Friday, May 29, 2009
Laid Off Loser Playlist, May 29, 2009
Click on the artist for more information. Click on the album to purchase music.
Laid Off Loser Album of the Day: "Dance Mania"
Tito Puente and His OrchestraLaid Off Loser Jazz Week comes to a close with a spectacular summertime party record.
Tito Puente may not have invented mambo music, but the "King of Latin Music" and his orchestra came to personify the Latin big band. Dance Mania, the best-selling album in Puente's vast catalog, demonstrates why.
Fun, spirited and sassy, Dance Mania is a rhythmic delight recorded at the height of the '50s mambo craze. Brilliant brass and popping percussion burst from the hi-fi on every track, calling for hips to shake and beers to break open.
The sunshine's back, fool. Drop the needle on Dance Mania, hit the patio and chill out to this space-age bachelor pad classic.
Thursday, May 28, 2009
Laid Off Loser Playlist, May 28, 2009
Click on the artist for more information. Click on the album to purchase music.
Tito Puente and His Orchestra - Dance Mania: Legacy Edition
Laid Off Loser Album of the Day: "Sketches of Spain"
Miles DavisThe famously restless Miles Davis was never one to sit on his laurels and milk successes until they were dry. Which is why, after defining modal jazz on 1959's masterpiece Kind of Blue, he switched gears and recorded the heavily-orchestrated, flamenco-inspired Sketches of Spain with arranger/composer/conductor Gil Evans.
While the two albums have in common a somber tone, in terms of style and tempo, they are worlds apart. Whereas Kind of Blue swings and grooves, the exotic, moody Sketches of Spain slowly unfolds, with Evans' sweeping Technicolor orchestration setting the pace and Davis' hypnotic trumpet floating in and out and around the lush strings and vibrant brass. The result is a hypnotic, meditative piece of music that found Davis once again defying and expanding the barriers of jazz music.
This two-disc set includes the original album, alternate takes, complementary tracks from other Davis albums and the only live performance of the album's centerpiece, "Concierto de Aranjuez (Adagio)." Jazz nerds may balk at the lack of previously unreleased material, but this smart presentation is about context, and taken together the 17 tracks tell the unabridged musical story of Evans' and Davis' memorable collaboration.
Laid Off Loser will have his revenge on Seattle
Laid Off Loser of the Day: Amy Pence-Brown
Amy Pence-Brown of Boise, Idaho, recently was laid off as a curator at the Boise Art Museum.
Amy is an independent curator and arts professional in Boise. She is a native Idahoan who received her undergrad degrees from the University of Idaho and her Master’s in Art History from the University of St. Thomas in Minnesota.
She has worked at the Weisman Art Museum and the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, as well as the Portland Art Museum and the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry. Most recently, Amy was the Associate Curator of Art at the Boise Art Museum for three years and she is currently an adjunct member in the Art Department at Boise State University. Amy serves on the City of Boise’s Visual Arts Advisory Committee and functions as a Historic Preservation Commissioner for the city.
Immediately upon her layoff, Amy was hired as a curatorial consultant to help out with the City of Boise’s expanding public art collection as well as consult Eagle’s Woodriver Cellars winery on their exciting new art gallery and artist studio space.
Since the layoff, she also has started a blog about arts, culture, kids and living on a budget, Idaho style. Read it at http://idaho-style.blogspot.com.
Amy also is now a full-time stay-at-home mom to two little girls, Lucy, 5, and Alice, 1. Her husband, Eric, is a chemistry professor at Boise State University.
Amy has been honored by rave reviews and interviews in the local media over the past three years, often regarding her work as a stellar young art professional in the community. Her artwork was featured on the cover of a recent Boise Weekly.
Amy has a wide variety of skills and a unique academic background, and is especially interested in part-time, freelance or consulting work in the fields of art, architecture, teaching and history. She’s also a very big fan of trading and bartering and is open to the possibility of trading services for art.
For Amy’s full resume and portfolio, e-mail penceamy@hotmail.com.
New jobless claims are down, but the unemployed are staying unemployed
It's encouraging to hear that new unemployment claims are down, but not so encouraging to hear the jobless are not finding jobs. Read the full story here.
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
Laid Off Loser Playlist, May 27, 2009
Click on the artist for more information. Click on the album to purchase music.
