlist the second the first night's shift ended. He leaned over to me, and said, in a silky radio-friendly voice that completely contradicted his redneck metalhead look, "Hey, Josh. Listen, Josh, you're doing real good, but just a quick word of advice. Josh, you need to just slow down a little bit. You're coming at 'em just a little bit fast, Josh." First of all, anybody who doesn't know you intimately and uses your first name liberally is a complete piece of shit as a human being and is only out to sell you something, abuse you, steal your identity, and/or attempt to control your life. Stay away from these people. Secondly, he was not a manager or a boss. He was a fellow co-worker. Maybe I was reading the spiel a little too rapidly. Maybe he was right. Let's assume everything he said was right on, down to the four references to me by my first name. He's still a cocksucker who needs to have his face beaten into pulp by a steel pipe. The next two days were the same. The morning before my fourth shift, I got a call from a grocery store I had interviewed with a week earlier. They offered me a job, starting whenever I wanted. I quit the telemarketing place over the phone via answering machine message, the only time in my life I've dropped anyone or anything over the phone. They retaliated by never sending my paycheck. I called back several times. No answer. I finally got through. They told me they sent the check and that I should have it within the week. I never got it. I drove down there, to pick it up in person. The boss' wife gave it to me. It was already addressed. They'd never mailed it. I cashed it immediately. Amazingly, it didn't bounce. No more telemarketing for me.

I watched these movies last week:
Fast Company (David Cronenberg) The DVD also had Cronenberg's two early shorts, Stereo and Crimes of the Future, on it. These are probably the three weakest Cronenberg films, the first one because it has none of the themes that dominate the rest of his work and because it's kind of a silly, exploitation script, the latter two because they're early, naive, and pretentious attempts at what he would perfect later, but all three are full of interesting shots and ideas and are worth your time if you're as fanatical about his films as I am.
The Disenchanted (Benoit Jacquot)
Treasure of the Sierra Madre (John Huston)
Palombella Rossa (Nanni Moretti)

Working for the weekend: Job 5

My incredibly sexy days of burger-flipping behind me, I was back at school with not enough disposable income and lots of music I wanted to buy. I saw an ad in the college newspaper for a telemarketing job. It paid fairly well for a shit job and I got to set my own hours. I decided to apply. I had no idea what kind of degradation awaited me.
The telemarketing company's offices were in a large, cavernous building full of escalators, rental space, and other businesses' offices. The building smelled like rubber. I don't know why. It was always kind of dark until you reached your destination. I don't know if the building's owner was trying to lower his electricity bill or what, but the only comfortably lit areas were the occupied offices. I had to ride the escalator up to the second floor, get on another escalator, ride that to the third floor, then go through three pairs of glass doors and a reception area, then another glass door, to get to my workstation. That's a long time to think about how shitty the next few hours were going to be before you even got to the place that was going to make those hours shitty. I felt like I was willingly walking into an ambush. "Just turn around and go home," my inside voice told me every time I stepped into the building.
Guess what I sold over the phone? NASCAR videotapes. I could make a lot of easy jokes about the people who watch NASCAR, the people I sold these videotapes to, but I'm sure you've heard it all before. Anyway, I hate to make sweeping generalizations. Okay, I'll do it anyway. The average NASCAR fan is a moron. Also, most of the people I called were drunk or had already purchased the videotapes and complained about how shoddy they were.
The telemarketing company (whose name I can't even remember) supplied us with helpful cheat sheets so we could lie convincingly to the customer. These sheets had the name of every NASCAR driver, his number, his nickname, and his hometown. We were to use these sheets as follows:
Me: Hi, I'm calling you to sell you this terrible fucking NASCAR videotape. I hear it's a real piece of shit. You're a jackass who has previously purchased other terrible items from us. Please overpay us now. You will get your shitty video sometime in the next 78 weeks.
Sucker: Well, it sure sounds good, but I don't know...
Me: It's got the NASCAR seal of approval. Say, who's your favorite driver?
Sucker: There's only one driver in NASCAR as far as I'm concerned, and that's Dickless Todd McGinty.
Me, looking furiously through my notes for McGinty's information: Yeah! Dickless Todd! "The Sodomizer"! Number 48! Alright, you and me are on the same page. He's my favorite, too! Watching the race on Sunday?
Sucker: Hell, yeah. I'll take 25 tapes.

There were many things to hate about this job:
1) Talking on the phone for hours is not really my bag.
2) Selling things is also not really my bag.
3) NASCAR, in addition, is not one of my passions.
4) The turnover rate was so high that anyone who lasted a few months got promoted to manager, or "team leader" in the asshole vernacular common in demeaning work, if they wanted the promotion. Team leaders were unbearable creeps. They were super-extroverts, loud, obnoxious, prone to yelling things like "Come on, team. Let's sell!" If you sold a lot of the worthless garbage, incentives were offered. These incentives were supposed to make things fun! and exciting! and improve office morale, while bringing us together as a team. Anyone who tells you things like these deserves to be stabbed in both eyeballs and set on fire. Incentives were often an extra five dollars for the shift, getting an extra break, shooting Nerf basketball for ten minutes every hour, candy bars, Cokes, etc. One team leader didn't grasp the concept. Her incentives were shit. One of them was a chance to contribute to a list of the top ten reasons why she was a ditz, pasted on the bulletin board. Another incentive was an opportunity to work an hour of overtime. What the hell was wrong with her?
5) They were convinced that when we sold a lot of product, we had discovered some magic new technique. They would hover around us and ask us lots of questions about what we were doing and why we thought it was so successful. Then, they would make us stay late and keep selling. We got overtime, but I've never really given a shit about overtime. I figure that when I work later than my schedule dictates, you're stealing valuable living time from me that I will never get back. On the flipside, when we had a slow night, they seemed to think we were purposefully fucking with them. This was usually followed by a lecture and a disgusted look. If we were really having a slow night, we would get sent home early. They didn't dock our pay, though, so I've never figured out how this was supposed to make us feel bad. Send me home early every night, jerks. Idiots.
6) The big boss man looked like he was in his early thirties, with short brown hair and a goatee. Every day, he walked around the floor a few times, looked at us with contempt, and walked back into his office. The whole time I worked there, I only saw him wear four things: a dark suit, a brown sweater, a white t-shirt with an elephant on it that said "Bob Dole for President," and a white t-shirt with an elephant on it that said "Nebraska Republican Party." Both elephants were starred and striped.

