Let Me Show You Around

I am beginning to think that I'll never have a paying job again. I send at least 20 electronic applications/faxes/emails every single week and I usually get no response whatsoever. When I do get a reply, it's always discouraging.

I have a few observations and complaints:

-Some companies still send letters of rejection- "thank you, but we have found our candidate elsewhere, etc"...I have quite a collection of these. It wouldn't be such a big deal except for the fact that some of these jobs are still posted and listed as open- sometimes repeatedly, for weeks.
I have even seen my old job posted twice...I considered applying for it, but they have cut the pay and added a background check to the job criteria. Oh yeah, I forgot-I'm unemployed because they fired me for no cause...I'm sure they want me back. Riiiight.

- On the positive side, so to speak, I don't have to worry about drug tests. By the time my potential employers look at my Federal arrest record and my dismal credit rating, they don't seem willing to waste money sending me to LabCorp. I haven't peed in a cup since I was on Federal probation, which ended in 2003.

-When I compare my rejection letters to the jobs that are still posted, I find that there are quite a few offices in Richmond that would rather have an empty desk than hire me...these are jobs that I am wholly qualified for, yet I am never called- I simply get a 'sorry letter'. I have good work and personal references, but none of them have received any calls about me.
I find that odd.

-Every week , I call my old temp agencies for assignments- they almost always have some sort of file clerk position posted...until I give my name.
After I give my name , those file clerk positions become filled.
In their lieu, I am offered 'production' (warehouse) work that involves repetitive heavy lifting, something that I haven't been able to do since my surgical mishaps of two years ago.
The agencies know I can't do the work, but they offer me the jobs anyway. Why?

- Following a job interview, I used to be able to ascertain- with near 100% accuracy-whether or not I was going to be hired. I had a great instinct for 'nailed it/failed it' moments.
For 25 years this was true.
Not any more.
I've had couple interviews recently where I felt like I totally nailed it- one was at the Public Library, a job for which I am a perfect match...the interview was very friendly, almost jovial- I had mutual friends with my interview team, nice banter ensued, I was taken around and introduced to the people that I was to work with...I was in like Flynn, thought I.
Wrong.
I didn't get hired. Instead, I got a letter for my collection.

My most recent interview wasn't as optimistic. It was at the Science Museum, an old train station converted into a children's museum, complete with IMAX dome and all...a pretty cool place, really.
In 6th grade, I attended a 'nerds' program there, where I was taught how to care for tropical fish- I liked it, it was one of the very few positive school experiences I had as a kid. There are certainly worse places to work.
The job, I thought, was for a seasonal ticket-taker at the box- office. Not the most prestige in the world, but better than a lot of jobs...better than no job. Perhaps it would lead to something better...

During the interview, it was quickly established that I could run a cash register and that I could use Excel without fucking up...now for the job description.
It wasn't what I thought.

The Museum, it turns out, has recently opened a roller-skating rink.
An outdoor rink.
The surface of this rink needs to maintained on a daily basis...do you see where this is heading?
Each morning, I would come in , dump a 50 gallon barrel of chemical sludge on the surface and manually wipe it down- a sort of human Zamboni.
Then I would sell tickets and dispense skates etc.

One of my interviewers was describing the giant mop-like device they had improvised to use for the polishing process...it was quite laborious...was I able to lift 50+ lbs?

"Yes", I lied.
I am so desperate that I am willing to tell lies that could seriously jeopardize my health- I am willing to do this for $8.80 an hour.
Or at least I thought I was.

I was trying to tell them that, "yes, I am available right away"...but my voice sounded weird. Broken.
I'm a DJ, I can usually control my voice- but it was cracking and I was powerless to stop it. I was likewise helpless to stop the tears that were welling up in my eyes as I thought about my future as a polisher of roller-rinks.
I feigned a sneeze. Maybe I could fool them into believing that I had a cold and cover the truth; the truth being that the thought of spending my winter mornings polishing a skating rink makes me question my will to live.

"Ah-choo", I exclaimed, fooling no one.

I didn't get the job.

Great Gift Ideas

( New Note: This post is from last year and the year before and probably next year too...)


Christ, is it almost St. Valentine's day already? What a useless holiday. If you're in a happy relationship, you should be doing nice stuff for each other every fuckin' day without being forced to prove your affection by dropping Hallmark cards, chocolates and flowers on your lover's doorstep like a cat dragging home a dead mole to please the human.
Do any of you even know what Valentine's Day is about? Don't believe all that Catholic Claptrap about Romans and imprisoned martyrs and whatnot. As usual, count on the crackerjack Camelsback research staff for the real stories behind our false holidays.
Way back in ancient times, the evil American Sun Kings and Queens of Temperance declared that the rabble should sober up. This didn't sit well with the rabble, who quickly defected to more 'spirited' personality cults, led by charismatics like St. Bugs (Moran) and the legendary St. Alphonse (Capone). In the course of establishing the only religion honest enough to call itself Organized Crime, the two beatific bootleggers became fierce, bitter and violent rivals for the lucrative tithing of the parched and desperately sober masses.

Like any viable religion, Organized Crime soon sparked more than it's share of competition, internal conflict, warfare and corruption; and so, on Feb. 14, 1929, missionaries from the Capone Church, aided by Centurions on loan from the Chicago Police Legion , decided that the Bugs Boys needed some competition-stifling Reformation. They took a half-dozen or so Moran followers into a garage on Clark Street and nailed them to the wall with hundreds of .45 caliber Theses. We celebrate the gruesome deaths of these pioneering Mafia martyrs with roses and candlelight dinners. This makes poetic sense if your love life resembles mine; for your sake I hope that it doesn't.
If it does, I'm truly sorry. Maybe it'd help if I offered some priceless gift alternatives. By priceless, I mean worthless. Buy them for yourself, it's the only attention you'll get on the 14th. And no refunds.

THE CAMELSBACK SAINT VALENTINE'S DAY MASSACRE CATALOG FOR THE UNLOVED AND DEPRESSED:

EMOTIONAL TRAIN WRECK

No lights. No tunnel. Just derailment, gravity and inertia. You probably thought that you'd never need to wear a parachute on a train. You thought wrong.

A real bargain for only 76 cents!

EXPRESSIONS OF UNREQUITED LOVE

This could be that letter you wish that you'd torn up when you had the chance. Maybe it's that necklace you knew that she'd love-the one you purchased the day before she told you she wasn't looking for a relationship. Perhaps it's three weeks of unreturned phone calls. It might be a horribly embarrassing love poem or song that fell into the wrong hands.

Two lousy bucks.This item knows no limits , so don't be such a cheap-ass.

A LIFETIME TOGETHER

Well, you got what you wanted. Too bad it turned out to suck, but hey, there were some good times, weren't there? Weren't there? Live the same miserable day over and over for the rest of your pointless life while you brood about the way it could have been. Even your children will pity you.

If you have to ask, you can't afford it.

LONELY ALCOHOLIC MELANCHOLIA

He doesn't deserve you. Take another shot.

Buy yourself something nice. No one else will.

ENDLESS SEARCH FOR LOVE

Remember how your friends used to tell you that there was someone for everyone , and someday, somebody special will see you for the irresistibly sweet, kind and golden soul that you are?These days, they don't call you very often since they all got married and had kids. If they did , you'd call them liars.

Maybe throwing your money away will make you feel better.

BUY NOW!! TIME'S RUNNING OUT!

.

Plans

Tomorrow morning I'll do my radio show and then I'm calling the police.

My father , who is over sixty years old , has disappeared on another drunken bender.
Last November I went to the weird little cottage that he calls an antiques shop, my grandmother was worried because she hadn't heard from him for weeks; when he drinks he lives at the shop despite it having no shower, kitchen or bed.

He was a filthy , drunken mess but I got him to his mother's house and he stayed sober until a couple weeks ago, but he's gone again and his mother is worried. Really worried.

She should be. I think my dad is dead. Forty years of hard drinking has to catch up, he looked like hell even when he wasn't drinking, like he was 80 and could barely walk.

This is what he does: He sits in a tiny building with the doors shut and "closed" sign up, and he drinks himself into oblivion for weeks until finally someone from church, the police or the family goes and pulls him out of his ruin.

This might last a month, then he goes away again.

I can't do it again. I told my grandmother I can't do it again. I cannot. If he's dead and I find the body, I will break.
I feel strong and ready for the inevitable, but not enough to discover his body.

I have been through that before and I'm not ready to do it again. I'm not even ready to think about the last time. Sometimes we forget things because we have to and I'm not sure digging out all the details is always a good idea.

It's a surprise to me that my grannie hasn't called the police herself, but she never wants to...we used to have a family friend on the force who would check on Dad, but he got sick of dragging Dad's drunk sorry ass home, and I think he'll stop being nice and just take him to jail next time.

Which is exactly what I want. He needs to be forced into a de-tox center and being AWOL for nearly three weeks is cause for a missing persons report. When they find him , he'll either be dead or so completely fucked-up they'll put him in de-tox and Psych Ward , or at least I hope they will.

I can't take it anymore. I've tried and there's nothing I can do. This is my last effort and I'm doing it by telephone, going to call my police friend and ask him to take a rescue squad to Dad's hovel and drag him out- I hope they will- I have learned of a recent injury Dad incurred while drunk, so I hope I have enough info to convince them to check on him one last time.

There are some things I can do and there are some things I can't. And I can't deal with this situation. I don't have the training or skills or knowledge to manage someone who is this far gone; I'm only 16 months into being sober myself and I'm in no position to intervene-again.

I have talked this over with the Twin and we agreed that I might as well wait until tomorrow so I could do my show and maybe we could watch the Bears game before we got the call back from the town police.
If that sounds cold, you don't understand how many desperate emergencies that turned out to be just another drunken binge- how many people from the church and family have wasted words on him...I'm done and so are all our family friends. Only my grandmother still cares, so I will do this for her.

