Hello, whoever's left...
I don't mean to be maudlin. I just mean it. I know I've been neglecting my blog.
Oh, well.
I just wanted you to know that I'm still here. I'm still here, and I'm still a blogger. Just because I don't post every day and just because I don't go into detail about how every drop of semen that ejaculates from my penis lands -- whether upon a partner or just myself -- doesn't mean I'm not still a member of this electronic "community."
Yes, I've been too busy with corporate life to post. But why do I get more comments when I don't post than when I do? You guys aren't all that much better about this whole arrangement than you say I am...
No, I don't mean to be nasty either. Just honest. Which is the basis of my writing. So I suppose that when you don't see much of my writing, you can assume I'm not "in a place" to be fully honest with myself.
Any horny teenager can write about his cum drops. I thought I was seeking more than that.
A lot's been brewing on the back burner of my mind, which means something creative is going to emerge soon. That's how I work. I'm not an "every-day-at-5:00am" kind of writer. I'm a sprinter. And that's just gonna hafta do.
Lots of artists are sprinters. I've been doing my homework. I know. No, I'm not going to tell you who else. All that matters is that I know my creative process isn't unique to me, and that it's valid.
No need to validate this corporate queen's ticket. Between the company and myself, we've got it covered.
Write to ya soon.
Mean it.
Bye for now.
Thursday, November 30, 2006
Monday, September 11, 2006
Why
Why You Haven't Heard from Me Lately, In a Nutshell:
- in May, the Mortgage job fell through, and I was out of cash and out of rent credits (I earn a month's rent for every one of my landlord's other units that I rent out to other over-paying, "pink-cheeked ((his term))" tenants)
- in June, a day after my birthday, the LoveofMyLife emailed me saying, "I don't even like you anymore. Good-bye."
- all through June I temped for a bunch of Corporate-Level Indians in the Park Ave office of Dell Financial, logging in the minimum payment checks that desperate middle- and lower-class Americans sent in via certified mail in order to prevent having their accounts go into collections
- in July, I finally landed a job I can live with, so I started it -- and I'm only just now hitting my 60th day. 30 days to go and I'm hard to fire...
- on July 31st, a slimy law firm from Long Island siezed my checking account, demanding $1,600 for a credit card I defaulted on three years ago in order to make my move to NY a reality
In other words, I've been in crisis mode. Level Red on a bad day, Level Orange on a good one.
Hey, if a guy can't use a 9/11 metaphor -- no matter how lame -- on 9/11, then just when can he?
Don't lose faith. Lose patience, maybe, but I beg of you, please don't lose faith.
Cheers,
Saturday, July 08, 2006
Hang in There, 'Cuz Lord Knows We're Hanngin'...
To those y'all who been waitin' 'round so diligently for an update, "Hat's Off!" For yours are the "those" whose expectations will soon 'nough be fulfilled...
And to everyone else, rest assured: STORM'S a' BREWIN'!!!
G
And to everyone else, rest assured: STORM'S a' BREWIN'!!!
G
Tuesday, May 09, 2006
I Got Clocked!
MotheraGod, I can’t believe it. I jus’ can’t believe it. It happened. It finally happened. I can’t believe it, but it finally happened. It finally fuckin’ happened. It just happened t’ happen. It just had t’ fuckin’ happen. To me, finally. It finally fuckin’ happened. I can’t believe it, but it finally fuckin’ happened. It happened. To me. Finally. Fuck.
I was walkin’ the dog. Of all things, an’ a’ all times. I was walkin’ the dog. It happened when I was walkin’ the dog. I was jus’ walkin’ the’ dog when it happened. I was fuckin’ walkin’ the dog. That’s when it happened. When I was walkin’ the fuckin’ dog. That’s when it finally had t’ happen. Of all things, an’ a’ all times, that’s when it finally had t’ happen. When I was walkin’ the fuckin’ dog. That’s when it happenend.
I was right outside McDonald’s. On Broadway. Broadway & Cook. I was right outside McDonald’s. On Broadway. And Cook. I was right outside McDonald’s on Broadway & Cook. Tonight. On Broadway and Cook, right outside McDonald’s. That’s where it happened. Tonight. It happened tonight, of all nights, right outside McDonald’s on Broadway & Cook.
What happened? I’ll tell ya what happened. I’ll tell ya what happened, right then and there, when I was walkin’ the dog. When I was walkin’ the dog, tonight, across from McDonald’s, on Broadway & Cook. I’ll tell ya what happened. Y’might not be as int’rested as I’d like y’t’be, but I’ll tell y’ jus’ th’ same. I’ll tell ya, ‘cuz y’must be wonderin’. Y’must be wonderin’ by now. If, by now, y’er not doin’ anythin’ other’n readin’ or lookin’ at somethin’ else, then y’er wonderin’. If y’er not readin’ or lookin’ at somethin’ else by now, then y’er wonderin’. Y’er wonderin’ what happened. So I’ll tell ya. I’ll tell ya what happened. I’ll tell ya what happened tonight. What happened tonight when I was walkin’ the dog across from McDonald’s. McDonald’s on Broadway & Cook. What happened then, and what happened there was... I got clocked. I got clocked tonight when I was walkin’ the dog across from McDonald’s on Broadway & Cook. Yup. That’s it. That’s what happened. I got clocked. I got clocked but good. Here in my own neighborhood, where I’ve lived for two years. Where I’ve lived for two years, an’ where I’ve never had a run-in with any of “my own kind,” so to speak, it happened. It finally happened. It finally happened tonight. Tonight, of all times, it finally happened. Tonight, I got clocked. I got clocked but good. An’ the weirdest part is, I didn’t even know it ‘til long after it happened.
A few hours after it happened, a beautiful young boy said “Hi” to me in a bar. He said “Hi” to me. Long after it’d happened, he said “Hi.” Like he knew me. He said “Hi” like he knew me. So I gathered that maybe he did. I gathered maybe he did know me. So I was game. I said “Hi” back. I said “Hi.” And then I asked, “Do I know you?” He said, “I saw you walking your dog tonight. Right outside McDonald’s. I saw you walking your dog. And when I saw you, I said to myself, 'Oh, there’s gay people here. Cool.'”
Clocked. Fuck.
After all this time here, alone with my dog, I’d gotten used to not being visibly gay. Sure, I was white, I was male; I was even middle class and artsy. But I hadn’t been “tagged” yet as being gay. The racial and socio-economic circles around here don’t have much time for sexual politics. They presume everyone around them is heterosexual. They don’t have time for anything else. They’re too busy surviving to even ponder it. Anything else, that is. Sexually speaking. They don’t have time to ponder anything else sexually. Even if there are a hundred men fucking each other on the “Down Low.” Even if there are a hundred women living together because “their men have all left them…”
But if one gay boy in one gay bar in Brooklyn was able to clock me as being a homo, in my own neighborhood – well, that means the end of my anonymity in that neighborhood. I suppose I should feel good about being recognized. I suppose I should feel “proud.” But I don’t. I don’t feel proud. I don’t feel good, or warm, or fuzzy, or proud to have been clocked by another gay in my neighborhood. Instead I feel sad. I feel sad that my escape is no longer an escape. I feel bummed that other queers have started moving in. I can’t stand that I might be starting the next queer hip neighborhood in Brooklyn. All I wanted was to get away from the gay ghetto. But it seems I’ve just started its next charter.
There’s nothing to repeat here. There’s nothing to wax poetic. Apparently I’m the proverbial self-loathing homo. Apparently I can’t stand my own kind. Why else would I try to move away from them? Why else would I pride myself on living in seclusion? Why else would I hate the appearance of others like me in the area where I’d established myself as separate and un-needing of them and their like?
Getting clocked isn’t good. It’s not a desirable thing. It’s not like getting recognized, or acknowledged, or rewarded. Getting clocked is a bad thing. Gettin' clocked sucks. You don’t wanna get clocked. Trust me. You don’t. I wish I hadn’t been clocked. I wish that boy’d never seen me, no matter how beautiful he is. What’s his problem, anyway? Doesn’t he have anything better to look at?
I was walkin’ the dog. Of all things, an’ a’ all times. I was walkin’ the dog. It happened when I was walkin’ the dog. I was jus’ walkin’ the’ dog when it happened. I was fuckin’ walkin’ the dog. That’s when it happened. When I was walkin’ the fuckin’ dog. That’s when it finally had t’ happen. Of all things, an’ a’ all times, that’s when it finally had t’ happen. When I was walkin’ the fuckin’ dog. That’s when it happenend.
I was right outside McDonald’s. On Broadway. Broadway & Cook. I was right outside McDonald’s. On Broadway. And Cook. I was right outside McDonald’s on Broadway & Cook. Tonight. On Broadway and Cook, right outside McDonald’s. That’s where it happened. Tonight. It happened tonight, of all nights, right outside McDonald’s on Broadway & Cook.
