On July 16th I will begin my new employment. It is, strictly speaking, a huge opportunity. It is also one that I thought had been considered and discarded, only to realize it was merely taking them 5 weeks to assimilate.
Much like the last job, I wrote up the job description and presented it to the decision maker and basically invented the position. I seem to make a habit of that for some reason.
The job function is based on the ideas of Business Development. It is an outgrowth of a sales function that incorporates much more than just obtaining new clients. It will try to achieve that - but it will also review suppliers and vendors, and be the central office for all new projects, as well as the incubator those projects will function in until they are set in place on their own. Not the typical job most of us - including me - are used to. If there are smaller businesses to purchase, I would be on the front line of that process. If there are new products to incorporate, I would do the research and build the plan.
This differs from my last job in several important ways.
I will be a confidant and adviser to the ownership instead of someone who is questioned about what I'm doing if I happen to be going into the owner's office just to drop something off. There will be no glorified laundry room attendant who is easily manipulated by the ownership standing as a filter between me and that owner. My advice will be sought after instead of put up with. My contribution will be recognized instead of absorbed as something the company did on its own whether I had been there or not. I will be dealing with an ownership who has already told me this is a family and supposed to be fun, not asking the daily question about whether or not smiling too hard will upset the owner because he's male-PMSing today.
I asked my new boss what hours he'd be looking for. He said that's my call. I asked about salary. He said between this and that, what do you think? Without my originating anything I was told potential partnership is there if things work out.
So what have I learned?
First, I have learned that NETWORKING is the be all and end all of getting along in life. Secondly, that cultivating that network by trying to be manipulative and grasping never works - but being just... yourself... always pays off.
I have also learned to recognize that some people are just naturally decent. The expressions of support - even when accompanied by a sharp elbow in the side - are memorable and meaningful. And some people, who took that support a step further, are positivelyunforgettable.
So I have two weeks to "get organized," as the new boss told me. I still have a storage bin to install, and this and that needs a patch here and there around the house.
I learned that it pays to save and invest wisely. And I have learned that I'll be a CHAMP at the retirement gig - but that'll be when I'm ready to say it's time; not when someone else says it's time.
But I am hereby retiring this label. I hope it is for the last time.
Just... NO GOLF. I refuse to do golf. No. Never! GAH!
Great news on the job front but I'm saving the details for later.
I had such a release of energy when I got out of today's meeting (see the post just below this) that I couldn't contain. My yard and garden will miss me, but, what can I say?
And here's what occurred to me on the way home. I don't usually post twice in a day - but this whole thing came as a rush. Just say I'm pumped. It's been a wild ride, this life...
---------------
A lot of folks who've met me don't believe me when I tell them. They look at me now and see someone just the wrong end of middle-aged, a grandfather, responsible, nice home, all the rest... and can't make the connection.
It's like I was born old, according to some, I guess. But I have to say everything was different after 1978. That's the year I got married and our first daughter was born. But before that - it was another world. It still has its meaning to me, it just isn't as close to the surface now.
It's true that I keep my manners, these days. Why - when I met my web designer and blogdaughter (and her highly gifted child), she described the meeting as "charming."
CHARMING!? I'm doomed...
I will admit that what I am now is a far cry from what I was then. In the year before I was married, this is where you would more likely find me. What was gentlemanly Mr. RW like when he was 24...?
Yeah... I'll bet there were a lot of future CEO's in those audiences too, so bleh.
Had an interesting phone call Wednesday that I have been keeping from you. Something in the job market I thought was dead and gone turned up anew and this morning at 9AM I am to pay some folks a visit per their request. As I said I thought that page had been turned but I suppose I was wrong. No promises but you don't usually get a call back for no reason. Will keep you posted.
In the meantime some bits and shards to go over that have piled up. My bullet list without the bullets because (though yes I know how to make a bullet!) bullets are just SO 2006!
A few readers, who are trying to jump start their own writing efforts, have written me about how to get started. First of all, the stuff I had out there years ago was put out by a mostly non-paying alternative art scene (the infamous alt-zines of the late 80's-early 90's), most publications of which came and went like headaches from one month to the next. So it isn't like I'm some kind of expert. My "success" at the game has never been anything but marginal - and always sounds better than it looks. But I would recommend a full-on Google search for "literary reviews" or "college quarterlies" for some ideas about where to submit. It is one thing to think you will automatically get your wonderful fiction published in the New Yorker or something and are a minute away from stardom - but the truth is if you can break into the quarterlies you will be building a sound background for whatever may happen in the future. A couple of places to try are Glimmer Train Press - which accepts online submissions but pay attention to their submission guidelines. And for an example of a good college literary magazine (many of which like to receive submissions from newcomers but - again - pay attention to the guidelines they publish) try The Yale Review. Just for instance.
Every once in a while I've told you about my secret life as a legendary investor. It is on par with my life as a legendary author, legendary gourmand, legendary traveler, not to mention my life as a legendary sleuth trying to track down a fugitive legendary chef. But if any of you did want to keep track of my nonsensical, purely amateur, not-for-pay investment ideas you should know that my project gets updated at the end of every month (which is this weekend) at Common Catalog; which is attached to a blog two people read. It's silly, I know, but just a little game I play.
And, finally, a note from somebody I never heard of coming to Chicago soon? Now... I enjoy interacting with my millions of fans, but I can't just drop everything and entertain strange visitors from another planet with powers and abilities far beyond those of mortal men and who - disguised as Clark Kent - fight a never ending battle for truth justice and the American way, just at the snap of someone's fingers! Can I?
