April 12, 2010

I walk into work, am held at the front desk, and promptly told by my supervisor that I have been let go. I ask if I have done something wrong. She says, “I am killing the call center.” My company has finally made good on a longtime promise. I catch the accountant in the elevator, who gives me my last check. I do not step foot in that building again. This is the first time I have become forcibly unemployed. Every other time, I have left on my own accord. I feel lifted of a great burden. Looking for sympathy, I spend the afternoon with a coworker who was let go the Friday before. He shows me how to apply for unemployment.

April 19, 2010

One week later, I am leaving the house less and less. I never made many friends in this city, and as such, rounds of sympathy drinks have been few. Over the weekend I caught up with a friend at the farmer’s market, and we talked almost non-stop for two hours. It feels good to be out in the sunshine making human contact, doing things in the city. For a while, I feel normal. Life isn’t so bad.

April 21, 2010

I discover my unemployment has been delayed because I reported for work on the 12th, even though I didn’t work that day. I am annoyed, but I don’t need money yet; I have some savings to live off of. What I’ve heard of the Portland, Oregon job market is true: it is one of the worst in the nation. Of the few jobs posted, a surprising number of them are scams. The most popular one wants me to bring my own credit statement to the interview. I try baiting one by requesting more information about their office location and the time of the interview. I receive no return email.

April 22, 2010

I try leaving the house and go to the library for my job search. I discover that my laptop has a loose connection, which causes the screen to flicker out of focus, and become tinted green. After a day and a half, I fix the problem by shaking the computer violently. However, if I try to move the computer from my desk, the problem returns. Because I spend so much time on my computer looking for jobs, I feel condemned to my house.

April 25, 2010

My unemployment finally comes through. I will receive $116 a week. I was hoping for $200. This will not cover my monthly rent. My job search becomes more frantic.

April 28, 2010

I am officially on food stamps. The process was surprisingly easy, despite the 75 minutes I spent on a bus getting there. I’m reading a book of Chuck Klosterman essays, and a young hipster starts to chat me up about the book. I admit that I have just cracked the book, and have no strong opinions on his writing one way or the other. I feel adrift from human contact already.

May 01, 2010

Frustrated that I have not been called back for an interview, I start a blog about unemployment. Perhaps by discussing what jobs I am applying for, and why I am applying for them, I will somehow be better prepared for my inevitable interview. I discover the reason I am applying to most jobs is simple: I need money. By this point, my schedule which got me up around 9 or 10 every day has totally broken down. I sleep until 11:30 every day, apply to jobs from 1 to 5, and then spend my evenings cooking dinner, watching movies, or reading books. My housemate works at night, so I rarely see anyone during the day. My biggest accomplishment every day is going to get the mail, which is a three minute walk outside.

May 07, 2010

My dreams are becoming more intense. Last night, I dreamed that I had a unibrow like a werewolf, and I was humiliated at my high school graduation because of my deformity. I have still not received any contact that wasn’t a Craigslist scam. I am running into some difficulty because I will be attending graduate school come fall. I feel bad about lying to employers who want someone for a long-term commitment and my pride prevents me from applying to a lot of summer jobs. I don’t want to canvas for a political campaign. These are the same people I lied to while I worked downtown. Yes, I already donate to your cause. I’m not registered to vote in this state. No thanks, I already support a child in the Philippines. I feel even worse when somebody is honored to meet a generous donor such as myself. Saying “no” would lessen my karmic load.

May 10, 2010

After a series of conversations and some preliminary investigations, I decide to move to Seattle at the end of the month. There are more jobs, more contacts, more opportunities for happiness in Seattle. Also, my future roommate was only given three dates to end his lease, and May 31st was the only one that worked for the both of us. I have twenty days to make this work.

May 18, 2010

I have had two phone interviews for positions in Seattle. One was scheduled, the other woke me up. Attempting to appear adaptable, I blearily answer questions. Meanwhile my future roommate and I have discovered an apartment fitting our specifications. Things are going well until I have to pay the deposit, for which I have to borrow some money from a friend. In between all of this, I register for fall classes at graduate school. I have more pressing needs, so my return to school still seems unreal even though this is the ultimate reason I’m moving to Seattle.

