depression session

Astounded by the day's event. Let me indulge yas.

You see, I thought I was simply going to an interview for a job that I didn't think I would want, but sweet lord and taylor, was I in for a surprise. After this afternoon, I would rather shoot myself in the face than have that job, but let's just say it's not exactly an offer on the table.

Said table was a "round" one at which the interview, attended by seven applicants and one satan, would take place. The latter of these attendees was conducting the "interview" in the dining room of her 5th Ave apt.--situated on the eastern side of Central Park. Yea, puttin' on the ritz, but her apartment looked like it was decorated by a blind used-car salesman who buys his decor at rural canadian dentist's offices.

To make a traumatic and long story short, the thing lasted over three hours, and consisted mostly of the she-beast talking about her "amazing" life, handing out morsels of philosophy cleverly buried in poker metaphors, and providing me with a platform to humiliate myself.

To elaborate on that final point, early in the meetin' she insinuated that I was "bluffing"--something "not allowed at [her] table"--because I couldn't tell her exactly where a certain function of Microsoft Word was located on the program's toolbar, after telling her that I knew what the function was.

Variating on this theme of embarrassment, the glorious coda of the afternoon came in the final ten minutes when she asked if anyone spoke other languages. The guy to my right says, "I speak French fluently."

"Oh, great! Anyone else? Anyone? Really? No one?" quoth the devil.

I finally spoke up saying that I took French classes throughout most of my education, and have a good understanding of the langue, though I'm not conversationally fluent.

"Ok-" pointing at the two of us "-you two have a conversation in French."

Everyone there stared at me, and no matter what I said, she was set on us having a conversation. And after a feeble attempt at the challenge I said, "I'm really sorry, [laughing] I said I couldn't speak French like this." (then one of the more awkward silences of my life)

after which le lucifer a dit: "mmmhmm. I learned French before English, so I'm pretty hard to fool."

Of course I felt great about myself and my ability to get a job after being brought to this new lowly low by a woman with millions of dollars, but no sense of tact or taste. Oh, and did I mentions this whole thing lasted more than three hours?

Expect some more stories about drunken, poor decision making from this guy.

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nummers

I think today I'll share a couple of delicious recipes that Pete and I recently made in our kitchen, which also happens to be bitchin. It all started with an ingenious combo of two of america'smost favorite comestibles: beer and chicken. I know what you're thinking, and unfortunately, no, they haven't come up with some magical chicken-flavored beer yet; the technology just isn't there. But a close substitute while the scientists get their act together is what we made. Please see figure 1
fig. 1

Actually it's really easy: open beer. Shove beer up appropriate hole in chicken. Cook at tree-fity for a buck and a quarter, and then eat dat bird. Honestly the most succulent chicken I have ever tasted. That's right, succulent.
Inspired by this gastronomic ghetto-blaster, Pete remembered another obscure receipe, and quickly found the full details on a Coca-Cola website. He then proceeded to bake an entire ham in a giant pan of Coke, pineapple juice, cherry pie filling, and love. One might say, "Hell, that mixture sounds friggin awesome, even without the ham. Get me some fritos and let's go to town!" But no, when a ham is baked in this swirling pool of the dreams of small children, it turns into the most amazing thing you've tasted since your own tears of joy after watching oksana's long program routine in lillehammer.

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crate & boredom

This entry is written by Andy Chen, a 105-pound, 37 year-old Chinese man. He is also the person who has been my boss and coworker for the past two days at a Crate & Barrel warehouse in central New Jersey. Enjoy. ~Jamie

Heya, Andy here. I thought I'd give a little wrap-up of the work we have been doing the past two days. Basically, we were repairing about 170 large, circular mirrors that weigh about 40lbs a pop. This job consists of unwrapping, repairing, and then re-wrapping the mirrors. The same five-minute process, 170 times.

I am somewhat lacking in knowledge of the English language--and on the job I like to keep things simple-- so if I need Jamie to do something I usually just point and grunt. If he doesn't immediately understand that for example, the point n' grunt means I want him to go get the box-cutter, open a box, get more tape and screws, and then do a little tap dance; then I just grunt louder and point in a more forceful manner.

When it is absolutely necessary that I use words, I will do so, but in a special way. Like if I want Jamie to put three pieces of tape on the box labels, I will yell "two!" at his confused face, and when he doesn't realize that any numeral value between the numbers one and ten are referred to as "two!" then I will do something nasty like grab the tape gun out of his hand, put three pieces of tape on the labels, and yell "two!".

And even when Jamie makes mistakes that he somehow doesn't think I'll notice, (like driving a screw so hard into the mirror frame that it splits the wood irreparably,) I will make damn sure he knows that I noticed by making a very loud grunt and saying "big crack!"

Anyway, though he is a pretty lousy worker, his upbeat attitude toward the Sisyphean task of completing so many mirrors was impressive, and that's why I offered him a job as my assistant in a furniture warehouse in the middle of nowhere California. There he could do this kind of work everyday for the rest of his life for some paltry sum of dollaz per hour. Probly two.

All my love,

Andy

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are you saying "boo" or "Boo-ush?"

Well skip to my lou, this morning brought me another job interview, though I guess it wasn't really to get a job as much as it was to talk about the idea of what getting a job would be like. really productive stuff. Anyway, so I was en route to the rendezvous pointe, when whose intended path should I cross but that of good ol' git-r-dun Bush.

I know, totally. Here I was jaunting along like a yankee goddamn doodle dandy who has 20 minutes to walk all of two blocks, when slam went the police gates, and I was completely stuck staring at this jerk's shmancy hotel and his milliards of sunglassed security peeps.