Trumpet Causes Scare in Salt Lake City By Associated Press Wed Jun 27, 9:01 PM
SALT LAKE CITY - A suspicious package left outside a fast-food restaurant Wednesday turned out to be a trumpet that has sounded its last note.
Someone noticed a suspicious package, and several blocks were closed down for about two hours as police investigated.
A robot detonated the case _ and the fears were resolved.
"Some very alert citizens watched this package for a considerable amount of time and then they called the police thinking it didn't look right," Salt Lake City police Detective Gary Trost said.
"Gratefully enough, it was just a trumpet."
1. "Some very alert citizens watched this package for a considerable amount of time." 2. The idea that terrorists would hit a McDonald's. 3. In Salt Lake City.
Tuesday, June 26, 2007
I Don't Know About You...
... but I'm getting sick and tired of coming to this blog day in and day out listening to all the moaning about the job search and the decisions this guy has to make and yadda yadda yadda. Then he sits here and all these people come around and buck him up and give him advice and then the next day there it is again and there it is again the day after that.
Why the hell doesn't this guy get a job already for Christ's sake!?
I can't stand high maintenance people who just when you get them to stand on their own two feet, you turn around to zip up your pants and BOOM - flat on their face again.
How many times am I going to have to come back here and tell this shmuck "everything will be OK", "you'll be fine", and blah blah blah (Poses*)? You'd think there was a special cult for people who cry in their beer. And why the hell don't they say "crying in your Amaretto Stone Sour"? Why does it have to be BEER? Answer me that.
I don't think I can take much more of this guy's constant back and forth with himself over this crap. Should I / will I / would I / what do you think / wait don't tell me and on and on and on.
There is still time for you to make a contribution to the fund for a fellow blogger known as Dawg, who lost his 5 year old son last week in a pool accident. So far in just a mere handful of days the collection has topped $2000, just from a bunch of wretched, profane, atheistic, wicked, foul-mouthed, dirty-minded bloggers. Because, you know - as the larger news media will tell you - people who blog are just egocentric and devoted to themselves and blah blah blah blah blah.
Anyway here is the link again, in case you meant to do it and didn't yet. Hey c'mon - $5. Give me a break. ---------------------
Oh... the old Brylcreem ad. Oh yeah...
Just jumped out of the shower and doing my best to improve on a very bad natural disaster that is the state of my 53 year old carcass so that it is somewhat presentable to a fellow I am going to see about a job at 10 this morning. This company is a full-service ad agency out here in the western burbs of Chicago who contacted me through Craig's List. We talked on the phone and sent some emails back and forth and now the meeting. His company does everything from minor catalog work to full-scale ad campaigns. Mostly they have local companies but there are a smattering of nationals. This is interesting because virtually any company out there is a potential client.
I am not accepting wishes of good luck because, even with all the promise, I have been let down in this process before (relocation / money) and am reserving judgment myself. But also because this is a week for The Decision. Do I take this job (base salary, benefits, work from home, local travel only) if he is gracious enough to offer one / or do I take the two or three offers for contract work I've gotten during the course of my interviews and set up my own sales company (I checked it out - the start up could be done for a few hundred bucks thanks to all the online legal services and associated stuff on the web you would need)?
I am also not accepting advice on that any longer because the best advice givers have already given it in another set of comments (and I'd give you all a big kiss but some of you are MEN so... eeww).
It's just enough to say that I'm going to make the call about which way I go on this this week, if only to save my ass from this damned work around this damn house!
But I am also not accepting criticism on the manner in which I have done work around the house, because my yard - my friend - is a veritable oasis of green and trim and beauty the likes of which the neighbors have never seen from me before. But I am also not accepting criticism on that score because I'm bulletproof today.
It's the Brylcreem. I'm certain of it. If you knock on my head it sounds like a hollow iron kettle.
How many people do you suppose have been on this planet from the start, and what percentage of them are remembered?
The history of the world contains names we all know. Famous people who built a great something or killed a lot of people or wrote something everybody has to read at school. We almost have to remember them. Sometimes a person's life is examined in depth when a biographer gets a hold of their papers, their story, and their leavings. And once in a great while a small life reaches the spotlight for reasons of triumph or tragedy and there is a trail that leads to their door and they become part of the language forever. Maybe even a verb.
But as for the rest, mostly us, we are born and live and develop and die and just a couple generations away from our passing all that remains are photographs and an odd story that some future relative conjures up once a decade or so, a family heirloom in oral history. Maybe. And after that? Three generations from you, most of everyone walking around will have no remembrance of your favorite color or a song you liked. No one will ask when your birthday was. The little troubles that plagued you won't even be a concept to anyone then living. They couldn't possibly start to care about the things you had to deal with, that loom so large to you today.
And balanced on the pinpoint of that thought, you can totter one of a dozen ways.
You can mope - certainly - in some kind of forlorn and dark existential funk. That would put you in league with a lot of cigarette-sucking philosophers who sat in cold, clammy coffeehouses and eventually grew out of it or never amounted to anything of any use to anyone, ever.
You can allow it to cave in on you and you can just give it all up for being a useless exercise for a great big meaningless nothing. You can let that work on you until there is joy in nothing and fear in everything and you eventually disintegrate into a useless, quivering mess other people have to constantly make allowances for.
