Thank you for your time

I've been in the hunt for a job for some time now. So long so that I've considered adding "Ward of the State" to my resume. Being out of work this long makes you a bit loopy. On the one hand, you're sweating the impending doom of a harsh financial reality. On the other hand, you get a slight kick out of the absurdity of some aspects of this process.

If I won the lottery, well,.....let's just say I'd be on a beach in Maui now and a young Malaysian boy named Pepe would be typing this for me as my hired servant. But let's just say this still is ME typing this, and let's say I was looking for an American woman to marry so I can stay in this country. Well, then I'd be Pepe and you're too late to ask me for some of my big lottery loot. But no, it's me, and if I could financially afford it, I'd continue the whole interview shenanigans on for a bit but for a change, on MY terms. Let me explain.

Some say an interview is like asking a girl out on a date and I'd go along with that. That is if my dates in the past were me asking a girl out and her responding with a request to see my bank account, a listing of all my past dates, and asking me to disrobe so she can see what kind of "potential" I had. Sadly, most of that was my dating life. To me an interview is like a staring contest and it doesn't matter if the other guy blinks, it only matters if YOU blink. Unfortunately I feel a lot of opportunities are lost on poor word choices and yucky fishy handshakes (can I help it if holding a fish helps my dermatitis?).

So, since the web is full of advice on what to do on an interview, here's a tip from me. I read on one site where they suggest you bring a business card that just lists all your contact information and give it to the interviewer for a professional appearance. I say, ask if they want your business card and if they agree, grab a Kleenex from your pocket and write (in Crayon) your name and number with phone misspelled as "Fone". Then ask if they need multiple copies for others present (if others are) and start pulling Kleenex's out of your pocket like you're a magician. Start putting them in front of empty chairs and say "Now here's one for you, one for you, and one for you".

Then, mid-interview, ask if you can go to the bathroom. When they say yes, just sit there and grunt slowly followed by a long pause then smile and say "I'm sorry, where were we?".

But my all time favorite on my "I wish I could do this" wish list is to purposely call the interviewer by the wrong name, even after he/she corrects you. So if they ask you "Where do you see yourself in five years" you respond with "Well Brian, I see me thriving at your company in a much greater capacity". Then when he goes "Actually, my name is Tom", you go "Tom?! What a silly thing to say BRIAN....now Brian, back to me, what do you think of this shirt? Brian".

Of course I would NEVER do that. Consider all of this frustration. Frustration from being out of work way too long when you are confident your credentials deserve better. Oh well, back to writing. "Dear Brian.............".

Oooooooooooookay

Walking on the South Side today and two CMU students approach me and ask me to be in a video. Okay, I got time. They ask me to put on a stove pipe hat and pretend to be Andrew Carnegie. I haven't done standup in a long time and these kids probably didn't know they were asking someone who's done comedy to volunteer so I was going to give them a show.

Then it occurred to me. There's been a LOT of CMU folks who've gone on to do big things like Rob Marshall (directed the movie Chicago), Steven Bochco (Hill Street Blues), Holly Hunter, Ted Danson and a bunch others. I flashed ahead 20 years and saw the highlight reel to these kids lives and didn't want their American Film Institute award to be preceeded by a showcase of their earlier work, like "Schmuck Who Thinks He's Andrew Carnegie". "Yes honey, that's when Daddy helped out a few CMU hippies and later went home praying the prop stove-pipe hat they gave him didn't give his hair lice from whatever acid induced Dead head wore it before him". So I bailed on them.

Lastly, I'm nobody's monkey. I do comedy when "I" want to.

Starting over

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