I’m a big fan of Meetup.com. It’s the Justin Bieber to my inner 12-year-old girl, without the incredibly bad hair. There aren’t too many websites and/or online services I appreciate more. Gmail is one. Facebook is an another. And Fred’s Potato Chip and Plumbing Supply Emporium is still another. Where else can you get Old Bay crab chips and the Waste King Legend 8000TC 1 horsepower disposer in one online shopping cart, besides Amazon? That’s right, nowhere. And the site’s emoticons are second to none. Long live Fred!

Meetup is a worldwide network of local groups organized around a wide variety of topics. The site helps individuals set up these groups, and helps others join them. The groups then get together to discuss their topic of choice, whether it be sewing or shuffleboard or Canadian teen idols. Meetup is an online vehicle for person-to-person meetings, pushing people away from their computers and toward each other. It connects people in a meaningful way, unlike many social networking tools.

I started using the site to connect with other online marketing types about three years ago. I attended various meetups in an official capacity, representing my previous employer. The meetings kept me abreast of all the happenings in the industry and put me in touch with a few of the movers and shakers. I kept at it after the layoff. The people in these groups have ins at good companies and the potential to help me find gainful employment. And they knew things… lots and lots of things. And not just things, but stuff… and whatnot, the grand poobah of all vague descriptive terms. As any two-bit unemployment site that isn’t Jobless and Less will tell you, networking is key to finding a job. My participation led to some interviews and freelance projects. Whereas, online job boards just gave me a raging case of carpal tunnel syndrome.

I still belong to multiple Meetup groups and attend events every so often. Here’s a selection of my favorites…

• Internet Marketers of New York
• SEMPO New York
• NYC Brandhackers Happy Hour Speaker Series
• WordPress NYC Meetup Group

The SEMPO and WordPress meetups are particularly productive. The SEMPO group, an offshoot of the Search Engine Marketing Professionals Organization, brings in experts to discuss the fast-moving field of Search Engine Marketing. The group for WordPress, the popular content management system I use for Jobless and Less, covers issues related to the software. Maybe you sense a theme here… a geeky, nerdy, online marketing-focused, career-related theme. And wouldn’t you know it, the settings in my Meetup account follow suit.

I don’t spend much time on the Meetup site each day. Trolling for new groups isn’t terribly helpful or informative. And the limited online social functions aren’t among the site’s strengths. Besides, the site is set to notify me of any new group that fits my location and interests. Far be it from me to do work I don’t have to. Here’s a sampling of the kinds of groups I’ve asked Meetup to ping me about…

• Weblogger
• WordPress
• Search Engine Optimization
• Website Marketing
• Social Media Marketing

Alas, though the Meetup concept is slick, the execution is often clumsy. I receive five or more notifications for new groups each day. Maybe 20% of these groups are remotely relevant, or even within the parameters I set up. The rest are either ridiculous or hilarious or both. I began saving my favorites a couple months ago to share with the world. The folder now contains 121 emails. Many more were deleted. Here are the best of the worst, as I received them…

• Bronx Ladies Who Lunch: This group is a social network for ladies 25 to 35 to get together and create lasting friendships. The point of the group is to support and uplift each other. There will be many events that will make this mission possible. Our outings will center on the Bronx but there will be events city-wide.
  [Don't be fooled by the lunch that I got, I'm still Normy from the block. So it needs a little work. J-Lo has been too busy crying to return my calls.]
• Flexyn: Flexyn stands for Fly, Sexy and Fun. And that’s just what our group is about. Being Fly, Living Sexy enjoying life to the fullest and having Fun. Whether single, dating or married, our get togethers will encourage all to live life to the fullest. Responsible and safe fun is what we’re all about. Networking, parties, events and trips are our focus. We will constantly have something fun planned. Some type of wonderful activity for people to come together and have a blast.
  [Well, I am fly, sexy and fun. They got that right. And I do enjoy making up words out of other words to describe myself. Unguatam, for example, stands for Unemployed Guy Hates Spam. It's also the name of the tiny banana republic I plan to start when I become the next George Clooney.]
• Drum Circle International House: International House is a residential facility in Morningside Heights/Harlem NY for over 700 graduate students from all over the world studying in a very diverse array of fields. The facility has a modern gymnasium where we conduct a drum circle every Friday 8pm-10pm. We have just started the endeavor with two drums and any additional drums/instruments would be great.
  [Shooting hippies is indeed one of my favorite activities. So maybe Meetup got this one right too.]
• Women 24 and Over and Colored Men: I decided to start this group as a result of being involved with an interracial meetup that was, ironically, too exclusive. Realizing that changing the mentality and make up of the group would be too time consuming, and probably even unrealistic, I’ve started my own group. This network has been designed for women who are interested in Colored Men. When I say colored, I’m referring to a broad spectrum of individuals from dark-skinned to light-skinned, Black, African, Asian, Latino, Middle Eastern, Indian, bi-racial and multiracial men. We value and would like to develop a network of open minded, respectful, and sociable members who welcome and are interested in interracial dating.
  [This group managed to include everyone except me. It's so nice to be discriminated against in my own inbox.]
• Daddyhunt NYC: Daddyhunt is a community of over 200,ooo hot gay men of all ages. We bring together older men, masculine guys and the guys who love them in a dating and socializing environment that is supportive and attitude-free. We welcome Dads, Older Bros, Bears and hunters of all ages. NYC/Metropolitan members are welcome to attend our premiere Meetup event on December 15th.
  [And to think I first thought this was a group that got together to play cruel tricks on orphans. Boy was I embarrassed at that first meeting.]
• Argentine Tango Beginners: FREE for 4 men only!! We have the women already!
  [All this time I thought it only took two to tango. Who knew?]

