Wow...

I just graduated.... Now what? Procrastination, delaying the inevitable and Europe, that's what. Today has been a good and bittersweet day. I love this town.

Unemployed

Being unemployed can be serious. If someone has a mortgage on an apartment in southern Brooklyn, and they lose their job and can't get another one, unemployment checks aren't going to fill the gap and there's a high likelihood that they'll default on that mortgage and lose everything. There of course can be more serious instances of unemployment, especially when there are kids involved.

But unemployment, while frustrating and defeating, can also be benign--even an opportunity. Witness the guy in the picture above. I took this picture of a bloke in Berlin who apparently makes his buck by painting himself white and poses(?) as a drunkard. That's one way to go. Personally, I don't see the 'opportunity' in this photo. But then again, he's turning a dire situation into a money-making venture.

College graduates experience something different. For many of us, it is not necessary to find a job for the sake of survival. Sure, we'd like one, and it's nice for you to be wanted and your four-year bullshit degree to be acknowledged, but it's not absolutely necessary to be employed in the next 6-12 months.

And, really, this can be made into a positive.

Un mas?!?!

My last day of class is on Monday. Even looking past the fact that it's absolutely retarded for a college to end a semester on a Monday, that means that I have one more day of undergraduate education left.

Wooooooooooo hooooooooooo!!!

About two months ago saying that would have caused me to tremble in my boots. Now, I'm ready. I've had enough of the stupid papers, mindless tests and cramming information into my head that I will never remember and have no desire to. Sure, it also means an increase in responsibility, but I think I can handle that. As busy as I am in college, I feel like I'm working about three jobs anyway. And I'm not even getting paid for it! Heck, over the next 200 years I'll be paying them for it. How's that for fair?

But college ending means work beginning. Try not to get too excited. I think a kvetch in the Daily Tar Heel on Friday said it best: "Dear economy: Suck it. Love, The Class of 2009." But so far I've had better luck than I expected. I had my first interview the other day and there's a possible job opening that my professor told me about on Wednesday. Maybe the job climate isn't as bad as I thought....

But now it's time to become a real person: set up that account on LinkedIn, untag any questionable photos on Facebook, invest in some shirts and ties, and get ready to lose summer vacation forever!

Bring it on, world!

Sean Patrick Flannery is a Neuralgic Saudi Royal (Part 2)

(The Fuck you Admiral Ammune System Version).

Alright, so maybe Admiral and Immune don't create an alliteration, but you know what? Fuck alliterations too. What a clever "literary device" that is. Speaking of literary devices, why couldn't Emily Dickinson's family locked themselves in a shark cage and, from the edge of an oil rig, hurled it over the edge and into the ocean. That is, before they came all over her shitty manuscripts. Ever wonder where the four million - - - - - - - -- - - came from? No, not from a shockingly horrendous usage of the English language, but rather from dried semen. Makes you want to lick those poems right off the page, doesn't it Shakespeare?

Maybe this is simply residual anger that has been bubbling up and boiling over for the past few days. I wait three months to get to Amsterdam and just as I arrive I find myself remarkably ill, coughing up kidneys, flinging mucous from my nose and throat like ungodly trebuchets.

But my immune system would not hold me back. Instead of the throat-clawing fumes, I opted for a bounty of baked sweets. They were delicious and I ate many of them. I must have walked for over 25 hours in three days. I stopped only to fix my Ipod or to write down a thought. IN-FLU-ENZ-A. DONT BRING ME DOWN.

Without further abieullshit, I give you Amsterdam/Tribute to Ben.