I'm doing my show, then my laundry and I'll wait till halftime of the Bears game.
I'll call the police during halftime, that way I won't interrupt their viewing either.

I hope they put my father in rehab and make him stay. He won't go on his own- the church will pay but he won't go. We'll see.


At least it'll be a great game tomorrow- I'm a Bears fan, but I'd have a hard time being sore if New Orleans won. If anyone deserves a morale boost, it's New Orleans.
It's a win/win game.

Endeavor to Persevere

Here it is, 2007 , and the Cable News has a developing story, a banner across the bottom of the screen proclaims : THE HUNT FOR OBAMA and in the background there's a grainy video of Osama bin Forgottin.
There are a great many other words on the screen but they move too rapidly for me to even attempt to decipher them- but I do see THE HUNT FOR OBAMA quite clearly...

Hmm...

Don't they mean THE HUNT FOR OSAMA?

cut to commercials...this ad...it's a woman touching herself, she's seemingly naked on a field of white and her soft voice rises as she orgasmically hawks some product or service-I don't know what she's selling...what a jarring interlude, this odd sensuality trapped between the snippets of carnage and portents of doom that...it's sad that this weirdly beautiful 30 second spot exists solely to help sell detergent. Or insurance. Or toasters.
Like I said, I have no idea what she was selling...

The news comes back, this time the "Developing Story" is corrected:THE HUNT FOR BIN LADEN.
Geez...bin Laden? That's so 2001, the news should have more pressing concerns- our President certainly doesn't seem to give a shit about finding bin Laden, so why should we?- let's see, Gerald Ford, James Brown and Saddam Hussein are still dead- how can the news be running low on material?

At one point it was almost impossible for me to watch the James Brown tributes because they kept getting interrupted by pictures of a hearse, presumably carrying a Presidential cadaver, which in turn was interrupted to bring me updates on Saddam's Deathwatch...beneath it all , there was this constant stream of fast words, quick , elusive text, subtitles within subtitles; is this how we are trained to think?
No wonder tranquilizers are so popular.

So what's the Osama Scoop?

Get this: No one knows where he is. He might be in Pakistan or maybe not.

This is a Developing Story? I could have told you that in 2005. Or 2006.
---------------

Happy New Year to Slovenia! You have until 2016 to exchange your tolars for euros.
I understand that the paper notes will be honored indefinitely.

(oops, I was misinformed- better hurry!)
---------------

Did you know Gerald Ford is dead? True.
Did you know Richard Nixon's favorite food was cottage cheese and catsup? True.
Did you know Ford's first Presidential Order was :" Stop serving cottage cheese and catsup!"? All true.
----------------

Oh yeah- we have a whole new war to ignore. Ethiopia has kicked the shit out of the Somali Islamists- Ethiopia is not a nation known for it's wealth, but it has somehow managed to acquire devastating and expensive military technology- I wonder where they got those attack helicopters?
eBay?
The displaced Islamists will disappear into the shadows and become tomorrow's terrorists/insurgents and life in Mogadishu will continue to be hellish, brutal and violent- quite a bit like Baghdad except without headlines to remind us it's there.

I guess you could say it's more like Afghanistan than Iraq.

I just saw a one-minute "news" report about how you can upload pictures of your dog straight from a cell phone to the Interweb.
Yowzah. Who knew?

Not one word about Afghanistan or Ethiopia.
--------------------

Iraq is back in the news- did you know that Saddam is dead?
So are at least 3,000 American Troops.
Fair trade? You decide.

Our President says he's going to make a decision about Iraq eventually, maybe sorta...
I have full confidence that whatever decision he makes will be the absolutely worst, ill-considered move possible- probably leading to an unwinnable war against Iran.
He's not very smart, our Glorious Leader, but he is consistent.

There's Always Next Year

If I buy my gift wrapping paper today I will save a dollar.

The cost of a Saturday newpaper is a mere 75 cents, while a Sunday fishwrap costs $1.75; it used to be worth the extra buck just because the colorful Sunday Funnies made such excellent gift-wrap but the comics section is so small these days that it's virtually useless as wrapping.

I miss that double sized-funny papers section.

When using 'newswrapper' today, care must be taken to avoid using headlines like " Car Bomb Kills 38" when wrapping gifts , especially on those presents that are intended for persons with delicate sensibilities.

This is harder than it sounds.

Ah...I'm kidding. I'm not using newspaper to wrap gifts this year.

I have none to wrap.

The things that I have to offer on Christmas are the same things that I have to offer on the 364 other days of the year- not much to offer at all, really, not that it stops me from trying.
Here.
Take this.
What's that?
A flimsy box of jagged, bloody shards , the prettiest scars left by the deepest cuts from the dullest blades , gaily decorated with the headlines of yesterday's murders.

With bells and ribbons.

Who wants that?

Put that box under the tree , toss the rope over the lowest stout branch.

Giddeyap.