SLACK'D

Back in 2003, I was living at home, wearing purple eyeliner to my boring service industry job and spending most of my time collaging. I had a fresh driver's license and the thrill of rolling around in my mom's car at night listening to the Raveonettes and using her Hollywood Video rental card to check out Marlon Brando movies was unparalleled. The guy at the counter was a plump ginger with a long ponytail under his Hollywood Video-issued baseball hat who I suspected had a crush on me since I was the only teen coming in without my kid and buying the king size pack of jujufruits. I ignored his halting glances since I didn't really start talking to boys until I was about 20, even ones I had no interest in.
One day, I checked out Slacker, because the case looked weird and I had just recently discovered that I was cooler than anyone I knew, having been educated at a prep school in which my peers' interests ranged from the fall j. crew catalog to the spring j. crew catalog. I got home, popped in the VHS (earnestly) and got to work stenciling "London Calling" lyrics onto t-shirts I'd just picked up at the Gap on sale for $9.99.
Slacker was weird, I couldn't really make sense of the characters and the lack of plot line got lost in my intense stenciling session-- I later moved onto Bowie lyrics.
Eight (!!!!11) years later, my life is eerily (depressingly?) similar to that of my eighteen year old self. The only element that's different today from the scene described above is that I use my mom's Netflix account. And I know how to talk to boys now, but that's a different story entirely. Tonight as I was sitting around making record cover journals, feeling inexplicably attracted to Ted Nugent, I decided to scroll through the Netflix collection, and Slacker caught my eye once again.
The film that I watched tonight, of course, is the same as the VHS I rented a thousand beers ago, but oh how my perception of it has changed. What once seemed like dreamy esoterica has since become the soundtrack to my own life; the characters, once just that, are now people I have met over and over, comprising my own anchor to post-collegiate reality. While I was completely engrossed in the film and finding myself in conversation with these people, a thought entered into my head: Is this movie making fun of us? Is Richard Linklater looking at 20-somethings who sit around drinking beer, talking about their lives and the world, politics and their relationships, with their friends and roommates and strangers, and deeming it all a waste of time? The film is called Slacker. Is the film's thesis that we're aimless, rootless, wasting our time and our potential to fulfill that great American myth of "making something of ourselves"?

As anyone with a hundred thousand dollar degree in Why The World Sucks and a barista job to prove it knows, "Our Generation" is the topic of a thousand porch/bar/breakfast PBR 30-packs. The Oxford English Dictionary defines "slacker" as "a person regarded as one of a large group or generation of young people (especially in the early to mid 1990s) characterized by apathy, aimlessness, and lack of ambition". They may have to alter the era included in their definition. Is it not "Our Generation," the children of those hardworking model Americans, the baby boomers, that has been called out on a hilariously frequent number of occasions by the New York Times for being lazy, ego-driven, sext-crazed narcissists? Slackers, in the truest sense of the word? Intra-generational hand wringing abounds at the NYT as their op-ed columnists tell us to stay out of restaurants and save our money. In preparation for footing the bill for "Their Generation's" gross mistakes, of course.

Every conversation over porch beers at noon on a Tuesday illicits the same conclusion: we're not unmotivated, the ones pushing papers and paying their bills are. We're the ones who are looking for something more, the ones who refuse to settle for what we've been given. We're taking the path of least resistance, fighting with ourselves and everyone else for answers instead of with the TV over Dancing With the Stars.


And it turns out Linklater agrees: “Slackers might look like the left-behinds of society, but they are actually one step ahead, rejecting most of society and the social hierarchy before it rejects them. The dictionary defines slackers as people who evade duties and responsibilities. A more modern notion would be people who are ultimately being responsible to themselves and not wasting their time in a realm of activity that has nothing to do with who they are or what they might be ultimately striving for.”



Slack on, "our generation."


also posted at l337blog.

gifts 4 evry1

New stuff here!!!

Reading: Kind of Like Fun, but for Poor People

*or muppets.

Being poor is sad.
Lack of funds means you can't spend money on copious amounts of crap that you'll get rid of in a few months. Luckily, there are plenty of things that you can do as a human that don't involve consuming goods. One thing I've been doing these past couple decades to beat the recession-blahs is going to my local library to browse the shelves, pray that my idle scanning of literature will one day lead me to fame and fortune on Jeopardy, and cast furtive glances at the bespectacled, bearded babe in the 900s. (heh. just a little Dewey Decimal System humor.)

Some of the books I've picked up in the last few months and would recommend to you:

Our Band Could Be Your Life by Michael Azzerad. Could not put this down. From Henry Rollins to Calvin Johnson, and everything that mattered in between. Wow. Worth the read for the chapter on the Butthole Surfers alone.

