40 Septembers

A strange thought occurred to me today as I headed home from an errand trip.

I know I have lamented on numerous occasions about my current jobless state, but this thought is a peculiar one, if not monumentally ...uh... trivial.

In the past 40 years, since I was 5 years old, I have never been "off" in September.

Kindergarten through senior year in high school things always started in the last days of August. In the fall after high school graduation, and after determining that I couldn't afford to go to school, I dug into my savings and started at a junior college in my home town. A year later I enrolled in my last fall semester before entering the Air Force.

Four years later I was home from military service, arriving in early November. After a few weeks I was working as a driver at a school bus company, as well as delivering for an Italian restaurant. The following September I was already in residence at Southern Illinois University, where I remained for another two and a half years, graduating mid-stream in December of 1990.

Despite the fact that it took me two years to find video production work, I did find a job not too long after graduation, again as a driver, but that time for a livery/limo service, carrying customers to and from O'Hare airport from the south suburbs. Then, in May of that year, I started as a security officer at a nuclear power plant.

Laid off a year and a half later, in January, I immediately found work at a TV station back in southern Illinois (I had applied down there amid rumors of the layoff, and interviewed immediately after I was cut loose).

In southern Illinois for two years from February that year until January of 1995, I moved down to south Georgia where I worked for four years at two different places. I did take a one week vacation in September of 1998, just a couple of months before I moved back home, but that doesn't count.

A week before Christmas, 1998, I made the move back to Chicago, where I was jobless for eight months until I got another video job at the same company — more or less — for whom I had worked in Georgia, but at a considerable cut in pay commensurate with the lower position I had accepted. That job started in August.

Little more than a year later I switched jobs again, in January of 2001, where I remained for the next eight years.

And now I'm experiencing my first September for as long as I can remember without something to do!

That may change soon, as another odd occurrence hits me as I write. My fall-back over my working years has seemed to be driving jobs. And once again, as the career prospects appear dim, I resort to the wheel. Barring any difficulties with licensing or my chosen company, I will most likely, within a week or so of this posting, begin driving a taxi cab for a living.

I sure hope there's no Louis DePalma to deal with....



°

What I Didn't Do Last Summer

Five months have passed since I was laid off from the job I had longer than any other. I planned from about the second week of unemployment to chase a couple of dreams, see if I could make any headway in the new careers, and try to generate some income from them.

And?

Not so much. Admittedly, I haven't been chasing the video production work too hard, but that's the "old" career, anyway. I've been to probably a couple dozen auditions, now, mostly for short, no-budget films. My first audition, back in May, was a personal disaster, as my combined lack of physical coordination and rhythm doomed my chances for a role even as a piece of scenery!

There was a somewhat unnerving audition for a role in a film about about men with secret gay lives, in which, I was told, would be sex scenes with nudity and "simulated sex." It sounded like a fantastic challenge, but as I was interviewed by the production team, I realized in my own head and body that I was not ready for anything like that!

All of the other auditions seem to have passed into the blur of shallow memories.

I have responded to a couple of calls for extras in no-budget short films, and have gotten some camera time. The wait is still on to see if I ever get screen time.

I auditioned last week for a stage musical at Northeastern Illinois University. I performed a comedic monologue I had downloaded, and I sang "The Impossible Dream," the signature solo from "Man of La Mancha." I joked a bit with the director, received a nice compliment from the music director on my vocal range, and learned a little bit about the play, which is about a young man who, in order to receive the inheritance from his dead uncle, must perform a list of tasks lined out by his uncle...and he must do them with the dead uncle.

I landed a part in this musical, entitled, "Lucky Stiff." And, yes, you guessed it, I landed the role of the dead uncle! I joked again with the director, asking what she must have thought of my acting and singing if I got the part of the corpse! She laughed, but then she said that the role of the corpse is quite demanding, and is onstage almost the entire time! Now it sounds as though the role of the corpse might kill me!

Exciting as this all may sound, none of it is generating any income. So I have decided to seriously investigate employment possibilities as a cab driver. It appeals to me for the reason that, as an independent contractor, I can set my own schedule and still pursue freelance video production, writing, and acting opportunities.

Check in for further updates...



°