Moving this party somewhere else. Later, Blogger.

AP: put this in your blog instead

For the past 3 months, I have been dealing with something privately. It's nothing serious, but it is affecting my life in ways I never thought it would.

To Add or Not to Add

Three months ago, I logged into Facebook and saw that I had a new friend request. Excited, I clicked to see who it was and discovered it was a girl I had sort of known back in high school (Note: I went to a Catholic High School in Queens, NY). I remember this girl distinctly; junior year was the year we had to take the American History Regents exam and one of the Long-Essays asked us to write about an event that tested America's resolve. She wrote about the War on AIDS. Needless to say, she had to take the Regents again in August.
She was the stereotypical guidette from Queens with crunchy hair who smoked light cigarettes when she was 16 and drank Coors Light after prom.


This is a person I don't really want to get to know any more than I already do, so I denied her Facebook friend request. I usually live by the rule "If I know you in real life, I know you on Facebook," but this was pushing it a little--we never really spoke in high school unless it was when she wanted to cheat off of me in Chemistry and I doubt we would engage in any deep conversations now that we we're digital friends.

Two weeks later I got another friend request. From the same girl. Undeterred, I ignored it again.

One month ago, she adds me again. Third time's the charm? Ignored.
The next day, added again. Her request has been sitting, untouched, in my Facebook Request pages.

"What's the next move?" I ask myself. I figure I'll send her a little message asking, "Why do you want to be my friend so bad?" That sentence has now plagued my psyche. What kind of answer would say to me, "Hey, I should really add this person."? Why would anyone want to be friends with me?

"Oh, I know we didn't know each other in high school but I always wanted to get to know you better, so I figured this was a start." Then I decided to look at her other Facebook friends. She has about 300 and all of them, I kid you not, are kids from my high school class. Not a single other friend outside of that circle. So either she's nostalgic or a completest. While understandable, this will not do.

So, she will wait in Facebook Pergatory, also known as "Awaiting friend confirmation."

June, 2009.

What a month you turned out to be. As the midway point in an already turbulent year, you did not disappoint.

Let's run down some high (and low) lights of this month, shall we?

Your opening salvo was the disappearance of Air France 447, easily one of the most bizarre plane crashes in history. Not only did the plane literally vanish from the radar, many experts suggest that 447 was was one of the only commercial jets to break apart in mid-air due to lightning and turbulence. Only now are they starting to recover bodies and debris from off the coast of Brazil.

Also on June 1st, Conan O'Brien became the fifth host of the Tonight Show, officially making his transition from New York City to Los Angeles.

ALSO on June 1st, General Motors filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. At one point in the 1970s, GM was the largest employer in America. Today, Wal-Mart holds that title.

On June 3rd you delivered easily THE STRANGEST celebrity death that I've ever heard of. There are numerous conflicting reports, but it pretty much stands that David Carradine was found in the closet of his hotel room in Bangkok, naked (but possibly wearing lingerie) with a shoelace tied around his neck (and possibly his penis) and his hands bound behind his back (or maybe not). Some medics suggested accidental suicide from autoerotic asphyxiation, some suggest a deliberate suicide, while others suggest that he was tracked down by a secret sect of ninjas and murdered. I am not kidding. Two of his wives have come out saying that he was into some very kinky business, so him dying of autoerotic asphyxiation isn't very surprising to them. My favorite article about this story came from the New York Post where they had interviewed the owner of a sex shop that Carradine frequented. She said that he had quite a few items on back order and that she was upset that he'd never get to enjoy them.

This one is particularly embarrassing for New Yorkers, but on June 8th, two Democratic state senators switched sides in order to remove the Senate Majority Leader, Malcom Smith. Essentially what happened was that the vote was counted but not officially recognized before a Senator called for adjournment, which was granted. For anyone who knows Robert's Rules (I am looking at your, Russ Zambito), you would know that this move is highly illegal because a) a motion was still on the table and b)the adjournment wasn't voted upon. This put the whole senate into a tizzy which eventually resulted in a deadlock of 31 senators on each side and neither side agreeing to meet in Senate. Meanwhile, this is the time of year when very important bills are supposed to be passed before summer recess, so Governor Patterson urged the Senate to reconvene. They did, except the held separate sessions in the same room. This is still going on.

All throughout May and June, the world kept an eye on the H1N1 virus outbreak, which began in Mexico and made its way to the US and abroad. On June 11th, the World Health Organization officially categorized it as a world pandemic.

