Emotional Vibrator

Emotional vibrator is a phrase I used in my last post in regards to Gigi, the most recent lady of the online night to take her leave of me. And really, who can blame her, right?

I thought it quite clever myself, although I’m not sure I coined the phrase. In any case, it seemed to me what Gigi wanted me to be for her, an emotional affirmation machine to help soothe her through her most recent break-up blah blah blah. But of course I was unwilling to do that because it seemed a one-sided and ultimately losing proposition for me. I don’t expect a sure thing – although I did like that 80s movie with John Cusack;

but let’s face it I dig any movie with John Cusack in it (and a chick like Nicollette Sheriedan), man I can’t wait to see the new movie with him about Edgar Allen Poe….wait, what was I talking about.

Oh yeah, vibrators, of the emotional variety.

Of course, this is not just a woman thing. Men do it too (though in a slightly different way I suppose), they seek out women to soothe them emotionally, and when they are done being soothed, they clean up, dispose of their emotional self-healing toy and move on.

I’ve been called out for doing something like this, being told – no, not just told but literally chastised: “I can’t fix you!” All for expressing the fact that I was feeling sad and missed my family. I didn’t expect this particular woman to fix me. In fact, the very notion was laughable; she was so fucked up herself.

That’s part of why my date the other night was so cool. I could actually talk about my ex – good and bad – and was not punished for it – some women will come right  out and tell you they are not interested in hearing about it, others will simply glaze over and check out, others will get an irritated look on their face, still others will pretend to listen and simply disappear later. But that was not the case. My date spoke of her ex, in both good and bad terms. And really that should be allowed, up to a point. And I think because I was allowed to express a few things it was easy to simply shut up about it…more or less.

But that is not where I was planning on going with this. No. My intention was to bring up the phrase Emotional Vibrator (you know, even though  I may not have coined it, I wonder if I could still copyright it? Is that possible?) because it gave me an idea for an App.

The App would of course be called: Emotional Vibrator. Or perhaps even better  Your Emotional Vibrator. And it would work like Siri on the iPhone 4. You could lament and complain and bitch and piss and moan and whine an gripe to it all you wanted and all it would ever do is offer you positive affirmation and support, agree with you, soothe you. And it would never get tired of your pathetic bullshit like everyone has.

There could even be a PlusVersion of it that has an actual vibrator attachment that you can…..

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The New Job Searching Reality

When I was a kid I had jobs that included mowing lawns, cleaning gutters and window wells, and delivering news papers, plus assorted odd jobs such as painting and pulling weeds or whatever. I came by those job via word of mouth, mostly.

When I was a teenager I just went from place to place asking if they were hiring and if they were they gave me an application.That was pretty much the deal for a long time, although when I was in college, attending Macomb Community College, they had a job placement office that had binders with job posting and you went through the different binders until you found something.

The last time I job searched was a little more than seven years ago. I created a resume and mailed them out along with a cover letter on really nice paper. I did find most of the jobs that I applied for via the internet, on Monster.com and careerbuilders.com. Now there are so many online job boards. I did find a few via the newspaper classifieds. Although the job I ended up getting, the one before my most recent job, was via family. Well, via my ex-wife’s family. My job at the library I found by visiting their web site.

Now, you have to submit your resume and cover letter via the internet, uploading your documents from your computer to databases. Although a more effective way to submit is to get a hold of someone’s email address and email your materials directly to them. That requires a contact usually, or some creative investigating, figuring out the email pattern and identifying a person and trying to create their email address. It can be a crap shoot.

Something else that’s different about the job search process I discovered  yesterday. It has to do with response time. When you mailed in a resume and cover letter you knew it would be awhile before you heard back. It was similar even with email, although the response time was  usually shortened. Now, with databases, the response time can be almost immediate. I applied for a job via a company’s web site yesterday and perhaps an hour or so later I got a call from a recruiter. And I had a phone interview right on the spot. It was a little jarring. I wasn’t really prepared for an interview. In my defense, the recruiter guy wasn’t all that prepared either. He asked me why I was attracted to the job, which was difficult for me to answer, but it was also difficult for him to “tell me more about the job” when I asked.  Perhaps because of that he cut me a little slack. I hope so anyway.

