Gone to America

I was feeling a little despondent. Work prospects seemed to have stalled (NYFA aren’t hiring until March, apparently), I had to borrow some money, I was coming down with a cold – but then things started to improve. Firstly, after six weeks of not laying eyes on anyone I’d known …

I was feeling a little despondent. Work prospects seemed to have stalled (NYFA aren’t hiring until March, apparently), I had to borrow some money, I was coming down with a cold – but then things started to improve. Firstly, after six weeks of not laying eyes on anyone I’d known for longer than six weeks, I bumped into Ruairi O’Brien, known from college, in the middle of Times Square. This was exceedingly unlikely. He was in New York for twenty-four hours on a job, and was just taking a walk outside his hotel to kill a couple of hours before his return flight. Ruairi lives just around the corner from my old flat in Rathmines, so I’ve often bumped into him on the street, but this was just silly.
I was with Santhi (we’d just been to an industry screening of Euro Trip, about which I feel honour bound to remain silent) and we were on our way to meet Liza, so we all went for coffee. I still can’t get over how unsurprised Ruairi was, as if meeting accidentally in city of eight million people was perfectly normal. It was nice to see a friendly face, or more to the point, a familiar friendly face.
Then I got into the Poker game after all – a seat opened up at the last minute. I lost again ($19), but I got a fairly concrete job offer – just on a short or two, not very well paid. But it’s in C5. I learned long ago not to assume you actually have a job until you’ve been working for a week, but it’s a ray of hope. And it’s real, too – I was actually given tapes to watch (gasp!)
I’m posting less, but this isn’t because I’ve stopped doing things, just that I’ve stopped doing things for the first time quite so much. Inevitable, really. In the last week or so I’ve been to a small open mic gig in a back room of a pub, a burlesque show at the Galapogos, a club with no sign outside called Nublu, an exhibition of Wim Wenders’ photography, the Met (lots of art. I really mean it. Lots.) and various random bars I can’t even call to mind. I’ve met a Broadway actress, the guy who plays bass in Cabaret, who gave me a detailed account of the union situation with musicians in Broadway shows and film scoring work in New York, the guy who runs this company, with whom I had a long and detailed chat about everything except work, some English bankers, a sommelier, an employee of the UN, a t-shirt designer… The list goes on. Any despondency I feel is not due to New York treating me badly, it’s fear of possibly having to leave. And I do have a bit of a cough, but it’s nowhere near as debilitating as the Great October Illness. It looks like I’m going to spend Thanksgiving with a friend of Marilyn’s who’s throwing a large, traditional dinner. Should be fun.

I’ve been waiting for something to happen so that I could write about it, but nothing really has, and it’s time I wrote something anyway.
Some things have happened. My social security number arrived, finally – now I can easily take a job, if I ever get offered one. I’ve even …

I’ve been waiting for something to happen so that I could write about it, but nothing really has, and it’s time I wrote something anyway.
Some things have happened. My social security number arrived, finally – now I can easily take a job, if I ever get offered one. I’ve even opened a bank account. It was a close run thing, though. The mail was nearly stolen right out of the box that day. Luckily, Julian was coming over and caught the guy in the act. Losing my number like that would have been pretty catastrophic. I have now bought and installed a lockable mailbox.
Liza’s Australian friend Santhi is staying for the week, forcing me to get out of the flat a little and wander around Manhattan, as Liza and Marilyn are both at work during the day and it’s only hospitable. We tried to go to the Met yesterday, but apparently it’s closed on Mondays. We wandered around Central Park, which I haven’t really done this trip, and into FAO Schwarz, which really is a great place. Here she is hugging a large stuffed dog.

And there she is sitting on a bed, but don’t jump to any conclusions – she has a boyfriend.

No news on the job front, although it does look like I’m getting bumped from the poker game – two weeks in a row now. It’s oversubscribed, and I was the last to join. If a seat opens up I’m in, but… This is a bit of a blow – I’ll never win my money back! That guy in the pub seems to have sobered up, and I haven’t heard anything from the NYFA about teaching, although I still need to make a follow up phone call. My resume is still in some other places, but it’s starting to feel pretty bleak. Next week is Thanksgiving, so nothing’s going to happen then. I submitted my blog entry about the midnight madness competition, about 1000 words shorter, to Film Ireland, as an article, but even if they take it I doubt they’d pay me much.
Despite all this, I’ve basically agreed to cosign a six month lease starting in January. It’s a much cheaper place, in a much more industrial part of Brooklyn, a few stops further in on the L. I’ve had another look at the poll, but on reflection I don’t think any of the options are really that feasible. Five of you want me to form a gang and stage a heist, but you need capital for that. Three of you think I should become a painter and fake my own death, but that seems very complicated, and possibly messy. Two of you think I should pose as a young black man, but I can foresee difficulties there. Two more think I should join the army. I’m considering this, but I suspect I would be 4f. None of the other options got any votes at all – I was kind of looking forward to exploiting a local band, but if you don’t think it’s a good idea… I’m working on a new poll.

