Hired Help

[Warning: the longer i'm unemployed the more bitter I've become]

Yawn... it's so hard to find help these days, isn't it?
A big complaint that I hear from parents (and by hear I mean overhear) is that kids are just floudering at elementary school. There's too much homework, their reading skills aren't up to par... etc... etc... I mean how can little Janey learn both English and French, and Hebrew if she goes to a Jewish day school? One mother pulled her child out of Bialik, a local Hebrew Day School, in grade one because she was worried about her child's poor reading skills.
Hrm... I happened to call my neighbour Linda Goldenblatsternowitz today in order to follow up with a connection she had for my job hunt. Seeing as she herself doesn't really work she must know someone in the working world right? Linda has two youngish boys (13+15)... so who should answer the phone? The housekeeper, of course!
What ensued is the modern day Abbot and Costello routine if Costello was a recent immigrant whose grasp of English was non-existant at best.

FH: Can you tell Linda that Jon called.
HK: Jon?
FH: Yes. J-O-N.
HK: J-O-H-N.
FH: No. J-O-N.
HK: H-N.
Finally I acquiesed.

Now my point here is not to make fun of this woman's English skills. Canada is a country built on immigration etc etc... however, when the unemployed parents of the Faux Hill sit at Starbucks lamenting how their children have poor reading skills - I often snidely think to myself, "if you spent as much time with your beloved children as your housekeeper does and less time at Starbucks maybe little Janey wouldn't have such poor reading comprehension..."

Sweatpants are the new Black

Oy... I may have to change the subheading of this blog. According to this Saturday's Style Section in the Globe and Mail: "The Lululemon era is officially kaput." AHHHHHHHHHHHHH... This blog began with the pretense of making fun of Lululemon. Is my raison d'etre suddenly finito? Finished before I even had the chance of jumping on the Lulu bandwagon. Sim Sim Sima owns a pair of Lulu's, but once she's wearing something trendy, I can safely say that the trend has undoubtedly expired.
After intellectualizing a bit over the whole situation, I came to an important conclusion: round the Faux Hill sweatpants never really went out style. Baggy Gym Master sweatpants, birkenstock clogs, and a messy-bun have been the defacto Faux Hillary uniform since local residents & owners of Roots, the Budmans, started making their classic beaver logo'd sweatpants (see photo) decades ago. At the end of the day Lululemon was simply a brief affair with a trashy, new money, Shiksa interloper from Vancouver (ew).
You might say that Faux Hill is much like the mob... we also protect our own.

Overheard... (via cellphone?)

So I've been spending a lot of time at the Office (Starbucks in Faux Hill). It's the nexus of my job search and the nexus for realizing the ridiculousness that is Faux Hill.
This morning I was stunned to witness the ultimate if Faux Hillary Hillarity - arguments about cell phones. [Sidenote: It's actually a big day for cell phones at the Two-Fer... Sim Sim Sima just got herself a brand spankin new blackberry (of course she isn't paying for it, WWSD, as if you have to ask. TDSB pays for that shit).]
If you haven't noticed, cell phones have truly become ubiqutous; I mean even the children I've tutored in Regent Park have cellies.
My favourite use of cell phones however are the unemployed mummies of the Faux Hill (ya know the kind who don't work, don't need to work). They have Blackberries. I used to ask myself why until I witnessed something so enlightening I practicaly expected JC to walk in off the street and ask for a no foam, extra hot latte.
Here's what happened to Prada (so named because of her lovely Prada rain jacket) and so overheard by yours truly as Prada happened to tell her bff Gucci (so named because of her lovely Gucci rain hat).
P: "I'm sorry I'm late. I just hit another car."
G: "What happened."
Que some story about how Prada tried to deflty manouever new suv into too small parking space with bad results.
P: "We're going to be late for our mani's." (Mani's = Manicure in Faux Hillish - the local dialect)
G: "Let's call the Spa. I need a coffee before we go."
P: "But I don't have the number!"
And to save the day, wouldn't you know it, Gucci swoops into the Louis and pulls out the Blackberry. Mani's saved... soy latte's drunk. Pay it forward, non?