What happened? I’ll tell ya what happened. I’ll tell ya what happened, right then and there, when I was walkin’ the dog. When I was walkin’ the dog, tonight, across from McDonald’s, on Broadway & Cook. I’ll tell ya what happened. Y’might not be as int’rested as I’d like y’t’be, but I’ll tell y’ jus’ th’ same. I’ll tell ya, ‘cuz y’must be wonderin’. Y’must be wonderin’ by now. If, by now, y’er not doin’ anythin’ other’n readin’ or lookin’ at somethin’ else, then y’er wonderin’. If y’er not readin’ or lookin’ at somethin’ else by now, then y’er wonderin’. Y’er wonderin’ what happened. So I’ll tell ya. I’ll tell ya what happened. I’ll tell ya what happened tonight. What happened tonight when I was walkin’ the dog across from McDonald’s. McDonald’s on Broadway & Cook. What happened then, and what happened there was... I got clocked. I got clocked tonight when I was walkin’ the dog across from McDonald’s on Broadway & Cook. Yup. That’s it. That’s what happened. I got clocked. I got clocked but good. Here in my own neighborhood, where I’ve lived for two years. Where I’ve lived for two years, an’ where I’ve never had a run-in with any of “my own kind,” so to speak, it happened. It finally happened. It finally happened tonight. Tonight, of all times, it finally happened. Tonight, I got clocked. I got clocked but good. An’ the weirdest part is, I didn’t even know it ‘til long after it happened.
A few hours after it happened, a beautiful young boy said “Hi” to me in a bar. He said “Hi” to me. Long after it’d happened, he said “Hi.” Like he knew me. He said “Hi” like he knew me. So I gathered that maybe he did. I gathered maybe he did know me. So I was game. I said “Hi” back. I said “Hi.” And then I asked, “Do I know you?” He said, “I saw you walking your dog tonight. Right outside McDonald’s. I saw you walking your dog. And when I saw you, I said to myself, 'Oh, there’s gay people here. Cool.'”
Clocked. Fuck.
After all this time here, alone with my dog, I’d gotten used to not being visibly gay. Sure, I was white, I was male; I was even middle class and artsy. But I hadn’t been “tagged” yet as being gay. The racial and socio-economic circles around here don’t have much time for sexual politics. They presume everyone around them is heterosexual. They don’t have time for anything else. They’re too busy surviving to even ponder it. Anything else, that is. Sexually speaking. They don’t have time to ponder anything else sexually. Even if there are a hundred men fucking each other on the “Down Low.” Even if there are a hundred women living together because “their men have all left them…”
But if one gay boy in one gay bar in Brooklyn was able to clock me as being a homo, in my own neighborhood – well, that means the end of my anonymity in that neighborhood. I suppose I should feel good about being recognized. I suppose I should feel “proud.” But I don’t. I don’t feel proud. I don’t feel good, or warm, or fuzzy, or proud to have been clocked by another gay in my neighborhood. Instead I feel sad. I feel sad that my escape is no longer an escape. I feel bummed that other queers have started moving in. I can’t stand that I might be starting the next queer hip neighborhood in Brooklyn. All I wanted was to get away from the gay ghetto. But it seems I’ve just started its next charter.
There’s nothing to repeat here. There’s nothing to wax poetic. Apparently I’m the proverbial self-loathing homo. Apparently I can’t stand my own kind. Why else would I try to move away from them? Why else would I pride myself on living in seclusion? Why else would I hate the appearance of others like me in the area where I’d established myself as separate and un-needing of them and their like?
Getting clocked isn’t good. It’s not a desirable thing. It’s not like getting recognized, or acknowledged, or rewarded. Getting clocked is a bad thing. Gettin' clocked sucks. You don’t wanna get clocked. Trust me. You don’t. I wish I hadn’t been clocked. I wish that boy’d never seen me, no matter how beautiful he is. What’s his problem, anyway? Doesn’t he have anything better to look at?
Sunday, March 26, 2006
(Me an’) Bobby McGee
(I meant to tell y’all ‘bout this before, but I never got around’a it. Well, here’s t’ gittin’ ‘round…)
FLASHBACK, 1998: “The Lot” in LA. I’ve just begun to feel settled-in amidst the other artists, the ‘70s leftovers, and the boho wanna-be’s who constitute my new SoCal alterna-digs’ total residence. The apartment’s been spackled, it’s been painted, and it just been carpeted. The garden’s been sown, and the life force that is Spooge has manifested himself – presently in the form of an uncut adolescent pup.
It’s dusk. I think it’s wintertime. (It's not as easy to tell in La-La Land... You have to look for what's in bloom and ask yourself if you need a sweater.) I’m hosing down the parking lot. (Martini in left hand, nozzle in right. Yeah, I switch hands from time to time, in the name of trying to avoid Carpal Tunnel, but for the most part, this is the stance.) I’m stoned. (What else is new? These are the CA years.) Spooge is doing his thang. So are all the cats. So are all the other dogs. The other dogs all bunk down with Jerry, the “Potato Sack guy,” we call him – a 40+ queen who values the gym about as much as I value monogamy. All these animals are sniffin’, scratchin’, and piddlin’, each according to his or her immediate needs. All of which is to say, it’s just another typical night on the Lot. The sun’s gone down, as it always does, past the edge of the parking lot and past the tops of the Magnolia, Pine and Palm trees aligning the streets that fall between us and the beach. (There’s about 20 minutes worth of ‘em, in Angelino miles. We Angelinos like to describe distance in terms of how long it’ll take you to drive there… We're a "Rate x Time" kind of folk.)
The artists who are lucky enough not to need a day job are busy working in their studios. Those who are in “job phase” are sipping Merlot and listening to Pat Sajak drop cryptic crossword clues. Vanna White patiently awaits illumination. (She will NOT act until she receives her Pavlovian cue. THAT's what got her the job, way back when -- did I ever tell you that? But I digress...) As for Myself? Categorically, I dwell somewhere within the strata of my subculture. I’m a slacker who’s just re-realized he needs to get back to work. So, I work harder than I have to, on The Lot itself, y’see, to make up for my inadequacies.
“Heck,” I tell myself (each and every day I do it), “it’s not like it doesn’t need doin’.”
Anyway, it was on just this kind of day, at exactly this time of night, while I was doing this exact sort of thing – when I first met Bobby McGee. He was a large dog, by the Lot’s standards. By our Lot’s standards, Spooge was a big dog. Spooge was the first big dog who had succeeded in earning permanent residence on the Lot since Catherine, the crazy dyke who'd made and subsequently lost a small fortune via a T-shirt and novelty enterprise called "Flying Fish," had lived there with her ever-rotating population of Pit Bulls. Catherine now lived three doors down, doing God knows what, while her T-shirts and novelties rotted away on gray metal shelves. ANYway, before Spooge, all we on the Lot had, in terms of canine compansionship, were little, “yappy” dogs. And they all shacked up with Jerry.
But picture if you will: Myself, almost 10 years ago… Martini and garden hose in hand(s); proud father of the first full-sized dog to have recently landed residence on the Lot. And then picture, if you will: Myself, meeting – for the first time – a Border Collie/Sheep Dog mix (who’s only recognizable to me as such because I grew up with a father who bred dogs and who familiarized me with the appearances and inclinations of many hunting and show breeds). And THEN picture, if you can: The simultaneous combination of delight and despair I experienced when I: a) recognized that another large-sized dog had made his way onto the Lot, and b) realized that the reason he’d done so was because he was crippled to the core – the obvious victim of a car accident.
Whether on human or canine, cat or canary, I had never before seen such injuries. I had never before witnessed such raw, open, dripping wounds. They were puss-ridden; fur-mixed-with-skin-mixed-with-flesh-mixed-with-sutures, CATASTROPHIC symptoms. Never before had I viewed in real life such obvious consequences of nature and industrialization colliding, VIOLENTLY. But I was witnessing them then. Martini in one hand, garden hose in the other, there I stood, under the LA sunset, witnessing it. And it was disgusting. "Such, "I tried to assure myself, "is the nature of life in LA." "Such is the rare yet predictable outcome of a certain unlucky percentile who have to live a flesh-and-blood existence under the utterly unforgiving reign of mechanism." More precisely, I thought, mechanism met with speed. For it is the marriage of mechanicality and motion that makes up the make-up of Los Angeles. Ride with it and everything’s fine. Floating and jetting, the flotsam and jetsom move along quite smoothly, providing an aesthetic that predates and predicts the visual effects of the internet. Southern California long ago raised surfing to another level; it just needed Microsoft Windows to teach the rest of us how to recognize it.
But for this borderline Border Collie whom I came to deem Bobby McGee, surfing hadn't helped. Surfing hadn't proven to be a conduit. Unlike the rest of us who surfed LA traffic daily --negotiating stop signs, traffic lights, hair-pin turns and multiple intersections -- Bobby, apparently, hadn't made it home safe one night. His was an unlucky number. His was a number representing collision. Running the numbers hadn't helped Bobby; it had hurt him. That's what the numbers dictate. That's what the numbers require. The numbers require that in order for 95% of us to make it home safe, 5% of us -- be we human, canine, or of any other life form -- must suffer. We must suffer eventuality.
So I suppose it was my own particular form of eventuality that eventually led to my having to witness the likes of Bobby McGee. But nothing could've prepared me for the moment. Nothing could’ve helped me witness what I witnessed that night while I was watering down the Lot in LA – that night when I first met him. That night when I first laid eyes upon Bobby McGee. No Martini, no bong, no drug could’ve prepared me. Nothing, except perhaps a glimpse of death itself, could’ve prepared me to glimpse what I glimpsed that evening, right around twilight. I don’t even know how he walked. I don’t know how he walked up to me. And I'm not really sure why. The rest of Jerry’s dogs always scattered whenever I sprayed the hose. But not Bobby.
