This Looks Like a Job For..

Went for two job interviews today. Although I am probably the most unemployable ratbag of an occupational health and safety disaster waiting to happen ... um... person that I know, I do hold an unbeaten interview record; in that I've never been to an interview and not gotten the job. Pretty scary really, considering I'm coming off the seedy end of a 5 month travelling bender and currently about as employable as a Commodore 64 tape cartridge.

The first interview was for a lovely little NPO called The Learning Trust, who are based in Hackney, which as you know, would be very convenient for me locality wise. They basically deal with the administration of all the schools and learning centers in the Hackney area.

These jokers made the completely transparent play of sending one of their really hot colleagues down to collect me when I arrived at the front desk this morning. Little do they realise that I fell for it completely! Ha! Anyway, I thought the interview went really well and 30 minutes after leaving, the recruiter called me up and offered me the job. Queue celebratory dance - which coincidentally looks just like the mambo with a few 'Heys!' thrown in intermittently.

This afternoon I went to another job interview for a smaller company based in Shoreditch, which is a really cool part of town a 20 minutes bus ride away. Great looking company, really young and innovative and I'd get to learn a lot, which is good thing for someone in the ever-changing nerd business.

Now, although I went in bolstered by the confidence of the previous job offer, for some reason this one was bad from the start. They asked me questions on things I had slightly lied about on my CV, I laughed at inappropriate places and didn't laugh when I should have, and I'm not altogether certain but I might have been wearing my underpants on my head.

I left with my tail between my legs, and thankfully with my underwear back where it should have been. "Oh well," I thought "at least I'm still addicted to crack and have 5 kids I've never met." I then tried to name all five of them, but got stuck on Roger. It really wasn't my day.

Then the phone rang. "Hi David, this is Pete from the interview... could you come in tomorrow to meet the CEO?"

Apparently a discerning admirer of pantular headgear. I accepted.

.. Which one though?

1. More money, NPO, cooler office, walk to work, hot colleague
2. More innovative.. umm.. that's about it.

Halp!

Boo! Shake, shake, shake the room.

Halloween, as it turns out, is great. You get to dress up as Teen Wolf, participate in parent approved solicitation of lollies from strangers, and BOO! the bajeezus out of unsuspecting flatmates while simultaneously excusing yourself from the subsequent abuse barrage because you were merely attempting to be 'festive'.

Little did I realise however, that for all these years I had been inadvertently missing out on the best bit of Halloween, for it was only yesterday that I realised that I had never ever once carved a pumpkin not once in my life. Riding in a helicopter could wait, this was far more accessible to a man of my current means. So, while the rest of the house was cooking and cleaning and moving furniture in preparation for our Halloween party yesterday, my flatmate Charlie and I resolved to jazz the place up somewhat by creating some arrestingly spooky squashes.

After every incision, I would turn my orange obscenity towards Charlie and say "Hey dude, check it out." which would illicit a avalanche of hilarity from the both of us. Then Charlie would make a cut, show me, and we would again erupt in pumpkin fueled elation. This rotation ensued for the remainder of the afternoon, and by the time our constructions were completed both Charlie and I were utterly convinced that we should pursue the art of pumpkin carving on a more professional basis from this day henceforth.

We were, of course, showered with praise for our fine efforts once the merrymakers began arriving at our soirée later that evening. I stood beside my creations and beamed with pride, discussing in triplicate the techniques I had utilised to create some of the finer details.

I call this guy the 'Yak-O-Lantern':





And this charming character I imagine being pictured under a bold printed newspaper headline which reads: "Headless horseman relieved after cranium recovered in ditch".





Charlie tried to recreate the nuances of Pete Doherty with his pumpkin. We thought that perhaps by creating an realistic effigy we would somehow tap into some eerie magic power vortex resulting in Kate Moss appearing at some point in the night demanding to see the 'two pumpkin artisans', but unless this occurred while I was in the can, our hopes were well and truly dashed in that respect.




