Top of the B-List
Flipping through the Canadian Oxford Dictionary this morning, I discovered that a liger (favourite animal of Napoleon Dynamite) is not only a real animal, but that it is specifically the offspring of a male lion and a female tiger. The corresponding offspring of a lioness and a male tiger is called a tigon.
Good to know.
I’ve been doing some career soul-searching again lately. Even though I’ve been at my current job less than six months, I’m becoming restless and bored. It was definitely time for a change when I decided to take this position, and I’m certainly not complaining about the compensation or benefits. It’s just that I’m not sure I feel right for the job. Strangely, I feel both too stupid and too smart for what I’m doing. Too stupid because I know little about the world of accounting and “professional services,” and too smart because I feel my job function is too narrow and leaves me waiting for other people’s input far too much of the time.
As I look back over my resume’s alarming zigs and zags, I have to ask myself why I’ve kept moving around. It’s not like I’ve been on any kind of direct career “path,” with each move taking me closer to some working nirvana. Some jobs I took for money, some for love, but all felt constricting sooner or later. I often joke (half-seriously) that I’m a profoundly lazy man. But I think I’m just bored by my opportunities. Pardon the boasting, but I was once considered a “gifted” student. I skipped a grade and would have skipped another had my parents allowed it. I was a good student in university who gave up the idea of grad school for teachers’ college. When no job opportunities came my way there, I took the first well-paying job that came my way, in social work. But I panicked about being on a very limiting career path and jumped ship to work in, gasp, retail sales. The money was great, the prospects dismal. Then a brief sojourn as a web designer, until the first dot.com bubble burst. Back to sales. Then back to web design for a wine importing firm. Lots of freedom there, and I learned a lot about marketing. But again, a very limited career path. And working in a highly regulated market was tough, as was working for a small business. So now, a jump to a huge corporate firm, to be a “writer” and a “web producer.”
It sounded very promising six months ago. A great opportunity with a large company. Great salary and benefits. But I feel lost most days. My workmates are nice but almost pathologically unsocial. My work function is very constrained, and there’s very little of the web involved in it. The corporate culture is extremely risk-averse, and though I was ostensibly hired for my crackerjack writing skills, most of my personality has to be ironed out of my writing so that it will match the corporate (non) style and avoid lawsuits.
I read about some of the people I know from South by Southwest starting up companies and I’m jealous. I try to convince myself I’m not really lazy, just unchallenged. But my “gifted” past seems so long ago now, and I worry that I can’t learn any new tricks. I’m a collaborator and a strategic thinker, and I’m trapped in a cubicle by myself working on details.
Lately, I’ve been a bit of a voyeur among the public relations (PR) blog crowd. A few months ago, I attended the Talk is Cheap unconference, where I learned how PR firms are embracing the web and doing some truly innovative things. I think I’ve become infatuated. I’m somewhat encouraged when I read that people come to the field of public relations from all kinds of places, including some of the places I’ve been. I think what I truly want is to work for a nimble company, one that can react quickly and intelligently to what’s happening in the world. I realize that I’ve never really worked for a place that could be described that way. I also realize that I need to work somewhere where I can speak my mind, and where I don’t have to learn the org chart to get my job done.
Perhaps I shouldn’t be writing so openly on my blog about this, but only the people that really matter to me will read this anyway. I’ve learned a lot about myself and about what I’m good at over the course of my admittedly scattered work life. And I’ve learned from a lot of people, some of whom I’ve never met, about what work can be and how to get the best out of myself. I’m sorry that this entry seems a bit self-pitying. But I encourage you, if you’ve read this far, to engage with me on some of this stuff. What makes your job great, or rotten? Do we expect too much of our careers, in terms of fulfillment, or opportunity?
On Wednesday night this week, I’ll be attending an offline gathering for PR folks interested in social media. I hope to find out more about the field and see if I might not be able to find a place within it. One thing that blogging has taught me, and that the social media PR people are saying is that honesty and transparency are more valuable than spin. So if I get into any conversations, whether after one beer or three, it’s going to be all about the authenticity. It’s the one constant that my resume has no room to include.
