Feeling fatigued and sorry for myself. More so than usual. All that restlessness last Tuesday night, unable to sleep for feeling useless and that no one will hire me? Was it a premonition? Yesterday I called the "decider" at that “dream job” I’ve been waiting to hear about for six weeks. The answer was “No”.  I was devastated. Not because it actually was a dream job. Because I’m tired of this. I don’t want to be in the job market. That was the closest I’ve come to ending this fruitless search since the end of April. While no job is a “dream job” this position had several things in its favor: decent pay, good benefits, being in Academia and not the corporate world, etc. 

I asked the decision-maker what I lacked. It was what she mentioned back in October day when I asked her to handicap my odd: “ Lack of TV experience.” The job - in a Broadcast and Media Operations Center of a major NJ University - requires knowledge of TV gear, switchers, etc. I come from radio, which is to my detriment in this job market. Every fucking job wants video experience, mainly because of YouTube. Every fucking job also wants you to be a “Social Media Star!”, with thousands of followers BEFORE you get hired. Radio has gone visual. Radio IS TV, at this point. Look at all the stupid radio shows that are equipping their studios with cameras so you can watch two poorly-dressed idiots yammering at each other. Does anyone watch that shit?

I get the BSW catalog mailed to my house. BSW stands for “Broadcast Supply Worldwide”. They’re one of the major outlets for radio and TV equipment. Their most recent flyer devotes several pages to remote cameras for your radio studio. My God. I can remember when we asked listeners to submit DRAWINGS of what they thought we looked like. DRAWINGS, for the sake of fuck. Now some kid on his way to school is WATCHING his favorite RADIO show on his phone. All we need is closed captioning and that kid won’t even have to LISTEN to a radio show.

When did radio stop being radio? When did this glorious medium become so devalued? Why can’t we have something that doesn’t demand LOOK AT ME?! Go ahead, tell me about how podcasts are an aural medium and I’ll show you how many are being farmed for TV content, from “Homecoming” on Amazon to “Pod Save America” on HBO to “Lore” and who-knows-how-many-more? Then there's the podcasts that routinely do a Facebook Live thing or go on YouTube. 

A good friend who happens to be a very smart person keeps telling me I should have a YouTube channel. That’s where the action is, he says. I believe him. I just can’t bring myself to do it. Who in the fuck wants to look at a 56 year-old white dude talking into a microphone? Does it really matter what I have to say? I’m more than happy to show you around my “studio” but that’s about it. I’m not sitting here on camera for an hour.

Now to go apply for more jobs...

Christmas is three weeks from today. Pardon the cliche but where did the time go? Last Christmas I was getting annoyed commuting into “Christmas Central” (above) one block from the world’s most famous tree at Rockefeller Center. Just being on that ferry bus with all these clueless daytrippers was enough to make my blood boil. Who knew it would soon come to an end? I was in that neck of the woods recently, for a voiceover class, and couldn’t wait to get the hell out of there. I ended up requesting a Lyft because there was nothing else leaving quickly enough.

This past December I was looking forward to my first-ever cruise, the Outlaw Country Cruise (below), which would have the misfortune of setting sail a few weeks after we got our “shape up or ship out” speech at work. I’d soon be literally shipping out, spending almost the entire cruise trying to distract myself with music and booze and smoke, unable to contemplate the potential loss of my livelihood. It didn’t quite work. I’d stave off the horror while roaming the ship, then back in my cabin I'd stare out at the dark ocean and brood.

When I got back to work after the cruise there was a raise waiting, giving me hope things might level off and I’d keep my job. In retrospect it seems a tactic designed to keep me around while other plans were made. They weren't ready for me to go yet. I spun my wheels for a few more months trying to get anyone else on our “team” to register the same sense of alarm about our dwindling prospects, to no avail.

Here I sit three weeks from Christmas knowing the money will run out eventually. If I don’t have a job it’s into the retirement savings I go. Maybe this is retirement? Maybe - like all those cheesy pop-up ads - I’ve figured out “HOW TO RETIRE EARLY!”? I spent an hour this morning looking at jobs on my phone and found one or two of interest. The rest sought skills I don’t have. Live video. Which brings me to my next decision concerning my future employment. What skills to acquire? How do I reconfigure myself to stay viable in 2019 and beyond? Where do I train and with whom? I wish I could concentrate on it now but all I can do is get to the end of the year.

2019 has to be better, right?

L - R: Steve Earle, Mojo Nixon, Dallas Wayne, Elizabeth Cook, Me,
Unknown, Shooter Jennings, Roger Alan Wade

Tonight at 6 pm hear a replay of Friday's Aerial View show Everything Sucks & People Are Stupid on thehoundnyc.com. At 7 pm Aerial View becomes available as a podcast here.

The rundown:

• Living in the Upside Down
• Radio, the new TV.
• Hospital Shootings.
• All that and YOUR CALLS at 929-456-2763.

The quote:
"Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires." - John Steinbeck

The Poem:

St. Andrew’s Day, 1935

Sharply the menacing wind sweeps over
the bending poplars, newly bare,
and the dark ribbons of the chimneys
veer downward; flicked by whips of air.
Torn posters flutter; coldly sound
the boom of trams and the rattle of hooves,
and the clerks who hurry to the station
look, shuddering, over the eastern rooves,
thinking, each one, ‘Here comes the winter!
Please God I keep my job this year!’
And bleakly, as the cold strikes through
their entrails like an icy spear,
they think of rent, rates, season tickets,
insurance, coal, the skivvy’s wages,
boots, school-bills, and the next installment
upon the two twin beds from Drage’s.
For if in careless summer days
in groves of Ashtaroth we whored,
repentant now, when winds blow cold,
we kneel before our rightful lord;
the lord of all, the money-god,
who rules us blood and hand and brain,
who gives the roof that stops the wind,
and, giving, takes away again;
who spies with jealous, watchful care,
our thoughts, our dreams, our secret ways,
who picks our words and cuts our clothes,
and maps the pattern of our days;
who chills our anger, curbs our hope,
and buys our lives and pays with toys,
who claims as tribute broken faith,
accepted insults, muted joys;
who binds with chains the poet’s wit,
the navvy’s strength, the soldier’s pride,
and lays the sleek, estranging shield
between the lover and his bride.

- George Orwell

I'm one of five finalists performing in the CoLab Arts VOM Grand Story Slam this Thursday, Dec. 6, 8 pm at Pino's, 13 North 4th Avenue in Highland Park, NJ.

Come on out and hear the story of my custom trucking suit (above).

"Welcome to the air." Taking my first phone call, Christmas 1966