Sean Patrick Flannery is a Neuralgic Saudi Royal (Part 1)

My trip to Paris began chaotically. Every time some dumb American student would ask how to use a subway pass or if Paris had any "good restaurants", I found myself searching wildly for a weapon. The joint ineptitude of the program organizer and the vast majority of the 20s-going-on-15 caused everything we did to take twice as long to finish. Even my two friends and newly-minted roommates--two desperately needed life rafts in this Sea of Fecality--occasionally neglected to keep me sanely above water. One memorable moment occurred after I bought a cheap bin of cous-cous, later realizing that I had no utensil to eat it with. A few failed innovations later (including fumbling fingers, hardly a moment of brilliant creativity I suppose), I asked Me-Myself-and-I Mattheus if he minded me snagging a few morsels from his large bag of chips in order to scoop up my delicious, carb-packed substance. "Actually, yeah I do. Grocery stores are closed tomorrow. This is my breakfast." I've spent enough time with Matt to know that he was being serious. Immediately I saw myself in a rowboat, calmly enjoying the scenery, when a drowning Matt shocked me out of my daze screaming, "Chris! Throw me that life hoop!" Sorry, my man, I might need it for a belt in the unforeseeable future. But never mind all that. Good luck with that flailing dance you're perfecting! You're doing great, kiddo.

But this trip has been a highly focused microcosm of the rest of the semester. Constantly figuring things will be fun and people relatively decent, being stupidly disappointed, and finally adapting accordingly. Of course, I shouldn't continue reliving the same failed understanding, but this social situation is complicated. Even the most mediocre people begin to seem fan-fucking-tastic in comparison to the vast majority of Turd Furgesons who signed up for this program. And with the way things are structured ("Write who you're rooming with on this sheet! Don't forget to wear matching bracelets!") the only thing worse than being cynical and latching on to one or two people would be to say fuck it all and get housed with the psychos. Like this guy, who is liable to come in shooting any day now (n'est pas une blague).

Paris was like a scrotum massage from a cheap prostitute; it was unfulfilling and ultimately I found myself ripped off. The open container laws are ambiguous, too, but that didn't stop us from buying packs and packs of beer that appeared to be small hand grenades and consuming them outside the Louvre with a joint or down at one of the few pedestrian bridges with copious amounts of urine.

Monday we had a 14 hour "excursion" to Normandy, which Kevin and I both skipped. Normandy might be cool if you're really into World War Two (Which I am), but having already been there three years ago, the idea of being trapped in buses and guided tours with people who practically beg you to run a high powered chainsaw through their sternum would be too much. No amount of books or volume level on an IPod can make those homicidal impulses disappear.

The best parts of Paris were, for one, this movie we found in a South East Arrondisment, right next to the Biblioteque Francois Mitterand. The Sinful Dwarf. The top reads: "The Mother of All 'Dwarfsploitation' films!" and "Over the top with nudity, sex, and disturbing images, it just doesn't get any sleazier folks!" And on the back: "'A young bride,' promised the ads, 'left alone to the lewd passions of an evil dwarf!' Severin films is officially going to Hell--and taking you with them--with the first time ever in America DVD release of what may be the sleaziest film in EuroCult history: Diminutive former kiddie-show host Torben Bille--who looks disturbingly like Jack Black in a trash compactor--stars as the pint-sized pervert who imprisons drugged teenage sex slaves in the attic of his drunken mother's decrepit rooming house...and that's just the first ten minutes! The delicious Anne Sparrow--in her first and understandably only screen role--co-stars in this towering achievement in graphic depravity, now fully restored from a 35mm print discovered hidden in a janitor's closet at the Danish Film Institute!" American exports get better and better.

The second best part of Paris was something I experienced before, back nearly three years ago, when I stayed in the northern part of town for a few days at the tail end of my summer, awaiting my States-bound flight. Walking between Gare de Nord and maybe 8 blocks south of the station, one can see every stereotypical African-American activity played out in full theater. Barber shops were three to a bloc, KFC and other chicken fast food littered the place (you can't find them anywhere else in Paris), and so on. I didn't make the stereotypes, but I find it perfectly permissible to wallow in the hilarity of it all. So imagine my wry amusement at the irony unfolding before me three years later, where not only does the same thing exist (perhaps even to greater extent), but one of the central streets to this soulful district of town is named "Rue Poulet" or Chicken Street.


