The rumor was that the manager of the new restaurant I wish to work in fired a guy on his first day. The manager is French--I mean unbelievably French: he whistles for cabs. He went up to a trainee and said, Hello, nice to meet you. Where are you from.

"My mother!" the kid laughs until the manager makes him to the back and makes him clean out his locker. Fired.

I'd like to beleive that I innocently wanted to catch up on some reading during my long train ride and while I waited for the Frenchman to come out and for my interview.

He picks my book off the table, "Ah, Marcel Proust! M'favourite! Ten minutes later I walk out with a job. And that's pretty much as far as my degree in literature has taken me.

Here's what got me chain smoking on the way to work on friday:

I was somewhere between an hour and an hour and a half late to a job I love. But we had no customers. I keep my head down and want to cry at my good fortune. I got a job an hour before. A new job. A real serving job for a respectable outfit on the corner of central park. I am months away from health insurance, paid metro cards and vacations. But when the fuck did I ever want that?

My manager asks me how the job hunt went. I told him I would work for him forever if I could make $600/week.

During my break I work out a budget. A living budget that will include pretty much everything but alcohol, beautiful clothing, and extravagent vacations. Rent, bills, phone, internet, groceries, metro card, etc. No insurance, no loan payments, no train tickets to visit my niece. It adds up to something like $60/day. I flip back in my notebook where I went over my expenses in Chicago. I had great foodstamps, a cheap aparment, no travel cost, and I wasn't in debt. It was $14/day.

My manager sits me down after the shift and buys me alot of drinks. I tell him that I am leaving because I'm a money-grubbing loser, even though I ended up making $600 that week. He says if I could stick around for a few weeks it might bet better when they open the sidewalk cafe. Then he says that--since he is the coolest guy in the world--that he's leaving New York to go traveling for a year through every paradise from Bali to the Mediterranean, and that he wants me to manage the place when he leaves.

I write this from a coffee shop in Brooklyn that was once staffed entirely by the band TV on the Radio. They lived off the shitty tips that people like me give them. And then they wrote one of the best records that came out last year. I would know because now I call myself a rock-critic.

But there's one thing I have to be realistic about: just because I can do something, doesn't mean I will. In Chicago I spent my nights tanning my liver and blew my days in search of the best french toast. I editted a manuscript while taking the train to one of my shitty jobs. Somedays I would fall asleep while dicking around on the job--just to let you know how much time I had on my hands.

When I started my last new job I made so much money that I was uncomfortable hiding it. Next week I'm flying to Puerto Rico, for example. Last week I took some friends to a club openning in a cab. They wanted to walk and I think I used the phrase, "Made of money" to explain why they shouldn't worry. And when we got to the wrong address, we got in another cab.*

*In defense of my credibility: this was a free open bar party and we had to get there fast.

Labels: Chicago

Three job offers surfaced right away. They all want me to start on tuesday, but none of them are as money-intensive as the bullshit steakhouse. I hated that place. I hated the food, I hated the people, I hated my coworkers. I hated working there. I've been working all week at a restaurant I love, but that can't pay the bills. And now I have to decide if I'm going to be a broke happy person or a guy who works for French people and never has any free time ever.

All I can say is, Thank god I got fired on a weekday so I could blow all my weekend minutes freaking out to my friends and family on the phone for hours.

Message One: Hey this is your manager calling from work. We're actually slow today at lunch so you don't have to come in. Just come back early and meet with the manager...uh...before your shift." I was at the front door of the restaurant when I got the job, but I wanted to just go home and swim around in the pile of money I'd already made. So I left.

Message Two: Good news. He moved out this morning. You can finally move into your room. I'll help you clean it out when I get home."

Interlude:There was one day last winter when I was imagining myself as an adult. And when I say an adult, I mean someone who has his own apartmnt. I thought of how I would be surrounded by books. So many books that I wouldn't even bother painting the walls.

This was winter while on the long drive back to Kenyon. I was sleepy and trying to listen to the most jarring music to keep me awake. It was then that I realized that most of my heros were losers. You always read about how ill-tempered Hemingway and Jimi Hendrix and Elvis and Hunter S. Thompson were.

Okay, I'll admit that I was probably listening to each Eminem album in sequence. And I thought, Man, I may never make it as any kind of artist because I run on such an even keel. I've never been fired from a job. Never been in much trouble. I rarely leave a room screaming--unless there's a band playing. I have good credit, low cholesterhol and zero cavities.

When I get to work they make me wait forever. First while they fire someone else. Then while the manager "puts in his contacts." At this point I will do anything they want. I hate this job. But I love ever second of my life when I'm not there.