My last day on the job came as a surprise to me. I wasn't planning on quitting. I was bored, selling useless NASCAR shit as usual, when an announcement was made. We were done selling NASCAR videos. We had a new client, and here were our new scripts. Now, we were promoting the Republican Party and calling random homes, urging them to vote for the Republican Party candidates. I am a lot of things, not all of them good, but I am definitely not a member of the Republican Party. I didn't feel comfortable shilling for them for pay, and I was pissed off that they didn't ask if we had any objections and hadn't told us during the job interview that we might be shilling for a political party. I sat there for a minute, wondering what the hell to do. I called several numbers, and got yelled at by a lot of people who shared my political leanings. I distinctly remember one man yelling, "You're a worthless cocksucker." "He's right," I thought to myself. "I'm definitely sucking Republican cock if I keep making these calls." I got up and left. No one noticed (there were a lot of people working there). The next day, I didn't come to work. They called several hours after I was supposed to be there, asking me why I didn't show up. "I quit," I said. They didn't sound surprised. Not even slightly. About 15 people quit working there every single day.
Telemarketing sucks.

I watched these movies last week:
The Leopard (Luchino Visconti)
Gang of Four (Jacques Rivette)
Yaaba (Idrissa Ouedraogo)
Lost and Found Video Night, Vol. 2 (various)

Ice vs. Fire

I was looking at craigslist today, seeing if any exciting job opportunities had been posted, and I stumbled across this beauty: http://austin.craigslist.org/tlg/58508127.html
Please click on it and read it.

I decided I had to reply. Here is my reply (please read craigslist posting first):
So, ICE-MAN,
You believe your rather large inheritance will be enough to produce a formidable ice-army filled with cold-blooded ice-sidekicks. To this I reply, what an ice-joke! You see, I have also recently inherited an incredible fortune, from not one, but 12, deceased and massively wealthy forebears. They died in suspicious circumstances while attending the Super Bowl halftime show, but that is neither here nor there. The purpose of this missive is to challenge you, once you assemble your team of ice-warriors, to a dangerous and ridiculous extreme battle challenge in the park near my apartment. If you accept this challenge, I will reveal the park's location in an e-mail sent at midnight on the next full moon. Oh yes, ice-nuts, here's something else you should know. My group of sidekicks likes to play with ... fire! I am known as The Inferno, and my fiery group of playmates includes such worthy fighters as Fireball McGee, Hot Pants Mendoza, Matchstick, Firecracker Tony, The Electric Blanket, Chinese Firedrill, Spicy Meatball Visconti, the indie-rock band Hot Hot Heat, The Roman Candle, Burner Left On Too Long Wilson, and Huge Motherfucking Explosion. Do you accept the challenge? Are you and your sidekicks ice-cold enough to put out this fire? Bring the freeze, my friend, and we'll bring the heat. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! I look forward to your retort. Have a pleasant Valentine's Day.

The Inferno


I sure hope he replies.

What sucks worse? Having a job or not having one?

I started the job search this week. Still haven't decided whether to go to grad school or not, but I'm going to have to get a job either way. My life is kind of directionless and fucked up at the moment, but I'm definitely glad to be free of my last job. Regardless, looking for a job sucks. Will I ever be able to have a job that doesn't crush my zest for life? No, probably not. Could I use the word "job" more times in one post? Yes, but I certainly did use it too much. I watched some movies recently. I don't feel like writing about them, so I'm going to give them a numerical rating based on a scale of 1 to 10.
On video:
I watched Wetherby (David Hare) three weeks ago, but I forgot to mention it. 7.0
The Adventures of Robin Hood (Michael Curtiz, William Keighley) 7.9
Little Vera (Vasili Pichul) 7.0
Day of the Dead (George A. Romero) 8.5
Black Rain (Shohei Imamura) 8.0

On the big screen:
Vera Drake (Mike Leigh) 9.0
Million Dollar Baby (Clint Eastwood) 9.5

Currently reading: Banvard's Folly by Paul Collins
I really like this book, but I've got to admit something. I talk a lot of shit about the McSweeney's writers, most recently on this blog, but this guy is one of those McSweeney's writers. That's tantamount to me saying I really liked an album on the Saddle Creek label (my other arch-nemesis). Collins' book is a little different, though. It's historical nonfiction, for one thing, and it's direct and passionate instead of clever and ironic. Dave Eggers has a couple of blurbs on the book, he supplied the cover art, and he was the first publisher to take any interest in Collins' book (the first two chapters appeared in McSweeney's after getting rejected elsewhere), so I suppose I have to give Eggers a little credit for helping to make this book possible. However, one of Eggers' two blurbs about the book illustrates exactly why he nauseates me so much. Check this out:
"If you read (Collins') sublimely odd, frequently funny, and better yet, thrillingly factual book I will softly pet your furry pets, though my skin says I am allergic."
What a douchebag.

