Ahh, to be unemployed in America in early 2009. Such a strange experience. Now, as a bit of a background on myself, I was raised in a nice Jewish home (and a nice Black Muslim home as well) as a child, went to a prestigious East Coast Boarding School, graduated from the University Of Massachusetts Cum Laude with a degree in Communication Theory, Philosophy, and Sociology. All that and I then went out and spent the next decade of my life gainfully employed in the seedy world of Radio. And I loved it. Loved every weird, strange little nuance of it. I was a "radio guy". It takes a certain type of person to DO radio, and I was, in fact, that type of person. I even did Morning Drive radio for almost 5 years! That's almost half a decade of getting up at 4am, and going to bed at 8pm. Talk about a lifestyle choice...
And now, nothing. I've nothing PRACTICAL to show for the past 10 years. I DID spend some time teaching at a boarding school and some Sunday School teaching at my Synagogue, but other than that I've really no discernible "real world" skills to help sell myself to prospective employers. It's strange and scary.
Plus, unemployment is fucking ridiculous. As I've noted in this blog before, they don't TELL you that it takes a month for them to decide if you are going to get assistance. But, you still have to plug away, file every Sunday, and hope to god that at the end of those 4 weeks they will shine upon you with a tiny little weekly check that will not cover your rent, cell, food, or-if you are like me-MEDICAL BILLS, Child Support, and other stuff. SO.. I plug away and try to find some kind of job. And its fucking BRUTAL out there! If I were either a) a RN or b) interested in joining the Air Force I would be set. But, alas, I am neither and so I am doomed to searching the dregs of Monster.com, Savannahhelpwanted.com, USAJobs.com, and so on trying to find SOMETHING that is either appealing to me (not an easy task) or something that I think I may actually be qualified for (also not easy)...
My dream as of now is that I get my shit together and write a LOT in this blog. I write the shit out of this blog. I show how good I can be and someone notices and decides to hire me to write for them. I could make a hell of a music, movie, or pop culture critic. I've got many crackpot ideas that need to be fleshed out, I just lack the motivation to get them out there. Getting paid to write them, well, that would help. So I've got to put my all into this I guess and hope that good things happen.
Speaking of good things, I've, in the past few days, gotten actual good news. I have a new apartment which makes me oh so happy! It's a great 2 bedroom in a duplex house on the East side of Savannah near Daffin Park. It's got an attic space which is totally cool, high ceilings, a fireplace, hardwood floors, nice lawn, and my landlord is fucking AMAZING!! Such a super cool guy. So that's nice. And, to top that nugget of goodness off, things broke my way in the divorce for once and I now get to have unsupervised visits with my son! It's a hella-long story, but the end is that I get to see him more now and it's totally unsupervised. Like a giant boulder has been lifted off my being.
On a side note, I was in the bathroom the other day and noticed this little nugget: I'm currently reading 3 books. They are "Killing Yourself to Live" (which I just finished today) by CHUCK Klosterman, "Choke" by CHUCK Palahniuk, and "How Barack Obama Won" by CHUCK Todd. First off, WHAT ARE THE FUCKING ODDS THAT I CHOSE, RANDOMLY 3 BOOKS BY GUYS NAMED CHUCK TO READ????? And, second, could those books be any more diverse? "Killing..." was good, about a road trip he took to see the places where rock stars died to question whether it was the ultimate career move. But, the book is REALLY about the death of 3 of his relationships along the way. The book is chock full of all that is good about Klosterman, pop culture references, music, weird tangents, first person conversations with people who were not there... Good stuff. "Choke" meanwhile is about a med school dropout who is a sex addict. In typical Palahniuk fashion, its full of the dirty side of life. The dregs. Just wonderful. And Todd's book is a fascinating account, state-by-state, of the election of 2008. It's insightful and interesting. And, again, together the 3 books are about as different as any 3 I could imagine. And it's not even like I picked the books specifically to be diverse or weird or ironic. I bought the Chuck Todd book in January and started it then. I bought the other 2 books a few weeks ago (along with "Bright Lights, Big City") and just happened to start and finish "Killing..." in less than a week and have now started in on "Choke".
What does it say about you, the books that you choose and read? What is the line between your interest in the subject matter from a safe, arms-length, and infatuation with what the writer is presenting? Klosterman talks about all the things that my life revolved around for 10 years. Things that I love, know an insane amount about, and still am wont to discuss. The subject matter and people that "Choke" talks about fascinate me. I know a bit about the depths of depravity and addiction. I'm always interested in reading about or watching a show or movie about someone who fights those type of demons. I understand, but I don't, you know? And Todd's book, well, it's just so interesting to look back on the election from a step back. His analysis is based on the numbers and what actually HAPPENED, not on speculation. That is what is so interesting. I watched a year of the coverage on TV prior to the election and it was all, of course, speculation. And it was riveting! The most exciting part was when the "experts" would tell us what was going to happen at the polls on a given day, and would turn out to be wrong, wrong, WRONG! And, for the first time, I'm taking the time to look back at the aftermath. Looking at what DID happen and HOW it happened. And that, too, is riveting. I highly recommend that anyone who is interested in politics read this book, take the time to look back at what actually went on at the polls, not what was SPECULATED to have happened. It's brilliant.
I think that is all I have in me for now. I still have to give proper "birth" to my "Clooney Theory" at the right time. I also have some critique to do on some topics to be named. But for now, it's back to searching for a paying job. Wish me luck..
-B
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