Ghosts of Horatio Alger

(Gentleman Jack is a good friend who has been having a rough go of his job search and general direction in life. These are his, at times, brilliant, eccentric and esoteric musings. These are The Loxley Files. Hopefully you’ll learn something – or at least have a good laugh.)

I recently got some bad news, apparently I do not have Hepatitis A. Not the disease, the full round of vaccinations (speaking of which, am I the only person that thinks if you pronounced it a bit more phonetically it would sound like a character from The Oddessey?). Without a lot of boring detail, I had the opportunity to go do some relief work for the earthquake in Haiti. However, since I am not fully vaccinated, and cannot be in time to go, I am stuck here. I believe the phrase they used was that I’ve been “stood down.” At least I got that much, which in terms of cool rejection terminology only takes a back seat to the phrase “loose cannon” or some sort of request to surrender a firearm.

I have some other potential adventures ahead of me, including the possibility of employment in Panama. However, in the meantime it may not be a terrible idea to have some kind of income. Earlier today I recommended to someone that they become a bartender. My exact thought was Alec Baldwin’s line in The Departed “the world needs plenty of bartenders,” though my actual suggestion was for him to go to bar-tending school. Not that you really need to go to school for it, but you can’t get anywhere without a degree these days. That was right before I got the (most recent) bad news about my own future. So my mind naturally went back to that advice.

I think I would make a good bartender, in the right circumstances. I don’t think I’d like to work in a meat market bar full of people in their early 20s – and a lot of people pretending they still are – primarily because I’m not intersted in being an unwitting accessory to daterape (though the tips are probably better). I think I would need a bar that caters to a slightly older crowd. Probably a bar/restaurant type place. Not real expensive, but a relatively nice place. You know, somewhere above the mall-chain range. I could dispense sage bullshit, and always have whatever interesting book I’m reading behind the bar to let everyone know I’m smart, but just too deep to have a real job.

The other thought I had, a moment after being reminded of my own advice was that the Baldwin character’s phrase seemed to be an alcoholic’s reformulation (they Irished it up, if you will – probably a holdover from a collective socio-ethnic memory) of the more classic “the world needs plenty of ditch diggers.” Given the expression, it sounds like there is an abundance of this kind of work, and it’s probably the kind of thing where you could show up at the digging office on a day that you felt like doing some digging; but then if you didn’t want to come that’d be fine too, they’d just send out one of the other guys who was sitting around reading a magazine and drinking the free water or coffee they have there out of those new, environmentally friendly disposable cups. As I’ve shoveled a decent amount of snow lately, and therefore my various digging muscles are in pretty good shap, I decided to look into this career path.

First I googled ditch digger. The most instructive result there were 2 definitions from urbandictionary.com. One described a sexual position and intolerance of homosexuals all in one run-on sentence (not to be confused with my long sentences, which are appropriately punctuated with semi-colons where necessary). The other was a low-grade racial comment in regard to Mexicans. Though unhelpful, this was instructive in terms of Urban Dictionary.

Next, I ammended my search to ditch digger jobs. The most useful result there was a thread someone started, looking, as I am for a ditch digger job. A month later there was a response from someone putting in an irrigation system at their house in New Mexico, to which the original poster replied: “i don’t even remember making this thread!  ”

Obviously, I was not getting anywhere. So I decided to narrow my search, and went to careerbuilder.com. Unfortunately, when I searched ditch digger in my zip code I got no results. In fact, there is only one result for the whole country, and it has to do with power line maintenance (a job well outside my skill-set).

Apparently the world does not need plenty of ditch diggers. I should have studied engineering like Thomas Friedman is always pushing (instead of international relations – do as I say not as I do, eh Tom?) then maybe I could get that power line job.

(Gentleman Jack is a good friend who has been having a rough go of his job search and general direction in life. These are his, at times, brilliant, eccentric and esoteric musings. These are The Loxley Files. Hopefully you’ll learn something – or at least have a good laugh.)

So I’m finally writing something. Well, sort of. I had an idea for a book shortly before Christmas, on the plane back from Panama. I jotted down some ideas, mentioned it to some friends, and then let it sit for a while.

