Jason Cooper is, professionally, an Online Community Coordinator for kaboom.org. Personally, he is a Detroit to DC transplant, and all around B.M.F. He secretly wants to be an internet celebrity.
In celebration of the House passing the minimum wage bill, I thought it would be fun to recount all of the different jobs I have had, and what my wages for those jobs were. From the top:
I think that is all of them. If you can recall any others let me know.
To everyone who called, emailed, left a blog comment , text’d, twitter’d, facebook’d, myspace’d, or had the fortune to physically see my mug this past holiday season, thank you for your warm wishes, your warmer hugs, and all the love and support that made 2006 a life altering year for me.
2006 was a bipolar year. The first six months: hating my job, looking for a new job, and trying to figure out my future. The last six months: uprooting myself to a completely different city, culture, and way of life. While I will likely spend the next year still trying to figure out that whole “my future” thing, I’m on radically different path now and it feels great to finally be in a place where I can exercise all this potential I’ve been told I have since I was a tyke.
I’m not a resolutions guy, but I’ve determined that 2007 will be about earning some more green, losing a pound or two, and definitely posting on the blog some more. It’s become overgrown with moss and I want to clean it up and pay some more attention to it.
Thanks again and here’s to hoping we all have a wonderful new year!
So you know how I used to complain that I never “bumped” into anyone? “I never see anybody,” I used to wail whenever a friend told me about an encounter they had had with someone I used to know. It’s not like these interactions were happening at obscure back alley bars or anything like that; this was happening at your neighborhood CVS or public library and it seemed to be happening everywhere and to everyone, except for me.
Honestly, I was okay with it. Its not that I have made enemies or anything dramatic like that, but there is a mighty long list filled with people with whom a face to face encounter would create a situation so uncomfortable, so tangibly difficult, I would have to jump out of a window to save myself the pain of trying to make small talk.
Recently, however, I have begun to feel very much “on the grid” again. I was traceable. There were people who know me talking to people who no longer know me. I was found on myspace.com. My blog was found. I received phone calls. I was on the radar. The map. The grid. My name, for a very short time I am sure, flowed across the lips of gossip circles and information chains before (and rightfully so) being tossed off into the psychic ether, likely to be forgotten.
This freaked me out.
I suddenly became very self conscious sitting in my home. Even with the blinds drawn I felt very exposed. I felt like I needed to draw up justifications to decisions I made years ago for events and circumstances I hadn’t even thought of in years. I’ve never regretted any personal decision I’ve ever made, but I suddenly became very aware of how things can be perceived, especially if there are people out there telling lies. If I wasn’t thinking about the perception of my relationships, I was thinking about the perception of my professional life. This especially hurt because A) I am not where I want to be and B) I am not doing what I want to do. I’m not the very proud of the headway I have made in my career field and I was dreading having to answer the, “So… what do you do?”
All of this anxiety came to a head last week when I had a very peculiar dream. I was walking around a house party filled with faces from the past. As I entered the house to say hello to someone I heard them scream, “Asshole,” so loudly and with such anger and hatred in their voice it literally woke me up. I rarely ever dream let alone so vividly that it shakes me awake. This was the fourth time it has ever happened.
Ego messes with you doesn’t it? It makes you feel small for not accomplishing more with your life, while simultaneously making you feel big by making you believe that anyone could give a rat’s ass about you. I complain about being on the radar, and yet I’ve been writing a public blog for close to three years. My Libra duality aside, that’s pretty hypocritical.
Warren Ellis is 100% right. The only way to categorize the 2008 Presidential Election is as “Fuckup 2008”.
It should be way to early, but speculation, rumor, and all of the giddiness over Election 2006 have somehow convinced people that we are ready for President Barack Obama or President Hilary Clinton.
First of all, I’m a democrat and I don’t want to vote for either of these people. Hilary has this whole “for the children” censorship streak in her. Obama is a junior senator suffering from an inflated ego due to, as Chris Rock would put it, “he-speaks-so-well-syndrome”. Of course he speaks well. He went to Harvard-fucking-Law. One speech does not a president make.
Neither will win the general. I’m sorry. We are just not there yet as a nation. Hilary will never win Michigan, arguably one of the most important states in the general election. And if she can’t win Michigan, there is no way she can win Ohio. And Barack Obama is black- light-skinned at that, removing any guarantee that even all black folk would vote for him. With these two as the candidate, the election isn’t about issues, its about color or gender, and I don’t believe this nation is up for facing the problems we have in those areas. When it does go down, I want to be a part of that discussion. But the next presidential election is not the time.