Or you can learn that this is all actually very, very funny. Even the pain. Even the mean things. Even the horrible things. Not "funny" as in totally insignificant, but "funny" like a circus or a pratfall. Funny like an odd thing that doesn't make sense to logic. Funny like what the wind does to a couple of prospectors who ruined themselves to find the Treasure of Sierra Madre.
Whenever the worst happens, the best thing to do is to lean against a fence in the dry desert wind and laugh your brains out. Laugh until you cry. Eventually... you must. Or you go crazy.
I am pretty sure I know Or maybe I don't know what most of you are going to say about this but input is sought after regardless.
A couple of my more promising job opportunities have not panned out. For the investment company, I refused to relocate and they dropped the remaining steps of the interview process. I got pretty far, too. They asked me twice if I was sure about that decision. But that was iron-clad. The other, local thing, was no where near the money I was looking for.
I've been on plenty of interviews (one yesterday, another Monday), so it isn't as though my applications are getting zero interest from folks.
But lately something has been working in my mind that is both exciting and nerve-wracking at the same time. Several of the last few interviews I've been on have been for "contract work". Meaning; 100% commission, no benefits, set your own goals, times and schedules, and work out your own taxes. A couple people said they wouldn't care if I hawked their wares but two days a week or something, and that maybe I could "add it to my portfolio" & see what I could do for them. This has rekindled a long-ago notion I had once to start up my own "sales company." Just using my experience at everything from the cold-call to the wining-and-dining of old clients and accept commission checks in behalf of my "company". In that position anything is possible, even online sales, and the only arrangements I would have to make sure stay in place are the contracted relationships.
The upside is the BIG upside for me; not having people, whose only claim to brilliance was that they ran a laundromat once, or had Daddy save their unimaginative ass by giving them an idea about something to do with their lives, run MY life. Having people with the ability to carry such weight over me - a thing most of us put up with to get along - is more and more something I barely want to consider.
The downside is that the Mrs' job carries the benefits unless I become big enough to get into that myself - which is bigger than I'd actually want to be. Plus all the record-keeping and legalities are in my yard. The "only as good as the work you put into it" thing is not the problem.
Monday's interview is with an advertising firm that needs people to get the word out about it. Telecommuting is fine, there's a base salary, no cap on commission earnings plus (I think) standard benefits. For what they do - big corporations to just about any store you would drive past would be a potential client. I'd have to work FOR somebody, but the involvement level wouldn't be as intense as if it were my own thing.
On the one hand I have two or three companies willing to set up contract work, and on the other hand one company that is going to interview me that sets up a pretty standard work-environment. They haven't offered yet but the phone conversation and emails were certainly up-toned.
Seeing as how I want to put in ten years and then quit - and the house-husband thing is fun but will probably get old - the question is one of how much stress do I want in my life... or (maybe more accurate) what kind of stress do I want.
I have a tremendously powerful effect on people. If they spend any time with me at all what starts to happen is that they begin to age right before your eyes and, at some point, they begin to yearn for the return of the old days.
In full flower this results in a feeling of "nostalgia for an era not lived in", which there are some posts about somewhere around here.
The first phase of this is a sudden pining for the entertainments of one's past that manifests itself - in most cases - in CARTOONS!
The Beige One has started to have these special feewings about the days of his yoot - - which were, like, YESTERDAY?
I was very happy to find another blogger who was into Bravo's Top Chef last time I made a trip around the bloggogastrosphere. And equally happy to see that I wasn't alone in thinking last year's winner (some guy named Ilan) was a petty, conniving, manipulative little skank who was at best uneven and at worst blissfully, ignorantly, dirt-blind lucky to have ended up in the right place at the right time in order to secure his victory "achievement". (Spits...)
And I was exceedingly happy to see his 44-year old, blond gnome partner in bullying, what'shername, get the boot ahead of the finalists too. What a little turd she was. It isn't that I thought the target of their teamed scorn (Marcel) was a warm and fuzzy little squishy innocent, but I certainly didn't see anything he ever did to deserve the level of back-stabbing, "let's organize a hate patrol", gang-up the two aforementioned contestants managed to produce. He had his moments of self-righteous crapola - but no more so than any of the other ballerinas with spatulas on the show.
And therein lies the tale of the tape, so to speak. I have a burning question that may have something to do with whether or not I find any serious interest in this venture anymore...
Why are most (if not all) of these chef-contestants such abso-freakin-lutely quantifiably certified assholes?
I have never - in my entire life - seen a more complete set of sociopathic dipshits collected in one place at one time as I have seen on Top Chef ever since it's inception. I'm not even sure that I watch it for the contest as much as I watch it for the ascending levels of assholedness you can witness right before your eyes as the weeks progress.
I am desperately looking for some halfway decent person to emerge from this year's crop to root for. I'm tired of the usual artiste Primadonna with Heat Diffusers balanced on their heads that most of these contestants seem to portray. We seriously need to pass out the tutus, especially to the fat guys in the group who want to look like toughs from the back alleys while they create color-coordinated dollops of over-priced foliage on cute china.
Certainly Bravo pushes that "competitive edge" thing because it attracts legions of catty little sous chefs dreaming of owning their own dining Meccas to watch and take notes. But I can assure you that the majority of chefs I've known - though often demanding and willfully committed to strict kitchen standards for professional reasons - are certainly NOT the big-mouthed louts that what seems to be 98% of the contestants on this show demonstrate.
Are all chefs assholes? Certainly not. But if we don't get an actual human being with a personal sense of self-respect pop up somewhere in this crew, I think Bravo runs the risk of having this show become a parody of itself. More laughable than interesting, and purveying a mean-spirited stereotype that excludes any "reality" from this "reality show".
