There are ads all over the Boston subway system for Vinergy, which appears to be a caffeinated wine cooler. What. The. Hell? Of course, it's being marketed as a women's drink, and the idea of "girly drinks" really makes me nuts. Every time I work a beer festival, it drives me up a tree how many women won't drink anything but light and/or fruity beers. You're missing the good stuff, girlfriends. And drink a good merlot instead of that Vinergy sh*t, while your'e at it. If you must have caffeine with your booze, have an Irish coffee. Please.
Saturday, October 26, 2002
Thursday, October 24, 2002
I've been unwillingly inducted into the world of entertainment journalism. "Unwillingly" because I'm working for a technology magazine; how would *you* like to be the one calling slick Hollywood people from a magazine with "Mac" in the title? (If you're jealous, you've obviously never tried this). Also, I'm not particularly star-struck, so there's not much in this for me other than a big pain in my tuchus. But I do have a few amusing anecdotes already.
* A receptionist gave the last part of her agency's mailing address as "Beverly Hills 90210" without a shred of irony. That situation was so un-me I almost laughed out loud.
* A fellow writer recommended the site www.whorepresents.com, which my brain immediately parsed as "whore presents." A good candidate for The Brunching Shuttlecock's Web's Hottest Sites.
* The same writer recommended the equally off-color-sounding Nasty Little Man music PR agency. They answer the phone "Hello, Nasty." Yes, they represent the Beastie Boys. (Pop culture decoder: the Beasties have an album named "Hello Nasty.")
* The fellows at Nasty were, ironically, nicer than all half-dozen of the Hollywood PR agencies put together. Ah, LA.
* A receptionist gave the last part of her agency's mailing address as "Beverly Hills 90210" without a shred of irony. That situation was so un-me I almost laughed out loud.
* A fellow writer recommended the site www.whorepresents.com, which my brain immediately parsed as "whore presents." A good candidate for The Brunching Shuttlecock's Web's Hottest Sites.
* The same writer recommended the equally off-color-sounding Nasty Little Man music PR agency. They answer the phone "Hello, Nasty." Yes, they represent the Beastie Boys. (Pop culture decoder: the Beasties have an album named "Hello Nasty.")
* The fellows at Nasty were, ironically, nicer than all half-dozen of the Hollywood PR agencies put together. Ah, LA.
Saturday, October 19, 2002
I had a night out with one of my female friends last night, something even Rick agrees I don't do enough of. A combination of sloth, poverty, too many male friends, and too many female friends who don't particularly enjoy the "night out" concept. Anyway, the $1.95 beer-of-the-week at Rock Bottom was a tasty one, and I went to my first poetry reading in forever. Having realized yesterday I've been doing beach reading since April, I figured it was time to get some culture. We met up with some classmates from my friend's creative writing class, who she described as "crazy with a capital K," and saw Stephen Dobyns do his thing.
Conclusions:
* We both hate Cambridge psuedo-intellectuals
* Dobyns was awfully nervous for someone who, one would assume, has been doing this for a while
* His poetry ranged from "eh" to good, in my opinion, but we agreed that his definitions/aphorisms from his latest work fell a bit flat. My friend called them derivitive of Ambrose Bierce -- she's right, of course, but I, Queen of Beach Reading, had been thinking Sniglets.
My favorite poem of the evening continues to be the one I read over the $2 beer before the event.
"How to Like It"
by Stephen Dobyns
These are the first days of fall. The wind
at evening smells of roads still to be traveled,
while the sound of leaves blowing across the lawns
is like an unsettled feeling in the blood,
the desire to get in a car and just keep driving.
A man and a dog descend their front steps.
The dog says, Let’s go downtown and get crazy drunk.
Let’s tip over all the trash cans we can find.
This is how dogs deal with the prospect of change.
But in his sense of the season, the man is struck
by the oppressiveness of his past, how his memories
which were shifting and fluid have grown more solid
until it seems he can see remembered faces
caught up among the dark places in the trees.
The dog says, Let’s pick up some girls and just
rip off their clothes. Let’s dig holes everywhere.
Above his house, the man notices wisps of cloud
crossing the face of the moon. Like in a movie,
he says to himself, a movie about a person
leaving on a journey. He looks down the street
to the hills outside of town and finds the cut
where the road heads north. He thinks of driving
on that road and the dusty smell of the car
heater, which hasn’t been used since last winter.
