"The Anti-Bandwagon Bandwagon"

Y'no what I'm really sick of? The "Anti-Bandwagon Bandwagon". Don't know what that is? Sure ya' do. It's that group of folks in the world who refuse to "get on the bandwagon" for anything and everything that a lot of people have agreed is awesome, purely because a lot of people have previously agreed that it is awesome. You might hear them saying things like, "Oh...that's been too hyped up!" or "Oh God, that's the LAST movie I want to see, it can't be that great...people are stupid." I first noticed this phenomenon when the movie "Titanic" was out. I loved that movie. I know, I know...it isn't the best film ever created, and it was cheesy, but it was a damned great movie. I don't need to defend myself this many years later, and frankly, I don't care whether you agree with me. Myself and millions of other people felt something when we watched that flick and we did that because we allowed ourselves to get on that bandwagon that the anti-bandwagon bandwagoners were throwing themselves off of and under.

What they just don't understand is that the Anti-Bandwagon Bandwagon IS A BANDWAGON. In claiming that they are so individual and so unique...able to make their own choices and form their own opinions...they are making their opinion instantly opposite to the general consensus, usually without even seeing/hearing/trying said "awesome thing". Now that's just retarded. And sure...there are a few Anti-BW's that do allow themselves to experience whatever it is and will still deny it's possible awesomeness anyway, because that is just who they are. Besides, who am I to prove whether they secretly enjoyed it and are afraid to admit it?

The trick here isn't jumping ON one of these bandwagons but, rather, not allowing their presence to deter you from truly experiencing something for yourself. A lot of people sell themselves short from some silly notions of their supposed individuality.

That is my point at the end of all of this....the whole idea behind hating whatever everyone on the Bandwagon digs is based on this idea that you are your own person and you don't just go along with the crowd. I can respect that. But not if, in doing so, you just hop on the wagon that is going the other way down the road, because that is just a different gaggle of lemmings headed to a really boring party.

The Bohemian Steel Gardens

So I live at the Astoria Blvd stop on the N/W in Queens. This means that you give a lot of directions...to the bus to LaGuardia, and to the Beer Garden. Non-residents of Astoria only venture to this stop in Queens to get the hell out of here or to get down with some beer. It's something I have gotten used to, and much like that warm-fuzzy feeling of being recognized as a "New Yorker" by a tourist asking for directions,it makes me feel good to help whenever I can. The other night as I made a late-night treck to the corner store for something sweet, I found a girl, a little hooched up, frantically arguing with someone on her cell phone. "

Drunk Hooched-out Girl: "Umm...excuse me, do you know where the Bohemian Steel Gardens are? (extremely confused look on her face)

Me: "Oh...yes...you mean the Bohemian BEER Garden." (holding back hysterical laughing)

Drunk Hooched-out Girl: "Umm...yeah, the Bohemian Steel Garden...is that around here?"

Me: "Yes, I can show you where it is, follow me...but it's called The BEER Garden. It's just down this side of the street past the intersection, be careful these 8 lanes of traffic are kind of dangerous to cross, once you get past them and get on the next corner or so, ask someone "Where is the BEER Garden" and someone will point you right at it. Now just careful at this intersec--

Drunk Hooched-out Girl: ----I can't believe it, you know, I asked TWO cab drivers where the Bohemian Steel Gardens were and neither of them had any idea what I was talking about!"

Me: "Well, that's probably because it's called the BEER Garden, not the STEEL Garden."

Drunk Hooched-out Girl: "It's called the BEER Garden?"

Me: "yes, yes it is."

Drunk Hooched-out Girl: slightly giggling and looking back at me while walking out into 8 lanes of traffic as their light turns green "Oh...thanks!"

I sort of hope she made it there.

Mmmm...piss in a cup....

Ah...the piss test. I recently began working a new job and had to visit a local drug testing facility this past week. There aren't too many experiences quite so humbling as pissing in a cup and then handing it, still fresh and warm, to the lab technician. "Here, this was all just in my bladder, but I just hovered over the toilet holding this cup between my legs, aiming the best I could and squeezed it out just for you to pour into a plastic tube and label for me. Thank you for the lovely hand sanitizer to cleanse my piss off my hand, since I wasn't allowed to turn on the water at the sink until you checked the bathroom to make sure I didn't tamper with anything."

I am not sure why I just launched into the preceding rant. I am not at a point in my life where I need worry about the drug test, but somehow, I obviously have a lot to say on the subject, much to my own surprise.


I suppose I understand why companies want to drug test, but really...I don't totally get it. I mean, drugs are bad, mmkay? We all know this. Doing drugs at work is bad. But only if you are an idiot, and are totally fucked up to a point that people realize that there is something wrong with you. If you are stupid enough to take drugs at work at all...or an amount that makes you retarded at work, then you should just be fired, because you will act stupid and people will have no choice but to fire you. What's the point of all this ceremonial peeing in cups and testing shit? If someone has some fun outside of their job, I don't understand why that is anyone's business but their own. You should get fired or penalized for not showing up, calling off all the time, or showing up and being wasted in any way shape or form. All of those are grounds for some sort of consequences, and I don't need piss in a cup to show me that. Maybe if a piss test could indicate whether a person was going to complain while they are standing next to you at work all day, or if the results were to show that a manager was going to be overly condescending or constantly be on a power trip, that would be useful. I think most employers will know quite immediately that they are interviewing a crackwhore or a junkie, and if one slips through the system and gets past that day of training, their ways most certainly won't take too long to be revealed. All those others need to just keep their shit together and save the parties for their off-time.
Thanks for listenin'.