May 20, 2010

Today, I have jury duty. I have never been called jury duty before, despite living in three states. I spend 90 minutes reading, and then play rummy with two ladies. I lose abominably. No one is called, and three-quarters of us are dismissed by 11 a.m. I have the whole day ahead of me, so I decide to be productive. I apply to ten jobs. One rejects me the next day, another is a scam.

May 22, 2010

Due to some bad math and documentation on my part, I discover that instead of getting $100 back from the state of Oregon on my taxes, I owe them $100. I do not need this right now, but their evidence is compelling.

May 24, 2010

My housemate’s girlfriend moves in the day after she graduates. I am happy to interact with someone during the day. She introduces me to Glee. I devour most of the season in less than a week. The show connects to me on an emotional level: I relish the fact that a show named Glee is about the disappointments of life, which in turn explores how we perform for ourselves and others. How many of my recent interactions have been framed to hide just how desperate my situation is? I try not to think about that, and focus on the positive. I have settled my housing issue. We will be moving in on June 1, but will arrive in Seattle on May 29th because that’s when my friend’s van is available. I have two more job interviews scheduled – one on the day I move in, the other the next day.

June 01, 2010

I have moved to Seattle, and have an awkwardly non-sentimental goodbye with my best friend and now former housemate. After living roughly 20 feet away from one another for five years, we will probably never live together again. My first interview is for a minimum-wage receptionist position at a local non-profit. The interview is fifteen minutes long and I am rejected the next week. My apartment is smaller than I originally expected, but is conveniently located. I spend three days re-arranging my room before I find something that works.

June 02, 2010

I interview at a local alarm company. They take issue with my desire to further my education, which has classes in the evening. The interview lasts a whole hour, and despite the fact they seem willing to work out a schedule that will work for the both of us, I never hear from them.

June 07, 2010

One of the phone interviews I had in late May was with a private high school. My graduate program is a Masters in Education, so I took the news that the initial position had been filled poorly. But they have another position available, they want to talk to me about. I have another phone interview, and although the position is only for the summer, it gets me more experience working in education. We schedule an in-person interview for later in the week. I also discover that I get unemployment in Washington, but not food stamps.

June 09, 2010

I interview at a staffing firm. After describing my interests, my job history, and my future prospects, the recruiter determines that I need to work for a moral company. She then explains I would hate most of the jobs that she has, but they work with a few non-profit organizations, which may have some openings soon.

June 10, 2010

I interview at the school. They are excited about me, but have to iron out some details before they can offer me anything. Later that day, I interview at a hotel. I am rejected, because no matter how much I want to work in a hotel, which I think would be a fun job, they always reject me. People get degrees so they can work in hotels now. I decide that I will never apply to another hotel.

June 16, 2010

Today is Bloomsday. After almost a week, I am offered a position at the school. It’s just for the summer, and I still have cash flow problems. I accept. Not all of my problems are solved, but I will not starve.

Photo courtesy of the Library of Congress

What I ended up with was text message poetry. I don’t know what exactly, but there was something about the soul-crushing authoritarian management style in my office that woke up my creative spark. Perhaps it was the hideous, vintage, clown-themed French advertisements in the break room, or the fact the company was actively trying to replace its staff with part-time workers paid two-dollars-an-hour less. Regardless, I was inspired. Armed with a creative writing background, an audience, and a means of communication, I decided to make the text message poetic.

My first attempts were all of a theme — boredom filled with allusions to games, rat mazes, and my interesting-in-an-ugly-way co-workers. Luckily, many of these poems are lost to wherever text messages go when my phone deletes them. It’s only late into my second week that my archive of poetry texts began. Apparently I was thinking about weddings, as there is no other way to explain the following:

There are plenty of lively and descriptive words, but the poem doesn’t lift from the screen in an interesting way. Also, this poem is a perfect example of the conventional structure of many of my poetry texts: an interesting idea or image, followed by pithy commentary.