So the buzzcut boys then told us it will only be a couple of minutes. Fine, I told myself, I have time to spare, and I guess I have never had the opportunity to personally make obscene gestures at the guy, though yelling at the teevee screen has been pretty fun in the past. Right, so thirty agonizing minutes later, and dumb ass Dubs still hadn't left the hotel, and they still wouldn't let us move. I was not pleased, and even less not sweaty.

And somehow I was only sort of amused by the assertion made by the crazy old homeless man standing behind me that Bush was "probly up there in his goddamn room watchin' goddamn reruns of classic episodes of Sportscenter." Of course, to this the faux-lice repeated the 'couple more minutes' line, which only made crazy old homeless man scream louder about the "really important delivery" he had to make on the next block.

I finally left and found that they started letting people cross the street on the next block, so I made it to my "interview" with negative 35 minutes to spare. It's entirely possible that there are more deserving fish to fry with this guy, but I am really considering writing him a letter about this inconsiderate behavior.
(His probable expression directed towards me from his prez suite windows. What a jerk.)

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nepotabulous!

It's an interesting conundrum one finds one's self in while looking for a job in New York. This may be obvious to anyone not living in a cave with a bag over their head, but of late I have seen the truth in the ugly aphorism: "it's not what you know, but who you know that really matters when you want to boat that slippery, big-mouth employment bass." I also realized that through virtue of being born in a lovely upstate town of snobissimo jerks, I may have access to the influence that said jerks might wield. And therein lies the dilemma.

Do I ask for help from people I know only from cock- and coattail parties, and who know me as mmm, oh yes, the (grand)son of a Lucy in their rolodex. Though such a system might thoroughly suck and be anti-you sleeping at night, should you buy into it? They also say you've got to take advantage of all you are lucky enough to have upon your platter, and unapologetically so, as to apologize for what one does or does not have seems sort of senseless.

And even if for breakfast you made a delectable egg dish, which ingeniously integrated the respective magics of cream cheese and dill, and you had the huevos mas grandes to add fresh jalapenos: you still have to wash your hands afterward because no matter the hours that pass, each and every time you rub your eyes with those peppery fingahs it's going to burn you to tears just as bad as it did the first time. And you still won't have a job. Sucka.

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phil-idiocy

At any rate, the other night I went to a bar about 15 blocks away from the apt. A pretty bon nuit I'd say, but I'd also say that I really blew it at the bar's mini-golf course, losing miserably to a couple of lady friends. Worse things have happened in a night--and actually did, that night. Thats right kids, gather 'round for a tale of how I once again did something categorically stupid, though a bit of a twist in the plot knickers makes the the delicious ends justify the idiotic means.

Leaving the bar in an especially beer-buying kind of mood I decided to do just that at a little bodega nearby. On my way out of the store I was approached by a soft-spoken fella who, in his first sentence, descibed the difficulty with which a man, with two prior felony charges, finds a job. I guess I just ignored the convicted felon part of his spiel, because the next thing I know, we're walking down the street together talking about joblessness.

We then start jibberjabbin about where he is staying, and it turns out it's in a park near my place, so I said "let's share a cab!" As we rolled on back to Bed-Sty, the conversation turned to people getting robbed, and just then I realized the possible negative outcomes of getting in a cab with a stranger. A homeless, felonious stranger. At the same time, he reached into his man purse and started pulling something out, at which point I began to regret my choices a little more.

To my glorious surprise, in the stead of some kind of hurting/robbing implement, he out pulled a big bottle of Polish beer! That he was giving to me! Apparently it was beer tthat someone, thinking they'd cut out the middle man, bought him instead of giving him money. Ahh, but my homeless friend was not a drinker, and wanted nothing of it. Also, he had a bag of cotton candy and gave me that as well! Then he got out of the car, and I says: "Thanks for the beer and candy, you didn't have to do that." to which he replied:"Well, you didn't have to do what you did."

This just goes to show that even when you think beer and candy are going to make you feel good; a foolish and irresponsibly good deed done for your fellow man can make you feel just that much better.


And needless to say, the rest of the night was just delicious.

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anonymous alcohol

after a couple of years of legal boozing, a man grows accustomed to doing so unquestioned by authority. hmm, unless that man thought it would be nice to let his younger brother (not of age) borrow his driver's license because a european romp would ostensibly make it an unnecessary thing to have for a month or two.

well, aside from said man's inability to rent mopeds in greece and ride them fruitily about the isles, the younger brother's inability to return something that he cherishes could cause some problems upon the man's return.

so now I (the man) am forced to carry my passport to bars; something embarrassing (my photo was somehow swapped with that of an unfortunate looking 14 year-old french girl), and uncomfortable (as it takes up a lot of space in my back pocket and occasionally causes a rash.) all was well and good until I left for boston last week, and of course, forgot my dumbass pazpuerto in the NYC.

Fortunately, I stopped by mom's house first so I could scare up a nice stack of alternate identificaysh. I dug through the family files and found:
A photocopy of my learners permit
My birth certificate.
My expired passport with picture of me as a 10 year-old wearing a white turtleneck and a purple Mighty Ducks hockey jersey.


Needless to say, the bostonian bartendresses laughed the tears from my eyes, and the only place where the stack of shame was sufficient turned out to be a bar that also served punch bowls of apple schnapps and had one employee walking around selling meat on a stick. classy biz.
oh, also it didn't work at olive garden, but my friends hid a frosty glass of white zin behind our bottomless basket of breadsticks. and sorry if the entirety of that last sentence made you puke.

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