Bobby, that night, hobbled right on up t’ me, even tho' I was sprayin’ full throttle. He hobbled right up t’ me. He hobbled right on up, introducin’ himself, 'spite th’ fact that no other dog who’d’ just been through what he’d just been through would’a ever cared t’inroduce himself t’anybody… An' I couldn’t believe what I saw. I’d never seen anythin' like it. It was like lookin’ at half a dog. Half a dog sliced right down the middle – and not from belly t' belly, but from head t’ toe! Right down the middle! A perfect half a’ dog! He was a perfect half a' dog. Cut right down the middle. Like the Invisible Dog from the ‘70s. Like the friggin’ Invisible Dog. Cut right down the middle. From schnout t’ tail, Ol’ Bobby was a perfect half a' dog.
One side of him looked like the dog he was – or at least, the dog he’d once been. But the other side of him looked like a science experiment. It was flat, it was transluscent, and it had no fur. I don’t think it even had bones. (Looking back, I realize it must’ve, but at the time, I couldn’t even see them.) The one side that was him was pretty. It was full. It was black, it was white, it was long-haired, and it was full. It was full of life. But the other side of him – the one that was damaged – was so damaged I couldn’t imagine how any dog would've been able to get along without all the stuff he was missing.
Aside from Jerry, I guess, I was the only other human who took to Bobby. Everyone else ignored him. I can’t say as I blame them, because during our time on the Lot, we all witnessed many a damaged animal. It was just part of being there. I mean, c’mon – there we were, living where the city had forgotten itself, and in so doing, allowed the desert to reclaim itself. There were plenty of wild creatures to contend with, mostly in the form of feral cats and pack dogs. But because Ol’ Bobby’d made the effort to introduce himself to me that night, I couldn’t help but wanna get to know him. So I got to know him. And in getting to know him, I came to name him. Yeah, I’m the one who named him. I’m the one who named him “Bobby McGee.” At first, no one asked me why. But as time passed – as he healed and grew back into the cute sheep-herding collie dog he’d been before his accident – people grew curious as to why I called him what I did. And when they asked, I told ‘em, “I call him Bobby McGee. ‘Cuz when he first showed up here – he had nothin’ left t’lose.”
Maybe that’s why he'd hobbled up to me that evening. Maybe he recognized that we had something in common. And y'know somethin'? He was right. Because on that particular evening, on that particular Lot, in that particular corner of the world, Me ‘n’ Bobby McGee – as the illustrious Miss Joplin herself would’ve attested, had she been there to witness us – were just about the free-est souls in the Southland.
FLASHBACK, 1998: “The Lot” in LA. I’ve just begun to feel settled-in amidst the other artists, the ‘70s leftovers, and the boho wanna-be’s who constitute my new SoCal alterna-digs’ total residence. The apartment’s been spackled, it’s been painted, and it just been carpeted. The garden’s been sown, and the life force that is Spooge has manifested himself – presently in the form of an uncut adolescent pup.
It’s dusk. I think it’s wintertime. (It's not as easy to tell in La-La Land... You have to look for what's in bloom and ask yourself if you need a sweater.) I’m hosing down the parking lot. (Martini in left hand, nozzle in right. Yeah, I switch hands from time to time, in the name of trying to avoid Carpal Tunnel, but for the most part, this is the stance.) I’m stoned. (What else is new? These are the CA years.) Spooge is doing his thang. So are all the cats. So are all the other dogs. The other dogs all bunk down with Jerry, the “Potato Sack guy,” we call him – a 40+ queen who values the gym about as much as I value monogamy. All these animals are sniffin’, scratchin’, and piddlin’, each according to his or her immediate needs. All of which is to say, it’s just another typical night on the Lot. The sun’s gone down, as it always does, past the edge of the parking lot and past the tops of the Magnolia, Pine and Palm trees aligning the streets that fall between us and the beach. (There’s about 20 minutes worth of ‘em, in Angelino miles. We Angelinos like to describe distance in terms of how long it’ll take you to drive there… We're a "Rate x Time" kind of folk.)
The artists who are lucky enough not to need a day job are busy working in their studios. Those who are in “job phase” are sipping Merlot and listening to Pat Sajak drop cryptic crossword clues. Vanna White patiently awaits illumination. (She will NOT act until she receives her Pavlovian cue. THAT's what got her the job, way back when -- did I ever tell you that? But I digress...) As for Myself? Categorically, I dwell somewhere within the strata of my subculture. I’m a slacker who’s just re-realized he needs to get back to work. So, I work harder than I have to, on The Lot itself, y’see, to make up for my inadequacies.
“Heck,” I tell myself (each and every day I do it), “it’s not like it doesn’t need doin’.”
Anyway, it was on just this kind of day, at exactly this time of night, while I was doing this exact sort of thing – when I first met Bobby McGee. He was a large dog, by the Lot’s standards. By our Lot’s standards, Spooge was a big dog. Spooge was the first big dog who had succeeded in earning permanent residence on the Lot since Catherine, the crazy dyke who'd made and subsequently lost a small fortune via a T-shirt and novelty enterprise called "Flying Fish," had lived there with her ever-rotating population of Pit Bulls. Catherine now lived three doors down, doing God knows what, while her T-shirts and novelties rotted away on gray metal shelves. ANYway, before Spooge, all we on the Lot had, in terms of canine compansionship, were little, “yappy” dogs. And they all shacked up with Jerry.
But picture if you will: Myself, almost 10 years ago… Martini and garden hose in hand(s); proud father of the first full-sized dog to have recently landed residence on the Lot. And then picture, if you will: Myself, meeting – for the first time – a Border Collie/Sheep Dog mix (who’s only recognizable to me as such because I grew up with a father who bred dogs and who familiarized me with the appearances and inclinations of many hunting and show breeds). And THEN picture, if you can: The simultaneous combination of delight and despair I experienced when I: a) recognized that another large-sized dog had made his way onto the Lot, and b) realized that the reason he’d done so was because he was crippled to the core – the obvious victim of a car accident.
Whether on human or canine, cat or canary, I had never before seen such injuries. I had never before witnessed such raw, open, dripping wounds. They were puss-ridden; fur-mixed-with-skin-mixed-with-flesh-mixed-with-sutures, CATASTROPHIC symptoms. Never before had I viewed in real life such obvious consequences of nature and industrialization colliding, VIOLENTLY. But I was witnessing them then. Martini in one hand, garden hose in the other, there I stood, under the LA sunset, witnessing it. And it was disgusting. "Such, "I tried to assure myself, "is the nature of life in LA." "Such is the rare yet predictable outcome of a certain unlucky percentile who have to live a flesh-and-blood existence under the utterly unforgiving reign of mechanism." More precisely, I thought, mechanism met with speed. For it is the marriage of mechanicality and motion that makes up the make-up of Los Angeles. Ride with it and everything’s fine. Floating and jetting, the flotsam and jetsom move along quite smoothly, providing an aesthetic that predates and predicts the visual effects of the internet. Southern California long ago raised surfing to another level; it just needed Microsoft Windows to teach the rest of us how to recognize it.
But for this borderline Border Collie whom I came to deem Bobby McGee, surfing hadn't helped. Surfing hadn't proven to be a conduit. Unlike the rest of us who surfed LA traffic daily --negotiating stop signs, traffic lights, hair-pin turns and multiple intersections -- Bobby, apparently, hadn't made it home safe one night. His was an unlucky number. His was a number representing collision. Running the numbers hadn't helped Bobby; it had hurt him. That's what the numbers dictate. That's what the numbers require. The numbers require that in order for 95% of us to make it home safe, 5% of us -- be we human, canine, or of any other life form -- must suffer. We must suffer eventuality.
So I suppose it was my own particular form of eventuality that eventually led to my having to witness the likes of Bobby McGee. But nothing could've prepared me for the moment. Nothing could’ve helped me witness what I witnessed that night while I was watering down the Lot in LA – that night when I first met him. That night when I first laid eyes upon Bobby McGee. No Martini, no bong, no drug could’ve prepared me. Nothing, except perhaps a glimpse of death itself, could’ve prepared me to glimpse what I glimpsed that evening, right around twilight. I don’t even know how he walked. I don’t know how he walked up to me. And I'm not really sure why. The rest of Jerry’s dogs always scattered whenever I sprayed the hose. But not Bobby.
Bobby, that night, hobbled right on up t’ me, even tho' I was sprayin’ full throttle. He hobbled right up t’ me. He hobbled right on up, introducin’ himself, 'spite th’ fact that no other dog who’d’ just been through what he’d just been through would’a ever cared t’inroduce himself t’anybody… An' I couldn’t believe what I saw. I’d never seen anythin' like it. It was like lookin’ at half a dog. Half a dog sliced right down the middle – and not from belly t' belly, but from head t’ toe! Right down the middle! A perfect half a’ dog! He was a perfect half a' dog. Cut right down the middle. Like the Invisible Dog from the ‘70s. Like the friggin’ Invisible Dog. Cut right down the middle. From schnout t’ tail, Ol’ Bobby was a perfect half a' dog.
One side of him looked like the dog he was – or at least, the dog he’d once been. But the other side of him looked like a science experiment. It was flat, it was transluscent, and it had no fur. I don’t think it even had bones. (Looking back, I realize it must’ve, but at the time, I couldn’t even see them.) The one side that was him was pretty. It was full. It was black, it was white, it was long-haired, and it was full. It was full of life. But the other side of him – the one that was damaged – was so damaged I couldn’t imagine how any dog would've been able to get along without all the stuff he was missing.
