First of all, I want to express how frustrating I find this one publicist to be. Whereas other publicists are absolutely attached to their computers and write responses within days, this woman sure takes her time and tells me last minute that the band she works with is available tomorrow. Well I wish she'd written sooner, because my life didn't stop for her, and I was out all day. So now I end up looking like an ass, as if I purposely ignored her. I haven't written back because I don't know what to say.
I mean, the band she works with is totally wired, one of the members has a fucking blog, so the fact that I decided to work with her instead of cutting her as a middle-man was a formality that I didn't necessarily have to follow. So why, exactly, should I have bothered with her.
Sigh. I'm not that mad, actually, it's not like I wish a pox upon her. But I'm just sad, because I wanna do a good job, and I want to give exposure to this band, and up to this point I feel like she's just gotten in the way instead of facilitating the process. I don't know.
Also, it seems like just when I felt like I had control over things, work has started piling on. I tremble in fear!
Another rant: is it just me, or is it incredibly unfair that the Hebrew Hammer totally gets killed in that new stupid-ass horror movie, Stay Alive? Why is it the beautiful, Christina Ricci-dating people that go first??
Yesterday I had quite a lovely day. I met up with Claudia for like an hour or so. It was brief but really fun. I missed her a lot. We were standing and gabbing outside the Journalism building when I saw this boy shuffle past me. I just saw him from the back but I knew exactly who he was, and I had to stop everything.
"Whoa, was that The Twat?"
Claudia nodded and cracked up.
The Twat is this boy I see from time to time, who dresses in this ridiculous hipster-like manner, and wears sunglasses all the time, even inside. When he walks, he sort of swaggers in this utterly pretentious manner that just makes you wanna choke him. Claudia is friends with a friend of The Twat's, so I looked him up on Facebook. Yes, yes. Of course he likes the Strokes and Interpol and shit like that. Of course he had to be a music student. And of course his photo albums are proof of his so-called decadent lifestyle. Yeah, I do find this kid amusing and pathetic at the same time.
Another thing that happened while with Claudia: we went to the Recorded Music Department so that I could drop off my teacher's book, and she asked me what his name is. I told her, and she's like, "I KNOW THAT GUY!" I asked, "What??" And Claudia explained that he's always on VH1 as a talking head, y'know, in those awful shows with ridiculous themes like I Love Fashion Accessories from the 90s and Worst Hair from the 80s and that sort of shit. I didn't know people actually knew my teacher. When Maria told me she knew who he was, I was very very surprised.
Well, later I met Boogie-Down Nicole, and she confirmed everything Claudia said: that my teacher is on these shows frequently and that he's snarky and that these shows are lame as fuck because supposedly the producers feed the talking heads specific lines.
I had a lot of fun with Boogie-Down Nicole, we went to Blue 9 Burger which was a relief; I have so many friends who are either vegetarian or don't like meat or SOMEthing and won't have a fucking burger with me. But y'know, Nicole ain't high-maintenance or nothing so we ate some of these imitation In-n-Out burgers and fries and soda.
We had so much fun. We agreed that for someone so ugly, Sarah Jessica Parker is awesome in Sex and the City. I know the show has been over for ages, but I don't have cable, so I only recently discovered they were showing reruns on network TV. (Hence, I also didn't know that my teacher was a talking head on VH1.)
The other important thing I have to say about my conversation with Boogie-Down Nicole is that I'm back into thinking that Marc Spitz is awesome. For a while I was like, "Ugh he's such a sorry excuse of a druggie music journalist" but now I see that his being a sorry excuse of a druggie music journalist has its charm. I think what threw me off was that part in the beginning of How Soon is Never? where the main character talks about sleeping with a lot of women who are much younger than him, and the novel is such a thinly disguised version of his life, so I always figured that was a more realistic part... what do they call it? A roman a clef, right? But seriously, he's too funny, so he can get away with this shit.
Today I had an awesome time. I woke up at 8 am because a family friend came from Chile(!) and stopped by on his way to China for a business trip. It's surreal. I forget that I didn't learn Spanish out of nowhere, and that I used to live in a place that wasn't the Boogie-Down Bronx.
I got a message from Cam to shimmy on down to his work place so I could help out with mailings. I worked on sending out José Gonzalez albums to people like Jon Pareles and my former boss!
I should mention here that I think Jon Pareles is an absolute dweeb (more like a fact!) who doesn't know how to write (I'm probably wrong on this). I declare my hatred for this man and yet I find myself reading everything he writes, simply so I can give him shit for it when necessary. Actually, I used to hate the dude a lot more, but then I found out what he looked like, and I felt bad. He's this old man... I'd feel bad trying to beat him up.
Anyway, work today was my best experience so far. I just felt like I'm getting along better with everyone. This dude walked in, and something in the air changed, and I heard him speak with a British accent, and I was like, "Oh, this dude must have authority". Except I thought maybe he was some important label dude from the UK office, but it ended up being a musician.
In the conference room, there was a whole plate of cookies. I wanted to steal one, but I connected that this musician dude was gonna be doing interviews in that room. We had to be very quiet for one of them because it was for a radio interview. The dude seemed very nice, very friendly. Before the interviews he went shoe shopping with this publicist lady. I thought they meant nice dress shoes, but they brought back hi-top Converses. Hahaha.
Later, at dinner, Rachel would tell me that made sense. When she went to England in the summer, she found out that shoes generally go for £35!
I finished work a bit later than in previous weeks, so Rachel came over to the office. We were rewarded with leftover cookies from the interviews! It was thrilling, y'all! Rachel was awesome, she sort of helped me and this other kid fill out customs forms for all these Canadian mailings. Then Rachel helped me go to the post office to drop off said mailings.
Y'know, I asked Cam if he went to see Plan B. It was this awful MTV event featuring only British artists, and it was this really lame group of NME-approved bands plus dear little Plan B. Cam and I gushed over this rappin' and croonin' and guitar-playin' talent. I wish he was more popular! But not too popular, not too overhyped. I don't want him to end up like... ahem, the Ess Oh Vee.
Cam is so awesome, I told him I was going to the José Gonzalez in-store at Other Music and he was actually like offering to guestlist me for his Tuesday show. I had to decline because I think I'm gonna have a shiiiiitload of homework and other such stressors. I asked him how early I should go to the store. I don't wanna bum around too early because, I told Cam, "They sort of hate me". Cam grinned and was like, "They hate everyone". Haha.
Anyway, after I got paid and Rachel suffered through me working, we walked down to Other Music, went to Etherea, ate at Benny's Burritos, mocked our favorite band, and then walked to the train. It was good times all around...
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