And Now For Something Completely Different

not that this picture has anything to do with the following post either, but COME ON

Michael Jackson, "Don't Stop" (T&T remix) - I'm not even going to pretend like this song has anything to do with the story I'm about to tell; it's a great, subtle, great, respectful, greatgreatgreat update of an obviously classic song which you should be listening to RIGHT NOW (not that anyone with one iota of sense would have expected anything less from Tim Goldsworthy & Tim Sweeney), but I can't even claim to have been listening to it on the way to and from... the story into which I'm about to get. My apologies to the gullible Hype Machinists lured into my web of lies; consider this your penance for not reading the eminently essential Disco Delicious like you should.

ANYWAY. Like many of you, I too am currently frantically scrambling to find employment during this funky buttloving economy. A while back, I thought I'd actually managed to somehow find the last job in Los Angeles working (from home, even!) for these fine folks doing data entry, which would be just about perfect; all I want in this world is a job I can do mindlessly while listening to records without being bothered (preferably from home, too). Unfortunately, they apparently ran ass-out of money the minute I walked out the door, because it's been like three weeks and they're still not putting me on the schedule; I've spent the last few weeks chasing down damn near every data-entry position Craigslist had to offer.

So at some point last week I happen to come across this golden opportunity. And yes, the job market's bad enough in Los Angeles right now that I even gave such a transparently shady an ad the time of day in the first place; after all, even I have enough sense to take qualifications like "must bring your own computer" and "some adult content required" as a big ol' THIS PROBABLY ISN'T ON THE UP-AND-UP signal. But hey, nobody ever got anywhere in life without taking chances, right? I mean, sure that logic's usually best left reserved for buying lotto tickets and asking girls out, but I figured I had an ace up my sleeve: a good feeling about this.

Well, that good feeling led me directly to a suite in a non-descript office building on Wilshire housing the world headquarters of Priapus Investment Fund. (Priapus, of course, was an ancient Roman god of boners; hopefully they at least discussed going with "Priapus Holding Company" instead.) When I ring the bell, the door is opened by the single porn-star-looking-est woman I've ever seen in my decade in Los Angeles; her rack probably made it through the door a good four seconds before the rest of her. She ushers me into a conference room in the back of the office with the other two candidates for the position currently present, a non-descript dude and a yappy young actress, the type who apparently can't let four consecutive seconds pass without saying something self-congratulatory or else this bus will blow up; apparently she's used to "making dollars, not cents (GET IT)" with her acting gig and is currently considering going back to school to learn "directing" because she feels marginalized on set.

After we'd managed to log onto the office's wireless network, Chesty LaRoux shows back up with a few more folks going after the job; we're up to like six or seven in the room by now. At this point, Chesty sets about actually explaining the job: apparently we're competing against each other to see who gets to go to this website (NSFW UNLESS YOUR BOSS LIKES PROSTITUTES), surf to an assigned city, and start copying the vital stats for as many of the... ladies of the evening in that particular city into an Excel sheet as you could manage in an hour. Oh, and apparently there'd only be one position available, not "multiple" as the ad mentioned. Oh, and apparently the pay maxes out at twelve bucks an hour, not "twenty" as per the ad.

And as if all that weren't enough, guess which city I got assigned? That's right - BALTIMORE, the city whose drug problem happens to be so all-consumingly nihilistic that they made a show about it. Believe me, any jokes you might have been dreaming up about me getting paid to lookit them thar nekkid lay-deez will utterly collapse once you start checking out the beauty queens I was dealing with, especially when you take into account that I was attempting to set the world landspeed record for most ho-data aggregated in an hour. Hell, the pictures arguably weren't even the most depressing part - that dubious honor either goes to the chick who's "temporarily dropping her prices due to the economy" (even pussy futures are falling these days!) or the three girls sharing one hotmail address (dig the links out of the Baltimore ho-dex yourself if you want proof; otherwise, take my word) which I presume belongs to their pimp. It all added up to a pretty sobering scene; one middle-aged lady actually had to excuse herself from consideration after about 30 minutes. It was, all in all, most certainly neither my beautiful house nor my beautiful wife.

And then the midget walks in.

That's right: as of March 27th, 2009, I can no longer say I've never competed against a midget for a job. In walks this stubby little Asian dude looking for all the world like Tattoo from Fantasy Island (n.b. that my comparative library of Asian midgets is not huge; this is merely an approximation of his Asian midgitude), and the room goes absolutely silent - no mean feat when we're competing against each other to see who could input the most data. Ms. LaRoux, to her credit, explains the job to him in exactly the same measured, professional tones as she'd done with the rest of us - well, up until the point when the lil' guy not only whips out a mini-laptop, but plugs a mini USB mouse right on in. The lily having clearly been gilded, Chesty beat a hasty retreat from the increasingly Lynchian scene; as he was leaving she couldn't help cooing over how cute all his "little computer things" were, which would be probably be a real ego-boost if you happened to be into girls who give off a big-ass hepatitis vibe.