I've got to be completely honest, we did get a fair bit of inspiration from this site, very edgily titled 'extreme pumpkins'. Just wondering what can't be dubbed extreme these days...?

Tune in next week while I explore the extreme sub culture of quilting. Peace out dawgs!

Will Styles for Cleo Bachelor of the Year

Will received this email in his inbox the other day:

Hey guys,

See below re: Cleo’s Bachelor of the Year.

It’s always good to have some DJs in this competition, so if you’re interested & single (see requirements below), please get back to me & I’ll be happy to forward your details onto Jo @ Cleo.

It’s a bit of fun also, so don’t be embarrassed :)

Thanks, Angie x

-------

So CLEO Bachelor is about to start up yet again.

We’ll be locking down this year’s crop of 50 bachelors over the next month and shooting around Australia in early December.

I’m sending this to you in the hope that you’ll suggest any suitable talent who you think are CLEO Bachelor material.

Looking for young-ish (no older than 35), unattached* boys who are not only hot, but successful and have a bit of charisma. All we need is a happy snap and a few basic details:

• Name
• Age
• Occupation
• City they reside in
• Contact phone and email or publicist contact
• Plus a few words (100 max) on why they’d make a great CLEO Bachelor.
  

(NB: * by ”unattached” we’d prefer single, but if they’re dating someone and it’s not too serious – i.e. they’re not living together or haven’t been together for a few years – then they will be considered).

Email any suggestions to xxxx@xxxxxx.com.au and please circulate to anyone you think may be interested!

Thanks!

He contacted me pretty soon afterwards, and we began a thorough investigation of the material in earnest. Although we both agreed that morally we could not condone a competition that so ruthlessly grades one man's worth over another, we still could not deny the fact that Will had a fairly solid shot at the title. He had placed very well in Mad Magazine's Alfred E Nueman Lookalike of the Year competition only a few weeks prior, indeed, had almost gone home with the coveted sash. We decided to go for it.

To allay our ethical concerns, we promptly concluded that the amount of good Will could accomplish after being crowned El Macho Bacho would eclipse any harm done in promoting the event. After all, there were still all those starving kids in like, that country with all the dust. It was common knowledge that most of them didn't even have decent iPods!!

Concentrating on this fact, we got down to the persnickety business of constructing Wills application.

To whom it may concern,

Will Styles, Sydney DJ and cafe socialite, is spry, entertainingly dim-witted and turns a distinct shade of mauve when shaken violently. His antics as the last guy to leave every party are only matched by his susceptibility to lose an argument with a chair for 3 days straight.

Although he would love to win the competition, I am sure he fears that all the attention would distract him from his true calling of collecting arm-pit fungi. A keen amateur biologist, Will breeds them into new strains of super-fungi, such as his favourites Parisite Hilton, Sir Scratchalot and Allyourhairis Allfalloffus.

Will would be a great choice for Cleo Bachelor of the Year because there is no doubt in my mind he will be a bachelor for the rest of his life, and when she reads about him, I'm sure your reader will definitely agree. [Singular intentional.]

Warmest personal regards,
David.

We're still waiting for a response. They were probably just so beguiled by Will's 'come hither' look that they're still trying to find the words to express their infatuation. Anyway, I expect that any day now they'll send the limo packed with babes, so I'll keep you posted.

Wanna Be In My Gang

Yep, this is how I spend my time when I should be looking for work.

UPDATE:
Sarah got back to me:

To dear David 'Not so nice' Price

I was so ecstatic upon receipt of this email/offer that I immediately started bashing my head against the heater in excited anticipation. The bruises will look amazing with a tassled jacket.

An interview and tour of the 'headquarters' would be right up my dark, dirty and stinky alley.

From Sarah Jane Inflictor of Pain

Great name, don't you think? This gang is going to be great.

Moshzilla

It was no co-incidence that the day I finally realised the true potential of the internet coincided directly with me stumbling across the moshzilla phenomenon. Although there was a secret shame in finding someone else's complete and utter humiliation funny, it was, never the less, pretty fuckin funny. It transcended funny. It had to power to render adversarial work colleagues temporary allies, with your sworn enemy ambling meekly up to your screen to see what all the fuss was about. I've found that these internet moments are rare, and should be treasured for their puerile purity. After all, life is fleeting; infamy is ageless.

