And an update on the latest advances in fast food technology.
I will do just about anything to enjoy real fast food. I loved eating In-N-Out Burger when I was out in LA. Everytime I'm in Kentucky Amanda takes me to Sonic. Now I'm in Florida with old people. I'm running a campaign office in a foreclosed house that has no running water. I will do anything to get a bathroom break. That means fast food.
Wendy's- Flavor dipped chicken sandwich? Yes please! However, one of the sandwiches is basically a Chicken McRib. The other is "Buffalo Style" and since I hadn't eaten a fruit or vegetable since landing here I ordered this (it comes with lettuce and tomato). It was awkward to eat. The chicken was slippery. The Ranch Dressing tasted like most of Indiana does when the wind stops blowing. I wish I had gotten the other one. So I drank a quart of Mr. Pibb and got back to work.
Steak and Shake- I always forget that this is not as exciting as you want it to be. It's basically a better version of Wendy's but with crappier fries and waitresses. I had a Mushroom Swiss burger, which I was hoping would be like the goopy 1997 mushroom swiss burger they had at McDonalds in Chicago when I went there to clean out my grandfather's house after he died. I did not.
Burger King- I really shouldn't have eaten these in the same day. I had the Wendy's Mushroom Swiss Burger. They're both still inside of me. Somewhere. The Wendy's one is goopy and full of those canned mushrooms that you find on pizza. I was in my office on the floor trying to induce labor when my boss walked in and clonked me on the head with the door. "You taking a rest?"
"No, I was just, uh, stretching."
Chik-fil-a- is a Christian company. They close sundays. They tell you in the Drive Thru "Have a blessed day." And--AND--they have signs up that say "Democrats for McCAIN." But look at the menu! Holy shit! Chocolate peppermint milkshake with real candy pieces? Three sizes of fruit salad? Praise Jesus!
Non Brooklyn Pizza - is adorable. Well meaning middle-aged people keep bringing it to the office since it's all staffed with kids. It is like having a single dad who puts frozen vegetables onto english muffin pizzas so the kids can get their vitamins.
Today I was campaigning and the housing market troubles are all over the place here. Sometimes I will go to a house to see if they need a ride to the polls and their mallbox will be plastered with fines from the county for not mowing their lawns or for having broken windows. These foreclosed properties make campaigning really hard. Most of the people I would really like to talk to right now are unreachable and will not be in town on election day.
The worst anyone will say to you is "No thank you." I kind of thought that people who threaten us or tell us to get the fuck off their lawns. The radio stations are full of ads about the black socialist and how he wants to raise taxes on "people making just $42,000 a year." Obama actually has a rather clever one on the country stations where he has a real good old boy talk all about how much he loves his the out doors and loves hunting.
I miss my beloved New York City, but it is really good to be down here right now. The days are wicked long for everyone else. Me I'm perfectly happy to come to an office for three hours and then go to another place for the next twelve. I'm still on nightlife time, but instead of going out or DJ'ing I sit in my host house and read books or watch regular TV channels in HD (Anderson Cooper is so gorgeous in HD!)
It's like a vacation in American for me. I'm jet lagged. I'm ill from trying all these exotic foods.
For anyone who is trying to look like Sarah Palin for Halloween: you need hairspray and baby powder. The baby powder goes into everything but your bangs and the hairspray goes over everything else. Lots and lots of hairspray. (They both blend in.)
Careful, though. Some hairsprays are known to cause birth defects.**
**Just because I say it out loud doesn't mean I'm proud of myself.
This is livening out spirits in the office. That and a wicked nice lady said she hated talking to people on the phone but she'd be glad to cook us a huge, huge chicken pesto and asparagus dinner (with jalopeno brownies and fresh strawberries!). Then we go back to the host house to watch the Obama half-hour special.
Today it was my job to call people and tell them to get out an vote early. A super nice old lady said, "Oh I've already voted but I think I'm getting sick and so I don't think I'm going to be around to see him win." I wrote down her phone number just in case. Because I'm going to love calling her either way on Wednesday.
rating: 5 of 5 stars This is an amazing and fantastic chapter from "Consider the Lobster." And when I say chapter I mean "over 100 pages." It is the most complete portrait of both McCain2000 and the old maverick before he became a complete dick.
All of the dirty tricks that bush played on him are spelled out in this book, including the "push polling" that took place in NC. Its an amazing story and if McCain gets elected he will be the Willie Stark of our (parents') generation.
It turns out a republican group called all of the absentee voters in black neighborhoods in Florida and told them that because of security issues someone will come by and pick it up in person. I can't believe anyone is that stupid on either side.
My new office for the Obama campaign is in some little girl's room in an empty, foreclosed house. There's electricity (thanks donors!) but no running water. Everyday when we leave for the office we all have to take a bathroom break. I make phonecalls in a pink room with fairytale castles painted on hills and cutouts of Disney Princesses on the wall.