Is your home a bad investment?
After receiving my new, lower assessment in the mail today, I'm inclined to answer in the affirmative.
According to this article, owning a home ain't all it's cracked up to be.
Laid Off Loser Album of the Day: "Mingus Ah Um"
Charles MingusMingus, man. What a cool cat. A badass bassist, a killer composer, a mad genius, a raging soul. If you need an introduction, you can't go wrong with Mingus Ah Um, presented here in a two-disc set that includes bonus tracks, alternate takes and Mingus Ah Um's equally adventurous followup, Mingus Dynasty, culled from the same 1959 recording sessions.
One of the most daring jazz musicians of his era, Mingus is nonetheless overshadowed by free jazz pioneer Ornette Coleman. But the directions Mingus took hard bop composition and improvisation were no less phenomenal and influential.
Mingus Ah Um is a prime example, widely regarded as one of (if not the) best Mingus albums. While infused with the blues, Duke Ellington and Jelly Roll Morton, Mingus Ah Um is not your typical late-50s hard bop record. It's a raw, unhinged expression of sound peppered with primitive gospel howls, big band bombast and manic, Middle Eastern-tinged flare-ups.
It's a wild ride — tailor-made for screaming down the interstate in the middle of the night — that moves from hellfire testifying ("Better Git It In Your Soul") to bluesy 3 a.m. regret ("Goodbye Pork Pie Hat"), then back to pure propulsion "Boogie Stop Shuffle" before another smooth downshift (the sweet and somber "Self-Portrait in Three Colors") and on and on and on. Along the way, the thing never loses its swing or effervescent cool — it's like an acid-dosed imaginary score to a Raymond Chandler novel.
Damn straight better git it in your soul.
Dumbing yourself down to get a job
Here's my new and improved resume, spit-shined and streamlined to include only the most pertinent information in these times of woe and want:
"Has face."
I completely understand this logic, even if it is, at the end of the day, a form of deception. No one wants to hire an egghead Harvard Ph.D to flip burgers, because the egghead Harvard Ph.D will likely bolt the second a better opportunity presents itself.
Speaking from experience, it's horribly frustrating to get shut out of a job (or jobs) simply because you played the game and did all the right things with your life — get good grades, go to college and earn a degree, advance your career, maintain a strong work ethic, etc. I think I've mentioned this before, but when I returned from Europe in 2002, I was jobless for four months, and in that time I applied at a lumber yard, pizza joint, Borders and countless other blue collar, retail and service industry jobs and didn't so much as get a call back for any of them.
But like I said, I see their point. After college graduation and before my first professional job, I landed a job as a door guy at a Kent State bar, mostly on a bullshit story about looking to go back to school winter semester. I had little, if any, intention of going back to school winter semester. I had simply run out of money and needed more cash to maintain my Dude-like existence that fall, which consisted of leeching off my parents, sitting in a hot tub, hanging out on campus and getting loaded with my best friend.
But I got sick of being the door guy after a month of taking shit from knucklehead frat boys and other assorted collegiate assholes, so I got off my duff, sent out some resumes and landed a newspaper job. When I told the bar manager I was quitting, it was the first and only time I've ever been laid into for leaving a job. He totally called me out on the bullshit story about going back to school winter semester, and I totally deserved it.
Yet, in that month as the door guy, I worked my ass off, and it wasn't exactly glorious work. But I showed up on time, stayed late and never complained. Wouldn't an employer want to hire an eager beaver with a strong work ethic, as opposed to a less-attractive candidate who would barely get the job done on a rudimentary level but, more importantly, never bolt for greener pastures?
Right now, people aren't likely to hop from job to job — they're happy just to get what they can and hold on to it for dear life. So what if hiring the egghead Harvard Ph.D comes back to bite you in the ass — just call one of the other candidates and hire him then. And if that doesn't work out, hire someone else. I think I might know a few people looking for work.
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
Laid Off Loser Playlist, May 26, 2009
Click on the artist for more information. Click on the album to purchase music.
It's Laid Off Loser Jazz Week!
Taking a slight break from abusing the Idaho Department of Labor, Laid Off Loser is celebrating the re-release of four jazz classics this week from the stellar Legacy Recordings imprint.
