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October 31, 2007

this boys life among the electrical lights

so i woke up later than i planned yesterday - something about the crisp fall weather made the temptation to linger beneath the covers far too tempting...i had a big appointment down in birmingham but i knew i was going to gain an hour due to this glorious invention known as central time. so i arose at my leisure showered shaved and whipped up a seven cheese egg white omelette and then hit the road....okay, that part about the omelette i made up because as we all know i'm not much for breakfast and of course there are really only two kinds of cheese - white and yellow.

45 minutes outside of birmingham my left rear tire had what appeared to be a blowout. so i negotiated the impala to the right shoulder and stepped out of the car and confirmed the diagnosis. crap! of course the spare tire on the company car is one of those little donut jobs roughly the size of a big wheel so i knew at least part of my day was going to be devoted to replacing a damaged tire. i was in the middle of nowhere and the blackberry couldn't pull in a signal and i had absentmindedly left the sony ericsson tata at home so i had no choice but to drive 50 miles on the donut - which in case you were wondering is a terrible idea. those things weren't made to cruise the interstates.

i made it to birmingham without further incident and actually found a tire place less than a mile from my appointment. the guys at the shop were great - they replaced all 4 tires and changed my oil in under an hour - and off i went to my appointment. keep in mind i was supposed to be at the client's office between 9 - 9:30 cst. i finally arrived at noon. and of course i was in a panic because this was a big audit and i had to drive to the atl for the new pornographers show. but everything went smoothly and i arrived safely at joel's front doorstep at 6:30.

we grabbed dinner at fellini's - stared deeply into one another's eyes for a bit had a cigarette or two and headed down to the variety playhouse where immaculate machine were just wrapping up their set. but that's okay because i totally scored a sweet parking spot behind the venue and the crowd was still fairly sparse. i'm a terrible person for not remembering the name of the second band - they were from glasgow and put on a decent show. i was more intrigued by the banter between songs because i love a good brogue. and the singer was talking about how she had just seen the darjeeling limited - and i just saw the darjeeling limited and i was thinking it might be cool to hang out with her in a pub over a pint and discuss the merits of that particular film.

sadly, it wasn't meant to be. so i grabbed a couple of $5 beers and made my way closer to the front for the main event. i of course positioned my self stage left (neko's right) so that i would be directly in her line of vision. and there was a friendly girl from athens in front of us who was fond of high fives and mexican noises. probably because the awkward guy next to her kept buying her glasses of wine. after the show they left together so apparently his $30 investment paid off. go awkward guy! but i'm getting ahead of myself.

the new pornographers rocked our faces of for nearly two solid hours...and honestly it seemed like they played everything. i'm fairly certain that joel, high five mexican girl and i were directly responsible for the band playing miss teen word power and letter from an occupant because we totally requested both. and there was much dancing. at one point dan bejar was lurking in the crowd a mere 10 feet from me but i kept my distance - because dan bejar terrifies me. even though his songs are usually my favourites. especially testament to youth in verse off of electric version. easily my favourite new pornographers song...and it's so great live...anyway, there were a couple of technical glitches during the show as well as some tense moments when someone in the crowd told the band to shut up and play more songs - at which point neko threateaned to kick a few asses. i love neko. and honestly, that was easily the best $22.50 i've spent in quite some time. it almost makes up for me totally lame-ing out of the sunset rubdown show a couple of weeks ago....almost.

Posted by young_christopher at 6:31 PM | Comments (5) | TrackBack

October 25, 2007

My Life Among the Kids Who Go to Shows

Tuesday night, Jeff and I hauled our exhausted selves out to the Roxy to attend the New Pornographers show. It was disappointing. The Roxy is a dance club and doesn't have that many shows - at least not ones we're interested in attending. The usual venue for bands like NP is the Avalon, which is under major construction. The sound at the Roxy was terrible, and between nearly every song the band asked the sound guys to adjust one thing or another. Obviously this killed any building energy as we stood waiting.

But worse was the seeming lack of any real excitement in the crowd and in the band themselves. Nobody seemed particularly invested. Now, I'm usually just a bob along type concert attendee and leave the wild dancing to the crazy undergrads, but Tuesday night I looked like a spastic club kid by comparison. It was dead. The opening bands barely managed to elicit clapping and half hearted cheers despite being pretty good. There was a little singing along and a little bobbing for the New Pornographers, but little else even from the kids who jammed themselves against the stage. This may be in part to the lack of any encouragement or interaction with the band. Neko Case and AC Newman seemed totally indifferent, although Kathryn Calder was smiley and cute and Dan Bejar was kooky and deadpan and possibly drunk and/or high while singing and clutching his Corona. Newman showed a little expression when he forgot the words to a song from Electric Version, (I'm not too familiar with that album, sorry) but overall it was lackluster. Maybe they were annoyed with the bad sound.

Jeff speculated that perhaps the crowd was still recovering from the insanity of the weekend - the whole city was hungover on Monday morning after the Sox won game 7. Maybe they didn't have the energy. However, I doubt the band members had worn themselves out watching baseball. It was weird and a real bummer. I hope to see them again sometime for a do over.

