Dark days indeed

I'm pretty sure the initial panic I felt coursing through my veins after being laid off has been absorbed and diluted by my body and has resolved itself into a constant dread. It's no longer a stab, it's an ache. When this all went down almost two months ago, I was overwhelmed with the urge to fix it, to reenter the workforce come Hell or high water. The meager responses from employers have trickled down to absolutely nothing and an eerie dark silence has oozed in to my days. It all seems impossibly futile.

While talking to my beloved Mandrake, I likened it to tossing copy after copy of my resume down a well. As each sheet is swallowed by the blackness, I'm puzzled by my insistence on sending them down the well in the first place. I've spent seven years working in a place that has offered me no marketable talents. I have more than a half dozen years experience in idling. In busywork.

And one would think that the length of my stay at my now defunct position would stand as a testament to some sort of industriousness, of loyalty, but that's not how it works in New York. You're considered a fool if you stay at any one place for more than two years. The focus of the workforce here is always upward. Of course, that's assuming you're actually in the profession of your choice. Then one's focus is on the clock and the long hours remaining until happy hour.

What I'm saying is that I've painted myself into a corner. After college, I had to work at a pointless, mindless job in order to pay the bills so that I could act. But working left no time for acting, and I feel as if that ship has sailed (hell, I'm not sure if I was ever even near the dock). It's funny that the now curiously absent actors' "manager" from a few months ago and the corporate headhunter told me essentially the same thing: I'm too old and I have nothing to offer. I can't act, apparently, because I wasn't around in my twenties to build the relationships I needed to succeed because I was too busy working at a job which endowed me with absolutely no hope for a future in any other field. It's horribly perfect.

But, this is all narcissistic tripe. I'm just crying the blues into the void. I suppose I'm just glum because it was a little overcast this morning. It looks to be clearing up though.

You gotta have heroes

Continuing the screen-cap goodness, I ran across this on WWE.com:



This speaks for itself I feel.

Subtle

Someone want to check that copy before it goes out? Cool.



Unless this ad is supposed to tug on all of our racist heartstrings...

No no no...not Toby KEITH

I just finished, at long last, Toby Young's memoir entitled "How to Lose Friends and Alienate People," and I have to admit I enjoyed it. The book is larded with seemingly impossible tales of ignorance and audacity, many at the expense of celebrities, which makes me grateful and happy. As a bonus, somewhere between the obligatory personal accounts there lies a really wonderful and accurate criticism of America, specifically New York and it's obsession with status, fame, and wealth.

Kind of makes me want to move to London.

New things, new problems

The problem with the sheer quantity and quality of various technologies we all enjoy is that the people who make and install each item, whatever it is, can handle only their product and their product alone. Strangely enough, this rash of specialization spreads even within the same company.

For instance, Time Warner, apparently, doesn't install their own wiring. It's contracted out to cheapish nincompoops who end up spending more time slapping each other in the ass with the cables than worrying where any of said cables actually go. Because, who cares, right? It's not MY apartment building. Months later, when people sign up for cable service, befuddled installation specialists stare at the jack, throw up their hands, and say "looks like you're fucked."

Indeed. Indeed I am fucked. So, what's the next step? Well, the befuddled installer makes a call to his foreman, who he doesn't know, by the way ("Clarice, who is my foreman? Can you patch me through to him?"). All the while you wait for the foreman to call back, the installer puts on a jaded, frustrated tone as he complains about the foreman.

Time Warner Guy: Make sure you tell him that it came on for a minute and then went out.

Me: It didn't do that, though.

TWG: Yeah, but you have to tell him lies or he'll try to reschedule.

M: Uh...ok?

TWG: I mean, as far as I'm concerned, it went on (WINK WINK).

Then, you're regaled with stories about how all foremen suck and THIS GUY is the cog that REALLY makes this shit spin. He leaves with an air of "good luck," and you're left wondering if you'll ever see television again.

By now, the foreman, in your head, has reached mythical proportions. You begin to wonder "is he a criminal?" and "if he's as useless as this man said, will my apartment be on fire by the end of this day?"

Of course, the foreman strode in and fixed the problem in two minutes. TWO MINUTES. The problem? The original guy hooked up the wrong cable. YUP. After you personally watched the guy check, double-check, and TRIPLE-check the wire, it turns out, he wasn't even looking at the right one to begin with.

Tomorrow, my thoughts on my new gas and electric accounts, which according to their respective companies, do not exist in this realm.