Last year, Legacy jumped on the vinyl bandwagon and started pressing some excellent rock and jazz reissues on 180-gram wax, and now they're marking the 50th anniversary of jazz music's greatest year, 1959, with four CD box sets that hit stores today.
Look below for a review of Dave Brubeck's seminal Time Out, then check back all week long for albums by Miles Davis, Charles Mingus and Tito Puente.
Laid Off Loser Album of the Day: "Time Out"
The Dave Brubeck QuartetA finger-snapping, toe-tapping classic, Time Out is jazz as sunshine and spring air, the most likable serious-jazz album this side of Kind of Blue.
An album of many feats — the pop radio hit "Take Five" was the first jazz instrumental single to sell a million copies — Time Out's greatest triumph is its palatability. From a technical perspective, this is difficult music — the title nods to Brubeck's break from the traditional 4/4 jazz time signature — yet it never sounds difficult like so many experiments in compositional form do.
Maybe that's why "Take Five," recorded in 5/4 and 3/4 waltz time, was such a hit — perhaps the ears of casual listeners were ready for something new and fresh, even if they didn't understand (or care about) the mechanics behind it. And really, unless you're a jazz nerd, the technical mumbo-jumbo is secondary to the deep, intrinsic appeal of Brubeck's noir-cool piano rhythm, Joe Morello's crisp, cymbal-heavy beat and Paul Desmond's fluid, understated tenor sax phrasing.
Lively opener "Blue Rondo A La Turk," meanwhile, begins in 9/8 time. Mechanically, it works a traditional Turkish rhythm. Compositionally, it's based on a Mozart piece. Heady stuff indeed, yet it's second only to "Take Five" in fame and likability. The rest of the album follows suit — seriously swinging in the absence of simplicity.
This 50th anniversary edition includes a DVD interview with Brubeck on the making of Time Out and a bonus disc of unreleased live cuts from the Newport Jazz Festival recorded in the early '60s. Though two of the recordings are pieces from Time Out (fast-paced, exploratory versions of "Blue Rondo A La Turk" and "Take Five"), the majority of the cuts are bluesy, boogie-woogie hard bop in the vein of the 1963 Dave Brubeck Quartet album At Carnegie Hall.
Monday, May 25, 2009
Laid Off Loser Playlist, May 25, 2009
Click on the artist for more information. Click on the album to purchase music.
Memorial Day = day off
The Laid Off Loser is throwing burnt hot dogs at cars with his family and will not be posting today.
Check back starting tomorrow for Laid Off Loser Jazz Week and profiles of two new Laid Off Losers.
For now, enjoy the music:
Friday, May 22, 2009
Laid Off Loser Playlist, May 22, 2009
Click on the artist for more information. Click on the album to purchase music.
Tito Puente and His Orchestra - Dance Mania
If you're from Cleveland, read this article
I spent the first 23 years of my life in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio — a suburb of Akron, Cleveland's ugly step-sister — and reading this article by Sports Illustrated writer and native Clevelander Joe Posnanski filled me with Northeast Ohio pride. (Thanks to fellow Boisean and native Clevelander Patrick Orr for Tweeting about it.)
I've been keeping the Cavaliers at arm's length as they march through the NBA playoffs for the very reasons noted in Posnanski's article, but I might be paying closer attention now after stumbling upon Game 2 at a bar tonight and seeing LeBron's crazy-awesome game-winning three.
I've never felt much sorrow for Cubs or Red Sox fans because I've suffered through The Fumble, The Drive and Jose Mesa in Game 7 of the 1997 World Series, and that's just a span of 10 years. There is nothing that even comes close to comparing to Cleveland's sports woes. Nothing. Don't even try to argue.
I'm proud to be from the Midwest for a variety of reasons. It's easy to bag on it when you're away from it, or you're a coastal snob with a superiority complex who doesn't know what the hell they're talking about, but I'd never trade growing up there for anything. Articles like Posnanski's remind me why. I'm going to the mall this weekend and buying an Indians cap.
The "Three Wolf Moon" shirt phenomenon: Freaking hilarious
You know those gaudy wolf shirts you always see on fat dudes at Wal-Mart and in truck stop gift shops? Right now there's one on Amazon, dubbed the "Three Wolf Moon" shirt, that's selling like hot cakes thanks to a prank started by a humor Web site. Read about it here.
