Mike Myers Stricken Face Makes Me Giddy

In light of Kanye’s VMA outburst this evening, I present you with vintage Kanye going off the rails:

Quick note Kanye, George hates poor people. Everyone hates poor people.

Missives From the Land of the Unemployed, No. 4

It could be the fumes from the paint stripper I’ve smeared over the woodwork in the kitchen but I suddenly find myself longing for the very first job that I ever had, at the P&C Foods in Skaneateles, New York. I started as a bag boy, which involved the obvious bagging, plus cart retrieval and processing redeemed recyclables. Later, I became a cashier and then, in an odd promotion, an assistant bookkeeper. I worked behind what was called the Courtesy Desk, as if it were a place to go for obsequious treatment. In fact, when not reconciling registers and processing checks, I would spend time sitting on the door of the safe, swinging in wide arcs or staring, aghast, at customers who had come to return meat and wanted me to smell it.  I was sixteen then seventeen and was becoming increasingly weird by Upstate New York standards (nail polish, garish vintage wear, dyed hair). Guys who worked or owned farms would come in with cow shit still caked on their boots to cash checks or buy lotto tickets and not really appreciate my efforts at looking contrary. I’d usually grit my teeth or smile big when they made comments or else loudly proclaim I was taking a break and walk out, leaving a cashier to replace me. The guys in the meat department hated me because I would get sarcastic for the entire store to hear on the intercom when they didn’t answer their phone calls (“Meat department, that call on line 1 that you haven’t answered? They’re still there, eager for advice on ham or something. Meat department, line 1″) and the ladies in the deli loved me, because I made them laugh, and would give me potato logs  and macaroni and cheese for free.

Of course I hated it then. Hated that I had to work, unlike most of the people I went to school with. Hated the hicks with their bullshit and the trash who’d come in and insist I’d shorted them when doling out food stamps. I hated when I saw people I knew, hated the garbage-bread-cheese-floor-wax smell of the place. I hated the lifers, the Union guys who’d take forever doing anything. I hated the manager and the stupid corporate promotions that the overlords at Penn Traffic would think up. I hated the old people and the people crazed by coupons. Mostly I hated it because I knew I was on my way out of that town and it seemed like such a profound waste of time.

Of course, now, I wonder what it would be like to work there still. Like Parker Posey returning to the Dairy Queen in Waiting for Guffman, would it be so terrible? I’m fourteen years older now and have become somewhat more familiar with the sacrifices required for maintaining a quiet life. Today I decided to strip paint in my kitchen. Last week I interviewed for a job that pays $20,000 less than the one that laid me off in January. Regression is an interesting thing.

Missives From the Land of the Unemployed, No. 3

Just why am I this tired, having done nothing today? Unrelated, here is a video of some torso flexing. I find the headlessness disturbing, because I’m delicate and dear lord my brain is really going.

(Click through for the la-de-dah)

Missives From the Land of the Unemployed, No. 2

I was watching the video below today as I put together my most recent entry to the Publishers Clearing House Sweepstakes. Of course I began to weep, because Ms. Boyle’s matching shoes and dress seem to come from another time and because she’s obviously such a perfect plant, but I need to believe she wandered in from some coal ash dusted British village to impress the shiny bastards and prove, finally, that we are not defined by our untended eyebrows or the dull things we do during the day to get by.

(Click through for the video, and I apologize for that run-on sentence there)

Missives from the Land of the Unemployed, No. 1

Today, as I was walking from the laundromat to my apartment, a thought:

A freshly made bed is only that until you, like the soiled candy in the wrapper, sleep in it.

I have no idea what this means, however I take it as a sign of my decreasing mental ability to string coherent thoughts together in this, the wettening Spring of my unemployment.

Get Into The Groove(y)

What’s funny about this, the heavily edited video for Get Into the Groove(y), is that it basically describes my unemployed activities these days. You know, take bath, jump around striking my head, take another bath, resume striking head. The best part is that all the masturbation has been cut out for everyone’s enjoyment.

(Click through for video…)

As a side note, I was listening to this song at the gym today as two very tan Brazilian lads stood in front of a wall of mirrors comparing their abdominal muscles and jabbering in Portuguese. I wonder what Thurston and Kim would think of this, if they would think anything at all.

To Do?

My To Do list, for tomorrow:

1. Buy fruit

2. Find job

I’m glad that I’ve set myself up to be 50% successful.

Notes From My Spam Folder

Today I received an email that was (correctly) routed to my spam folder entitled MY STRANGE TWIST OF FAT. I suppose they meant fate but as it stood I could think of nothing but large people doing calisthenics or some other exercise that involved moving quickly from side-to-side.

And then I felt a little sad because, you know, I have no job and am increasingly alarmed by my complete lack of marketable skills.