The dog says, Let’s go down to the diner and sniff
people’s legs. Let’s stuff ourselves on burgers.
In the man’s mind, the road is empty and dark.
Pine trees press down to the edge of the shoulder,
where the eyes of animals, fixed in his headlights,
shine like small cautions against the night.
Sometimes a passing truck makes his whole car shake.
The dog says, Let’s go to sleep. Let’s lie down
by the fire and put our tails over our noses.
But the man wants to drive all night, crossing
one state line after another, and never stop
until the sun creeps into his rearview mirror.
Then he’ll pull over and rest awhile before
starting again, and at dusk he’ll crest a hill
and there, filling a valley, will be the lights
of a city entirely new to him.
But the dog says, Let’s just go back inside.
Let’s not do anything tonight. So they
walk back up the sidewalk to the front steps.
How is it possible to want so many things
and still want nothing. The man wants to sleep
and wants to hit his head again and again
against a wall. Why is it all so difficult?
But the dog says, Let’s go make a sandwich.
Let’s make the tallest sandwich anyone’s ever seen.
And that’s what they do and that’s where the man’s
wife finds him, staring into the refrigerator
as if into the place where the answers are kept-
the ones telling why you get up in the morning
and how it is possible to sleep at night,
answers to what comes next and how to like it.
Conclusions:
* We both hate Cambridge psuedo-intellectuals
* Dobyns was awfully nervous for someone who, one would assume, has been doing this for a while
* His poetry ranged from "eh" to good, in my opinion, but we agreed that his definitions/aphorisms from his latest work fell a bit flat. My friend called them derivitive of Ambrose Bierce -- she's right, of course, but I, Queen of Beach Reading, had been thinking Sniglets.
My favorite poem of the evening continues to be the one I read over the $2 beer before the event.
"How to Like It"
by Stephen Dobyns
These are the first days of fall. The wind
at evening smells of roads still to be traveled,
while the sound of leaves blowing across the lawns
is like an unsettled feeling in the blood,
the desire to get in a car and just keep driving.
A man and a dog descend their front steps.
The dog says, Let’s go downtown and get crazy drunk.
Let’s tip over all the trash cans we can find.
This is how dogs deal with the prospect of change.
But in his sense of the season, the man is struck
by the oppressiveness of his past, how his memories
which were shifting and fluid have grown more solid
until it seems he can see remembered faces
caught up among the dark places in the trees.
The dog says, Let’s pick up some girls and just
rip off their clothes. Let’s dig holes everywhere.
Above his house, the man notices wisps of cloud
crossing the face of the moon. Like in a movie,
he says to himself, a movie about a person
leaving on a journey. He looks down the street
to the hills outside of town and finds the cut
where the road heads north. He thinks of driving
on that road and the dusty smell of the car
heater, which hasn’t been used since last winter.
The dog says, Let’s go down to the diner and sniff
people’s legs. Let’s stuff ourselves on burgers.
In the man’s mind, the road is empty and dark.
Pine trees press down to the edge of the shoulder,
where the eyes of animals, fixed in his headlights,
shine like small cautions against the night.
Sometimes a passing truck makes his whole car shake.
The dog says, Let’s go to sleep. Let’s lie down
by the fire and put our tails over our noses.
But the man wants to drive all night, crossing
one state line after another, and never stop
until the sun creeps into his rearview mirror.
Then he’ll pull over and rest awhile before
starting again, and at dusk he’ll crest a hill
and there, filling a valley, will be the lights
of a city entirely new to him.
But the dog says, Let’s just go back inside.
Let’s not do anything tonight. So they
walk back up the sidewalk to the front steps.
How is it possible to want so many things
and still want nothing. The man wants to sleep
and wants to hit his head again and again
against a wall. Why is it all so difficult?
But the dog says, Let’s go make a sandwich.
Let’s make the tallest sandwich anyone’s ever seen.
And that’s what they do and that’s where the man’s
wife finds him, staring into the refrigerator
as if into the place where the answers are kept-
the ones telling why you get up in the morning
and how it is possible to sleep at night,
answers to what comes next and how to like it.