The manager reads alloud from a letter sent into the home office. Remind me never to write about this otherwise. Again, I brought the wrong bottle of wine to a table (you may remember this as the excuse I used to move out of Chicago). This time our menu said 2000 and all we had was a 2001. The man I served it to was rude to me, loud, and red faced. I told the manager I was uncomfortable serving him any more liquor. He writes a letter to the home office detailing how he's never been more embarassed.

And for the twenty-third time since graduation: I'm looking for a job. I call up a place I quit weeks ago. They need me that night. I worked there last night as well and still made less in two nights than in one "shitty night" at the steakhouse.

I turn off my phone. I mop the floor in my new apartment. I fall asleep on the mattress left behind and try to be happy that I'm not back on the boxspring. For thirty five seconds I wallow. I promise myself that as soon as I get out of bed I'm going to forget about feeling sorry for myself and get going on the rest of my life.

Labels: Chicago

1) I'm still sleeping on a boxspring total stranger's living room. I would like to thank my subletters who sold all of my books and clothes and DVDs in Chicago: it took me about twenty minutes to move.

2) Next week I'll begin writing again after my six-week break. This page will probably then be filled with my general despair, depression, and a series of posts where I will probably be laughing at my own jokes.

Labels: Chicago

If I could write a music column for a respected magazine, I would call it "Records We Should Have Reviewed." Because here's what happens in music: a great band comes out of no where. They put out a record and all of their friends buy it. Their friends play it in their cars on the way to the mall and then eventually one of the right people hears it. Maybe someone planning a tour, maybe someone at a magazine on the internet. But they make no mark when it comes out. Journalism is only concerned with dates, which is worthless in music.

By the time this band's second album comes out, there's a buzz about them, Bright Eyes has their first record on the floor of his Honda, they've mailed free copies to all the college radio station, and maybe they have a song on The O.C.* I spend more time reading music magazines than a grown man should, but every fucking one of them gave a huge shout out of the new Hot Hot Heat.

If they had my column in there six months before, they could do that obnoxious music-nerd pose and note that they knew the band before they put out their disappointing sophomore release and how they have always beleived in the band and they look forward to the next single.

I remember when The Killers came out last summer in Chicago. My friends and I were all very excited, but mostly because I think everyone at that point had some friends in a band called "The Killers." They barely sold enough records to keep it together for the summer but then things picked up and music magazines had to invent reasons to stop ignoring them. They appeared on everyones "Best of 2004" list, complete non-events of the band became music magazine cover stories. This is, in my opinion, the reason that most bands still put out singles. Hey, remember when you didn't cover this song from our last CD? Well here's a whole CD of just this song!


*On last week's episode there's a house party scene that opens with Daft Punk's "Technologic" but then the next song melts into "Daft Punk is Playing at My House" a Soulwax remix of LCD Soundsystem. I don't know why it upset me to hear two songs I like on television. But it did.

Labels: Chicago

I wrote this for my supposed column.

From: Mary.cheney@friendster.com
To: Bush2@whitehouse.gov
Subj: Your iPod needs a makeover.
What’s up Uncle G? I’ve been meaning to make you a mix for you iPod forever, but I’ve just been wrist-deep in work. I heard that you let Blake Gottesman upload your first playlist. No offense, but there’s a reason that Dad calls him “the two minute man.” Remember when he DJ’d the twins’ Cotillion? Two minutes into the party everyone’s looking for their coats.

So here goes. I know you want to get your heart rate up a little higher so I put on a lot more upbeat stuff.

1) Le Tigre's FYR. That guy from Rolling Stone saw your old playlist and made some crack about how “the president likes artists who don't like him.” But you know how things are at Rolling Stone. Everything is so goddam ironic. I think Le Tigre is on your side: "Toss us a few new AIDS drugs / as national healthcare bites the dust…We rocked the fuckin vote /with election fraud in poor zip codes. / Celebrate gay marriage in Vermont / by enforcing those old sodomy laws."

2) M.I.A. "Pull Up The People" "i got the bombs to make you blow / I got the beats to make you bang bang bang " This young little London girl is really making a name for herself. Plus, I think you and Tony B. could use a good theme song.

3) Gravy Train “Hella Nervous.” Goes really well with the next track.

4) Bikini Kill “Rebel Girl.” I burned this for Jenna last summer. Do you know if she ever got it? She hasn’t called me back.

5) CCR's “Fortunate Son” Don't tell him I said this, but I think they're really talking about Jeb.

6) Kaiser Chiefs “I Predict a Riot.” Next time you’re on a job in D.C. just think about all the bricks that must have gone through windows in the sixties. That oughta get your heart rate up.

7) Franz Ferdinand, "This Fire” “…is outta control / we're gonna burn this city / burn this city..." Speaking of which, do you want me to burn this for the troops? I don't know. I think that whole "burn motherfucker burn" scene in Fahrenheit 911 might have been bad for business.