I am hispanic....

I have been doing several retarted things lately...most of which I am entirely too embarrassed to list. The only one I can bring myself to mention, for sheer comic value, is that I accidently checked off that I am hispanic while filling out paperwork for a job I applied for this week. I was being sort of rushed, and I totally thought I was checking off the box for caucasian...but no. Ahhhhhhhhhhhh!

The Twilight Zone....

I think when you turn 25, you are tossed into a new reality. This belief has been validated several times since then. Today was one such time.

I am in a room full of strangers, gathered to work for a small hourly rate promoting a brand on the streets of New York. I am surrounded by squeaky girls commenting on which clubs in NYC are good for picking up guys while contradicting eachother's agreements that you can't pick up good guys in NYC clubs.

They speak over each other and nod excitedly, all of their opinions magically coinciding to provide immediate bonds, for the moment. The topics range from "all the hot guys that were coming off the subway this morning!" to "guys, do any of you have fake IDs??".

They discuss circumsized/uncircumsized penises and their recent trips "studying abroad" in foreign countries. At some points I feel like I'm sitting in a bizarre episode of "Sex and the City" in which the stars' much younger and less experienced understudies have taken over. I am silent.

As I hear a few connect over the shared experience of just turning 19, another comments that 22 is such a 'cute age'. Just as one poo-poo's 25, another makes a pathetic attempt to redeem it by boasting that you will then be able to rent a car. They responded to that just as boisterously as I did on my 25th birthday. The original poo-poo'er defines 25 as an age that means "marriage" to her (she has just turned 19). I observe quietly along with the sweet brazilian girl whose english makes her a weak contender for their astute commentary.

I am trapped in some strange reality where everyone around me is at a COMPLETELY different point in their lives than I. Their realities are as real to them as mine is to me, yet they all seem like strange little giggling aliens! I find myself envious of their trips to Europe that I keep saying I'll take. That is all I am jealous of. I feel like I'm sitting in glass box at the end of the table witnessing an experiment to see what happens when you toss several '22 and unders' in a room with one 28 year old just to see what happens. All I could do was sit there, restrained within the reality I understood in my box, and appreciate everything on the outside as my excruciating amusement.

We continued the rest of our day and I made friends with the brazilian girl, partially because she too had felt a little left out of the ambiguously intimate lunch we had all just shared, and partially because Kate Winslet took one of her flyers!! Although I am now aware that I should have respected my initial reservations about taking this low-payed promotion, I accepted my having agreed to do it. I did this because, like these bizarre giggling aliens, I need the money.

It will only be a few short and quick years before at least half of these girls are in my position, far from marriage after 25 or having had their first baby already. I hope by then I will have experienced my travels abroad and we will ALL be very far from needing a job like this. Until then, I will still be baffled that one of them, born and raised on Long Island, now living in the city mentioned that she voted for Bush last year. She said she had faith in him. She thought John Kerry was evil. This is why I never voted in an election until last year, because when I was young and dumb like that, I knew I had no business being in a voting booth. In the world we are living in right now, though, I can't imagine still being THAT dumb.

"...seriously took naptime for granted!"

Pet Peeve # 3,989
Filling out job applications...

I have never enjoyed filling these out, because they are so damned time-consuming, repetitive, and they never leave enough room in the boxes to write everything they are asking for. My hand gets all cramped up from writing all tiny, yet maintaining legibility. Why doesn't someone think of a way you can include all of the relevant information of your work experience legibly typed on one pleasant sheet of paper? Oh wait, someone did, it's called a resume (something else I really enjoy creating). What a shame it is that there are still people out there that want you to fill out the regular application. Some will accept your resume in place of filling out the "work experience" section. Some are assholes and make you write everything out again in those tiny boxes that mock the amount of letters in every word you attempt to write. Do they really want to know what job I performed at that store? Well just read the friggin' resume I spent so much time on already! The power trips and busy-work have already begun.
What really has ALWAYS confused me is the section where they want to know about the schools you have attended, all the way back to elementary school! Are you kidding me? When was that relevant? I understand when you are 16 and getting your first job they would have very little to read if you didn't put that, but even then...what did it do for them? If you are in high school, doesn't that mean that you obviously completed elementary school? Then they ask what field of study you took part in at each stage of your school career. What does everyone else put in there? I mean, unless you are in the special classes (special-good, or special-"special"), what other fields of studies exist in grade school and high school? Someone told me to write "Academic". So I suppose my field of study in GRADE SCHOOL was highly academic, whatever the hell that means. Can I just write "Well, I learned to read, and seriously took naptime for granted!"?

Silliness, I say.

What's sillier at 28 years old?
-writing in detailed information about where you went to grade school, middle school, and high school?
or -still applying for the jobs that require that I fill out these dumbass applications?

Sigh.