New Songs
Monday, June 30th, 2008If anyone is interested I have recorded and posted some new tunes recently on the myspace. They are “Crushing Blows,” “Instrumental #1,” and my own rendition of the Joiner Inners classic “Thunderless.” Enjoy!
Archive for the ‘whatever’ Category
New Job Redux
Tuesday, June 24th, 2008I got a request for an update on my new job. My update is that i no longer have that job. I am not going to say that i got screwed because the guy that fired me was too nice for me to get too upset about it but i will say that i was misled. I dont think its worth it to go into the exact details about what happened. I have put it behind me. My issue is that i quit my job at Gartner, which i hated but was a secured position, to work at Yale, took a pay cut and then got fired. So now i have no job. while i would like to feel really stoked about not working i feel anything but. I feel like i have hit a gross number of dead ends in my job search, I send out dozens of resumes everyday and fail to hear back on a lot of them. Is this customary practice in the business world? I have no idea. It seems like it might be. I almost had a job working at another Barnes and Noble but that fell through as well. I would love the opportunity to blame somebody else for this but because it isnt any single persons fault i will blame myself. One, for being hasty and two, for being unable to cope with the depression that would wash over me every morning when i woke up and realized i had to go to work at Gartner. which sucked because i always looked forward to the moments that surrounded my daily decent into hell. I liked getting coffee every morning. I like listening to talk radio. When i got to work and after fighting my way past the awkward nod hellos and mindless sports chatter with people i didnt really care to know I liked sitting down at my desk blowing on my coffee scrolling through the New York Times online, opening my email, when it was fantasy football season, checking on my league. I also liked going home. I liked packing up my gear as quietly as i could and slipping out like a ninja so i wouldnt have to say goodbye to anyone or exchange plans for the evening. it really made me happy not to care what people were planning on having for dinner or whether or not they would try to make it to the gym. So, i liked walking silently away from these major annoyances and getting into my car and blasting some tunes so loud that it disturbed anyone who might be having a conversation in the parking lot. These are things that i liked that made my working life remotely bearable for those 18 months. here is what i didnt like: being told what to do by someone who has no idea what to do, being the only person who is held accountable for anything, writing me up for being late even though i was never late because the other idiots in my department who were always late might get mad because they got written up and i didnt, being asked to do work other people were supposed to be doing but didnt feel like doing, having to come up with a new plan for lunch everyday, having my calls monitored by someone who doesnt know what he is supposed to be listening for thus negating the whole purpose of a call monitoring system, office wide birthday parties, birthday cards from executives i had never met, and the notion that Gartner isnt trying earn my love by feeding my for free once a week. Listen up corporate America. if you want to earn our loyalty and our respect this is what you do. Hire people that know what they are doing, fire people who dont know what they are doing. Stop being passive aggressive slobs when it comes to disciplining people and dont try to buy my love like you by love from a toddler with company branded presents and free pizza. I am not a two years old. I am also not an idiot. I said before that i blame myself and i do. I wish i had handled everything better. and every other second of everyday that has gone by since i quit Gartner do i wish i could go back? yeah i do, because it was work and not working for someone like me, details details, is not ideal, especially when you have to pay rent and for food and gas. But i think i can land on my feet, or rather i know i can land on my feet. i think i will be ok and next time, if i get a job in a similar environment as Gartner i will try harder to stay positive. It doesnt feel like this post has an ending…
A Combination of Things
Saturday, June 7th, 2008This gas thing is starting to freak me out a little bit. Its not that I really mind all that much paying 4.30 for gas but its the way that it has been presented us. It feels like only one in a combination of shades that have been systematically lifted off of the way we had been living for several years. Yes there was a war in Iraq but it never effected us adversely, unless you had a loved one over there, but for the most of us it never came that close to effecting us on any kind of personal level. But then the housing crisis came and the economy slowed down, and the government sent us $600 for free in the hopes that we wouldnt freak out when the gas prices hit 4 bucks and a lot of this was due to the amount of money that we have been ceaselessly pumping into the war. It seems like one thing after another after another is starting to go wrong or not wrong precisely but backwards. It isnt the end of the world but I am starting to see that at some point there will be one. Global warming and record amounts of tropical storms, hurricanes and floods. and on top of that we have to live with David Cook as our American Idol!!! Its all just starting to get to me i guess.-> The new Spiritualized album is pretty good, its a grower. The new Weezer album is very bad.-> I liked Indiana Jones 4 but Shia Lebouf was sort of a mistake and the scene where he swings on vines with a bunch of monkeys is perhaps the worst scene in the history of cinema.->Celtics in 6-> Im writing this on a Mac and for whatever reason it doesnt register when i make a new paragraph.-> I havent read a good book in a while any suggestions?-> and finally good work to the Democrats for finally getting their act together and picking a candidate however in my current state of mind I dont have very high hopes for November. I think America likes crazy people and John McCain might be the craziest. Imagine if he makes Mitt Romney his running mate? they would spend all of their time smiling insanely at each other reminiscing about what it was like when they both believed totally different things than they do now and comparing the taste of the Republican teet!