In any case, it was a response, which is always good. Yesterday was a good job-search day. I applied for 5 different jobs, got a call and phone interview with the possibility of call back later this week. Today: not so good. Was unable to find a single job to apply for. Sigh.

Sideways

Watched the movie Sideways last night, one of those movies that I have seen countless times and would watch again and again and again given the opportunity. I love it. I’d say it falls into the category of perfect movie. If there is a flaw in it I have not found it…yet.

For those who don’t know this movie it is about two buddies, Miles (Paul Giamatti) and Jack (Thomas Haden Church), who go away for a week to California wine country in order to celebrate before Jack gets married. Miles is a divorced suffering writer — and boy does  he suffer. While Jack is a carefree actor who is the epitome of the power of positive thinking. He’s also a playboy hell bent on getting laid during this  his final week of bachelorhood. And he does, much to Mile’s chagrin.

I loved this movie when I first saw it, before I was divorced. I even read the book, which was descent, but I prefer the movie. However, now that I am divorced it appeals to me even more. I understand Mile’s suffering in ways that I don’t think I did before. How could I?

I’ve been thinking particularly about one part in the movie. It’s the part when Jack is going to ho0k up with the chubby waitress after Stephanie (Sandra Oh), the women he not only has sex with but decides that he might be in love with, discovers that he is getting married and bashes his nose in with her motorcycle helmet. Jack and Miles are standing there. Miles is lamenting to Jack, wanting to know why he has to hook up with this stranger after all that has happened, that is going to happen, i.e. his impending marriage. And Jack explains to Miles that he, Miles, does not understand his, Jack’s, plight. What is his plight exactly? He does not say. Only that there is a plight. Made me wonder if Jack’s optimism is merely a mask for a deeper angst, that he feels the need to sleep with strange women, in spite of the fact that he’s about to get married, to prove something, fill some void, to what? It strikes me as a jab at the whole phoniness of “staying positive” attitude, that there is something inherently shallow about. It is disingenuous, dismissive. And that Miles, the sullen, miserable man, is the more authentic human being, the more admirable one.

Ellis article

Here’s an interesting article about Brett East Ellis and his new novel, Imperial Bedrooms, the follow up to Less Than Zero.

I’m eager to read this novel, having been an Ellis fan since Zero was published — what is it? Twenty-five years ago now…

Although many people aren’t Ellis fans. I was part of a Facebook thread in which several people made negative comments about the book. One said it was “creepy,” although I’m not so sure that is a criticism. In any case, it does not surprise me. Other articles have made similar comments. Also, come on, Zero was creepy, and this is the same author that wrote American Psycho for crying out loud.  Others commented that they would not waste their money on this book, much less read  it. Of course that is their prerogative. But I guess I just don’t get it. Fine. Take issue with a book and/or author, make all the criticism you want, but you can’t judge what you don’t read. I don’t know. Just seems kind of petty to me.

In any case, Ellis hardly seems to care.

Coupland cleans house

Check out this blog post about Douglas Coupland donating his papers to the University of British Columbia.

Among the more interesting items to me is the first draft of Coupland’s breakout novel, “Generation X,” and a manuscript for an unpublished novel entitled “1991” but which was later retitled “The Day the Muzak Died,” which I thinks is much more interesting. Oh yeah, also a Generation X comic strip.

I am sure that Coupland’s papers will be one of the more eccentric and interesting collections that exist.

Less Than Zero sequel

Brett Easton Ellis’ follow up to Less Than Zero is due to be released June 15th. It’s titled Imperial Bedrooms.

I would never have thought of Ellis as a sequel kind of guy but he has moved from NYC back to LA and is working to produce films now, several of which are based on his novels. Perhaps he’s caught the sequel bug from Hollywood.

If so, one wonders if perhaps there is a follow up to American Pyscho kicking around in Ellis’ imagination.