A few more examples:

Over time, the poetry tightens as I grow into my constraints. With a short character count, the poems need to be concise and direct. This tone, combined with the method of delivery creates an immediacy and intimacy far different than a book of poetry. Readers feel like you wrote the text just for them. Some days, I try to pick one of my friends, and write a poem that I think will appeal just to their taste. Not all of the poems get a response, but usually when people feel particularly moved, they’ll text me and tell me. Some have even sent back an additional stanza or two. But looking at the two poems that have garnered the most praise, I’m not exactly surprised.

Sure, I was surprised at the time, but looking back, these are my most conventional poems. They have a rhythm and distinct imagery. They have a consistent tone, and don’t feel truncated like some of the other poetry. Being naturally wordy, I often struggle against the character limit. Sometimes it’s hard to contain myself, which has led to some interesting experiments. The week before Halloween, every poem had to do with a monster or some sort of fear. Several poems started off in text message format only to be expanded upon and sent in an email. The last week of November was dedicated to telling a story of sorts:

Sure, the collection lacks focus, drags toward the end, and beyond the fingernails-as-hair idea is a largely unimaginative retelling of Aimee Mullins (http://www.ted.com/talks/aimee_mullins_prosthetic_aesthetics.html), but the point was to experiment with an already experimental form. As time has gone on, I’ve played with key images or themes for a few days, or made the poems seasonal. I’ve done list poems:

And pulp poems:

And horror poems inspired by David Cronenberg:

The poetry texts have become part of my daily routine and they keep me sharp. Not only that, but I feel more connected to my friends, and I feel more attentive to the world. I’m always looking for images to draw upon, conversations to write down, turns of phrase to puzzle over. In creating my poems, I get to contemplate the relationship between my art, my friends, and my life. That, in turn, allows me to consider what I consume, how I react to it, and to learn how long ten minutes really lasts.

My first, and arguably worst, experience with the crows occurred in June of 2006. I was working for my college as a parking lot painter, and had noticed the variations in the crow’s calls. I also noticed they weren’t flying away from nearby humans, as they usually did. Unwittingly, I passed by a tree that had been deemed crow territory. Out of the corner of my eye I saw a dark shape hurtling towards my head. Instinctively I ducked. The dark shape changed direction and once again came straight for my head. I dive-rolled down a grass slope to another section of sidewalk. Looking behind me, a crow skimmed along the grass where I had been moments prior, issuing several threatening caws. I ran, and the crow gave chase for a block, until I had reached our office.

I spoke with my boss, Ed, who told me all he knew about crows. They are protective during their mating season, he said. They can remember individual humans who wrong them (several employees had been marked men for years), and they mourn the death of a chick by attacking anything that comes near them or their nest. Ed himself has rescued a few baby chicks, but the crows often would not touch the saved birds. He found the crows interesting, but to me, they were only a threat.

The next few years passed uneventfully until this past May and June, when I have been plagued by crows. I live within a mile of my work, so I walk to my office every morning. Usually, I have the freedom to wander through the many blocks and neighborhoods that lie between me and my job. During my walks this spring I began noting the crow’s behavior, not wishing to reprise my first attack. In late May I began to hear the deeper calls of the crow, so I avoided certain streets. In the first days of June, I thought that their nesting had finished and I thought the crows had cordoned themselves off to four square blocks. But then, a block away from my work, two crows followed me down the street, then swooped and cawed, threatening me away from their trees. I began avoiding that section of street.

Block by block, I altered my path to work. I was chased for a block by crows who had staked out the tallest tree in the neighborhood as their own. Other families of crows would hear the calls a block over so that one particular morning I walked through a swooping gauntlet of black wings and hateful crow calls. Finally, only one route lay open to me. For a week, I was restricted to that one certain path, unable to deviate for fear of crows.

Being inside did little to assuage my fears. I could feel the crow’s beaks and claws on my shoulders, in my scalp. I imagined their claws searching, stuck, as I fled down the street. For hours afterwards, I was prisoner of imagined injuries. I hated that these simple creatures had awakened a primal fear of flying predators in me. Even in our modern age, I could fall victim of wild animals.

Without a car, I had no refuge from the crows outside. I feared walking to the store or for pleasure. I didn’t know where the crows nested in all the different neighborhoods. I didn’t know any safe zones. My diet suffered because I couldn’t go to the store as often.