So, let’s take some deep breaths. Grab our ankles, and gently tug our heads out from our fucking assholes.
Shannon and I went to bed at the same time last night. Its a rarity, and before you start whispering to yourselves about the nature of our relationship or worse yet our sex life, its a rarity simple because I’m usually watching TV or computing and Shannon’s batteries can only make it till 10:30PM. Its true. You can watch her eyelids shut as she falls asleep. She can’t help it. She’s like a kitten who can’t hold their head up they are so tired. It doesn’t stop being cute, either.
“Damn,” I said, lying on my back.
“Mmmmm?” she replies, curled facing away from me.
“Fucking Aaron Sorkin,” I said.
“Hmmmm?”
“He always inspires me.”
“Let me guess you want to be on a sketch comedy show now?”
Oh, the quick wit.
Its not a secret, or a well kept one, that part of the reason I am where I am today is because of Aaron Sorkin’s work on the West Wing. It was inspired and it inspired me. After watching the first episode of Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip last night, I must admit he has inspired me again.
Fucker.
Writing. WRITING! Its always been this… thing hanging over my head. Asking to be done. Asking to be exercised. And I don’t. Sure there’s the blog. Sure there’s my work writing (which has been abysmal). But there is a part of me that’s till wants to write a book. Or a comic. Or a short story. Movie. TV. Play.
I ignore the feelings. I ignore the urge or when it comes along I transfer it to blogging or reading or watching TV. I avoid it. I put it on the someday pile.
So watching Aaron Sorkin makes me want to write. Which is strange because its not like I could ever be as good or better than him. I could never be one-fifth of him. Its in the same realm of me watching an old Micheal Jordan game and suddenly wanting to become a basketball player. He has a voice. A style that is unmistakable, even amidst imitators. I guess I want a voice too.
Fuckin’ Sorkin.
So you’d think, with all the changes I have been through lately, I’d have a lot to say. got a job. Moved. Was separated from Shannon for close to two whole months. I haven’t had Taco Bell in weeks.
But look at my blog posts. I’ve barely posted anything. Its like I have nothing to say.
I do, however, have many things to say. I just keep getting stuck inside them. Its difficult to explain the transitions I’ve gone through this summer. Aside from falling for Shannon, I’ve never experienced something that felt so natural. Its as if something inside me was able to reach into the world, twist it, recreate it, change it to what I wanted it to be. It all happened at the right time. Under the right circumstances. With the right people.
So all in all, its pretty unexciting. Sorry.
I have to write something, so I am going to sit here until I do.
Should I be worried when a woman sits next to me on a bus and starts writing poetry about falling from grace and former glory?
Riding the bus, listening to my music, when a tall brunette in her late twenties wearing an earth tone sweater and tan pants sits next to me. She’s chipper. Not in an annoying way, but her movements are precise and sudden. Unlike me, sh doesn’t seem tired and sluggish. After sitting still for two minutes, she darts into her bag/briefcase/purse and pulls a scrap paper. It remind me of the ditto’s teachers assigned in school. Its a photocopy of a photocopy, black blotches nearly obscuring the text. She writes a phrase or two in pencil. Flips her hair and the paper over and starts another phrase. I barely caught a glimpse:
“FALL FROM GRACE”
His body slumped from the weight of former glory
By the time my part of the bus ride ends, she has written about seven lines of what I can only assume was a poem. I could never write poetry. I tried, I really did. Ask some of my ex-girlfriend’s, they were subjected to more than a few desperate attempts at poetry. I can’t read it either. Her morning inspiration is an anomaly to me. She raced to find paper and pencil and started to write something in public. A 6’4” stud muffin crowding her into an overweight, Latina teenager and when the urge to be creative bubbled up, she committed to it, and wrote something provoking, beautiful, awful, or very plain…that’s art to me.
So while I never understand “Fall from Grace”, I’ll respect it.
Here’s a small look into how I think.
Imagine me, dressed in my work uniform, black hoodie, dishevled 10 AM hair, and a patchy, five o’clock shadow that took me a week to grow. I’m driving a van for work West on 16 Mile road, heading towards the construction that begins around Garfield Road.
“I want comics. I should see if Shannon will be up for getting comics. This construction sucks. I can’t imagine what traffic would look like if this was around Groesbeck. I bet that will be next years project. God, that’ll suck. Well, hopefully I won’t be here anymore. Jesus, what if I am? What if a year after graduating I’m still working grunt work? I wish I could have taken that internship. I wish my other internship hadn’t chewed me out for not taking it. I made the right decision right? I couldn’t pass up getting my degree. But now I feel like I am at square one. God, I don’t want this job anymore. Everyone BUT my loved ones said to go. What if I hated it? At least I’d be in a suit. Do I want to be a suit? Should I write? What kind of life am I leading? Poor Shannon… fallen in love with a schlub. What kind of life can I give to her? Construction sucks.”