New Job
Thursday, May 29th, 2008I got a new job so my last day at Gartner is tomorrow. My ultimate goal is to make sure no one but my boss knows that I am leaving and slip away quietly avoiding all of the annoying goodbyes from people that i dont even like. I cant even begin to imagine what any of them would write in a card. “Tom good luck at your new job. May your evil looks stay deliciously evil and may your sighs and groans of anger and dismay forever ring within the halls of this corporate rat trap. Keep in touch.” Maybe i will tell people. that card sounds hilarious. I will now be a manager at the Yale Bookstore. They are going to start me off managing the cafe, which is cool because i like coffee more than is probably healthy. Hopefully if a job in the actual bookstore opens up i will be primed to swoop in and take it. I suppose this is not my ideal job. One of the things is have learned while on this frantic I-need-to-get-out-of-Gartner-as-soon-as-humanly-possible-before-I-throw-my-company-issued-computer-out-the-window job search, is that i dont think i have a realistic ideal job. My ideal job is floating somewhere in the imaginary matter of my brain and thats cool i guess. However i know that i can be happy back working for the Barnes. If B Dalton hadnt closed i would still working there. I enjoy the atmosphere of a bookstore, how bookstores look and smell. It will be nice to experience that everyday instead of what i go through now which makes me want to vomit. I have never been able to adjust to Gartners line of work and the lifestyle that it tended to breed in people. I suppose its a character flaw and i am sorry for that but i just could never adjust. But things just got a little better today. I will let everyone know on Monday if things perhaps will start to get a lot better.
The Dark Tower, PA, and anything else that i can think of
Wednesday, April 23rd, 2008I am reading the Dark Tower again. I found the first 4 books in their audio versions at the library last week and paid whopping $7 for them all, the library’s suggested donation price. I had been wanting to read them again but i didnt want to read them again. so this is nice, i get to experience them in a new medium.
Hillary won last night. I cared so little about the outcome that I actually only watched a few minutes of coverage last night. Hurray, the democratic primary has officially moved from curiously long into the regions of the grotesque. Congratulations you two.
i havent been thinking very blog worthy thoughts. Maybe they are live journal worthy but this isnt a live journal so im not going to expose any one who actually reads this to the inner works of myself. You should be glad for that because my inner workings are boring and silly.
Keep on Chooglin’
George Bush is just…never mind, its not even worth it.
Thursday, April 17th, 2008Tim Russert and Idol Gives Back
Thursday, April 10th, 2008I saw Tim Russert speak at SCSU last night. hes a good story teller and seems like a good guy. he likes Bruce Springsteen and was voted Dad of the Year by some publication. To steal a line from Seinfeld, “I dont know how official any of these rankings are.” Not his fault. hes a good speaker and i enjoyed the evening.
I am planning on suing American Idol to get the 2 hours of my life back that i wasted watching Idol Gives Back. The air was thick with self congratulations in the Kodak Theatre the night they filmed that train wreck. Let me ask you a question, on a show that is supposed to be promoting great singing, how do you let one of the worst singers in the history of pop music, Miley Cyrus, sing two songs when one of the best singers in the history of pop music, Annie Lennox only gets to sing one? Not only that but Miley Cyrus got to peel paint off walls TWICE and this years candidates for President of the United States got bumped due to time constraints. it nice to know AI’s priorities are in the right place.
