MagneticMediaFed Tangents

In this issue of MagneticMediaFed Tangents our hero attempts to answer questions relating to his untimely disappearance from the internet and his struggle with coming back and other things of this nature and *YAWN* I’m sorry, what was I talking about?

Oh yeah, me.

The short of it is the problem everyone has with personal weblogs: if you fall off the horse it’s really hard to get back on again. Days turn into weeks turn into months and the next thing you know the chronicling of a not-so-fantastic life becomes simultaneously overwhelming (in the details now passed over) and underwhelming (in just how banal a day-to-day life can be).

So I start thinking, Hey maybe it’s time to close up shop. Maybe the web is over. Maybe it’s time to get off the grid. I’m still toying with this idea, though will likely not pull the trigger. It seems so drastic to remove one’s life from the internet. Isn’t that weird?

So anyway I’m currently in the process of rebranding the whole MagneticMediaFed non-empire, though how this will be done and how it will be different from what we see here, isn’t particularly clear to me. Maybe I’ll get one of those spinning siren GIFs or add some dancing hamsters.

The thing is, I’m getting to the point in my life where I’m not nearly as interested in publishing my existence as I used to be. The novelty of the medium has wholly worn off, though its functionality is clearer than ever. Anyone can publish, but only a few can produce. I’m not convinced I can successfully do the latter — at least not at the clip I had one-time maintained.

That being said, I also realize that there is some functionality here that has nothing to do with blogging and self-publishing and viral trends and marketing and SEO but everything to do with keeping friends in-the-loop without sending out mass-emails. Since I started doing this in 2002 that has always been the primary concern. I’ll clearly keep an aspect of this going (the Flickr feed being a primary example).

OK.

Enough of the What Does It All Mean. Please allow me to catch you up:

• I have been working in an office park in the suburbs for the past 6 weeks entering strings of numbers into DOS prompts. When I factor in the mileage that has gone into my car to make this commute as well as the gasoline needed and my NYC-instilled desire to get delivery every day for lunch I’m not entirely sure I’m actually making any money. Plus I have to wear a tie, which is ridiculous.
• I’m selling my car. I’m not exactly sure what I’m going to do once I sell it, though right now, today, I’m leaning toward leasing a Scion xD. And before everyone starts commenting with “Hey! Loser! Leasing is a scam!” I say to you, what if I don’t really want the commitment of having to pay off a car for the next six years? What if I decide to move to a larger, mass-transit-fueled, city in a couple yeas? Leasing allows me to literally drive the car back to the lot, drop it off and get on the bus.
• Jenny moved in on the 3rd. For those who don’t know Jenny, you should meet her. She’s pretty cool. Since she moved in I’ve been eating about 99% fewer frozen dinners, the apartment actually looks like humans live there and not simply four-walls strewn with dirty clothes and stacks of alt-weeklies. There are candles too. And a lot more books.
• A couple weeks ago I bought 4 gig worth of RAM for my iMac. One of the sticks didn’t work and nearly fucked up my computer. The store wouldn’t take it back. That kind of sucked. Anyone know if I can put my stock 1 gig stick back in and have unbalanced chips (a 2gig and a 1gig)?
• I’m going to Atlanta this weekend to see some of Jenny’s extended family.
• I’m going to Chicago the following weekend to see my friends Dave, Annie and Cursive.
• My upstairs neighbors are (presumably) just out of high school and walk around like their feet are encased in cement. I hate them.
• Our apartment complex has so many speed bumps I feel like I can hear my car screaming bloody murder every time I enter or leave. I hate this.
• Otherwise, the apartment is good, though I am anxious for the lease to run out in September because East Nashville proper is kind of amazing.

That is all for now.

A summer mixtape for the peoples…

Side A
Side B

“Recurring Dreams” by J.K. Lee

Sunday I was walking around Five Points enjoying the beautiful day and trying to find yard sales where I could continue to piece together a living room (I did buy two heavy-duty solid oak end tables for $15 a piece — I plan on repainting them black) when I stumbled upon a small neighborhood art show. I didn’t really think anything of it until I came to this one artist’s booth and was struck by a painting/collage she had made on a 4′x1′ wood board. We chatted about it and how she used DC comics because her friend worked for Marvel (thinking back on this now I’m not entirely sure that makes sense, but anyway) and how I thought it was really awesome. I grabbed her card and checked out the rest of the show. I failed to ask her how much it was.