The repercussions on my life after this event were all too predictable. For a while, no-one could get much sense out of me, and any photos that happened to stray into my neck of the woods were immediately seized and then painstakingly grilled for potential photoshopping opportunities.

My boss at the Art Gallery Craig, knowing better, should never have asked me to backup his recent holiday snaps from Thailand. That's like asking a glue sniffing addict to to be captain of the scrapbook team. My eyes saw red. Not being able to stop my primal urges, I grabbed the following image and went to work.



I considered not sending the result in a company wide email for about 5 seconds. Then I got distracted by a butterfly that landed on the mouse, causing the click to engage and in turn sending the email. "Oh well," I thought "At least I can always blame the butterfly."

157 people in four departments received the following email:

To: All Staff
From: David Price (Art Gallery Society of NSW)
Subject: Up, up, and a Craig.

Amazingly, the whole affair was deemed a hilarious caper, and I was crowned First Class Photoshop Artisan for that week. It may have helped that my boss had a bit of a thing for The Man of Steel, but this could only be attributed to blind, dumb luck considering that I found it out after I could have been fired.

I wish I could say that my bosses also had a pet interest in experimental cryogenics. That could have saved me so much explaining two weeks later when I actually did get the boot. Live and learn I guess.

Gypsy and Punk

Together at last.

Politics. Show Business For Ugly People.

And there's no business like it, with the divisional lines between reality and fiction further being blurred this week by the American Supreme Court:

Not that they need encouragement, but politicians have been given the green light to lie about their opponents by the Washington state Supreme Court.

More than a dozen states have laws that make it illegal to say false things about political candidates. The laws are, in practice, aspirational. By a 5-to-4 vote Thursday, the Supreme Court in Washington state added that the law in the state was also unconstitutional.

...

[The International Herald Tribune]

Politicians begun exploiting the new ruling immediately, although no one seemed to be able to tell the difference.

I would just like to point out that although the government of a country should always be seen as a source of moral guidance, I am loathe to emulate my political contemporaries in this instance. If there's one thing that my years as a cage fighter in Brazil taught me, its to always be honest about your opponents.



Title quote taken from Jay Leno.

It's Like Rain On Your Wedding Day... No It Isn't

While reading The Economist the other day, I could not help but chuckle over the misfortunes of eBay, who have only recently admitted to paying an extraordinarily inflated amount for the purchase of internet telephony software company Skype.

Now I'm the first to admit that my grasp of irony is tenuous at best, and that when trying to define it I invariably quote directly from (and often incorrectly from) the movie Reality Bites, but that's all in the past now. From this day henceforth, I shall simply refer to this article while making sure I have a look of pompous self importance on my face.

Think about it. The world's biggest bidding site making the mother of all bidding blunders?

Irony. And if its not, then by god, I'm going to start listening to Alanis Morissette. I probably deserve it.

Two Tales of a City (Part 1)

He flew out the house, leaving his father's menacing roars having only the slamming door to reprimand. It was not the first time he had been forced to escape these drunken outbursts. Not the last time either, he thought sadly, lowering his head and jumping smoothly onto his skateboard, pushing the ground away and picking up speed down the bike path. Away from that house. Away from the neighborhood. Everything in it.

Could he help it if poetry had chosen him? No more than he could help his fathers distaste for it, surely. His love of words and of the esoteric relationships that existed between them had transfixed him from very early on, and it was true that his determination to consume the work of others had surpassed any other interest that had tried to impress upon him since.

He lifted his front foot, skidding the board to a halt halfway through Turnham Green. In front of him stood the brick wall that bolstered the overground rail; a place he often came to when he needed to be alone and think. That wasn't on the cards today. He pulled a greasy spraycan out of his backpack and walked purposefully up to the wall. The discerning simplicity of Frost, the bombast of Kerouac, the unfaltering support of a thousand long dead poets culminated in his mind as he slowly enabled the trigger of the can.