Aside from Jerry, I guess, I was the only other human who took to Bobby. Everyone else ignored him. I can’t say as I blame them, because during our time on the Lot, we all witnessed many a damaged animal. It was just part of being there. I mean, c’mon – there we were, living where the city had forgotten itself, and in so doing, allowed the desert to reclaim itself. There were plenty of wild creatures to contend with, mostly in the form of feral cats and pack dogs. But because Ol’ Bobby’d made the effort to introduce himself to me that night, I couldn’t help but wanna get to know him. So I got to know him. And in getting to know him, I came to name him. Yeah, I’m the one who named him. I’m the one who named him “Bobby McGee.” At first, no one asked me why. But as time passed – as he healed and grew back into the cute sheep-herding collie dog he’d been before his accident – people grew curious as to why I called him what I did. And when they asked, I told ‘em, “I call him Bobby McGee. ‘Cuz when he first showed up here – he had nothin’ left t’lose.”
Maybe that’s why he'd hobbled up to me that evening. Maybe he recognized that we had something in common. And y'know somethin'? He was right. Because on that particular evening, on that particular Lot, in that particular corner of the world, Me ‘n’ Bobby McGee – as the illustrious Miss Joplin herself would’ve attested, had she been there to witness us – were just about the free-est souls in the Southland.
Saturday, February 11, 2006
CGU* III (Episode 1): Just What Have I Done Now?
(*Career Girl Update, Series III)
If I never accomplish anything else during this whacky incarnation I’m having, at least I’ll be able to return to the Great Void knowing I’ve amused just a few of you along the way. I know I’m silly. Really, I do.
So what am I up to this time? Just what sort of career has this Career Girl who’s notorious for not being able to hold down a career landed now? As many of you have read, and as bizarre as it sounds (even to myself, still), I’m now a Mortgage Broker.
“Mortgage Broker.” What sort of image does that title conjure up in your heads? Go ahead, be honest. I won’t be offended if it’s offensive. Lord knows I’ve come too far in the world of offensiveness to fear the offense people might take in my occupation. Does it strike you as “smarmy?” Does it come across as the Used Car Sales echelon of the real estate industry? Yes, I believe it does. I think, whenever I tell people I’m a Mortgage Broker, that I sound like the guys you see on late-night TV. You know, the ones peddling last year’s Ford Explorers and Toyota Corollas at bargain prices – “Not to be beaten anywhere, or [they’ll] pay the difference!!!”
All I know is this: Three years ago, I was financially stable but emotionally and artistically stagnant in Los Angeles. Two years ago, I had just acquired my present apartment in East Williamsburg, Brooklyn, and I was busy slapping up my first coats of paint and searching for a microwave and Toast-r-Oven. And last year I was living the High Life, collecting Unemployment and young Brooklyn boy-toys alike. I brought both home to said East Williamsburg apartment, spending the former on all the drugs I was doing with the latter.
All of which is to say, I’ve looked at NYC from both sides now.
I’ve been the newcomer with the demanding day job and I’ve been the Brooklyn slacker who proves that it is, indeed, possible to survive in NY on less than $100,000/year. Way less. Way, way less. I’ve been the guppie and the boho. I’ve made it here (which means, if you’ll remember, that I can make it anywhere) “with” and “without.” From surfing couches to earning an Executive Assistant’s salary and back to surfing a couch again (my own, mind you), I have acquired close to three years’ life experience here in the Big Apple. And some said it couldn’t be done!
I’m no stranger to taking big risks in moving to new cities. At 23, soon after taking my sweet time to graduate from college (spent a semester in France just for the hell of it), I packed everything I could fit into my 1981 VW Jetta and left Portland, Maine, forever. Folks said I’d be back, but I never have been, except for one quick visit sometime during ’89. (I’ve been meaning to get back there, especially now that I’m back on the East Coast, and I will always love my dear friends there, but I haven’t made it back yet.) After living in SF for close to 10 years (and after experiencing a major shift in sensibilites – from uptight New English preppie to hedonistic SF clone), I decided – mostly for the sake of love, mind you – to relocate to Los Angeles. I remained there, with the quasi-communal, eternally familial group of artists with whom I’d recalimed a filthy parcel of South Central turf, for almost seven years. But I was unhappy. Despite having surrounded myself with other artists in the hopes of living the Creative Life, my creativity dried up. I was too worried about maintaining the homestead to take time to write. I wound up smoking too much pot while I continually clipped ever-growing garden blossoms and stems. That’s what led to my taking the next, most recent risk – moving to NYC on a shoestring.
Throughout the processes of taking all of these risks, I’ve learned to listen to my intuition. I’ve learned to go ahead and take big leaps as long as my heart tells me it’s OK. That’s what’s happening with this new job. It’s a crazy job. Given that I now possess far less than the infamous $3,000 I had when I first arrived in NY, it’s an insane proposition. It’s commission only. It’s a high-pressure, low-benefit sales job. In other words, I’ve signed up to sweat in a boiler room.
But y’know what? I love it. I don’t just “like” it. I’m not “settling” until something better comes along. I think this job is an opportunity – the opportunity I knew I’d need once I’d gotten established in this city and was ready to move to the next level. I’m sorry I portrayed the company as appearing to have “mob” connections in my previous post. (Well, I’m sorry, but not to the point where I’m willing to take back those initial impressions. They will have to forever remain what they were. Many people, if they were to meet my new boss, would get the same feeling from him and his associates. They are loud, aggressive Long Island natives. They are Italian beyond belief. They could give Brando a run for his cotton-stuffed, mealy-mouthed money. And I love them.)
I have a feeling about this new job. It’s much like the feeling I had when I moved to SF; when I launched my one-man show there; when I packed up and left the Bay Area when it would’ve made more career sense to stay; and when I decided to make the move from LA to NYC. It’s a feeling of surety, despite all apparent reasons to cast doubt. I can’t explain it any further than that. I’m having a gut feeling about this new job. A good gut feeling. And that's all I can say about it.
But I will tell you this: Through this job, I have consciously challenged myself. I have chosen to face some serious demons. You see, early on in my childoood, somewhere around first grade, I was diagnosed as being “bad at math.” My teacher told my parents that I was linguistically talented but mathematically deficient and we all accepted the diagnosis. I proceeded to go through the rest of my education, all the way through grad school, believing I just didn’t have the aptitide to comprehend numbers, arithmetic, percentages, and all else that comprises the vocabulary of business. Consequently I was raised to believe I “didn’t have a head for money.” Heck, I was an artist. I was creative. I could write a hell of a Christmas letter, but God forbid I shoud be expected to do my own taxes.
Well, recently, after having taken as much time as I apparently needed to slack in Brooklyn – after having finally saturated myself with the bohemian/party lifestlye – I have decided that a guy who can maintain a 3.7 GPA in a graduate program (even if it is just at a state school and in an arts program) can certainly wrap his brain around the principles that enable people with far fewer intellectual faculties than he has to accumulate wealth in a capitalist system.
So THAT’s what I’ve “done now.” THAT’s what I’m up to. As usual, Greg has motives far beyond the petty and the apparent. Greg is up to something big. Greg is battling his demons, and he’s determined to come out of the battle armed with the knowledge that will help him land the best fucking mortgage possible on that Goddamed Anna Madrigal-esque brownstone he’s always dreamed of owning. This is New York, for Chrissake. If a New Yorker isn’t at least a little bit curious about how the local real esate market works, s/he’s not a real New Yorker. S/he’s a tourist.
I have a lifetime of sales under my belt. As complex as the mortgage industry is, it’s still sales, plain and simple. The man who’s just launched the Manhattan office of a firm he’s worked with since 1997 on Long Island took one look at me and decided I was capable of learning the ropes. That’s my new boss. I don’t intend to let him – but more importantly, myself – down. It takes time but the money one can earn in this field is hefty. Living on commission only brings me back to my Patrick Murphy days. I have never been happier with my work than when I was living from job to job. It always came together then, and I’m sure it’ll come together now. Meanwhile I’ll be learning all about the mysterious phenomenon known as New York City real estate. Not bad party chat, eh?
I made the move and I painted the apartment. I celebrated my 40th birthday with all my best friends. Then I took a year off to rest, play, and inquire as to exactly who I wanted to be now that I am here. Now I’m greasing the money wheels so that when the muse visits and helps me put together the next creative urge, I’ll be ready and able to produce it.
There’s a connection between productivity and creativity, and I’m gonna work it.
If I never accomplish anything else during this whacky incarnation I’m having, at least I’ll be able to return to the Great Void knowing I’ve amused just a few of you along the way. I know I’m silly. Really, I do.
So what am I up to this time? Just what sort of career has this Career Girl who’s notorious for not being able to hold down a career landed now? As many of you have read, and as bizarre as it sounds (even to myself, still), I’m now a Mortgage Broker.
“Mortgage Broker.” What sort of image does that title conjure up in your heads? Go ahead, be honest. I won’t be offended if it’s offensive. Lord knows I’ve come too far in the world of offensiveness to fear the offense people might take in my occupation. Does it strike you as “smarmy?” Does it come across as the Used Car Sales echelon of the real estate industry? Yes, I believe it does. I think, whenever I tell people I’m a Mortgage Broker, that I sound like the guys you see on late-night TV. You know, the ones peddling last year’s Ford Explorers and Toyota Corollas at bargain prices – “Not to be beaten anywhere, or [they’ll] pay the difference!!!”
