A couple of weeks before I took the job with Street Blimps, I had applied to several places within 20 miles of the apartment. Best Buy, Radio Shack...Blockbuster. I have applied to work at Blockbuster several times throughout my life...always denied the "opportunity" to restock the shelves, to offer advice to customers on the best movies...to finally learn how to use a fucking cash register. I was one year away from completing my bachelor's degree in physics when Blockbuster denied me a single interview for the last time.
Several years later I have a master's degree in physics and here I am again...dropping my resume on the most recognizable movie rental outlet in the country.
One Sunday afternoon, shortly after I had started working at Street Blimps, I get a call from the store manager of a Blockbuster in Hollywood. I showed up for an interview that same day and apparently I did really well. The manager said she would be contacting me the following Wednesday to let me know if I had gotten the job. She never called, so I assumed it fell through the cracks.
I was still at my sister's watching my niece when the store manager called me again and asked if I could show up the following Thursday afternoon to "fill out paper work."
I had been hired.
Apparently Blockbuster only hires the best of the best of the best. I had to get a master's degree in physics before they'd consider adding me to their CSR team.
That night I went to bed unable to stop giggling about the fact that I drove trucks and that my goal to work a typical, high school summer job after getting my master's degree was finally coming true.
It was about 2 in the morning when the girl from the freeway suddenly called...
The first time I ever saw her I was sitting in the back seat of my friend's car. We were driving along Interstate 10 somewhere between El Paso, TX and Las Cruces, NM. My friends and I had just left Kiki's and I was sitting in the back seat just looking out the window...hoping to see my next crush.
At 90 miles per hour, I thought she looked like Hayley Williams:
The girl was absolutely crazy though. I wrote my phone number on a paper plate with a black sharpie and handed it to her while both cars were still in motion, from one window to the other. It was by far the coolest and most dangerous thing I have ever done...but I never got to meet her in person.I answered my phone at 2 in the morning because I immediately knew who it was. It had been roughly four months since our encounter on the freeway, but all of a sudden she decided to call me in the middle of the night.
To make a long story short, she and I discussed everything from politics, to money, to religion, to everything we currently hate about the world. At the end of our two-hour conversation I concluded that her personality was remarkably similar to that of Polly Prince:
She will forever be known to me as "Jessica Rabbit" though...not just because her name is Jessica, but because she told me about how she once dressed up as Jessica Rabbit for Halloween:
If you have never heard of/have never seen Jessica Rabbit, then you are definitely failing at life.I've always had sort of a "quit while I'm still ahead" mentality when it comes to talking to girls. Jessica Rabbit insisted that I call her any time I felt like talking...but I didn't call her the next day. I didn't call her the day after that either. I wanted to talk to her. I wanted to hear her voice...but I didn't call her at all for about two weeks. Perhaps it was knowing that she lives 800 miles away that fucked with everything. Perhaps it was thinking that this girl is far too gorgeous for me and that there is no way she could possibly be interested in such a negative asshole like myself. Perhaps I can just unload about all this bullshit some other time...
Sunday night I went to see Bruno with my roommate and his girlfriend.
Sacha Baron Cohen really puts the audience to the test this time around with the explicitly ultra-homo shenanigans in his new movie, Bruno. While I loved the direction of the movie and the ideas behind it in principle, I felt like it fell short of Borat in more ways than one. Perhaps it was a little behind for its time...or perhaps it came off a little stale in the wake of Borat's comedic success. It wasn't a complete fail, but it didn't live up to my expectations.
I returned to the apartment and began writing music furiously. A third Onlooker full length was suddenly underway. For three days straight I worked on recording seven new songs. Where it comes from, I honestly don't know. How much longer I'll be able to do it without having an actual band...I honestly don't know.
My roommate and I decided to try out a newly discovered burger joint called the Hamburger Habit. This ended up being one of our best discoveries yet, and the Habit ended up having some of the best milk shakes I've ever had. If you're ever in West LA, I highly recommend it.
Thursday afternoon I show up at the Blockbuster in Hollywood and start filling out paperwork. They give me some t-shirts, a name tag and a stack of formal documents. As I'm leaving the store I get a call from my boss at Street Blimps. He wants me to show up the next day so I can post a truck for a route that starts on July 24th. It's not entirely clear where the route is, but all he can tell me is that it's "local."
Friday morning I drive to Compton and begin posting my truck for the grand opening of LA Care, a local family resource center for health and wellness (pictures forthcoming). This is when my boss tells me that my entire route is primarily in Inglewood.
I saw this coming.
It's a three day route from July 24th to July 26th. I try to shrug it off and I ask him if it's an 8 hour route or a 10 hour route. He tells me that it depends. Apparently Street Blimps is often hired for routes 30 to 50 hours at a time. He told me he wouldn't know the exact schedule for my route until the following week but that if it's a three day route, the hours can often be spread out over the three days like a bus schedule. Six hours in the morning. Six hours at night.
Six hours at night. Any hours at night.
The idea that I might have to drive around in Inglewood and parts of South Central for several hours by myself at night put a really sour feeling in my stomach. My job was to drive a truck and draw attention to myself...on purpose. To make stops every hour, on the hour, and to take as many pictures as possible...
Those first few minutes of realizing that I might have to drive that truck through those neighborhoods at night were a little tense. Having accepted employment with Blockbuster, I tell my boss that it'll be my last route and he's totally cool with it.
I needed another break from reality.
My roommate, his girlfriend and I decided to go to the Cheesecake Factory in Brea the weekend before my route.
When I was about ten years old I decided I wanted to be a cheesecake connoisseur when I grew up. I guess I had been screwing the pooch up until now because I had never even been to the Cheesecake Factory until I was 25.
For those of you who have never been to the Cheesecake Factory...their menu is unlike the traditional glossy fold-out. No no...the menu at the cheesecake factory is more like a twenty page spiral notebook...a never-ending tale of seafood, continental, Italian and domestic classics. And then there's the cheesecake menu...with about thirty different choices. For all the lovers of cheesecake, please: if you ever go there and look at the menu, when you're finished shitting yourself, try and remain calm and don't be the piece of shit who orders "the original."
Between the three of us we tried Craig's Crazy Carrot Cake:
the Kahlua Cocoa Coffee:
and the Lemon Raspberry Cream:
Apparently the Carrot Cake was the mistake.When the cheesecake feast wasn't enough, we ended the night with a trip up to Black Star Canyon.
Rather than go into a detailed explanation of the reputation Black Star Canyon has made for itself over the past 30 years, give or take a few, I'll let Google answer any questions anyone might have.
We trekked Eastward along Santiago Canyon Road until we reached the infamous turn-off for Black Star Canyon and completely missed it, as usual. The road has been cut off to access from all non-residents...but the restriction isn't sanctioned by the state or the county. Apparently the two backwoods Christian-cult bumpkins who own the property placed the restrictions on their own accord and they like to enforce them with shotguns and such. They don't take too kindly to city folk.
We skipped Black Star Canyon Road and continued onward, making up jokes about Deliverance and serial killers, until we accidentally drove as far as Mission Viejo. It was when we turned around and started heading back that we found ourselves in a situation very similar to a cross between this:
and this:
The only differences being that I don't look like either Dennis Weaver or Justin Long and I don't drive a 1970 Plymouth Valiant or a 1960 Chevrolet Impala. I guess the Mitsubishi Eclipse series doesn't make for a decent cliche car chase.Anyway, the quasi-bro-type, lifted truck Christian asshole who was chasing us rode my ass for about two minutes with his brights on...and anyone who has ever driven in a car with me knows I always like returning favors.
Perhaps I could have gotten us all in trouble but it's always in the worst case scenarios that I can at least rely on the trusty Louisville Slugger in the trunk of my car.
Back to reality.
For the next five days I waited for my last route. They weren't exactly the best fives days ever. Even while trying to look forward to the upcoming Sound and Fury Festival in Oxnard, California, I couldn't stop thinking about the many different things that could happen to me at night during my route. Even just the fact that I would be returning the truck at night by myself was giving me ulcers. Returning the truck alone required going into the alley behind the truck depot...and having seen how sketchy it looks during the day, it bothered me more than enough to feel nervous about going in at night.
The Wednesday before my route started I called my supervisor to find out what my schedule would be. It was a morning to afternoon shift for all three days...eight hours of driving in the ghetto.
At least I could breathe a little and not have to worry about locking up the shop by myself at night.
One of my closest friends whom I grew up with was turning 25 the day before my route. I hadn't heard from him in a long time but he had asked me to give him a call a couple of weeks before. I wanted to wish the guy a happy birthday, so I gave him a call and we talked for a while. I could hear his daughter in the background. It's crazy to talk to someone you're so close to after a long time...someone you grew up with, and to hear their kid in the background over the phone.
We caught up on things. We talked about our parents. We talked about the prospect of meeting up in Las Vegas some time in the next year or so. He told me about what it's like having a kid and he told me about his job working for a bank. I told him about my "career" situation...the fact that I was getting a job in the entertainment industry...or at least a job providing entertainment...sort of...and the fact that I'd be spending the next three days driving around in South Central LA. Oh, it was good to hear him laugh though.
I hadn't heard him laugh in a long time...