Be sure to go to the Amazon page and scan the reviews, which will give you cramps from laughing so hard.
I'm a men's large, by the way, if anyone wants to get me a Memorial Day gift. It would look great under the hipster-turd flannel I just bought on the clearance rack at Urban Outfitters.
Three-day weekend for the unemployed
So, I realized today that Memorial Day will be my first major holiday as a Laid Off Loser. And you know what? It still feels like I have a three-day weekend ahead of me. Which is nice.
Going into this unemployed life, I wondered if every day would feel the same — like a stuck-on-the-couch funk I couldn't shake, or the do-nothing bliss of a perpetual Saturday afternoon, whatever. But my experience has been much different, much more ... usual. The weekdays still feel like weekdays, the weekends still feel like weekends, and I imagine a holiday day off is still going to feel like a holiday day off.
I may be jobless, but I still have responsibilities during the week: Freelance work, job searching, household chores, etc. I wish I could say my afternoon beer intake has spiked dramatically, but that's just not the case. However, it still kicks major ass being home all day. And I don't get Sunday Depression anymore.
With America leaving work early, making last-minute booze runs and otherwise getting ready for Memorial Day, I've decided to treat it like any other holiday, too. No job searching, no blogging, no nothing except fun. I plan on drinking good beer, taking naps, getting outdoors with my family, listening to records on the patio and avoiding stupid people who think the world revolves around them any time they break routine and stray more than five miles from home.
Have fun. Get dumb. Don't do anything you don't want to do until Tuesday morning. And if you're still hung over then, guess what? You can sleep it off and be thankful you don't have to suffer under halogens all day.
Laid Off Loser Album of the Day: "The Joshua Tree"
Thursday, May 21, 2009
Laid Off Loser Playlist, May 21, 2009
Click on the artist for more information. Click on the album to purchase music.
Tito Puente and his Orchestra - Dance Mania
Laid Off Loser Album of the Day: "Nothing's Shocking"
Jane's AddictionAn alt-rock classic, now back on wax. Dig it.
Reminds me of mowing lawns, making mix tapes in my room and feeling sorry for myself. Oh, oh, oh, the summertime rolls ...
Idaho Department of Labor director personally responds
This showed up in my inbox today after hatin' on the Idaho Department of Labor yesterday.
Roger and I are getting together tonight to slam beers and fish tacos. Not really. I haven't even gotten back to him yet.
Chad,
While I am glad you had a positive experience with our front desk staff in the Labor Boise office, I am very sorry you had an unsatisfactory experience on the phone.
Our workload has nearly tripled in the last year and our staff is under a great deal of stress. That said, it’s no excuse for how you felt when you got off the phone. Our goal at the Idaho Department of Labor is to provide a level of customer service that leaves people like you encouraged and motivated for finding work. As director of the Idaho Department of Labor, I take customer service complaints seriously and am more than willing to meet with you in person about your experience.
You are not a laid off loser and I would like a chance to prove it. The Idaho Department of Labor offers a whole host of workshops for job seekers — on topics ranging from resume writing to interview skills. I would be happy to assign a job consultant to work with you on your search and I also encourage you to attend one of our upcoming online job search networking workshops. Let me know if you are interested and I’ll send you the details.
Best regards,
Roger B. Madsen, Director
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
Laid Off Loser Playlist, May 20, 2009
Click on the artist for more information. Click on the album to purchase music.
Various Artists - Pork3: Dad's Hick Mix, Vol. 3
Tito Puente and his Orchestra - Dance Mania
Hot in recession: Chocolate, Spam and cheap wine
Department of Labor representatives: Good natured in person, grumpy bastards on the phone
We're in the seventh week of unemployment here at Laid Off Loser, and along the way we've learned a few things about life on the dole.
For one, patience is a necessity. I didn't get my first benefits check until my sixth week of unemployment. One of those weeks can be attributed to human error — mine, mostly — but still, five weeks. I got mouths to feed yo.
Frustration is another. The computer tells you one thing, a human tells you another. And even after you get it right and print out your confirmation number, you somehow leave the unemployment office feeling dumber than a bag of hammers.
Some of that feeling can be attributed to how you're treated by the Department of Labor folks. They're a well-meaning, mostly helpful lot, but they're definitely quick to serve the Grumpy Cold Medina. Especially if you're dumb enough to call.