Working for the weekend: Job 4

I quit working at the grocery store a few weeks before I started college on the other side of the state in Lincoln at the University of Nebraska. I saved half of each paycheck to help pay for college, and I had enough to cover a big chunk of the first year. My parents chipped in the rest. I decided not to find a job that first year, but it didn't seem to make things any easier. While I eventually grew to love Lincoln, my first year and a half of school may have been the most miserable period in my life. I got stuck in a shitty dorm with a roommate I hated, my classes were complete wastes of time, I had nothing to do on the weekends, and I only made one good friend the entire year. I was kind of numb about it, shocked. It seemed like some kind of cruel prank. College was supposed to be right up my alley. I hated high school. I hated living in the small town. I wanted something to finally happen for once. College was where things happened. I would have nothing but exciting, unusual experiences for the next four to five years. I was an idiot. Exciting, unusual experiences weren't even happening to the people on my television. I had been lied to. College was a dreary grind just like everything else. When the year was done, I decided to go back home for the summer instead of staying in Lincoln. Most of my high school friends were coming back to town and I was homesick for my room, my family, and something to do on Friday and Saturday nights. Driving country back roads after finding someone to buy us a case of beer and talking the same shit we did the year before (in a slightly more deflated way) was still superior to sitting in a small white room, wishing I knew some people to hang out with. (My college years got a lot better about halfway through my sophomore year, almost living up to the hype, so it's not such a tragic story. Oh, woe is me. I can't find someone to hang out with. This is worse than ten tsunamis and Vietnam combined.) It turned out to be a pretty decent summer, and would be the last time I hung out with my high school friends for any extended period of time, but I did manage to snag another lousy job.
Job #4, aka Shitty Job #2: A friend of my uncle's bought a Hardee's franchise that was set to open about a month after I got back to town. It would be the first fast food restaurant chain in my hometown's history (there are now two). I let him know I needed a job, and before I knew it, I was working (temporarily, thank God) in the high-stakes world of fast food. Since the store wouldn't open for another month, I spent that first month training at the Hardee's in nearby Scottsbluff and cleaning dust and debris and unloading equipment at the recently built house of greasy burger filth in Bridgeport. I didn't mind the cleaning and unloading, but I hated the training in Scottsbluff. I had to get up at 5 a.m. and carpool 38 miles away with my boss and the two managers, one a likeable middle-aged lady who liked to drink, tell dirty jokes, and listen to classic rock, the other a worthless redneck bitch who was two years older than me and hated me because I was in college. She was already married to another worthless redneck, who apparently told her what to think about everything, judging from her conversation during the drives ("My husband says Rush Limbaugh's about the only one you can trust to get your news," "My husband says there's too many people on welfare and we need to stop supporting other people too lazy to work with our tax dollars," "My husband says we ought to throw all the fags out of this country," "My husband says blah blah ad nauseaum on and on etc.") Once we got to Scottsbluff, it didn't get much better. The owner of the Scottsbluff franchise was into fast food. Big time. He was PASSIONATE about fast food, the way Hank Hill is passionate about propane. He was an extremely short man with dark black hair, glasses, and a mustache, and was something of a philosopher, pontificating on the intangibles and unknowns of the fast food business while gazing wistfully into the distance. I remember one day when we were asking about the lunchtime rush and how much food to prepare in advance, he stroked his chin and looked out the window meaningfully. (I'm not making this up. He actually did this.)
"Well," he said. "Every day the lunch rush is a little different. I've been working in fast food for 23 years and have a pretty good idea about what kind of a crowd to expect at lunchtime. Still, some days we end up with too much food, and other days we don't make enough. If I could figure out exactly how many burgers to make on any given day, I'd be a rich man."
It took a mighty act of God, or maybe just a conscience strained to its breaking point, to keep me from laughing in the poor man's face.
One month later, we were officially open, and I had my duty. I grilled burgers in the kitchen. All day. That's pretty much all I did. It was the best place to be, as far as I was concerned. The people I liked the best (the employees consisted mostly of high school kids and adults fallen on hard times) worked in the kitchen, I didn't have to deal with the public, and no customers could see the grill or more importantly me in my embarrassing, uncomfortable uniform.
Here are some things that sucked about the job:
The uniform: I mentioned this already. It does not need elaboration.
The redneck: I mentioned her already. I forgot to mention her favorite catchphrase, uttered several hundred times a day while she encouraged us to make about a million more burgers than we needed to: "Come on. These people are hungry. They want their food fast." I really hope this woman is dead now.
The Hardee's corporate men: Since our store was brand spankin' new, two corporate representatives of Hardees, Inc. observed and mentored us in the first couple of weeks of business. These guys were a couple of assclowns. One was a chain-smoking, effeminate, Southern dandy whose tongue lolled around in his mouth when he talked and whose head wobbled precariously on his oversized neck when he moved. The other was a chain-smoking, salt and pepper-mustachioed, overly gregarious car salesman type who pretended to be our friend but could barely contain his seething contempt for us, the job, himself, and life.
Getting up at 4 a.m. when you were unlucky enough to pull a breakfast shift: Sucked.
Smelling like grease every day: Sucked as well.
Cleaning the grill: Super-sucked.
The revolting and highly immoral waste of perfectly edible food: They had a rule about how long a burger could sit in the queue, uh, shelf, erm, bin? (What's the word I'm looking for here?) It wasn't very long. We threw away maybe 40-50 sandwiches a day. By the third day, it made me despise myself.

Good things about it:
Seeing the results of my work: I had some raw meat. I grilled it. It was cooked. Results, baby, results.
Making fun of the people working up front: The kitchen staff had contempt for the register staff. We invented a fake gang war, calling ourselves "East Side," and them "West Side." The boss found out and made us stop, saying that though he understood it was a joke, the entire Hardee's organization is a team and divisions between areas are unacceptable.
You know how people see Jesus' image in pancakes, etc.: One night after closing, I was cleaning the grill. I poured the cleaning solution on the hot grill and it formed a perfect likeness of Abraham Lincoln, as seen from the side. Oh my god, that's Honest Abe, I said to myself. A co-worker walked by. "Oh my god, that's Abraham Lincoln!" he shouted. Then the cleaning solution trickled across the grill, ruining the miracle. Nobody believed us. I still wonder what Abe was trying to tell me.
Torturing pickles: The grill was set up in an unusual way. There was a normal grill, which you placed the patty on, but there was also another hot grill surface called a platen that you lowered on top of the grill to cook both sides of the burger at once. One night we were bored and started throwing vegetables in there to see what would happen. Nothing much happened until we tried a pickle. Once the platen was lowered on the pickle, the pickle emitted a high-pitched shrieking noise, similar in tone to a screaming human. Hundreds of pickles lost their lives before the gag got old.
I would have to return to college to find an even more demeaning job, but that's Part 5.

Part 2

Here are the other movies I watched:
A Year of the Quiet Sun (Krzysztof Zanussi) There's something lacking in this movie. I'm not sure what. The cinematography is unusual and compelling, the actors do a good job, there's nothing egregiously wrong with any of it, but it just kind of sits on the screen dully and heavily.
Time of the Gypsies (Emir Kusturica) This movie is great. It's a vaguely surreal comedy/tragedy/gangster film acted by nonprofessional gypsies (I don't mean to suggest that there are professional gypsies, I just mean they aren't professional actors and are actual gypsies) and the first movie ever filmed in the Romany language, which is spoken by only a few hundred people in the world.
A Short Film About Killing (Krzysztof Kieslowski) This is an expansion into feature length of an episode from Kieslowski's "Decalogue." The added details, mostly in the first twenty minutes, add to the mood without detracting from the power of the original cut. This is well worth your time in either version.
Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song (Melvin Van Peebles) I don't know what the hell to think. I've been interested in seeing this movie for a long time, mostly for its reputation as one of the first black-financed, black-directed, black-acted independent films and its supposed influence on most of the blaxploitation films of the seventies. Now that I've seen it, I can see how it influenced movies like "Shaft," "Cleopatra Jones," etc., but I can also see that it has more in common with independent American films from the 1950s and 1960s, French new wave, westerns, and B-grade violent thrillers and splatter movies. Unfortunately, some of it is really inept, clumsy, frustrating, and boring. Sexist, too. Ridiculously sexist. So sexist it borders on the surreally absurd. I can't completely dismiss it, though, and not just because of its historical importance. I've never seen anything like it. This is one weird, weird movie. There is nothing on this planet even vaguely approximating it, and that's something I can get behind. Parts of the film are dreadfully dull, but other moments have a weird energy and an excitement in putting something on the screen that hasn't been there before.