Girls Like Us by Sheila Weller. Perhaps a little too embarrassing to read in certain public places, this was pretty damn riveting, in that guilt-laden, voyeuristic way.

Will You Take Me As I Am: Joni Mitchell's Blue Period by Michelle Mercer. This book had almost no point except to extrapolate on the genius of Joni Mitchell, which is alright with me.

Across the Great Divide: The Band and America by Barney Hoskyns-- Music journalism by British people is a delectable treat indeed. And this book does a great job of making that case that The Band is the only band that has ever made music worth listening to.

Can't get enough of music bios. Like reading US Weekly about actually interesting humans, who also don't deny rampant sex with other famous people and cocaine use.

Revolutionary Road, Richard Yates. Do not read when you're "pondering the deep questions about life in Amerika."

Che Guevara: A Revolutionary Life, Jon Lee Anderson. Didn't actually finish this, it's like 600 pages. Stick to Che's own "Motorcycle Diaries" instead. All the drama and none of the bulk.

What I Talk about When I talk About Running, Haruki Murakami. This book is like the center of the Venn diagram for running and writing, which you'll like if you're into either or both of those.

A Wanderer in the Perfect City- Lawrence Weschler. This man is a prince among cultural "critics." This book chronicles numerous talented artistic individuals who perpetually exist on the fringe of breaking through into the cultural conscience, and is a very enjoyable read. Also, if you're interested in art or anything else, run, don't walk to pick up a copy of Everything That Rises: A Book of Convergences. Put out by McSweeney's, and is incredibly smart and fun at the same time.

Brief Interviews with Hideous Men, David Foster Wallace. What can you say about this (late) guy that hasn't been said? It's hard to read words written by anyone else after reading DFW, but probably not as hard as it will be to watch the movie version of this book starring that guy from "The Office."

Another book that I've spent the past two or so years mulling over is Lipstick Traces: A Secret History of the Twentieth Century. It chronicles various forms of resistance to the capitalist tendency to commodify everything in it's path since World War I. It's exhaustively researched and full of fascinating parallels like the one Marcus draws between Johnny Rotten and a 16th century German tyrant. It's been ruining my life since I picked it up but I can't put it down. What more could you want from a read?

Just picked up The Interrogation by J.M.G. Le Clezio, the winner of the 2008 Nobel Prize, and Memoirs of Hecate County by Edmund Wilson, he of the same esteemed college preparatory school as yours truly. It was on the list of banned books, and as this is Banned Books Week, I thought I'd celebrate the freedom of the read.

Other fun things to do when you're poor include "getting back to nature" by walking around a park or otherwise outside space, riding your bike really fast down hills, working on your memoir, and having your friends buy you beer.
And remember, stealing toilet paper from work is a right.

human condition on a good day

Kelly: being in nature makes me hungry

me: hungry for something real

12:38 PM

via henry miller

Kelly: or like, cheese

12:39 PM i'm totally going stealing at WalMart

just tryna like experience something real

me:i just dont know what to do... im so antsy but maybe part of being a human is accepting things as they are?

Meredith: that's probably part of it, but thats scary!

me: yeah...

we've all always had a definite end to things and now that i dont i feel like i need to move on and see/experience something new

Meredith:like you're a dog that's always been on a leash and now you're off a leash

me: and we've all been taught that good dogs stay in the yard.

Meredith:

and its not even like a dog park, like where there's still a fence around us

its like...raw and real and shit

we could piss on anything!

me: srsly.

just sick of listening to orders, yall

want 2 run around

pissing on stuff

tryna mark some territory

Meredith:

this is pretty blogable.

me: dont worry, already on it

kinda wanna get a twitter to record size shape color and consistency of my shits for the world to read about

Meredith: i dare you

gotta go to post officetaking the company credit card

will talk to you fucking soon

call me and shit

Gettin Paid

Dear Emily,

I wanted to let you know that I am bored out of my goddamn mind. Also, I printed off and filled out an application for food stamps while on the clock. What do you think of that?

Love,

Kate


Dear Kate,

Thank you for your correspondence.

I think that filling out an application for foodstamps whilst on the clock is a goddamn ingenious move. I didn't know you could do that on the internets and have been too lazy to get over their office. And by lazy I also mean embarrassed. For our country. And I also mean drunk.

You may also want to look into getting to food banks. They might even have cereal!

love&we should bring booze to work next time,

Emily

alt condition

me: i have offish od'ed on work

Meredith: i hear you

me: will def. quit working before quit drinking.

Meredith: yeah i guess the more you drink the more you hate work

and the more you hate work the more you want to drink

because you could be drinking instead of working!

me: you summed up the modern human condition. in sad america.

Meredith: yuck.

me: jagee rocked the drunk. and then died.

Meredith: yeah well. that means he rocked it, no?

me: toootally. he was hella authentic.