All I know is this: Three years ago, I was financially stable but emotionally and artistically stagnant in Los Angeles. Two years ago, I had just acquired my present apartment in East Williamsburg, Brooklyn, and I was busy slapping up my first coats of paint and searching for a microwave and Toast-r-Oven. And last year I was living the High Life, collecting Unemployment and young Brooklyn boy-toys alike. I brought both home to said East Williamsburg apartment, spending the former on all the drugs I was doing with the latter.
All of which is to say, I’ve looked at NYC from both sides now.
I’ve been the newcomer with the demanding day job and I’ve been the Brooklyn slacker who proves that it is, indeed, possible to survive in NY on less than $100,000/year. Way less. Way, way less. I’ve been the guppie and the boho. I’ve made it here (which means, if you’ll remember, that I can make it anywhere) “with” and “without.” From surfing couches to earning an Executive Assistant’s salary and back to surfing a couch again (my own, mind you), I have acquired close to three years’ life experience here in the Big Apple. And some said it couldn’t be done!
I’m no stranger to taking big risks in moving to new cities. At 23, soon after taking my sweet time to graduate from college (spent a semester in France just for the hell of it), I packed everything I could fit into my 1981 VW Jetta and left Portland, Maine, forever. Folks said I’d be back, but I never have been, except for one quick visit sometime during ’89. (I’ve been meaning to get back there, especially now that I’m back on the East Coast, and I will always love my dear friends there, but I haven’t made it back yet.) After living in SF for close to 10 years (and after experiencing a major shift in sensibilites – from uptight New English preppie to hedonistic SF clone), I decided – mostly for the sake of love, mind you – to relocate to Los Angeles. I remained there, with the quasi-communal, eternally familial group of artists with whom I’d recalimed a filthy parcel of South Central turf, for almost seven years. But I was unhappy. Despite having surrounded myself with other artists in the hopes of living the Creative Life, my creativity dried up. I was too worried about maintaining the homestead to take time to write. I wound up smoking too much pot while I continually clipped ever-growing garden blossoms and stems. That’s what led to my taking the next, most recent risk – moving to NYC on a shoestring.
Throughout the processes of taking all of these risks, I’ve learned to listen to my intuition. I’ve learned to go ahead and take big leaps as long as my heart tells me it’s OK. That’s what’s happening with this new job. It’s a crazy job. Given that I now possess far less than the infamous $3,000 I had when I first arrived in NY, it’s an insane proposition. It’s commission only. It’s a high-pressure, low-benefit sales job. In other words, I’ve signed up to sweat in a boiler room.
But y’know what? I love it. I don’t just “like” it. I’m not “settling” until something better comes along. I think this job is an opportunity – the opportunity I knew I’d need once I’d gotten established in this city and was ready to move to the next level. I’m sorry I portrayed the company as appearing to have “mob” connections in my previous post. (Well, I’m sorry, but not to the point where I’m willing to take back those initial impressions. They will have to forever remain what they were. Many people, if they were to meet my new boss, would get the same feeling from him and his associates. They are loud, aggressive Long Island natives. They are Italian beyond belief. They could give Brando a run for his cotton-stuffed, mealy-mouthed money. And I love them.)
I have a feeling about this new job. It’s much like the feeling I had when I moved to SF; when I launched my one-man show there; when I packed up and left the Bay Area when it would’ve made more career sense to stay; and when I decided to make the move from LA to NYC. It’s a feeling of surety, despite all apparent reasons to cast doubt. I can’t explain it any further than that. I’m having a gut feeling about this new job. A good gut feeling. And that's all I can say about it.
But I will tell you this: Through this job, I have consciously challenged myself. I have chosen to face some serious demons. You see, early on in my childoood, somewhere around first grade, I was diagnosed as being “bad at math.” My teacher told my parents that I was linguistically talented but mathematically deficient and we all accepted the diagnosis. I proceeded to go through the rest of my education, all the way through grad school, believing I just didn’t have the aptitide to comprehend numbers, arithmetic, percentages, and all else that comprises the vocabulary of business. Consequently I was raised to believe I “didn’t have a head for money.” Heck, I was an artist. I was creative. I could write a hell of a Christmas letter, but God forbid I shoud be expected to do my own taxes.
Well, recently, after having taken as much time as I apparently needed to slack in Brooklyn – after having finally saturated myself with the bohemian/party lifestlye – I have decided that a guy who can maintain a 3.7 GPA in a graduate program (even if it is just at a state school and in an arts program) can certainly wrap his brain around the principles that enable people with far fewer intellectual faculties than he has to accumulate wealth in a capitalist system.
So THAT’s what I’ve “done now.” THAT’s what I’m up to. As usual, Greg has motives far beyond the petty and the apparent. Greg is up to something big. Greg is battling his demons, and he’s determined to come out of the battle armed with the knowledge that will help him land the best fucking mortgage possible on that Goddamed Anna Madrigal-esque brownstone he’s always dreamed of owning. This is New York, for Chrissake. If a New Yorker isn’t at least a little bit curious about how the local real esate market works, s/he’s not a real New Yorker. S/he’s a tourist.
I have a lifetime of sales under my belt. As complex as the mortgage industry is, it’s still sales, plain and simple. The man who’s just launched the Manhattan office of a firm he’s worked with since 1997 on Long Island took one look at me and decided I was capable of learning the ropes. That’s my new boss. I don’t intend to let him – but more importantly, myself – down. It takes time but the money one can earn in this field is hefty. Living on commission only brings me back to my Patrick Murphy days. I have never been happier with my work than when I was living from job to job. It always came together then, and I’m sure it’ll come together now. Meanwhile I’ll be learning all about the mysterious phenomenon known as New York City real estate. Not bad party chat, eh?
I made the move and I painted the apartment. I celebrated my 40th birthday with all my best friends. Then I took a year off to rest, play, and inquire as to exactly who I wanted to be now that I am here. Now I’m greasing the money wheels so that when the muse visits and helps me put together the next creative urge, I’ll be ready and able to produce it.
There’s a connection between productivity and creativity, and I’m gonna work it.
Friday, January 20, 2006
Ta-Daaaa!!!
It’s time to shift gears again. It’s time to make another run for it.
No, I’m not running away. I’m not even leaving town. But I am about to commence another life stage. I’m about to re-enter the White Collar Army. I’ve just accepted another job. I’m about to go back to “work.”
It happens. It happens frequently. Despite my having a fantasy of a lifestyle independent of corporate cash flow, I regularly pick up the opportunity to acquire one. What is it this time? Which stratum of American economics will I soon be entering in efforts to make a buck and set aside the funds necessary for the next bohemian phase?
I have conflicting feelings about telling you. But it suffices to say that it’s yet another realm of sales. It’s sales, through and through. It’s sales, pure and simple. It’s sales, as sales-y as sales gets. But I will NOT be serving as somebody’s “Assistant.” I will NO LONGER be anyone's "EA." Never again will I have to endure the pleas and cries of spoiled executives who feel they aren’t getting enough of my attention.
No, this time around (and once again), I will be the salesperson. I am a Salesman. And after everything I’ve been through while servicing salespeople in the farcical world of magazine advertising over the past three years, I’m damned glad to be a salesman once again.
So what will I be selling? Are you sure you want to know? Well, in a nutshell, mortgages. Yes, I am about to enter the realm of real estate that is often compared to used car sales. I’m going to be a Mortgage Broker. That means I’ll be spending most of my time in a Manhattan boiler room, yackin’ it up on the phone, competing with everyone around me to lock you into the best Re-Fi rate you can find – as long as it allows me enough wiggle-room to make a commission.
Commission. That’s the magic word. Let’s just hope it falls reasonably within the realm of white magic, and not black. (And if you put me in the postiton of having to defend that terminology in regards to racial politics then you are immediately off my contact list for the duration of this endeavor!) I’ve worked for commission before, and I’m sure to work for it again. I’m not one of those people who’s afraid of the word. Yeah, it brings up certain concerns, but it doesn’t prevent me from considering an opportunity. Truth is, commission jobs often pay way more than any salaried position can offer, but you have to be willing to take a risk, and you have to be patient.
I’ve been on the lookout for a commission job (that’s right, I’ve actually been seeking one) for six months now. I’ve interviewed with modeling agencies, real estate brokers, and more marketing firms than I can count on both hands. (“What do they do?,” you might ask. Well, just about anything that might make them a buck, from key chains to baseball hats to aprons and napsacks. If you can fit a company’s name on it, then they find a way to make it.) And I’ve been offered more jobs than I can count (well, on one hand, at least). I’ve been invited to run around Midtown showing overpriced apartments to New York’s ever-rotating white collar work force. I’ve been asked to schlep bags of pens, purses, T-shirts and sweatshirts all over the city's intricate subway system in order to get “face time” with influencial clients. And last but not least, I’ve been invited to participate in a less-than-reputable practice of Shipping and Receiving, assuring that one company’s international clients “receive all the goods they’ve ordered via the internet.” Now, if whatever this “company” is shipping falls under the umbrella of “things that are legal to ship,” then just why would they need to farm out their Shipping and Receiving? (Much less pay $1,000 per item sucessfully delivered???) Hence my reason for not jumping at that "opportunity."