Use the phone to contact the office and you'll likely be greeted by an impatient, fast-talking, prone-to-interrupting representative who seems more interested in getting you the hell off the phone than helping you out.
Visit the office, however, and you'll likely be greeted by a friendly, courteous, patient representative who is more than willing to help you work through an issue no matter how long the line behind you gets.
Only once have I gone to the office and experienced that "Oh God, here's another village idiot with an oxcart full of stupid questions" attitude that seems mandatory for the phone representatives.
If there's a social scientist out there who can help me make sense of this, please, enlighten me. I'm guessing it has something to do with accountability — it's easier to get away with being a jerk on the phone when no one is around to hear you being a jerk.
I'm sure sitting in a cubicle answering the same six questions all day can wear on you, but shit, people, let the sunshine in a bit.
"Broadcasting" a job loss on Facebook and Twitter
Corporate psychologists agree, "writing about a job loss on Twitter or Facebook is healthy, positive and useful."
Read more here.
Laid Off Loser Album of the Day: "Furr"
Blitzen TrapperYeah, when I was only 17,
I could hear the angels whispering
So I drove into the woods and wandered aimlessly about
Until I heard my mother shouting through the fog
It turned out to be the howling of a dog
Or a wolf to be exact, the sound sent shivers down my back
But I was drawn into the pack and before long
They allowed me to join in and sing their song
So from the cliffs and highest hill, yeah
We would gladly get our fill
Howling endlessly and shrilly at the dawn
And I lost the taste for judging right from wrong
For my flesh had turned to fur, yeah
And my thoughts, they surely were
Turned to instinct and obedience to God.
You can wear your fur
like a river on fire
But you better be sure
If you're makin' God a liar
I'm a rattlesnake, babe,
I'm like fuel on fire
So if you're gonna' get made,
Don't be afraid of what you've learned
On the day that I turned 23,
I was curled up underneath a dogwood tree
When suddenly a girl with skin the color of a pearl
She wandered aimlessly, but she didn't seem to see
She was listenin' for the angels just like me
So I stood and looked about
I brushed the leaves off of my snout
And then I heard my mother shouting through the trees
You should have seen that girl go shaky at the knees
So I took her by the arm
We settled down upon a farm
And raised our children up as gently as you please.
And now my fur has turned to skin
And I've been quickly ushered in
To a world that I confess I do not know
But I still dream of running careless through the snow
An' through the howlin' winds that blow,
Across the ancient distant flow,
It fill our bodies up like water till we know.
You can wear your fur
Like a river on fire
But you better be sure
If you're makin' God a liar
I'm a rattlesnake, babe,
I'm like fuel on fire
So if you're gonna' get made,
Don't be afraid of what you've learned
I could hear the angels whispering
So I drove into the woods and wandered aimlessly about
Until I heard my mother shouting through the fog
It turned out to be the howling of a dog
Or a wolf to be exact, the sound sent shivers down my back
But I was drawn into the pack and before long
They allowed me to join in and sing their song
So from the cliffs and highest hill, yeah
We would gladly get our fill
Howling endlessly and shrilly at the dawn
And I lost the taste for judging right from wrong
For my flesh had turned to fur, yeah
And my thoughts, they surely were
Turned to instinct and obedience to God.
You can wear your fur
like a river on fire
But you better be sure
If you're makin' God a liar
I'm a rattlesnake, babe,
I'm like fuel on fire
So if you're gonna' get made,
Don't be afraid of what you've learned
On the day that I turned 23,
I was curled up underneath a dogwood tree
When suddenly a girl with skin the color of a pearl
She wandered aimlessly, but she didn't seem to see
She was listenin' for the angels just like me
So I stood and looked about
I brushed the leaves off of my snout
And then I heard my mother shouting through the trees
You should have seen that girl go shaky at the knees
So I took her by the arm
We settled down upon a farm
And raised our children up as gently as you please.
And now my fur has turned to skin
And I've been quickly ushered in
To a world that I confess I do not know
But I still dream of running careless through the snow
An' through the howlin' winds that blow,
Across the ancient distant flow,
It fill our bodies up like water till we know.