Tech, pure tech. No news.
I’ve slightly redesigned the blog to look better for those of you who run their computers at 800×600 screen resolution. Now 50% less scrolling! Of course, now I have a big, blank space on the right for everybody else. Hmm…
I’ve started using Blogrolling to manage …

Tech, pure tech. No news.
I’ve slightly redesigned the blog to look better for those of you who run their computers at 800×600 screen resolution. Now 50% less scrolling! Of course, now I have a big, blank space on the right for everybody else. Hmm…
I’ve started using Blogrolling to manage links. It’s a lot easier for me (at least as long as they keep the service running for free) and it keeps the space down. Does anybody check the links? There’s some pretty good stuff in there, and I add new stuff all the time. Of course, now they’re arranged alphabetically, it will be harder to see if I’ve added anything new. Hmmm….
Anyway, I’m particularly going to recommend StumbleUpon. I’m really enjoying it, but I’m not sure about their classification system. Rate me!

UPDATE
OK, complete redesign using tables rather than CSS id tags. Now it’s scalable, defined in percentages rather than absolute pixels, so it should look the same to everybody. Happy? Let me know if it’s screwing up in anybody’s browser. And I’ve gone back to sorting the links in the order they were added – new stuff at the bottom.
Man, I have too much free time on my hands.

Short entry. Lost $19 playing poker this week. An improvement. Next time I’ll get them…
Thinking about asking if I can intern at C5. I dismissed this out of hand when I arrived, thinking it was essentially a runner position, but apparently that was a little hasty. They don’t really have …

Short entry. Lost $19 playing poker this week. An improvement. Next time I’ll get them…
Thinking about asking if I can intern at C5. I dismissed this out of hand when I arrived, thinking it was essentially a runner position, but apparently that was a little hasty. They don’t really have runners here.
But I’m putting that on hold for a couple of days. A guy I met in a bar on Saturday night offered me a temporary job, doing some kind of audio restoration for his company. It didn’t seem to bother him that I’m dangerously unqualified. Now it’s just a question of seeing if he remembers…
Incidentally, I was in the bar watching a rugby match, Ireland v France. Thinking back, the last time I was in a bar for a game of sports was the Soccer World Cup final of 1994. Two South American teams were playing, I believe. That was in Spiddal, and I went for exactly the same reason – “Let’s go watch the match and continue to drink” – “Oh, OK”.

And finally, I’ve added a Guestbook for the site, so that all the friends, colleagues, acquaintances and complete strangers that are reading but not commenting can let me know they’re out there. Are you out there?

I’ve been here one month today, so I suppose it’s a good time for a quick assessment. It’s very worrying. I like New York a lot. Greenpoint is a great area, and I really enjoy living here. There’s a really nice atmosphere, and the people are friendly.
I came with about …

I’ve been here one month today, so I suppose it’s a good time for a quick assessment. It’s very worrying. I like New York a lot. Greenpoint is a great area, and I really enjoy living here. There’s a really nice atmosphere, and the people are friendly.
I came with about enough money for three months. I had decided that I would come home for Christmas, and that if I hadn’t succeeded in making enough money to make it feasible for me to come back by then, I wouldn’t. But I don’t want to do that now. I haven’t gotten a job, and the only money I’ve made has been $100 from renting out my DAT recorder, but It’s become obvious to me that a month, or two months, isn’t long enough to be able to tell whether or not my staying in New York is a viable proposition. I’ve made some good contacts, and I feel that if I can stick it out work will come my way sooner or later, but how much later can I afford?
I’ve booked my flight home for Christmas (arriving on the 16th of December, fact fans), but I’ve made it a return flight. I’d like to spend New Year’s in New York – it’s always really crap in Dublin. This is optimistic of me. Not only do I not know if I’ll have enough money to pay rent for January, I’ll actually have to move. The place I’m staying now is only short term – I’ll have to leave at the end of December, give or take a few days. Should I look for another short term place, or just commit myself?
My problem, essentially, is that I was planning to make my decisions based on the cool logic of situational assessment – am I working? Can I afford to stay? – but now I find myself basing my decisions on the slippery slope of what I want. I want to stay, for a little while longer, anyway. Three months isn’t enough.
This means I have to really think about alternative ways of making money. My roommates temp and work in diners to make ends meet when they’re not working. I have never done any work like that – I was lucky enough to have been supported by my parents right up until the point where I was making a living doing what I wanted. Is it too late to start? I really think I’d be a crap bartender. All those cocktails…
Sound editing is so specific. It doesn’t really allow for much flexibility. My choices are: edit sound or teach sound editing. Either of these could happen in the next month, but I can’t count on it. The other problem is that I’m trying to get in at a fairly advanced level – if all I was looking for was an unpaid internship I’d be in the door already. But I can’t do that. I don’t mind going back a couple of steps, but that’s too far.
I need to stop waiting and start thinking. Does anybody have any suggestions for madcap moneymaking schemes? Although, mind you, I have another month of seeing movies and visiting museums before I’m really in the shit, so maybe my anxiety is a little premature.

