Unemployment: How I Pass Time

Two weeks ago I was sitting in a forty degree house in Massachusetts and today I find myself sitting in the warm climate of Southern California. I spent two and a half months in Southern California at the end of last summer, now I'm back and I still have no idea what I'm doing. This past weekend my Dad and I were out on leisurely drive. While waiting for a stoplight to permit us advancement down the street, I peered out the widow to the street corner where I saw some dude. In typical big city fashion this dude was standing at the street corner begging for money, rather standard. What caught my eye was the sign this guy had propped up next to him, which read "Need Money for Weed Please." I love the brutal honesty. No bullshitting, just straight up I need money so I can purchase some marijuana. I would be willing to bet that a lot of the dudes begging for money most likely use any money donated to them for drugs and/or alcohol, but this was the first time I've seen someone openly ask for weed money via a handwritten sign. I think this dude should get extra credit points for honesty.

Now when I was in California last summer, while walking down the street, some other dude was walking down the street in the opposite direction coming toward me. Clearly this man was deranged, he was talking to himself some kind of gibberish. When we got to the point where we were passing each other, he looked over to me and said "like this ugly faced mother f**ker." I don't know how many people this disturbed guy calls an ugly faced mother f**ker a day, but I'll take it as a compliment and pretend he doesn't call people that all that often. Not to mention the guy in downtown LA who told me he was known as Batman and has been roaming the streets of LA for 27 years, longer than I've been alive at this point. There are a lot of strange people in big cities.

This is my second stint in LA within the last six months. The first stint ended with little progress and not much to speak about. Just some general disappointment and anger that I believe I wrote about months ago. This stint has picked up where the last one left off, so far useless with not much indication that I'm going to make anything of it. However, I don't want to discuss any of this east coast, west coast crap right now, I think I've done plenty of that over the past year. Specifically, I want to focus on what I do to not go insane during unemployment. I mentioned in my last post that I had to leave my last job to preserve my mental sanity and happiness. I was in a bad spot mentally a year ago driven by the hate for my job and supplemented by the insanely horrible winter the northeast had in 2014/2015. Since leaving that job, going on a whole bunch of interviews, working at a temp job for a month, and still not having a full time job about ten months later, I've managed to keep myself happy by tapping into the things that things I enjoy.

Let's begin with comedy. I love comedy. Without work, I spend countless hours each day listening to stand up routines and watching comedians on YouTube. I enjoy the work of comedians such as Dave Chappelle, George Carlin, Rodney Dangerfield, Stephen Wright, Jim Breur, Dan Cummins, and Daniel Tosh. However, currently my two favorite comedians to listen to are Bill Burr and Anthony Jeselnik. I listen to these two guys almost daily right now, their stand up routines, podcasts, roasts, anything they're involved in and damn they are hilarious. If I had to pick a spokesman for men, without a doubt I would pick Bill Burr. I like Bill Burr because he speaks the truth about everyday topics with a major shade of comedy. I think Bill is quite smart, even though he often says he doesn't read or research anything, but his observations are spot on.

Anthony Jeselnik is my favorite, though. I love that he tells offensive jokes and doesn't give a damn what anyone thinks. He enjoys when people get offended by his jokes and the he's an intelligent guy. I'm a huge fan of how he ended his show, The Jeselnik Offensive, by telling viewers to go read a book. And I love how he shits on people who don't read and aren't familiar with well know literary and historical facts in his stand up routines. If you think Anthony Jeselnik is funny, then you understand my sense of humor perfectly.

Another thing I do is play video games and I finally have a reason/understanding why. I'm reading a book titled Reality is Broken, check this out if you like playing games or if you just want to read something interesting about today's culture, which explains why people enjoy playing games. My short abbreviated synopsis type thing about the first couple chapters of Reality is Broken argues that people play games because the everyday grind of life is not satisfying for people. Many people have jobs that don't have clear cut end goals or a feedback system that shows progress toward your goal. Games, whether video games, mobile games, card games, board games, etc. all have clear cut objectives, a goal to accomplish, and indications on your progress in accomplishing the objective. That's why I play video games. I enjoy both single player games and online multiplayer games because I feel like I'm working toward a defined end goal and I can actually track my progress. Games are fun and allow us to continuously accomplish objectives unlike everyday life.

Check this book out!

Mention of Reality is Broken brings me to books, the final thing getting me through this strange time in life. At the beginning of the new year I decided I want to always have something to read. Once I finish a book, I want to begin another. I don't have a specific number of books I want to read in a given year, but I want to constantly read with no gaps. Right now I'm simultaneously reading Watchmen, 1984, and Reality is Broken. I'm going to finish Watchmen very soon, I'm at the later stages of the story, then I'll bring more focus back to Reality is Broken. Reality is Broken is more of an academic book, still great though, but I need to read something with a story which Watchmen and 1984 sufficiently provide. If you haven't read either of those titles, please check them out, both equal very good so far.