How can a site that touts its personalization, in an age of hyper-social media, be so misguided? I expect this from the the big job sites, which continue to insist that I become a nursing assistant in New Jersey. But I thought Justin, I mean Meetup, knew me better than that. The site just spams the crap out of me, over and over, day after day. It was funny at first… look at all those cute, funny, totally irrelevant emails from that site that doesn’t really know what it’s doing. Now it’s just annoying. So this once-satisfied user is blocking all new groups until Meetup gets its floppy hair out of its eyes and fixes this problem.

Look at me, mom. I’m on TV… again. Okay, so it’s TV via the web. And I’m not the main focus of the segment; that honor goes to Ellen Reeves, author of “Can I Wear My Nose Ring to the Interview? A Crash Course in Finding, Landing and Keeping Your First Real Job.” But that is me (the devastatingly handsome, not-looking-a-day-over-27, Skyped-in guy on the left). And that is Katie Couric. Maybe you’ve heard of her, or recognize the face. I didn’t, until someone over at CBS contacted the Jobless and Less press department, prompting the VP, Communications to task a Research Assistant with exploring Ms. Couric’s alleged celebrity. She checked out. So I accepted their request to participate in a piece entitled…

Jobless in America

Luckily for them, I’m both jobless and in America. Strange coincidence, wouldn’t you say? I’d like to rectify the “jobless” part (I rather enjoy the “in America” part). Maybe some plight exposure would help. It certainly couldn’t hurt. Or could it? That was one of my questions… does having an unemployment blog, which sets me up as an expert in being unemployed, create a negative impression among potential employers? I’ve been unemployed quite awhile now, freelance assignments notwithstanding. There is the ever-so-slight possibility that I’m doing something wrong. Take a moment to digest the realization that I’m fallible. I’ll wait.

Ms. Reeves informs me that my blog is, in fact, a good thing. Employers will see it as showing initiative and a willingness to learn new skills. They’ll also recognize my attempts to stay active and help other people. The success I’ve had attracting visitors and press will probably help too. Now if only someone would hire me, or knight me. That would be cool. But I’d prefer a job. Or a million dollars, I’d take that… just sayin’.

The Katie Couric segment has already led to one positive development. Ms. Reeves is going to help me reinvent myself, hopefully change me from an unemployment expert/online marketing guru into a job-having expert/online marketing guru. This may involve some or all of the following…

• Hair and wardrobe changes
• Resume revamping
• Fantasy job description (Maybe I’ll finally get to be a warlock with a cloak of invisibility.)
• Elevator pitch improvement

This is actually a good opportunity, and despite my usual irreverence, I will take it seriously. Stay tuned, fair readers, for more in the continuing saga that is my unemployment. And enjoy the video segment. Ms. Reeves and the Wall Street Journal guy both know what they’re talking about. May they teach you something, or, at least, confirm what you already know.

I'm being social, by ignoring the people around me... so out of my way! (courtesy of The New York Times)

Walking consists of two major components: moving your feet and looking ahead. If you don’t move your feet, you stay in one place. This is called standing, or, in New York, tourism. If you don’t look ahead, you run into things, or things with the right of way run into you. This is called stupidity, or, in New York, stupidity. Over the last year and a half, many pedestrians on busy city sidewalks have decided that one major component of walking doesn’t matter anymore. Anybody care to guess which one?

When I unceremoniously left the job market in late 2008, most people still used regular cell phones. We made phone calls and sent text messages. We played that game in which a bouncing ball makes blocks disappear. Then we put the phones in our pockets and walked. We did one thing at a time, as our parents taught us, and we did it well. The trendsetters who walked among us while talking and texting were seen as oddities, and belittled mercilessly. Life was simpler then. Men held doors and tipped their hats. Women curtsied. People had, you know, jobs. Maybe I’m just remembering a New York that never was, like in a Meg Ryan movie on WE TV that you can’t turn off even though you’ve seen it 100 times, memorized all the funny parts, including the fake orgasm in Katz’s Deli, and find Billy Crystal’s hair really, really disturbing.

When I last left the employed ranks, smartphones had been around awhile. The first iPhone launched in early 2007; the first BlackBerry came along well before that. But they hadn’t gained critical mass. The fall of the economy somehow ushered in the age of the smartphone. It seems a little counter-intuitive on the face of it. Then again, what’s more American than spending money you don’t have? The smartphone also birthed a whole new breed of city pedestrian… the smartphone zombie. New York sidewalks are now overrun with reading, texting, emailing, surfing, tweeting, status-updating, app-using, video-watching, music-downloading, game-playing zombies who don’t look where they’re going.

Today’s white collar worker is used to multitasking. We juggle email and IM and Word docs and Excel spreadsheets and countless other desktop applications designed to make us more efficient. It’s necessary and expected, even though constantly switching tasks has been shown to reduce productivity. The smartphone extends the workspace to a hand-held device and anywhere someone can take it. So multitasking logically carries over too. Arriving in one piece is no longer accomplishment enough. We must get things done en route. The world won’t wait, but it is expected to stop when a smartphone zombie weaves down the sidewalk and wanders out into traffic.