Meredith: oh man

me: one of the first altbros. privileged, was just tryna experience something real, did. raged against his parents, bucked conventional norms, f'ed tha system, spread his seed, died drunk and a legend.

Meredith: altbro indeed

well on that note, time for a meeting!

Meta Monday (Just Another)

me: hows monday?

Meredith: ughghghgh

me: i hear ya sister. work really does get in the way of being a human being.

Meredith: mhm

happiness is a second priority

me: happiness is a warm gun

or a full beer

or an empty one

Meredith: ooooo

mmm

a cold beer and a warm gun

and a drunken shooting rampage

oops

me: the feds are reading this now

google is evil

but gchat does make for some good blog fodder

Meredith: hahah definitely

i love those posts

me: of course i consider the rest of the world rabidly devouring our virtual exchanges: the nature of the blog.

PLUS:

I literally talked to this guy today on the phone at work:

Life really is what happens when you're making other plans.

On the Clock

"Work": exchanging emails with the person who sits on the other side of the partition that separates desks.

He: shoot my brain please.

Me: don't think intra-office violence is accepted, but yeah, want to die/puke/go to sleep.

might leave early today, ie now.

He: if i could have traveled to the future when i was 18 and seen what im doing now, i would have beat the shit out of myself.

Me: that keeps me up at night. Bills kind of get in the way of being a badass. at least its only temporary, before permanent unemployment.

He: i'm absolutely doomed. god, this is depressing. im getting drunk tonight....

Me: we all are, but doomed is pretty ok when it means getting d with friends. i guess there are worse things.

He: Im gettin so d tonight. well maybe if i can mooch some drinks. hahha

Me: iLLz. always good to take advantage of friends with money. also, whats your sign?

He: i'll be illin super hard tonight. im a cancer that's why i smoke. why? are you into astrology? tell me some good news or something. or some sage advice perhaps?

Me: CANCER [June 21–July 22] As I compose this, I'm sitting in San Francisco's Chinatown, dining on something called a Milky Golden Prize Delight Bun. And, I'm thinking, I bet it's going to be a kind of Milky Golden Prize Delight week for you Cancerians, a Sweet, Creamy, Lusty Elixir week, a Rich, Thick, Tasty Brilliance week. If you can manage it, I suggest you try to have a dream in which you find a morsel of the sun in a bowl of pudding, and savor it while listening to the full moon sing you a lullaby.

! this guy's good... he knows you're gonna get paid/ill.

He: This is worst fucking horoscope I have ever read....

Me: cancers dont know good advice when they hear it.

and if you ever want to feel better about your own life, at least you're not any of these embarrassing humans: http://personals.villagevoice.com/

“The Chinese Word For Crisis

...has two characters, danger and opportunity.”

This sentiment has become stock in the bad-news emails getting shipped around offices from HQ as "crisis" endures as the theme of the moment/year/decade?

Good thing we can turn to the wisdom of the ancient Chinese when what we like to call modern civilization is crumbling around us.

Even rich people from the South “get it”: "It’s kind of like we all went overboard. And we’re trying to get back to where we should have been,” says Sacha Taylor, of Atlanta, who wore a 10-year-old dress to a charity function, on the decline of conspicuous consumption. If the highlighted trophy wives of Atlanta lawyers wearing pre-worn clothes doesn’t signify the end of days, what does?

Since becoming a poor, I’ve had a lot of time to think, since thinking is free. I’ve also had a lot of time to rely on the generosity of friends who are willing to share what they have. So far, the “economic crisis” kind of feels like less stuff, fewer breakfasts served to me by people I don’t know and more time spent with the people I care about. I feel less like a consumer and more like a human.

Isn’t the cause of our “economic collapse” our God-given right as Americans to consume what we don’t need-- with money we don’t have? Given that this existence has forced billions of the world's people into a star-spangled choke hold, lamenting its loss seems to be about a rung above war criminal on the depravity ladder.

Bob Herbert of the New York Times says:

The seeds of today’s disaster were sown some 30 years ago. Looking at income patterns during that period, my former colleague at The Times, David Cay Johnston, noted that from 1980 (the year Ronald Reagan was elected) to 2005, the national economy, adjusted for inflation, more than doubled. (Because of population growth, the actual increase per capita was about 66 percent.)

But the average income for the vast majority of Americans actually declined during those years. The standard of living for the average family improved not because incomes grew but because women entered the workplace in droves.

As hard as it may be to believe, the peak income year for the bottom 90 percent of Americans was way back in 1973, when the average income per taxpayer, adjusted for inflation, was $33,000. That was nearly $4,000 higher, Mr. Johnston pointed out, than in 2005.”

So maybe we’ve stopped consuming, because only because we’ve been forced. But what does that mean as far as “quality of life” is concerned? How can we make a smooth u-turn on a narrow road that’s decades long and trillions of dollars deep?