And is there the possibility of a movie sequel as well? To American Psycho as well as Less Than Zero (i.e. a movie of Imperial Bedrooms,duh).

In any case, I plan to nab me a copy of Imperial Bedrooms, the day it comes out, if possible. I’ve read everything else the dude’s written, so I’m not going to stop now. Besides I’m curious to see what Clay, Blair,  Julian, Rip and the gang are up to in their 40s.

Stay tuned for my stunningly  insightful review…if I get around to it that is.

GenX and the arts

Check out this cool post about GenX and the arts on JenX67 this morning. It highlights an art exhibit about Kurt Cobain.

What I’m wondering is when someone is going to write the Opera or Broadway musical about Cobain?

It could happen….

Am I an Omega Male?

When your life is in transition, major transition in my case, it only stands to reason that you’d engage in some serious self-examination and self-reflection, asking yourself some hard questions.

So today I’m asking myself the question: Am I an Omega Male?

What is an Omega Male, you ask? A most appropriate and excellent question. For an answer let us turn our attention to slate.com, which has an entire article on the subject.

The short definition is that an Omega man “is having trouble being a man,” like the Ben Still character in the Noah Baumbach film Greenberg.

The Omega male ranks below the Alpha male who wants to dominate and the Beta male who just wants to get by. Omega man has opted out or given up.

This idea is not a new one. Susan Faludi addressed it in her book Stiffed: The Betrayal of the American Male in 1999, which the slate.com article references. But with the recession it is apparently this trend is becoming even more, well, trendy…

The article holds up Don Draper and character from Tom Hanks war films as examples of the Masculine Ideal.

The article goes on to define subcategories of the Omega male. If I am one of these types, it is most likely the Liberal Arts Layabout, whom “…are usually failed artists of some sort, often surrounded by more successful friends and relatives.”  With my MFA in Creative Writing and not a damn thing to show for it plus the fact that I’m underemployed and underpaid, working a library job that one only needs a  high school education to do, it’s difficult to refute the comparison.

I’m  not really refuting the comparison.In fact, I pretty much accept it, not with any pride but hopefully not with complete resignation either. The question now is can I do anything to change my status. I know I’ll never be an Alpha male, I just don’t have it in me, unless I’m playing dodge ball then I’ll kill your ass, make you eat gymnasium floor buddy. But I could at least bump up to Beta male, that would be something. Don’t you think?

Of course, one has to wonder: is an Omega male up to such a change? Or is he, by his very nature, incapable of this sort of positive change?

The post I’m NOT going to write about JD Salinger’s death

Unless you’ve had your head up your backside this past week, you know that JD Salinger died [no link required – just google it for crying out loud]. Dude was 91, and he was healthy an active right until about the first of this year. Hope I’m that fortunate.

Anyhooo…I respect the way JD Salinger chose to live his life as much, if not more, than his work. And I’m not going tarnish that respect by blubbering about what his books meant to me.

I’ll just say this: He lived. He wrote. He died.

And I just hope that some of what he wrote will yet be available to read.

Coupland Interview: GenX v. GenA

My friend John hipped me to this interview with Doulgas Coupland, in which the author discusses his most recent novel, Generation A, particularly in contrast to Generation X. Appropriate that John should be the one to tell me about it, since he was the person who introduced me to Douglas Coupland’s via Generation X.

It’s a CBC Radio interview, which I tend to like because they tend to be more indepth, free-ranging and meandering, which with someone like Coupland you definitely want. He may be able to do sound bites well, but listening to him free-associate and just talk is very interesting indeed.

The associated introductory text with this video tags it as a sequel to Generation X. I recently read Generation A and don’t think of it as so much a sequeal, at least not in the strict sense, as an akin book, if that makes sense. Also, I don’t think it is one of Coupland’s stronger book. However, I reminded that I wasn’t all that enthusiastic about The Gum Thief when I first read, but upon rereading it I liked it much better. So perhaps I should withhold final judgement until I get a chance to read Generation A again.