Back in high school, and even college, I didn't appreciate the power of literature. Now that I'm discovering how interesting books are and how much knowledge you can gain from them, I strongly encourage everyone to go pick up a book and give reading a chance. So there you have it, my recipe for enjoying myself: comedy, games, and reading. I'd like to leave you with this:

Unemployment: What Happens Next? Who Cares?

Many months have passed since I held a full time job creating an abundance of free time. Free time dedicated to finding new work, but more importantly, free time to reflect. The past tells the story of a young man following the path created and manufactured by the generations of people before him. Go to school, go to college, earn a degree, obtain a job. Simple in design, yet complex in completion. What happens when the path ends in failure? Does blame fall on the individual or the system?

I left my last full time position because of the dreadful nature of the work. I knew every day I didn't quit meant at least two more weeks of misery. Eventually I snapped and gave notice of departure with no further plan. Call me shortsighted, stupid, whatever adjective you'd like, but I'd rather not torture myself given the choice to willingly stop the abuse. I didn't dedicate four years to college to take verbal abuse over the phone daily. Even without income for months, I'm happier now than under previous dreadful employment.

Hours spent scouring job postings and sending out resumes yielding less than desirable results leaves me wondering how did I get here? The largest issue lies in the actual work. I cannot find any work pertaining to my degree or work experience that I find marginally interesting. Apparently issue two involves my work experience. Job interviews I thought went well returned negative results with the hiring party choosing another candidate with more experience. The work experience monster and I met before..... just after graduation when my professional job experience rounded up to zero. Meeting the work experience monster again makes me feel like the past 3 years of my life spent working equals worthless.

One job interview stands out above the rest. While speaking with the CFO, which stands for certified f**king ordure in this special case, I got THE QUESTION: why did you leave your last job? I told him why. We spoke about the answer a bit, but he kept going back to that question: why did you leave your last job? This CFO, famous in my memory for at least a bit longer, asked me if looking back at that decision now, would I have made a different decision because of the job market and how long I'd been unemployed, if the decision was shortsighted. I looked him in the eye and told him I'd make the same decision again given the knowledge I have now. Needless to say, the job was offered to another candidate. Fine by me, I couldn't work for someone who presumes to know a thing about me after less than an hour of speaking with me. Maybe the person they did hire will shoot the place up one day, but who cares, they had good work experience and no long gaps of unemployment.




Unfortunately, telling the whole truth in interviews remains a non-option. Tales of unhappiness and feeling undervalued won't land a job. Before I quit, I hated myself every day I didn't quit. I hated commuting to work knowing my final destination was torture for next eight or nine hours. In the beginning I ate lunch at work, but in time I had to leave because the place made me sick. I broke two telephone receivers out of rage from the constant nagging and verbal abuse I received from customers. Also note that I have never worked in customer service or at a help desk, my function has always been in accounting, and at this particular job that meant dealing with any type of money issue a customer for the multi-million dollar company could have.

Do I need a career change? Do I need more schooling? Should I settle for a less than ideal job? Am I so damn strange that I don't fit into "system of life" instilled in our modern world? I don't know the answer to any of these questions. I don't need to know the answer to any of these questions. If I'm happy, that's all I care about. Right now, definitely not happy. Life feels constricted and contrived. Do this, then do this so you can have this and do that. The older I get the more I believe George Carlin:




I highly doubt the discovery of the meaning of life, hell, the movie Prometheus remains highly debatable, but I want to go through life laughing. I've been unemployed for several months and endured a whole bunch of rejection, I find all of it hilarious despite remaining in a constant state of predicament. Ultimately my contribution to society and the world equals meaningless. I want to spend time with friends, play games, and laugh at offensive jokes, that's my happiness equation. Friends+ games + offensive jokes = happiness. My send off message to everyone, lighten the f**k up, damn it.

One Man, Two Masterpieces

Over the past few months, an excessively large amount of free time has provided me the opportunity to explore one of my personal favorite expressions of art: movies. More specifically, I watched two insanely well made and entertaining movies directed by Ridley Scott, Alien and Blade Runner. These two movies are absolutely amazing and on my list of all time favorites (that has never been compiled). I find that movies today and recent history don't have the same kind of magic that Alien and Blade Runner have, making me feel kind of like an old curmudgeon claiming that "they don't make movies like they used to." But in all honesty, I feel that the style of movie portrayed in these two Ridley Scott classics is a lost art. Unfortunately I don't think I'll ever see another movie like Alien ever again. What I am going to do here, is break down what, in my opinion, made Blade Runner and Alien so damn good. If you haven't seen these movies, I would suggest reading no further than here because some of the things I write about will probably ruin certain things that should be experienced when watching the movie for the first time (spoiler-esque stuff).

Let's begin with Alien, a near perfect horror movie, at least in my estimation. First thing I want to say, I love this movie. What I really enjoy about Alien, and Blade Runner, derives from the era these movies were made, 1970s and 1980s respectively. With low tech special effects at their disposal and no CGI, these movies focused on creating a good, solid story that makes you think, and in Alien's case, does a masterful job at creating tension. Let's take a step back, though, and begin with the trailer for Alien.