Anyway, that was pretty much it. I doubt I'll ever hear from these people again, considering that the whole interview process struck me as a really cheap way to get most of their data entry entered for free (there ended up being like 10-12 people at my interview; multiply that by the total number of interviews they mentioned hosting in the Craigslist ad and you're looking at a lot of data being accumulated during the interview process. A ho lot. I... I'm sorry), but whatever; it might well be the craziest interview I've ever been on, and a few years ago I went on a job interview that ended with me being deemed unfit for Scientology. LA, you know? (Click here to buy "Don't Stop" from Phonica; they turn in a great mix of "Superstition" on the flip, too.)

Sitting Around Collecting Dust

I am fucking clever

Spymob, "2040"

Spymob, "It Gets Me Going"

While we can all agree that time hasn't been too polite to midwestern Generation X power-pop acts (poor, poor Fastball), I'd like to single Spymob out for particular distinction, both because of their off-the-charts coulda-shoulda-woulda factor and because their collective their efforts resulted in at least one very good album (more on this in a minute). They could have easily broken big in the late 90s, back when labels were eagerly hoovering up all the local talent Minnesota had to offer; the only effective difference between Spymob and Semisonic (a band for whom I still unashamedly ride) is that the latter allowed overly-informed dorks to go YUO KNOW THEY USED TO BE TRIP SHAKEASPEAR RIGHT. They really should have broken big after Pharrell Williams somehow heard these guys and hired them to play the "live" instrumentation on the US release of In Search Of... after coming to feel dissatisfied with the UK version's canned, Neptunes-sounding version (and seriously, I'd love to hear the backstory here if only because of the timing - I mean, Pharrell was working on In Search Of... in, what, 2001? 2002? So all that time he's sitting around working on "Grindin" and "Bouncin' Back" and like a thousand other era-definers, he's spending his free time bulldozing through butt-rock demo tapes from the heartland? Did he shed a single tear during The Blueshammer Scene? Was he keeping himself in check while plowing anonymous contemporary groupies by trying to remember the name of every band who'd sent him a shitty cover of "Game of Pricks"? I... I'm sorry.) And they really should have broken big in 2003 back when Pharrell was scrambling to attempt to make a home for Spymob's full-length debut on Star Trak (and the band turned in a lackluster track for the label's compilation Clones, better known today as "Frontin'" And Like A Shit-Ton Of B-Sides). Unfortunately, they never did - label woes kept Sitting Around keeping Score in limbo for almost a year before eventually surfacing on Ruthless Records (...); meanwhile all of their burgeoning momentum was inexplicably sapped by the then-ascendent High Speed Scene, and I think we all remember how well that turned out.

The loss, of course, was entirely ours. If you can ever remember enjoying Spoon's Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga for its studied polish or Fountains of Wayne's debut album for its ecstatic conventionality or - hell - even Maroon fuckin' Five for their 70mm pop chops, you need to do yourself a favor and seek out a copy of Sitting Around Keeping Score as soon as you hit the period that I'm putting right here. "2040" and "It Gets Me Going" are the album's two most immediately engaging songs (and, accordingly, tracks one and two respectively - "It Gets Me Going" was also slated to be the album's big single, for reasons which should become glaringly obvious when you listen to it), but there's rewarding stuff to be found no matter how deep you look - every song is a model of efficient arrangement and deleriously refined pop musicianship (q.v. those backing vocals on "2040"). I mean, even the ballads don't drag. I know, I know - I'm as surprised to hear myself saying it as anyone, but it's true.

Anyway, I had a whole bit about how Sitting Around Keeping Score had become, if not a rare CD, at least a royal pain in the sack to track down; unfortunately for me, I decided to actually do my research this time and discovered that it's actually available on iTunes and I probably didn't have to spend all that time and energy sorting through shiesty eBay resellers and GEMM listings and it would have probably been cheaper once you factor in the shipping costs BUT WHATEVER; Sitting Around Keeping Score is an outrageously gratifying album and I'm as thrilled as an abstract simile for exuberance to have it on my shelves. (also you can probably get it directly from them via their MySpace; I'm not sure since my Flash has decided to act like a shitlord w/ Myspace for the last few months no matter how many times I reinstall it, but it's a fair guess. also hard copies aren't too much used from Amazon resellers.) Just throwing that out there. You'll probably be curious.