When I got home I sent her an email inquiring the price. I’ve never bought art before. Most of my decor for the past ten years has been comprised of posters, torn-out magazine pages and art of my own. I felt like I’ve had a particularly productive week and felt like I should treat myself. There was a magic number in my head and if the price was less than that, I was going to buy it. Needless to say, it was. I went over to her place and picked it up tonight. My goal is to build an entire room around it (as it is literally the only thing in there right now). The colors (light greens and blues) are perfect. I think what I like about it most is it fits in perfectly with my pop-culture sensibilities but it isn’t kitschy or ironic. It’s probably the coolest thing I’ve ever purchased (well, the coolest thing not made by Apple Computers).

The artist’s name is J.K. Lee. Check out more of her work here.

Now in 3-D!
A lot of people ask me, “Hey, Jerkface, what does your apartment look like, and I hate your face.” To which I reply, “Hey, that last part wasn’t a question!” And then they respond, “Yeah, well fuck you and brain-dead horse you rode in on!”

Anyway. Taking pictures is for suckers. I decided to build my entire apartment (to scale!) using Google Sketch-Up. It only took three hours.

Maybe I’ll furnish it (the sketch, not the apartment).

Here is a picture of some puppies.

I tell you, the longer you go without blogging the more difficult it becomes. So without further ado, allow me to provide updates on this, my great adventure below the Mason-Dixon.

One would think that having nothing to do would provide plenty of time for blogging and various time-killing applications, but you’d be surprised how quickly a full-time unemployed routine can take over. I wake up, I check my email on my phone while in bed. I do the same with Facebook. I listen to the radio. I eventually make it to the dining room. I download some podcasts. I make some breakfast. I start checking my email again and checking Craigslist for jobs. Then I play a few hands of solitaire. I surf the web. I watch last night’s TV. I look for jobs. Eventually it’s 3 o’clock and I put on some shoes and jump in the car and go get my mail and then go to the library or drive to the park or go to the mall and mill about for a bit listening to All Things Considered on the car stereo, trying desperately not to spend money. Eventually I come home and fix dinner and surf the web some more and maybe watch a movie I rented from the library or this god-awful Blockbuster I go to or watch TV I’ve seen before but love and will happily watch again and again (I’m through a season and a half of The Wire, a whole season of Veronica Mars, some Cupid, blah, blah, blah…). Eventually it’s midnight or one or two and I can’t keep my eyes open and I’m tired of staring at solitaire hands and my ass hurts from sitting on this folding chair for seven hours and I stumble to my bed, read a few pages of Clockers and pass out listening to college radio, bracing myself for another day of the same.

This is what is was like every day, the only difference being with each page torn from the day-to-day, my finances became tighter and tighter and the possibility of failing, having to pack it up and head home, back to Omaha a wondering why exactly I felt the need to do this to myself, to essentially take the Nestea plunge off the Empire and land in Millard.

Things came to a head Monday. The previous week I was given my very first day of work after signing up with a temp agency, but it was just one day and they hadn’t called back. But there I was, sitting there staring at a half-dozens bills about to come due and seeing nary a dollar to cover them. This is what I like to call “The Low Point.” This also triggers a series of events that I shall list for you now.

1. I make a financially dubious decision. Most adults will say that what I did was completely idiotic, but my back was up against a wall and there were few options. So I did it. It’s probably not the sort of thing I should write about on the internet but if you want to know I’ll tell you. Suffice to say, come next week I will have enough money to get me through the summer. (for better or for worse)
2. I answer probably my millionth Criagslist post, this one from someone looking for an individual to update their website. To my complete amazement, the person calls me. This is the first anything that’s called since I’ve been here. It doesn’t pay much, but it’s good work. I’ve been on it for three days and have put in a lot of hours. It is easily the biggest web project I’ve done to date, and that makes me exceptionally happy.
3. The temp agency calls and asks if I’d be interested in a six-week assignment. I say mos-def, and now have a kinda-sorta full-time gig through mid-June. Basically, over the past four days I’ve gone from zero to 1.5 jobs, plus a financial security blanket. In short, things are good.

Maybe too good. Maybe too much too soon because suddenly I find myself eating out and going to Best Buy and gawking at the gadgets and into furniture stores looking at couches that I can nap on, but so far I’ve been able to successfully reel it in. That is the key. Perhaps I could be entering the first phase of my life since 1997 where I’m operating in the black. It has also bought me six weeks to continue the job hunt, looking for something more permanent.

It’s all happening.

Oh, and I saw Iron Man today, it was kind of great, thanks mostly to Mr. Downey Jr.

I’m really excited to get that $600 from the government. I don’t anticipate it solving the woes of the world, but I’ll be happy to take it and spend it, doing my part. Unfortunately today I encountered some bad news. The government released the payment calendar detailing when we can all expect to receive the moolah. If my life hadn’t changed I would get mine of May 9th. This is no longer the case.

