[Editor's Note: PubliCola's D.C. correspondent is taking a break from the politics beat. He's spending the summer in America's real capital city, Brooklyn, NY.]
I woke up the morning of my NJPIRG interview feeling terrible. My ears were still ringing from the sludge metal concert. My brain felt like a water balloon. It had been a few days since I found out my career as a big-time famous actor was over before it even started.
As I suspected, the whole gig was basically a scam. Helen (my agent) told me the only parts she could get me in any movie would be as an extra. I don’t think extras usually need agents. Also, the Department of Consumer Affairs told me Helen wasn’t licensed, which is a bad sign.
Crestfallen, I tore my headshots in half. I didn’t really care that much if I was in a Queen Latifah movie. But feeling scammed sucks, especially when you sorta know you’re being scammed. I mostly feel bad for all the aspiring stars who remain at Helen’s mercy. I think I’ll write a complaint to the DCA.
I spent a couple of days forgetting my worries at sludge metal concerts and indie movie theaters, but I needed some money. There are holes in the bottom of my shoes, which isn’t that bad unless it’s raining or there’s something wet on the floor. Cheese sandwiches lose their living-by-the-seat-of-your-pants charm real fast. So I returned to Craigslist and called about the first job I was even remotely qualified for.
I wasn’t excited at all for my NJPIRG interview. I should be spending this golden summer working on my personal artistic manifesto. I should be writing my novel, or composing my three-part symphony—an emotional tone poem dedicated to the noir-novel pavement and insistent yellow lines of the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway. Instead, I’m ambling toward the shower to get ready for a job interview for an even-worse version of the depressing job I had earlier this summer .
I took the subway to Midtown. I climbed the staircase and found my way to the sweaty third-floor office, where the rest of the applicants were sitting, filling out job applications. After I finished my application, they called me into the back room and I stumbled through a few questions, and then they hired me for a three-week stint. I start on Monday.
I spent the rest of the day reading in Central Park. It was late when I got back home, so I stopped at the one neighborhood bar by my place in Brooklyn for a cheap beer. I sat down next to a couple of jolly dudes with tattoos and mutton chops. I started doodling in my notebook.
"Hey man, are you writing in a notebook?" one of the mutton-chopped guys asked me. I nodded. "Hey, you could be the front man in a band! Like, in a band like ours. We already have a singer, but he’s not a great front man. A great front man writes in a tiny notebook. You should think about it. We’re called The Afterbirth."
He bought me a shot of well whiskey, and I drank it fast and shivered. I was into The Afterbirth (as unintentionally disgusting as that sounds). I pictured myself touring around the country in a van with The Afterbirth, drinking a can of Hamms at 11 in the morning, wearing a fuzzy, Celtic beard, peeling the paint of the walls with my buzzsaw guitar riffs at a dive bar in Indianapolis, and generally not giving a fuck. Yeah, I could totally do that. I never really wanted to be an actor anyway.
