Shoot for the moon, if you miss, you'll hit unemployment.

So yesterday I was sitting outside at Starbucks, should have been enjoying one of my usual morning writing sessions typing away at my screenplay , but my experience was completely ruined from the homeless man behind me pedaling his new magazine. Why did the Lincoln Park Starbucks allow a homeless man to harass all of their customers? I don't know, probably because they're an equality opportunity employer. His magazine was called "Street Wise." How original. "G'day to you madame, top of the morning to you sir. Can I interest you in a magazine? Hot off the presses, only seven hours old," was the same line I heard over and over spoken by the homeless man in some sort of bizarre old English proper accent. Perhaps this man just assumed this is how you address white people? I have no idea. Twenty minutes later, I was annoyed as hell and hadn't written more than a page. But I had a new idea. If this homeless man could pedal his great idea, why couldn't I?



And so two hours later I found myself on Michigan avenue handing out my Morning After postcards... I do a lot of weird shit to try to get my "projects" going. But I felt most out of my element in this situation. I don't like approaching people, I get tongue tied, and I get pissed easily if they blow me off, but I'm unemployed so I'm kinda up against a wall here. I stepped out of my comfort zone and just went for it. I don't know why I was so timid to begin, it's not like I was dressed like a hotdog or the Statue of Liberty doing an awkward dance trying to get people into my store. When I made this point to Chris he said, "maybe it would be better that way though, so then people couldn't see your face." Always so supportive. It took me about forty five minutes to finally approach someone. And when I did, it was three girls, probably 19 years old with shirts on that said "Wake up drunk," on the front and "go to bed shitfaced," on the back. Money. They were basically honored I asked them to contribute a drunk story, and so were the next twenty people I went up to. It was refreshing, like as soon as I said "a morning after story" almost everyone I talked to lit up with a huge smile, their mind was already filtering through some of their greatest/worst moments with alcohol. It's kind of nice to know that alcohol ties us together as human beings. Makes us all equal. But not really, I was pretty picky about who I went up to. For example, anyone wearing Crocks was out. Same with guys in cargo shorts. How great could a story be if your 25 and still wearing cargos? Those weird brown close toed "sandals" guys wear didn't make the cut either. Lacey tank tops under sweaters, standard, we all know how those bother me. Ed Hardy, Affliction, or anything with jewels or rhinestones was an instant no go, for girls or guys. What about homeless people? I struggled with this one. But I had the feeling a morning after story from someone who lives on the streets might have a completely different tone than I was going for, "And then, I realized she was dead. So I was bummed at first, but then I saw there was still alcohol in the bottle. So I took it and ran. I didn't look back." .... I think it's funny though how even homeless people follow the trends of advertising, like for example ten years ago it was all about sappy, emotional signs, "Please help, I'm cold and hungry. Just need a bite to eat. God bless." And now as advertising has taken a turn to the comical and sarcastic side so have the homeless. "I'm not homeless, just ugly. Buy me a shot." I wish homeless people had more money because I would love for one of them to hire me to be their sign writer. "Why lie, I need a drink," is so two years ago, and yet so many of them still write it.



But anyway, back to me being a pedaler. I handed out my post cards and felt pretty good about it. Even if I only get one back in the mail by golly I gave it a shot. And that's all we have to do to succeed right? Just give it a try! Shoot for the moon and if you miss you'll hit the stars. That's such bullshit. I've shot for the moon so many times and all I've hit is unemployment. The more I think about it, the more it pisses me off that teachers encourage little kids to "find your dream job." That's what got me into this mess in the first place. Okay kiddos, today we're going to talk about what we want to be when we grow up. An astronaut! A movie star! A famous athlete! A hair cutter for dogs (Kate Rolfs haha.) Encouragement all around. But this is just setting us all up for failure. I don't think it would be such a bad idea if instead teachers said things like, "okay kids, we're going to talk about what we want to be when we grow up. Let's make three columns. 1. List jobs you would never do under any circumstance. 2. List jobs that you would hate, but could probably tolerate. and 3. This is the good one, we'll talk about jobs in the insurance, recruiting and sales industries. All one in the same basically. And then let's go from there." This way kids like myself can grow up with more realistic expectations rather than being chastised when they're 24 years old and still hold onto that notion they're going to find a job they love. But maybe it's just me. I know other people grow up and move on from those earlier dream jobs of movie stars and athletes. Even in high school, kids start to tell people they want jobs a little more "realistic," like for example, a sports agent. Thanks Jerry Maguire for adding another job onto the radar kids in the Midwest otherwise had no idea about. Or a TV news anchor, who didn't want to work with that stunning John Knicely, which by the way I really had high hopes for that guy, how has he not made it past Nebraska news?



And then we hit college. And ironically, for the next four years we seem to forget about the entire idea of finding a job. But I digress. I talk about college too much, I know. What was your kindergarten dream job? Did you get it? If you did, good for you. You can rest easy tonight knowing that I hate you. Kidding. But seriously. Enough is enough. It's Friday. I'm gonna pedal a bit for more today, and then I'm gonna drink even more tonight. Cheers.