The Young Curmudgeon

Fun With Blogger's "Next Blog" Feature

The following was, I kid you not, the top post the last time I did the random blog generator thing:

"What the hell? I only put my sandwich down for a moment and now it’s gone. Next thing you know my pants will follow. Better take them off before that happens."

I can't decide whether this blog is brilliant or idiotic, but I'm certain it's nothing in between.

And Four Triangles Means You're Fired!

There are two possible ways, I suppose, to react to this story of rapid and ironic success for someone - say, me - who is in exactly the same state of desperation with his media job search as the writer of the piece. One would be to be inspired that someone out there has actually been successful at putting the HR bots behind them and getting a cool job. The other would be to react with the gnashing of the teeth, clawing out of the eyes etc., reasoning that this particular blog-stunt, now that it's been done, can't possibly be duplicated and the fact that someone's already pulled it off in fact lessens the chances out there for the rest of us schlubs who are back to trying to get beyond the cold, inscrutable HR bots (and I truly believe that humans are not involved in the initial stages of Bertelsmann's process) to at least be rejected by the actual humans that at least theoretically exist somewhere within Random House's organization.

And a word about Random House. It should be no surprise to anyone who's had the misfortune of dealing with their alienating, cold, impersonal, detached, future-techno-dystopia job application process that Mr. Mohney mentions them in the article. See, Random House, like Bookspan and many others, is a subdivision of the German media megalith Bertelsmann, a company that owns virtually everything that could reasonably be described to be a part of the media including any ideas you ever came up with in the shower for a cool movie in any and all current and future media.

Bertelsmann companies can't merely post their job openings like other companies, by posting them to a job board with a contact e-mail and fax number for you to send your resume and cover letter to.

My God no! That would be too intimate, too personal, too . . . well, almost human. It might even give the applicant the sense that somewhere, at some point, a real live human being is involved in the job application process.

 In order to apply for a job with any Bertelsmann company you first must set up an account with a bit of proprietary software, which, it goes without saying, is called by an acronym: the PCP, for personal career planner. You see, you’re not merely thinking about getting an obscure 9-to-5 job with a German media conglomerate because you have bills to pay, you’re planning a career by God! So, first you have to jump through the hoops of setting up an account, probably the fifth time that day you’ve given your personal information on the internet, and then you can look at the job listings etc. But the real fun begins when you apply for a job. You don’t merely send your cover letter and resume to some e-mail, not even one as impersonal as, say, [email protected]. Instead, you click on the “apply” link and the PCP sends you through the process of filling out a form. (Preparing you for your life of form-filling-out if you should actually get the job no doubt.) So, once you’ve pasted your cover letter into the tiny little box, attached your resume etc., you’re ready to apply.

 This is where things truly start to seem like some nightmare out of, I don’t know, Kafka? Philip K. Dick? Once you’ve finalized your application you then become acquainted with the hellish “4 triangle” system. On one page of your PCP are listed all the jobs you’ve applied for. Next to each one are four sideways triangles, which are either grey or orange. There is a legend to interpret them at the top. Note that having two orange triangles is called, I kid you not, “processing”. Not “reviewing”, or anything that might make it seem like someone is looking at your stuff, but “processing”. Once you apply you get a form letter which sounds like it was written by a machine. Other than that your only feedback comes from watching the triangles. And how do you find out you didn’t get an interview. Why, by seeing you have three orange triangles, or “criteria not met”. After that, you can eat a food pellet, take some pills for eight hours of sleep and wake up refreshed for a challenging day of form-filling-out and triangle-watching the next day.

 Karl Marx talked about alienation from labor. I’m not sure anyone predicted people being alienated from simply applying for jobs. God Bless you Chris Mohney. I too understand the desperation that leads a man to start a stunt blog.