But really the ultimate in cell phone antics is the cell phone bill argument. I arrived to witness Ms CEO (short blond hair, white pearl studs, tailored tasteful power suit) sitting have a morning coffee with daughter. In front of them were Roger's cell phone bills. I knew as soon as I saw them that this was going to end in disaster.
"It is your duty, as my parent, to pay for my cell phone." The daugther yelled.
"Why do you think you get an allowance?" Asked the mother.
"But I spend it on other things."
"Like what?"
"Dinner. Out. With friends."
Que argument over cell phone bills, which escalated, and I shit you not dearest readers, into tears. The daughter actually cried and accused her mother of being a bad parent. I mean my god! Instilling financial lessons in our spawn. Won't somebody please think of the children?

Clowns to the left of me, Jokers to my right...

They're filming a movie in the Faux Hill. This means that there are mildly attractive men in diesel's lurking about.
Now that summer is about to get into full gear the Village is kicking it up a notch, BAM. The patio is back to its usual display of mummies, teenagers, and the oddity who buys lunch at EdoKo, but has to have a cup of java with her tempura (Don't even get me started about this trend - something I'm closely watching and have taken to calling these women Starbetic's. AKA... they're like diabetic, but instead of glucose shots they need shots of Starbucks bevies...)
Inside Starbucks however is a completely different story. Inside, where I've taken to sitting in the laptop aisle, has almost become an office of diligent worker's who have made Starbucsk the Pomo cubicle.
The usual suspects are a convoluted group that are potentially the basic skeleton shell of a Fortune 500 Company (just ask Ken Lay).
They (We) include:
1) Donna... gotta love Donna. Donna apparently is a consultant for gender equality. She lives part time in Switzerland. Donna is fabulous.
2) The Day Traders - Nebish Jewish fellows who are learning how to day trade while living off of family income, I suspect. They're an odd sort, late thirties, who seem to flock to a much older man who is inherently more succesful then them and acts as their guru. They do, however, provide variety to the Bucks... and subsequently you get to hear lines like, "start shortrading gold; its heading for a freefall." It makes me feel like an extra in Michael Douglas's Wall Street.
3) Metrosexual Mike - I don't know Mike's real name. Mike isn't even that attractive in a conventional way... but man o' man... does Mike fill out a skimpy white v-neck t-shirt really fucking well. What does Mike do? I'm not sure to be honest. I worry that Mike could be me in the future (but with A LOT of trips to the gym to work on my biceps)... he seems to have a lot of ideas (he told Donna he was going to start a restaurant that only sold barbecue related things, it was going to be called Que. I wish him all the best.

Lost Souls - Finding a Protege

I havne't blogged in over a week. Intrepid readers may have concluded that I have a job. They'd be wrong.
Yesterday I spent five hours sitting at Starbucks with my Village informant Cam. Cam's sorta a lost soul, amongst a sea of lost souls these days... We shot the shit for hours upon end, discussing what used to be where What a Bagel is (Bayshore Trust), Bank of Montreal (Paper Ideas) the Second Cup (CC-ookies, they only sold cookies; surprise it didn't last very long). Cam then suggested that I become the Village historian... something that well... has crossed my mind once before. Once when he was drunk (which is an occurance that occurs more often then not) Cam suggested that they construct a traffic circle with a statue of me in the middle of Spadina and Lonsdale.
As more and more coffee was ingested topics veered from Faux Hill to various antics of our youthful years and we began to attract the attention of the only other patio dweller... (at 10 degrees it was rather chilly for the botoxed beauties with their bugagboo's) a 15 year-old student at the Collegiate. And in this lovely 15 year-old... I may have found myself a protege. For who else besides yours truly sits at the Starbucks patio with a leather bound journal eavesdropping on other peope's conversations? Just me... and now I may have found my straight female counterpart. The good news: she got kicked out of camp and will be around for the entire summer. The even better news - she was wearing a Forest Hill hoodie - does it get any better then that? I don't think so.