I’ve seen many smartphone zombies almost die and not even realize it. They step out in front of buses and cabs. They wait to cross the street, in the middle of the street. They ride bicycles against one-way traffic without looking. I’m perfectly okay with people self-selecting themselves out of the human race. Humanity is better off if the stupid gene doesn’t reproduce. I just don’t want to be involved. More to the point, I don’t want to be inconvenienced. Too bad it’s unavoidable.

Smartphone zombies get in the way. They’re attracted to high-traffic areas, such as doorways, sidewalks, subway platforms and the tops and bottoms of escalators. Eyes glazed over, they seem to lack any awareness of the world around them, or any interest in it. And they don’t seem to understand that someone else might need to pass through the space they occupy. Or they just don’t care. I routinely have to push smartphone zombies out of the way… zombies leaning on the front door of my apartment building, zombies blocking the exit of a retail establishment, zombies lounging by the subway escalator. And when I do, it’s somehow my fault.

Change being the only constant, I expected the world to be a different place when I returned to work. How could it not be? But I thought some basic things—like walking—would remain essentially the same. The New York sidewalk slalom was treacherous enough without the smartphone zombie swarms wandering about. Now, not only do I have to look out for myself, I have to look out for the other guy too…  the guy who’s too busy harnessing technology to see the world around him.

How I schedule my day. (courtesy of http://www.yourfunnystuff.com)

I spend a lot of time online these days, between reading email and cruising the Internet in search of gainful employment. And I’ve arrived at one immutable and irrefutable conclusion… lists suck. Feel free to disagree. Feel free to argue. Feel free to accuse me of crimes against the Internet for dressing down the vaunted list – king of the blog post and online article – in the public square. But know deep down in your heart that I’m still right and you’re still wrong. [Note: For the record, I'm rubber and you're glue too.]

I can’t open an email message or click a link without coming across a list disguised as an article. How to write a blog post… how to find a job… how to write a resume… 10 best ways to do just about anything. These lists are everywhere in my world, and most of them are bad retreads of bad retreads. Some ex-hippie with a ponytail turned corporate guru with a ponytail discovered (or decided) that information is more digestible in list form. He wrote an article. Someone cited that article. David Letterman adopted the theory for comedy. And before your friendly neighborhood unemployed blogger could come to the rescue, the world was overrun with lists of all shapes and sizes. The list has become the scourge of the online written word. But breathe easy, I’m here to take a golf club to its back window.

Allow me to present the top 5 reasons I hate lists, in an easily digestible format but no particular order…

1. Lists are lazy. The Internet is awash in re-purposed content. Everyone wants a blog or website and the untold riches that accompany it. Just look at me… I haven’t worked a single day in the last year. No one wants to create the content for that blog or website. It takes time and effort to write, and most of that time and effort goes unpaid. So they steal, borrow or quote extensively from other sources. Or they make a list from the stolen, borrowed and quoted and pass it off as original material.
2. Lists cover up bad writing. Write the whole damn paragraph, not just the topic sentence. This shouldn’t be a problem, if the author has thought through his ideas and has a decent grasp of the English language. Some complete sentences would be nice too. As would a few transitions, to take the reader from one idea to the next.
3. Lists don’t convey enough information to be useful. A bulleted list of topic sentences for would-be paragraphs is fine for a PowerPoint presentation. The speaker adds in the relevant details, while directing attention with a red laser pointer that always makes me think there’s a sniper in the crowd. But this approach doesn’t work so well online. Lists give the reader the what, without the who, where, why and how. Links may lead to additional information on other pages of the site. “Click here for more information,” the screen beckons. But why isn’t that information found on the original page? Answer: to increase website traffic and click-through rates.
4. Lists tell me things I already know. This is more a function of the lists I’m reading than lists in general. Only so much can be said about how to network, write a resume or become a better job candidate. Yet people keep saying it, over and over and over and over. Job search methods just aren’t changing that fast. So either come up with something new and interesting or stop pinging me with the same old advice. I already know to spell-check my resume.
5. Lists are boring. No one reads lists for fun. We read fleshed-out paragraphs strung together into some sort of narrative. People read lists for information on how to do something or how to do something better. And sometimes we get that information and smile because we’re happy. We may even accidentally enjoy reading the list. But potential enjoyment isn’t what got us there and will soon be taking us away to ESPN or The Onion.
6. Lists create anxiety. Lists remind me of all the things I have left to do rather than all the things I’ve done. One task – find a job – has locked down pole position for over a year. And my list keeps growing, even as I check things off. I feel further behind every day.
7. Lists remind me of the grocery store. Don’t get me wrong, I like the grocery store; there’s lots of yummy food there. But many of my trips to the grocery store involve lists of vegetables and spices needed for a recipe. And I can never remember what’s what. It’s all green and leafy and looks kind of the same to me. If only they packaged veggies like cereal… I could identify the kale or arugula from a goofy cartoon martian on the packaging. Sometimes I figure it out on my own, and sometimes I don’t. But the uncertainty provides undue stress.
8. Lists speed up life unnecessarily. No one has time to read anymore, not even us unemployed. So people scan emails and articles on PDAs while walking down busy city streets, running into people and glaring at them because that person didn’t get out of the way. Lists facilitate and perpetuate this behavior. Lists make it easy to “read” what should be saved for later, back at the office, where I’m not walking.