The big advantage is that in Florida they allow safe, easy early-voting. The big disadvantage is that black people are crazy and there are huge rumors spreading that early voting is a sham and that your vote will be lost.
I get to the main office everyday somewhere around eight. My main job here is to organize the other organizers and carve up canvassing turf to make sure everyone gets a visit from us. At 2 I head to my fairytale office--about an hour away--and work with the volunteers out there. Alot of them are sweet old ladies who are so glad I came down from Brooklyn and just can't believe how much Brooklyn done change since they was born on Flatbush in 1825 or whatever.
Once we identify supporters we try and recruit them for an hour of phone banking or canvassing either now or on election day. The strange thing is that most people are slightly uncomfortable with this but they will volunteer to drive people to the polls on election day. In fact, that's the number one thing people volunteer for.
The staff I work with has been together since April. They all live on air mattresses in another foreclosed house with no other furniture and no kitchen. By now they're all sleeping together and I can't imagine what all of these LSAT prep and community college drop outs are going to do after November.
I stay in a supporter's house near them. My supporter is a 38ish marketing manager for his family's all-natural artificial bait company. He lives alone and every night we watch the Daily Show together on his gigantic TV and drink beer. Last night he brought me cheesecake. I have my own room and my own bathroom, which are both nicer than my own home in Brooklyn.
At nights I am miles away from the world in a WIFI-less universe. I stay up late reading Kafka on the Shore with no distractions and I usually wake up just in time to get in the car to get back to the office.
I kind of thought this might be some kind of hippie-commune experience like I had in the neighborhoods of Philadelphia in summer 2001. Instead we ride around in somebody's parents KIA Sportage, get Dunkin' Donuts for breakfast and at about 3 PM someone goes ona fast food run. (We can't eat at noon, you see, because then we would have to pee in a house that has no running water.)
On my first night we left the office at 10:30PM and the Air Mattress Posse got a call from headquarters saying they needed to take part in a midnight "Webinar" (web-based seminar) to refresh them on voter-turnout questions. They refused. They had done that before. They wanted to lay down for some nice, squeaky air-mattress sex. It was a long day; tomorrow would be an early morning.
The main office was furious and they got an email saying to get dressed and get back to headquarters by 1:00AM to carve up new turf for the morning. At 2:30 AM they get another email saying to abort what they were doing and go home.
In the morning they were commanded to make phonecalls to all the other field organizers and apologize for missing the webinar. In the afternoon they checked in to see that it was done. (It was not). They were called again to apologize.
Everyday we get angry phonecalls from the nice people from campaign headquarters whose names I recognize from Obama emails. These people are not nice. I didn't join the campaign to feel great about people Barack Obama knows and I don't question their tactics, but these people clearly need to make jokes and hug cute babies at rallies to make up for how awful they are to their staff.
I'm actually kind of amazed that the staff can stay so upbeat. If the campaign has tried to indoctrinate them it has worked. They never forget to tell the volunteers what a good job they are doing. They never forget to thank people on the phone. They always smile when they talk without sounding too douchey.
Like anything else in our generation they make a huge joke about everything. EX:
"Do we have time to make it to Wendy's before the webinar?"
"YES WE CAN."
Or:
"I gave you a twenty to get pizza. How much was it?"
"It was $19.05," (clanks $0.95 on the table) "Now that's Change You Can Believe In."
Today might actually be slightly fun for us. We have a webinar at noon which means we have a conference call that has a web-based powerpoint to go along with it. We are going to my fairytale office for the rest of the afternoon and evening and then at midnight all of us are going to go to my host house to watch Barack's half-hour show and then drink beer and watch him on the Daily show.
I have always had this problem. I confuse small groups of semi-attractive girls with one single awesome girl. For years I've been in social situations where five girls will walk in and I'll notice the whole room grows atwitter. One has nice hair and the other has cute clothes. One of them might be interesting to talk to and the other is probably just tall.
But somehow I always combine their powers (like Captain Planet).
Last year I hung out with this group of eight girls*. We would go to bars and then I'd had all of them back over to my house afterwards and we'd stay up all night drinking and laughing and I never hooked up with any of them. They would always come see me DJ no matter where it was and we had alot of fun together.**
One time we were in my house (drunk) and my landlord rang the bell. He had the ConEd guy with him and he needed to read the meters. In our drunken paranoia we all hid in my room and jumped on the bed. It collapsed under the weight. Pieces of wood shattered.
That was the night that I learned that eight girls are never as great as one.
*Known, affectionately, to many as "the sluts."