I saw these on the big screen:
Bukowski: Born Into This (John Dullaghan) Bukowski is slightly unfashionable in our current cultural climate. He's something you're supposed to have outgrown, like Rage Against the Machine and "A Clockwork Orange." This may have more to do with his persona (womanizing drunk with bad temper who gets in lots of fights, bets on the horses, talks about his bodily functions a lot, and sleeps in flophouses) and the zealous hero worship from knucklewalkers with literary pretensions and freshman English major fanboys (mostly getting vicarious thrills and believing that being a womanizing drunk is a worthy aspiration that somehow magically transforms you into being a writer). Is there more to Bukowski than his persona? I hoped so. I was a Bukowski fanboy in high school and the first couple of years of college. I read maybe 14 or 15 of his books, loved them, then moved on to other stuff. I've been afraid to go back because what if I have outgrown him? Why deflate something that gave me a lot of pleasure in my teen years? Why rain on my own parade? Then this documentary opened in theaters. Aha, I thought. This might be a way to rekindle my interest or put it to bed without going to the trouble of rereading one of his books. When it started, my heart sank. One person after another told a story about Bukowski getting drunk, punching a cop, waving his dick around, etc., etc. This is going to be a long two hours, I said to myself. Then, it got a lot better, even though they interviewed fucking BONO, for chrissakes, whose anecdote began, "It was a long drunken night in Italy with Sean Penn..." (At least they didn't talk to Henry Rollins. I think makers of documentaries on 20th and 21st century American cultural figures are contractually obligated to interview either Bono or Henry Rollins, no matter how tenuous their connection to the subject.) After the movie was over, I felt like reading some Bukowski. A few days later, I did. What did I think? I'm not sure. I think it's not quite as good as I experienced it initially, but it's of too much worth to be so casually dismissed by the arbiters of modern cultural taste. And, in a time when we're being McSweeneyed, Dave Eggered, Foster Wallaced, and Neal Pollacked to death, it's nice to read somebody who's not above his material, but of it.
Hyenas (Djibril Diop Mambety) This movie was shown as part of the Austin Film Society's African series. I loved it. I don't have a lot to say about this one because I don't think I've completely digested it yet, but I loved everything about it.
The Big Red One: The Reconstruction (Samuel Fuller) Samuel Fuller was a reporter, then he enlisted and fought on the front lines in WWII. He started directing movies after he returned. He made this one in 1980 based on his actual experiences in the war. The studio hacked it down and added a voice-over. Fuller died in 1997, but now film critic Richard Schickel has assembled a longer version based on Fuller's notes, his screenplay, and existing footage. It's not a director's cut (even though it's being advertised that way), some of the voice-over is still there, some footage had been lost, but it's a lot closer to the way Fuller wanted it. This is a great movie. It's also appalling how much of this movie has been stolen and watered down by Spielberg in "Saving Private Ryan." Spielberg gets showered with glory and his mediocre, dishonest, manipulative, flagwaving film is praised. Fuller, who was actually there, makes an honest, insightful, unusual, exciting film and it gets hacked up and forgotten. Maybe it's because Fuller is disinterested in heroism, only survival, and puts forth the idea that a war's survivors, regardless of which side they fought on, have more in common with each other than the people they're fighting for.

I forgot to tell you about the movies I've watched in the past two weeks (as if you give a shit)

Two weeks have come and gone without any evaluations of the movies I've watched. So, I'm going to unload on you now. Get ready, baby. I know you've been waiting with baited breath. If that means you've been holding your breath, I'm sorry that my inertia has caused your untimely death. My maid is sending a wreath as we speak. I've had a lot of mixed drinks tonight, so bear with me if this post is all rambly-tambly and makes very little sense. I'm typing with an ink pen clenched between my teeth in a vaguely cigarette manner of clench and bad music on the stereo, just to put you in the mindset, and I'm in no shape to do anything about either of these developments (now the music is good, it took me a long time to type this sentence). Last night I was watching a documentary about the Concorde on PBS at 1 a.m. and they were interviewing various dignitaries (Robert McNamara, Henry "I make Dick Cheney look like Cesar Chavez" Kissinger, various French and British engineers, pilots, and high-ranking aviation officials). Then they spoke briefly of the anti-Concorde environmental activists, whose opposition was never clearly explained. (It was a very Concorde-friendly documentary. The activists' main beef seemed to be that the sonic booms would keep people awake at night, which seemed to be kind of a lackluster argument, but everybody loves sleeping, am I right?) Anyway, the most active activist they kept referring to seemed to be deceased, though they interviewed his children, who were still involved in protesting Concorde up to its final flight. One of the children was Josephine Wiggs, better known as the former bassist of the Breeders. How fucking weird is that? And they never mentioned that she was in the Breeders, even though they also interviewed The Stranglers because they had a British hit single with an anti-Concorde song. You see the oddest things when you don't have cable and are a reclusive drunk. Anyway, I watched these movies some time in the last 14 days:
Bubba Ho-Tep (Don Coscarelli) Who would have thought that a movie about Elvis Presley (after swapping identities with an Elvis impersonator upon becoming disillusioned with fame) (or is he really an Elvis impersonator who lost his shit) and a black man who thinks he's JFK teaming up to fight a reanimated Egyptian mummy soulsucker in a west Texas nursing home would be, at heart, a movie about older people trying to keep their dignity when their health is failing? This is a subject that, however omnipresent, seems to be completely underutilized in our culture's art and entertainment. How many times have you seen the elderly being condescended to and patronized in nursing homes, restaurants, hospitals, businesses, etc.? If I'm lucky enough to live a long life, and I hope I am, I'm also a little worried about the bullshit I'm going to have to deal with when I get old from assholes who think just because someone's sick and hard of hearing they need to be addressed as though they were four years old. This movie, despite losing some of its momentum halfway through, is a nice little reminder to the rest of us that a lot of old people are not, duh, stupid. It's also nice to see real, hand-crafted special effects instead of that CGI bullshit.
The Dead (John Huston) Huston's last movie is kind of awe-inspiring. It's an adaptation of the final story in James Joyce's "Dubliners," and a peaceful acceptance of the approach of death that's mostly admirable. Huston was on his last legs with emphysema, even directing some scenes sucking on oxygen, when he filmed this mostly plotless story of a society dinner party and the soul-searching it causes in one couple in attendance after the party has ended. I think it stands as one of the best Huston films. He's made a lot of shitty movies. There are reports that Huston wasn't even on the set for some of his bad films, using the location as an excuse for sight-seeing and hunting, letting his assistants take over for him. Still, he's made some great, great movies, even if he was too erratic to be a truly great director. If you haven't seen "Fat City," for example, you're missing out on some really excellent stuff. This is one of the good ones.
Bird (Clint Eastwood) I detest bio-pics, filmed biographies, stories of famous people's lives. These films are absolutely, without a doubt, the worst, the lousiest, lies, horseshit. They have no value. They have nothing to teach us about human nature, or even about one person's actual experience on this planet. They perpetuate the myth that every human's being life can be reduced to a two-hour greatest hits of special occasions and accomplishments. This movie avoids most of those problems. It's deeply interested in a twenty-year period in one man's life and the music he played, and though it has a handful of flaws, it feels like life instead of legend.
Yellow Submarine (George Dunning) For some reason, I'd never seen this until last weekend, but it was a good time. This movie is really, really dated, but if you've done any psychedelic drugs recently, it might have a little bit of resonance (though it also perpetuates myths of its own, like the one that psychedelic drugs are always a wonderfully enlightening, light-hearted, and fun way to spend an evening, even though, in my experience, the enlightening to frightening ratio is about 50/50). The animation is excellent, the Beatles' songs are (mostly) good (especially George Harrison's, who kicks the shit out of his compatriots' offerings), and the kaleidoscope of '60s imagery manages to stay interesting until about the last 15 minutes.
To be continued...
I've got seven more movies to talk about, but I'm starting to get bored, which means you were bored hours ago. See you later, sexies.