That's Mister Mr. Mister to you! I don't have a baby or a dog (however I did have my grand-daughter over yesterday afternoon and we played "Castle"**) but I do and I will have a cigar before the day is through.
I'm taking a break from the job-hunt today (another interview Thursday - so far NO I won't relocate or NO I'm not working for THAT!). I've just finished emptying the dishwasher and made a glaze for the skinless chicken breasts I'm grilling tonight. Then, after I finish this entry, I'm going down to the bathroom we're redoing and finishing sanding the corners of the new drywall. Then I'm going to tape the edges of stuff and start priming the walls and ceiling. It's a half-bath powder room thing so it won't be all that long... I hope.
I've got the trash to get together for the pickup tomorrow morning and I might get in a load of clothes but don't hold me to it.
Anyway here's the recipe for the glaze:
Mix - 1/2 Cup Raspberry Jam 1 Tbsp. Dijon Mustard Dash of White Pepper Brush frequently while grilling
Pretty simple. It's all mixed and sitting in a bowl for when I do the chicken. Then I'm going to put fresh, pitted, raspberries on top of the chicken and serve with a rice/mushroom thing.
See what you're missing? Oh well... got to get to work. It's the manly thing to do! ---------------------------
** It's a toy castle with little people in it and you move them around and talk them and stuff. She was determined to be rescued from the tower and was so into it I had to do it like 43 times and by the 44th time she did her squeaky little "save me save me" and I had this little Prince guy and I had him look up at her and say "Hey I already saved your butt 43 times! If you want to stop being trapped up there stop freakin' going up there already for cry eye and NO - I'm tired of that stuff. You're stuck there too bad!" She thought that was hilarious - well I said it in a little toy squeaky voice and she's only almost 4, so whaddaya want!?
You know the guys that call you up at 8:23 PM and tell you they are from the County Sheriff's Union and they are selling ad space in an annual and a part of the money goes to the Officer's Beneficial Fund?
I found that place today.
I was called in off an inquiry by a "Promotions" company that said they sold advertising for magazines. I thought - that's pretty interesting sounding, let's see what they want. So this morning I revved up the MINI and headed on down the tollway to this business park in a near-south suburb of Chicago.
When I went in and asked for my contact nobody knew who I was talking about for a bit. Then they remembered who he was and said he'd be in in a second. Twenty minutes later he arrived, but until then I heard the boys in the sweat shop on the other side of the wall... "Hello Eddie, this is Frank from the Beneficial Policeman's League howzit goin' today you keepin' bizzy?" "I'm calling from the Hendershaw County Police - nothing is wrong we just need a favor..."
Yeah, I've been CALLED by these guys! They work in a dingy little office with stacks of index cards and maps and one guy had a gold chain around his pudgy neck and the guy that came in to talk to me introduced himself as the guy I was looking for but then a call came in for him and they called him another name altogether and he says "Hey this is..." just like he was asked for.
He shows me around and there's this grease-pen board with all the suburbs divided up into sections and each suburb has a guy's name beside it. And he goes "we have to keep things straight because we just talk to so many people, so we use different guy's names for different towns. You call this town you're Harold Biesterfield, you call that town you're Joe Hemmons. Helps us keep track of who we're talking to."
Huh?
Of course there's no benefit package and they cut you a check on 100% commission and you're responsible for taking out the taxes and... wait a minute! Wait a minute!
I got another interview across town, whatever your name is, so I gotta go. See ya!
You usually won't see me doing any special posts on Father's Day or Mother's Day - first of all because it is just so damn usual and almost expected. My Dad passed away in 1977 when I was 24 and so that was a long time ago. He never met my wife or my daughters and - chances are pretty good - he had his doubts about how this show was going to turn out in general. I have the usual list of memories, and have had moments where I wished he'd been around, but mostly I have gotten used to pretty much figuring things out for myself and being my own counsel. And I can't really say I would have done much different if he'd been around anyway - because we didn't always see eye to eye on things in the first place. Not a big deal.
The one thing I wish we would have retained, though, is the manner of being guys that has been lost to us from that generation to this.
You know... a lot of people (those who lived through it anyway) have said recently that they yearn for the "good old days of the Cold War." We knew our enemies and knew what they were about. We also knew the game. Compared to having the sneaky bastards we're up against now - who actually target innocent civilians and laugh all crazy because they know we'll get blamed for it by all the well-meaning hairballs in the world regardless - the Russians were easy! Well the same thing is true, to my way of thinking, when it comes to guy-ness.
Back in the day a man was stoic, silent, and strong. The modern guy seems to have to have to cowtow to a different way of life altogether. He has to have feewings, and he has to get in touch with his "feminine side."
Well you know what? I call bullshit on that all the way down the line.
Get me back to the day where kids who were being berated by the class bully turned around and clocked him one to settle the issue right then and there without Mommy and Daddy going to the school council or on the Today Show with their poor, beaten little kid to have a pity party.
I'm not saying the dynamic between men and women needs to go back to a caveman paradigm, nothing on Earth is going to change the relationship between the sexes no matter what anyone says. But the time has come to recognize that everybody is a bit schizophrenic when it comes right down to it. You want the good hearted, soft-natured man but you date the bad boy who knocks you around. You want the pie-baking, motherly waitress for a wife, but you chase the woman you really should think about condoms about, next time, for your own health. That's not the issue - we're all bozos on that bus.