To be fair, I did have a lot going on. First Christmas. Then there was New Years. Then I just didn’t do anything for a while. Then I almost got sent to support relief stuff for Haiti (still might – no word just yet). Then I was out of town for a few days; which included, among other things, skiing and possibly a mild concussion, though definitely a nasty scrape above my right eye. They weren’t sure about the concussion – probably because by the time the doctor actually saw me it was 4 hours later; but I digress (what do you want? I recently suffered a head injury).

After sitting around and doing nothing very productive on the computer for a while today, I decided I’d get to work on the book. I don’t want to give too much away, but it’s something of a Billy Mumphrey story.

Anyway, now that we’re down here in paragraph four, I think I’ll get to what this post is all about. As a “writer” (I use quotes there because no one pays me, and as I’ve already mentioned I don’t really write that often) I read a lot to gain ideas and information that could be useful in my own writing. But of course, it is easy to fall into the trap where you’ve just got to read this one thing first, then, as soon as you’re done, you’ll totally get down to work on that thing you were going to write. It’s basically just standard procrastination with the twist that you can trick yourself by saying it is theoretically productive.(ed note: I live my life like this! -zs)

Luckily, I have found the perfect formula for overcoming this type of procrastination: read boring books. Recently I finished Thomas Pynchon’s Gravity’s Rainbow. I think it can be best summed up by the following quote on wikipedia:

In 1974, the three-member Pulitzer Prize jury on fiction supportedGravity’s Rainbowfor the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. However, the other eleven members of the board overturned this decision, branding the book “unreadable, turgid, overwritten and obscene.”

I’m not ready to say I hated it (though I may be suffering from Stockholm Syndrome after spending 776 pages with it). But I will say I think a lot of the people who like it are suffering from an “emperor’s new clothes” phenomenon. Maybe I’m just a little slow, or wasn’t paying enough attention, but I have no idea what that book was about. Most of the time it seemed to trip and fall way over the surreal and digressive line into little more than disconnected nonsense.

So anyway, I slogged through that. Then, I knocked out Tracy Morgan’s I Am the New Blackin an afternoon (you really should click that link). It was funny, but what is most striking is his honesty and openness about his life. But as I said that only took an afternoon.

Now I’m on to a book called Oil and the World Order by Svante Karlsson. I borrowed it from a friend several years ago. He got it for a class in college. He made a point of how much he wanted it back because it was going for over $100 used on Amazon. Natually, I’ve kept it ever since. I checked once and found a used copy going for only a couple dollars. At this point I’m pretty confident the price is dictated more by supply than quality. It’s not bad, it’s just really boring. If you’ve read The Prize, which is vastly superior in prose and depth, this book won’t do much for you. Also, I don’t know if it is the author himself, or if perhaps the book was written in another language and translated; but whoever is responsible for the English has a fairly shaky handle on American idioms. For example he constantly refers to the American government (though not specifically to the President or his staff) as “the administration.” That’s just annoying.

On the upside, this book is just under 300 pages, as opposed to Pynchon’s 776. But still, at the moment, the choice between reading and writing is pretty easy.

So now that I’ve said I’m working on a book, hopefully I’ll be shamed into activity. I don’t know what kind of readership I’m getting, but at the very least everyone down at Ghosts of Horatio Alger will be egging me on (ed note: yeah, it’s just me. So, not a lot of help there. -zs). So that’s the end of the post; and no, I am not going to address the fact that writing blog posts instead of a book is an equally unproductive form of procrastination.

(Gentleman Jack is a good friend who has been having a rough go of his job search and general direction in life. These are his, at times, brilliant, eccentric and esoteric musings. These are The Loxley Files. Hopefully you’ll learn something – or at least have a good laugh.)

Currently raining should cease shortly STOP Recording of my personal theme song currently delayed but will be finished late today or tomorrow STOP Ate a sandwich earlier called El Dirty Harry STOP Extensive boating yesterday proved highly enjoyable

(Gentleman Jack is a good friend who has been having a rough go of his job search and general direction in life. These are his, at times, brilliant, eccentric and esoteric musings. These are The Loxley Files. Hopefully you’ll learn something – or at least have a good laugh.)

