Monday, February 20, 2006

Ever Cheat on Your Boss?

As far as employment goes, I'm a monogamist. Long-term relationship describes the few jobs that I have had.

Cashier at the local yuppie/hippie grocery store - 4 years
Server at faux 50s diner - 2 years
Event planner at Univeristy of NM - 3 years

None of those are one night stands, unless I include a very short stint doing promo for Camel cigarettes at the Journal Pavilion. My simple job was to pass out 2 free packs of smoke sticks to anyone willing to fill out a 3-line form. At 12 bucks an hour it was hard to pass up at the time, and I learned quickly why Camel puts so much money into their ad campaigns here - Albuquerque is Marlboro country. Never before have I encountered this level of brand loyalty, which resulted in countless refusals to accept free cigarettes. Even at the Stevie Nicks concert, where you would expect the hillbilly crowd to jump on the chance for free anything, seeing as their liquor store holdup money had been obviously squandered on leather jackets, tattoos, meth, motorcycles, pistols, and PBR leaving not a penny for dental visits or trips to the barber. But once again the ubiquitous anthem "No thanks, I'm a Marlboro Man" took precedence over white trash frugality.

More recently, I did cave in to the lure of one day's work - cheating on my day job as my father's grunt peon laborer. Thanks to Governor Bill Richardson's newly enacted incentives for the movie industry, more and more films have been produced right here in 'Burque. This had led to a sort of Hollywood hysteria among the 20-something set whose brushes with fame formerly only went as far as standing in line behind local anchorman Dick Knipfing at Starbucks. (His takes a Cafe Americano in case you were wondering.)

Getting on set as a background "actor" has become everyone's favorite past time. Since there is no competition, at least compared thespian slurry of Los Angeles, getting to work background is not a difficult task. Not to mention we get paid better than extras out there do, and this information comes to me from a very reputable source - my sister Anna.

In production right now is a film titled Beerfest, which by its name only tickles quite a few college fancies. Cast as a "party-goer" in a "college party" scene, it sounded like to good bit. The first sign that things weren't going quite as planned was the disparity between the info I'd gotten beforehand - this is going to be a very Western European party - and the fact they were pasting prop Colorado license plates onto the cars out front.

The details are lengthy and comparable to a chapter out of Angela's Ashes, so I'm going to indulge myself by not remembering any of them. All except the one lesson that I imagine no one before me has ever learned - non-alcoholic beer gives you one hell of a hangover. Perplexing, isn't it?

This all leads me to my present situation. Only half-employed, considering re-entry into the academic world towards some unknown pursuit, or truding forward in search of gobs and gobs of green paper with a million and one uses. Only one of these two options will send me to Europe again, but then again only one of the two will give me intellectual bragging rights over those who chose to rest on their Bachelor of Arts laurels.

I should know by Friday.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Not sure where to post this but I wanted to ask if anyone has heard of National Clicks?

Can someone help me find it?

Overheard some co-workers talking about it all week but didn't have time to ask so I thought I would post it here to see if someone could help me out.

Seems to be getting alot of buzz right now.

Thanks