2008 - starting off well..
wow, 2008 starting off well. Who would have thought the date would change things. Maybe it's a mindset. Among everybody. Anyhow,I spent my New Years with Jackie, as is tradition , at our Russian restaurant. tasty. Good to see Jackie. I think it had been exactly a year. She is possibly going to be heading up a retouching department in some fantastic new place and offered to take me on as an intern to learn the shit. Fuck yeah. Wasn't that the idea four years ago? I would like for that to pan out....
Last week I spent a lonely day in the east village. I shopped the after christmas sales but I was really too late to get anything good. The day was looking crappy. I went to Blue Nine for a delicious burger. They always have a stack of the NY Press on the counter. I ordered my burger and tried to read the paper. To be honest, I think the NY Press sucks. I always thumb through it looking for something interesting and it always disappoints. Except for the sex column - that's okay and it's what I usually end up reading as I salt my cheeseburger and eat it, but generally it tends to focus on gay guys asking for details on what they are doing wrong with a blow job, and 'hey - is it cool to give a rim job on the first date?' Funny that this is what I read while eating at Blue Nine. I wonder if years from now I will associate the flavor of the wonderous Blue Nine burgers with sexual questions and insecurities. Or god forbid, rim jobs and the like.
ANYWAYS....... As I finished my burger I swept back through the paper and caught a block of type in the front that said WRITERS WANTED "send us a pitch and a few clips of your writing"
well.... what the fuck else do I have to do? But the only clips I have are this journal. And what was I gonna pitch? Then it dawned on me that I should pitch part of this very journal. Because, you know, it would have to show up as a series and all. I wrote to the editor:
Hi David,
I gather you get a lot of mail, so I will make this brief and cross my fingers. Here is my pitch: hundreds (or maybe even thousands) of people come to NY every month to fulfill their dreams, whatever those may be. I am one of those people who moved here with a single duffle bag and have had one hell of a time exploring this fine city. It has been the best and worst of times. (but really, even in the worst, it's the best.) I have been keeping a journal since I moved here, and I think it would maybe work as a kind of 'Hey, I'm a new New Yorker too! Read my horror and heartwarming stories and relate!'
These excerpts (attached) may need additional work, but I think they will give you a feel for my style and perspective. I hope you will read them and consider me as a potential contributor.
Regards,
Tanya D.
I had been thinking that I should wait until morning and polish what I had up - make them more readable and interesting, but after a few beers I said to myself "fuck it, it's not like I'm gonna get a response anyways." I tried to clean up the obvious typos and sent two journal entries in basically their raw form.
The next morning I cringed. How stupid to send some half-assed shit to a fancy editor.?!!!! But in my email was this message:
tanya,
this is interesting. could you send me the first journal entry so i could see how your story starts? also, if you could tell me a little about how/why you happened to move here and a little personal background that would be great.
regards, david blum
So I promptly sent him the first one, which sounds incredibly naive and perhaps some might take it as racist. I wouldn't, but now I'm all sensitive about that shit and all. Really, I just sound ignorant. I sound like a brand new New Yorker.
'
anyway, That was Tuesday and I haven't heard from him since, so I suspect he lost interest. But I am still tremendously complimented that he took the time to say 'hmmmm....interesting...tell me more.'
I do find it kind of annoying that he didn't write back to confirm that he was not interested. I was just left hanging.
whatever.
I had a job interview at some fancy design firm in Soho the other day. a Rolls Royce drove by me on my way there. I wore my fancy green raincoat to look like I knew what was up with style. They share a space with a PR firm called Nasty Little Boy, who answers their phone "hello, nasty" which is where the Beastie Boys got the title of their album. That PR firm represents (or did ) them. So my interview took place under a numbered original Beastie Boys concert poster. I really liked the guy. The interview lasted at least an hour. We talked about all kinds of shit - some job stuff, and then we went into sleep cycles and REM sleep and military
experiments. He confessed that if He weren't the owner of his company he would like to be a doorman. and his doorman is one of his best friends and hangs out at his apartment all the time. The interview was going fabulously. I was laughing for real, not the pretend shit that you usually have to conjure up in one of these situations. I genuinely liked the guy and his humor. Then he says that what he really loves is fighting with people and making up with them. In every relationship he has had, he is waiting for that point of contention where people behave oddly, and he is always looking for that, wondering how people will behave in a fight, how they will make up.
interesting.
I almost wondered if this was some kind of passive-aggressive hitting on me, but then he called the interview to an abrupt end - perhaps sensing my curiosity, and showed me photos of his three sons. That made me feel better and slightly foolish simultaneously , but at the same time he was kind of cute in a nerdy way and I was seriously a little dissappointed that he wasn't thinking I was the most fabulous woman on earth who he lusted after.
Nevertheless, I think he is going to call me - if only for a temp assignment or on a freelance basis. I'm totally cool with that though - the job sounds fucking awesome. So awesome that I am actually really nervous that he *will* in fact call and ask me to show up. I really don't have much experience. I have no fucking idea if I can deliver what he wants. Maybe he likes that. maybe that opens the doors to our first fight. But overall, I think we got along quite well.I think he thought so too. I noticed that he felt free to say "shit" and "fuck" within the first five minutes of the interview, which isn't normal unless you feel at ease. I may have even dropped the F bomb myself. And I felt totally at ease telling him I did not want to work with "shitty coworkers" or "hate my job".
