Yello

I applied at a bewildering assortment of places for an increasingly bizarre selection of jobs and was always rejected. I applied to be a butler in a clothes store in Soho. The store was available for shopping by appointment only and my job would be to wear a tuxedo and try to keep a straight face when the customers asked if that pair of socks was really $300, and I’d have to explain that it was really $300 per sock. Not having a downtown, artboy, fashion model look, I didn’t get that job. Just as well – wearing a tuxedo in the hell that was New York in the summer would’ve been just too much. I applied for a job as a messenger for a stocks and bonds newsletter company in the financial district. The guy that interviewed me pointed out that I was new to the city and couldn’t possibly know all the streets, especially in the confusing downtown section where they did most of their business, which was settled and named before they realized a grid pattern of numbered streets and avenues would be a much better idea. I pointed out that they had recently invented something called a map that would help me and besides I was young and strong and eager and I’m sure I could do a good job blah blah blah. Then he launched into a tirade about how his son – also an only child, about my age – had gone off on his own to the city because he felt sheltered and thought he wanted to challenge himself and try to make it on his own because he thought he was spoiled but what he really did was break his poor mother’s heart and couldn’t I see what I selfish jerk I was for not staying at home and so on for fifteen minutes.

Whatever.

I applied for a job as a diamond sorter. Didn’t get it. I applied for a job that was mysteriously vague in the ad (always a bad sign) and, when I got to the appointed place and time, discovered a room full of people also wondering just what they were doing there. A well-dressed young woman came in and gave a motivational speech about how she used to be poor and black and homeless and, thanks to this wonderful business opportunity, had become rich and pretty and white and how we could all do the same thing if we just had the right attitude. What the mind could conceive, the body could achieve and so on. Meanwhile, she handed a small cushion to the person closest to her, asked that they sit on it for a moment, and then pass it to the next person. While she continued with her motivational speech, I watched as the cushion made its way around – or, rather, under – each person in the room. As each person sat on it, their face would register surprise and alarm, and they’d quickly pass it to the next person, who accepted it gingerly. It finally made its way to me and, hesitantly, I placed it under my buttocks and sat down. Immediately, the pillow started vibrating violently. It was not an altogether unpleasant experience, in fact, under the right circumstances, it could actually be quite pleasurable, but a group job interview was definitely not the right circumstance, and I quickly passed it to the next person, who took it as though I was handing her a turd. Turned out we were being groomed to be door-to-door vibrating pillow salesmen and, according to our spokesmodel, the streets of midtown were lined with gold. All we had to do was walk into an office, demonstrate our superior product to some of the secretaries, and soon retire to our penthouse overlooking Central Park. Right.

I also applied for a job as a photofinisher in a custom photo lab. This was actually a job I had some experience in, having not only studied photography in high school, but also having worked for a summer printing photos for the National Music Camp. The interview went very well, we got along great, they were impressed with my experience and my personality, and I rode the #2 train back downtown, convinced that I finally got a job.

I didn’t.

Things were getting desperate. I was out of money. A check my mom had sent me never came because she thought I lived at 208 E 23rd Street instead of 208 W 23rd Street – a one-letter mistake that took nearly a month to sort out. She and Frank were (finally) getting married and I was coming back home for the wedding, and there was the implication being made that, if I didn’t have a job by that time, I wouldn’t be allowed to come back after the wedding. Now, I was an adult and didn’t need my mother’s permission for anything, but I did need a little financial help during these uncertain times and, without that – and her help with an airline ticket – my chances of returning to New York were virtually nil. So, discouraged, I picked up the next week’s Village Voice and pored over the ads, circling and calling like mad.

I had several interviews, the weirdest one by far being at something called a stat shop. I had no idea what a stat shop was, but I called them anyway and they told me to come on in, they needed counter people and no particular experience was necessary. The interview was terrible. The man who questioned me asked if I knew what a photostat was and I briefly tried to fake it, but knew I couldn’t really, so I admitted that I didn’t. He asked me a couple of quick math questions, which I did alright on, and then the owner came in to ask me some questions. Well, one question. “What color would you paint your bathroom?” I stared at him, not sure I had heard the question correctly.

“Come on, come on, I’m a busy man,” he barked.

