vain, selfish & lazy.

Friday, February 02, 2001

DON DELILLO, WHITE NOISE: presented in an easy-to-read capsule format!

the prologue to delillo's underworld is called "the triumph of death," and i can scarcely imagine a better description of white noise. white noise is a masterful meditation on the state of death, ca. 1985, when mankind has discovered numerous new ways to destroy himself but hasn't quite gotten the knack of the whole resurrection thing, though fear not because if he can't quite cure you of death, he still might be able to remove some of the horror that accompanies it. the protagonists of white noise, bombarded physically by an "airborne toxic event" and under spiritual siege by the white noise playing out on television and radio, are desperately in search of a significant death in insignificant times. with his fluent and mordant prose, delillo once again asserts himself as a true american original, finger on the pulse of the times and ear to the zeitgeist.
-fred solinger | steal this link! | discuss

Wednesday, January 31, 2001

oh, yeah, why not give me a job?: read this blog? fills your heart with pain to see me like this? DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT! click on the "hire me?" link on the left and you'll be taken to my resume. print it out and pass it on to your boss; or if you're the boss, well, why haven't you extended an offer to me yet, you jerk? too lazy to go to the left? click here then!
-fred solinger | steal this link! | discuss

the charmed life of the unemployable: regular readers know that on friday, a particularly bleak day, i was laid off from work; for those for whom this is news, read below, and for all, the press account can be read by clicking this very word.

so it goes that since monday, as the weekends don't really count, i've been inuring myself to a life of vagrancy. that day, it was my special curse to wake up at 8:30: late for those of you who work, far too early for those of us who don't. worse still, I COULDN'T GET BACK TO SLEEP, a problem i’d fix come the next morn when i just forced myself to sleep in. the rest of the day, i walked around in a stupor, all too easily falling back into the lifestyle i maintained prior to working. i filled out some forms -- 401(k) (and by the way, why the circle around the k? so none of us think we're getting $401,000 by singing up?), insurance, etc. -- and applying for unemployment, which was deceptively difficult. i was led into thinking that it would be easy to do since i no longer had to wait in the sort of line one saw on the television; no, there was a phone number one could call, toll-free to boot, beneficial for those of us who'd call $.30 lunch. the automated system kept asking me all of the questions, an endless barrage it seemed, until i finally got to the light at the end of the tunnel...before being informed that all operators were busy and that the call was being terminated. NO! you won't hang up on me, i won't be rejected, not again! it’s like Friday all over!

well, the fucking machine hangs up on me and this happens three times before i finally get beyond "interminable wait so we're going to end this call and you call us again later and try again" to "heavy call load but it's the best you're going to get and we'll get to you in 30 minutes." good thing: it only took 15 minutes; bad thing: the operator spoke english (poorly) in a dialect i couldn't quite put my finger on, but it provided enough of a barrier between us that i fear she might've gotten my information wrong -- i'll have to look into this. so, i should be getting my first check, which is good; but it won't be coming for 4 WEEKS!, which is bad. i hope to be employed by that time. jeez, what does the poor guy do who doesn't have some sort of safety net? but anyway, i'm enrolled for unemployment: never figured myself for the type, and saying that indicates that i have a type in mind who WOULD, but i don't really. the type = NOT me.

what do i do the rest of the day? can't quite remember, it's lost in a haze of judge shows -- how many are there nowadays? -- and psychics and jerry springer, which has taken a rather chilling audience participation bend since i last saw it manifesting itself in seemingly spontaneous chants, but presented puzzlingly in unison which leads me to believe that there must be an "APPLAUSE" sign with things like "SLEEP WITH JERRY" or whatever the situation on stage calls for; either that or it's some sadistic form of mind control. i do know that i spent much of the day, as i did the weekend, unbathed, unshaven, in a bathrobe and slippers, not having changed physically since the day of being laid off except having stripped myself of the corporate uniform.

i put an end to that yesterday when i took a shower, yet keeping the facial hair: i think i'm going to try and grow a beard for no real reason other than wanting to make some kind of change. today, i've even gone a step further, getting out of my pajamas and putting on actual clothes. i was just sickened of wearing them and felt compelled by a force beyond my locus of control to get changed. combined with my comment to maura today that i actually missed working, i'm slowly becoming afraid of myself. who is this go-getter i see in the mirror? what happened to the slothful loafer i once knew? i used to be able to go weeks, nay months, without getting dressed or bathing -- okay, not months, but... -- what's happening to me?

when i left work, i told my co-workers that i was going to take some time to "get my head right" and to "figure out where i go from here" and, to one co-worker, that i was dropping out of society and immersing myself in the world of underground sex. and yet, as of today, i've not only retooled my resume, but i've also applied for 12 jobs. what demon from deepest, darkest hell has possessed my body, forcing me to push myself when i'd normally veg out? WHO ARE YOU?!
-fred solinger | steal this link! | discuss

oops!: there are two kinds of people in this world: those who swear and those who swear INTENTLY. the first category tends to be made up of people who have casually observed the swearing of relatives, friends, employers, religious figures, etc. and, for whatever reason -- call it osmosis, call it fitting in -- they've taken to swearing themselves. then in this second category, there are people like myself who make a point of swearing, who want you to hear each syl-la-ble of the curse word (fuck off to all who would seek to correct my breakdown of the word "syllable"), be it for emphasis or, as in my case, as an affectation (i look sort of meek and feminine and it amuses people when i swear because i seem like the sort of person who would belong in that first category).

if you haven't heard, while backstage before appearing at the rock in rio fest, it seems brit was unaware that the microphone could pick up what she was saying, what followed revealed the drunken sailor within, as she not only said "fucking" twice, but also "shit." having heard that infamous tape of her going on an expletive expedition, i find that britney spears falls in with that first bunch. britney, like a lot of people i know and -- sorry, ladies -- especially women, swears like it's an afterthought. she doesn't enunciate them nor does she lend them any particular gravitas, they merely roll off her tongue like so many other words. indeed, i needed to replay the tape -- and by tape, i of course mean mp3 -- several times over to fully grasp her saying them; they prove elusive even after all of that after, like as if some sort of built-in defense mechanism was protecting her audience from her mouth. the object of her wrath? some unknown party who was refusing to "vamp."

what one does grasp from this tape of an unguarded moment is that, despite the clothing and the sexy videos, britney spears is still very much a young person. you can hear it in her shrieks, in her playing around, in her concerns -- and, besides that, anyone who uses “retarded” twice in a minute is still quite juvenile. and yet she does emit this air that yes, she may be young, but she's serious and knows the game, especially heard in, after some page brings her a bottle of water or what have you, the mastery of her "thank you, baby" reply. total hollywood, man: unlike yours truly, britney doesn't need to curse to prove she's got balls.
-fred solinger | steal this link! | discuss