I'm talking about not getting all emotional and blubbering. I'm talking about enduring pain and crisis with a hard-edged determination, and not withering under the fire or whimpering in a corner about how unfair everything is.
The guys from my father's generation - the guys of World War II - were guys that just wanted to see a ballgame and go on a fishing trip with the kids and work on their cars and have a beer. But history called them to knock out the most certifiably evil idea that ever took shape in the history of the world. And they may have pissed and moaned about going but they still pounded Hitler's ass up a pipe so they could get back to their baseball and their families just as fast as they could. No big deal.
We need to get back to the strong, silent archetype, who was interested in guy things and did guy stuff. Now I hope you'll excuse me while I go do the groceries...
Being unemployed for the second time in my life I notice all these self-help books talk about how if you are starting over and you need to get some kind of direction for yourself the best thing to do is to ask yourself what is it that you love and then follow your bliss.
Well I think Joseph Campbell was a genius too, but, when I do the checklist that's supposed to show me where my bliss lies, and that's what I'm supposed to devote my life to following, I always end up with a problem because there aren't any real good career options for lazy, selfish bastards.
What do you want to be when you grow up, Bobby? Oh man I'd really like to be a lazy selfish bastard. I want a job where I sit on my ass, smoke cigars and drink vodka lemonades and people give me money. I don't actually want to have to do anything in exchange, I just figure once in a while you can ask me a question and I can give you an entertaining answer and then you give me money. Pretty simple. And I don't really think that's too much to ask because I can say some interesting things once in a while. I don't know if you necessarily have all this extra cash but – hey – this is a business and I'm watching my overhead here. And if you are going to give me money to say entertaining things once in a while then I do expect to see it. Nobody put a damn gun to your head and said "give me money or I'll blow your brains out." You chose this of your own volition. There are no refunds.
If the blogging world taught us anything it's that there are thousands of talented people in the world who don't have the accreditation to be seen as anything official, but who can run rings around people who do have accreditation to be something officially but are so inherently stupid nobody actually gives a shit about their degrees because they're idiots. That's why the news industry doesn't like bloggers; because they're afraid you're going to find out that 76% of those who went to school for it have forgotten what journalism is and caved to feeding you more crap than you can handle and do it with better teeth than any human can rightfully expect to have. In going over the want ads it quickly becomes painfully obvious that if you don't have some kind of schooling in certain areas there are jobs that are simply not going to be coming your way. It doesn't matter to them if you have been playing in the stock market for twenty years and somehow keep adding zeroes to the end of your balance sheet on a regular basis – if you don't have the accreditation that proves you know what you’re doing you can't join the legions of accredited financial advisers just waiting to lose your personal treasure under the guise of "money management."
But it isn't just college accreditation. It's humor too. I don't know if you know this or not, but the truth is I can't possibly be funny because I haven't been on TV. Just so you know.
The fact of the matter is that I'm so fucking lazy it's too much work to even pound this out on the keyboard right this second. What I really need to do is find a way for people to give me money just for sitting here.
In thinking about how I am supposed to answer Suzanne's Roundtable topic for this day it dawned on me that the last actual date I had was when Jimmy Carter was President, that year's Best Picture at the Oscars was Annie Hall, and Rev. Jim Jones had a really interesting tent revival meeting somewhere in Guyana.
Not a good sign on a lot of different levels.
So it isn't simply a matter of trying to remember my worst date ever, it is trying to remember any date at all!
But I shall do my best.
Wednesday, June 13, 2007
Nobody Comes Around...
Nobody's home. Nobody to talk to. All too busy. Everybody's off doing their own whatever. No time for you. Don't bother us. The cool kids are off having a party. No, you weren't invited. Sorry. Empty summer streets and another day the same just after that. Too bad / so sad.
I haven't engaged in this kind of blogging too much but I've seen it around and figured I'd give it a try. It's called Rambling On And On All Over Creation With No Particular Purpose.
I once had a director who used to ask "what is all this nameless running around" during rehearsals, whenever people sort of ambled around on stage like a bunch of uncomfortable amateurs without any character or reason. He was a Jewish guy who hated when people just went through the motions, aimlessly in their blocking, and he had a pouty New York voice, and he would wave his hands at the wrists and say "what the hell is all this nameless running around?" Silverman, his name was. That was over 30 years ago - he's probably dead by now because he was already old then - but he gave me "nameless running around" for my whole life. There he is in his grave and the headstone reads... "RW uses my running around phrase. I must be famous by now".
Anyway rumblin', bumblin' and stumblin' seems to be a popular method of bloggadoccio so let's give it a whirl. Let's run it up the flagpole. Let's flush the thing and see if we're north or south of the equator. Let's... OK never mind. Here's a bullet-less bullet list. Yes I know how to make a bullet list! I'm just way too cool to actually do it. You're lucky you're getting italics.
Job Hunt Front - HMPH! Apparently I'm just too expensive for some people! Well! Sor-reeee! Two more connections this week and then we'll see where we are. I've been waiting for this one guy to get back into town forever already. Should meet up tomorrow.
Bloggy World - Did I tell you about the new video I put in the sidebar? No, of course I didn't because I just put it there. And it isn't like you're just sitting there and we're talking just now. What a stupid question. I mean you are sitting there right now, but not now. See? Hmmm... I think I've been spending too much time at Miss Britt's. It's starting to rub off. Rub off. Why don't we say something is rubbing ON you? Why do we say something is rubbing off? Let's try it again - I think I've been spending too much time at Miss Britt's. It's starting to rub on. Me. Aaah screw it, that doesn't sound right either. So there's this new video in the sidebar. Period music. But not the female physical kind.