Thank god for Annie Lennox, Bono and Forest Whitaker. The rest of the celebrities that lent their precious time to the cause should take lessons on how to not patronize the people they are exploiting for their own gain. And yes Alicia Keyes we should talk more about kids in Africa with Aids then we do celebrity drama but maybe, just maybe, when you are visiting these places, take off your designer clothes and your jewelry that is probably worth more than these people have ever considered earning in a lifetime. And thank you so much famous people for lending your time and your perfectly sculpted faces to the cause. Hey Reese Witherspoon, i think you make 20 million dollars per movie dont you? Well then maybe along with your time while your down there in New Orleans earning compassion points with people who might go see your next piece of s#!t movie you write that school a check for a million dollars or so. Why is it that the people that are most fortunate in the world are just content to lend their time. Kids with Aids in Africa dont want your freaking time, the need, need, NEED your cash and you have plenty of it. They need you to actually care as Bono and Annie Lennox and Forest Whitaker actually do. they dont need you flaunting your dangley 100,000 karat gold earrings in their faces while you wonder how they manage to live.
American Idol if you are going to make a spectacle of yourself in an effort to get my money youre going to have to do better than Billy Crystal and Robin Williams making fools of themselves, B list celebrities telling me to give them my money and Miley Cyrus’s unholy shriek. She is a banshee!!!
Also another tip to celebrities using poor people to try and get into heaven: all the sun glasses around the neck and tucked into the neck of your t-shirt look does for you is tell people that you dont really want to be there and you are going to run away screaming the first chance you get.
Nick Cave, Blood, Work, Dick Vitale, and the War
Tuesday, April 8th, 2008My thoughts are all over the place today…
The new Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds record came out today. Its called Dig Lazarus Dig!!! Its not a concept record but several of the songs revolve around the premise of God raising Lazarus from the grave against his will, only to find himself a homeless junky tooling around the streets of New York City. It is amazing in every way.
There Will be Blood came out today on DVD. I find it highly amusing that this movie and the Nick Cave record came out on the same day. they are both superior works of art that try their hardest to be unlovable and difficult but are ultimately better for it. The whole point of the ending to There Will be Blood is that Daniel is finally satisfied and it is so perfect that it comes at the expense of leaving critics and the audience unsatisfied. Personally, I cannot wait to see it again.
Everyone called out today except for me and two other people and it feels like the end of the world. The phone will not stop ringing and nobody wants anything that i can actually give them. they all want some kind of magical special treatment that they dont deserve and are not entitled to and it is my great privilege to give them this news. I have been screamed at today, swore at, called useless and i might be mistaken but i pretty sure i was challenged to a fight. I would love to fight that guy today, its just too bad he is in another state. if he happens to read this i will be taking my break around 3, im in Connecticut, if you have the ability to get here by 3 i am going to rip your head off.
Mike and the mad Dog yesterday were debating whether or not Dick Vitale deserved to be in the Basketball Hall of Fame. They were both leaning towards answering the question No, but neither of them seemed willing to come out and say it. I will say that they are wrong. he totally deserves to be in the hall of fame soley because no one, NO ONE, loves basketball more than Dickie V and for that reason alone he should be in the hall of fame. He has been on Mike and Mike (the ESPN morning guys) every morning since Friday and he has ended every conversation in tears thanking everyone under the sun for giving him the opportunity to do what he does and for putting him in the hall of fame. Its all about the love of the game.
I think one thing the war has done for us is re-written the definition of the word ’success.’ before the word success meant ” the favorable or prosperous termination of attempts or endeavors.” our new definition probably reads something like this, “The semi-favorable but ultimately the same persistence down an inevitable road to failure.” I think its clear that our government has no real interest in stopping this war, pulling our troops out , or even acknowledging that the only way their surge can be deemed a success is that it put more of our soldiers in a position to die. So according to the new definition the surge/ war in iraq is a success. Hopefully, George, John, and their minions of death wont re-write the definition of victory to mean “The death toll in Iraq has reached 140,00 today.”
A message to the person who called into Rush Limbaugh’s show and claimed she was a democrat only to instantly switch her political allegiance after Rush ranted at her for 5 minutes which included him saying “Presidents cant fix the country” ultimately leading the person to say that they would vote for John McCain in November to which Rush responded, “thats how you get things done in America.”
Monday, April 7th, 2008Note - I have 770 AM on my radio for Imus. Occasionally i switch over during Mike and The Mad Dog commercial breaks to infuriate myself, which is my most favorite way to be.