He stepped back, exhausted, admiring his work. For all it's profundity, he nevertheless accepted his inevitable role as an unappreciated artist. "One day," he told himself, "One day someone will blog about this, and only then shall my life have meaning."

Procrastinating

I really should be putting my new and improved CV together, as the finances are dwindling faster than.. ummm.. my stockpile of similes. Its job findin' time, and although I realise that this is the inevitable consequence of blowing my vast squillions on the open road, I can't quite find it within myself to start looking. Not. quite. yet.

In the meantime, I suggest we do something pointless. No, we've already invaded Iraq, lets do something else instead.

My suggestion, read some of Craig Dack's penpal correspondences. If these don't tickle your funny bone, your best bet is to take up wearing brown suits and start discussing actuarial accounting at your next dinner party.

Totally Craig Dack's Penpal Correspondence with Sandra Adams

Totally Craig Dack's Penpal Correspondence with Wole Benson

Totally Craig Dack Wins the Lotto


Ok, so like, his name's not really Craig Dack. And he's not really from Bathurst. So that gives you every right to be offended, okay?



Thanks to Eleanor for the reminder, and to Bernie for the link.

Help Me Rwanda

So I started my new, and very damp, life in London a few days ago. At this stage its a temporary move; I'm quite paranoid about my nephews growing up in Australia without a knowledgeable guide to watch over their 'throwing rocks at things' endeavors. Nevertheless, they will have to make do for the time being, while I attempt to come to grips with my new city.

I've been walking around London for the last few days, trying fruitlessly to ascertain my bearings. Although I'm still yet to find a place that sells decent coffee, I did manage to find an abundance of tasty vegetable somasa (not very hard in a Bangladeshi immigration epicenter), a reputable merchant of salt beef 'beigels' (why in Gods name have these been kept from me for all these years thanks Mum) and a pretty good health food store. While perusing the organic grain feed chick peas and the free range coconuts, I suddenly happened a comely bag of what I presumed to be pretty innocent coffee.



Union Hand roasted, from Rwanda. The caption reads: The EASY GOING coffee with a big grapefruit kick for breakfast time, and a soft chocolate and orange hints for a HARMONIOUS afternoon.

"Hold on," I thought, "What if I want to drink it at night!?" but then afterwards began wondering how a company could market a Rwandan coffee based on the ethos of being both easy going and harmonious. Surely the Tutsis would be concerned about this new development, I mused, assuming of course there were any left of their people to be concerned.

In such circumstances I would usually congratulate myself on the keenness of my critique, and immediately follow this by a round of shooting my mouth off to anyone who would care to listen. Such is the nature of my kind.

For some reason though, I didn't. Bemused by my lack of audacity, I decided instead to do a bit more research. Wacky, I know, but what the hell.

Look what I found on the Union Website:

Rwanda Maraba Bourbon

This clean, fruity and deeply smooth coffee comes from an amazing group of smallholder farmers in the beautiful Maraba district of southwest Rwanda and is the country's first-ever sold as a single origin. We have been working alongside the Abahuzamugambi Ba Kawa co-operative for more than five years now and have made many personal visits to help them develop the quality of their coffee and improve quality of life in their community.

Our efforts have seen a remarkable transformation in the local environment - yet none of it would be possible without the total quality produced by the farmers themselves.


Okay, so maybe I was a liiiitle presumptuous about their lack of sensitivity. I think we've all learned some lessons here; Never underestimate the annoying virtuosity of health foods stores or the fallibility of my quasi-political satire.

Even My Dreams Are Against Me

I had a weird dream the other night. I dreamt that I was Jessica Alba's boyfriend.

"You're a walking contradiction!" She scolded.

"Yeh, I've been meaning to talk to you about that." I said, a look of embarrassment creeping across my face (I imagine that it was creeping, because I couldn't actually see myself.) "You see, I'm technically not your boyfriend. My real name is David Price, and I've been time travelling into your boyfriend's body off and on now for ooo the last 6 months or so. Although I know you don't want to hear this right now, we are very much in love."