And One Final Photo (For Now)

(Click to Enlarge) This is my single favorite picture of me ever taken. I think it makes me look like some Truman Capote figure; all fat, decadent and foppish with my parasol for the sun (never mind that it's really a Chococat umbrella) and fan. The pissed-off expression on my face and decaying New Orleans cemetery in the background complete the effect. I guess there's some sort of Southern eccentric gay man trapped in me somewhere.

This picture will definitely be up permanently on my retooled blog, which I hope will be launched soon.

Yet More Photos From Taiwan

(Click to Enlarge) I remember an episode of Futurama (one of the greatest TV series of all time) in which Fry and Bender eat a restaurant in which all the food is whizzing by them on conveyor belts and they just take what they want as it comes around. Little did I know that these sorts of restaurants - which exist only as sci-fi spoofs here - actually do exist in Taiwan. The picture is of the food conveyor belt at a "hot pot" restaurant, a sort of automat on crack, where you pay a flat rate to take as much food as you want off the conveyor belt and then cook it yourself it in a pot full of hot broth.

(Click to Enlarge) Here's the contraption you cook your food in.

(Click to Enlarge) And you can control how hot you want your pot to be.

(Click to Enlarge) Just as in the automats before them, there are people toiling hard behind the scenes to make it all happen. I looked behind there and there were only two people doing everything. Yet, they somehow kept the conveyor belt constantly stocked with food.

I'm a Late Adopter

Another reason I haven't been blogging is that I've found something way more fun and addictive to do on-line, playing with flickr. I don't even have a pro account and I'm still having a lot of fun with it. I highly recommend it. My photos can be found at http://www.flickr.com/photos/ericdeamer/.

I'm Still Here

However, I'm considering a move somewhere else along with a bit of "retooling" of the old blog. I don't know, maybe adding a sassy wisecracking ethnic kid or something.

Interestingly enough, despite the significant drop-off in my blogging activities I recently had a quasi-brush with Big Media in which I was to be interviewed for my perspective as a blogger. A producer from CBS named Russel I Levinton e-mailed me saying that he was working on a piece about the conflict between work and blogging, people getting fired for things they say on their blog etc., a subject on which I have absolutely no expertise, special insight, or even opinions really. For the aforementioned reasons, plus the fact that I'm not even sure I consider myself a blogger anymore, I was just going to forward the e-mail to real bloggers whom I know. But then I thought "Hey, at the very least I'm an erstwhile blogger and therefore I still love to hear the sound of my voice. Maybe I can get my URL mentioned on air and therefore have an incentive to post stuff for the new audience. And anyway, any publicity is good publicity and what else was I gonna do today." So instead, I decided that I would do the little news story (all the while complaining how silly the whole process was, natch).

So, I called Mr. Levinton back on the phone. I have no idea why he chose to e-mail me, but it immediately became clear that he didn't care if I knew anything whatsoever about the supposed topic of the piece (people getting fired for their blogs) and that I was just to be there as a generic blogger and to provide exciting action shots of a blogger typing at his keyboard. He wanted to send a crew all the way out to my place in Nassau county just to get these all-important action shots of me engaging in the exotic practice of bloggering to the internets, but when I told him I was going into the city anyway he figured out that they could get this footage (which I believe in TV news parlance is called "B-Roll") in the studio.

By this point I was embarrassingly excited about the interview. What would I say? Would I be able to steer everything to my preferred topics and away from the actual questions? Would I get any traffic to my blog out of it and would this inspire me to actually, you know, post stuff? Would they edit everything down to make me look like an idiot and would I then write angry, angry posts about how the evil "MSM" gets everything wrong and become a blog hero of the moment? The interview wasn't just for New York CBS but for a company that produces content to be distributed to CBS affiliates around the country so this was some real potential exposure here. As all this was going through my head on the LIRR train to the city I got a call from Mr. Levinton saying that he'd been pulled off the blogging story onto something else at the last minute. (The news business you know.) Well, easy come easy go and it's a good thing I was going into the city anyway.