But time spent with friends gave me valuable knowledge. I learned that they rarely attack two people, and that I could use clapping as a weapon. The crows are cowards, so they attack from behind whenever possible. I have traversed several blocks walking backwards, clapping at the crows, spinning around as the crows hop from power line to power line, trying to out-flank me.

The crows found other victims. One morning I saw three dead birds — each mutilated by crows, the holes in their body a testament to the violence of the black beaks. The crows also suffered. I saw their frayed shapes against the sky — feathers torn by countless battles as they attacked every passing threat. Paranoid and drunk with exhaustion, even their calls were ragged as they tried to summon the effort to dive at me. I saw crows turn on crows, battling for survival, trying to stake out the best territory.

In my yard, there is a large pine tree that litters the lawn with useless pine cones. It also harbors a family of crows. Because I have done no harm to this particular family, they have stayed silent, content to let me enjoy sunny afternoons on my balcony in peace. Not long ago, during a dinner with friends, these crows cawed all evening. Frustrated, I stormed out to the balcony, intending to frighten them off. My presence was enough to startle them, but they didn’t flee far. They were concerned for their nest in the tree. It was then that I saw the face of a raccoon peeking out at me, his back a red pelt of scratches. He did not seem deterred from his dinner, and I left nature to do as it would.

It is only as summer has approached that the crows have settled down. Their chicks have hatched, and the birds are busy feeding and nursing them. The streets have grown silent, so I can go to the library and buy groceries in peace. There are still a few aggressive bastions, but I know the signs and can avoid them. I have my weapons and my wits. I am a veteran of this avian war.

I found the way of organizing information outside the context of the original website to be alienating, and prohibitive of further browsing. The design of the RSS feed creates an unnecessary barrier between the reader and the author for the sake of convenience. As a result, I no longer felt like part of an online readership for many of the sites I used to frequent and, in some cases, found myself laughably out of touch with the sites that kept me up to date on current events.

The layout of my RSS feed doesn’t specifically prevent me from in-depth reading, rather the design attempts to encourage it. The layout of my RSS feed looks like this.

This is the ideal format, but not the standard. Often when reading personal blogs hosted by Blogger, the settings on an individual blog will collect images at the top in a header, or force me to click through to a separate tab to view the full content. However, in this format the headlines are bold, and often times I find that I will simply browse from headline to headline and not read a word of the accompanying article.

The worst crime of this layout is the little numbers that sit beside each feed. Originally, I started using the RSS feed to make browsing my favorite websites quick and easy, and I could catch up when I missed a day or two. But when the posts are assigned a numerical value, I find that I’m more driven to simply browse through everything briefly just to say I finished reading all the posts, rather than whole heartedly browse to my heart’s content. Those little numbers make reading a chore.

Another crime of the RSS feed is divorcing the content from context. Admittedly, the RSS feeds eliminate bulky layouts and annoying flash ads, but it also doesn’t allow me to see comments or encourage me to open links. Not only that, but I have to make sure updates to Flash have also been performed in the RSS reader, or else some content won’t display right.

I realized the problems of my RSS feed when I started reading a physical newspaper during my breaks at work. After making as much headway as possible on The New York Times crossword puzzle, I would flip through the rests of the Arts section, then move through the rest of the paper. I previously had the Seattle Times as an RSS feed, but the updates were so frequent that it was useless. Google News isn’t much better, and only offers you links to other articles anyway. I found I was more willing to flip through the physical paper and actually read the articles than I was online. Something about that format of the modern newspaper is simply more conducive to in-depth browsing than an RSS feed.

Admittedly Google News still has a place in my daily on line reading, but often outside my RSS feed. I found that even in Firefox, I was more likely to likely to continue reading a website than in FeedDemon. I started experimenting with my reading by browsing as much as I could outside of my RSS feed. I found that I was much more willing to catch up on other websites, but when I wanted to weed through a great deal of posts quickly to make sure I caught everything, the RSS reader worked like a charm. For collecting and sifting through information, RSS feeds are ideal. But as a primary lens for the internet, it is very, very poor.