Dramatic Aside - Hey I think I see why this kind of blog posting is so popular; it doesn't have to have a point, and it doesn't have to even be good. I may do more of this!
Obligatory Bad Driver Rant - (Insert slow driver thing here).
The Mrs left $7.55 worth of coupons from the envelope, but I will spend the morning looking for more online before I head off to the market. Except somebody told me this week not all stores take online coupons. We-heh-hell, we'll just see about that! Anyway we have one of those store-issued saver-cards that just about lowers the price on everything in the store too, so that's pretty cool.
The place I go to is a big area grocery chain but it has been surrounded by mega-stores and other grocery chains in the last few years. It used to be crushingly busy but now no one goes there. It was the first in that particular stretch of strip mall but over the years all kinds of other places have been built around it and just a few miles west a really cool - but always really CROWDED - Italian market has been operating. I go to that one when I'm making my special New Year's feast for just me and the Mrs because they have a great - but EXPENSIVE - meat counter. But for everyday stuff I just don't feel like standing at the deli with number 487 while the guy is calling out "421!" and everybody jostling around with carts. The riff-raff.
The place I go to is big and bright and clean and EMPTY. I swear last week there was me, the staff, two open registers, and three other shoppers spread out over the 18 aisles or so. It was GREAT. Going in the morning during the week to a place that isn't even busy on the weekend anymore is kick ass!
And there's no tangible difference with the prices of the other places once you tack on the store card. So it's a no-brainer.
We'll be having burgers and hot dogs on Father's Day, but I'm thinking I'll pick out a few skewers of the beef and veggie things the deli makes up and make that for dinner tonite when the wife comes home. I mentioned once before - excellent to marinate them in Mr Newman's Balsamic Vinagrette. Throw them on the grill and then cook up a pot of rice.
Oh and Monday I learned to fold bedsheets. Well - I tried anyhow. Anybody need their grass cut? Oh wait - that's Wednesday.
I'm just such a happy little homemaker! (insert smiley)
Sort of feeling sorry for those of you who have to go into a building to work this week. Kinda.
We have this non-moving weather system sitting over us that makes it mostly sunny highs in the 80's all day long. Then at night it is in the 60's and all the windows are flung open. And nothing is moving it so it is just sitting here. Much like Floridian summers we will get our unbearable humid days - mostly in August - but that just usually lasts for about one month instead of the four or five like those folks. Anyway, for now, it is a lot like summer vacation when you're a kid and the days just go on forever and if you don't want to be inside you don't have to be inside.
Certainly, shit happens. I have an interview today for one guy and I'm supposed to call back another.
Last week I posted myself at Craig's List (did someone suggest that or did it come to me in a cranberry juice and vodka haze? I can't remember) and got seventeen emails in response. And two of them were from actual people! Oh joy! Most were from recruiters who just want to expand their database, and some were for Viagra or something even though I asked not to get that kind of stuff.
Anyway the guy I'm calling back today is a contact I made from that. Already spoke with him on the phone last week and he wants me to follow-up this week after he's had a chance to review the resume. Has something to do with intellectual property rights protection. Then I have to (sigh) put on a nice shirt and (kicks can) probably drive over to talk to some other people later(pouts). Unless of course they'd rather do it tomorrow! Hint hint.
In the meantime the search goes on. But I'm thinking coffee and the newspaper on the deck first this morning.
You all have a nice day today. At work. Inside. -------------------- Update For you stock market wonks, or those two of you who actually follow my pathetic little efforts at investing - I do have a new post up for today. Just sayin.
I don't know about you but I have really noticed a striking difference between the subjects women bloggers are willing to tackle as opposed to men bloggers. I know there is a great desire to equalize the social placings of the genders and, though some partisans from either side are more than willing to express their native superiority over the other, the trend is toward equality. But while that general movement in society as a whole is constantly lurching toward a greater sexual egalitarianism, a cursory examination of the blogoramalammadingdongsphere will reveal that there are two extremely distinct approaches toward the art of blogging and that these approaches are divided strictly on the basis of gender alone and are almost without exception.
For one thing women are less likely to write sentences that would be more comfortable in the 17th century, like the one you just got through.
But, more to the point, it has been proven to me time and time again that women are much more inclined to cover the events that are happening within the confines of their own bodies than men are.
No amount of bleeding, puffing, swelling, expanding, contracting, paining, evolving, or mortification seems to be out of bounds to women bloggers. They are quite open about sexual equipment, sexual function, sexual maintenance, the ramifications of sexual activities, as well as the universal laws of sex and all of its ever-changing coda.
In the rare instances where men bloggers actually do focus on bodily functions it is mostly about farting, eating, belching, farting, pissing, drooling, or more drooling. An examination of subjects used in blogs quickly reveals that if men bloggers are talking about sex it is either a direct mimic of things said in the locker room from their teen years or a kind of tedious recounting of some impossible Homeric escapade that couldn't possibly have happened. Women bloggers, on the other hand, are disarmingly frank, amazingly precise and, ultimately, exponentially more graphic and obvious about it. Husbands have been eviscerated, boyfriends compared as if in a revolving market of meat samples, and explanations of feelings, behaviors, opinions and results leave virtually nothing to anyone's imagination.