You can wear your fur
Like a river on fire
But you better be sure
If you're makin' God a liar
I'm a rattlesnake, babe,
I'm like fuel on fire
So if you're gonna' get made,
Don't be afraid of what you've learned
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
Laid Off Loser Playlist, May 19, 2009
Click on the artist for more information. Click on the album to purchase music.
Various Artists - Cold Heat: Heavy Funk Rarities 1968-1974, Vol. 1
Unemployed adventures in energy conservation
It was dog-balls hot in Boise on Monday, so I started my experiment in energy conservation, i.e. saving money on the electric bill this summer.
The challenge with being employed and away from home all day is properly regulating temperature in one's household. And there's nothing worse after a shitty day in the orifice than coming home to uncomfortable living quarters.
We've always been pretty good about keeping the heat low (or off) during the day in the winter, but summer is a different story. The high-desert summer temperatures get unbearable here — not Phoenix unbearable, but bad enough when your skin is used to Northern New England — and that means the A/C and ceiling fans are usually running 24/7 come July.
Not this year. One benefit of being unemployed is being home all day, and the arrangement lends itself well to a pantsless existence. Thus, I plan on striking a balance between living without air conditioning and avoiding heat stroke-induced insanity. Luckily I have a high threshold for suffering. And access to a kiddie pool and cheap beer if it comes to that.
So, yesterday morning I closed all the windows, drew all the shades and turned the house into a cave. It's damn near vampiric right now, but at 4:30 p.m., with the temperature outside 81 degrees, we're only at 71 on the Laid Off Loser Fortress of Solitude thermostat. Not bad.
Yesterday it got up to 73 in here before the sun went down and the windows went back up. I was hoping not to eclipse 70 today, but I just sauteed some vegetables. Plus I've been thinking real hard.
But tomorrow the temperature is supposed to drop and I don't plan on sauteing any vegetables or thinking real hard. And I might have the Winter Warlock over for tea and sympathy, and that motherfucker puts off a good chill.
Laid Off Loser Album of the Day: "The Silence of Love"
Headless HeroesUsed to be musicians recorded one or two songs on a lark and used the material as b-side fodder. But these days, more and more artists, particularly up-and-coming indie rockers, are releasing entire albums of cover songs. It would be a disturbing trend were it not for the knowing song selections and left-field interpretations.
Out today is a pretty good one from Headless Heroes, a New York City art/music collective. Like Nouvelle Vague, the project was puppet-mastered by a couple of producers, Eddie Bezalel and Hugo Nicolson, and executed by a hand-picked crew of musicians led by neo-folk singer Alela Diane.
Fans of Daniel Johnston, The Jesus and Mary Chain, Vashti Bunyan and others covered on The Silence of Love will be pulled in by the names, but they'll soon forget they're listening to a collection of other people's songs — despite the breadth of material, The Silence of Love coalesces like an album of originals.
Credit Bezalel and Nicolson for steering clear of karaoke and applying a singular style to the disparate source material, sticking to a lush template infused with the parched atmospherics of Mazzy Star, the breezy warmth of Beach House and the dark undertones of English folk music.
That said, expect the unexpected. While the album opens with an echoey, reverb-drenched reworking of Johnston's "True Love Will Find You in the End," The Jesus and Mary Chain's "Just Like Honey" — a song more suited to the sonics Bezalel and Nicolson employ on "True Love" — gets a crisp country-rock makeover lacking one lick of guitar fuzz.
Diane, whose rich vocals fall somewhere between Hope Sandoval and the Innocence Mission's Karen Peris, can be sultry, sweet and spooky. The same can be said for the satisfying Silence of Love. Get ready to fall for it.
UPDATED: Nancy Hubbard in today's Oregonian, video from last night's news
As we mentioned yesterday, Laid Off Loser guest blogger Nancy Hubbard is featured in today's Oregonian. Columnist Margie Boule did a nice follow-up on her original column about Nancy. Check it out here.You also can watch video of her on last night's KOIN Channel 6 news here.
And if you missed Nancy's writing for Laid Off Loser the first time around, here are quick links to her contributions:
Monday, May 18, 2009
Losers, where you at?
One of my goals with Laid Off Loser is to form a community of unemployed androids and post everyone's contact information on the site. Sort of an all-star team of the down-but-not-out, if you will.