However, I find I get more out of a physical copy of the paper than I do a website. I read articles to the fullest extent, trust the author more, and don’t try to cross-reference facts. The presentation of the information is more authoritative, while the internet is still tinged with despair as newspapers keep trying to solve the problem of attracting devoted readers and making them pay for the content. As it stands now, most websites are cluttered hodgepodges with poor design and information overload. I cannot conveniently flip to the Sports section; I have to dodge other headlines and clumsy navigation to get there Visually speaking, it’s not nearly as appealing, either.

Design matters because it dictates how information is presented to us—it can draw us in, or it could turn us away. I’m still working to find out what works best for me, but for those who claim to be platform blind–”the iPhone is just as good as a computer!”–you are obviously stupid.

This is shortly followed by a lightning bolt of self-awareness. What the hell is wrong with me?

I am singing the obnoxious Kate Perry hit “I Kissed a Girl,” and I don’t really feel all that bad. Yes, I am plenty aware that this song is utter bubblegum tripe manufactured by robot-like pop starlets, themselves churned out by massive record studios. I know that the record companies rely on the mass-produced images of girls like Kate Perry to pressure insecure teenage girls into buying the latest star-endorsed products. There’s also some distinct evidence these pop idols push young girls into possibly dangerous dieting activity, not to mention exploiting women’s sexuality at a point in time when most of the girls don’t have a full grasp on their bodies. I know many of these troubled teenagers are the same ones who grew up to become the people in college that I couldn’t strand, who spent their Friday and Saturday nights drunkenly bumping and grinding in some dark and sweaty basement of a frat house. When asked why they do this every week—to music I well know helped make them the vapid air heads they are—they respond with a hair flip and “cause I just gotta dance!”

I know theoretically there is better music out there. But I haven’t found it.

Living in Seattle, a place where the Mayor is actively trying to make a haven for burgeoning musicians, you’d think there would be some great local bands for me to go and try out. You’d have a good point, and I would take you up on that offer, if I had any inkling about music. I know next to nothing about music. I know the words: notes, chords, rhythm, and tempo, but I have little idea what they actually mean (I blame a lack of formal music education).

It all boils down to the same thing anyways—what I don’t like and what I do like. Like any music-loving person, I like music that invokes a certain feeling, that carries me away with it. I have music that I use specifically when writing, that I use for hanging out for friends, for walking, for parties, and then for novelty. But there is a vast difference between Brandon the music idiot and the rest of my peers.

Largely, I’ve found that people my age who are really in to music also happen to be hipsters, and as such, many of them listen to hipster music, which is too often either lo-fi whining or douche rock to my ears (how can ten different bands have the exact same vocals?). In their attempt to convert me to their Pabst Blue Ribbon-drinking ways, I get recommended artists that “will really change your life, man.”

No, Sigur Ros did not change my life, it gave me a headache. While I found much of the soundtrack of Garden State pleasant, trying to listen to a whole album of the Shins or Iron and Wine just made me jittery. The “lets talk about feelings” singer-songwriter types? I like Glen Hansard, and that is mostly because he made a movie. The Moldy Peaches? Mouldering lyrics, say I.

I want something that rocks and rocks unabashedly. Bouncing up and down in an awkward shimmy in your skinny jeans with your god damned over-sized sun glasses while a acoustic guitar-playing beardo whispers into a microphone is not rocking out. That’s what passes as energy in some places, and that is why I will always hate what the hipsters have done to music.

For every decade, music helped define social movements and subcultures. The counterculture movement of the ’60s and ’70s was underscored by the pioneering of the Rolling Stones, the Beatles, Jimi Hendrix, and Pink Floyd. As that movement floundered with Watergate and the end of the Vietnam War, the rise of escapist music like glam, disco, and punk all gained traction. Through the ’80s, as the American public tried to shake off the Soviet Union, they turned to new wave, the burgeoning electronica scene, and hair metal. There’s usually a scene for everybody, no matter what you’re in to.

What do we have for this decade? Traditional rockers leave me bland—U2 doesn’t blow me away and neither does Dave Grohl anymore. Much of hard rock is filled with maudlin angst, and electronica has yet to find that nice balance of seriousness and fun. I pine for music that doesn’t seem to exist, that articulates my current life experiences in a meaningful fashion but is also musically accomplished. Apparently, this is too much to ask, and instead, I tread down the dark path of pop music.

I like pop music like I like fast food. I know it’s bad for me, but I have a hard time resisting. The music is honest in its transparency. “I Kissed a Girl” is obviously a song glorifying bisexual experimentation, mainly aimed at pushing an envelope that doesn’t really exist anymore. With pop music, I do not have to interpret what the three minutes of Tibetan throat singing symbolizes to the artist’s creative vision, as per compared to the rest of an album filled with break up songs, because there is none. There is just three and a half minutes of a steady, catchy beat and an infectious chorus.

It’s not deep, it’s not new, but it’s enjoyable. And I’ll keep doing it until someone finally turns me on to the music that will really change my life, man.

I was considering replacing surrealist Russian novelist Mikhail Bulgakov, author of Master and Margarita and my team’s goalie, with crazed Objectivist Ayn Rand. I wasn’t working on a real fantasy league or the local little league schedule or anything that mattered. I was funneling all of my creative energy into the claustrophobic foosball league I had created with my two housemates. It was then that I realized I needed to get a handle on my life.

Courtesy of the American Memory Project

My obsession with foosball began after my college career ended in mid-May. Following graduation, half of my housemates moved out and only we three post-collegiate males, all basement dwellers, remained.

Peter had brought his foosball table up from Portland, which gave us something to do after selling our Wii. The table lived in the “War Room,” an extra entertaining room that solved a lot of house drama earlier that semester. Besides the foosball table, the room contained a semi-working Air Hockey table (we had no puck or paddles), and rasterized posters of The Stig and Vladimir Lenin.

Our obsession started simply enough: When we didn’t have anything better to do, it was foosball time. Then, it was something to draw us out of our rooms into the better-lit upstairs. It wasn’t long before foosball was the default option any time two of us wandered into the same room. We played foosball after episodes of The Wire, while waiting for dinner to cook, and immediately after dinner. We played best out of three, best out of five, and round-robins. We had nothing else to do, why not hone our skills? Why not try to get good enough to win a little money in bars someday?

Instead of applying for jobs and looking for housing, I played foosball. When I wasn’t playing foosball, I was thinking about foosball. In late May and early June, we all had enough graduation money to live comfortably without work. School was over, so this became our last summer vacation. Foosball filled the void in our lives, vacated by all of our working friends.

Time dragged on, and our madness deepened. What’s the name of your team? The name of your stadium? Your entry music? Who’s on your roster?

After an embarrassing shutout as the Yorba Linda Nixons, comprising Spiro Agnew and his 1972-74 cabinet, my team was reborn as the San Diego Fighting Flamingos, stocked with prominent literary figures. Mikhail Bulgakhov tended goal, flanked by the Romantic Defenders, John Keats and Lord Byron. The Modernist forwards were Ezra Pound, Wyndham “Blast” Lewis, and Ernest “The Bell Ringer” Hemingway.

Amazingly, my team was by far the least obscure. The Chicago NecroFlappers and the Portland Spotted Balls filled out the Kremlin Foosball League (KFL). Combining Matt’s love for death metal and ‘30s films, the NecroFlappers were an all-female team employing classic movie sirens like Barbra Stanwyck, Greta Garbo, Anita Page, Joan Crawford, and Norma Shearer (and those are just the ones you might’ve heard of). The Spotted Balls featured either vicious dictators like Fulgencio Batista and Juan Peron or obscure military heroes like Dutch Admiral Michiel De Ruyter and Roman General Scipio Africanus.

Competition was vicious, and on more than one occasion, one team’s loss aroused a pouting grudge match the next day.

Courtesy of the American Memory Project

We tried to draw others into our mad ways, explaining the importance of charisma on a team of lifeless plastic figures skewered on metal poles. I can only imagine the wide-eyed stares our friends gave each other after they left our house, wondering if we realized how tenuous our grip on reality had become.

Eventually, we grew bored of our rosters and began dreaming up expansion teams, trades, and drafts. We set up a white board listing all the players and other pertinent information, so that whoever wasn’t playing could give color commentary.

I’m sure that other people would have played with less enthusiasm, but as it stood–occasional visits from the LA Drug Lords and the San Francisco Center Lines notwithstanding–we were the only regular players in the KLF.