Not seeing the obvious long term benefits in the situation I was describing, she immediately screamed and collapsed, which is unfortunately the reaction I'm most used to when discussing my feelings with girls. I'm really looking forward to a time when I can casually drop "Oh by the way I think my associations with the devil may have rendered our child the antichrist" into a conversation with my beloved and have her reply "Oh really well that explains the primeval shrieking at dawn and I guess we should replenish the holy water cupboard" without a second thought. But I guess we all have dreams.

The Final Day

9th November, 1989. Günter Schabowski, East German propaganda minister walks into a seemingly routine press conference nursing the tail-end of a blistering hangover. His recent vacation had been a memorable one, and his head is swimming in the deluge as a result. Wading his way through a yawn inducing tirade of pre-rehearsed questions regarding the status of the German textile industry, the press conference suddenly takes a decisive and unexpected turn.

What is the nature of these questions being directed at him? How is he expected to be responding to inquiries regarding the freedom of the German people to travel? He had successfully managed to miss the press briefing this morning, a point he had congratulated himself on repeatedly since. The only thing he had been given was..

THE BRIEFING MEMO. Brilliant. Deftly removing the typed page from his briefcase and expertly positioning his stylish reading glasses, Günter begins reading, for the first time, the highlighted sections of the page before him.

"..we have decided today (um) to implement a regulation that allows every citizen of the German Democratic Republic (um) to (um) leave the GDR through any of the border crossings."

The audience is stupefied. What did he just say? Temporarily regaining his composure, one of the reporters present manages to raise his voice above the resulting media squall.

"Without a passport? WITHOUT A PASSPORT?"

Again consulting the document, Schabowski confirms that to his knowledge, the new changes would replace any previous requirement for travel documentation. His political comrades on the sidelines wince at the omission, their animated hand-to-throat motions signaling 'please stop now Günter' going obliviously unheeded by the drowning minister.

A timid reporter, who has so far been quiet for the during the conference, stands up, squeaking out his decisive, and historical, question.

"And when do these changes come into effect?"

Schabowski, only now realising both the enormity of the situation and the length he has yet to endure his poor aching head, searches in vain across the page for a date in which to attribute these changes. He finds only the date at the top of the memo, written directly next to the words 'TOP SECRET' in bold red font. He replies softly, a man defeated.

"According to my information, immediately."

Schabowski could not have known that these changes were intended to have come in over the course of years. They had only been discussed and proposed that morning, probably at the same time Günter had been swallowing his first aspirin.

Armed with this incredible story, several reporters leave the conference at once, breaking the news across East Berlin within hours. People begin to crowd checkpoints all across the city, demanding immediate access to the West. The Guards at the gate are confused; they have received no orders from their superiors regarding the wholesale immigration of East Berlin residents. Frantic calls are made, but no minister is willing to give the order to use lethal force. Yet still the gates don't budge.

His confidence bolstered by the exponentially growing numbers of his fellow countrymen, one brave Berliner, using his friend as leverage, hoists himself onto the wall. Ignoring the aggressive shouts from the guards below, he looks out over the west - a part of his city that he has never seen before. Suddenly, he feels a thudding jolt slam into his lower back, and immediately fears he has become the final casualty of his city's lethal duality.

But he remains. Far from being shot at, he has been targeted instead by a water cannon! This joyous epiphany spreads across the mob within seconds. Feeling no reservations in facing a barrage of water, people begin to scale the wall in droves. Resigning themselves to the inevitable, the border guards finally relent and open the checkpoint gates. East Berliners, for the first time in 27 years, walk freely into the West.

West Berlin news crews rush up to some of the first people across the border. Asked what they are thinking, most people echo remarkably similar sentiments.

"Crazy" they breathe, shaking their heads. "Just... crazy."




Transcribed from a story told by Andrew from New Berlin. The more important details of the story I made every attempt to check, but is still sure to contain many inaccuracies and/or poetic license.