Your friend,
Steve Guttenberg

Transform your ugly face

If you're looking for an interesting diversion, check out the Face Transformer Image Upload (http://www.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~morph/Transformer/index.html). You can download a .jpg or .gif of your own face (or any other non-copyrighted face) and the web site morphs it into a baby, child, teenager, old person, various different ethnicities, opposite sex, manga character, apeman, etc. Hour(s) of fun.

Currently reading: Stanley Elkin's Greatest Hits by Stanley Elkin

Guest Post

Hey, everybody. Today we have a very special guest post by none other than CNN's Larry King. Take it away, Larry:

Havarti is a quality cheese.


Currently reading:
Dr. Mystery is currently reading Movie Wars: How Hollywood and the Media Limit What Movies We Can See by Jonathan Rosenbaum. Dr. Mystery says: "This book will fire you up and make you angry about a lot of stuff you can't change, but it's a great book anyway. Instead of blaming the audience, which is what most critics seem to do when they criticize the dumbing down of our culture, Rosenbaum places the blame on the people and systems who need it most and who have been given a free pass so far whenever this argument arises. Namely, the corporations, distribution systems, studios, mainstream critics, entertainment news reporters and programs, and mainstream media and journalists. The audience can't be expected to make good decisions when it's not even given a choice. To make an analogy, let's say most grocery stores in the country only carry gruel. People buy gruel because what else are they going to eat? Someone finally asks the gruel producers, 'Hey, why are you pushing gruel on the public? We're tired of gruel.' The gruel producers respond, 'Our sales reports show that you're not tired of gruel. As a matter of fact, gruel is selling like crazy.' The same guy who asks the gruel producers this question turns around and says, 'Yeah, I guess you gruel producers are right. The public just keeps lapping up that gruel. Stupid public. You're just giving those idiots what they want. May I have another bowl of gruel, please?' It's obvious how insane the film distribution system is in this country, so obvious that we don't even see it, and Rosenbaum holds it up to us plainly and clearly. I've never seen a book better articulate what's wrong with the film business and the effect this has on the choices we're given."
Larry King is currently reading Booty Food: A Date by Date, Course-By-Course, Nibble-By-Nibble Guide to Cultivating Love and Passion Through Food
by Jacqui Malouf. Larry says: "I've sure had a lot of heart attacks, and a lot of wives."

Working for the weekend: Job 3

I was 15 when I got my first real, taxable, working-for-a-boss kind of job. It was easy for a teenager to get work in Bridgeport, but the choices didn't exactly make me want to break out in spontaneous eruptions of joyful song. My options were: a) farm work b) washing dishes in one of the handful of restaurants or c) bagging groceries in one of the two grocery stores. The choice was easy. I had little aptitude for or interest in farm work. One of my friends washed dishes for a restaurant and didn't get off work until eleven or midnight, then finished his homework afterward. The grocery stores closed at seven. What choice did I have? I applied for, and was hired at, Jack and Jill, and I spent the remainder of my high school years working there. I bagged groceries, stocked shelves, and mopped and swept the floors. I hated it. I was introduced to a world of boredom beyond my understanding. This boredom was more intense, more prolonged, more severe than I had prepared myself to expect. It was a boredom that dwarfed previous boredom champions school and church and destroyed my perception of employment as an honorable and respectable way to spend my time. This is something pounded into all of us by anyone in a position of authority, but it became pretty obvious to me after only one day at Jack and Jill that the only honorable and respectable work is work you love. If I'm doing something I hate for money, I feel like a whore. But how do I stop being a whore and get some dignity and satisfaction out of what I have to do to eat and pay the rent? I haven't been able to answer that question in my life yet, but I'm still holding out hope.
Anyway, the grocery store was owned by a divorced, middle-aged, conservative Christian with a mustache. He also cut all the meat and spent most of the day in the meat department, but he would periodically dart in and out of the aisles, making sure we (the high school help) were doing our jobs and not goofing off. He was one of those bosses who believed that even if there was no work to do, we should pretend like we were busy. I'm reminded of that Bill Hicks joke where the boss tells the employee to pretend to work and the employee (Hicks) says, "You make more money than me. How about you pretend I'm working?" Twice a week, freight was delivered. These were items we had sold out of that needed to be restocked. Freight days were the only days when there was something to do, so they were good days to be at work. Time actually leisurely strolled on freight days instead of crawling agonizingly and sickeningly to workday's end like a legless, dying turtle. Instead of pretending to stock shelves, on freight days we actually got to stock them. Oh, what a glorious adventure. My boss, let's call him Shalamar to avoid any libel suits, was a big fan of Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson. However, his spirit of Christian giving didn't extend to his employees. I made minimum wage the entire time I worked for him and was never given a raise, though he told me more than once that he was pleased with my work. None of my fellow teenage workers got a raise, either, except for B., a favorite of the boss and the manager and the only one of the high school help who worked full-time in the summers. He was given a ten-cent raise during his last year on the job. Shalamar was on top of everything that needed to be done in the store, but the interactions with his employees were clumsy and awkward. He was kind of a wimp, especially when it came to the store manager (let's call her Vulva). Shalamar, despite everything I've said about him, was basically a nice guy and treated me well (except for my salary). Vulva, on the other hand, was a sack of shit of a human being. She decided, shortly after I started working there, that she didn't like me. I'm not really sure why, but part of her animosity may be attributed to the utter lack of interest/ability I had in showering her with praise and buttering her up. She thoroughly enjoyed getting her ass kissed, but I am genetically incapable of putting my lips on my superior's anuses. This may have sealed my fate, but her patronizing and mean-spirited treatment baffled me. To offer just one example of her behavior, one Saturday morning I overslept and was late for work. My mother called the store for me, so I could hurry up, get ready, and be on my way. When I arrived at the store, she said to another employee loudly enough for me to hear, "He had to have his mommy call for him." This kind of thing happened about once every couple of months the whole time I worked there. I did my best to ignore it and do my job. Besides, Shalamar liked me and the mini-drama at least made the job a little more interesting. When I started working at the store, Shalamar and Vulva were dating. Within months, Vulva dumped Shalamar for the guy who delivered the Snapple. I'm laughing as I type these words. Oddly enough, Vulva kept working there and Shalamar let her keep manipulating him. All of us lowly grocery baggers found this drama compelling, hilarious, pathetic, and a little sad. Shalamar became a completely dejected sadsack, and he even fell so low that he let Vulva talk him into giving the Snapple guy some weekend hours at the store stocking shelves with us. It was a painfully awkward extended trainwreck of human misery, but it made the job more interesting for a few months. Shalamar eventually snapped out of it, fooled around with a married woman, then got a regular girlfriend. Vulva married Snapple, he moved into her house, and later dumped her and moved away.
Customers. How could I forget to talk about the customers? They made the job even worse. To digress for a second, I'm a huge proponent of humanist art. I spend a lot of time listening to music, going to concerts, watching films, reading books, looking at art and photography, reading comics and cartoons, taking an interest in comedy, and having drinks with friends because I want to connect with other human beings, I love what human beings are capable of, and I generally like people. I don't have much time for irony, cynicism, and dead-end nihilism in art and life because I think it distances us from our humanity. But, I gotta admit, I fucking hate the public. The "public" as an entity, especially when your job is to serve them, blows. Some people are just assholes, especially if you are selling a product they need. Especially old people. It's good that they're going to die soon, because a lot of them are jerks. The public at large is capable of doing things like: Keeping you waiting while they shop even though closing time was an hour ago (and they damn well know it, too, because they keep apologizing for keeping you waiting), buying $300 worth of groceries and telling you to fit it all in two bags but "don't make them too heavy, hon, I'm old and I can't carry heavy bags," making you wrap ice cream in three paper bags and two plastic ones even though it's winter time and 15 degrees outside "so it doesn't melt all over the place," bawling me out for ten minutes because the old bastard asked for a case of Coke and I accidentally brought him a 12-pack, etc., etc., etc.
Work is fun!!!!!!