Posted by heidi at 10:25 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

October 10, 2007

Look Out You Rock 'n Rollers

Recently I have been going full tilt looking for jobs. Sadly, I am most qualified to be a waitress or work in finances and have no desire to further weight my resume in either direction. Really I'm looking for something to do during the day as I will hopefully be enrolled in a graphic design program next year, and it would be preferable that this something be even slightly affiliated with the arts and not too rigorous. I don't think such employment exists, alas.

The last time I looked for a job, I was in Washington and Jeff happened to have a connection to the boss of the place at which I ended up working for the last four years. I sent my resume from Washington, interviewed once I got to Boston, and was employed in two weeks after moving. This time around feels more like my first experience looking for work but it's also a vastly different experience.

When we were 15, Janna and I went to the mall, filled out applications for virtually every store there and I don't know about her, but I completely forgot about the whole thing as soon as it was done. We were underage anyway. In May of 1997 at the age of 16, I began looking for work in earnest. There was no internet, no on-line applications or e-mailing resumes. I found my first job at Steamers Seafood Cafe by browsing through the newspaper section and calling the restaurant. The application was quickly filled since I had no previous paid experience at anything other than yard work, collating for my dad at the print shop sometimes, and the infrequent babysitting stint - an activity I found so loathsome, it inspired me to get a real job in the first place.

In the last two months I have only gone in to one place in order to submit my resume, and this was because they required an application be filled out. It was weird and seemed unnecessary, particularly the page that had you "Check each attribute that other people have said about you" and then "Check each attribute that you feel actually applies to you." Lame. Like anyone is actually going to check off the "Difficult" box. That aside, the rest of my resumes and cover letters have gone flying through the internets, and though it makes things much easier and more comfortable, I can't help but think I would be working already if I could actually meet someone.

One place never responded at all even after I called and e-mailed to confirm my rejection. Two places rejected me only after I hassled them to confirm it, and one place had an online resume upload page and it's impossible to find any information about who to contact so they can tell me they found somebody else. Only one company was prompt to inform me that the position had already been filled and shouldn't have remained posted. At this point I hadn't even bothered sending anything other than a short inquiry about positions being open. This list of failure would be much more depressing if I was even mildly qualified for the jobs I applied for.

I know what it's like to forget to do something because the e-mail gets buried beneath more recent messages. Is that what's happening or should I chalk this up to a weird northeastern thing? It's frustrating and insulting.

There's something comforting to me about putting together my application packet for schools. My resume and entrance essay are printed out on bond paper, the application forms (that I downloaded) have my handwriting on them as will the envelope and the disk with my portfolio. It's a little representation of me. It feels like the way things should be. I know it's incredibly old fashioned and naively Michael Scott-like to say that the digital era is causing us to lose something personal, but despite the convenience of firing resumes into the ethernet instead of making awkward phone calls and mailing letters...I feel like that was a better way. You had to want the job more.

Posted by heidi at 12:57 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack

October 7, 2007

houses on the hill

a couple of weeks ago - i think it was a friday - i was returning to 4808 after a grueling day on "the job" and by grueling what i mean to say is that it was after 1 p.m. when i wrapped up my last appointment. as i pulled up 49th street i saw a strange car in my driveway and suddenly remembered that my room mate had some family in town and they were going to be dropping some things off at the house. well i'm not ashamed to say that i was not feeling sociable on this particular friday and so i decided to go for a drive.

i pulled up to the stop sign on st. elmo avenue and instead of making the traditional right turn toward the kincadian comforts of downtown chattanooga i pushed my blinker down and turned left pointing the car toward the mysterious land known as "georgia". st. elmo ave doubles as a state highway meaning it is often heavily trafficked thus making front porch socializing at 4808 difficult and as it ambles it also meanders on on and on past fields and farms and dells and herds of sheep. okay the sheep i made up but there were some folks who had some goats milling about their yard. and in my book goats are practically the same thing as sheep.

but i don't want to get into a big thing about the sheep...because i wanted to talk about this amazing house that i stumbled upon. i was driving up a back road occupied by warehouses and body shops and as the road bent back toward the highway a field opened up to my right revealing an endless sea of junked and burned out cars and on the right the terrain swept up until it joined lookout mountain. and there on the hillside at the end of a winding driveway was this magnificent house - or rather a formerly magnificent house. in its current condition the place is pretty run down. the kind of house that elementary school children tell ghost stories about even as they try to work up the courage to ring the doorbell.

i actually drove by the house several more times looking at it from different angles - trying to fathom what it must have looked like in the glorious days of its youth. in its current state it's more like something out of a flannery o'connor story - you can almost see the dirty faced children with their blank eyes starting out at you through the disintegrating screen door. but wow! you could certainly throw a kick ass party on that wrap around porch. that's the thing i love about the south - there are houses like this one all over the place just waiting to be discovered.

perhaps 10 years from now when the gentrification of st. elmo is complete and my street becomes a quaint little cookie cutter antique neighborhood someone will come along brush away and the cobwebs and bring it back to its former beauty. of course by that time i'll be long gone...sipping cervezas on the black sandy beaches of costa rica listening to my copy of spanish pick up lines on tape as i sway in the perfect seasonless breeze.

Posted by young_christopher at 5:01 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack