Perhaps...

...it's clear now that I can't keep up with this thing if I try to write about my experiences in such detailed narratives.

And before I continue...let me reiterate why it is that I write in the first place: I write only to remember.

I'm not sure what it was that took over my life either...

The pressure of having to remember the nuances of every moment? The fact that a million fucking things have happened in the last two months? The job? Fuck...I say "job" as if it's my new career...as if it's the next big step in my life. Who am I trying to convince that I won't be working at Blockbuster for another year or two? My readers? Myself?

I should be the last person to forget why I quit working at Nutrilite...and while I'm on the topic of forgetting shit, am I really starting to forget the major things that have happened since Sound and Fury?

Perhaps I'm actually getting to a point where I can't remember everything the way I thought I could. I figured if I could just take things one at a time that it would actually help...but I can barely remember what happened in the month of August.

One of my closest cousins just got married. It was a big fucking deal, but it all went by so fast. It was like I went to New Mexico and came back in the blink of an eye...and now all of a sudden the cousin I grew up making fart jokes and watching hours of Ren and Stimpy with has a wife.

How the fuck did that happen?

It feels like everything from the last day I worked for Street Blimps up to this very moment has been nothing but a wildly intoxicating blur of life-altering shit.

I met new people at the Sound and Fury festival, including an incredibly sweet girl whom my roommate and I had at first thought purposely gave us a wrong phone number to keep in touch with her. Our confusion only led us to find that we were in fact both responsible for quite possibly the biggest fail of all 2009.

I walked away from that weekend with extensive pictures (some of which were taken by other people)...:

(photo courtesy of our friend Erin and one of my trusty disposables)

...while apparently I got caught in at least one music video:


My best friend's band, Dead Hours, came to visit while hilarity and awkward nakedness ensued, punx were upped, things were probably stolen, and I was forced to work the whole Goddamned time they were here. Gotta love those closing shifts.

I made extensive trips to the legendary Pinks on my way home from work and became a fan of the triple bacon chili cheese dog:

About a week of this went by before I made the incredibly low-key trip back to New Mexico for my cousin's wedding. I was literally in New Mexico for five minutes and the first thing that happened was I got sick. I stayed in a room at my parents' place the whole time I was there, eventually came out and put on a suit for my cousin's wedding, and then flew back to California. Somewhere in the middle of all the music, the ceremony, the dancing...all the random people I didn't know, I had a conversation with my dad and a close friend of his...and it basically changed my entire life. Sort of...

There isn't any sense in making a big deal out of this story unless people ask about it...so I'm going to go ahead and leave that one alone for now.

One of my best friends came to visit for some technical assistance with an unruly hard drive (unfortunately one that had Windows Vista installed on it), and the visit resulted in quite an epic, inebriated conversation about some serious shit...and it took a "WHOLE LOT OF EFFORT" for us to talk about it.

I spent the next few weeks talking to the girl I met at Sound and Fury...a girl who unfortunately lives about seven-hundred miles away. She's nice to me. She always texts me. If she ever came to visit and I took her places, would she have fun?

I am scarred for life from previous experience. Ugh...

Such deep philosophical questions turned over and over in my mind...but in the meantime I had to stay focused. There were things that had changed after my cousin's wedding. Plans. Priorities.

Then I cut my hair...

...and that's about when things REALLY changed.

So far only a few people understand the significance of this...but that's probably because they have known me for a very long time. It won't stay that way forever.

Another best friend of mine drove his car all the way out to LA from Phoenix just so we could kick it for a few days. He forgot to bring his camera, but that didn't stop him from just buying a new one. We documented our adventures:

First order of business (soul food):

Don't be a pussy - get the original:

Keepin' it homo:

Grauman's Chinese Theater - some dude on the left warbling:

Hollywood and Highland Center:

Entrance to Playboy Mansion:

Redondo Beach:

Huntington Beach, Labor Day weekend:

Los Angeles, close to Elysian Park during Fuck Yeah Fest (probably just before Converge started melting faces):

Traveling close to the speed of light:

Ludicrous speed:

Waiting for Bossa Nova delivery, apartment balcony:

My mom came to visit shortly afterward. She went to a premiere of Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs with my sister and brother-in-law (who worked on the movie), and got to walk the red carpet and meet Mr. T:

Apparently Mr. T is a sweet dude. When my mom told him that she was a big fan, he said to her, "God bless." Then they all stood together for a quick iPhone picture. I wish I could make this shit up - I'd be rolling in royalties by now.

After Mr. T's words of encouragement and my mom's inevitable trip back to New Mexico, another one of my best friends came to visit.

All she wanted to do was play video games and eat ridiculous amounts of food during her visit...so, I decided to pull out all the stops. We hit as many major food joints as we could possibly stand. We hit beaches, we hit a donut shop. We hit a tavern where she thought the vintage cash register was the coolest thing she had ever seen:

Redondo Beach in the afternoon:

One of my favorite pictures of Hermosa Beach:

The infamous cash register:

Huntington Beach on a Monday morning:

Santa Monica Pier at night:

Pink Berry before flying home...that and the new "hair cut":

I probably gained about five pounds from that visit - but eventually lost it all over again due to my strict diet of "oatmeal and tuna fish."

I made a trip to orange county for an art show featuring some of my roommate's girlfriend's artwork and got my first request ever for a postcard from the girl I met at Sound and Fury.

I've never had a girl ask me to send her a postcard before...not even when I was dating someone. I don't really know what that means. All I know is that I liked it, and I hope she keeps asking for them.

One season of The Office, a season and a half of Californication, Three seasons of Dexter and a postcard later, I find myself staying up way too late for my own good...but at the same time as a side effect of always having to close the Goddamned Blockbuster in Hollywood.

I would love more than anything to be able to say that this hasn't been an evasive attempt to avoid putting my all into a colorful adaptation of my life from the last two months...the last two months that I can't seem to remember well enough (or perhaps don't have the patience to sit down and recapitulate). However, if I said all that...it would be a fucking lie.

Therefore, my readers - you will have to excuse me...

I need to study for the AFOQT.

Walking the Red Carpet

Andy Samberg arrived at the July 28th Paper Heart Hollywood premiere some time within the first hour and a half of my first shift at Blockbuster Video. He was wearing a blue, hooded sweatshirt. Very hip, Andy.

It was my first night dealing with customers face to face, and after a weekend of driving around in the ghettos of South Central LA, I was ready for a change.

Hundreds of people stood outside of our little store on the awkward intersection of Hollywood, Sunset and Virgil. You could hear all the girls screaming outside, horns honking, the hustle and bustle of LA's rush hour traffic.

It was my first night handling a cash register...perhaps a big step from using a dated GPS system in a twenty-year-old truck.

My manager on duty for the night was totally convinced that we were looking at Michael Cera.

From across the street, behind a thick, glass window, he could have been anyone...but having the sense that girls would necessarily go wild for a young guy like Michael Cera, we were all pretty much convinced it was Michael Cera.

It was clearly Andy Samberg:



If you look close enough at 55 seconds, you can see someone inside the store walking near the window. That was me, walking back to the counter to help some girl who was curious about what was going on outside. If I remember correctly, she may have been renting one of the seasons of The Office.

My memory never ceases to amaze me. Perhaps that's why I studied physics...quite a monumental step from tendering a transaction for a season of The Office for some girl at a Blockbuster Video in Hollywood.

It was my first night for a lot of things. Perhaps things that everyone else feels when they're sixteen and they get that first summer job when they're still in high school...when you're standing behind that cash register for the first time and your supervisor is standing right next to you.

They stand next to you and they walk you through the whole thing.

"Don't forget to hit total."

"Don't forget to clear out of the account before you handle the next customer."

"Don't forget to type 'find' before you do a title search."

It's all so simple and elementary for someone like me, but it's still a lot to remember all at once.

There are two customers behind the counter.

The first one changes their mind after I've already totaled their transaction...I'm taking too long to fix the problem...now there are three customers behind the counter.

Four. Five.

I am a monkey pushing buttons. The best way to get through this is to not think about the fact that I went from generating recurrence relations for bessel functions to dealing with impatient Blockbuster customers.

If I were still in school while doing this, that would be one thing. I have my master's degree in science now, and the next customer is a bitch who has no patience for mistakes.

She eyeballs me...knowing that it's my first night.

There are now ten customers behind the counter.

The crowd outside thickens and more and more people begin pouring into our shrinking store. The line behind the counter begins to remind me of the one in front of Pink's (more on that later).

I've finished totaling her transaction and she hands me cash, a scowl on her face.

Everything is going fine, except for the fact that her change is 33 cents and I mistakenly handed her two nickels and three pennies...perhaps the most common dimensionality mistake I make when dealing with coins.

She holds the change in her hand and stares at me, the same scowl on her face.

I look at the five coins in her hand and realize I've handed her two nickels instead of a nickel and a quarter. I laugh and smack my head...

I apologize, take the nickel and hand her a quarter.

Apology not accepted.

I pick up her movies and mistakenly hand them to her over the counter...a mental lapse in the wake of my first official mistake, and I've forgotten that she can't walk through the detector at the front of the store with the movies in her hand without the alarm going off.

"You're allowed to hand the movies to me right here?" The scowl remains on her face.

I failed to amuse this woman by passively admitting my mistake, apologizing to her and handing her the additional twenty cents that I almost short changed her by...

"No, I gotta hand them to you over here," I say as we both walk around the counter to the front...she continues to eyeball me.

"You have a nice night," I say.

Regards unrequitted.

She used me. I could see it in her eyes. I've seen that look before.

What she saw that night was a boy in his early twenties who couldn't do simple math...even with a computer right in front of him telling him exactly what to do.

I know this is what she was thinking because this is how my dad thinks...and she had the exact same look in her eyes that my dad has when he becomes frustrated with having to wait in lines. The teenagers who work at all those fast food joints...the malls, the supermarkets...when he gets frustrated because he has to wait in line longer than usual for someone who's in training only to find
that somehow the educational system has failed us all.

"How is it that they can't do simple math when they've got a computer right in front of them telling them what to do?"

This woman looked at me the same way my dad looks at all those kids...like they've been reduced to their lowest possible form of existence. That night she got an opportunity to look down on me because it was my first night working a cash register and I mistook a nickel for a quarter, and she thought it meant I couldn't add...a woman who more than likely hasn't seen any math beyond simple algebra, yet happens to be old enough to have grown up in an age where she might not have had the advantage of a calculator when she had my job.

That night, my job was not to rent movies out to customers. It was not to sell rewards or to restock shelves or to keep the store clean.

That first night, there was a hovering urge to inform all of the impatient customers that I was smarter than them, that I was more educated than they were and that I was above the job...that instead of being there I should have been working with a team of engineers designing a new satellite communications system so they could download more crap onto their iPods faster, or a new type of semi-conductor to use in a technologically advanced optical receiver for some new ground-based communications network...

That first night...my job was to NOT say any of those things.

Eventually the premier across the street at the Vista theatre ended and the crowd outside of our store began to thin out. The old, rotten cunt who tried to insult me was long gone, but took with her the last opportunity a Blockbuster customer will ever get to treat me like dirt...or so I thought.

It was a rude awakening for a first timer at Blockbuster. One of the busiest nights of the week, at the busiest location in Hollywood, during a red carpet premier right across the street, and all my manager kept telling me that night was that I was doing an incredible job for a first timer.

If it weren't for that, the woman with the stink eye might have actually gotten to me.

Once the traffic in our store finally died down, I had a few breif opportunities to get to know my coworkers...a chance to explain to them why my previous job actually stressed me out more than having to deal with miss hag-bitch.

We were approaching close when an old, black homeless man entered the store and began harassing us.

He stood at the counter, hunched over, looking at me sideways and mumbled what sounded like a bunch of hobo gibberish. I'm not one to dismiss people like that automatically though because I have terrible hearing, and for all I know they're trying to tell me that they're my long-lost cousin or some random shit...which is far too interesting to dismiss. Either way, I have to treat everyone who comes into the store like a customer. It's my first fucking day.

It wasn't until I asked him to repeat himself a second time that I heard him say, "what's a matter? You can't understand simple English? You a high school graduate, boy? Did you have college? You get your degree or something? I'm trying to ask you for the Blockbuster website, I'm tryin'a get online. I want the number to one of the other stores - the one on Western."

It being my first night, I have no idea where to look to find him the number for the Blockbuster on Western. I didn't even realize there was a Blockbuster on Western. I don't know the neighborhood.

One of my coworkers walks up to me and points at a tiny strip of paper with the numbers of all the local stores printed on it. The strip of paper is taped to the counter right behind my computer monitor.

I give him the address for the website and the number for the Blockbuster on Western and resist the urge to be an asshole about it even after his attempt to insult me. He then recedes into the back of the store and creepily stays there for an hour or so, wandering around aimlessly until my manager realizes that he intends to stay the night.

Just one more night of dealing with annoying customers like this and I'll be on my way to Oxnard, California for a weekend of sight-seeing and hardcore sing-alongs.

Eventually the police had to show up and escort the hobo from the store after he tried to get real on my manager.

What a first night, right?

We closed up the store and cleaned up the mess left behind by the several hundred customers who visited us that day. It wasn't until I had been working at Blockbuster for a few weeks that I discovered the clear view of the infamous Hollywood sign right in front of our store.

Perhaps if I play my cards right, this won't be the closest I'll ever get to being a part of all the silver screen action...and maybe all the Andy Sambergs of an era ten or twenty years from now will be walking on the same red carpet across the street for a premiere of something I've written.

Maybe not.

Maybe the premiere will be somewhere else.

"How I Spent My Summer Vacation"

The first thing my boss does is hand me a few stapled sheets of paper with targets on them. A few churches, a few shopping centers, a McDonald's and some major intersections. I have no idea where the fuck these places are, but these are all the locations where LA Care wants me to take pictures of the truck.

Meanwhile the truck is parked in front of the shop waiting for me. The diesel engine still running, right after my boss has checked the engine fluid and the oil.

He hands me a digital camera and for a moment, it seems like he wants me to figure out where these locations are without the use of a map. He says nothing and walks back into the office. I'm wondering if this means I'm supposed to jump in the truck and just drive away now. I haven't even had a chance to park my car in the shop so that no one breaks into it while I'm out and about.

It was for the first few minutes after I had punched in on the GPS system that I actually thought I'd have to figure out where these places in the ghetto were strictly by trial and error.

I step into the office.

He looks at me and asks if I'm familiar with the locations. I just shake my head, so he prints out a Google map with directions on it. My blood pressure returns to normal.

It was the first day of three. Three days that I was not looking forward to at all. The only thing I could think of that made things any better were the three days I had planned out for the following weekend. The Sound and Fury festival was just one week away.

But first...I had to get through this shit.

The thing about driving alone through the ghetto for the first time is wondering whether or not you're driving through an area where you're not welcome, wondering whether or not you'll be noticed...if anyone is actually paying attention to you...

I figured I'd be the only white person around -- and in most parts of South Central LA I really was the only white person around.

It's a strange feeling, but the reality begins to settle in little by little...when you realize that no one there really cares about you...or what you're doing.

I had already been familiarized with a few of the streets in Inglewood, Gardena and Compton -- but not while I was alone. My route progressively toured through parts of South Central LA that I thought I'd never see:

(Information courtesy of www.streetgangs.com)

My last route:

The first several pictures I took were in some of the "safer" locations on my route.

A Shell gas station at the intersection of Western and Redondo Beach in Gardena:

The Memorial Hospital of Gardena:

Slowly, I began to differentiate between what I thought were extremely poor/working class neighborhoods and the neighborhoods that appeared to be potentially dangerous.

Forced to stop on the hour, I pulled over next to this Arturo's Tacos at the intersection of Gage and Avalon:

Perhaps they have good tacos...it's too bad I was on the clock.

Somehow, I eventually started feeling more comfortable...probably because the more familiar I became with each intersection, the more I knew what to expect everywhere I went.

My route covered major streets running through Inglewood, Morningside Park, Westmont and Southeast Los Angeles...all of which have documented gang territories. After a few laps, the perceived ghetto nature of these neighborhoods began to blend in with the Southern California scenery. After a few laps, I might as well have been driving through Orange County...sort of.

Every once in a while I'd see a few shady looking characters, some of whom seemed far too cliche for reality. I definitely had a few favorites though. On a stretch heading west on Manchester, just before passing under the 110 freeway, I'm pretty sure I saw this guy:



Passing time was pretty easy once I lent myself to all the comedic references. Eventually, stopping to get out and take pictures at intersections like Florence and Normandie became pretty casual...

From this:

...to this -- 76 at South East corner of Florence and Normandie (given 17 years of recovery):

Mobil on North East corner of Florence and Crenshaw:

My favorite part about the last photo:

The first day was by far the most difficult. Not knowing what to expect, what I would see, where I was going...it has always been a mental obstacle for me to drive through parts of a city I've never seen before...but this was entirely different. Perhaps it was merely a case of underestimating my own survival instincts...my ability to avoid getting myself into trouble.

I pictured myself missing important turns, driving down the wrong streets, getting myself lost because the map couldn't account for areas that had been closed off due to construction.

By the time I had seen my entire route I was comfortable enough to make stops just about anywhere to take pictures. Well...maybe not anywhere.

The second day of my route was probably the most fun...if I can actually call it that. I had all of my stops planned before I even got in the truck. It was on the second day that I saw the most white people, two of which were gingers...which really threw me off.

Somewhere between all the raging police sirens, the random people being arrested every time I had to cruise down Western, I saw a girl who looked remarkably similar to Michelle Trachtenberg crossing the street on Slauson:

It was after I saw the Michelle Trachtenberg look-alike wandering around in the "ghetto" that I decided I was done worrying about anything shitty happening. It turned into a regular old working-class job that I was obligated to finish doing before I could move on and start working at the Blockbuster in Hollywood.

This never took away from the feeling that I had a close-call situation with having to work in the ghetto at night. It was during those dreaded five days or so before my last route started that I wondered if I might end up being the next Raymond K Hessel.

Granted, if something like that were to happen to me while closing the shop at night, the person with the gun would probably be less concerned about the fact that I went to school for so long only to drive trucks, and I would inevitably end up with a hollow-point in my skull...

The third day is when things started to go wrong.

Sunday morning, I made it to the truck depot around 7:40am. It was still chilly from the night before. Quiet and breezy. None of the businesses on 130th street and Broadway are open on Sundays, so I really was the only person there. It was when I went into the alley behind the truck depot to open the shop that I saw the omen...

What followed after that was the first problem of the day.

Apparently, the night before, one of the other driver's had returned a truck from Vegas and had to park it next to mine. Normally this wouldn't have been a problem, but the shop was practically full at this point. There was no room for me to move my truck. The keys to the other truck had already been dropped in the office, which I had no keys to...so I was forced to call my boss from out of bed to drive to the shop and help me get the truck out.

This put me roughly thirty minutes behind schedule. I had a feeling this might end up being the first incident of three..."The Rule of Threes," my best friend would say...just like when we moved to Vegas.

My boss showed up and we got my truck out of the shop. It was on my last day that I decided to buy my own camera. I couldn't let any of my adventures in South Central go completely undocumented. As soon as I got to Redondo Beach and Western, I made a quick stop at the CVS on the South East corner and bought two disposables.

The first several shots were a series of intersections on Main and San Pedro...mostly crip territory:

Imperial and Main:

Bloody roadkill on Manchester, near Avalon:

Water conduit between 107th and 108th, LA River:

Colden and Main, Main Street Crip Territory:

Things seemed to be running smoothly until I decided to make a stop at a McDonald's near Slauson and Fairfax. When you gotta go, you gotta go...but for this particular piss break, the battery on my truck decided to eat shit...or at least it had me convinced that it was eating shit.

It was an extra thirty minutes or so that I was stuck in the middle of this shopping center, wondering how many more things could go wrong with another three hours left of driving in Inglewood.

My boss showed up after twenty minutes and managed to get the battery working again. Luckily, nothing else went wrong for the rest of the day.

5:30pm and I returned the truck to the shop. 130th street was still a ghost town when I returned from my last route. I could hear someone working in another warehouse on the other side of the street, a hissing buzz saw every few seconds. It was awkward and lonely, but somehow I felt a little safer.

I locked up the shop for the last time and took a few final shots, including the alley behind the warehouse.

Alley facing South:

Alley behind the warehouse facing East:

Like sardines I would always say:

I wasn't mugged during any of my last three days with Street Blimps. No one tried to bust any caps in my ass, I didn't come across any confrontations with the locals...no one broke into my car.

The truth is, Compton, along with many other parts of South Central LA, is much safer today than it was 10/15 years ago. The rivalries between the Bloods, the Crips and all the Mexican gangs in Los Angeles still exist, but the casualties of all the innocent bystanders have dropped significantly over the past couple of decades.

If you take a casual drive through some of the streets in South Central LA, you might see a white person walking their dog from time to time. An old white couple getting a tire replaced on their old camper. A racially diverse group of children playing softball on a neighborhood diamond. These are things you'll see in any other district or incorporated city of Los Angeles.

This does not mean you will not get mugged walking to your car after closing up a store at night. It does not mean someone wont try to break into your car to steal a stereo or a laptop or an iPhone. It is still possible to "fuck up" by driving into the wrong neighborhood, leaving your car by a shady street corner, or interacting with the wrong people.

I can't really see myself having the need to drive through the South Central part of Los Angeles ever again...but if I ever need to do it I wont feel quite as anxious about it as I did when I worked for Street Blimps.

I had a working-class job in the most notoriously dangerous city in all of Los Angeles for a whole month...and no one ever broke into my car.

However, my car was broken into...when I lived in Orange County:

The Entertainment Industry

My sister asked me if I could watch my niece over the weekend once I got back from Needles. It's a small favor to ask, given that they always put her down for bed before going out for the night. I figured it would be a nice break from reality and a chance to do my laundry without having to spend nine quarters.

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...

SB 1613

I was somewhere on the 15 South between Hesperia and San Bernardino, making my way back from Needles to Compton when I got the call. It was from an unfamiliar area code. My instincts would tell me this wasn't just a typical cell phone scam. I wanted to believe it might be an important phone call.

It's a winding road that twists and turns on a steep, downhill grade up in the hills between Hesperia and San Bernardino, just before the 15 South forks into the 215. I've made this drive before in my eclipse. It still gives me chills from time to time...even in a flat sports car that keeps its weight near the bottom of the frame.

Truck 15 was getting its ass kicked by random gusts of wind, barreling down the freeway...unstoppable and awkward...bouncing about like a pizza box on a skateboard. And I would look over to the side occasionally, between sudden jerks at the wheel, and watch the hills rolling down, down, farther down until I couldn't see beyond the drop. It really is a wonderful scenic drive when you're in the passenger seat...but these days I'm occasionally afraid to drive. I'm turning into my dad.

I answer the phone and it's a recruiter from Northrop Grumman.

When I first found out that the truck depot was in Compton, bells and whistles started going off. It wasn't the first time in my life that I felt like my laziness had gotten the best of me. No one likes to be a minority...and technically, by blood, I am one. But no one who sees the color of my skin can see that. No one who hears about my level of education or hears the way I talk can see that. As a person who looks, speaks...and perhaps, dare I say it, "acts" white, my first impression of the situation was that I would stand out far too much -- too much for my own good -- in a place like Compton:

The reality is that like most people, I have probably watched too many movies. Compton is just like any other place. It has houses and businesses, schools and mini marts, restaurants and strip malls...that and perhaps the most notorious history of gang violence this country has ever seen.

So I started the blanket applications...because I knew right away that I didn't belong there. If I'm going to get mugged because of where I work, I'd prefer it be in a place I'm familiar with rather than a place notorious for its violent crime...all because I've been forced to take a working-class job at the hands of the worst economy we've had in this country since the 1970s.

She asks me if I'm available to talk. I shift the phone from one hand to the other, trying to maintain this death grip on the steering wheel and keep the wobbling truck from running off the side of the road into the canyon.

"Yes, I'm free to talk," I say, because this kind of opportunity does not happen twice.

We talked for a good ten minutes or so about a job opportunity in Chantilly, Virginia, a small town roughly 25 miles outside of Washington, DC. It was for a junior engineering position, and they were looking for someone with my background and coursework.

This is my chance to sell myself over the phone as the perfect candidate...so if she asks me if I have experience with something I don't have experience with, I tell her that I'm anxious to learn. If she asks me about my level of interest in the position, I tell her it would be an excellent opportunity. There's no room to fuck up at this point, so long as I can keep the Goddamned truck on the road.

After talking to the recruiter for a good ten minutes or so, she arranges for me to have an official phone interview with a hiring manager the following day. She schedules it in the morning due to the three hour time zone difference, and this becomes the most exciting thing that has happened to me since my official graduation from CSUF. Coming home from the worst Fourth of July weekend I have ever had...this was definitely one thing I needed to keep me going.

The next day, I did not receive a call from the hiring manager.

Should I have been surprised by this? I really don't know at this point. Finding a job where I can start a "career" has proven to be equally as difficult as finding a girl who is actually worth liking.

I wasn't surprised by this at all. Rather than let it discourage me I made it a point to figure out what had happened. I called the recruiter a few times and she ended up apologizing. The hiring manager had left the office for a meeting and was far too busy for an interview...so we rescheduled. Sometimes I guess you just have to keep the ball rolling yourself...this wouldn't be the first time I've learned that the world isn't going to do everything for you.

It had only been a couple of weeks since I began the blanket applications, and Northrop Grumman was already showing enough interest to make some phone calls in my favor. Over 600 job applications...and I got one interview.

He told me that hiring me would be an enduring process...that nothing would happen over night...that being three time zones behind made the logistics more complicated. He told me that although I should be open to any other opportunities that come my way...he was still interested in "moving forward." And then he told me that he would make arrangements for a second phone interview with a program manager...someone with more direct control over the hiring process.

A close friend of mine who graduated with me has been reporting numerous lay-offs within his respective company. It's an alarming time for everyone, because while there is a perceived difficulty in finding jobs, there is also an escalated fear of not being able to hold one's current job...at least for a while there was. We are now at a point where so many people have been laid off, there aren't really a whole lot of people left to lose their jobs...so the process has actually slowed down a bit. The economy seems to have recoiled into a position where the only people who are hire-able in my field are people who cost the least amount of money...people with security clearance...people who can manage their own relocation expenses...people who don't need a great deal of training.

I can apply to 600 jobs. I can apply to a thousand. No one is going to hire me in this economy unless I'm able to prove that I'm the most affordable commodity on the market.

It has been over a month since all of this happened. I have not spoken to a program manager.

I could argue that I "risked my life" to handle an important job call while driving home from Needles that day. I'm just glad I didn't get pulled over for it.

I could have lost my job.