**I really wish Safari wouldn't spellcheck-underline "alot." I like this spelling. I like it alot.
rating: 3 of 5 stars Margaret recommended Murakami to me last month. He is one of those things like The Eagles of Death Metal or Korean Barbecue where other people's appreciation was sufficient enough for me to ignore it. But I love his writing.
This was a weird first book to get. Every other chapter takes place in a sci-fi universe and every other-other chapter is in a very plain, modern Tokyo. I have to confess that I found myself skimming the boring sci-fi chapters after I realized that the real story was in the other half.
I thought alot about my writing. My main characters tend to go on long-winded navel gazing expeditions and it wasn't until the boring parts of this novel that I realized that many people may not be into that. In fact, omitting them entirely can only make the novel more successful by making the story more compelling.
Now that I'm finished reading it I would like to write a new novel.
One of the things that I love about living in New York is that when you run out of money you can always check craigslist and see if anything you own can be rented for a photoshoot.
My Vespa is going to earn more than I do tomorrow.
I really highly recommend this movie even if your name is Ben and your bowling league is too goddam important to see it with me the first time I asked.
When I got back from tour I was completely broke. I should have maybe come back quite rich. I had done great things like DJ huge clubs in LA and dance in a music video. I thought I would maybe come back and be a pretty big deal. At least I thought I might DJ huge clubs in NY (not so far) and then tour the rest of the world (nope).
So I went out and got a job. My first thought was to work in a book store but then I froze up on the application. I walked out the door and I went to a bar that I heard was hiring. It was on the roof of a building on 27th Street. The manager told me to come back the next day to work. I didn't have to train. I didn't have to work Sundays and happy hours until I moved up the ranks.
It was probably the easiest job I've ever had. Everyday I came into work somewhere between three and seven and left around midnight. The bartenders all pooled their tips so every day when I came in there was a big fat envelope waiting for me.
I was good with the money, for the most part. I set up my bank account online to pay down my gigantic debt ($400/week).
For six months I never set an alarm. I woke up every morning when I was done sleeping. I finished Mercutio and decided to put him aside for a while. Each morning/afternoon when I woke up I took the half-mile walk to Gorilla Coffee and sat there. Most days I read a novel. Sometimes I brought the paper or a magazine. I read Dante and Steinbeck and Joyce. Most days I got distracted by The Onion or read the newspaper on my phone.
This would have been a really good time to get ahead on some other things. I could have taken Italian II or worked on a screenplay. I certainly should have come up with another writing project. But I was usually sleeping.
Since March I haven't grocery shopped for anything but beer. I ate every meal out. I only made coffee in the apartment twice. I paid off my vespa. I paid off my DJ equipment and my synth. I paid off the credit card I used to fly to Minneapolis ($800) when I freaked out last fall.
If I were younger I probably would have a whole bunch of sexy new clothes and a new leather jacket. It would be like that scene in Studio 54 where whatshisface pulls up to work in a new car with a vanity plate. But I had bills to pay.
Some days I would awake to blue jays chirping at my empty feeders, roll over and go back to sleep until 2. I promised to let myself have this time. Like everyone else I've had stressful jobs where every time you wake up--no matter how dark it is outside--you're certain that you've slept in. I've had jobs where I can barely keep my eyes open on the train ride home because I'm so exhausted.
Sometimes I would walk around my neighborhood, hoping that someone was around so I could get a beer with them.
For the past five years I've woken up every morning very early, wrote (written?) for four hours, read for a few more and then worked somewhere until midnight. It was a very fulfilling experience and I can't think of happier days than when I went to my bullshit job with a big smile on my face because of the things I had written that day.
You would think that all of us out of work people with lots of time on our hands would be cranking out screenplays and memoirs now. But momentum is a very powerful force. As my summer went on I found myself reading shorter and shorter novels. I wrote less, I did less.
For the first time in my life I actually gained weight (!). I was so poor all winter that I was at my skinniest. It turns out that sitting around all day isn't good for you. Also my summer job had alot of heavy lifting involved so for now I look like I finally hit puberty. The other DJs keep asking me if I've been working out.
It was fun while it lasted. It was actually alot like working at a summer camp or on a cruise ship. There were 20 bartenders on a night and 40 cocktail waitresses. Everyone was always coming straight from a photoshoot. Like this asshole.
He and I bartended with the girl who played the slut in next month's Ugly Betty (1 episode, no lines). Some of the waitresses had played the children in Lifetime Original Movies. Everyone got drunk every night and tried to get out around 1 so they could all crowd into the local shithole and get drunk together there. By the end of the summer some of the staff became roommates. Others no longer bothered hiding the fact that they had been sleeping together.
We all became work-friends and I know that for years I will walk into bars and recognize faces (I've probably already forgotten their names). It will be really nice to see them and I know that I'll get a big smile on my face when I see them all again.
