Thursday, May 21, 2009

The Abyss


The Abyss is the place where all of my 'sent messages' go.
The Abyss is infinite and unyielding. It cares little about my well being and even less about my feelings. The Abyss has all of my amazing cover letter, C.V.'s, marriage agreements, and party invitations as well as all of the theoretical money written down in my name... all of the stuff I'll have to pay back to the bank at some point (that point is supposed to be the day I explode into success... the same day I will upgrade my wardrobe and shoes, buy a house and give my parents a luxury car.) But in the meantime the Abyss is holding onto that future.

My craigslist post initially fared a lot better in Los Angeles than in Toronto, I will assume the lack of wealthy gay men in need of a kept trophy in these cold parts had more to do with that than anything else. But ultimately I sent that request into the Abyss as well. Toronto offered me no replies, zero, zilch... nada. Whereas the post in L.A. found a fan base among horned up "str8 acting" 40 something’s in L.A. One of whom wrote me a novel about why we would be perfect for one another, that is until I replied with a pic of my face and a term I coined on the spot and would like to submit for popular use : "Gay Acting," or maybe it was "really gay acting" one way or another I'd say both are accurate descriptions, but not exactly music to the 'discreet' man's ear. And there once again, my marriage proposal was sucked into the Abyss. Funny because at the time, the time I had received the novel, I had thought to myself, shit bitch now that I've decided to be a housewife and this man is describing his home... the one we will share, all I can think is that I want a big important Hollywood career. Do you think I'm media savvy enough to work in a studio mailroom?
but these fantasies of financial stability both earned and otherwise are all for not cause 50 year old grandpas and minimum wage careers at LUSH! don't want me.
I got my 1st Job callback after sending out an unimaginable amount of career S.O.S' in the last month. LUSH! cosmetics called to ask me in to interview for the position of COMPOUNDER, which means 'lotion mixer.' I showed up, dressed up was polite professional and the lot, knowing I would at best get hired to work full time for 13 bucks an hour. To be honest I thought I had it in the bag, but to be sure, I asked the interviewer, Erika, to e-mail me regardless of whether I would be hired, I explained to her my relationship with the Abyss and she was sympathetic. She kept her word and gave me the ol' no thanks yesterday, but noted that she'd keep me in mind for Xmas... Lemme tell you right now, If I'm still this hard up for work by Xmas, I will kill myself, no ifs ands or buts. Dead, D.I.E., dead.
So today with my tail between my legs, I'm sending C.V.'s back out, I'm looking into social assistance so I can make rent this month, and trying to find solace in the problems of others. Specifically the problems of Jessica Wakefield and Lila Fowler as they duke it out for Jack the constriction worker (from a good ( read rich) family)'s affection. And trying to find out how to ask Parents to let their sons participate in my art project... any ideas?
p.s. the Abyss also took my linear communication skills away

Friday, May 8, 2009

Into the blue

This is the first part of a Post in 2 parts:

I continue to search, fruitlessly, for gainful employment. Something that will enable me to pay rent within the next 22 days and will, hopefully, not leave me feeling completely unhinged. I lurk on the job boards refreshing my browser and grabbing greedily at every new posting as it arrives, quietly hoping each time that the position announced will be perfectly suited to me and that the H.R. person on the other end will be sufficiently impressed and allured by my cover letter and C.V. but I should know better. Obvs that's not the case. How has 'social media' become the new "jobs in culture"???? Seriously every posting i see is for a glorified underpaid personal assistant position or mail room assistant, or coffee brewer, but they all require a background in social media and specialization in communications. I just wonder how there can be this much demand for social media and p.r. From my vantage point it looks like there are no products, only promotions. Every event is another opportunity to sell another product, but who's making all the products when every able body is participating in social media and networking their way up the freebie chain? Everyone's vying for our attention so much of the time, everything that we take on culturally at a 'divertissement' is instantly if not from it's inception turned into a vehicle to soft advertise and promote to us. When do we get to innocently exist without all of that? (I will, I promise revisit this topic in honor of J.J's efforts for Beautiful City, and excellent initiative 7 years in the making aiming at putting tariffs on billboards in the GTA that would fund public art projects in the city.)

It's not that I have anything against P.R. I'm just surprised by how big that industry is, especially considering how seemingly cynical the public has become... like how yesterday Cassie said , when her computer was high jacked and someone forwarded pictures of her topless flaunting her pierced nipples around the interweb: "DONT ACT LIKE YOU NEVER SEEN A TITTY" on her twitter. I'm sure that's not the best example of cynicism in the face of tightly controlled P.R. cause we all know Cassie's first album had disappointing sales (despite being an opus of staggering magnitude) and her second album is going to drop soon after being pushed back several times and the relative sleeper success of "Official Girl" even with a bridge rap by pop music's current Midas Man, Lil' Wayne. Point is, it's not a huge surprise to see Cassie's perfectly shaped models tits on the internet when bitch is trying to get her ass noticed. But really how well does the "one night in Paris" approach actually work? P.R.'s you can help us here with the official trade stance on flashing your fanny for attention, I sure you have some statistics on leaked: sex tapes, photo's, texts, etchings or sculptures made in likeness of....

See, even still I'm somewhat media savvy, well not really, but enough to make interesting conversation while I toil in the mailroom. Well more than enough to keep my superiors from developing guilt feelings about their ranking in the ostensibly Darwinian chequing/pecking order they find themselves in .

But this is all an abstraction cause the truth is I have no real interest in working in a mailroom. I'm just frustrated with sending messages in to the Abyss.

I also don't want another mindless job. After teaching and being able to use my skills and creativity at work on a daily basis and in an inventive capacity, no less, I can't go back to standing beside a rack of clothing and trying to pimp jersey minidresses to rich 20 year olds magazine internships and business cards that say "social media expert' cause they were born with cell phones in their hands and they used to instant message their moms for tit cream.

Whatevs, I'd rather sell shitty dresses and cheap sunglasses to privileged youth that not work at all.

More on this tomorrow
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