Faux in the Faux

Fine... I'll admit that I'm a complete poser whose landed in the Faux Hill by accident of his parent's good fortune to purchase in the hood pre tullip craze.
When I look around the Starbucks patio I do wonder if it's at all noticible that I'm not quite as rich as the Upper Canada old boy next to me. I mean my jeans are designer, but my Ipod's a black and white model (how embarassing).

Said Upper Canada Old Boy is wearing:
Nike Shox Sneakers: $200.00
UCC Sweatpants: approx $50.00 bucks? However... there is no way anyone can simply wear Upper Canada sweatpants unless they a) go there [tuition is $23,475.00 a year] or b) their boyfriend goes there. I attempt to make eye contact with my mark to assess if he actually goes there or if the pants belong to his boyfriend. No dice. He goes there.
Burberry Rain Jacket: $500.00
Motorolla RAZR: $400.00
Ipod 30GB Video: $379.00
Louis Vuitton Ipod case: $250.00 (although its a bit embarassing to have a Louis Vuitton ipod case)
Polo hat: $45.00

Alas... I'm just not quite as bling. I walked home in shame.

It's My Anniversary

Astute readers will have realized that it's my one year anniversary! Yes it has been only a year since this blog began out of sheer boredom and out of complete hilarity at Faux Hill; yet what a year it has been! In fact this anniversary is almost as important to me as my BirthGay (yes... I came out around my birthday and hence the two are combined into one super duper holiday!).
I'm going to try and create a year in review or something to try and help newfound readers figure out what a Gaygetz is, who exactly the Rama is and what WWSD means. We'll see if I don't find a job before this all happens.

And on that note, I gotta be in the Village for coffee. Toodles!

Mayfair

Today I travelled from the confines of the Faux Hill down to Rosed Ale... Rosed Ale is the alternate Faux Hill - pretty much the same place but without a Starbucks (Egads!) but with more WASP's. It's a trade off I guess... and sometimes to be honest I'd trade Starbucks for a Gaygetz. But I digress... as a Faux Hill boy sometimes you gotta check out the rival 'hoods and see what all the fuss is about.
Mayfair is the annual Springtime Fair held by the RosedAliens to celebrate their good fortune and raise money for local sports teams (no not for the nearby slum St Jamestown, but for themselves. Afterall Holden's hockey team needs new practice gear!). I went along with Kitty and her entire family for a day of good natured establishment fun, basically hung out with the mayor, drank beer and hung out with the future business leaders of Canada (remember that these were the same idiots that did bong hit after bong hit in university; the lines of establishment run about as deep as the Canadian Shield that your cottage sits on in Muskoka). I'll admit that I'm always a bit enamoured with Rosed Ale. I love that at the Summerhill Market you can simply say, "162 Binscarth" and sign a receipt and daddy pays for it all. It's beautiful and small-town esque and something that Faux Hill for all of our private school's and coffee shops just can't compete with. Something else the Faux Hill can't compete with - the Gaygetzym... I mean where else is yours truly going to swoon at this sentence:
"Ya Queen's has been really good for law school. It's quiet so I can practice my squash game." Jake McMaster... you had me at squash.

*

In other news A Nax, the unemployed Faux Hill cousin, will be home shortly. Antics will ensue I'm sure.
She also put a gun to my head and made me write that. Bitch.

Shhh Gossip

As Faux Hill Celebrity (TM) and general know it all... I happen to privy to much of Faux Hill Gossip. I have a team of minions who comb the Forests and Hills of the region looking for smutt on which I can report. Actually I have one friend who works at a resto in the Village and he feeds me shit about his clients. Other stuff I pick up at Starbucks.
So the latest goods and people this is hot off the press is that a certain rakish gentleman habituates the Village on certain nights with his mistress and on other's with his wife...
And for those who think the Faux Hill is too harsh a name for these parts - I suggest you reconsider.