Awaiting breakfast again STOP Bachelor party 2 days ago regular party last night very crazy STOP Talked to one person who described Panama as “a happy place” description is apt STOP Considering not leaving at end of trip instead seeking sanctuary in Apostolic Nunciature

(Gentleman Jack is a good friend who has been having a rough go of his job search and general direction in life. These are his, at times, brilliant, eccentric and esoteric musings. These are The Loxley Files. Hopefully you’ll learn something – or at least have a good laugh.)

Panama is sweet STOP Awaiting my breakfast STOP Slept inside a home theater last night STOP Presently looking at ships waiting to enter the canal on the Pacific side STOP Pictures to follow

(Gentleman Jack is a good friend who has been having a rough go of his job search and general direction in life. These are his, at times, brilliant, eccentric and esoteric musings. These are The Loxley Files. Hopefully you’ll learn something – or at least have a good laugh.)

Well, you haven’t heard from old Gentleman Jack in a little while. I’ve been busy lately. Yes too busy for you. So I should probably catch you up on what’s been occupying my time, old friend.

First and foremost, I’ve been studying for the GRE. It’s pretty lame, and often infuriating. As the Princeton Review will tell you, the only thing the GRE tests is your ability to take the GRE. If you’re a guy like me – and I am – this sort of jumping through hoops usually leads to a lot of door slamming and issuing threats to no one in particular. But of course yelling at the TV won’t get me in to grad school (at least as far as I know; I should see how Harvard weights yelling at appliances). So I work on it, sometimes I make great strides, sometimes it seems I’m moving backwards. Of course being a writer of the mercurial, scotch-soaked variety, it’s quite an emotional rollercoaster, which is not good for writing. At least not in an immediate sense. One day I’ll be able to look back on this and write some lengthy tome about adversity and futility and one man’s search for love; set, naturally, in post-WWI France. It will follow young American Rick Wordsmith, the deeply flawed protagonist and veteran of the Western Front, who together with Aussie ex-pat Wallaby Ford, will drink his way from Paris to pre-Facist Barcelona, where he will meet Ana Maria, the beautiful, illegitimate daughter of a Spanish nobleman and gypsy woman. The two will fall deeply in love… and I’m not sure where it will go from there, but Wordsmith will probably end up screwed over in the love department [Ed.'s note: And Wallaby, poor sweet Wallaby, almost certainly dies of syphilis].

By the way it’s quarter to 4 in the morning. I feel that is important by way of explanation. I slept till 1 PM and naturally am not quite ready for bed yet. I didn’t want to sleep that late. I even set my alarm. I remember it going off, I was aiming for snooze. Apparently I missed. Of course with the caliber I was using it didn’t make much difference where I thit it. Just kidding, I didn’t shoot my alarm clock. I don’t have that kind of money.

Even Gandolf the Gray had bills to pay

What else has been going on? Oh, a lot of intrigue with women. Most of it happened to me without much instigation, or even interest, on my part. Just people trying to make things more interesting, I guess. Sort of like reality TV: people creating and then putting up with fake problems to try to create some kind of meaningful situation. If they want to find meaning they should go on a bender in post-WWI France. Still you can’t let that kind of thing slow you down.

What else was I going to catch you up on? I chopped some onions yesterday and my hands still smell a little. Hoping that abates. I wrote a sketch that people liked, it’s been a while since that’s happened, so I enjoyed it. There was something else I was going to talk about. Oh yeah, the conclusion. I guess what I’ve learned from all this is persistence. If you get knocked down, you have to pick yourself back up and keep on lunging headfirst at that brick wall, eventually something’s gotta give. It’s like all that copy Walt Whitman wrote for Levi’s … or the wise words spoken by a young Adam Sandler: “you don’t look for an hour and call it quits. You get your ass out there, and you find that fucking dog!” And maybe, just maybe, that’s what the GREs are really all about.*

Until Next Time,

Gentleman Jack

*[author’s note: that is not what the GREs are really all about]

(Gentleman Jack is a good friend who has been having a rough go of his job search and general direction in life. These are his, at times, brilliant, eccentric and esoteric musings. These are The Loxley Files. Hopefully you’ll learn something -or at least have a good laugh.)

First off, you’ll need a computer! A lot of people might think you need a topic first, but that’s stupid. You’ll probably forget the topic by the time you buy a computer and get the internet hooked up [Ed's Note: Especially if you have Comcast].