But then came my moment of clarity: What was I doing?

If I kept going without a job and without a new lease, I would be too broke to move. I needed to dig myself out of a rut. With reckless abandon, I threw myself at my housing problem and job search. I scoured Seattle neighborhoods for reasonable apartments and tried to read between the lines of their staged photos and muddled language. I wrote and re-wrote cover letter after cover letter, applying to five, six, seven, sometimes ten jobs a day. These spurts of energy ebbed and flowed; sometimes, the greatest thing I did in a day was taking out the trash.

My work paid off, and I moved from Tacoma to the Seattle neighborhood of Ballard–away from the foosball table. After more searching and interviewing, I finally landed a job.

I no longer fear the shameful discussion of personal finance around my housemates; I no longer need to buy the cheapest bread I can find; and soon, maybe, I can afford to go out for a drink with friends on a Friday night. But these are victories for the future.

Right now, I’m just happy that I don’t want to play foosball. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have galactic domination to attend to.

Courtesy of the American Memory Project

In the two years between albums, it’s obvious that Girl Talk, née Gregg Gillis, has learned a few new tricks. Animals offers recognizable pop samples paired with more obscure rap lyrics. As a result, the mixture is fresher than Night Ripper and doesn’t sound like someone wildly changing radio stations. The pace of the album is also more comfortable, allowing for the occasional lull before cranking the energy back up.

Thankfully, Gillis doesn’t kill most of his good sounds in embryo, as he did before. It hurt me deeply that Smashing Pumpkin’s “Today” only got, like, ten seconds on the whole of Ripper, while the maddening ear-aching sounds of Gwen Stefani’s “Hollaback Girl” and the Black Eyed Peas “My Humps” dominated whole tracks. Here, the best beats, like the surprisingly amazing Kelly Clarkson/Nine Inch Nails/MC Hammer combination, are granted nearly a full minute.

But in my two-year wait for something new, I explored more of the mashup world. Now, I’m not quite satisfied with Girl Talk’s huge new release on an artistic level. In 53 minutes, there are many good mashups, but they last a single minute, if not less. You don’t have time to get tired of the song, but you don’t have much time to enjoy it either. Gillis has skills, but ultimately, something this large and expansive becomes more novelty than innovation. It’s fun to play Name That Tune (although somewhat cheapened by the Wikipedia entry), but beyond acting as a diversion, the music doesn’t say much.

Lesser-known mashup artists have had varying success combining music and turning it into something wholly different.

On one hand, there’s DJ Doc Rok’s The Biggie Hendrix Experience. This scant ten song, 29-minute album of the Notorious BIG/Jimi Hendrix made me realize that Biggie was a reprehensible human being, and that Jimi Hendrix truly was a guitar god worthy of all his praise. There’s also DJ BC’s attempt at pairing rappers with the works of Philip Glass. I’ll let that speak for itself…

But there is hope.

The King of the Mashup, in my mind, is DJ Earworm. Like Girl Talk, he plays mainly live sets, but the handful of songs he’s released on his website have been astonishing. Instead of the usual pop/rap mix-up fodder, Earworm tries to stay away from rap.

“I hate using rap. Rap’s too easy,” he said in a San Francisco Bay Guardian article.

Courtesy of the American Memory Project

In “No One Takes Your Freedom,” he samples the Scissor Sisters, the Beatles, George Michael, and Aretha Franklin to create a narrative about lost love. He re-contextualizes each style of music to convey a message that was present in each song, but always second fiddle. Earworm united these diverse artists in a way that was not possible before.

Sure, he’s dabbled with the Girl Talk like mega-mixes (“The United States of Pop” features Billboard’s top 25 singles for 2007 in just over five minutes), but most of his songs have just a handful of musicians. The songs themselves have recognizable intros, verses, choruses, and even key changes. He wrote a whole textbook about the art of the mashup, which builds its foundation from actual music theory. He’s operating on a different level by changing the scope of his music.

Though Gillis flirts with themes and narratives in his work, Girl Talk is largely a novelty in a field that is slowly moving towards something else, something new. DJ Earworm is already out and about in San Francisco innovating evenings for clubbers. This music just doesn’t sound good; it says something. And that makes all the difference.