So why have I been seeking a commission job? It’s quite simple, really. I’m used to taking risks, and I’ve seen that doing so will always eventually pay off. My entire life for the past 15 years has been about taking risks. And while most of those risks might not have paid off in the sense that I have lots of money and a solid investment portfolio, they have paid off in terms of life experience. I have no regrets about anything I’ve done. I only regret, as the saying goes, those things that I’ve not yet gotten around to.
I don’t want to regret not having particpated in the vast economic substratum that is New York real estate. As my recent (and, might I add, profitable) endeavors in Brooklyn apartment brokering have proven, it’s a lucrative arena. Over the past year, I’ve earned six months’ rent. Apartment brokering has done two things for me. It has left me in a state of awe and it has pushed me into a state of wonder (awe at the fact that I don’t have to write a rent check until April and wonder over the possibility of never having to write one again). If there’s one field in which one will always be able to make a living in New York, it’s New York real estate. No matter what the market does or how competitive it gets (barring an insurmountable terrorist attack or nuclear devastation itself), New York will always have a market for housing.
And so, as the fates would have it (as demonstrated by my having to perouse the Post as part of my responsibilities during that Thanksgiving temp gig I had at the Hearst Corporation), I came across an ad seeking what they now call “Loan Officers.” And I called it. But the voice mailbox for the number was full. That didn’t surprise me. So I put it on my calendar to call back after the holidays and find out what it was all about.
I called on January 4th. This time, the company’s manager picked right up. “You sound good on the phone,” he said, after I’d done little more than introduce myself. “Can you get here today?” I recognized a hard sell when I heard it, so I gave the most suitable (and in effect the most honest) answer.
“No,” I said, “I have apartment showings throughout this afternoon. But I can meet with you anytime tomorrow.”
“Oh,” the manager said, “That’s good for you. OK. Tomorrow it is.”
When I made it to their office the next day, in my typical skin-of-my-teeth “on time” fashion, the 20-something Latina receptionist with a Staten Island accent immediately announced my arrival. But Mr. Manager soon forgot about me. I sat in their reception area, taking calls from temp agencies and other potential employers all the while. At one point I remember saying, “No, I haven’t found a job yet, but I’m at an interview. They’re taking their time getting around to me” – daring phone chat for one in the position of seeking employment, but it worked in my favor. It presented me as someone with a busy phone, and with other things to do.
Eventually the receptionist got around to reminding the manager of my presence. The other end of the speakerphone then announced, “Oh, Christ, send him in. I forgot all about him.”
When I entered Jimmy G’s office (yes, that’s what they call him), I was immediately taken aback and began scanning for the camera that was shooting stock footage for the next Sopranos episode. He was swarthy beyond compare. He had a deep, gravel-y bass voice. He wore a navy blue pinstriped suit complete with a Rolex watch. He was accessorized by more than just one ring. There was no doubt about it. He was the image of mob success. There was no other way to perceive it.
His phones were ringing. People were constantly knocking on his door. But he managed to shrug it all off in efforts to give me a decent interview. He was surprised that I had a pen and paper; that I was inclined to take notes. He looked me up and down once – and only once – and seemed satisfied with what he saw. He proceeded to give me the basics about himself (did time on the Wall Street trading floor circa 1985-92), his company (based in Long Island and branching out to Manhattan), and its origins (“After seven years on the floor," [he] figured, “why should [he] keep on doing all the grunt work?”). He then informed me of his business plan (“10 desks, 5-10 deals each per month, each generating an average of 3-8 million gross in loans”). Then he told me what the commission would be from such gross funds, and he actually took out some checks made out to his Loan Officers which backed up the numbers he’d just given me.
There they were. The checks his brokers received. Right before they received them. I knew this was one of the oldest tricks in the book – showing a candidate the money before s/he could ever earn it – but I was enticed by it nonetheless. One of them had even been “whited out” and corrected. Would someone actually do that with a phony check? I preferred to think of it as an action taken by an accounting department that wanted to conserve paper. Lord knows I’d seen that many times before.
But like I said, I recognized one of the oldest tricks in the book. Despite my having been enticed by the show of checks, I was nowhere near convinced that the operation was legitimate as a result of it. However, there was more to my interview. Mr. Jimmy G allowed me to wander the floor after we’d finished talking. But before we’d finished talking, Mr. Jimmy had made it perfectly clear that I was invited to participate in his fiscal party. “You’re just what we’re looking for,” he said. “You’re well put together and articulate. You could do very well in this field.”
On the floor, I observed approximately 10 people, of all races and apparent socio-economic backgrounds, making calls, working computers, and filling out paperwork. I lingered a while, scanning the paperwork that was stacked by the fax. Mentally I took in the blank fields. They were applications. They had distinct spots that required filling: Name, Address, Date of Original Loan, Interest Rate, Amount Paid to Date, etc… It was obvious any idiot could fill them out.
One of the brokers spotted me, observed me observing the process, and then followed me out into the hall once I’d figured the entire interview process was over. He tapped me on the shoulder and pulled me aside. He was a well-dressed white man with brown hair. His skin was almost as pale as my own, and he had the same sort of dark circles underneath his blue eyes. In other words, he was a fellow white guy.
“So what’d ya think?” he asked me, Mephistophelian smirk all put into place.
“I’m not sure,” I answered. “He pulled the old trick of flashing the checks.”
“Was one of them made out to a Dan somebody?”
“Yeah, yeah. I think so.”
“That’s me.”
“Oh,” was all I could manage to say.
“Look,” the guy proceeded to tell me, “I won’t tell you this field is easy. It’s pretty grueling. But it’s not impossible. If you do the work, the money is ridiculous.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
“And you want me to know that because…?” I asked.
“Because I get a feeling you could do it. You’ll need to learn a lot, and you should take some courses if you don’t know anything about the field. But I didn’t know anything about the field, and I’m –“
“You’re Dan somebody,” I said for him.
“Yeah. Yeah, I am.”
“Nice to meet you. Thanks.”
Truth be told? I probably wouldn’t have given the operation a second glance based upon the interaction I’d had with Mr. Jimmy G. But the interaction I had with Dan Somebody put it all into a different perspective.
I went home and mulled over the day's events whilst drinkng a Martini and taking in a few bong hits. And I found that I’d become excited. It wasn’t a rational sort of excitement. It was much more the type of excitement I experience when I’m doing something “wrong” that’s ultimatley better for me in the long run than anything “right.” And I realized that I’d found the boiler room I’d been looking for. I’d been looking for a sales opportunity that dealt in some solid field and that had maximum payoff. I hadn't been looking to chase a few hundred bucks at a time. I hadn't even been looking to chase a few thousand. But several thousand plus? THAT I’d been chasing, and I could justify setting aside a few months to chase it full-time.
It doesn’t matter that the operation where I'll begin working next Monday might be less than legitimate or even connected to the mob. Even if it is, I believe it’s part of a huge industry with plenty of spaces to fill. I’ve been researching the field and I’ve learned that Mortgage Brokers are among the highest-paid sales professionals in the U.S., and that over 60% of them earn over $80,000 annually. It’s the business of making loans happen. It’s been around since the dawn of Capitalism and it’s not going away anytime soon. I’d like to learn more about it.
That’s all I’ll say about it at this point. I’d like to learn more about it. But I have a feeling what I’ll learn will prove invaluable – somewhere down the line. It’s gonna be a major lifestyle change. I’m gonna have to work from 10-8:00 every weekday. But I’ll be generating my own account list; entering data on my own spreadsheets, and making my own reservations for client dinners. I’ll be on the phone most of the day and chasing real estate agents the rest of the time. It’s a huge commitment, but I’m curiously ready to make it. I'm ready to (re-)enter the White Collar Army.
Say “Hello” to your friend, the Mortgage Broker. You haven't, by any chance, been considering a ReFi lately, have you?
No, I’m not running away. I’m not even leaving town. But I am about to commence another life stage. I’m about to re-enter the White Collar Army. I’ve just accepted another job. I’m about to go back to “work.”
It happens. It happens frequently. Despite my having a fantasy of a lifestyle independent of corporate cash flow, I regularly pick up the opportunity to acquire one. What is it this time? Which stratum of American economics will I soon be entering in efforts to make a buck and set aside the funds necessary for the next bohemian phase?
I have conflicting feelings about telling you. But it suffices to say that it’s yet another realm of sales. It’s sales, through and through. It’s sales, pure and simple. It’s sales, as sales-y as sales gets. But I will NOT be serving as somebody’s “Assistant.” I will NO LONGER be anyone's "EA." Never again will I have to endure the pleas and cries of spoiled executives who feel they aren’t getting enough of my attention.
No, this time around (and once again), I will be the salesperson. I am a Salesman. And after everything I’ve been through while servicing salespeople in the farcical world of magazine advertising over the past three years, I’m damned glad to be a salesman once again.
So what will I be selling? Are you sure you want to know? Well, in a nutshell, mortgages. Yes, I am about to enter the realm of real estate that is often compared to used car sales. I’m going to be a Mortgage Broker. That means I’ll be spending most of my time in a Manhattan boiler room, yackin’ it up on the phone, competing with everyone around me to lock you into the best Re-Fi rate you can find – as long as it allows me enough wiggle-room to make a commission.