Second, you’ll need a topic! Topics are important to writing because otherwise you end up with a blog post like this one. If you know what you are writing about before you start, you can take advantage of a literary device known as staying on topic. This makes it much easier for your readers to make sense of your too personal information, racist diatribe, or not-as-insightful-as-you-think sports commentary.

Third, now that you have your computer and your topic, you’re ready to write! So just open the flood gates, whatever thoughts you have on your topic, let them all out. If you feel really strongly about your topic, you may want to sit and stew for a while before you write. Here’s a trick: while you’re getting yourself worked up keep a pen and paper handy. That way if you think of any really snarky lines, or good hyperbole, you will have them when you start writing. A lot of people tend to over think this whole part, because they’re trying to sounds smart. Just write what you think, even if you have conflicting ideas, because after all if anyone reads it at all, it will only be people looking to agree with you.

Links to irrelevant historical events make you seem intelligent and insightful

Fourth, harness the power of the internet with links! Whatever your topic (especially pornography) it has probably been covered ad nauseam on the internet. You can insert links into your post, so if people don’t understand what you are referring to, they can look it up themselves. This is particularly effective when bringing up out date topics to rant about, as I did in my own post last week, critiquing a six month old article. It is also a convenient way to show your readers how smart you are. After all, you’re the writer, they’re just a bunch of nobodies. So show them who’s boss by dazzling them with casual references to the Battle of Hohenfriedberg or the second law of thermodynamics. Don’t worry if the reader doesn’t understand your link, or can’t find the relevant information on the page; that’s their problem. As you can see from my examples, Wikipedia is a great source for random information, but be careful! You don’t want to over use one reference source, especially when you have the whole World Wide Web at your fingertips. Besides the stranger the topic, the more likely some kook dedicated a whole website to it. One thing is for sure: the more links you can fit in, the better.

Remember, Uncle Sam's reading, too!

Fifth step: finding your voice! You’re probably asking, “Wait a minute, shouldn’t I do this before I write something?” The answer is no, and please stop interrupting. Finding your voice is a process. Over time, the more you write, the more you will develop your own unique way of writing, making it that much easier for the federal government to track what you do online. So keep on writing. Maybe you’ll want to try writing at different times of day; some people do their best writing late at night, while others like to start fresh after a good nights sleep. Maybe you’ll work on a single post over time and revise. Maybe you’ll write all at once and be done with it. Maybe you can throw alcohol into the mix and see where that gets you; hey, you’re not driving. The point is, do what works for you and keep working on it.

Sixth, post it online! I don’t actually have my own blog, so I don’t know how to do this. I just send them to my friend who is too lazy to come up with his own content, and he posts it for me. Maybe you can find a friend and do the same; maybe you can even send your stuff here, I imagine his e-mail address is on there somewhere (I’m not really sure; I don’t read the blog myself).

Now you know how to write a blog post. So get out there bloggers and start writing! Universal healthcare won’t defeat itself!

Good Luck,

Gentleman Jack

(Gentleman Jack is a good friend who has been having a rough go of his job search and general direction in life. These are his at times, brilliant, eccentric and esoteric musings. These are The Loxley Files. Hopefully you’ll learn something.)

Yes, I decided to refer to my latest missive as a “communiqué.” Why did I make this choice? Well, I can’t remember what initially brought the word to mind – probably something to do with Qaddaffi at the UN. As soon as I thought of the word I was reminded of Paul Fussell’s 1983 classic Class: A Guide Through the American Status System. In this hilarious and thoroughly insightful book, Fussell identifies various social castes by the class anxiety and insecurity that motivates everything from their consumption habits to vocabulary. He points to the insecurity of terrorist groups (remember this is 1983, so think more Red Army Faction than al Qaeda) for always issuing “communiqués.” Though other terms would be equally descriptive, communiqué has that learned, official ring to it that lends an air of the legitimacy these groups so desperately crave.

Unfortunately, the free association did not stop there. As soon as I thought of Class, I was reminded of  “Class Dismissed” by Sandra Tsing Loh in the March 2009 issue of Atlantic Monthly. I wanted to write in then but I was in Afghanistan at the time, searching for Taliban gold and generally doing my best to chastise the tribesmen leaving me very little time to for letters to the editor. (That’s actually not what I was doing at all, I’ll say I was a non-combatant and nothing else, as making up new lies whenever it comes up will be good leitmotif for my posts).