Jerry Lewis: Captain Beefheart of comedy or blubbering dummy? Answer in next week's Parade magazine!

I watched four more movies in the last couple of days. The one that really stood out was "Yeelen" (Souleymane Cisse), but the others were "Guardian of the Night" (Jean-Pierre Limosin) and "The Big Mouth" and "Cracking Up" (both Jerry Lewis). I've been on a weird little Jerry Lewis kick for the past few months, mostly because I have no idea whether his movies are good or bad. One thing I do know about them is that they are some of the weirdest goddamn things I've ever seen. If you've never seen an old Jerry Lewis movie (I'm talking about the ones he directed), try one some time. Or maybe don't. I can't truly recommend any of them, but if you die without seeing at least one, you're missing out on something. What you're missing out on, however, I'm not exactly sure. The films' pacing and sense of comic timing are the strangest I've ever seen. I'm not sure how to even describe what I mean, but I'll try. The tempo of the films is both languid and kinetic, and Lewis' directing style is simultaneously tight and economic (sometimes even bringing to mind the crime films of Don Siegel and Robert Aldrich in the 1950s) and indulgent and sloppy. He's also a fan of long, awkward pauses in conversation, something you don't find in most other slapstick comedy. Most of the jokes are painfully unfunny and generic (though a few are actually hilarious), but he drags them out for such ridiculously absurd lengths of time that you have to laugh or at least admire his audacity. There's something a little queasy and off-putting about his acting and comic timing, but I have yet to pinpoint exactly what it is. That these films were popular in our culture at one time is pretty astonishing. It's some of the most uncommercial stuff I've seen, a little disturbing and sick and a whole lot weirder than super-contrived shit like "Napoleon Dynamite," a movie that never stops trying to sell you on how oddball it is. Jerry Lewis is the real deal, a sick fuck who thinks he's making "normal" films but is actually giving audiences a guided tour through a deranged mind. Either that, or they're just a bunch of really stupid films full of tired jokes given an odd sense of pacing due to inept, egotistical direction. I only get this feeling once in a while, but even if it's true, these films are stupid, tired, and inept in ways previously unknown to man. Idiot or genius? This question can only be answered by Kathleen Hanna on the next Le Tigre hit, "What's Yr Take on Jerry Lewis?" Currently Reading: The Last Picture Show by Larry McMurtry

I'm back

I have been back in town for a week, but I haven't felt like posting anything. I still don't feel like it. But I will probably feel like it soon. I still need to write about the other eight jobs I had. Also, I watched several movies while I was away from the blog, four on video/cable, two on the big screen. Three of these movies sucked ("Napoleon Dynamite," "Laurel Canyon," and "Sex: The Annabel Chong Story"). Three of these were good, with some reservation ("Bowling for Columbine," "The Aviator," and "The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou"). Full report later. I still have half a case of Busch beer in cans (I'm unemployed, dudes) left to drink. Keep it real.

So long, suckers

Hey there everyone,
This will be probably be my last post until early January because I'm heading out for the big Nebraska road trip early Friday morning. We're going to drive to Lincoln, hang out there for a week, then drive across the state to see my mom and dad (which will also involve a lot of driving because my mother and father live in different towns), then drive back across the state to spend New Year's Eve in Lincoln, then drive back to Austin a few days later. Lots of driving. I'll be writing a lot more about my previous jobs when I come back from the road trip.
I watched four more movies this week. Here they are:
After the Rehearsal (Ingmar Bergman)
The Family Jewels (Jerry Lewis)
Frat House (Todd Phillips, Andrew Gurland)
Red Line 7000 (Howard Hawks)

Merry Christmas, jerks. See you soon.

Currently reading: Mainlines, Blood Feasts, and Bad Taste by Lester Bangs

Can you still call it the weekend when you're unemployed?