A short tour through blogs written by women will, on any given day, reveal that half the female population on Earth is pouring vast oceans of bodily fluids of all manner of viscosities and color out into the atmosphere at any random moment. It is positively frightening.
And there is no summation, conclusion or unified theory resulting from this observation. But, should anyone doubt the veracity of the study, one need only use the Blogroll to the left of your screen to verify the findings. No judgment is made, intended, or implied either - lest I find myself on the dissecting table under a heat lamp in a goodly portion of said venues.
Just stating the obvious is enough to dangerously skirt the confines of the politically correct. And "dangerous skirts" is exactly the issue.
One year sometime in the future a dozen homeless people perish during a particularly brutal winter for the lack of a shelter. Most of their deaths impact on nothing except for one who, if he had had the chance to just get through this winter, would have turned himself around by that next spring. He would have gotten a job and eventually a wife and they would have had a son who would have written a great book that millions would have loved. The book would have been made into a movie and had six or eight sequels and employed hundreds of people for several decades.
But the shelter never got built to warm the homeless because the woman who would have fostered the project was unable to go to college after her father died. When she was three her mother became a widow, never remarried, and had a rough time just making ends meet. And instead of college and the business school her parents would have been able to help her qualify for, she grew up to be a waitress and eventually had her mother move in with her after the alcohol had taken its toll. And though she was a good person and a better friend, she never headed up that corporation and never built the shelter. Everything changed after her father was killed.
If he had just left work at the usual time he would have been past the intersection and never been in the accident that severed his jugular vein. He would have been through the light and gone and would never had bled to death before the ambulance came. He would have lived to a ripe old age and been very proud of his daughter for building shelters for the homeless after she became so very wealthy.
When he was just in his twenties Immanuel Genghis had the urge to talk about last night's baseball game as everyone was punching out to go home. He started talking to a fellow worker who had a small daughter and they stood by the door shaking their heads over the loss. The conversation went on for twelve minutes before they broke off, got into their cars, and headed for home. But by the time the young father finally left he was on a perfectly timed track to die at an intersection from an accident he would have missed if he had just kept going after he punched out. And the life of his three-year-old daughter was changed forever. And the shelter was never built. And the book was never written.
And Immanuel Genghis stopped following baseball. In fact, after that, he stopped everything.
Week four of happily unemployed is upon me already and I guess what happens is after a while you stop counting because I've kind of lost track of the time. I've fallen into the routines of an old retired feet-shuffler who putters in his garden and reads on the deck after a nice bowl of gruel. Then a cigar and organic ligament supplements. A short glass of Madeira before bed and a lot of groaning in the morning all over again.
Reality being what it is sooner or later I will eventually have to bestir myself. I am still going merrily along a three-track process and firing resumes off just about every day. Friday I have another interview and Monday another, and the investment company people have this long involved screening process that seems to take forever. I've sent a resume and application, then they had me fill out a form online, then they talked to me on the phone, then I took this personality test (I guess) that just went on forever, then I had to send in ANOTHER application (that basically duplicated my resume for cry-eye!), and now I'm waiting to see if I will be notified that I move to the next phase. Gad. I'm supposed to be happy that I keep "passing" all the checkpoints but come on already.
But something else has crept into my imagination lately. That it can be done is not reason enough for it to be done but the crazy thing is that it kind of mimics the story I'll be sending out to magazines this month.
I have a pretty tight reign on the numbers, and know exactly what the bottom requirement of income is to keep abreast of all the monthly responsibilities, and I am somewhat of a fanatical saver. So the thought passed my mind the other day... because it is possible... what if I became the eccentric old guy that swept the floors in the local warehouse for not much of an hourly wage but if you found him in his home it would all just blow your mind because the two impressions of the guy couldn't possibly be reconciled?
That is right out of my short story, except for a few dramatic effects to move the plot along.
The question is could I pull it off? Using the last 10 or 12 years of my working life to be a kind of unobtrusive, invisible grunt who is not in any way part of the hustle and bustle... but still takes the cruise to the Canal next spring? A kind of broom-wielding zen-master. I think I could do it. Of course showing up to sweep floors driving into the employee parking lot in a hyper-blue MINI might give it away a bit, but it's an intriguing idea don't you think?
I'll write more later. Enlighten me with your brilliance on the subject...
There are things I just don't understand and probably never will. Take the video from YouTube that I shrunk down just below here. I'd like you to click the very far bottom left corner so all you get is the music and not have to switch over to the YouTube site or suddenly pop up what has to be the dumbest combination of video to music there has ever been. Go ahead and click that corner and then read below. BUT DO IT CAREFULLY SO YOU DON'T HAVE TO SEE THE VIDEO. BE CAREFUL. I'll wait here... This happens to be one of the best tunes that this particular favorite group of mine ever did and guess what... it isn't on any service (that I could find) to plug into your blog or web page or something. All you get is this ridiculous combination of video to music somebody made that not only doesn't make any sense together but is quite probably the dumbest, most innocuous combinations in the history of the world.
But no where is there a video of the performance or a copy of the song in any blog-stuff collections or anything, and that's something I don't understand. I mean along with genocide and war and people doing stupid shit, this is one of the top things I just don't understand.
It happens to be one of those songs that infects me all day when I hear it and I don't mind. But in the context of the video it is past stupid. So I shrunk it down so we don't have to watch it.
How much you want to bet Vincenzo is behind this?
There's a lot of great things that should be there, available, since we are in a culture of taking everything for granted and, dammit, I want the stuff I expect just like everybody else.
