Resumes

I used to work at a coffee shop on New St. I was in the preparing/getting/delivering of things business. Prepare the coffee, deliver the coffee, get the empty cup, etc. People gave me loose change and one dollar bills to do this; it blew my mind every time. Some did it half begrudgingly, some self-congratulatorily and some with an ernest appreciation, or at least these are the faces and tones they projected. At some point I came to realize that all of them, even (and probably most of all) the ernest ones did this out of pity. I was, in essence, one of those homeless people who, completely uninvited, begin washing car windshields, only I was sanctioned and allowed.

At the time of this realization I was still pretty O.K. with the proposition. The job was simple, harmless and superficially rewarding from a human interaction standpoint. Bringing coffee and pastries to total strangers in need of such things is rewarding in some small way and hardly anyone is rude to someone bringing them something, especially the caffeine crowd. So what made me start resenting this job and myself for occupying it? Amazing as it was, the loose change and dollar bills more than paid the rent and put food and wine on my table. Stress was hardly in my vocabulary and there was even something soothing about watching passer-byes flitter on sun-soaked sidewalks to a symphony of clacking drummed out by an unknowing orchestra of laptop users playing solos with their headphones on. Even now, having sorted all this out in my mind, I marvel that something as simple as a resume could set off such an emotional, psychological and existential inquisition within myself. Am I truly that tenuous? The answer is undoubtably : Yes. A maddeningly beautiful and emphatic: YES.

I should have added "resume filer" to my list of duties above because at least once or twice a day I would be handed a little typed piece of proof from some job seeker that he or she was up the the monumental responsibilities inherent to the title: Barista. I never quite understood how a degree in history or membership in the Boy Scouts were going to impress in the fast paced world of getting and delivering until I did some research on the authoritative voice on resume crafting. What I found out was that the resumes I'd been receiving were pretty much what one could expect from a generation of people who's God actually answered their prayers @ night. As it turns out, God is not a stickler for spelling or punctuation. No matter how sloppily a true believer types a hope or fear into the sliver sized rectangular search field thousands of answered prayers always appear. The more I thought about it the more I realized that the electronic prayer answerer and miracle maker is just as cleverly unhelpful as the cosmic one. They may go about their ineffectiveness in polar opposite ways, (one offering silence, the other 232,116 query results) but each approach nets the same reaction from their flock. That being the prayerful will almost always pick the most convenient solution to their problems. This truth was unfortunate for me and the the countless people who handed in the same ProJobs.com template (which happens to be both Google's first of many offerings to it's followers and professionally boring) since I filed these resumes spherically in the receptacle for "Answered Prayers Which Are to Go Unanswered" or, trash can. I did this with little remorse because what I was handed was so mindless and robotic. Where's the life? The creativity? At the time I convinced myself it was a way to get back at people for being so unthinking and boring, but I see now I punished them because they failed to entertain me , to distract me from myself and self loathing.

Then one day it came. I almost didn't see it as it's author snuck it on the counter amongst the multi colored pamphlets offering pottery classes and guitar lessons. It too was multi colored and small, a hastily cut out section of cardboard taken from a flat screen TV box folded in two and held together by three thin strips of electrical tape. As I held it in my hands I got the sense that I should be alone when I opened it, so I excused myself from the barely audible click-clack sonata of the customers keyboards and locked the door to the men's room behind me. [Aside: There is immense safety in shit. No one messes with someone taking a shit, holding a shit or threatening to shit.] Once inside, I unfastened the pieces of tape, unfolded the cardboard and read: "Please don't let me fall between the couch cushions of life." scrawled in loopy cursive and black magic marker. Truly, I had never received a more desperate or unnerving application. What did it's author want from me or the coffee shop on New St? How does one keep from falling in between the couch cushions of life? Was I already there, crammed into some comfortable lightless nook next to forgotten pocket change and fragments of stale potato chips? All I knew was that I needed to find this person and look hard into their eyes. I wanted to see if they resembeled that strange figure I avoided while brushing my teeth each night.

Everybody Answers to Somebody

Muslims will answer to Jesus
even though they won't hear his question.
And Christians will answer to Allah
but won't be given the question.

Your answer to the alarm clock is to get up
and begin a day of thousands of questions
none of which can be answered incorrectly if
you want to fall asleep again.

We're contestants on the Price of Life
where we take turns asking questions
and pretending to know the answer.
"I know, I just want to see if YOU do."

So what is the right question?
What question can we ask ourselves to get
IT?
What is the meaning of life?
Where do we go after we die?
Is there a soul?
Is this the way a human being should live?

My question is, if every bit of human strife and suffering can be attributed to
different ways of asking or answering a question, a question or answer we invented
and then adhered to with the fervor of a lioness protecting her young, my question is
what is the use of answering questions at all. Is it not enough just to ask them and daydream
of the millions of possible answers which we can never know? Wouldn't you like that better
than answering to all of these someones and somebodies you hardly know who pretend to know the answers?