For someone who considers himself a seasoned traveler and informed citizen of the world, I’ve always been a bit embarrassed that New York City wasn’t really on my list of places visited. My parents had taken me a few times when I was a young sprog, but I have no memories of the city, only the stuff I’ve seen in movies or read in books. It seemed crazy to me that I hadn’t visited, until you figure out how expensive it is to fly anywhere in the U.S. from Canada. Though New York is only about an hour’s flight from Toronto, it’s at least a $500 ticket. Since New York is also incredibly expensive in general, I’ve usually saved my dollars for visits to some of my other favourite American cities (Austin, Chicago, San Francisco) instead. But a few months ago, my lovely wife Brooke surprised me with tickets, and we just spent a fantastic three-day weekend in mythical Gotham.
After hearing about New York my entire life, I was happy and relieved to say that within an hour of arriving, I felt like I “got” the city. I felt at home and comfortable, which was unusual. American cities usually feel different to me, and it normally takes me about a day to settle in. I was also surprised that New York actually felt small to me. Not literally, because we only really got to see a small patch of midtown on our trip, but I guess I mean it felt manageable. We found that we could walk almost anywhere we wanted to go in just a few minutes, and if we needed to jump on the subway, we normally only had a ride of a few stops. I’m also a bit proud that I grasped the subway almost right away. Our subway in Toronto is much more basic, but I’m a transit user, so it was fun to figure out a more ambitious system.
Most delightful of all was the feeling that I actually knew people in this vast and hitherto-unexplored metropolis. When Brooke mentioned she’d like to tour the New York Times, I emailed Khoi Vinh, the design director of their web site, to see if any were offered. He graciously offered to show us around, himself, on Friday afternoon. On Saturday, we arranged to meet newly-engaged Dan Budiac and Kathryn Yu for brunch. And then while browsing in the 14th Street Apple Store, we serendipitously bumped into Anil Dash and his wife Alaina Browne. On this weekend, the big, intimidating city felt more like a village to us.
It helped a lot that we stayed at the wonderful Chelsea Lodge, a quiet, comfy and affordable haven on a quiet residential street. We ate two delicious breakfasts at the nearby Empire Diner on Tenth Avenue, where we overheard a number of great conversations, including the subject of a Men’s Vogue cover story reading the story to his group of friends. Our other breakfast was at the wonderful Pastis, in the revitalized Meatpacking District. It’s said to be a celebrity hangout, and we did spot Sam Shepard and Jessica Lange and their daughter having breakfast just before we left. While we’re on the theme of food, we also enjoyed great and unfussy food at Empanada Mama and the “Burger Joint” hidden in the luxe Parker-Meridien Hotel.
Other highlights of our whirlwind trip include:
By Sunday we were pretty wiped, and the only vaguely stressful things that we encountered were:
For anyone interested, I’ll post a link to our photos when I get them posted to Flickr.
New York, I will be back soon!
Brooke picked this book up for me a few weeks ago, knowing I’d been a huge fan of Steve Martin during his standup years. You could even say that as a teenager, I idolized Martin. To this day, I’m in awe of people (including myself!) who can make others laugh. But I’ve always been slightly bemused by some of Martin’s latter-day forays into melancholy (Shopgirl, for example) and wondered what had happened to the sense of the absurd that fuelled his edgy comedy routines of the 1970s. I think I was 13 when I saw him perform at Toronto’s cavernous Maple Leaf Gardens, and it still boggles my mind today that a comedian could fill a 20,000 seat arena. It almost seems unreal now. But Saturday Night Live, his appearances on The Tonight Show, and for me, his comedy albums made Martin a bonafide superstar. But as Born Standing Up: A Comic’s Life reveals, he was not quite an overnight success.