“Uh, black and yellow with a little purple neon trim around the mirror,” I sputtered. I have no idea why I said that, as it certainly isn’t a bathroom treatment I would favor, but there it was. He snorted derisively and walked out of the room. The assistant manager thanked me for coming in and I mechanically thanked him back and shook his hand, but I knew I had blown the interview and walked dejectedly back to my apartment, which was only about six blocks away. I took a deep breath and made some more calls and went on a few more interviews, none of them particularly promising, and I tried to come to grips with the fact that I wasn’t going to be able to live in New York with Eric anymore, and would have to spend the rest of my days holed up in my mom’s house in Michigan, staring forlornly out the window at the endless fields of snow, my life a complete failure.

That weekend, the phone rang, and I picked it up.

“Hello, is Chris there?”

“Speaking”

“Hi, Chris, it’s Stuart, and I just wanted to let you know you got the job. Be here Monday at 9:00am. Thanks.” Click.

I got the job! I leapt up and grabbed on to Eric and we danced around the apartment. I got a job! I don’t have to leave! I can stay here and everything’s going to be alright! He was nearly as psyched as I was, and asked what job I got.

I stopped.

Oh my god, I have no idea. I went on half a dozen interviews and met twice as many people and all their names immediately slipped off the back of my head as soon as I heard them. Stuart? Who the hell was Stuart? I tried hard to think, but couldn’t come up with it. Oh, shit. I can’t believe it. I finally get a job but I don’t know which job and if I don’t show up at the right place on Monday morning, then I’m sure to be fired. I can’t call the numbers from the ads back because it’s the weekend, so I’ll just have to pick a place and get there early enough so that if they don’t know who I am or what I’m doing there then I can still get to one of the other ones only a little late. That cuts my chances down from 1 in 6 to 1 in 3, but those’re still pretty bad odds. Shit.

Monday morning came, and I decided to go to the place I liked the most and hope for the best. Despite the terrible interview, the place I liked best was the stat shop just a few blocks away – it seemed to have the most interesting people working there – so I had a quick breakfast and made my down 22nd Street, past the Flatiron Building (my favorite in New York), and to the stat shop. My heart in my throat, I took a deep breath and walked into the store and stood nervously at the counter, the clock reading 8:45. A big man with a beard and a gruff demeanor looked up at me accusingly. I swallowed.

“You must be Chris,” he said.

I grinned, assuring him that I was.

“You’re early. I like that. Welcome to the SMP Graphic Service Center. I’m Kip, the manager, come on around the counter and we’ll get you started.”

That afternoon when I got back to my apartment, I found my mom’s check had made its way through its tortuous journey, the envelope decorated with an impressive array of stamps and handwritten directions. I cashed it and, giddy with excitement, went out for dinner and a little shopping with Eric.

Ever since we had first arrived in the city, I had been seeing ads announcing the grand opening of a giant, flagship Tower Records in the Village. Although the temptation to go there was great, I vowed not to step foot into the store until I had a job, knowing I would be unable to resist buying something and also knowing that I was on as bare a budget as I could be, with everything short of food and rent and subway tokens (and an occasional dime bag from the pot store uptown) being an extravagant luxury. Cash in hand and name on a W-4, I eagerly coaxed Eric into that wondrous hall of music, impossibly large, incredibly well-stocked, overwhelmingly cool. I stood in the doorway and looked around, trying to decide where to start, practically fainting with excitement. I had done it. I was a fucking New Yorker. I was home.

Having arrived in New York with no address and no assurance I would be able to stay, I only brought along the bare necessities. That meant clothes and toiletries and a few tapes, but no stereo. Eric had a tape deck, and we lived on that for the first few weeks. Although I hated buying prerecorded tapes for their notoriously bad sound quality and linear playing mode (no easily skipping to a later track), I really wanted to get something new that I could hear right away, so I reluctantly bypassed the gigantic record floors and went into the basement where the tapes were kept. I poked around a little bit, and came across the latest release from Yello, called You Gotta Say Yes to Another Excess. Having been intrigued by bits of their first two albums, I decided to give them one more chance, and I bought the tape and stuck it in my pocket, and we walked back uptown to our apartment through the – finally – cooling evening air.