Tsing Loh’s article centers on Fussell’s concept of Xs, people who do not concern themselves with what class they fall into; who, being liberated from class anxieties are thus liberated from the class system entirely. These types are generally of the creative class, bohemians if you like, who are primarily concerned with intellectual stimulation and things that excite their interest. Unfortunately, Tsing Loh’s treatment illustrates an acute misunderstanding of the concept. She argues that because people in creative and independent professions have accumulated a great deal of wealth over the last 10 or 15 years, they have become victims of the anxieties of their own bohemian class.

The wrong turn she makes, sending her the wrong way down a one way street, is that she does not identify Xs by their ideas and actions. Tsing Loh seems to assign the term to anyone with a “creative” job that allows them the flexibility to work from Starbucks and dress like shit [Ed Note: Hey, I do that!]. An X is not an X because of their job; in fact I could not think of a more un-X definition. An X is an X because they feel the need to express themselves, and not for validation, but simply for the sake of self-expression. What’s more, they do so with little regard for compensation or the reaction (good or bad) of others. The people she identifies as fallen Xs are not Xs at all. Instead of being people who eschew societal conventions in favor of their own individual ideas, they’re just a bunch of people who take casual Friday too far. Just as Industrial Age white collar workers wore neck ties to demonstrate they did not work with machinery (which could suck in the tie and decapitate them), these false Xs wear jeans and don’t shave most of the week to demonstrate that they’re important enough not to have to dress a certain way, and want the validation they get from making sure you know it. These people are not Xs, they never were.

So who are these people, gentle reader? They’re just the same old anxious middle class they work so hard not to be. They’ve traded in their plastic fantastic Madison Avenue scene for green products they are completely committed to for as long as it remains convenient. But they’re still out there striving to be fit in, keep up, out do and to be perceived as anything but what they are. So in the future, instead of working to be perceived as better, just be better; and instead worrying about what class you’re in, worry about whether I’ll lighten up next week.

[Author’s post-script: I would have enjoyed quoting directly from the book, particularly in regard to communiqués, not to mention Xs. Unfortunately my copy is locked in a storage unit – the key to which is lost. Not to worry, I’m in talks with the family mechanic to borrow some bolt cutters, but I think it would be well worth it for the reader to pick up their own copy of Class.]

-Gentleman Jack

(A good friend of mine, whom we’ll call Gentleman Jack, has been having a rough go of his job search and general direction in life. Our – usually late night – correspondence has developed and matured into a ranting and rambling nature, touching on topics such as Alexa Chung, The Devil Wears Prada, Health Care, Afghanistan, Media and Bored To Death. So, I decided to post some of his, at times, brilliant, eccentric and esoteric musings. Maybe you’ll learn something.  Enjoy: The Loxley Files)

So I have this strange obsession with South Africa. I don’t know why. It started when I read Winston Churchill’s partial autobiography My Early Life. I think what I need to do is get someone to stake me to go over and either film or write or something about his escape from a Boer prison camp in Pretoria. Basically just hang out check out that stuff, hang out some more. You know another one of those paid vacation schemes.

I’m listening to East Coast Radio (Durban’s No. 1) on the internet. They’re playing goofy goofy 80s stuff, they just played that one that’s like “he’s my Japanese boy” or whatever. It was in Grand Theft Auto Vice City…anyway it’s great I’m hearing their bizarre accents. I love it way too much.

You know what else would be cool about going there. Rent a car and pop into Lesotho. It’s completely surrounded by South Africa. As far as I know, other than micro states like San Marino, that’s the only country like that. In fact, the only others I can think of at all are San Marino and the Vatican. Cause Monaco has the sea. Andorra and Lichtenstein are on borders. So you can get an extra stamp in your passport just for taking a shortcut! [Editor's Note: It's called an "enclave."]

I need to get my writing career on track so maybe like a year from now I can get this going. I’m sure I can make that kind of progress in a year.

-Gentleman Jack

(Lesotho Map image courtesy Geology.com)