We're calling ourselves the Laid Off Losers. You don't get a membership card or anything — or maybe you will at some point, who knows — but maybe, if this thing takes off like I hope it will, it'll help you find work. At the very least, I hope people would at least join the conversation and share their experiences as they navigate through Unemployment Land.
If you enlist, you'll be listed in the "Hire a Laid Off Loser" section in the sidebar. And I'll introduce you in a blog entry.
It doesn't matter where you live or what kind of work you do. And it won't cost you a dime, except time. However, if anyone henceforth makes a reference to the phrase "time is money," well, no harm will be visited upon you, I suppose, but just know that you're a choad.
So, where you at, people? E-mail me your contact info — Web site, Facebook link, e-mail address, whatever — and I'll post it.
Laid Off Loser Playlist, May 18, 2009
Click on the artist for more information. Click on the album to purchase music.
Guest blogger Nancy Hubbard featured in Portland, Oregon, media
Laid Off Loser guest blogger Nancy Hubbard will be on TV tonight in the Portland, Oregon, area, featured in a piece on the KOIN Channel 6 news at 6 p.m. Pacific time.She also is the subject of a follow-up column by the Oregonian's Margie Boule, which will run in Tuesday's edition.
Nancy became a Laid Off Loser guest blogger after we read Boule's original column on her. In her two days of writing for Laid Off Loser, Nancy provided insightful observations about her experiences in Unemployment Land. We hope to hear more from her in the future.
We will post the link to the news video and Oregonian column once they're available.
Friday, May 15, 2009
Laid Off Loser Playlist, May 15, 2009
Click on the artist for more information. Click on the album to purchase music.
Laid Off Loser Album of the Day: "Houses of the Holy"
Led ZeppelinDancing days are here again. Even if you're not a naked child climbing a rock formation.
Zeppelin's best album gets better the warmer and sunnier it gets. And on this splendid spring day, I don't even mind suffering through "The Crunge."
Thursday, May 14, 2009
Laid Off Loser Playlist, May 14, 2009
Click on the artist for more information. Click on the album to purchase music.
Stimulus job watch
If you're banking on the stimulus creating a job for you, there's a nice, comprehensive resource here.
It includes a timeline of the bureaucratic what-have-you, plus a bunch of useful links, including "6 Ways to Find a Stimulus Job."
While you're at it, add "stimulus package" to your list of expressions that sound dirty but really aren't.
Laid Off Loser Album of the Day: "The Essential Alice in Chains"
"Recession Culture": Maybe having no money is a good thing
There's an interesting article in New York magazine about so-called "recession culture," which explores the notion that being broke and jobless changes everything — in some cases for the good.
Because the article is in an egghead East Coast magazine, it's loooooong and full of big words. Which is way too much for me to take this morning. But I plan on revisiting the piece over my evening snifter of port. Yes yes.
If you're prone to drooling and just want the gist of the article without exerting much energy, watch an interview with the author here.
Looking for Laid Off Losers
One of my goals with Laid Off Loser is to form a community of unemployed androids and post everyone's contact information on the site. Sort of an all-star team of the down-but-not-out, if you will.
We're calling ourselves the Laid Off Losers. You don't get a membership card or anything — or maybe you will at some point, who knows — but maybe, if this thing takes off like I hope it will, it'll help you find work. At the very least, I hope people would at least join the conversation and share their experiences as they navigate through Unemployment Land.
If you enlist, you'll be listed in the "Hire a Laid Off Loser" section in the sidebar. And I'll introduce you in a blog entry.
It doesn't matter where you live or what kind of work you do. And it won't cost you a dime, except time. However, if anyone henceforth makes a reference to the phrase "time is money," well, no harm will be visited upon you, I suppose, but just know that you're a choad.
So, where you at, people? E-mail me your contact info — Web site, Facebook link, e-mail address, whatever — and I'll post it.
Meanwhile, food is getting more expensive
Great. Now that my grocery bill is going to be higher, I really have to meditate on that $20 a week Poppycock habit.
Auto layoffs to blame for rise in jobless claims
Yep, jobless claims are back up. And a new record for the number of Americans receiving unemployment benefits was set for the 15th straight week. A few more record-breaking weeks and we'll have to start talking Cal Ripken.
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
Laid Off Loser Playlist, May 13, 2009
Click on the artist for more information. Click on the album to purchase music.
Various Artists - Afro-Rock Volume One
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