In fact, in this book he writes with a sometimes dewy-eyed sentimentality about all the hard work it took for him to look “wild and crazy.” A driven perfectionist with a Protestant work ethic, Martin grew up studying magic tricks and practiced for hours upon hours until his act looked effortless. Martin’s seemingly absurd routines were fuelled not by the ubiquitous drugs of that period, but by a ruthless intelligence and curiosity. He was a student of philosophy, and of comedy.
I smiled with recognition as he recalled some of his more inspired bits, but Martin himself seems still somewhat detached from this period of his life. He admits that after he left standup for the movies in the early 1980s, he rarely thought about that time. Only now with this book does he realize that it was the most fruitful, exciting, and just plain funny period of his long and (now) distinguished career. He’s honest enough to admit that he was never really after fame, and became very uncomfortable with it pretty quickly. But he loved performing. Although he seems at peace with his life, he still seems to look at his standup self as if he were looking at a completely different man. I find that a bit sad.
Steve Martin is less funny these days, and I think he knows that. But he’s had tremendous success as a writer of essays, fiction, plays and screenplays, and as an actor. For me, though, Steve Martin will always be the man who let me know it was OK to make a smart joke that nobody else got. Along with Monty Python and, later, the Coen Brothers, Steve Martin’s “bits” were the currency that was shared among me and my friends. It’s hard to believe that it’s already been thirty years. Now, before I start becoming the dewy-eyed sentimentalist, I’ll wrap up. If you’re of my generation, and actually saw Steve live on Saturday Night Live, you’ll want to read this slim but rewarding volume. Although the real Steve is considerably more complicated than the “funny” Steve, this was still a great read. In fact, I read the whole thing today.
Lloyd Cole and the Commotions – Rattlesnakes (1984)
I’d met Goldie through my friend Colin around 1983, I think. With his thinning hair and permanent scowl, he looked like a perennially pissed off old man. We shared a love for punk, even though he was somehow affiliated with the strange evangelical subculture I’d recently become part of. I remember him bringing us Dead Boys records when Colin and I were in residence at Bible College. We’d play those and Colin’s Zapp funk records as loud as we could, enjoying the vicarious thrill of swearing and talking sexy. I remember Goldie and I commandeering the lounge television one night when Rock ‘n’ Roll High School was on. So we shared a taste in music and a slightly skeptical attitude toward the world around us.
Around 1984, our tastes were broadening. Goldie was the first one to tip me off to The Style Council, a new direction from The Jam‘s Paul Weller. So it was no surprise when he showed up one afternoon with a home-recorded tape that he wanted me to hear. Side A was Eden by Everything But The Girl, well before their dance music days. Though I enjoyed Tracey Thorn’s soulful vocals, I was much more interested in Side B, which Goldie hadn’t even mentioned.
Lloyd Cole’s anguished voice and whipsmart lyrics drew me in. Here was a guy who seemed impossibly sophisticated and world-weary at the same time. Every song was tinged with regret but filled with literary barbs and wry humour. One of my favourite lines is from Four Flights Up: “Must you tell me all your secrets when it’s hard enough to love you knowing nothing?” The songs had a sophistication that screamed Europe but the album title sounded American. And Lloyd seemed worldly enough to know New York, London and Paris equally well. This guy was flat out cool, like an upper class and definitely more hetero Morrissey.
In the same vicarious way that I listened to Zapp and the Dead Boys, I absorbed the heartbreak and romantic adventures of Lloyd Cole. I didn’t have anywhere near that sort of experience (and still don’t), but when on the final track Lloyd sang “Are You Ready to be Heartbroken?” I wanted to jump up and scream out “Yes!”
Track Listing
Lloyd Cole’s weblog
“Perfect Skin” video on YouTube
“Forest Fire” video on YouTube
Great Albums is an occasional feature on Consolation Champs where I relate some personal stories about life-changing music in lieu of any proper music criticism. You’ll probably learn more about me than about music, so consider that fair warning. For more, click the Great Albums category tag.