Thursday, October 17, 2002
I got a new job yesterday. It's a part-time job, and actually pays a dollar less per hour than my very first professional writing gig, but it's a technology writing job in the year 2002 so I'm happy to have it. That's partially because I'm getting really goddamn tired of getting treated like poop in the blue- and pink-collar sectors. Just today, I was returning from a banquet temp gig (yes, there are temp agencies for waitstaff and bartenders) on the T, in my stupid penguin-suit vest-and-bowtie banquet uniform, reading Stephen King, and the pity and condescension from my fellow riders was pretty tangible. Haven't these people ever had to wear a uniform to work? And what do *they* read on the subway, Euripedes? Do they think it's really that contemptible to work for a living, or that I'm instantly stupid and unskilled because I do it (sometimes)? I'm just sitting there like Hal Incandenza in Infinite Jest thinking, "I am not what you see and hear. I'm not."
(Actually, I'd like to keep up the waitstaff/bar gigs, because that's a good skillset to have in your back pocket, and occasionally these jobs are halfway fun. But I digress.)
Point is, people with jobs and/or money and/or a certain social class/education level are really rude and sh*tty to people who they perceive as being without those things. This is a simple fact. Two examples, one short and one long. The short one is that I went to one of my administrative temp agencies recently and sat in the lobby at 8am. You do this so when a company has an emergency and needs a temp, you're sitting right in the office, the agency doesn't have to make any calls, and you get sent out immediately. Usually, one tells the receptionist of one's existence, then a staff member comes out and says hello. Then by 10am, a staff member either sends you on a gig or comes back out and apologizes for there being no work. This time, it was 9:50 and I'd heard nothing from anyone. I went up the receptionist and asked what was up. "We're actually dealing with something else right now," she said. (Their Net connection was down, everyone had been whining about it all morning). Before I could bitch-slap her into the agency's Braintree office, she saw the look on my face and hastily added, "But I'll call and see what's up." She called some staffer or another, then hung up and said. "Yeah, there's no work for you." No "sorry," no "thanks for coming," just "no work," f*ck you very much. I hope the nice middle-aged lady filling out an application saw and heard my entire plight so she doesn't get her hopes up too high about the wonderful world of administrative temping.
I've also recently journeyed into the bowels of UPS. I answered one of their newspaper ads, thinking of picking up a couple extra bucks on the night shift for a while. It pays like a low-skill job, but it also pays more than sitting on the couch, and I need (capital N, *Need*) every dime I can for the next few months.
The "tour" for potential employees began when our HR woman, who I'll call "Joan" because I'm paranoid about character defamation, took us from the cushy customer area into the loud, cavernous warehouse part of the building. The first thing she showed us is the only door employees are allowed to come through, which she doesn't actually refer to as the servants' entrance, but might as well. She also showed us the metal detectors, "so you don't steal from us, basically." (I also experienced this years ago on a back-to-school temp gig for Barnes & Noble's textbook section, where they had a servants' entrance and also searched you on the way out. That's where I learned the nice-nice corporate euphemism "loss prevention." I used to go in the front door anyway.)
Next, she gave UPS' version of a recruitment speech. "Hours are 6pm to 9pm, sometimes 9:15," she said, "Don't ask for more than that, you won't get it. Right before the holiday season you might work until 10, but assume 3 hours a day." Joan's email had said the shift was 6-10; I suppose that was the best-case scenario. "Pay is $8.50 an hour," she said, "Don't ask for more, you won't get it." That, at least, was as advertised. She later added that one type of package handling job paid $9.50 an hour if you could memorize every zip code in Massachusetts.
She further explained that to obtain this 15-hour a week job, you must join the union. Initiation fees are $500, and monthly dues are $47. This is automatically deducted from your paycheck. "For the first 6 months or so, you'll make about $50 a week," she said, "Don't work here to make big money. We pay crap." The payoff, she explained, is that if you make UPS your career, you can be driving a truck in two years, and the starting salary for that is $60,000. Sure, but UPS gets slave labor until then. Maybe if the gig paid more than minimum wage after union dues, UPS wouldn't have to worry so much about employee theft. Something tells me wringing significant (compared to $8.50/hour) sums of money out of half-time, low-wage workers is not what the labor movement had in mind when it created unions.