Happy anniversary to me!

Here I am riding another bus, trying do some work and trying not to get motion sickness. Working on the computer while traveling is a much better idea in theory than in practice. The bus ride gives me a solid block of time to concentrate and tick things off my list, or dive into a bigger project. But the bus is filled with other people, some eating, some sleeping, some playing games on iPhones. Headphones and a nose plug block out most of it. Still the space is tight for laptop use and worse, I’m prone to motion sickness.

I started barfing in and out of cars at about six years old. Bumps, quick stops, turns… they all made me sick. Things improved once my parents learned not to put me in the far back seat of the station wagon facing backwards. But trips on hilly roads often still included me losing the contents of my stomach in someone’s bushes – flash fertilizing for random vegetation. I’ve grown out of it a little, but I still avoid reading and sitting backwards in cars, particularly blue 1980 Caprice Classics with AM radios and vinyl seats. Oddly enough, I can read on the subway. Maybe the actual cause of my motion sickness is the bumpiness combined with what my peripheral vision picks up out the window. Remove the random visual stimulus, and the sickness goes away. That’s my theory anyway. I’ll get NIH to look into it.

The bus is a half hour out of New York and all’s well… for the most part. My stomach is mostly calm. The New Jersey Turnpike is flat, straight and moving swiftly. The sky is gray; a little rain is falling. New Jersey is filled with construction and power lines, though greener than expected. The older lady sleeping next to me hasn’t yet co-opted my shoulder. The older guy in front of me stopped trying to cough up the residue of a hundred thousand cigarettes. The Bolt Bus, which I’m riding for the first time, is comfortable enough. The wireless internet doesn’t really work, but the electrical outlet does. So I’m blogging via Microsoft Word. Next week maybe I’ll blog using a 1970s Selectric typewriter or possibly a chisel and stone tablet. And I’ll use smoke signals for tweets. Look east at first light every third day for 140-character updates on my cats and the weather.

It’s a good time to reflect, as soon as I put on some music. Okay, now it’s a good time to reflect. (And sorry for lying; 20 seconds ago in fact was not a good time to reflect.) I just passed the one-year mark of unemployment recently. And this is my 202nd post, the second bicentennial plus two or 1978 – the year I began barfing in earnest. My unemployment insurance will run out by the end of the year. The work landscape is still bleak, as the country is enjoying a jobless recovery. I’m planning a huge party without food, drink, entertainment or people to celebrate it. I’d invite you, but you can’t come, and it won’t be any fun anyway.

I continue to network and send out resumes. Most of my job inquiries are ignored, though people are still receptive to networking requests. They want to help, and are willing to offer their time, expertise and contacts. They just don’t know of any openings. Networking may be the best way to find a job. But it hasn’t worked for me yet.

I haven’t had any in-person interviews in awhile either, which is disconcerting. Screening, pre-interview phone calls come in with some frequency. I research the companies, prepare things to say and present my case with intelligence and grace. All this rarely gets me even a “no thanks” email. Last week I received an email for a screening interview. It stated I would be called between 2:00 and 3:00 the following day. I wasn’t asked about the time, I was told. Not having a choice, I made myself available for that hour, except for a 30-second bathroom break. That’s when the call came in. I returned it and left a message, but haven’t heard anything since.

Maybe my resume is to blame for the overall lack of employer interest, because I’m a real charmer in person. Where I worked and went to school is already determined, though my skill set grows every day. Maybe I could present all my experience more convincingly, in a way that better quantifies my successes. And maybe more concrete measurable numbers would give my descriptions that needed boost. I struggle with this issue during every layoff. The opportunity to have my resume redone professionally for free recently presented itself. And the third draft is looking promising. We’ll see what happens when it’s finished and out in the world.

I started applying for temporary seasonal positions to stave off the end of my unemployment insurance. These jobs pay about the same amount for 40 hours of work as my weekly checks. And working for a couple months now, while seasonal work is available, would push the end of my unemployment to the end of February. So I applied for a couple of positions at a department store you’ve definitely heard of. The whole experience deserves its own post. And now I can write it, because they rejected me. They actually sent me an email saying as much. I was overqualified for the position. I was probably overqualified to run the department. Being overqualified is a legitimate reason for rejection. Companies know that employee is looking to leave, and they’ll be faced with hiring someone else sooner than later. But this was a temporary position, with an end date. And I still didn’t get it. Few things are as depressing as not getting a job you don’t want and are overqualified for.

Nor did I get the pundit position, which was my ticket to fame and stardom. The Washington Post did send me a very nice rejection letter, complete with a link to pursue further opportunities. The link, like me, didn’t work. Pundit is probably not the right position for me. In retrospect, my submission was probably a tad tame and inoffensive. I didn’t call anybody a whore or a communist or a Nazi. And my opinions were reasonable and clearheaded. I guess I really do have a lot to learn about the punditry business. If only I’d barfed up something more bilious, maybe I’d be typing this article from my newspaper desk and not a seat on a bus. Alas, it was not to be.

On the bright side, the job search and the blog go on.

[Note: I wrote this post a couple weeks ago. Technical issues and general busyness have kept me from posting it until today. Sorry for being a terrible person.]