"The Americans always do the right thing. After they've exhausted every other available option." –Winston Churchill

The Poors

I once read that the bigger the news is, the smaller the story’s focus should be. I usually avoid personal narrative on here, because I sincerely hope no one cares about the mundanities that comprise everyday life. But we’re all broke and confused and cranky at the thought that something has been taken from us and we can’t do anything about it, and that all means more than we can really make sense of at the moment. So here’s my attempt: a tour of Brokesville from a recent college grad, who’s realizing she’s not overqualified to do anything.

Last weekend, I realized that I had less than fifty dollars to last the next two weeks. So on Saturday, I spent thirty of it on breakfast and beer. Now I’ve got about 15 bucks in my bank account, plus close to four dollars or so in change, and a nearly maxed out credit card with no foreseeable means of being paid off. I’ll be detailing life without the (often unacknowledged) sense of security that money in the bank provides for the next week or so, for all of you out there who can afford luxury items like coffee or lunch.

March 4, 2009

Tuesday night means two dollar drafts at East Burn, so I couldn’t not go. Got out of work early and played around with some art before consuming numerous Red Chair IPAs and some food. Put it all on the credit card, because it would suck to not be able to pay rent with the real money I barely have. While drinking some beers that I couldn’t actually afford, I wondered if this experience is representative of a new American class—college grads whose parents aren’t poor but we can’t imagine ever having health care or a savings account due to the fact that we a) don’t want boring jobs and b) wouldn’t be able to get one anyway. So instead, we find great success in functional alcoholism and lots of good times.

If the education system is a kind of a womb that you’re just kind of hanging out in for twenty-two years or so, our generation’s conception of the “real world” that we just got shot out into has got to be pretty unique in that any sense of the security we thought we’d have is quickly evaporating with every dour headline we glance at from between (embarrassingly long) facebook sessions. And by security I mean the promise of extended European vacations and a fat divorce settlement.

So I’m not too worried about racking up sizable credit card debt now, when the realities of economic doom are a much further than the delicious sandwich in front of me.

March 5, 2009

My net worth has doubled overnight! Thanks to a crisp tenner from the padres that arrived in the mail yesterday along with some granola bars, odds of making it have increased exponentially.

Last night, without the option of leaving the house to engage in recreational alcoholism known as “hanging out with friends,” I went through my closet and culled some garments to hawk, hoping they’ll find a home with the probably nonexistent person in this town who possesses both money and an affinity for striped sweaters.

The night turned out to be a cozy one with the roommates; we made some biscuits from a box in our empty cupboards and played some music. Probably due to the fact that not really being able to buy food can kind of alter your sense of stability, it was really valuable to be surrounded by people with whom I share a home and general kinship, as we try to figure out what the world is, how to live in it, and all those other valid experiences that have been rendered cliché by the major motion picture industry.

Last night was the first time in the four or so months we’ve shared a roof that I’ve felt that we’re a cohesive little unit, however pasted together by the sloppy tendencies of the universe we are.

Today the headmaster of my high school sent out an email to ensure alumni that everything will be running smoothly in the face of economic woes by cutting funds for teachers’ health care and other benefits and “school-wide entertainment functions and on-campus receptions and entertainment” plus “postponing non-essential equipment purchases” due to the decrease in endowment of 33 million dollars (about one quarter of the total). I’m just glad I was there in the salad years when they could still afford to throw away computers by the dozen and we ran around doing the drugs the school bought for us.

The email seems to serve as a harbinger of a nail in the coffin of even the upper class’ most time honored traditions of passing on the rights to an impenetrable sense of self-importance they’ll carry with them for the rest of their lives. Just goes to show that nothing is sacred to ECONOMIC COLLAPSE 2009.

In picturing high school without the gratuitous recreational events and barrage of t-shirts celebrating each and every one of them and all of the other things we felt unquestionably entitled to, I imagine that it will be a return to the classic boarding school atmosphere that spawned dozens of corrupt politicians and angrily erudite creative types: no fun allowed, with records and comic books seized by surly schoolmasters and students forced into character building exercises like enduring the physical violence inflicted on them by sadistic hallmates. I guess all of our high school memories of the constant frivolity of the summer camp will be just another fairy tale to tell our kids while we stand in bread lines.

Meanwhile, I’ve started imagining how I’ll spend my compensation for 63 hours of work over a two week period at ten taxable dollars an hour. While first affording temporary relief from various creditors, I will then use the remains to purchase extravagances such as film development and toothpaste.

Just read that the sad human that is JennAni got a £40,000 haircut, confirming once and for all what we’ve all been mulling over for decades now: Hollywood should be completely eradicated from the face of the earth immediately.