skintish town

job searches continue. pounded the pavement and applied at a number of big companies for a paltry sum of $8/hr. didn't know whether to laugh or cry. i wanted to say, "hey don't they make enough to give a bit more back to their employees"? i didn't know how good i had it in tokyo.
i thought id be able to take up the teaching gigs like in frisco. apparently here, there isn't quite the need so the districts can afford to be choosy. dunno what to think, but it felt like a carpet was pulled out from underneath me and i still am reeling a bit. i went into seattle school district offices with my application and the woman wouldn't stop laughing when i told her i didn't have a teaching credential. i said ,"okay, okay", my face was fallen, but that seemed to goad her on. i'm not so sure about this "niceness everyone is talking about or how deep it really goes.
maybe things here will pick up, maybe not. i've heard horror stories about portland and i'm afraid the same fate might befall myself in the rainy city. walked into barnes & noble, the manager looked a royal carpet licker, i can sympathize with lesbos, i mean think about it, bush or dick-seems an obvioius choice to me. anyways, we gabbed the meaningless small talk and we arranged for a group interview. seems almost like corraling a bunch of cattle into a pen for inspection. those standard qustions and answers, i'm already cringing. part of me wants to play the fuck up, but my ass is really on the line this time. like i really don't know how i'm going to make rent next month, never mind all the other ammenities i've wracked up.
it hasn't been all without nibbles. i did a phone interview last week for a kids' computer summer camp. something about that seemed a bit depressing, the whole getting kids sedated by the information age. i suppose there are some fruits from the whole revolution, of course like all such movements it's hard to keep track of the heads rolling in the midst of it.
it's been so weird all this interviewing, i don't even know what to make of it. i wonder what the hell i went to college for, but i wasn't popular in high school or college either, so why should the work world be any different? this whole selling myself is really disturbing. i guess i've come to accept i would only be good for one girl in a room of a thousand. i'm not quite sure how to deal with all the niceities of rejection. people think they're doing you a flavor by not calling you, but i got real respect for people who make the call.
like when i was interviewing for sublets, i would make a point of calling everyone to let them known it wasn't happening, just out of politeness. that might be asking too much for some people. this one girl who was really young kept saying, "didn't you like me?". seems a bit strange how pure the youth really are, kinda miss that disillusioned feeling. maybe i know better now and don't trip as hard, but nothing really means that much either and that isn't necessarily better either. part of me wants to have those feelings, the other part doesn't invest myself enough emotionally to care when things don't pan.
i made the mistake of going to PCC instead of UPS today. played it off though. i may have this one, the manager sonia is korean and the assisant stephen is gay as a dandylion. sonia was interested in my japanese trip and stephen probably wanted had other schemes. anyways, it's christmas rush stuff. it would be in my neighborhood, which i am shooting for cause it would knock out taking that infernal bus over the bridge. yeah, i'm really starting to love this town.
on my way to my interview today, i was met with the coroner putting a blanket over a guy on the ground. looked like a overdose of some sort, but it does make you stop and think a little. the cops seemed suspicious of everyone, but they always are.
anyways, tomorrow it's olympia, been googling my way down there. wouldn't normally drive 4 hours for a job, but that's how skint things have been. who knows? maybe i'll enjoy myself, but somehow i don't think so.

loading out the dinosaurs

If I could stick my pen in my heart
I would spill it all over the stage
Would it satisfy ya, would it slide on by ya
Would you think the boy is strange? Ain't he strange?
It's Only Rock N' Roll
The Rolling Stones
By Jagger/Richards/Wood

Qwest field, Seattle Oct 17- Just another night for Mick and the lads, leaving the field in a poof of smoke with the clean up crew like myself to mop up.
My crew weren’t allowed to venture onto the field to watch the grand finale. From where we were, it felt more like we were awaiting battle. The songs might’ve well have been friendly fire, what with the pyrotechnics. T he only song I could discern was “Tumblin’ Dice”, and even that was swampy from where I was.
Of course taking down that monstrosity would be no small task. I lost count of how many crates I loaded onto waiting trucks headed for Portland or Vancouver. It was madness though. I ventured out amongst the folded chairs and marvelled at the discared pizza holders, half eaten french fries, cigarette butts, plastic containers, and beer cups. We live in an age of blowers, so my joke about “getting a broom” obviously wouldn’t stick.
We didn’t get started until after 11 and the wrinkly lips had departed the building. My thoughts wandered to what aged rockstars in their 60’s must dream about at night, whilst I toiled away with a sound stage that was bordering on babalonian proportions.
This tour wasn’t Towers to Babylon though, it was Bigger Bang, did they even record an album.
New to the underling world of roadies, I wasn’t aware that the Stones crew certainly weren’t keen on doing the grunt work getting those crates up the ramps.
I was amazed how many women and older people I saw humping it along. One thing this company failed to provide was any sort of training which I would notice in the number of casualties. Two girls had their toes smashed by falling crates and had to be ambulanced away.
At first I did a fair deal of the pushing, but found it more hospitable to convene to the v.i.p. lounge and catch a bit of shuteye. Some of the deconstruction tasks proved quite monumental and I had to wonder which was harded, putting it up or taking it down. The size of the venue and the lack of accountability made sneaking off rather easy.
I can’t see the point in keeping the Stones together at this point in the game, unless of course you’re just trying to feather your nest. At the same time, it might actually be a dinosaur lumbering across our land and the days of stadium shows might be numbered.
I can’t think of any show I’d want to watch in a stadium, unless you put the Beatles back together. It’s gotta seem ironic when all your flava is drained out of you, but people still got a semblance of a time when you were once great. I wonder what Mick and Keith get up to at 3 in the morning, or is it all just mad English gentlemen turned loose on a fox chase.