The Bible

Sociologically... the Village is odd. 50% yid and 50% WASP the two solitudes are neatly divided by the regions only thoroughfare, Spadina, which cuts a broad swath down the middle of Faux Hill separating the upwardly mobile Yids to the West and the Landed Gentry WASP's on the Eastside. Both groups mingle sans much trouble in the Village; there was one time when I thought a group of WASP's and JAP's were going to recreate a scene from West Side Story (When you're a JAP you're a JAP all the way, from your first Louis Vuitton to your last dyin' day), but then I realized they were politely waiting for the light to change. In fact I'm propossing someone dispatch me to Northern Ireland to help with peace talks... there hasn't been an uprising round these parts since the great Botox Scare of 1999. This cultural sensitivity is perhaps best personified by Starbucks, which round 'Holiday' sells both Christmas themed shortbread cookies AND some which commmemorate the Eight Crazy nights...
The proliferation of Jews in the Village isn't a shocker... read any good book on Modern American Jewish history and what will you find? Well round the fifties upwardly mobile Jewish practitioners, second generation doctor's and lawyers began settling in establishment neighbourhoods as a sign of newfound wealth, and desire to escape from the Ghetto while emulating North America's WASP Gentry. As a product of this is it any wonder of my own obsession with the Gaygetz (old habits die hard dahlink's).
Philip Roth's Goodbye Columbus portray's this obsession with establishment prep in a rather popcorn-esque fashion as nouveau suburbanized Jews form country clubs and "have their noses fixed". In one particularly telling scene Roth describes the family's bar stocked with the best bottles of whiskey and champagne, all unopened of course (because in emulating the landed Gentry... we Jews don't drink - note the absence of a bar in Faux Hill - it's like prohibition here).
And so I present to you my latest purchase, pink and green argyle vans. Because does anything say establishment prep more then pink and green? Add in argyle and you have yourself establishment prep with a British flair... these shoes aren't just a purchase y'all they are a statement.

The Village Tap

I was on the phone with Kitty today; Kitty is like my Rosed Alien mother... or exactly how I picture the mother of my future Gaygetz [basically she offers me a glass of wine when I come to her with my emotional problems, then tries to hug me (awkwardly) before admitting that she just isn't that emotional].
Kitty is to Rosed Ale as I am to Faux Hill... aka underemployed, bitter and simply enamoured with the ridiculousness of our respectively cushy lodgings.
We discussed a friend of hours who had left the family pile on Binscarth... she had found the move to be rather traumatic; Kitty empathized of course, "I'm sure I'd also be upset. If I ever left."
So what is it about Faux Hill that says you're home?
What truly warms my heart every time I laze about Starbucks pondering my directionless life is the Village Tap. The Village Tap is an elaborate dance between cars awkwardly trying to manoever around the overpopulated Village Strip. There is nothing more heartwarming then sitting on a Starbucks patio on the first day of spring and watching a Mercedes Benz shirk itself into non-existant spot.

There are 3 kinds of Village Tap:

1) Geriatric Tap
- generally an old man/woman in a ginormous American built Buick who has no concept of how far back the car actually extends
- Although generally excusable "they're old! they're confused!" Watch out, the Geriatric Tap is exceptionally dangerous not only to your fender but also to pedestrians walking on the sidewalk. Geriatrics aren't only about harming other cars... they're also about jumping the curve.

2) SUV Tap
- this is a new breed of tap brought on by:
post-yoga samsara + caffeine/aspertame withdrawl * stressed out mothers - hired foreign help + unnecessarily large cars + the Motorolla Razr cellphone
= highly unncessary Tapping while attempting a parallel park while on the phone ordering foreign help to feed beloved children lunch even as her own headache grows from combined caffeine and aspertame withdrawl and her mouth salivates in anticipation of sharing a David's salad with similarly unemployed friends as they discuss the uselessness of hired help. Try and do that WHILE parallel parking? Impossible!

3) The Hired Help Tap
- this is the most awkward tap
- the hired help of the Village (aka the painters, gardeners who are sleeping with your wife while you're downtown working for a large mulitnational/playing gulf and siphoning off from your trust fund) often inundate the place over the lunch hour trying to fit their vans into narrow spots vacated by post-yogga mummies hurrying to the Summer Sale at Holt's
- exceptionally awkward because this Tap raises horrible issues of social class that no one wants to talk about - Dude it's Canada

Today as I biked through the Village I witnessed all three kinds of Tap and thought to myself, "I truly would miss this if I ever left."