We welcome you to the land of the shadow people. (courtesy of http://www.brandeis.edu)

Job sites annoy me. It admittedly doesn’t take much, given my current unemployed state. I’ve yet to encounter one that provides the ideal job search experience, if something so oxymoronic even exists. Every job site, from the all-encompassing (Monster, HotJobs), to the industry-specific (American Marketing Association, Media Bistro), to the company-specific (Joe’s Burritos and Plumbing Supplies International, Inc., Fred’s Pornographic Balloon Animals, LLC), has problems. Some are barely speed bumps on the endless road to not getting a job, and some are more like cement dividers piled high and connected to multiple nuclear devices that detonate and wipe out an entire city when breached. In other words, they’re impassable, at least until Jerry Bruckheimer makes a movie about finding work in a jobless post-recession recovery. Given that a job site’s purpose is to display job openings and attract users – essentially market the company to applicants who may become employees or customers – the problems are all inexcusable. Here is but a sampling, presented in my own top-secret order that I will carry with me to the grave, watery or otherwise.

Sites display an alphabetical list of all the countries in the world, from which the applicant chooses his home country. The US is near the bottom, though it likely provides most of the applicants, at least for domestic jobs. Afghanistan is at the top, though it’s citizens likely have more pressing issues, such as staying alive. Really, is it so hard to list the US first? It would save 99.98% of the 10,000 applicants vying for that one assistant coffee getter opening five precious seconds. That’s time that could be spent perfecting the art of tearing open multiple sugar packets at once. This minor oversight shows a lack of forethought and care, which will manifest itself in more significant ways elsewhere.

Sites often require way more detail than necessary. The exact dates I was in school or previously employed, down to the day, can’t possibly matter. That I graduated college on May 5, 1994 won’t be of any use until I’m famous and the subject of a question in Trivial Pursuit: The 21st Century Underachiever Edition. Maybe I can also find out the weather for that Spring day in Lancaster, PA, when my career began, or the addresses of the barns that the Amish raised before working in the fields and churning butter. There’s plenty of useless facts out there. Exact dates don’t add anything to the conversation. (Norm: “Can I have a job?” Company: “No.”) Wouldn’t “May, 1994″ suffice, or even just “1994?”

Sites often require a home phone number as part of my contact info. I have a cell phone, but no home phone, like 20% of the population. It’s easy enough to simply fill in the field with my cell number. That mythological call would get to me either way… no harm, no foul. But stay with me on this one. I apply to many media and marketing companies and departments. They market to users via many channels, including wireless. It seems like they should understand enough about their business to recognize this disconnect and do something about it. After all, the lines of communication between corporate departments are always wide open. More likely with small problems like this is that they just don’t care.

Job sites sometimes don’t work on Firefox, my web browser of choice. The last time I checked, Firefox had a 25% usage share; one quarter of the people online are using it. Is any company so amazingly fantastically stupendously awesome that it can afford to risk missing 25% of the potential applicants for a job? Those missed users may even be a tad more Internet savvy than the average job seeker, given that the Firefox is open source and not standard on new computers. This shortcoming speaks volumes about a company, and none of it’s good.

Job sites often bombard me with useless information, before, during or after my resume submission. One site routinely serves me with a “get your degree online” ad before letting me apply for a job or even see the description. This marketing message might show better results if linked to certain types of jobs. It’s called targeting. They probably teach it at the schools being marketed. Online education is a valuable service, and some people will want more information. But serving this ad repeatedly, to everybody, does more to drive users from the site than it does to endear them to a service. I personally have stopped using the offending site.

More infuriating still are the sites that sell off my information to spammers, who then bombard me with travel deals and Viagra ads. The spam arrives in my otherwise pristine inbox within minutes of uploading a resume. It can’t be a coincidence. Or maybe the site just knows that I always crave a trip to The Bahamas or a four-hour erection ending in blindness and heart attack right after combing the Internet for jobs. Can’t these sites just pretend that they have my best interests in mind, even though they don’t? There are plenty of ways to make a buck without selling my personal information.

And the grand poobah of all job site annoyances… THEY DON’T WORK! Job sites aren’t my only means of attack, but I use them probably more than necessary. And the results are, at best, pretty damn sucky. They’re overrun with garbage, hucksters and, sadly, deserving candidates like me who just want to work. But there’s always the outside chance that my resume, submitted online, will find its way back to me in the form of a job. I’m not counting on it. But at this point in my unemployment, I can’t afford to not try.

A few months ago I commented on a friend’s Facebook page that he should check out the new Longwave album. He gently reminded me that the album wasn’t new; it came out last year. He went on to suggest what the college-aged Norm would have said, were someone to dare refer to an album not released in the last two hours as new. The exact words he put in my mouth elude me. But they were definitely snide, music snob that I was. And in those days, I would’ve followed them with something like…

That album sucks anyway. You need to find their first release from before they got popular and started getting played on the radio. It’s an import-only. And they recorded it before their singer got off the smack. That’s their best album. That’s the one you should pick up.

or

That album sucks anyway. If you want to hear something good, check out band X. They just recorded a 5-song EP on a 4-track in the bass player’s mom’s cousin’s uncle’s basement garage storage space. They only printed 100 cassettes. And they only sell them at shows to real fans. They’re gonna be huge. [By "huge" I was destined to mean that nobody would ever give a crap, and they'd go on to bag groceries or ride a desk like everybody else.]

The Facebook exchange reminded me that I’m not that young music fan anymore. I’m not even up on the latest music – once a point of pride with me. My priorities have changed. “New” as a music descriptor doesn’t matter as much as “new-to-me.”