And finally, Parisian Pho (pardon my not searching for the proper O accoutrements in the case of Pho). Whoever suggests that colonialism was perhaps "Wrong" or "racist" or "imperial", or any such nonsense, clearly has never dipped their gouche in some spicy Parisian Pho. (One might suggest that the French saw the right time to saunter onwards; great Pho acquired and without hundreds of thousands of dead soldiers. But then again, where would some sloppy free love be found, or some tabs of spiritual acid be dropped, without the proper blood being spilled? No hippy without war, man. No Obama without Bush. But I severely digress). Alas, the Pho, which apparently is incomplete without some Nabokov satisfying my desire for prepubescents between horrendous slurps. A Pho-pas, perhaps? (Man, I'm definitely the first asshole (http://emilyk.typepad.com/whats_for_lunch/2006/04/whats_pho_lunch.html) to strike that pun! [although, in this genius's case, no pun technically exists.])

In any case, the train to Amsterdam today at noon. Let's hope that this horrendous cough clears itself up before I trip balls.

Oh boy, oh boy

This is encouraging as I prepare for my journalism job search in a few months. All the little pins in the map represent newspapers around the country that have been laying off employees.

Awesome.

I think I'll take Chris' advice and open up a bottle of whiskey now.

Delaying the inevitable

Looking for a way to act like you're rolling in the dough and live luxuriously when in reality you're just a terribly poor college student? Join the University of North Carolina marching band. Or, more importantly, be in the band that gets to follow the basketball team.

You'll get to fly into Memphis on a private jet, get a police escort all the way to your very expensive hotel and, on top of it all, you get $30 a day to do whatever the hell you want. All because you can blow a few notes. Can't beat it, if you ask me.

Let me break this down for you. Our hotel is the Peabody, a hotel so ritzy and desperate for something to spend money on that they have a procession of ducks -- yes, ducks -- that march from the elevator to the fountain, where they hang out all day.


I apologize for the crappiness of this video. It was taken with my little digital camera. The poor thing tries hard.

Then I got a delicious burger on the bands tab. Then I got a NCAA Sweet Sixteen shirt on the bands tab. Then I got to sit on the second row and watch the basketball open practice.



And to top off the day, I got to eat this, on the bands tab.



That's a full rack of ribs from Rendezvous Ribs, some of the best ribs in the town. Then we went down to Beale Street to B.B. King's club to hear a great house band and watch Memphis and dook lose. The night can't get much better than that.

So I may be dirt poor and borderline homeless in a few months. But right now, I'm living the life. Tomorrow, I'm going to Graceland.

A little Freddie

Take two people who each have a strong connection to a third but don't really like or understand each other. Then take those three people and put them in a studio apartment the size of an ATM vestibule for two weeks. Snoring, snarky comments, weird sleep and smoking habits. A holocaust, it seemed, was closing in fast. In dreams I envisioned my brother putting knives in his shoes while Becca chiseled the sides of her laptop to create a decapitating frisby (Wifi enabled).

But fun prevailed. The potential risks of allowing booze and video equipment to collide are similar to mixing Paris Hilton with MTV (or, for that matter, Paris Hilton, video equipment, and a hotel room); It could be a fucking catastrophe. But Apple technology--which can border on cheap hey-Im-an-individual gimmicks--ensured that we had some medium in which to direct our psychotic energies. And to answer the inevitable question: Because Becca and clothes are like Mike Tyson and virgin sheep. They just don't get along. That bra, after all, is just a prop.



When we weren't discrediting ourselves from future job offers, we moseyed on down to The Clash on a night when the name of the place actually did itself justice. It was a Saturday and Becca and I were ready for a decent night on the town after using and abusing Macbook gizmos. Apparently, Saturday night at The Clash is Gothfest, replete of any normativity. The DJ must have played two full CDs of Joy Division, but the dance floor remained empty for most of the evening, with a guy in his 40s who crept around the the square like a predator stalking invisible prey as the lone exception. Besides our uninformed garb, every person in the bar was dressed fully in black. Marylin Mansons and Courtney Loves flooded the place. I don't have a picture but this city is swarming with shit like that. There's little doubt I'll run into it again.



Well, now that I'm a rock star, it's time to go off and trudge around Paris and Amsterdam for a week. Shroomed out of my gourde and recovering from the wallet-fuck that encompasses Parisian culture, zany thoughts will ensue.

New Goal

Change this photo to something more up to date and less Ben looking like Master Mushroom Top, a spacey pederast who mistakenly showed up to the ball without his pants.