Commission. That’s the magic word. Let’s just hope it falls reasonably within the realm of white magic, and not black. (And if you put me in the postiton of having to defend that terminology in regards to racial politics then you are immediately off my contact list for the duration of this endeavor!) I’ve worked for commission before, and I’m sure to work for it again. I’m not one of those people who’s afraid of the word. Yeah, it brings up certain concerns, but it doesn’t prevent me from considering an opportunity. Truth is, commission jobs often pay way more than any salaried position can offer, but you have to be willing to take a risk, and you have to be patient.
I’ve been on the lookout for a commission job (that’s right, I’ve actually been seeking one) for six months now. I’ve interviewed with modeling agencies, real estate brokers, and more marketing firms than I can count on both hands. (“What do they do?,” you might ask. Well, just about anything that might make them a buck, from key chains to baseball hats to aprons and napsacks. If you can fit a company’s name on it, then they find a way to make it.) And I’ve been offered more jobs than I can count (well, on one hand, at least). I’ve been invited to run around Midtown showing overpriced apartments to New York’s ever-rotating white collar work force. I’ve been asked to schlep bags of pens, purses, T-shirts and sweatshirts all over the city's intricate subway system in order to get “face time” with influencial clients. And last but not least, I’ve been invited to participate in a less-than-reputable practice of Shipping and Receiving, assuring that one company’s international clients “receive all the goods they’ve ordered via the internet.” Now, if whatever this “company” is shipping falls under the umbrella of “things that are legal to ship,” then just why would they need to farm out their Shipping and Receiving? (Much less pay $1,000 per item sucessfully delivered???) Hence my reason for not jumping at that "opportunity."
So why have I been seeking a commission job? It’s quite simple, really. I’m used to taking risks, and I’ve seen that doing so will always eventually pay off. My entire life for the past 15 years has been about taking risks. And while most of those risks might not have paid off in the sense that I have lots of money and a solid investment portfolio, they have paid off in terms of life experience. I have no regrets about anything I’ve done. I only regret, as the saying goes, those things that I’ve not yet gotten around to.
I don’t want to regret not having particpated in the vast economic substratum that is New York real estate. As my recent (and, might I add, profitable) endeavors in Brooklyn apartment brokering have proven, it’s a lucrative arena. Over the past year, I’ve earned six months’ rent. Apartment brokering has done two things for me. It has left me in a state of awe and it has pushed me into a state of wonder (awe at the fact that I don’t have to write a rent check until April and wonder over the possibility of never having to write one again). If there’s one field in which one will always be able to make a living in New York, it’s New York real estate. No matter what the market does or how competitive it gets (barring an insurmountable terrorist attack or nuclear devastation itself), New York will always have a market for housing.
And so, as the fates would have it (as demonstrated by my having to perouse the Post as part of my responsibilities during that Thanksgiving temp gig I had at the Hearst Corporation), I came across an ad seeking what they now call “Loan Officers.” And I called it. But the voice mailbox for the number was full. That didn’t surprise me. So I put it on my calendar to call back after the holidays and find out what it was all about.
I called on January 4th. This time, the company’s manager picked right up. “You sound good on the phone,” he said, after I’d done little more than introduce myself. “Can you get here today?” I recognized a hard sell when I heard it, so I gave the most suitable (and in effect the most honest) answer.
“No,” I said, “I have apartment showings throughout this afternoon. But I can meet with you anytime tomorrow.”
“Oh,” the manager said, “That’s good for you. OK. Tomorrow it is.”
When I made it to their office the next day, in my typical skin-of-my-teeth “on time” fashion, the 20-something Latina receptionist with a Staten Island accent immediately announced my arrival. But Mr. Manager soon forgot about me. I sat in their reception area, taking calls from temp agencies and other potential employers all the while. At one point I remember saying, “No, I haven’t found a job yet, but I’m at an interview. They’re taking their time getting around to me” – daring phone chat for one in the position of seeking employment, but it worked in my favor. It presented me as someone with a busy phone, and with other things to do.
Eventually the receptionist got around to reminding the manager of my presence. The other end of the speakerphone then announced, “Oh, Christ, send him in. I forgot all about him.”
When I entered Jimmy G’s office (yes, that’s what they call him), I was immediately taken aback and began scanning for the camera that was shooting stock footage for the next Sopranos episode. He was swarthy beyond compare. He had a deep, gravel-y bass voice. He wore a navy blue pinstriped suit complete with a Rolex watch. He was accessorized by more than just one ring. There was no doubt about it. He was the image of mob success. There was no other way to perceive it.
His phones were ringing. People were constantly knocking on his door. But he managed to shrug it all off in efforts to give me a decent interview. He was surprised that I had a pen and paper; that I was inclined to take notes. He looked me up and down once – and only once – and seemed satisfied with what he saw. He proceeded to give me the basics about himself (did time on the Wall Street trading floor circa 1985-92), his company (based in Long Island and branching out to Manhattan), and its origins (“After seven years on the floor," [he] figured, “why should [he] keep on doing all the grunt work?”). He then informed me of his business plan (“10 desks, 5-10 deals each per month, each generating an average of 3-8 million gross in loans”). Then he told me what the commission would be from such gross funds, and he actually took out some checks made out to his Loan Officers which backed up the numbers he’d just given me.
There they were. The checks his brokers received. Right before they received them. I knew this was one of the oldest tricks in the book – showing a candidate the money before s/he could ever earn it – but I was enticed by it nonetheless. One of them had even been “whited out” and corrected. Would someone actually do that with a phony check? I preferred to think of it as an action taken by an accounting department that wanted to conserve paper. Lord knows I’d seen that many times before.
But like I said, I recognized one of the oldest tricks in the book. Despite my having been enticed by the show of checks, I was nowhere near convinced that the operation was legitimate as a result of it. However, there was more to my interview. Mr. Jimmy G allowed me to wander the floor after we’d finished talking. But before we’d finished talking, Mr. Jimmy had made it perfectly clear that I was invited to participate in his fiscal party. “You’re just what we’re looking for,” he said. “You’re well put together and articulate. You could do very well in this field.”
On the floor, I observed approximately 10 people, of all races and apparent socio-economic backgrounds, making calls, working computers, and filling out paperwork. I lingered a while, scanning the paperwork that was stacked by the fax. Mentally I took in the blank fields. They were applications. They had distinct spots that required filling: Name, Address, Date of Original Loan, Interest Rate, Amount Paid to Date, etc… It was obvious any idiot could fill them out.
One of the brokers spotted me, observed me observing the process, and then followed me out into the hall once I’d figured the entire interview process was over. He tapped me on the shoulder and pulled me aside. He was a well-dressed white man with brown hair. His skin was almost as pale as my own, and he had the same sort of dark circles underneath his blue eyes. In other words, he was a fellow white guy.
“So what’d ya think?” he asked me, Mephistophelian smirk all put into place.
“I’m not sure,” I answered. “He pulled the old trick of flashing the checks.”
“Was one of them made out to a Dan somebody?”
“Yeah, yeah. I think so.”
“That’s me.”
“Oh,” was all I could manage to say.
“Look,” the guy proceeded to tell me, “I won’t tell you this field is easy. It’s pretty grueling. But it’s not impossible. If you do the work, the money is ridiculous.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
“And you want me to know that because…?” I asked.
“Because I get a feeling you could do it. You’ll need to learn a lot, and you should take some courses if you don’t know anything about the field. But I didn’t know anything about the field, and I’m –“
“You’re Dan somebody,” I said for him.
“Yeah. Yeah, I am.”
“Nice to meet you. Thanks.”
Truth be told? I probably wouldn’t have given the operation a second glance based upon the interaction I’d had with Mr. Jimmy G. But the interaction I had with Dan Somebody put it all into a different perspective.
I went home and mulled over the day's events whilst drinkng a Martini and taking in a few bong hits. And I found that I’d become excited. It wasn’t a rational sort of excitement. It was much more the type of excitement I experience when I’m doing something “wrong” that’s ultimatley better for me in the long run than anything “right.” And I realized that I’d found the boiler room I’d been looking for. I’d been looking for a sales opportunity that dealt in some solid field and that had maximum payoff. I hadn't been looking to chase a few hundred bucks at a time. I hadn't even been looking to chase a few thousand. But several thousand plus? THAT I’d been chasing, and I could justify setting aside a few months to chase it full-time.
It doesn’t matter that the operation where I'll begin working next Monday might be less than legitimate or even connected to the mob. Even if it is, I believe it’s part of a huge industry with plenty of spaces to fill. I’ve been researching the field and I’ve learned that Mortgage Brokers are among the highest-paid sales professionals in the U.S., and that over 60% of them earn over $80,000 annually. It’s the business of making loans happen. It’s been around since the dawn of Capitalism and it’s not going away anytime soon. I’d like to learn more about it.
That’s all I’ll say about it at this point. I’d like to learn more about it. But I have a feeling what I’ll learn will prove invaluable – somewhere down the line. It’s gonna be a major lifestyle change. I’m gonna have to work from 10-8:00 every weekday. But I’ll be generating my own account list; entering data on my own spreadsheets, and making my own reservations for client dinners. I’ll be on the phone most of the day and chasing real estate agents the rest of the time. It’s a huge commitment, but I’m curiously ready to make it. I'm ready to (re-)enter the White Collar Army.
Say “Hello” to your friend, the Mortgage Broker. You haven't, by any chance, been considering a ReFi lately, have you?
Saturday, January 07, 2006
Re-Velveteened
Oh, My Friggin’ Christ.