I had a pretty good weekend, give or take a couple of bad movies and some unsolicited criticism of my personal appearance (see comments under "Unemployment Journal: Day Five" post). My life is so much fuller and busier now that I'm unemployed, oddly enough, and my sugar mama wife treated me to not one, but two, concerts: The Magnetic Fields on Friday and Neko Case backed by Kelly Hogan and The Sadies (the latter's opening set was pretty stunning as well) on Saturday. I even ran into friends from the old job and their equally friendly significant others at both shows. Ah, the glories of being a kept man. Also got to see the James Agee/Walker Evans exhibit at the Harry Ransom Center on the UT campus on Friday and had some drinks with the old co-worker friends on Thursday night. I don't miss the job, but I miss seeing the fine people that work there. On the movie front, I'm going to start with the two disappointing films:
Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World (Peter Weir) Not particularly terrible, and opening with some intriguing scenes of the everyday routines on a British warship during the Napoleonic Wars, the film ultimately gets bogged down in the cartoonish simplicity of the characters, confusingly edited battle sequences, and sluggish pacing. The open-ended conclusion is too obviously a plea for a sequel rather than an interestingly ambiguous touch.
Yankee Doodle Dandy (Michael Curtiz) This is a wildly overpraised musical biography of super-patriot George M. Cohan, Broadway actor and writer of the flag-waving anthems "Yankee Doodle Dandy," "Over There," "Grand Old Flag," ad nauseum, that changes most of the facts to suit the story. James Cagney plays Cohan and is pretty great in the role. There are some nice moments at the beginning of the film showing Cohan's rise to fame on the vaudeville circuit as part of a traveling act including his sister and his parents. Even with Cagney's performance and a handful of good scenes, the movie is mostly vulgar, stupid, boring propaganda. Filmed and released shortly after our involvement in World War II, the film was obviously meant as a morale booster, but is so cloying in its rah-rah jingoism I'm surprised we won the war. If you really want to vomit, watch the scenes of Cohan receiving the Congressional Medal of Honor from a patronizingly smug FDR lookalike. And those songs. Ugh. Imagine Lee Greenwood's "Proud to be an American" or "God Bless the U.S.A." or whatever the hell it's called given a John Phillips Sousa arrangement. Then imagine about thirty more songs that sound exactly the same. This movie is interminable and even a force of nature like James Cagney can't save it.
Leave it to those freedom-hating Saddam-lovers, the French, to keep my movie-watching weekend from being a total bust:
Story of Women (Claude Chabrol) Isabelle Huppert is so good in this movie, and her character is beyond complex. Trying to figure out the motivations for her behavior in this film could be a full-time job. The other actors are wonderful, too, and the period recreation (the movie is set in Occupied France during World War II) is flawless. It's not like I was in France in the early 1940s, but the film seems like a document of a living, breathing corner of the world, not a hollow, stagey movie recreation.
Under the Sun of Satan (Maurice Pialat) This might be a great movie, but I think I need to see it a few more times to decide. And seeing it a few more times might not be much fun. This is a somber, austere, cerebral, dense, joyless film. Gerard Depardieu plays a humorless, zealous priest who feels the world is manipulated by Satan, not God, and is constantly tormented by this belief. This is such an artfully composed, deeply felt film, but its lack of humor and narrative confusion throw some obstacles in the viewer's way. Like its most obvious influence, Bresson's "Diary of a Country Priest," the movie is based on a George Bernanos novel.

Currently reading: Werner Herzog's original script for his movie "Fitzcarraldo"
Just finished: The Partly Cloudy Patriot by Sarah Vowell

We live in a scary world

This is really creepy. I'm sure a lot of you have read about the shooting of ex-Pantera guitarist Dimebag Darrell while he was performing onstage, a bodyguard, a club employee, and a fan by a lunatic who was later killed by police in Columbus, Ohio last night. I'm disturbed by the news, partly because it makes me feel like we're basically unsafe anywhere, partly because a bunch of people got killed for no reason, mostly because I was at that same club less than two months ago seeing Guided By Voices. Here's the AP story about the whole frightening incident for those who haven't heard about it yet.

Oh yeah

I saw an excellent movie tonight at the Alamo Drafthouse downtown as part of the Austin Film Society's Recent Spanish Directors series. It's called Lovers of the Arctic Circle (Julio Medem), and it's a great love story with a tough ending that doesn't give you what you want. Instead, it gives you something much better, harsher, and more thoughtful. A magical realist fable, the film is a sweet romance but never ignores the disappointments, darknesses, and brutalities that fill our lives.

Working for the weekend: Job 2

I can't remember how old I was when I started mowing my grandparents' lawn. Maybe it started before the babysitting thing, which would make it Job 1, but I already wrote that one so fuck it. I would ride my bike to this job as well, eight blocks this time. My grandparents lived on the other side of town, which was the three or four blocks west of Main Street. My hometown is very small. Don't make fun of it. I have heard (and said) it all before. Some people brag about escaping my hometown (by the way, it's Bridgeport, Nebraska), but everyone who leaves has little choice. There are only so many jobs in a town of 1,500. No college, no record store, no movie theater (though there was a drive-in theater open in the summer that closed only about four or five years ago), no bookstore, nine or ten churches, not many interesting people, an unhealthy fixation on high school sports, lots of white houses, and a hatred and fear of anything slightly different or new, unless it was something like the new Super Wal-Mart in nearby Scottsbluff. If this was even remotely not your cup of tea, you had little choice but to get the motherfucking fuck out of there once you graduated. Maybe three or four people from each graduating class stay in town. The rest get out. After some time passes, four or five more usually come back. That's about it. There are some good things about the place. It's very safe (houses and cars stay unlocked most of the time), which made it an exciting place to be a little kid. You had the run of the town, even after dark. There is a really nice lake, some wonderful rock formations a few miles outside of town that are great for climbing, the aforementioned drive-in theater where I saw on-screen boobs for the first time ("Police Academy") and got drunk and stoned in my friend Clint's blue van with tinted windows. And I would be lying if I didn't say that some really great, interesting people live there (though there aren't many of them). Luckily, much of my family and friends from Bridgeport are in this category When I remember my childhood, my memories of the way the town looked contrast sharply with the way it looks to me now. It seems so gray, empty, deserted, narrow, unfriendly to outsiders, ugly, plain, ridiculous, backwards, laughable. I feel a haughty sense of superiority to it, which makes me feel ugly about myself. The way I remember it is different. As a child, Bridgeport seemed healthy, happy, green, expansive, full of possibilities, friendly. Then puberty hit, everyone turned into an asshole, the town seemed to shrink, I had to drive to Scottsbluff to buy music and books, I learned about all the stuff I was missing from the music and books, I felt lonely and unhappy, blah blah blah. Basic teenager shit, but at least you city teens had a little more at your disposal to fuel the angst and loathing. (A digression: one positive aspect of being from the small town and living in the city, though I'll never feel totally comfortable in either place, is that the city always seems so exciting and new to me. I still get excited knowing I can see bands I like in concert, buy CDs the day they come out, go to great movies, buy great books, meet new people in unexpected circumstances, eat in different restaurants, etc. This seems like a privilege and a thrill, and even though I've lived in cities for nine years, the novelty hasn't worn off.)
What does all this have to do with mowing my grandparents' lawn? Not much. It's just that the transition from small, happy, small-town Josh to teenage, unhappy, small-town Josh occurred while I was mowing their lawn. Thinking about riding my bike to their house made me think about what I saw when I rode my bike, which got me reminiscing about all that hometown shit. That job wasn't bad either. Mowing a lawn isn't much fun, but it's physical, not too hard, and you actually accomplish something, unlike the job I just quit. I show up. The grass is too high. I cut the grass. Not an amazing feat, but fulfilling in its own small way. A far cry from the endless bureaucratic loop of my last four years, in which I would a) proofread a document b) document would undergo slight, usually meaningless revision c) document would return d) I would proofread document again e) rinse and repeat. Sure, the grass grows back, but that's what grass does. It's nature, baby. A document won't revise itself. It takes an army of jackasses to handle that one.
Also, after I finished mowing, my grandmother would give me a ham and cheese sandwich and strawberry soda. If they were out of strawberry soda, I would have a Coke. Then I would get a five dollar bill from my grandfather. Not too shabby.