First I was concerned that my change in address would mean the money would be lost in the American ether like so much of my mail has since arriving here. I called the IRS and they said this wouldn’t be so, as long as I had filed a change of address with the post office (which I have done). My next concern was about direct deposit. When I got my tax refund in February it was put immediately into my New York bank account. Well, being a moron, I closed that account last week since the nearest Washington Mutual to my apartment is at least a state-and-a-half away. Since that bank account is no longer open it means I have to wait for a paper check — a check that won’t be mailed until June 27th. By that time I could have been long-bankrupt. On the other hand I may be living a financially secure existence by then, in which case I will be buying an HDTV.

Working for a living.

The big news this week is that I am now “employed” with a local temp agency. Tuesday, I had my first gig working at a job fair. Yes, it was ironic. Here are a few observations: 1) I hope I never work in sales, 2) while every one of the, maybe, 100+ interviewees at this job fair was wearing a suit (myself included), no one seemed to wear them the same way, 3) I hope I’m never fifty years old (or older) and trying to compete for a job with kids fresh out of college. This then got me thinking about all of those child laborers in, say, Malaysia. I wondered if the twelve year olds resented all of the recent kindergarten graduates coming along and promising to work for cheap. “How can I compete with some kid willing to work for 8¢ and hour, when I’ve been working for 12¢?”

It was just one day of work thought (and not even a full day). Sadly, this does not solve my financial quandaries (though if it did, that would be the BEST!). Hopefully next week they’ll be able to find me a few more days worth of work. I do kind of love the idea of temping. I get a call, write down the directions and then show up in a suit. I might as well be a contract killer.

Viva the Nashville Public Library
A few weeks back I went and got a Blockbuster membership because I was losing my mind a little and the weather was fairly crappy. The Blockbuster by my apartment might be the most depressing place I’ve ever been. The “classics” sections (i.e. everything that isn’t along the new release wall), is like a format graveyard. The stores have been so hammered (presumably) by the mail-order DVD business the titles they have left over are an odd collection of movies no longer considered to be “New” (like, say, The 40 Year Old Virgin), the occasion bona-fide classic (like Cool Hand Luke or Die Hard) and then a completely random collection of straight-to-video comedies and utterly forgettable Hollywood fare from the early 90s through 2002. All the titles, sun-faded and in make-shift boxes without the original artwork. There are also maddening gaps in their stock. Like they have Robocop 2, but not Robocop — or only the Adam Sandler version of The Longest Yard. And while rentals are like 99¢ for a week it almost doesn’t seem worth it.

This is why I’ve recently embraced the video selection at the various Nashville Public Library Branches in my area. The DVDs seem to be in no particular order, and their collection is even more haphazard than Blockbuster, but it is way better. It’s better because the difference in high-art/low-art is considerably greater (today I grabbed a copy of the Criterion Edition of Cassevettes Faces, which was sitting next to Fever Pitch, which was next to some PBS documentaries sitting next to North Country (a movie no one remembers about Charlize Theron pretending to be a mine-worker).

Oh yeah, and it’s free. I believe we call that “The Nice Price” here in the south. They also have CDs which really raises the ethical bar when it comes to digital piracy. Am I suppose to feel guilty about checking out a big stack of CDs and then ripping them on computer? I mean, I obtained the music legally, and if I really liked a record I could always renew it? The answer to those questions in reverse order is: yes I could, and yes I should.

I also checked out the book “Rats saw God” by Rob Thomas the creator of Veronica Mars and not the lead singer of Matchbox 20. I plan on reading it as soon as I finish Clockers, which is hella-cool.

Me and My Car
Last week it cost me $50 to fill up my tank. Since then gas has gone up 15¢. I really don’t want to be one of those people who complains about this sort of thing, but again I’ll just present my current “barely employedness.” That being said, my greatest pleasure each day is getting in my car around 2pm, driving up to the mailbox to check and see if I anyone accidentally delivered a giant bale of cash (they haven’t) and then go for a drive with the windows down and the stereo blaring. I shouldn’t be doing this because I shouldn’t be wasting the gas, but god damn if I don’t enjoy it more than just about anything. It reminds me of high school in many ways except one. Now, I drive around incredibly slow — well below the speed limit. This is because I fear getting a ticket because the car still has out of state plates and I don’t have a Tennessee license and I fear being forced to get all of that taken care off (how much does it cost to register a car?), but also because I have no where to go and there is a certain comfort to driving really slow. I can see why it is popular amongst the low-rider and elderly crowds. It’s the physical expression of indifference. I love when people get up on my bumper because I’m slowing them down. I laugh at their lives of stress and deadlines and destinations.