In other news: The Poll. One of you wants to be able to choose which movie I see next, two of you want to decide who my next cold call should be, three of you want a say in my Hallowe’en costume (too late, too late), and >drumroll< four of you want to send me out on a serious of random, possibly dangerous dares. At this point I should come clean and state that I have never had any intention of abiding by the outcomes of these polls. Any similarity between my actions and my poll results have been entirely coincidental. Sorry. Fun though, right?

Incidentally, I visited the Guggenheim yesterday, which was great, and I also went to see Lost in Translation, which I have reviewed.

Poker game. Lost $28. Alcohol and poker don’t mix, particularly with the bizarre games and strange wild cards that came up – whatever follows the queen is wild, threes and nines are wild, low card on the board is wild… It was tough to keep track! I had a good …

Poker game. Lost $28. Alcohol and poker don’t mix, particularly with the bizarre games and strange wild cards that came up – whatever follows the queen is wild, threes and nines are wild, low card on the board is wild… It was tough to keep track! I had a good night, and I hope they ask me back. I went on to Ladbrokes Poker the next day and won back about $15, playing low-limit Texas Hold ‘Em, so it wasn’t too bad.
I did leave my hat in Al’s flat, though, which was a shame as it was intended to be an integral part of my Hallowe’en costume. This was Liza’s idea. She somehow divined that I wasn’t prepared to make any effort whatsoever, so she cunningly came up with the idea that I should be Indiana Jones for the evening. This was OK by me, as it basically involved wearing my clothes and One Other Thing – a whip – and not shaving for a couple of days. She dressed up as a biker chick, which really wasn’t fair.
I had to buy a whip, so I went into town, down to a shop on Astor Place. It was popular – there was quite a line, which you can’t really see in this picture, but trust me – it stretched all the way down the block.

Anyway, I got my whip there, and I bought a new hat at a stall on St. Marks Place. It’s not great, and not really as different from my old hat as I would have liked, but it does have a wider brim, making it better for archaeologist impersonations. Quite a few people got who I was supposed to be, despite my general lack of a resemblance. The hat and whip are very strong indicators. Now I own a whip.
We met up with Marilyn and John – Liza’s boyfriend, dressed as a newsie. Marilyn was working and didn’t have time to get a costume together. I had bought some devil horns for her, but she felt that if she couldn’t go all out she’d rather not do anything at all. We went to see the Sun Ra Arkestra play a free gig in the Jazz department of Columbia University. It was amazing. I’ve never been to a proper jazz session before, just the occasional quartet playing quietly in a bar or whatever. It was quite an eye opener. These were real old school jazz heroes – I’m convinced some of them have made guest appearances on the Cosby Show. It was fascinating to watch the combination of order and chaos – the director directed, sure, but there still seemed to be an enormous amount of freedom. At first it was just strange, but after a while I got into it, and I realised that they really swung. Yes indeed, they were sure hep. Crazy, man, crazy.
After that we went into the village. Lots of people wandering around in crazy costumes. Much more fun than Hallowe’en in Dublin. – they really take it seriously here. Just had a few drinks in a place called the Art Bar in the West Village, and went home. There are pictures here.

Went out again last night, to a bar called the Ear Inn. It was great – not an Irish bar, as such, but a lot of Irish people there. I went to meet a guy called Conor Brennan, a friend of Alan Gilsenan, whose movie Timbuktu was the last thing I worked on in Dublin. He might have a good contact for me, and it’s a pub I’m sure I’ll revisit. The marathon ran by this morning. I heard it, but I was too hungover to get up and watch. Even the prospect of watching Diddy run the city couldn’t drag me up.
I will have been here four weeks tomorrow. I haven’t got any work yet, but I think it’s just a question of meeting people who’ll put me in touch with other people, until something clicks, and I’m not going to predict what that will be. Just today I was talking to a barmaid here in Greenpoint, and she told me her ex-boyfriend is a sound editor, so she’s going to give him my card. It’ll probably come to nothing, but I’m just going to keep chucking rocks up the hill until one rolls back down to me. Just had to pay a months rent today. Gotta start earning. Or winning at poker.