Throughout her speech, Joan swore. I swear, you swear, everybody swears, but this seemed rather unprofessional for corporate HR. If you're going to treat package handling as a serious long-haul career, treat the applicants like career people. Maybe she was just trying to prove that women can compete like tough guys in the blue-collar world. Or maybe she was just showing contempt for a bunch of strangers who were mostly poor (I assume) and not white.
I filled out an application because I wanted to stick around and see if there were any other anecdote-worthy indignities to be suffered at the hands of The Brown. But I decided that since I don't want to be driving a UPS truck in two years and simply need a little extra money *now*, I would not be joining the UPS Indentured Servant Squad.
We had to go through the metal detector on the way out.
(Actually, I'd like to keep up the waitstaff/bar gigs, because that's a good skillset to have in your back pocket, and occasionally these jobs are halfway fun. But I digress.)
Point is, people with jobs and/or money and/or a certain social class/education level are really rude and sh*tty to people who they perceive as being without those things. This is a simple fact. Two examples, one short and one long. The short one is that I went to one of my administrative temp agencies recently and sat in the lobby at 8am. You do this so when a company has an emergency and needs a temp, you're sitting right in the office, the agency doesn't have to make any calls, and you get sent out immediately. Usually, one tells the receptionist of one's existence, then a staff member comes out and says hello. Then by 10am, a staff member either sends you on a gig or comes back out and apologizes for there being no work. This time, it was 9:50 and I'd heard nothing from anyone. I went up the receptionist and asked what was up. "We're actually dealing with something else right now," she said. (Their Net connection was down, everyone had been whining about it all morning). Before I could bitch-slap her into the agency's Braintree office, she saw the look on my face and hastily added, "But I'll call and see what's up." She called some staffer or another, then hung up and said. "Yeah, there's no work for you." No "sorry," no "thanks for coming," just "no work," f*ck you very much. I hope the nice middle-aged lady filling out an application saw and heard my entire plight so she doesn't get her hopes up too high about the wonderful world of administrative temping.
I've also recently journeyed into the bowels of UPS. I answered one of their newspaper ads, thinking of picking up a couple extra bucks on the night shift for a while. It pays like a low-skill job, but it also pays more than sitting on the couch, and I need (capital N, *Need*) every dime I can for the next few months.
The "tour" for potential employees began when our HR woman, who I'll call "Joan" because I'm paranoid about character defamation, took us from the cushy customer area into the loud, cavernous warehouse part of the building. The first thing she showed us is the only door employees are allowed to come through, which she doesn't actually refer to as the servants' entrance, but might as well. She also showed us the metal detectors, "so you don't steal from us, basically." (I also experienced this years ago on a back-to-school temp gig for Barnes & Noble's textbook section, where they had a servants' entrance and also searched you on the way out. That's where I learned the nice-nice corporate euphemism "loss prevention." I used to go in the front door anyway.)
Next, she gave UPS' version of a recruitment speech. "Hours are 6pm to 9pm, sometimes 9:15," she said, "Don't ask for more than that, you won't get it. Right before the holiday season you might work until 10, but assume 3 hours a day." Joan's email had said the shift was 6-10; I suppose that was the best-case scenario. "Pay is $8.50 an hour," she said, "Don't ask for more, you won't get it." That, at least, was as advertised. She later added that one type of package handling job paid $9.50 an hour if you could memorize every zip code in Massachusetts.
She further explained that to obtain this 15-hour a week job, you must join the union. Initiation fees are $500, and monthly dues are $47. This is automatically deducted from your paycheck. "For the first 6 months or so, you'll make about $50 a week," she said, "Don't work here to make big money. We pay crap." The payoff, she explained, is that if you make UPS your career, you can be driving a truck in two years, and the starting salary for that is $60,000. Sure, but UPS gets slave labor until then. Maybe if the gig paid more than minimum wage after union dues, UPS wouldn't have to worry so much about employee theft. Something tells me wringing significant (compared to $8.50/hour) sums of money out of half-time, low-wage workers is not what the labor movement had in mind when it created unions.
Throughout her speech, Joan swore. I swear, you swear, everybody swears, but this seemed rather unprofessional for corporate HR. If you're going to treat package handling as a serious long-haul career, treat the applicants like career people. Maybe she was just trying to prove that women can compete like tough guys in the blue-collar world. Or maybe she was just showing contempt for a bunch of strangers who were mostly poor (I assume) and not white.