I would.

Movie Review: Deep Blue Sea

Deep Blue Sea, Movie Title or a Metaphor for the Human Condition,

By

Drew Smith

The movies; the bad guy falls in a pile of manure, the right guy gets the pretty girl and Samuel L. Jackson never dies under any circumstances. But the film, Deep Blue Sea, is not a movie, it is a hand guide for life. And not just in a, "I must survive these genetically enhanced super sharks" sense. Oh no, just beneath the surface of the turbid waters of Renny Harlin's movie theater thriller lies a symphony composed of the holy portions of each of the great philosopher's most sentient revelations. Within this 129 minute masterpiece lies every basic question man ever need pose to himself. Man against beast, man against human engineered super fish, man against himself( as seen in S.M.J's moving pre-death speech) and, definitely most of all, man against the very salty womb he first flopped forth from; the deep...blue...sea. When carefully examined it is plain to see that Deep Blue Sea is nothing more than an on screen representation of humanities "akaward" teenage years. At the peak of our evolutionary independence, when we are no longer subservient to the whims of ruthless and overbearing Mother Nature, the Earth begins calling us at our friend's house past curfew to remind us that the most common teenager related deaths are caused by drunk drivers. The constant flow of water searching for S.LJ., LL.C.J, Thomas Jane, Michael Rappaport and the angelic Saffron Burrows represents, at its core, the punishment of a naughty child by its hovering helicopter momma; and this mother does not follow the rules. Sensing the raw epic nature of the script, Harlin takes risks that even the most seasoned of Hollywood directors wouldn't take. Only a director with film credentials like Die Hard 2 and the Sly Stallone slice of brain gold, Cliffhanger would have the tits to kill off the movie's only viable star before the 45 minute mark. And if that weren't enough, Harlin serves up the same fate to the movie's only comedic force and main sexual centerpiece before the film climaxes in a gush of dynamite and sharks blood.

If you are an average film goer, a "Wes Anderson", "Coen Brothers" (do these" " denote sarcasm?) fanboy, you need not buy a ticket for this opus of imagination and hardcore thrill. If you enjoy a nice, well fitting romantic comedy or a society rocking documentary, beat your feet. This movie is for madmen. This movie is a treatise on the Steppenwolf. This movie is not for everybody.

Breakfast In Bed

I think the reason I have this blog is the need for an outlet for the emotions and experiences I feel are impossible to lay on even the closest of friends.

The sentiments I capture here are born from the darkest, deepest, most embarrassing and troubling parts of my conscious thoughts.

And, to be honest, they are pretty fucking depressing.

So I'd like to discuss one of life's forgotten, but most sinfully delicious moments: breakfast in mufuckin bed. How does life get any sweeter? How!? Someone that obviously loves you very much has taken it upon themselves to wake up before you, only to quietly create a delicious day making meal andl present it to you the moment you awake from some sweet, loving dream.

Ahhhhhhhhhhh!

We do not deserve these moments in life, none of us! Yet, they happen to us and some how we are unable to savor and cherish them forever. We get caught up in ourselves and get depressed and hopeless, all the while forgetting that someone, sometime, thought enough of us to make us breakfast in bed.

And with any luck, we' might love someone enough to wake up so early.

Some Nights

Some nights I am calm and read before bed,
Most others I rage and t-bone my head;
For reasons I have yet to understand
I silence my brain before I darken my nightstand.
Is it because my sails are sagging unbattered
By blue windy passions that blow forward and backward?
Is it because I perceive no certain direction
To rig my sails for which might blow me to heaven?
Or is it some chink down deep in my armor
Undetected by pride and leading to slaughter?

Words

How many words have you talked out so far?
In 30 short years they might cover up Mars.
The, "How do you do's?" and "How has it been's?"
could travel to China and come back again.
And how many of them were hollow inside,
to keep time a'passin and let byes go on by?
Did you dare to let out the ones you kept close?
The true ones, the love ones--the ones scared you most?
If your heart's filled with words and swellin' with pain,
Talk out the words and make yourself sane.

I'd Rather Not

I'd rather not watch my head get shinier
and I'd rather not look on my father's livered arms.
I'd rather not think those thoughts on the edge of sleep
and I'd rather not know my Gran is on the edge of death.
I'd rather not see that the world is run by thieves,
and I'd like to blot out that I'll never understand.
I'd die not to know why I can't blind your heart
and I'd die twice as hard to forget your heart once was mine.
It would be rather nice to delete all I've learned
and lie ignorant in fields of dark chirping grass.
I'd be rather content if once I hadn't been young
and was never seduced by earthy rhythms sweet,
But I am and I did and we were and it is and you are;
At least it all ends, my patience only stretches so far.