Itinerantdaughter's Blog

A good friend of mine, City of Angels citizen and saxophone accompanist to Molly Ringwald’s jazz crooning, animates probably the only thing I watch on YouTube, short clips about a hopeful dreamer and down-and-out hero named Smigly.  Smigly was recently featured in a big article in Tina Brown’s The Daily Beast.  From writer James Gavin:

“If it pains you to see flesh-and-blood contact disappearing in a digital world, you might relate to Smigly, an average guy in search of love. Dumped by corporate America, he sits on the landing of his apartment, blowing his saxophone while a neighbor jeers: ‘You know the tune, ‘Go Get Lost’?’ He chokes on a nut, and his girlfriend won’t look up from her laptop. He becomes a ventriloquist, and gets laughs only when the dummy pees on him. The irony of his quest for human feeling is that he too is unreal; he’s just a figure on a computer screen.

Smigly is a rising YouTube cartoon series with an emotional theme: How do you survive today’s onslaught of rejection while keeping your soul intact? The show’s creator, Allen Mezquida, knows that struggle. When his career as a jazz saxophonist floundered in the late ’90s, Mezquida took up animating and entered the movie business, which repelled him. Now he funnels his conflicts into Smigly. To Don Barrozo, a trumpeter who has edited The Simpsons since its inception, Mezquida’s funny-sad nebbish is the Charlie Chaplin of the cartoon world; his walk alone, says Barrozo, ‘tells you all you need to know about Smigly’s state of mind, be it dejection or elation.'”

Allen says: “Hopefully the SMIGLY article helps spread the word…”

Read the article:

http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2010-09-03/youtubes-rising-cartoon-star/

I think Smigly’s TV station is linked on here somewhere.

PS I almost got a job recently doing (I shit you not) re-reporting.  That’s sort of what this feels like, though I have a slight edge with this topic, I think…

So I’m scarily poor and job-less (I know my father reads this occasionally, and yes, Dad, this is a veiled cry for help) and trolling around Craigslist (amongst other, less sketchy sites) looking for jobs.  I’ve pretty much been throwing my resume at anyone who provides an email address, and oftentimes I get responses from people who then fear I’m “over-qualified” for the position.  Which makes sense, because I’m pretty damn qualified.  A woman told me the other day she feared I would be “bored” at the position she’s looking to fill, and I almost felt like responding, “Well, it is a job, right?  So of course, I’d be bored.”

Ah, the plight of the unemployed “writer” who lives in Brooklyn and is tattooed!  The Times magazine is shivering with glee at the prospect of another whiny youngster with such a cynical and lazy view toward work.

This is all beside the point.

In any case, whilst perusing Craigslist, I come across some pretty interesting ads, such as the one cut-and-pasted below:

Young, 20-something high-profile female is in need of someone who LOVES to organize (apartment, closets, etc.), and assist with personal duties (errands, reservations, etc.). The perfect candidate is someone who is looking for flexible, part-time work on an “on-call” basis. If the candidate loves to clean, then more hours will be available to clean a 2 bedroom, 1.5 bath apartment and do laundry a few times each week when client is in town. Client travels and needs someone to unpack, keep apartment and closets organized, and keep this busy gal in line! Please email name, phone number, general location of residence, age/sex and a photo if available. Candidate must be very meticulous, flexible, and confidentiality is imperative. First task is organizing, taking items to resale shops and donation centers and cleaning. This will be done with client’s family member sometime in late September/early October. This could be a great job for a student who needs flexible working hours.

• Compensation: $12/hour
• Principals only. Recruiters, please don’t contact this job poster.
• Please, no phone calls about this job!
• Please do not contact job poster about other services, products or commercial interests.

This is totally for, like, Paz de La Huerta or some equally erratic “busy gal!” with delusions of grandeur, and the job probably includes sterilizing needles and wiping the watery mascara from beneath her eyes after she has a meltdown because a casting agent tells her that with her naughty rep,  disheveled public appearances and “coke bloat” she may no longer be able to play the ingenue.  For 12 bucks an hour!  So not worth the hassle.

I have adopted a new style icon as a result of reading Just Kids.  Smith writes:

“Possibly the most influential person we met at the Chelsea was Sandy Daley.  She was a warm and somewhat reclusive artist who lived next to us in room 1019.  It was a completely white room; even the floors were white.  We had to take off our shoes before we entered.  Silver helium pillows from the original Factory drifted and suspended above us.  I had never seen such a place.  We sat barefoot on the white floor and drank coffee and looked at her photography books.  Sandy sometimes seemed a dark captive in her white room.  She often wore a long black dress and I liked to walk behind her so as to observe her hem trailing the hallway and the staircase.

Sandy had spent much time working in England, the London of Mary Quant, plastic raincoats and Syd Barrett.  She had long nails and I marveled at her technique of lifting the arm of the record player so as not to damage her manicure.”