But I’ve been in a music slump this summer. Even the new-to-me hasn’t seemed all that interesting. My CD buying has tailed off, what with the unemployment and all. People forward me albums, which sit in folders on my desktop, un-listened to. Even eMusic‘s suggestions haven’t excited me much. Only when wifey commandeers the stereo, and then only when she plays something other than David Bowie’s “Let’s Dance,” might I be exposed to some new-to-me music.

My music listening hasn’t tailed off one bit. I seem to crave my all-time favorites more than ever. Certain albums connect me to a specific time and place, or, more importantly, a feeling. Some of these albums come from my youth and were first released on a player piano roll; the Pet Shop Boys get a lot of airplay around the apartment, as do The Church.  Some albums are more current – like The Clientele’s “The Violet Hour.” Either way, I’ve heard these albums a hundred thousand times. Every word and every note is familiar. There are no surprises. I know what they sound like, and I know how they make me feel.

This weird lack of curiosity extends to the news as well. It’s been that way since the layoff. I just don’t care that much about the constantly changing. I have a theory as to why this all is. Unemployment breeds uncertainty… about my career, paying bills, having children, life in general. And uncertainty in some aspects of life pushes me toward familiar and comforting things. In the face of upheaval, I crave stability. So I ignore the news. So I keep playing old Church and Pet Shop Boys albums.

A few weeks ago, something changed. We were cruising down a Canadian highway, somewhere in Quebec province, and entering our fifth straight hour of 80s music on XM. We’d heard every one-hit wonder’s other single – “Pop Goes The World,” “Promises, Promises,” “Kyrie,” you name it. All the Duran Duran and Whitesnake actually started my mullet growing back. I’d had enough… probably too much. It was time for something else.

Since then, I’ve been enjoying many great new-to-me albums. Some I discovered on one of the other XM stations. Some were already sitting dormant on my iPod. And some of them are almost new [gasp!]. My younger, hipper, indier-er than thou self would be so proud. Here is but a sampling of the sounds gracing my ears in recent weeks…

Bowerbirds – Upper Air
Ever wish Iron & Wine, Great Lake Swimmers or Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy would liven things up a bit? Maybe you like your depressing folk music to be a bit dancier. Well, here you go.

The Broken West – Now Or Heaven
Wow, can these guys write a pop song. I have wifey to thank for introducing me to this. And she has me to thank for burning the songs into her cerebral cortex from repeated listens. Seems like a fair trade.

Desolation Wilderness – New Universe
Dreamy and atmospheric… but won’t put you to sleep like Galaxie 500.

Here We Go Magic – Here We Go Magic
Catchy melodies that devolve into experimentalism. I like it, but I don’t know really what to make of it.

Jets Overhead – No Nations
Secret Machines-lite… from Canada, where everybody is just a little happier.

Metric – Fantasies
Ladytron meet The Sounds. The Sounds meet Ladytron. It’s cold, emotion-less music for summer cruising in the convertible with the top down. That is, if you have a convertible, or a car stereo, or, uh, summer.

The Most Serene Republic – …And The Ever Expanding Universe
The Most Serene Republic borders on The Polyphonic Spree and Mercury Rev. There supreme ruler has banned all drugs but surrounded himself with interesting orchestration. So things don’t get nearly as wacky here as they do in neighboring states.

Passion Pit – Manners
It’s a happy dance party in your living room, or at least in your headphones. But maybe not in your pants. For that, try Junior Senior or Cut Copy.

Rhett Miller – Rhett Miller
The Old 97’s guy is still around. This album is solid singer-songwriter fare, with a country-ish tinge. It’s pretty okay for what it is. But I get the feeling Rhett can’t decide what to do with the rest of his life but also knows the job market is crappy for low-level rockstars.

We Were Promised Jetpacks – These Four Walls
Is the band name clever or just trying to be clever? Either way, pop punk just sounds better when Scottish guys sing it. It’s a little like Ballboy without the sense of humor.

Wye Oak – The Knot
Pop songs with guitar noise… what’s not to like?

Keep your feet on the ground and keep reaching for the stars. Unless you’re in a convertible and going under a low overpass.

Stop smiling at me and fix that damn thing, freakboy, or I'll make you decode my carpet. (courtesy of http://www.airconditionservice.ca)

The date on my calendar is July 23, at least it was when I started this post. School-age kids crowd neighborhood stores and street corners during the day. Michael Bay has arranged some explosions to resemble a movie and released it into theaters. All evidence suggests that summer is in full swing in my fair city. But I just ventured outside to find 65-degree temperatures and rain. I much prefer coolness and precipitation to heat and humidity, so consider this an observation, not a complaint. There’s nothing to see here, weather gods. Go back to your cloud castles, or wherever it is you plot all those natural disasters. I’ll sit down here on earth enjoying the unseasonable weather and saving money on air conditioning.

Me and New York City summer don’t get along so well. We never really had a chance. I arrived here late one night, ten years ago, with my life in a U-Haul. One of that summer’s heatwaves was gripping the city. The temperature had dipped into the high 90s. The air was still. And the humidity was thick. I carried every last thing I owned – including a bed and boxes of CDs – up two flights of stairs to my new apartment. I was drenched after two trips, and managed to sweat through my leather belt within an hour.