Working for the weekend: Job 1

Is there anything worse than terrible world music? Right now I'm listening to a multinational clusterfuck of badly overproduced swill on an otherwise decent compilation album. It's the aural equivalent of Peter Gabriel rubbing his engorged member on every item in your local Pier 1 Import. Sorry about the digression, but I can't stomach that shit. Remember, protesters, globalisation is also to blame for the horrible miscegenation of 1987 stadium rock production values and watered-down, scrubbed-up indigenous musics located in the record collections of pseudo-intellectual (often pony-tailed) assholes who think culture is something you can purchase. Also, at least one of these guys owns a ferret. I know, because he brought it into the record store with him every time he decided to buy some masterpiece like "Sting and Youssou N'Dour Celebrate the Music of Bulgaria: All-Gregorian Chant Version." I don't care how many Putamayo compilations you own, no self-respecting woman is going to sleep with you if you walk around with a ferret on your shoulder. Fuck those guys.
Anyway, my first job was pretty good. I rode my bike three blocks to my aunt and uncle's house whenever they called me, and babysat my cousins Mariah, Andy, and Gunnar. My uncle has a large television and a great record collection. In addition, the kids were easy to watch and usually well-behaved. Their favorite game was to turn some music on pretty loud, turn off the lights, and run around like crazy people. That suited me since I could bring over a bunch of my favorite music, play it loud on awesome speakers, and wait for the kids to get tired and fall asleep. I thought most of the music I listened to then was deeply on the cutting edge. I'm embarrassed by it now, albeit affectionately embarrassed (Red Hot Chili Peppers, Pearl Jam, Alice in Chains, Murphy's Law, Follow For Now, Infectious Grooves, Metallica, a predilection for slap bass in a heavy metal context, etc.) I'm glad I also explored my uncle's record collection (Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Beatles, Stones, Hendrix, Howlin' Wolf, Alice Cooper, Zeppelin, Stevie Wonder, etc.), which elevated my musical taste a few notches. Once I found a dirty joke book in my uncle's room. I read it and memorized as many jokes as I could. I had great material for the entirety of eighth grade study hall. Solid gold. That was a pretty good job. Better than most. Mariah's getting married soon. Gunnar just finished his first semester of college. He's majoring in physical therapy. Andy's in Iraq. He's already been there longer than he should have been, and he has to go back again next year. I'm sorry this post ended like "American Graffiti."
Tomorrow, or whenever I get around to it: Mowing my grandparents' lawn.

Unemployment Journal: Day Five

Things haven't been very productive on the writing front, excuses being sickness, lost mail, minor but affordable car trouble (timing not so great, am I right?), ennui and self-loathing, worrying about money, doing a lot of reading, buying music and listening to it, watching movies. Sometimes I think I might have made a mistake quitting the comfortable state job, but I didn't quit my job because I want to be comfortable. Patterns need to be broken for life to move forward. Discomfort, unease, change, uncertainty. These are your friends. You can't spend your life doing something you don't want to do because you're worried about insurance and a steady paycheck. Money is meaningless. Money isn't worth shit. You don't need that much to eat. All you can do with money is spend it. You can save it, but then you end up spending it later. If you never spend it, someone else will spend it after you die. That dollar in your wallet is eventually going to be spent. What else can it do? Nothing. At the same time, I realize that I grew up in the middle class, I'm white, I'm an American, and I have a college education. It's a privilege that I get to quit my job, that I have enough to tide me over three or four months until I'm forced to prostitute myself for rent and turkey sandwiches again. Instead of having a horrible life, I was lucky enough to be born into mediocrity. Hooray for me!
I watched these movies during the weekend:
Intervista (Federico Fellini)
M. Butterfly (David Cronenberg)
Four Adventures of Reinette and Mirabelle (Eric Rohmer)
Written on the Wind (Douglas Sirk)

I bought some music (already budgeted in before I quit the job):
Various-Dave Godin's Deep Soul Treasures Vol. 1
Dramatics-The Best of the Dramatics
John Frusciante/Josh Klinghoffer-A Sphere in the Heart of Silence
Kaada/Patton-Romances
Oneida-Nice/Splittin' Peaches

I'm also growing my beard again. Right now it's at the stage where it itches and I look like a fucking derelict. Another week or two and maybe I won't look like trash.

Working for the weekend: a tragedy in ten acts

I have had ten paying jobs in my life.
1. Babysitting my cousins Mariah, Andy, and Gunnar.
2. Mowing my grandparents' lawn.
3. Stocking shelves and bagging groceries at Jack and Jill.
4. Flipping burgers at Hardee's.
5. Telemarketing Part One: Working for assholes, selling subpar NASCAR videos to big dummies.
6. Telemarketing Part Two: Selling tickets to a charity dinner for firemen.
7. Bagging groceries and cashiering at Russ's Market.
8. Cashiering at Homer's Music and Gifts, a record store.
9. Writing and copy editing for The Daily Nebraskan, my college newspaper.
10. Proofreading for the Texas Legislative Council.

I will get into the specifics of each job, and which ones deserve their own little corners of hell, each night for the next couple of weeks.

Unemployment Journal: Day One

I thought today, my first day as a free man, would be awesome. It was decidedly not. I woke up feeling a little sickly, which I assumed was the remnant of last night's boozefest with my pallies from the former job, but it took such a turn for the unbelievably sickly that I had to rule out the hangover theory. I had a headache so intense that it made me vomit up a little bit of bile and remained intense even after taking four Ibuprofen. I was also nauseous, too hot, and too cold. I didn't accomplish any of the day's goals, which included going to the grocery store, getting an oil change, and doing some writing and revising on a few stories. I did drift in and out of consciousness, drool on several pillows, clutch my head in agony, punch myself in the forehead a few times, and curse everything. In addition, the wife and I have been stressed out about post office woes. We were out of town last week and had the post office hold our mail. Except they didn't hold our mail. They fucked up. There was mail in the box when we got home. When Kristy went to the post office to see why there was mail in our box, they were holding what they claimed was the rest of the mail. It was three magazines. We should have also received some packages, bills, etc. They couldn't find those. Then we find out that our regular mail carrier was on vacation, and the substitute carrier set the packages down in front of our door. These packages were stolen. This is the tenth time we've had trouble with this particular post office. I hope the motherfucking place burns down with the incompetent staff inside. Back to today. The combination of post office stress and sickliness pretty much turned me into a nasty little prick. Needless to say, I had a fight with my wife. Then I felt a little better, so I vacuumed the apartment. This made me feel a little nauseous again. Then my wife started feeling sick and went to bed early. There is no way tomorrow could be worse. I'm still looking forward to the unemployment experiment, but day one sucked a horse cock.