People should have to pass some kind of standardized reasoning test before we let them vote. This is the reason that America is suffering because people like Rush Limbaugh belittle you into thinking that he doesnt like you and the only way you can get him to like you is to agree with him. But why would anyone care if a fat drug pusher like Rush Limbaugh likes them? Because of all the things that are ruining America the most contagious and dangerous is the people of this country’s over powering need for people to like them. people cant think or speak freely because they are afraid that someone might not like what they think and say, So they float through existence trying to destroy any hint of an opinion or abstract thought before it infiltrates their brains thus making them agreeable to all people and useless to me, and the rest of society that finds this quality in people repulsive, at the exact same time. to all the people who worry about people not liking them, guess what? I dont like you. Please feel free to email and attempt to win back my affection. Im sure my disgust with you will keep you up nights. Maybe you can use that time to think about your station in life and how you can improve it. The first way i would suggest: read a book. The second?
STOP LISTENING TO RUSH LIMBAUGH!!!
Saturday
Monday, April 7th, 2008Saturday was a good day.
I got up early like i always do. I got dressed, put on some jeans and a tshirt and scooped up our laundry to bring it down to the basement where our ‘laundry facilities’ are located. I wasnt expecting it to be so perfectly nice out, if i didnt say it out loud as i sometimes do when im alone, i definitely said to myself in my head, “Holy smokes, it is a nice day out today.” Not only was it nice, it was much too nice to be wearing jeans, so for the first time this year i put on some shorts, dug my trusty pair of sandals out of the wasteland that is the back seat of my car, im not sure why they were there, and went about my saturday morning ritual of cleaning my house.
I dont go crazy when i clean, i have a cat so vacuuming is very important. Along with that i like to clean out the sink, run the dishwasher, wipe down the counter tops, this makes me feel like a i work in a diner which is nice. I sometimes clean the toilet because even if you cant see it, the toilet is a dirty place. We rarely clean the shower, i think this might be a character flaw or a genetic defect. It just never occurs to me that this is something that really needs to be done although i can see everyday that it does. If this makes me a bad person then so be it. I aint cleanin’ no shower.
It was so nice on Saturday I opened a bunch of windows and let fresh air and street noise circulate through the apartment. My cat, Buddy, the ultimate cat, descended from a long line of jungle kings, enjoyed a few hours pining for the freedom of the outdoors laying in the open window sill.
Now, i finish vacuuming, so its time to get to work on putting the kitchen back together and for something like this, you have got to have some music but, what music to play, whats the perfect record to relax and enlighten and to heighten the experience of scraping old lasagna from a Pyrex pan and scrubbing questionable stains and materials off my kitchen counter? Some people think the key to good weekend light manual labor background music is to find something nice and light, something you dont have to pay attention to too much. It literally sits in the background so at some point while youre doing whatever it is youre doing you will forget that the music is on. It will become part of the background noise and will take its place with the sound of the water running, the traffic outside and, if you live in an apartment, the sounds of your neighbors letting their red headed 6 year old systematically destroy their house one mysterious “just fell of the bunk beds” THUD at a time. I am of a different school of thought when choosing tunes for this very tricky time of the day. I prefer something really weird, something that i wouldnt normally listen to if i had to pay full attention to it. My normal selection for a nice day house cleaning session would be from my pals The Penguin Cafe Orchestra. they are by far my favorite psychedelic, new age, ambient island lounge folk band and their first three records are very charming indeed. However on this particular Saturday i was in the mood for something a little different so i sifted through my vinyl collection and finally decided on David Byrne’s ‘The Knee Plays.’ This fit the bill perfectly. Its weird, the whole record is full of marches comprised of synth horns and there’s is no singing just David Byrne spoken word. Awesome. It was laid back and just the perfect piece of music to keep me interested even when i was realy paying attention and it never once configured it’s sounds to the general cacophony of life.
Then…band practice. Oh glorious band practice. Our practice space is in West Haven. It is located inconveniently in the back of a warehouse in a cinder block room we rent from a guy that rents it from someone else. it was so nice out we propped the door open, had a few beers, and played music for 4 hours. Thats what i call relaxing friends.
Later that night Nicolette and I watched Frasier for a while, ate some food, flipped back and forth between baseball games and the Final Four. After, she studied and i continued reading The Iceman Cometh. I went to bed around 11 i think, early maybe but sometimes friends, its just time to go to bed.