I think I’m losing touch with reality. Or, more specifically, bourgeois reality. But then, even having to clarify something as basic as reality reassures me I’m only further experiencing my own reality – which, contrary to popular belief – isn’t bourgeois. So I guess all I meant to say when I introduced this entry via, “I think I’m losing touch with reality” was, “I’m obviously having another wrestling match with bourgeois reality.” There. That’s more like it. Hope you get what I mean.
‘Cuz I mean it anyway – I’m losing touch with reality! Again! See, that’s the thing about life in the Velveteen Rabbit zone. It’s not like the moral would have you think. It’s not enough to get real just once. In order to keep being real, you have to keep getting real… Again, again, and again… ad infinitum…
Tell me, please: Am I real?
I’d like to believe so. I’d like to believe I did my homework, way back in San Francisco in 1992. But that was over a decade ago, and, well, here in New York – on the verge of 2006 – I’m getting a liitle impatient. I’m impatient for some Return On Investment. I’m lookin’ for that ROI. I’m waitin’ for the payoff for bein’ real.
But so far, the only payoff for bein’ real I’ve experienced is more reality. Of my sort, that is… Which ISN’T the sort I started this passage off talkin’ about. Argh!
One friend told me to re-visit Death in Venice. I’m sure that’s worthy advice, but I’ve just finished revisiting SlaughterHouse 5, Siddartha, and Steppenwolf, so I think I’m covered as far as the eternal artist’s struggle against the bourgeois sensibilty goes… At this point, I’m just wondering how I’m ever going to contribute my own slice to that pie?
Anyway, I’ll pick up a copy of Death... Just to be sure.
But this business of being “informed so that one might create deeper literature” – I’ve gotta tell you, it’s what’s got me in a stand-still. It started with Grad School in Theatre way back in ’94… Learnin’ ‘bout my craft just sucked the wind right outta my sails. THAT, if truth be told, is the real reason I don’t pursue Theatre again. Or writing, or performing, or anything literary.
We got us a bit of a problem. We got us a writer who doesn’t wanna write – much less read or perform. UGH.
And I don’t know where to begin, when it comes to analyzing that problem. When it comes to breaking it down and recognizing the reasons why I’ve chosen to remain stagnant within the realm of “just getting by” and failed to continue to follow my artistic path. No, I might not know where to begin. But I do know which clues to drop…
Take, for instance, the observations I’ve accumulated from my functioning-alcoholic parents and their approach to life. I’ve come to emulate them almost down to the wire. Sometime during my 30s, a voice went off inside my head. It said, “Hey: You’re not getting any younger! Isn’t about time you started that drinking habit?” And so I did. As my Irish Catholic cheeks began to lose their blush of youth, I made damned sure it was replaced by the blush of blossoming (functioning) alcoholism.
Martini, anyone?
And then there’s the eternal obsession with “the steady paycheck.” Just how many of you have I bored to tears in recent years with my litanies of chasing profit? I’m sorry.
Real estate. Long distance telephone services. Gym memberships. Advertising. And then real estate again. And soon, perhaps, more advertising! When will these distractions cease to be distractions? I’ll tell you when they’ll stop: WHEN I HAVE SOME SUITABLE MEANS OF INCOME TO REPLACE THEM.
It’s the eternal artist’s paradox. You work because you have to pay your rent and bills. The time and energy you spend working takes away from your ability to produce your next work, which could hypothetically (finally!) land you in a position of being able to support yourself by your “work.” The awareness of this sick situatation renders you less than fully capable of performing your “work,” which triggers an ugly cycle vacillating between your potential self-satisfaction (in that you’re able to support yourself through working) dissipating into your self-loathing (in that you’re unable to support your “work”).
And I’m stuck thick in the middle of that paradox, here, in NYC – one of America’s most expensive cities.
But I’m gonna battle the paradox, through and through. I always have. I don’t care if it looks as though I’ve bounced from one fiscal failure to another. Those fiscal failures all supported me for a while, and got me to this point, which is here – now.
If I’m still alive and questioning then there’s still hope.
How’s this for a dose of reality: Maybe, just maybe, I’ve been too preoccupied with JUST GETTING BY to allow myself the luxury of pursuing higher goals? Perhaps, just perhaps, I’ve been trapping myself in a cycle of perpetual (REQUISITE) bohemianism by not allowing myself to assume some of my upper middle class white privilege. In other words, maybe a professional job and salary might pave the way for me to consider taking future artisitc risks. Lord knows not having any money certainly has prevented me from taking any. Even though I’ve had the time to pursue an artisitc lifestyle, I haven’t had the money. After all, even a bohemian career requires some start-up capital.
So don’t hate me if I tell you in my next post that I’ve just become a Mortgage Broker. I hear the money’s killer in that field.
I think I’m losing touch with reality. Or, more specifically, bourgeois reality. But then, even having to clarify something as basic as reality reassures me I’m only further experiencing my own reality – which, contrary to popular belief – isn’t bourgeois. So I guess all I meant to say when I introduced this entry via, “I think I’m losing touch with reality” was, “I’m obviously having another wrestling match with bourgeois reality.” There. That’s more like it. Hope you get what I mean.
‘Cuz I mean it anyway – I’m losing touch with reality! Again! See, that’s the thing about life in the Velveteen Rabbit zone. It’s not like the moral would have you think. It’s not enough to get real just once. In order to keep being real, you have to keep getting real… Again, again, and again… ad infinitum…
Tell me, please: Am I real?
I’d like to believe so. I’d like to believe I did my homework, way back in San Francisco in 1992. But that was over a decade ago, and, well, here in New York – on the verge of 2006 – I’m getting a liitle impatient. I’m impatient for some Return On Investment. I’m lookin’ for that ROI. I’m waitin’ for the payoff for bein’ real.
But so far, the only payoff for bein’ real I’ve experienced is more reality. Of my sort, that is… Which ISN’T the sort I started this passage off talkin’ about. Argh!
One friend told me to re-visit Death in Venice. I’m sure that’s worthy advice, but I’ve just finished revisiting SlaughterHouse 5, Siddartha, and Steppenwolf, so I think I’m covered as far as the eternal artist’s struggle against the bourgeois sensibilty goes… At this point, I’m just wondering how I’m ever going to contribute my own slice to that pie?
Anyway, I’ll pick up a copy of Death... Just to be sure.
But this business of being “informed so that one might create deeper literature” – I’ve gotta tell you, it’s what’s got me in a stand-still. It started with Grad School in Theatre way back in ’94… Learnin’ ‘bout my craft just sucked the wind right outta my sails. THAT, if truth be told, is the real reason I don’t pursue Theatre again. Or writing, or performing, or anything literary.
We got us a bit of a problem. We got us a writer who doesn’t wanna write – much less read or perform. UGH.
And I don’t know where to begin, when it comes to analyzing that problem. When it comes to breaking it down and recognizing the reasons why I’ve chosen to remain stagnant within the realm of “just getting by” and failed to continue to follow my artistic path. No, I might not know where to begin. But I do know which clues to drop…
Take, for instance, the observations I’ve accumulated from my functioning-alcoholic parents and their approach to life. I’ve come to emulate them almost down to the wire. Sometime during my 30s, a voice went off inside my head. It said, “Hey: You’re not getting any younger! Isn’t about time you started that drinking habit?” And so I did. As my Irish Catholic cheeks began to lose their blush of youth, I made damned sure it was replaced by the blush of blossoming (functioning) alcoholism.
Martini, anyone?
And then there’s the eternal obsession with “the steady paycheck.” Just how many of you have I bored to tears in recent years with my litanies of chasing profit? I’m sorry.
Real estate. Long distance telephone services. Gym memberships. Advertising. And then real estate again. And soon, perhaps, more advertising! When will these distractions cease to be distractions? I’ll tell you when they’ll stop: WHEN I HAVE SOME SUITABLE MEANS OF INCOME TO REPLACE THEM.
It’s the eternal artist’s paradox. You work because you have to pay your rent and bills. The time and energy you spend working takes away from your ability to produce your next work, which could hypothetically (finally!) land you in a position of being able to support yourself by your “work.” The awareness of this sick situatation renders you less than fully capable of performing your “work,” which triggers an ugly cycle vacillating between your potential self-satisfaction (in that you’re able to support yourself through working) dissipating into your self-loathing (in that you’re unable to support your “work”).
And I’m stuck thick in the middle of that paradox, here, in NYC – one of America’s most expensive cities.
But I’m gonna battle the paradox, through and through. I always have. I don’t care if it looks as though I’ve bounced from one fiscal failure to another. Those fiscal failures all supported me for a while, and got me to this point, which is here – now.
If I’m still alive and questioning then there’s still hope.
How’s this for a dose of reality: Maybe, just maybe, I’ve been too preoccupied with JUST GETTING BY to allow myself the luxury of pursuing higher goals? Perhaps, just perhaps, I’ve been trapping myself in a cycle of perpetual (REQUISITE) bohemianism by not allowing myself to assume some of my upper middle class white privilege. In other words, maybe a professional job and salary might pave the way for me to consider taking future artisitc risks. Lord knows not having any money certainly has prevented me from taking any. Even though I’ve had the time to pursue an artisitc lifestyle, I haven’t had the money. After all, even a bohemian career requires some start-up capital.
So don’t hate me if I tell you in my next post that I’ve just become a Mortgage Broker. I hear the money’s killer in that field.
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