June 12th marked an especially important, and perhaps world-changing, event. Iran's presidential elections took place in a sea of optimism that current president and general nut job, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, would be ousted and reformist Mir-Hossein Mousavi would be elected. The West looked on in anticipation as the results came in because there was much riding on this election. Even though the President isn't the top dog in terms of power, many felt that his election would help ease relations between Iran and the rest of the world. However, it turned out that Ahmadinejad won in a landslide that few expected. Immediately, opponents called voter fraud and took to the streets. What resulted was one of the most notable series of protests in history. Islamic Clerics and the Ayatollah, the real leaders of the Iranian theocracy, condemned the hundreds of thousands of protesters saying that if things progressed as they were, bloodshed would be inevitable. The protests eventually became less about the election and more about the general stranglehold that Iran's Islamic regime held on it's citizens, 70% of whom are under the age of 30. What made this whole story even more fascinating was that mainstream media couldn't cover it--Iran had placed so many restrictions on Western media outlets that major networks didn't cover the story because they couldn't. So, young Iranians used the greatest technology our generation has seen, the internet, to get their message out. From 140-character updates via Twitter to ten minute long videos uploaded to YouTube, Iranians reported on themselves and put mainstream media to shame.

Also on June 12th, America shut off all analog television signals in favor of high-powered all-digital signals. The old signals will be used for a number of things including emergency transmissions and possibly nation-wide wi-fi.

The week of June 22nd was a rough week to be a celebrity. On June 23rd, Ed McMahon of Tonight Show Fame died at age 86. On the morning of June 25th, Farrah Fawcet died at age 62, but her passing was overshadowed that afternoon when the King of Pop, Michael Jackson, died at age 50. Regardless of his weird personal life, he was one of the most important people in contemporary music. I believe it is safe to say that we will never see another pop star like Michael Jackson again. Even now, it's hard to imagine 100 million people even downloading an album for free, let alone buy a physical copy of it, at full price, from a store. Although music videos had essentially existed from the earliest days of rock and roll, Jackson teamed up with some of the best people in their varied professions and produced some of the most memorable music videos ever. These videos changed the way we consumed music; try listening to Thriller without envisioning the video and you'll know what I'm talking about.

Another King died as well--Billy Mays, the bearded-larger-than-life Infomerical King, died in his sleep on June 28th at age 50.

One of the last little bits that has been thrown at us this month was the over-throwing of the President of Honduras. It's the first of it's kind in years in Latin America; basically, President Zelaya tried passing this new referendum which the Supreme Court, Congress and every other political body in Honduras decided was completely illegal. The referendum looked to change, among other things, the presidential re-election process. Currently, only one term can be serve. Zelaya has the lowest approval ratings amongst any Latin American president. Zelaya is described as being a center-left Liberal who has the poor and the working class on his side. This makes him an ally of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, a known opponent of the West and Capitalism. At the behest of the middle and upper classes, the army overtook the president's office and removed him. While many viewed this as a military coup, Hondurans look at this as completely legitimate as they do not have an impeachment process written into their constitution.

And then today, another plane crashed in the Indian Ocean. And US troops began their massive pullout of Iraq.

In my life, I started working full time, earning a salary and paying bills. Soon, I will have a car, insurance and rent to pay.

I am job.

This week I started my first official post-college-real-life-job. It essentially brings together two things I've wanted to do for years: work in a high school/higher ed environment and work with film/tv/video stuff. The job pays well and I have pretty decent benefits (I think?) but, as with most things, nothing is perfect.

The school district is pretty well-off but, the high school, especially, isn't that great. The school is located in the middle of the woods between two golf courses (Purchase, anyone?) but most of the kids tend to act like they're from the inner city, apparently. There's little to no discipline, or so I'm told, so the kids don't give a shit and that translates throughout the school. There are six schools ranging from K-12; the lower schools are really good, from what I understand, but it kind of falls apart by middle school (7th grade).

My job, specifically, is the Television Assistant. I have a direct boss who has been doing the whole thing by herself for five years now. By "the whole thing" I mean shooting district-wide events, editing them, compressing them for TV, compressing them for the web, creating DVDs, distributing DVDs and heading an after-school program for middle school students two days a week. The things we're shooting are school board meetings, school concerts, graduations, and other special events. My boss has been inundated with footage recently so we're already backlogged and will be even moreso come two weeks from now when we have 5 graduations to shoot.