Craigslist!

Because I'm a) weird b) unemployed and c) a hopeless romantic I read the Craigslist Missed Connetions just about every day... in the hopes that one day someone will write a Craigslist Missed Connection about me: You - stunningly attractive boy at Starbucks in the Forest Hill Village - we exchanged smiles accross the patio... Me - Jake Gylenhaal esque...

Well... Imagine my surprise as I perused the MC's this weekend:

ForestHill 2ndCup ~ just b4 10am ~ light? - m4m - 48

---

Reply to: pers-157976105@craigslist.org
Date: 2006-05-05, 9:31PM EDT


I lit you once, I lit you twice.
You, great pockets, a smoke & 3 coffees. Very sexy accent...
Me, my coffee, my Drum, my glasses...


May I light you thrice?

~
No... he wasn't referring to me reader's [uhm... I only do Starbucks] but a Missed Connection in the Faux Hill and a gay one at that!
Love is in the air!

If You Can't Beat 'Em, Join 'Em

In regards to being unemployed and sans Gaygetgz... I've taken to wearing shorts. Madras shorts. If you can't find a gaygetz... might as well emulate one.

Unemployment...

They are renovating a house down the street (no surprise really... people NEED space for sub-zero's these days) and it happened that in my unemployement I've gotten to see the happy home owner out and about, directing construction workers, directing the gardener (a kept woman of the Faux Hill does a lot of ordering; her entire life is basically a giant life size Starbucks outlet) and well... let's just say that she's used to having work done and I'm not only talking about the house. ZING!
So... what's my point here? There exists in this world a whole underclass of those who don't work, do so by their own choice and are still indepentely wealthy enough that they don't even need to look for a job!
It so happened that I've been hanging out a fair bit in the Rosedale Village (mostly circumstatial and partially practical - I mean if I'm going to meet a gaygetz... I better start hanging out in WASP territory - non?). Today I happened across a member of the Pussy Posse, who as a gang are not really known for doing much other then sitting and drinking coffee; this man, whom I'll call Jesse Raphael, (named for his prediliction of red reading glasses), was sitting with another gaggle of unemployed Rosed Alien men. My first reaction was - SLUT! - how dare he cheat on the pussy posse... but then I realized this wasn't really cheating. This man has literally nothing else to do but sit at various Starbucks's (and can we as a society please think of a better plural for Starbucks?) and gab with other unemployed yet independently wealthy men.
Whenever I mention this independently wealthy syndrome to my mother, Sim Sim Sima, who then reminds me that I am not of independently wealthy means and that I better get a job. I hear Starbucks is hiring...

Backstreet's Back Alright

Now throw your hands up in the air - wave 'em around like you just don't care...

Ya know how on the OC Ryan and Marissa are like always getting back together, fighting, breaking up and its a vicious cycle of Marissa getting into drugs/alchohol/lesbianism and waiting for Ryan to come save her whilst you the viewer are always sitting there yelling at the TV and being like, "fuck Ryan for the love of G-d ditch the twig and come live with me"? Ok maybe that's just me...
Well dearest readers... I'm back... It's May 2006 and I'm unemployed and potentially friendless... yes that's right that whole blip of becoming an advertising maven was a complete and utter joke - I'm all about the words and potentially about making Faux Hill Village t-shirts (because what's a gay jewish yid supposed to do other then become a fashion designer, natch).

In short:
- The jock got dumped - :(
- I renamed my boss Cuntina Whordeiro and then quit
- The Rama attempted a comeback (because people never change and because Ryan and Marissa will always be Ryan and Marissa - the Rama will always be the Rama) - only to be told that he was last season's plot device and like any bad secondary character he won't be getting his own spin off
- I went to LA - it sucks and makes the Village look like South Compton on a good day

Stay tuned dahlink's. I'd write more but I must bank and buy a latte in the Village. Sigh...

Holla Hollah