I filled out an application because I wanted to stick around and see if there were any other anecdote-worthy indignities to be suffered at the hands of The Brown. But I decided that since I don't want to be driving a UPS truck in two years and simply need a little extra money *now*, I would not be joining the UPS Indentured Servant Squad.
We had to go through the metal detector on the way out.
Wednesday, October 16, 2002
What Century Is This? Volume II (Volume I was yesterday, with the guy who prescribes Bible passages for headaches and eating disorders.) I know it's a cheap shot to make fun of ancient, obsolete, and rarely-enforced laws, but I just can't help myself: the ACLU has asked Georgia's Supreme Court to toss the state's fornication law. It's technically a crime in Georgia to have sex out of wedlock. "The challenge is being brought by a teenager described in court papers as J.M. A year ago, he was prosecuted as a 16-year-old juvenile after being found having sex with his girlfriend...J.M., now 17, was ordered to pay a fine and write an essay on why he shouldn't have engaged in sex...16-year-olds are allowed to marry and buy contraceptives in Georgia...the law applies to anyone, even if they are 75 years old." I guess striking down the state sodomy law didn't do too much good for gays if you still have to be married to have sex.
Speaking of gay marriage, the Democratic candidate for governor of Massachusetts, Shannon O'Brien, is doing some serious scrambling for liberal votes. She said yesterday she'd sign gay marriage legislation if it ever got to her desk, which is sort of like saying she'd grant world peace if someone would just make it into a bill -- it's not gonna happen, so this is all hypothetical. In the past, she's taken the wussy, separate-but-equal "gays have rights too, but don't call it 'marriage'" position. ("I don't support gay marriage. I support civil unions.'') It's better than the Republican candidate, who opposes both and apparently once said gays are "perverse and reprehensible." Yum. What neither Boston daily mentioned is that O'Brien's sudden embrace of a real, live, left-wing policy means she's scared sh*tless of losing votes to actual liberal Jill Stein from the Green party. And why doesn't the US have instant runoff voting yet?
Speaking of gay marriage, the Democratic candidate for governor of Massachusetts, Shannon O'Brien, is doing some serious scrambling for liberal votes. She said yesterday she'd sign gay marriage legislation if it ever got to her desk, which is sort of like saying she'd grant world peace if someone would just make it into a bill -- it's not gonna happen, so this is all hypothetical. In the past, she's taken the wussy, separate-but-equal "gays have rights too, but don't call it 'marriage'" position. ("I don't support gay marriage. I support civil unions.'') It's better than the Republican candidate, who opposes both and apparently once said gays are "perverse and reprehensible." Yum. What neither Boston daily mentioned is that O'Brien's sudden embrace of a real, live, left-wing policy means she's scared sh*tless of losing votes to actual liberal Jill Stein from the Green party. And why doesn't the US have instant runoff voting yet?
Tuesday, October 15, 2002
NOW says a guy "who has written books about Jesus' healing powers for women and who reportedly does not prescribe contraceptives to unmarried women" is getting nominated to -- wow -- the FDA's Reproductive Health Drugs Advisory Committee. This is administration is so cartoonishly evil that I sometimes have trouble believing it's real.
Wednesday, October 09, 2002
The winner of the 2001 I-Can't-Believe-I-Sold-That-Piece Award is now online. The magazine went out of business without publishing it, so I will.
How to Get Lucky in Amsterdam (not the editor-approved title :) (yep, I'm a clicktease)
How to Get Lucky in Amsterdam (not the editor-approved title :) (yep, I'm a clicktease)
Tuesday, October 08, 2002
From my offline journal, 2/15/02:
I think the reason i haven't been writing is that it's become too much to try and process, address, summarize, or otherwise commit to writing about. i mean, f*ck me. this is some pretty ridiculous sh*t.
Still applies. Apologies for a profound lack of wit and wonder lately. Trying to pry my eyeballs off my navel. Back soon.
I think the reason i haven't been writing is that it's become too much to try and process, address, summarize, or otherwise commit to writing about. i mean, f*ck me. this is some pretty ridiculous sh*t.
Still applies. Apologies for a profound lack of wit and wonder lately. Trying to pry my eyeballs off my navel. Back soon.
Wednesday, October 02, 2002
Rule #1: When feeling self-pity, go for a walk until it's gone. Usually takes about an hour. You can see a lot in four miles.