Fantastic is the word that comes to mind when I watch the Alien trailer. No words are uttered, none of the plot is given away, but the trailer leaves the viewer with a sense of intrigue, a wonder of what the heck is going on. Many trailers today give away far too much of the plot or show too many of the funny parts. Most importantly, the Alien trailer doesn't show any glimpse of the Alien. The sense of wonder and cause for fear only revealed in the actual movie. I wasn't alive when Alien came out in theaters, but I wish I could have had the experience of seeing this movie for the first time on the big screen with no idea what the movie was about. The title Alien itself is fantastic. Working as a noun or adjective, the word "alien" has a double meaning as the title for the movie. The title coupled with an outstanding trailer make practically a perfect marketing tool, and I didn't even mention the insanely good tag line "In space no one can hear you scream." But I digress, let us look at what makes the movie so good.

The plot of Alien is incredibly simplistic: a crew of seven people aboard a commercial towing vessel (the Nostromo) are waken prematurely out of hyper-sleep when the ship detects a distress beacon on a foreign planet. The crew investigates, one is member, Kane, is attacked by a facehugging thing, brought back on the ship. An extraterrestrial being bursts from his chest and terror ensues. The plot is simple and easy to follow. I would also like to note how there are only seven people on the Nostromo which allows the story to build personalities around the characters. It gives us a reason to give a crap about what's going on. I personally love Parker, played by Yaphet Kotto. In the opening scenes up until the incident, each character's personality is built, how they speak, how they react, sense of humor, those types of things.

C'mon man, the food ain't that bad

Good stories, whether movies, books, short stories, whatever, allow you to connect with the characters, make you give a damn about them. Then the next fantastic aspect following the initial character development is the tension building. When the crew finds the downed ship on LV-426, there's this steady decent into darkness, where you're wondering when the heck is something going to happen. Even as Kane peers at the mysterious looking eggs, the subsequent facehugger was something no one had ever seen before and goes straight for Kane's face. Remember, too, that this movie came out in 1979 and no creature shots had been revealed. I think that's incredibly awesome!

From the time the Nostromo crew sets down on LV-426 the tension continues to mount until the movie comes to an end, where only Ripley and Jonesy the cat make it out alive. One by one the alien takes out the crew. There are no overlong action sequences or battles, just overpowering extraterrestrial rape? Why bring up rape? Well, the only thing more terrifying than getting raped, is getting raped by a clown. And the only thing that might be more terrifying than getting raped by a clown might be getting raped by the xenomorph in Alien. Discussions of Alien have covered practically all aspects of the movie including what the alien does to its pray. In Alien, you never see the violence, you have no idea what in the hell it's doing to the victim. Then you also notice that the bodies are never left behind. What is happening to these people? The concept that the alien in a way rapes it's victim adds to the terror created in the movie. Even if you go back to the facehugger, what does it do? It jumps on the victim's face and puts it's proboscis-like tube down their throat while wrapping it's tail around the neck. That is damn horrifying!

There's also this sweet deleted scene that indicates the alien isn't killing its prey:

I'd like to think that this scene was not included in the final cut of the film for pacing reasons. The movie does have wonderful pacing and it probably just didn't fit. However, I choose to believe that what's seen in this scene is what is happening to the alien's victims. Ripley just doesn't discover the cocoons that the alien has been creating. Again, this just adds to the terror in the movie, these people are attacked by the alien, who the hell knows what the alien does to them, and then it cocoons them. Then you add in that this foreign creature cannot be killed, the android even calling it the "perfect organism." That's horror done right.

Now let's switch gears to the other Ridley Scott classic, Blade Runner. This movie is straight up science fiction gold. This movie, like Alien relied on something outside of giant action scenes and crazy special effects that didn't exist when the movie was made. Blade Runner relies on a great story to build a memorable movie. Set in future Los Angeles, blade runners are hunting down a group of replicants, the Nexus-6, who have gone rogue and come back to earth to find their creator. Replicants are androids, and the Nexus-6 are a particularly advanced model. Please stop reading and go watch Blade Runner if you haven't seen it. Without going through the entire plot to this movie, what makes it great is the realizations of both the Nexus-6 replicants and blade runner Deckard, played by Harrison Ford.

Once you've seen the whole movie and taken some time to think about it, you realize that the Nexus-6 replicants want the answers to the same questions we humans have. The Nexus-6 seek out their creator and want to know why they were created, why the are here, and how long will they live. While this movie is made much better, I believe Ridley Scott was attempting to tell this story from the human perspective in Prometheus. You get all these questions raised by a mechanical race created by man and at the same time there is this kind of strange thing going on in the background making you wonder if Deckard, the blade runner tasked with hunting down these replicants, is actually a replicant himself. The movie makes you think beyond the events of the movie. I'd now like to end this post the same way that Blade Runner ends: