Hurricane Sandy

Vol 1. Issue 4.

First some general housekeeping: I’ve heard that some people have tried to post comments. I can confirm that as of right now I have zero comments published except for my own, which I published as a test. It seems that you must have a Google account to publish, so if you don't' have one you'll have to create one. You must hit ‘publish’ after you write your comment to finalize it. Then, you will be redirected to a sign in page where you must sign in. If you don’t sign in the comment will not show up. Also, to follow this blog you can subscribe by clicking on the left side of the screen on ‘subscribe.’

I’m buckled down inside waiting for a hurricane. Yes a hurricane, in New York City. Here we are again, in a situation that would normally be happening in Florida or Bermuda. At least regular hurricane zones are in tropical countries that have the luxury of great weather almost year round. Outside of a hurricane or two they have it all right. It’s the price they pay.

What do we get? Here it’s like almost winter and we get a hurricane! Whoever heard of a winter hurricane? (If you have heard of a winter hurricane I ask you to keep this to yourself thanks). After Hurricane Sandy leaves it’s going to get colder, not warmer = not fair. Someone had better lose their job for this.

For all my non-New York audience, the weather so far this year has been mild, and hard to complain about, but far from tropical.

I only whine out of pure love of the sport. For me only good things are happening because of the hurricane. I’m getting 2 days off school and work, and I have an excuse to stay in my room and be anti-social. Normally people would think it’s weird to stay in your room all day and all night. They would assume that strange things are going on. People would spread rumors about you. They would talk about the awful noises they heard coming from inside. Kids would whisper stories about the terrible smells wafting from within, and the bodies they think are buried in your basement. Dogs, and yes even cats, hundreds of them, would stop outside you property in front of you gates and howl for hours, sometimes even days, assuming that you are some kind of unique dog/cat translator, someone who speaks dog and cat, the first in human history, and so they'd howl to you their stories so you could profess them to the rest of humankind, because there is ohh-so-much to tell, and you are the first and only human who can understand them. You, the weirdo who can speak dog/cat, and who never leaves his room.

First of all, I have neither a basement, nor a "property" with a gate on it. There is a gate on my apartment building, but it's hardly "my" gate. I am not the gate's owner. My point? I get to stay home and it’s not weird, but even I’m starting to get antsy. I have been sequestered in my room for the past 24 hours and apparently the wind is going to continue for at least another twelve. Overall thought, so far, so good. I still have power although much of the city is out. I have lots of books so hopefully my lights stay on so I can read them.

Update: I'm realizing now that there is a very serious situation going on here. My area is fine but many parts of the city are underwater, meaning peoples homes and businesses are destroyed. I've been hearing sirens constantly all night. The subways are flooded. There is giant crane falling apart in midtown. Tens of Thousands of people have been evacuated. A friend of mine has a lobby full of seawater. For now, I am completely fine, with power, water, Internet, and yes even cable. Perhaps all my joking is in rather bad taste considering the severity of the situation here, but in times like these all we can do is joke. 

Normally packed streets are deserted.

The day after: Across the street from my apartment, and at the park.

Making Up For Lost Time

Vol. 1, Issue 3.
Think of all the things that you can't do. Even the most talented people are only good at like ten things. I am only good at one thing, and okay at one other. You know what's awesome? Focusing on your these things. You know what is even better than that? When other people get to focus on these weaknesses. Like, when they get to really hone in and make a good clean assessment on something that you really suck at and then offer their opinions and feedback on it. Now that, that is really good old fashioned fun.

One can get carried away in this life with focusing too much on one's strengths. Maybe you think you are pretty hot stuff, and you just may be, but most likely you are hot stuff at only one or two things. Even then, you're probably not that good. If you were you'd be rich, maybe famous, and surely not reading this blog but out driving your Ferrari or something.

Take rock stars and professional athletes for example. Both groups are extremely good at at least one thing each. Athletes = Athletics. Rock star = Showmanship.
(You may suppose rock stars would = rock, but this would imply that being a rock star actually takes some kind of musical talent. This has been disproved time and time again by "rock" bands/stars like Aerosmith, Motley Crue, and Bryan Adams. In fact, most contemporary rock stars do not even play rock. Katy Perry and Kanye West are rock stars but I bet neither of them even plays guitar. How can you be a rock star if you don't even play guitar!!)

You might be thinking "I've heard of Nirvana and Beatles from my parents, but who the hell cares about rock anymore ?"If you are thinking this, you are not wrong per se. I mean there are still millions of people that care about the particular genre called rock, but largely these people (us rockers) are looked upon by the general pop-loving, hip-hop obsessed culture as quaint, or at least hipsters.

If "what's rock?" is all that's going through your head please let me know because this would be truly awesome. Way awesomer than all that focusing on your weakness stuff I mentioned before.

If you are literally are so inundated with Gaga madness (A phrase I coined. There was no such thing as "Gaga madness"... until now) that you've never heard any song that was not released before the year 2000 in mp3 format and you think the Venga Boys are Old School, or, if you wonder how people ever went out to record stores to buy music because there would have always been the slight chance that their cell phone batteries might have died while they were there and they might have God forbid missed a text so it's better to be safe then sorry and never leave the house, or, if you heard a 2003 remix of "Summer of 69" that had a distorted guitar in it and you thought the radio DJ had accidentally put on the heavy metal instead of the reggaeton, we have to talk. Not knowing what rock is would be hilarious, but more importantly, I hoping you'll be able to teach me how not-know what modern Country is so I teach the skill to my brother and dad, and then the rest of the world.

So since I didn't write anything here last week I thought I'd make up for it by posting a paragraph or two from a new story I'm working on.

Happy Monday.

The Feathered Glory are finishing their last song as the Dudes make their way into the back room. Duder is already back there with Ozz. The Feathered Glory are a mix of 7 kids from 10 other bands. One of the guitar players is in the signed band Daft Craft Circus. Daft Craft Circus is a heavier, groovier, tighter band than FG. Tickets to see DCC cost like 12 bucks. They are not on tonight’s bill, sadly.

There are a couple of the FG kids who have just started playing their instruments, not just as in the immediate present tense such as “I just started the car,” but in a more general application of just started such as, “I just started learning Thai, not literally just now, but over the last three months.” In other words, these kids suck, but damn do they look cool doing it.

The front man smacks a bass around repeating one-note patterns for bars and bars while slurring what sound like lead vocals. It’s hard to really call he is doing ‘playing,’ He himself calls it mulching. They are a mulch-rock band. The drummer is slightly behind the beat and sounds to be a bit off. He is one of the ones that has only started playing recently. He has only been playing for two years and he is actually pretty drunk. The two guitarists are both wearing sunglasses and playing nicely complicated patterns with great tone that fit perfectly together with each other but not at all with what the bass and drums are doing. The keyboardist is the only girl. She's playing some kind of 80’s synth patch through some crappy Radio Shack keyboard attached to a speak-and-spell. It sounds good mixed through the cacophony. She is also mouthing what look like back up harmonies, but her vocal mic, which was functioning fine earlier in the night seems to have been turned off.

The remaining three members are kids that went to high school with one of the guitarists and/or the lead singer and have never-ever played instruments before this. Again, not literally “before this” as in this exact time, place and event, but “this” as in before joining the band three weeks ago. This is their first gig ever.

The three of them all have some kind of brass instruments; one kid has an actual sousaphone with the stencil “Patrick Swayze School of Dance” around the bell. They are marching around the front of the stage playing indistinguishable three note patterns. There does not sound to be any discernible tonal key to what is they are playing, nor any discernible musical sense. The combination of all seven members playing parts ranging from horrible to fair comes together to form an overall product of that is somewhat discernibly okay, maybe even surprisingly good.

The room is packed. It’s a small room so it doesn’t take too many people to make it look packed, but right now it is actually packed. The crowd sways back and forth. They are into the music. They are enamored with the music. The majority are yelling stuff and spilling their cans of PBR and bottles of High-Life, the champagne of beers, all over the floor, and all over each other. The Feathered Glory comes to the end of their song. The horn players are just blowing random notes as loud as they can. One is down on his knees. The drummer is bashing everything in the vicinity. One guitarist is on the floor twiddling the knobs of his delay pedal. The other guitarist already has his patch cable wound up, his guitar in it’s case and is off stage with a lit cigarette in this non-smoking venue, before the others have even finished playing the last note. It’s pretty funny. They finish, everybody cheers.  

Desensitized to Paradise

Vol 1, Issue 2,
I have moved forward a little, but first to backtrack. I've been in New York for two and a half years. I remember moving here like it was just yesterday, complete with the understanding that an able bodied person should be able to find an un-honest, off-the-books, illegal job. This city runs on off-the-books labor. Tons of legal, illegal, and undocumented immigrants with fake Social Security numbers supply this city with what must be like 50% of it's grunt labor force. They all pay taxes. Alot of taxes. I don't know the stats exactly but it's like billions I think, yet none of them will ever receive a government benefit.

Duh, they are working illegally right.

Little do they know that it is somewhat of a privilege to even have the fake Social. How does one acquire this? I have no idea. I've heard that there is a guy in Queens somewhere, off some subway stop, who stands there all day and sells them, fake Socials. I guess one of my classmates knows a guy. Where the hell was this info 2 years ago? What of us lowly aliens who do not even know how to get the fake Socials? How can we get illegal jobs?

This is the transcription of an actual inquiry into illegal employment by an unidentified person, whereas said person does not have proper documentation:

Illegal job seeker: Hey how's it going?
Bartender: Good. What can I get you?
Illegal job seeker: Ahh, I was just wondering if you hired people off-the-books here? You know, pay in cash.
Bartender: Off-the-books?...No. Now get the hell out of my bar you undocumented scum!

Ok, maybe the bartender didn't ever actually kick me out of the bar with those exact words, but I felt their sting every time I heard no, after no, after no. I called it the unemployed, unable-to-get-a-Social Security-Number blues. It's a stupid name, I know. For a stupid time.

Yes, I am now legally employed for the first time in, well, I'm not going to say. Not because I'm ashamed that I haven't had a paycheck for a while. A long while. No. But because by admitting that I haven't been legally employed in the US for a while, I would be inferring that I had actually been illegally employed. It has to do something with the weird way I worded it.

To any immigration official that may ever read this I can honestly say that I have never worked illegally.
Even if it was not my decision not to break the law, I have still never broken it.

So I am no longer living completely the life of a trust funder, but after one week of working at my new job I'm already missing the unemployed-bum life of luxury I've become accustomed to. Not wanting to go to work tomorrow at 9am I'm thinking this having a legit Social business is not all it's cracked up to be.

Google for a better world, or at least better for my self esteem.

Vol 1, Issue 1, 
Is it sad to google yourself? Maybe, but anyone that knows what google is has done it; although some feel ashamed to admit it. I don't really know why, and I never have, but who cares! Google yourselves-away. If what you find is positive, negative, embarrassing, awkward, rude, offensive...I say awesome. At least you found yourself.
You know what is truly sad? When you google yourself and you get nothing; "No results containing all your search terms were found;" this is much more depressing than those sexist remarks someone made against you are offensive, or that picture of you drunk in Mexico riding that donkey naked is embarrassing. At least the sexist remarks were actually a type of compliment, and in the donkey picture at least you were drunk. Those of us who don't appear on google don't even get that. Nobody is taking embarrassing photos and commenting on me in my sexy, new bikini, or while I'm acting like a drunken jerk. That would mean that somebody actually cares.

So, in an attempt to somehow prove that I do know how 'to do' the internet I figured I'd start writing weekly rants, advice columns, non-sensical prose, and lists of places to get the best true dollar slice in NY (note: I may never actually write any advice columns). If I write these things on the internet I can thereby prove that I can actually use it, and perhaps someday I will get a job. I couldn't be doing any worse. I'll just say, even if it doesn't work, because truly I know nothing about how the internet actually works, or really anything about technology, I bet this will be the first thing that will come up on google when I type my name in. 

Because there is an overall blog title, in addition to each installments individual title, I'm assuming that this is because the proper way to write a blog is under the umbrella of some kind of theme. They force you put a title when you open your account and don't tell you this at the time. I have no idea how to change the title so I guess the theme will be the writing. This might seem redundant considering this is a written blog so of course it's about writing. I know. I'm hoping to somehow prove it will be more than that. It will be about the writing world and trying to be a writer when you have no idea what you are doing, or what to write about. Sounds very exciting doesn't it? There is no right answer here. 

They say the key to a successful blog is consistency, so I hope to update this every Monday. Even holidays. That way when no one ever reads it I can blame the quality of the blog, and not my terrible organizational skills or my lack of work ethic. Welcome.