So what have we learned about at least some parts of CBS from this little bit of "how the sausage is made" media reportage? For one thing it seems like CBS ironically is still way behind the curve on blogging. Though the original e-mail put a specific spin on this story, saying that it was about blog/work conflicts etc., it was clear from my conversations with Mr. Levinton that the piece was becoming yet another generic "What's up with these wacky interweb 'bloggers' the kids are talking about" type of effort. In short, the type of story that most major media outlets were doing 3 to 4 years ago. Secondly, some people at CBS have absolutely no idea which bloggers they should be talking to. I submit as evidence of that point the fact that they wanted to talk to me, a guy who doesn't really regularly update anymore and who has been going through a sort of slow blogging burnout over the last few months. I personally could give them the names of 10-20 people just in the NYC area who would be more representative bloggers to talk to. I wonder if they even had read my blog or anyone else's before they chose me.

Don't get me wrong though, if any major media outlets would like to film me typing at my keyboard I'd be happy to do it as long as they get the name and URL right.

Hey Everybody! I Found Another Big Box of Slides from my Vacation!

Aren't you excited!? Make yourself comfortable. I'm popping some popcorn. The doors are locked from the inside.

(Click to Enlarge) This is "Sun Moon Lake", the largest body of fresh water in Taiwan and probably its most popular tourist attraction. The natural beauty there is absolutely stunning, and the omnipresence of this slight fog gives it all an ethereal, heavenly quality, simply awe-inspiring.

(Click to Enlarge) This is (I think) Wenwu Temple at Sun Moon Lake. Impressive, no?

 
(Click to Enlarge) In the temple was this weird vending machine. I could never figure out what was in there? It looks temple play sets or monk action figures or something. Strange.

(Click to enlarge) This is a random no-parking sign in Gaoxiong/Kaoshiong/whatever. I post it here to illustrate the proposition that in Asia everything must be cute.

Go See the Movie Saving Face (UPDATED)

Last night I braved the hell of Times Square to go see Saving Face - the charming, original new romantic comedy by first-time writer/director Alice Wu - on opening night at a screening with one of the leads in attendance. I'd been wanting to see this film since I read an interview with Wu in Time Out New York. [I'm not linking it because it's behind their ridiculous pay firewall - ed.] Some of the things which Wu said about Chinese-American culture and her relationship with her mother (such as the fact that Wu said her mother always said that everything she did reflected on Chinese people everywhere) resonated with my girlfriend. At the same time, the story behind the making of the film really resonated with me, and should resonate with anyone who yearns to escape bland day jobs. Apparently, she had some boring sounding corporate job and decided to take a screenwriting course for fun. The screenplay she came up with was so good that her teacher wanted to option it. Instead, Wu was very insistent on her vision for the film so she embarked on a five year plan to turn herself into a director and Saving Face is the result.

For these reasons I planned on seeing the film anyway, so it was serendipitous when my friend Sally called and said she was going to see it with a big group that included the beautiful and winsome Lynn Chen, one of the leads. Chen said that, as with all films, the opening weekend is absolutely crucial. The film is in both New York and LA now and will be moving on to San Fransisco and San Diego (essentially anywhere that has a big Chinese population) next weekend. Good numbers for this first week are pretty much the determining factor as to whether there will be a wider release after that.

Having seen the finished product resulting from Alice Wu's Cinderella story I can say without hesitation that this isn't one of those Good Will Hunting situations where the story behind the making of the film is better than the film itself. This is legitimately a good movie - fresh, funny, richly observed, deeply felt, and with a remarkable performance by a coming-out-of-semi-retirement Joan Chen.