In the 1940s there were people who were convinced that everything they did was more important than what anybody else had done. Their ideas were better, their clothes were smarter, they had all the modern things that showed how creative they were and how developed their ideas were, their choices were more intelligent, their music was as good as music was ever going to get and - not only that - but the people who went through the world before them weren't nearly as smart or as cool as they were. And then the 1950s came along.
In the 1950s there were people who were convinced that everything they did was more important than what anybody else had done. Their ideas were better, their clothes were smarter, they had all the modern things that showed how creative they were and how developed their ideas were, their choices were more intelligent, their music was as good as music was ever going to get and - not only that - but the people who went through the world before them weren't nearly as smart or as cool as they were. And then the 1960s came along.
In the 1960s there were people who were convinced that everything they did was more important than what anybody else had done. Their ideas were better, their clothes were smarter, they had all the modern things that showed how creative they were and how developed their ideas were, their choices were more intelligent, their music was as good as music was ever going to get and - not only that - but the people who went through the world before them weren't nearly as smart or as cool as they were. And then the 1970s came along.
In the 1970s there were people who were convinced that everything they did was more important than what anybody else had done. Their ideas were better, their clothes were smarter, they had all the modern things that showed how creative they were and how developed their ideas were, their choices were more intelligent, their music was as good as music was ever going to get and - not only that - but the people who went through the world before them weren't nearly as smart or as cool as they were. And then the 1980s came along.
In the 1980s there were people who were convinced that everything they did was more important than what anybody else had done. Their ideas were better, their clothes were smarter, they had all the modern things that showed how creative they were and how developed their ideas were, their choices were more intelligent, their music was as good as music was ever going to get and - not only that - but the people who went through the world before them weren't nearly as smart or as cool as they were. And then the 1990s came along.
In the 1990s there were people who were convinced that everything they did was more important than what anybody else had done. Their ideas were better, their clothes were smarter, they had all the modern things that showed how creative they were and how developed their ideas were, their choices were more intelligent, their music was as good as music was ever going to get and - not only that - but the people who went through the world before them weren't nearly as smart or as cool as they were. And then the 2000s came along.
In the 2000s there were people who were convinced that everything they did was more important than what anybody else had done. Their ideas were better, their clothes were smarter, they had all the modern things that showed how creative they were and how developed their ideas were, their choices were more intelligent, their music was as good as music was ever going to get and - not only that - but the people who went through the world before them weren't nearly as smart or as cool as they were. And then the 2010s came along.
In the 2010s there were people who were convinced that everything they did was more important than what anybody else had done. Their ideas were better, their clothes were smarter, they had all the modern things that showed how creative they were and how developed their ideas were, their choices were more intelligent, their music was as good as music was ever going to get and - not only that - but the people who went through the world before them weren't nearly as smart or as cool as they were. And then the 2020s came along...
Now that I have been home a while and see what you people do during the day I am shocked... SHOCKED I tell you. Shocked and dismayed.
So I am leaving some of you hand written notes just so you know someone is paying attention out there. Better watch your step, I'm telling you.
To Just Across The Street - Here's a clue. When you take a great big Golden Retriever and chain him in your yard on a three foot leash he will get uncomfortable very quickly and, because he has no where to go, he will bark. And in ten minutes his barks will eventually turn into yelps and then after twenty minutes the yelp-barks will turn into pathetic cry-yelp-barks. Do you hear that exceptionally annoying sound out there? IT'S YOUR DOG, DUMMY! You would think you would have figured out what is happening already since you chain him up that way three times a day and he does the same damn thing every time. Hello... you're dog is barking and miserable. A-GAIN.
To The Folks On The Corner - I think you are to be admired for taking in challenged kids as foster parents all those years ago. I am especially pleased to know that you adopted two of them, mental challenges and all. You should be commended for all that. Really. God bless you. But - that was a long time ago - and they are in their late twenties and early thirties now, ok? The guy is sleeping in his car in front of your house and the girl is a baby-making factory and... not that there's anything wrong with that... but I just want to know; are they staying with you forever? I don't care the girl doesn't know which guys were the fathers, ok? None of my business and far from me to say. OK. But can you have the young man sleep inside once in a while please? Or at least not be sleeping in his car with his tongue out with all these weird little kids running around the yard?
To The Kid In The Condos Behind Me - The bass turned overblown way up in your car that I can hear when I'm in the shower? I understand it's a cultural thing. Ok? Young white g-wannabes and black teenage boys who live in $400,000 homes in the suburbs like bass. Way up. Poundingly so. Alright, more power to you. Enjoy you're life. No worries. But don't you see what a relic you are? That booming bass shit is sooooo 90s already. And one of these days you're going to start your car and the whole thing is going to fall apart because you've vibrated all the screws and joints and tucks loose, you idiot.
To The Folks Next Door On The North - Stop copying me. We did the driveway / you did the driveway. We had a company cap the wood trim with vinyl / you had the same company cap your wood trim with vinyl. I got a new car / you got a new car. We got all new siding / you get all new siding. Cut this shit out already, will ya? Have an original thought for once, OK? And it would be nice if you said hello without getting prompted once in a while too, y'know? Or at all. You guys are weirding me out.
What a neighborhood all of a sudden. Do you think it was always like this but I just never noticed because I was always somewhere else??
On July 16th I will begin my new employment. It is, strictly speaking, a huge opportunity. It is also one that I thought had been considered and discarded, only to realize it was merely taking them 5 weeks to assimilate.