8) The Killers “Mr. Brightside.” Now who’s the goddam party of optimism?

9) You call a press conference. Gottesman gets up to the podium to introduce you. “My fellow Americans, after months of tireless efforts by our allied forces, we have found Saddam’s secret cache of WMDs. Thank you and God bless.” Cue the song as you walk out: The Hives, “Hate to Say I Told You So.”

10) Ryan Adams “Do Miss America” “Hey, come everybody do Miss America / Hey, you know when she goes down it's hysterical” When Jenna got busted, we played this song the whole way home from the secret service office. She was SO mad at us. But man, it was worth it.

11) Dead Kennedys “Kill the Poor.” Picture this: North Korea’s giving you shit again. You call Kim Jong Il into the oval. Flip on the stereo: “Efficiency and progress is ours once more / Now that we have the neutron bomb / It’s nice and quick and clean / And gets things done.” Meeting adjourned.

12) Andrea True Connection “More, More, More!” I’m pretty sure I put this one that mix for Jenna. She still hasn’t called me back. Maybe if you see her today you could give her my number? She probably lost it.

"So here's the deal," the proprieter of The Perfect Apartment says. "Things aren't working out with the roomate I have. He doesn't have a job and he can't pay the rent he owes me. I'm asking him to leave. He's DJ'ing right now so if you want to see the room I have go ahead.

I walk up a rolling ladder. The kind they have in libraries on TV. The room has a little entry way. A 6X9 sleeping area, a 15X15 living room, a skylight, etc. I think of what kind of chair I will put under the sky light and what kind of novels it will allow me to understand. I will have my own floor. I will have a couch. A desk.

"Please," I say into his voicemail. "Just give it to me."

He calls me back half an hour later. "Okay. My roomate gave me some money. About half of what he owes me. So I'm going to let him stay until the fifteenth. I still haven't finished building the room that I was going to build downstairs either. I mean you can stay in it if you want to. There's just no walls."

Annie calls me to tell me to get out of work for the night. She got impossible-to-find tickets to see Bloc Party. I think I mentioned this, but everyone where I work believes that I live in a building that's been condemned. It's almost too easy to get out of work when I need to.

My friend Pete calls to tell me he's also out early for the day. We go record shopping in the nice weather and I get about five different cones of icecream. Pete used to work as a mover in Boston, so in half an hour I'm moved in and I have my first piece of furniture.

"I don't want to make things uncomfortable," my new roomate says. "So the story's just goint to be that you are moving into the room I havne't built yet. I don't know if that makes any sense. I just don't want him to feel like you're downstairs waiting fro him to move out."

I tell him that I get it and I steal a joke Ben made once about when we were out with a friend of ours and we ran into her boyfriend, who was on a date with someone else. "You know like when you put your old computer next to your new one to get a file and you can't stand how slow it is?" I get the wording and possibly the point wrong, but he laughs. And that's how I know we're going to get along fine.

So now after all of that, I am sleeping on a boxspring on the floor below my future ex-roommate. Every night I dream of painting the walls and decorating. I wonder where I will put the bed that I don't have yet. I'm quite adament about having two sides of the bed. Seriously. I get worried when I meet grown people who still climb over their spouses to go to sleep.

And then I interviewed someone midly famous.

Message one: Hey I'm calling from The Perfect Apartment. I might have some good news for you. Just, uh...I'll tell you about it later. Give me a call. I have to give you a key."

The other day my brother and I watched, in its entirety, The Unauthorized Biography of Mork and Mindy. There's this scene that I really hated because the actress who plays the actress who plays Mindy tells the actor who plays Robin Williams to sit down. She has some bad news.

For me, the five seconds between standing and sitting is jail time. Torture. In that five seconds I can imagine everything that is wrong and it will usually be worse. But if it's not, I've already figured out the worst I can stand and I know it can get worse. "John Belushi died this morning," she tells him.

And I want to applaud my future roomate for giving me the detail to hang on to: I have to give you a key. Because otherwise, in the time it takes to call him back, I could collapse onto the bathroom floor in depression, assuming that his good news is something like Good news! I have a friend in Albany who needs a roommate.

It's not that I've given up or that I've stopped working. I'm just done looking at apartments. I sent out over a hundred emails this weekend. And now that it's tuesday people are getting around to calling me. Every message is the same Hey, Brandon, I got your email. Actually I got three emails from you. If you wanna check out the place just call.

And the thing is that I don't want to check out the place. I want to know maybe if you have and airplane hanger nextdoor to my favorite record store, or if you live nextdoor to me right now. I got three days off and I planned on seeing my beautiful little niece.