The plot concerns Wil, a 28-year-old Chinese-American Doctor originally from Flushing who now lives in what appears to be Brooklyn. (This is a very, very New York-centric movie so all New Yorkers should support it, but it has universal themes that anyone could relate to at the same time.) Wil is a lesbian but still goes to Flushing every weekend to go to dances where she meets generally awful Chinese guys whom her mom, played by Joan Chen, sets her up with. At one of the dances she meets Vivian, (the part played by my friend's cousin's wife, got that?) another girl originally from Flushing, and the proverbial sparks fly. The two start a torrid affair, but the closeted Wil refuses to engage in any PDAs or introduce her new girlfriend to her mother. At this point the film would seem to have the makings of no more than a fairly typical ethnic comedy or gay coming-of-age story, but what moves this film beyond those genres is everything having to do with the mother character.

It turns out that she's pregnant, and she won't even say who the father is! Grandpa kicks her out of the house and she shows up on Wil's doorstep. From that point on, it's a fascinating ride watching the two women not communicate and both live in terror of their own desires and feelings. This is all shown with a real eye for character and detail.  It's not one of those ethnic comedies with broad stereotypes, but one in which the cultural milieu is shown interacting with individual characters in a subtle way. The movie's also really, really funny. Much of the comic material is kind of broad, but the actors handle it with real deftness and sensitivity. Joan Chen is simply amazing. She indelibly creates a woman who is fierce, independent, disagreeable, crazy, and still somehow sympathetic with her performance.

This film should be of special interest to anyone who has the slightest interest in Chinese American culture, New York City, or indie-film-type romantic comedies. Go see it and make sure that more people have a chance to. What else are you gonna do? See Star Wars twice, you geek?

UPDATE: I'm so incredibly excited because who else has e-mailed me but Saving Face writer/director Alice Wu herself!! She sent me a gracious, warm note thanking me for my post and saying how much she believes in blogs being an important tool in helping films like hers to build an audience. She says maybe she feels this way because she has "geek roots". I just looked on the "production notes" portion of the official site for Saving Face and I see that she has a Bachelor's and Masters in Computer Science from Standford. Geek roots indeed!

Congratulations Naima!

For the second year in a row the best, smartest, most likable girl won. I was rooting for her from the beginning.  America's Next Top Model Cycle 4's producers did a great job misdirecting you, making you think that evil bitch Keenyah was going to win and then making you think it was Kahlen, but in the end they picked the cool girl from Detroit with the mohawk and the buttery smooth, soft speaking voice. I also liked the bit she said about being "a black girl, a Mexican girl, an Irish girl. I'm America's Next Top Model". It echoed exactly how I view race in America. I'm sad that the show is over but look forward to the next cycle. Watching it isn't a guilty pleasure. It's simply a pleasure.

Taipei 101

(Click to enlarge) This photo makes me cry. It's Kim's Grandma looking out from the observation deck at Taipei 101, currently the world's tallest building, and it probably will be for a while given the way things are going with the Freedom Tower. Sure there's not much of a skyline to look at, but still it's a really nice observation tower with a very sleek design and when we were there there happened to be a jazz orchestra playing standards for some event, which really heightened the experience. Grandma was really happy about the fact that they offered the audio tour in her native language of Taiwanese as well as in Chinese, Japanese, and English. When she was growing up Taiwan was a mostly rural, agrarian backwater under Japanese occupation. Now, here she is in the downtown of a Taipei that has literally more than ten times the population it did when she was a girl, looking down from the world's tallest building at a modern, democratic, free Taiwan. She looks quite pleased.

(Click to enlarge) Here we are in front of a photo that shows you what the building looks like from the outside. It's strange design is meant to somehow evoke bamboo shoots tied with ribbons. I don't see it either. The other white guy is Kim's Cousin's boyfriend who is German. He's moved to the Taiwan and is learning Chinese. He works at the building part-time giving tours to groups of Germans.

(Click to enlarge) Here I am with Kim's cousin in the shopping mall part of the tower inside Barista coffee, a charming little coffee shop with an eye-catching logo that reminds me of something or other, but I just can't place it. Actually, the funny thing is that while the English characters say "Barista Coffee" the Chinese name is simply "Seattle Coffee".