The Insect Issue
I’m a little concerned about the impending Nashville summer. While my apartment has been exceptionally insect-free in my two months out here, now that the heat has been creeping up outside I’ve started to get a sense of what I anticipate having to deal with until fall. The biggest concern (and I do mean biggest) is these silver-dollar-sized mosquito things. I don’t even know if that’s what they are. Honestly, I’ve never seen anything like them. They have huge, visible wings, the body of a daddy-long-legs, and is that a beak? Really odd. And they’re everywhere. Oh, and there’s a hornets nest on my deck, but that isn’t as big of a concern. Bottom line, I find most bugs more or less terrifying, but maybe this inundation will toughen me up.

Okkervil River
If these guys come to part of America (or the world for that matter), go see them! I caught them last week with The New Pornographers and concluded that they are my favorite “touring band,” as in they don’t compete musically with The Pixies or Elvis Costello but as far as a show you can currently put down twenty bucks for and go see, there is none better when it comes to straight up rock and roll.

I hate you. And I love you. But right now I hate you.

I hate that in this, my fifth week looking for employment, I have only had to physically print and drop off a resume by hand once. Maybe that is to be expected, but in the dozens of jobs I’ve applied for that was the only one where I appeared to be interacting with an actual human being (and that human was just a secretary who thanked me for stopping by). Everything has been automated. Yesterday I walked into a Borders that had a sign in the window saying it was looking for help. I went to the customer service counter and asked for an application. The woman said I had to go online. I was there, standing right in front of her, a living, breathing, worker who would love to stock your shelves for a rate of pay far below that which I am accustomed to make, solely to get some kind of cash flow back into my life and and some sort of human interaction back in my days, but no. I couldn’t write my name, social and work experience on lined paper for them. I had to go home and log into their corporate website and troll for jobs and then ultimately taking a 45-minute questionnaire about how I would react in certain retail setting and if I was the type of person who had a problem with authority or not (no comment). And the thing is, I don’t mind doing this. I don’t find following the steps. Look, I don’t want to have to deal with them as much as they don’t want to have to deal with me, but here we are, both in the same boat (they needing a body to do remedial tasks for little money; me needing little money and a desire to do remedial tasks). Why keep us apart any longer than we have to be? Don’t the see the irony in asking a possible employee about their personality while that possible employee sits alone in a darkened apartment clicking radio-buttons on a computer form? Wouldn’t it make more sense to actually talk to the person face to face and, maybe, kinda, sorta, deduce right away if they are personable or not, if they might be able to point someone to where the self-help section is located, or if that living, breathing, human standing in front of them has the caffeine twitch, beady eyes, and surly disposition of your garden variety psycho.

i just hate clicking send and then waiting. Waiting for something. Waiting to know if I should even be waiting in the first place. I’ve been here a month, have applied for myriad jobs, all online and have so far heard back from two companies saying “Ehhhh, not so much.” One took 10 days. The other took 27. The rest are just floating out there in the ether — ones and zeros bouncing around the echo chamber begging to be extracted if for no other reason than to save themselves from a long, slow, death of criminal levels of inactivity.

I know exactly how its going to go down too. Months from now, when I’m sitting my new job OR sitting in my parents basement trying to piece together how it all went so wrong my phone will ring and it will be company X, and they’ll say, “Hey, we’d love for you to come in and meet with us!” But it will be too late. The kicker: it will happen again and again and again as slowly, all of those SEND buttons I clicked will miraculously vomit up my resume into the necessary inbox. That’s really the biggest travesty in all of this. The internet, the very tool I’m using to communicate with you now, a tool whose primary selling point is speed has made the process of applying for work slower than it has ever been.

I picture decades from now watching a movie where the dark and mysterious stranger walks into the dusty, highway bar, grabbing the cardboard sign with the black-marker “Help Wanted” scrawled across its front in remedial print and carrying it up to the bar where two moustachioed patrons in flannel shirts and gritty, mangled, nails turn away from their cheap, domestic beers to scowl him down. The man behind the bar turns away from a football game playing on an old television with horrible reception and says, “Can I help you, Tex?”

The man replies, “Wanted to see about a job.”

The gruff owner stares him up and down, measuring his worth and explains, “OK, first you have to go to CareerMonster.TV and search under keywords “Texas” and “Shady Roadside Bars” and there you’ll find listings for the positions we have open here. Then you’ll need to upload your resume to their system and then click on APPLY under our header page and be sure to include the job-description number. Then you will be asked to answer 75 short questions, but you’ll only have 45 minutes to do this, and be sure to ENABLE popups in your browser or it won’t work.

The man, confused, turns away, puts the sign back in the window and walks to the next town.