Right now the editing is fairly straightforward and I'm adjusting to shooting two and half hour long concerts of kids who only sing half the words to any given song they're performing and play more sour notes than true. I guess Purchase spoiled me in terms of decent performaces as it's what I've come to expect, but then I have to stop and remember that some of these kids are in middle school. Both my boss and I are adjusting to each other, as would be expected--I hope it contiunes to go smoothly.

I'd really like to get some things off the ground once the new TV station is built in the high school but I already get the sense that there's a lot of red tape and not a lot of student interest in the whole setup. Hopefully I can help change that, if even just slightly.

an open letter to the G train.

Dear G Train,

I know, I've been seeing your friends F and E on a more regular basis, and it's not that they're better than you, but they have what I need. They go out to the city with me and don't care what time I come home. But you, you were my old standby. That's what makes this so hard.

We go back a long way, you and I. Remember when I was twelve and we went to the mall for the first time? That was great, wasn't it? Or that time I got stranded in Brooklyn when I was sixteen and my only beacon of hope was your illuminated green logo? It was magical.

But things changed when you moved out of Forest Hills.

You got too hip for your old digs and started catering exclusively to those Brooklynites. Sure, they're your bread and butter, but Queens was your heart and soul, baby. Every hipster from Greenpoint to Park Slope would rag on you, but I stood by you, G train--they didn't know you like I did, or so I thought.

The past day was the last straw, sweetheart. I thought we could pick things up where they left off, but you dropped the ball big time. All I needed was a few hours of your time to get me through Brooklyn and all you did was laugh at me. Fifteen minute wait at Court Square. Twenty minute wait at Smith/9th. And then, like a slap in the face, a thirty five minute wait at Nassau this morning. And then, to top it off, you have E clean up your mess and go local from Roosevelt to Forest Hills--that's just icy.

I don't know what to do with you. You're my link to second favorite borough but you just make it so hard to love you. You're dirty, you smell funny, you're continuously late and, frankly, you move like molasses, but I miss you.

Please, lets not fight anymore. I know you're never coming back to Queens, but...I still want to see you. Just don't make me regret it.


With much love and sorrow,

Al Rossin.

"Christine Brown has a good job, a great boyfriend, and a bright future. But in three days, she's going to hell."

There is no real way for me to describe how wonderful "Drag Me to Hell" was. I know that the ads make it look like a typical horror movie, but you have to take my word for it--this is one of the funniest movies I've seen in a long, long time. And not funny because it was awful, but funny because Sam Raimi is clearly having fun making movies again. Really great tongue-in-cheek humor (Justin Long is continuously surrounded by Mac products...) and some really laugh-out-loud gross-out scenes. My only wish was that Bruce Campbell would've made a cameo, but not all wishes are meant to be granted.


___________

In real life, I just got myself a job that pays a nice salary, gives me health benefits, sick days and vacation days. And no, I'm not on drugs or dreaming. More details when I get them.

BBQ Weekend 2009

Today kicked off this year's BBQ weekend at my house. At least one weekend a summer, my dad and I put aside time to totally bro out and grill/smoke lots of meat, play cards and drink beer.

On the menu for today:
-Ribs
-Potato salad
-Baked beans
-Sausage (grilled or smoked)

On tap:
-Sam Adams Blackberry Witbeir

Today's grade:
B+ (For some reason the ribs were saltier than I had expected or preferred. The beans and the potato salad were on point and the grilled sausage was far superior to their smoked brethren. The weather was really fantastic but not hot enough to really enjoy the Witbeir. Regardless, it was a successful day.

Sweet summer night and I'm stripped to my sheets

Exactly one week ago, I (unofficially) became a graduate of Purchase College. I moved back into my family's home; my old room, my old bed. I haven't spent a very long time at home in quite some time--usually it's just during winter break, but even then it felt (and was) temporary, about four weeks at most.
Now, most of my belongings are here, many of these things having been acquired over the past four years. A lot of things I own don't feel pertinent here, specifically my collection of posters from over the years. A large majority of them were for shows at the Stood or other Purchase-related events. They don't feel like home decorations anymore, rather they are relics, collector's items, I suppose. Things are very different here.

The actual graduation ceremony was kind of joyless. Although it was sunny for the first time in approximately seven years, the ground was still soupy. In fact, I really didn't see my graduation; I only heard what was going on thanks to a P.A. system because my chair sank so much that all I could see were the mortar boards in the rows in front of me. Our speakers had a common theme: everything pretty much sucks, but it's going to get better...right? This theme has permeated my day-to-day life as of recently--I spend much of my time on Craigslist hoping to be one of the 20% of college seniors who will have a job.