I think he's going to call me.
That might just be really fucking cool. And it doesn't hurt that rock stars will be dropping into our office space from time to time...
but this is all premature.
who knows whats to come?
Last week I spent a lonely day in the east village. I shopped the after christmas sales but I was really too late to get anything good. The day was looking crappy. I went to Blue Nine for a delicious burger. They always have a stack of the NY Press on the counter. I ordered my burger and tried to read the paper. To be honest, I think the NY Press sucks. I always thumb through it looking for something interesting and it always disappoints. Except for the sex column - that's okay and it's what I usually end up reading as I salt my cheeseburger and eat it, but generally it tends to focus on gay guys asking for details on what they are doing wrong with a blow job, and 'hey - is it cool to give a rim job on the first date?' Funny that this is what I read while eating at Blue Nine. I wonder if years from now I will associate the flavor of the wonderous Blue Nine burgers with sexual questions and insecurities. Or god forbid, rim jobs and the like.
ANYWAYS....... As I finished my burger I swept back through the paper and caught a block of type in the front that said WRITERS WANTED "send us a pitch and a few clips of your writing"
well.... what the fuck else do I have to do? But the only clips I have are this journal. And what was I gonna pitch? Then it dawned on me that I should pitch part of this very journal. Because, you know, it would have to show up as a series and all. I wrote to the editor:
Hi David,
I gather you get a lot of mail, so I will make this brief and cross my fingers. Here is my pitch: hundreds (or maybe even thousands) of people come to NY every month to fulfill their dreams, whatever those may be. I am one of those people who moved here with a single duffle bag and have had one hell of a time exploring this fine city. It has been the best and worst of times. (but really, even in the worst, it's the best.) I have been keeping a journal since I moved here, and I think it would maybe work as a kind of 'Hey, I'm a new New Yorker too! Read my horror and heartwarming stories and relate!'
These excerpts (attached) may need additional work, but I think they will give you a feel for my style and perspective. I hope you will read them and consider me as a potential contributor.
Regards,
Tanya D.
I had been thinking that I should wait until morning and polish what I had up - make them more readable and interesting, but after a few beers I said to myself "fuck it, it's not like I'm gonna get a response anyways." I tried to clean up the obvious typos and sent two journal entries in basically their raw form.
The next morning I cringed. How stupid to send some half-assed shit to a fancy editor.?!!!! But in my email was this message:
tanya,
this is interesting. could you send me the first journal entry so i could see how your story starts? also, if you could tell me a little about how/why you happened to move here and a little personal background that would be great.
regards, david blum
So I promptly sent him the first one, which sounds incredibly naive and perhaps some might take it as racist. I wouldn't, but now I'm all sensitive about that shit and all. Really, I just sound ignorant. I sound like a brand new New Yorker.
'
anyway, That was Tuesday and I haven't heard from him since, so I suspect he lost interest. But I am still tremendously complimented that he took the time to say 'hmmmm....interesting...tell me more.'
I do find it kind of annoying that he didn't write back to confirm that he was not interested. I was just left hanging.
whatever.
I had a job interview at some fancy design firm in Soho the other day. a Rolls Royce drove by me on my way there. I wore my fancy green raincoat to look like I knew what was up with style. They share a space with a PR firm called Nasty Little Boy, who answers their phone "hello, nasty" which is where the Beastie Boys got the title of their album. That PR firm represents (or did ) them. So my interview took place under a numbered original Beastie Boys concert poster. I really liked the guy. The interview lasted at least an hour. We talked about all kinds of shit - some job stuff, and then we went into sleep cycles and REM sleep and military
experiments. He confessed that if He weren't the owner of his company he would like to be a doorman. and his doorman is one of his best friends and hangs out at his apartment all the time. The interview was going fabulously. I was laughing for real, not the pretend shit that you usually have to conjure up in one of these situations. I genuinely liked the guy and his humor. Then he says that what he really loves is fighting with people and making up with them. In every relationship he has had, he is waiting for that point of contention where people behave oddly, and he is always looking for that, wondering how people will behave in a fight, how they will make up.
interesting.
I almost wondered if this was some kind of passive-aggressive hitting on me, but then he called the interview to an abrupt end - perhaps sensing my curiosity, and showed me photos of his three sons. That made me feel better and slightly foolish simultaneously , but at the same time he was kind of cute in a nerdy way and I was seriously a little dissappointed that he wasn't thinking I was the most fabulous woman on earth who he lusted after.
Nevertheless, I think he is going to call me - if only for a temp assignment or on a freelance basis. I'm totally cool with that though - the job sounds fucking awesome. So awesome that I am actually really nervous that he *will* in fact call and ask me to show up. I really don't have much experience. I have no fucking idea if I can deliver what he wants. Maybe he likes that. maybe that opens the doors to our first fight. But overall, I think we got along quite well.I think he thought so too. I noticed that he felt free to say "shit" and "fuck" within the first five minutes of the interview, which isn't normal unless you feel at ease. I may have even dropped the F bomb myself. And I felt totally at ease telling him I did not want to work with "shitty coworkers" or "hate my job".
I think he's going to call me.
That might just be really fucking cool. And it doesn't hurt that rock stars will be dropping into our office space from time to time...
but this is all premature.
who knows whats to come?