One more time, I check in with The Perfect Apartment. I say that I want him to call me if his new roommate gets shot. "The thing is," he says. "I was going to build a new room this week and lease it out as an office, but I guess you could have it. There's no windows--well, there will be a window when I'm done, but it will be into the kitchen. It's yours if you want it. You can move in thursday."

"Can I bring you a deposit right now?"

In my li'l black book I write down addresses and words in other languages and one-liners that I think I'll use someday. But lately I've been very survival about it. The last page lists ten restaurants to apply to. The next page lists ten apartments to look at.

And when I show up in either place I find myself explaining to complete strangers about how I am responsible--but not anal, easy going--but not flaky, respectful--but engaging, etc.

It's really, really tiring.

The problem with finding a roommate is you're going to have to live with someone you could hang out with. With those two nice girls I knew we would be fine to talk but we wouldn't hang out. At The Perfect Apartment I knew I could hang out with the other two DJs. At the art gallery I knew I would want to spend time with the artists.

And then the door opens to a small apartment fifteen blocks from Annie's. It's the third apartment I've been in today where the championship game is playing. A balding black man welcomes me in. He shows me a small room in back that I can have for seven-forty-five a month. It's not big enough for a double bed. But I try and think positive. I ask him what he does. "Me? I'm a 311 operator. You know 311?" Yes, very well. I called in just the other day, but that's not what I want to know.

He sits down on a black leather couch and leans his head against some kind of indian suede headress. "Oh, you mean what do I do all day? This's pretty much it. "Pretty much this." He opens a bottle of soda, drinks from it and sets it ontop of a plate of cold pizza.

"I'm going to have to get back to you." I say.

After an hour of hunting I find The Perfect Apartment. It's a loft about five blocks from where I live now. 20 ft. ceilings, giant windows on both sides. The guy who needs a roommate has been there for eight years in a 12x15 room tucked away in back. I imagine myself writing novels there. He only wants a roommate for the fun of it. He's worked for the last six years in music and doesn't really need the money.

"So you DJ, huh? I haven't done it in a while. I miss it. My other roommate's a DJ." I dream of an apartment with six turntables going at once. The living room--just imagine a racket ball court with a new stove in the middle--has two skylights and found art hanging on the brick. "This wall's a little bare right now 'cause I'm about to install a projector on the other side so we can watch movies on a big screen. I'm pretty much drooling by now. No security deposit, no utilities. It eevn comes with a bed and an armoir.

But since this was the second apartment I had seen, I told him I'd get back to him.

I spend the day looking in alternate shitholes. One is an art gallery owned by three activists who live in the basement. They're having a fashion show next week for local designers and want to get a roommate in before then. But it's fifteen minutes from the train which makes 22 minutes walking just to go to the record store that's downstairs from me now.

The next place is a loft as well. But I realize that loft is a real estate word for place that shouldn't be an apartment. It's three bedrooms crammed into a space the size of Annie's living room. The perfect mix of irony and indie sensibilities make the rent in this builinding expensive: it's inside of an old girdle factory.

I don't even like this place but there's another girl interviewing for the spot at the same time and she starts to get competetive. I fire back and by the time I walk out the door I've pretty much convinced them that I work too much to ever see them and that I'm not even looking for an apartment, but just some friends who will let me have my own reading room.

The next place is owned by two girls who inform me that they smoke and that has to be okay with me. I take a cigarette out of their pack, lay back on their couch and we wax philosophic for two hours because I've run out of bullshit for the day.

That's when I call The Perfect Apartment again. "Nothing personal," he says. "But a friend of a friend needs a place and I know I can trust him."

Adventures in Apartment Hunting. #1

The door opens to a small theater. "Oh, hi, I think I have the wrong address, I'm here to see an apartment." No, no, he says. I'm Mike, we just talked on the phone. Come on in.

He opens the door to the theater and apologizes for the mess. It's under construction. He walks me through a room of red movie-theater seats to a door. If I ever went to a show in this theater I would assume that this door lead to the dressing rooms. He opens it to the great round space. The kind you would probably never find in New York. 30'x30' loft with a ground floor skylight.

The walls only go up ten feet, stopping three feet short of the ceiling. He tells me there's no kitchen, but that he'll get me a refrigerator and a hot plate. Then he takes me to the bathroom: the one marked "Mens." The bathroom for the theater would have my louffa in its shower next to a wall of urinals. He has his own bathroom with a shower and a kitchen in his apartment that he shares with his wife and two year old daughter.

I walk back into the room and think about how many novels I could write in there. Five, six, probably. Then the furnace switches on. I didn't notice it before, but the whole room smells like oil and a six foot iron furnace hums away in the corner of my future home, clanking and smoking.

I said I'd have to think about it.