Pat King had a fantastic way of describing graduation and the process of moving away from Purchase--"We're leaving this place, not each other." In the past week, this has remained thankfully true. I spent a night at Purchase seeing friends and then just had a very enjoyable night out with others in the real world. As much as being unemployed and living with your parents can suck (being unemployed and having to make rent is much worse, I know), it's comforting to know that there's still the opportunity to see friends and make new memories, not just reminisce about old ones.

Star Trek

J.J. Abrams' treatment of Star Trek is a lot of things. Entertaining? Yes. Action-packed? You bet. Audience-friendly? Totally. But there's one thing it's not that really keeps the film from being a top-notch film: Suspense.

With Star Trek, Abrams and his Bad Robot team establish themselves clearly as auteurs. If you've followed Lost, the entire film will feel very familiar. Abrams' execution of color, set design, writing and sound design, including the score, is fantastic. In my experience, the film passed the major test of any "re-boot" film; it satisfied the die-hards and kept the novices in the loop. Sitting next to a friend of mine who wasn't familiar with Star Trek past "Beam me up, Scottie," was a great testament to the success of this film. "I can't wait for the sequal," he said.

Therein lies the problem, I suppose. This isn't to fault Abrams, the writers or the cast, but instead the nature of the "origin"-type film. This film was the first of its kind that, on a few occasions, had me thinking "Oh no, what's going to happen?" immedately followed by, "Oh wait, this is Kirk and Spock we're talking about...they can't die." So, while I was enthralled by the nature of spectatorship, my mind kept correcting itself; not only is this a movie, but it's a movie where the good guys can't die. This isn't to say that they can't lose, though, becuase there's always going to be a sequel. The Dark Knight is a prime example; Batman unfoils the plans of Two-Face and the Joker, but the film ends with a slew of questions. Is Two-Face dead? What happens to the Joker? What will Batman do? Star Trek ends on a similar note, but the questions that will be answered in future installments probably only come from those familiar with Star Trek, not casual viewers like my dear friend. While these people might be wondering what they'll do next time, Trekkies are already pondering when Khan will make an appearance.

All in all, I really can't blame Star Trek for what has become an industry fault. Abrams has crafted a perfect summer movie that will, without a doubt, enlighten a new generation of viewers and make dump-truck-loads of money. Just remember to suspend your disbelief at the door.

Home Stretch

Yesterday at 8am, I began moving out of K-1-1, my home on campus for two years. I've always said to people, "If these walls could talk, they'd scream." The things this place has seen...ah the mammories.

If you hadn't noticed already, I have my Flickr & YouTube feeds on the right side of my page. I doubt there's much traffic going to those videos from here, but I'll just throw that out there. My Un-Offical Tour of SUNY Purchase almost has 450 views which is 1) really surprising and 2) really awesome. A lot of the videos on that account are from this year, specifically from this semester as assignments from Unigo.com (which you should all check out!), but I'm proud of...most of them.

Anyway, the past few days have been rainy and kind of cold which is typical New-York-in-April-weather, but esepecially after being graced by the gods with a beautiful, warm Culture Shock weekend, it seems cruel to have to make you way through the week with such awful weather.

Culture Shock

This past weekend was my last Culture Shock as a SUNY Purchase student. The bands/performers weren't spectacular (save Menya and Hood Internet, but they were after-parties in the Stood), but seeing all (well, most) of my good friends having a good time, drinking in the beer tent or just outside enjoying the weather made this year's Culture Shock the best I've ever had, really.

So now the countdown to graduation is no longer in "months" category. I've got about...3 weeks left.

brains.

Had an AWESOME last Zombie Prom at Purchase.

Video soon!

weird

Today, my last.fm account is exactly three years and in that time I have listened to approximately 55,540 songs on my iTunes. That's approximately 50 songs a day for three years, not including things that aren't scrobbled onto last.fm.

THAT'S. CRAZY.

I often never think of my "music consumption," and to be fair, there are times that my iTunes is playing something without me in earshot of my computer, but

also:

I kind of wish this were true. Stranger things have happened, though, right? The conversation didn't go very well, to tell you the truth.

fml.

Newtown Creek

Today, St. Patrick's Day, I took a trip out to Greenpoint, Brooklyn to work on a project I'm working on for my documentary class. My job today was to take still photos while other crew took b-roll footage of the Newtown Creek for our eventual documentary. Why did we go to Newtown Creek? Well, it's the site of the worst underground oil spill in history. Between 17-30 million gallons of petroleum seeped into the riverbed over the course of 100 years and only in 1979 did clean up begin.