I didn’t have a job at the time – story of my life – so I spent the next week sending out resumes in an un-air-conditioned apartment and trying not to drip on them. Very few residential buildings in New York have central air – vestiges of tenement housing and/or cheap builders. Everyone here uses window units. But I didn’t have one, or the money for one. So I sweated, and sweated some more. Relief came from afternoons at the library and evenings at the second-run movie theater, where cool air was free or really cheap. When I couldn’t take it anymore, I charged an air conditioner to my credit card and lugged it home on the subway with a luggage cart. A paycheck would be along eventually. Though when it did arrive I wouldn’t be so desperate for heat relief anymore.

Not only is summer my least favorite season, it’s my least favorite season to be unemployed. I spend many of my days plugging away at my (ok, wifey’s) computer in an apartment with poor airflow. I crank up the ceiling fan and position the Vornado in the window for maximum breeziness. The arrangement keeps me comfortable until about mid-afternoon, when the sun is shining directly on my west-facing windows and the temperature inside has risen far above whatever it is outside. When I feel the sweat on my forehead, when I stick to the throw pillow that cushions my rear end on the dining room chair I’ve worn out, I crank up the AC. I could probably hold out longer, but there’s no need to be a hero. Our finances aren’t that bad.

I regulate the air conditioning because wifey and I are paying for it and I don’t have a job. Our electric bill for a one-bedroom apartment, last summer, when I was employed, was over $200/month. Neither of us were here all day, and the window units were off, barring a heatwave. The cats just slept anyway, maybe barfed a couple times and meowed at the wall – all less-than-taxing tasks. They got by just fine in the heat. Our last electric bill was well under $200, and I was home a good deal of the time. We have the weather to thank for that.

But I still miss central air, a nice ancillary benefit of every one of my post-college jobs. Only the summer after my sophomore year of college, when I worked ground crew on a golf course, did I have to endure the heat. And not only was central air at work free, I got paid to enjoy it. I miss having to keep a sweatshirt in my drawer because building systems still can’t tell the difference between 70 and 50 degrees on an entire floor. Yet some cars can regulate temperatures for driver and passenger… go figure. I miss looking out the window into heat that’s almost visible from an air-conditioned fortress of an office building. I miss being cool all day everyday, and not having to think about it. Unemployment has its benefits, and work has its drawbacks. But employment easily wins the AC battle.

Where to work if the thought of another day at the dining room table makes you suicidal.

I need a new place to go blog and be unemployed during the day with my computer… ok, with wifey’s computer. My requirements are simple. It has to be reasonably close to home, or at least in NYC. It has to be cheap (by which I mean free) and near food and a bathroom. It has to be quiet enough that music through my headphones will drown out any noise. And no one there can care how long I stay. Oh yeah, and it must have unicorns, and rainbows ending in pots of gold. Does anyone out there know of such a mythical place? I’m willing to give a little on the unicorns and rainbows. However, the pots of gold are mandatory, a deal breaker. No pots of gold… no Norm.

I’ve spent much of the last few months working at my dining room table. It’s one giant mess that wifey puts up with but probably secretly hates down to the very core of her existence. Let’s set the scene, shall we? The space where I work is closest to the kitchen facing the wall and a painting of kids on a carousel in France somewhere. I would sit opposite myself (and often do during out-of-body experiences) facing out into the apartment if squeezing into that space weren’t so difficult. My chair has no padding left, so I sit on an old pillow, prompting the occasional hemorrhoid reference from wifey. There’s a pile of printouts, business cards and computer wires pushed off to my left. The cats sit and drool on it whenever they decide to spend quality time with me. I often type with one hand and harass one of them with the other, because I’m ambidextrous like that. When they knock the pile to the floor, I put it back on the table, inevitably mixing it in with the assorted newspapers and magazines strewn about. The salt and pepper grinders stand tall – like beacons of domesticity in a job search wasteland – until I knock them over and scare the cats away.

My spot is nice and central, letting me be a part of wifey and the cats’ madcap escapades. It’s basically the center of my apartment, which is near the center of Jackson Heights, which is the geographical center of New York City. And everyone knows that New York is the center of the universe. So by extrapolation, my workspace is the center of the universe… which explains a lot. But spend enough time anywhere and you’ll tire of it. There has to be another spot.

My desk, where one would think I’d work, is piled high with papers and books and all the other things I’ve been meaning to go through and haven’t. It’s a disaster area, which the city keeps threatening to condemn, and removed from the rest of the apartment besides. I experimented with the couch as a daytime work spot. The TV remains off, because it really wouldn’t be work otherwise. But my urge to watch remains a distraction. So too does the amazingly hot battery in wifey’s computer. An hour of work leaves giant sweat marks on my pants, which would likely raise questions should she come home midday. The UPS guy gives me odd looks too.

My local options are limited… Espresso 77, the bench in front of Espresso 77 and the curb in front of the bench in front of Espresso 77. Starbucks would give me wireless access too if I had AT&T, but I don’t. The good news on that is I actually receive phone calls. Espresso 77 has a strict policy for laptop use. The first hour is free with a purchase on weekdays, and each hour after that costs $5. I’ve never seen it enforced. They did remind me about the policy during my last visit. I was the only one there. And you may remember the outlet-locking episode. I love their coffee, particularly the New Orleans ice coffee, which is some crazy double-brewed concoction with extra milk… sooooooo good. But I don’t feel terribly welcome when I bust out the laptop. The bench out front might work it ever stopped raining and wifey’s laptop weren’t trying to accelerate global warming. As for the curb, I’m not that desperate yet.