This is the conversation that ended up ringing in my head for the rest of the day. It took a stack of comics and some pulse pounding baseball playoffs to boot it from my mind, but unfortunately, this is a common conversation I hold with myself.
This is the mind of someone desperately trying to avoid the life of his father. A life of wages barely over the minimum sliding from one uniform to another. This is the mind of someone so scared of the myth of genetic fate, he’ll lamppost himself for hours only to escape through diversion and entertainment. This is my mind, and its a pile of taffy: ticky sweet, but not moving anywhere.
I think it does.
One of my favorite features in every issue of Esquire Magazine is “10 Things You Don’t Know About Women”. It’s a fun look into the minds of female up and comers as well as veterans.
I thought I would critique the 10 Things, as written by Judy Greer, a fine actress and Detroit native. I have abridged her statements into simple headings.
1. Vulgarity of Women: It’s Worse than Men!
- Untrue. Women have no idea the stuff men can think of. When was the last time a woman fantasized about being chained to a wall breasts while a midget goes down her? Don’t forget the three 6ft. tall WNBA players attaching car batteries to the nipples while a Scottish man smears shit on the adjacent wall while repeating the phrase, “Don’t spill the milk,” over and over. That is the vulgarity of man.
2. Toilet Seat: We’re over it.
- About time.
3. “We drink till you’re cute, too.”
- Then you puke all over us mid-makeout. Thanks.
4. Spooning: Hair + Heavy Arms + Snoring = Suck.
- I would have thought so. I’ve never understood the mass marketed idea of “falling asleep in each other’s arms,”. It’s extremely uncomfortable for both partners, and if you really want to prove love or passion, make them raisin toast the next day.
5. Boys Playing Guitar: Lame
- Well, yeah. Didn’t you ever see Animal House?
6. “You’re so smart,” = “You’re so adorable when you try to act smart.”
- Hey! What the fuck? Oh, Shannon’s ass is grass!
7. Sexy beats cute. Smart trumps sexy. Funny takes the pot.
- She is obviously a very intelligent woman.
8. Woman tune you out, too.
- To be expected of course, however, we can tell and usual stop talking. Women on the other hand, seem to keep on trucking, throwing something important in the middle just to stick it to us later.
9. Derek Jeter vs. Meg Ryan.
- Women dig sports and guys dig romantic comedies. Here’s a thought, watch the movies/sports that you BOTH like. In the meantime, we’ll stop bragging we made it ‘13 Going on 30’ if you stop rolling your eyes when it goes to overtime.
10. No fake orgasms. Well, a few.
- If you don’t feel like doing it, just blow us.
Decided not to go for a “political” job. It was a door to door thing for Clean Water Action. Four reasons why not:
1. 2:30 -10 pm, Monday thru Friday means Shannon or me would be on the bus all the time
2. Personal invasion is not my thing. Plus im a big dude, and if I’m knocking at your door, chances are, you wont answer it.
3. Would have to completely rework school schedule, and its too difficult to find classes in first place.
4. Lack the passion.
My professor thought waiting for something was a good idea, but he insisted that I need work experience before I graduate. I guess washing cars don’t count.
My cousin Bobby told me last year, when I turned 26, that everything goes downhill when you turn 27. He told me that’s when he had to start, “taking it easy,” with booze. His metabolism slowed down. Things started to hurt.
As I zero in on 27 years of age (HOLY FUCKING SHIT I MIGHT AS WELL BE FUCKING THIRTY OR FUCKING DEAD OH MY GOD) I have tried to make note of things that have changed in my body. I quit smoking, which fudges my data, but I feel like i have to agree with Bobby.
I’m falling apart.
Dramatic? Yes. But I am now in day two of the worst sore throat in memory, and as Shannon will testify, I’m being a big baby about it. But that’s not my only aliment. There are the cracking knees, the graying hair, the speed of my nose hair growth, headaches, greater chance of hangover when I drink, and less frequent “for no particular reason” erections (a blessing in disguise).
I’m sure I have many, many years ahead of me and I have taken steps (baby, but still) to improve my health. It feels good though to be worrying about my age from a health perspective as opposed to a what-am-I-doing-with-my-life perspective.