There are scores of differing reports as to whether or not residents of Greenpoint are subject to vapors coming from the spill. Results differ from department to department at the state and federal level. Residents have filed suit against major oil companies while some residents refuse to have their homes tested for vapors in fear that their property value would tank and Greenpoint would become gentrified.

this weekend consisted of sleeping, laundry, talking about the holocaust/wwII and good food. Success!

thank you, screen capture

The following are two images that pretty much sum up my life.

1) My Netflix recommendations


2) A recent facebook chat with an obviously clueless freshman


_____________________________________________

Anyhow, I think I'm going to start using this blog primarily, mainly because livejournal has that angsty high school air about it that just simply isn't appealing any longer.

Thinking about life after college is 2 parts excitement and 6 parts anxiety. Shake well, serve over ice, garnish with lime.

The first few days of 2009 have been a mixed bag, to say the least.

New Year's Eve was uneventful due to inclement weather and a general feeling of winter malaise. I haven't been sleeping very well at night which results in wasted days and anxious nights. On Friday night (the 2nd?) I met with a few Purchase friends in the city. At a friend's apartment, I saw what a Pulitzer Prize in Photography looks like (it's really unimpressive, sadly; just a baseball-sized crystal statuette) and spent some time catching up with people I haven't seen in a few weeks. It was a very strange night because the group of people I was with, on paper, should all be fantastic friends, yet there was an undercurrent of contempt amongst most of them. Later on in the night, both "sides" (literally boys vs. girls) would air their distaste for the other to me, leaving me in a very strange position. I like all of these people and I feel like the only common link between them, the only thing they can agree on. I'm sure I'm dedicating more than the necessary amount of thought to this, but it was a very sobering experience.

On Saturday night, my sister (who is 14) spent the night at a friend's house. It's probably the first time my parents have had the house to themselves in...over a decade. Times have been rough with my family, and as in the case with some of my friends, my mom and dad air their grievances with the other at me. I've become accustomed to it as it's been going on for years. I had to wonder what Saturday night would be like; for the past year or so, they've been at each others throats mainly because of my sister.

My sister has a lot of issues, all of which are being aired out in therapy as of recently, and it puts a lot of strain on my mom, especially. She's the type who is mainly concerned with school;for her, good grades make a good person, so I've always been the apple of my mother's eye (with a few exceptions, of course). My dad values education but is much more pragmatic about it; for him, memorizing something isn't learning and that's exactly what my sister does when she actually decides to do her schoolwork. My sister throws both of them into a shitstorm because she doesn't do her schoolwork, fails tests and lies about it. This has been going on for years and all that time my mom has spent countless hours tutoring her and doing work with/for her. It's been established that my sister has learning disabilites, amongst other things, but my mom is too proud to enroll her in special education programs. The constant strain of having to literally teach my sister ever night has made her completely untolerable and my dad becomes even worse.

That said, Saturday night was wonderful. Dinner was quiet and we were able to have a civilized conversation. My mom and dad even kind of smiled with each other, something that I haven't witnessed in a while. It was a quiet night at home--my mom took down Christmas decorations, my dad watched a movie and I read upstairs. I actually heard my mom and dad having a conversation that wasn't a screaming match. It was totally enjoyable.

On Sunday at 3pm, sress walked in the door. The decible level quickly returned to normal and so did the amount of tension. I don't know what to suggest to my parents at this point.

------------------------------------

This morning when I woke up, I had a Facebook message from my manager at the bookstore. I knew it couldn't be good because it said "Check your Purchase email ASAP." Usually when it involves my schedule, she just asks me to send her my classes. This was different. When I checked my email, there was a new message in my Inbox titled "Bookstore." I knew right off the bat that I had worked my last day at the bookstore. She regretted she had to let me go after 3 years of not only working there but knowing her on a personal level, but money is money and they don't have enough hours to give. Besides the obvious (being fired via email is fucking cold!), I was kind of upset for another reason; I wanted to quit anyway and I will never have the satisfaction of simply quitting that job. The handwriting was on the wall for a while as my hours kept getting cut and my responsibilites became fewer and fewer. By the end, all I was doing was working the cash register for eight hours a week. So now, I'll need to find a new job, which at Purchase, especially in January, is hard to begin with, regardless of our worldwide economic depression. I'm not ENTIRELY worried about getting a new job because I have a good chunk of money saved away that will get me through a few months, but I'd have prefered to kept that as rainy day money, but I guess it just started drizzling?