Communitea in Long Island City – a short subway ride away and convenient to Manhattan – is another workspace option. The coffee is solid, except for my last cup which tasted like sweetened, milky arsenic. The baked goods are scrumpdilicious. And the place is big enough that no one cares when I hang out awhile; I always make a point to spend more taxpayer money. The other customers are quiet and respectful, except for the smelly hippie guy who taps his ring to the tasteful alt-rock and talks on his cell phone. He’s just asking for a Hong Kong Phooey to the jaw. And maybe a little Captain Caveman action for good measure. I’ll do it, one of these days, so help me. Just keep not showering and sitting next to me. Bad things will happen; I’ve watched too many cartoons and endured too much unemployment.

The Brooklyn Creative League invited me to a blogging event to hype their new workspace for freelancers and small businesses. So I dragged my ass out to Brooklyn yesterday on the subway in a monsoon in search of a change of scenery. This is how desperate I’ve become. The New York subway system floods in a light drizzle, so you can only imagine what it was like in a steady rain. Water poured through the cement ceilings of the station multiple stories below ground. I felt like I was entering an underground torture chamber from a Mel Gibson buddy movie, and some wild-eyed fu manchu guy was going to string me up and shock me with a car battery. Gary Busey didn’t show himself, but I kind of suspect he was there. Why didn’t I just take the ark?

Brooklyn is the blogging capital of the world. It has more bloggers per square inch or per capita or per something than anywhere else. Understandable, since Brooklyn also has more subsidized, tech-savvy white people who are filled with angst, blessed with free time and convinced that everyone cares about their “struggle” than anywhere else on the planet. Maybe that’s just Williamsburg. This temporary relocation actually represented a powerful convergence of centers; the center of the world and the center of the blogosphere were one. Did you feel the great suck pulling you in? Not the pull from Yankee Stadium, the other one, from Brooklyn.

If I were a freelancer or a small business with any sort of steady income and I lived closer, I’d join the Brooklyn Creative League. The space – a decked-out floor of a warehouse with exposed brick walls, shiny wood floors, an open layout, various office necessities and a friendly, accomodating owner – is stellar. And the rates are quite reasonable. Alas, I do not have the wherewithal. But I did take the opportunity to look out a different window down on a different block (Carroll St. and Whitewell Pl.). From my perch, I observed an empty lot with an overflowing dumpster, an elementary school and the back of the Kentile Floors sign that greets F train riders emerging from the tunnel at Carroll St. It was actually fairly scenic in an album liner note photo kind of way. I got a lot done, then trekked back across the city to Queens. It’s back to working at home.

So long, farewell, auf Wiedersehen, good night.

Little Compy – LC to family and good friends – is dying a slow and painful death right before my eyes. It’s sad to watch. His once shiny white case is smudged and dinged with the scars of a hard life. His screen is scratched and imprinted with the outline of the keyboard. His battery is drained, lasting only 20 minutes per charge. And his plug only connects to sideways outlets, and not even all of them. LC has lost all his advantages as a laptop and embraced all the drawbacks. The end is near. My heart aches for the poor machine who’s helped me through three layoffs and job searches. But his time has come.

LC continues to give his all, chugging away at my every keystroke and mouse click, bless his little, overworked processor heart. But the high-powered world of job search and unemployment blogging has passed him by. My competition is stiff, relentless, and his best is no longer good enough. As I type on his temporary replacement, in a coffee shop many subway stops away, Little Compy is asleep at home, dreaming of a simpler world. His next stop is the digital glue factory, or at least a demotion to music server. And deep down in the recesses of his CPU, he knows.

I first noticed the decline around the start of Jobless and Less so many months ago. LC had trouble loading new web pages crammed with job listings and WordPress setup instructions. He would think and think, and then think some more. Filling in typed words and commands grew difficult. His usual response became a momentary blank stare, followed by a rush to catch up. I knew he’d fallen asleep on the job, but was willing to let the lapses slide if productivity remained strong. But this was just the start.

I started closing applications not in use to ease the work load and extend his life. I even bulked up his memory, performing the delicate surgery on my dining room table with the help of my furry assistants. Both solutions proved to be temporary fixes. Soon YouTube videos stopped playing. LC’s iTunes application started ignoring Mr. iPod half the time. For the love of God, they’ve been best friends for years! The two were purchased together, with the same credit card and student discount. When the banner ad girl dancing about low mortgage rates – a key component of my every online experience – stopped loading, I knew something had to be done. Little Compy isn’t going to take me down too.

I mostly work on wifey’s laptop these days. This temporary machine may have a name, but I don’t know it well enough to care yet. She’s at work all day and uses her desktop computer at home anyway. I’ve copied over some important files and added some bookmarks to her browser. But my music and most of my files are still in Little Compy’s possession. He refuses to go quietly. Up until yesterday her computer was still showing the effects of the WordPress 2.8 upgrade. LC, for his part, had somehow managed to adapt. So he retains a bit of usefulness, a smidgen of his former glory. It’s almost the end of an era; my first post-college Mac is about to die. He soon will be replaced by a new Mac – one who is bigger, stronger and shinier. I think I’ll call him Big Macky.

Help me replace Little Compy with Big Macky and not max out my credit card by clicking here. Pleeeeeeeeeease!!! I’ll be your friend…