All But Fired

I'm not sure I get it, Horace. Are you close to losing your job? Have the powers that be actually said anything concrete?

Couldn't you have suggested a different position? Reach-arounds, etc?

does this mean you've lost celebrity status? enquiring minds want to know...

i want to know...

I've been freelancing entertainment stories at the daily paper here for two years. On the music side, where I've done most of my work, it's been under a guy who's been doing it for 12 years, the guy who invited me to ditch the local weekly in the first place and come write for him. In the time since I switched to the dark (but more lucrative, natch) side, my role has been essentially handling the dregs that my, uh, mentor deems beneath him and catching all of the last minute stuff. Like interviewing Joe Cocker on 30 minutes notice and turning the story around immediately (and doing a bang-up job too, I might add). I've also been free to scrape up whatever else I can find and have done my most satisfying work there. My mentor, I should add is also a freelancer, though his dayjob is high up spot on the paper's corporate end. He, by his own admission, does the music writing merely as a hobby. A hobby that brings in at least $1000/month plus free CDs. I do this because writing is the only thing, other than line cooking, I can do to keep Horace-body and Horace-ghost united.
My mentor thinks I have a bad attitude, which is sort of correct, because I don't think I'm lucky as all get-out to be doing this. I'm not without ego, but I'm also not going to waste my time with false modesty. I've worked damn hard to become a good writer, and I have earned whatever etcetera I have. But how happy would you be to be barraged with nothing but the lowest-rung of travelling musicos or stress-filled last-minute phoners. But my bad attitude and cynicism have never been reflected in my work. I'm a pro and, while I don't take music or entertainment journalism very seriously, I take my work dead seriously and do a damn good job.
But since May, my mentor, who is the contact person of record with all publicists and record labels, has even stopped giving me the shit jobs. I've confronted him about several times, and he's always sort of hemmed and hawed and said he wasn't aware that I felt like that and promised to be more conscientous. But now he's eliminated me from the loop. He passes on whatever he doesn't want to the Entertainment Editor (who, for the record, has been very supportive and appreciative) who then passes them on to me. I called him and asked him what was up with that and he said he feels more comfortable doing it that way because he doesn't know what I want to do anymore. Basically, he said that he's taking back the music content for himself.
I WANT TO MAKE MONEY! I'm here to do a job, dammit. This isn't a hobby, I don't get any ego gratification out of interviewing some sad Nickelback wannabe from Weltschmerz, Alberta who will be back to getting his ass kicked by rodeo clowns two months after his record comes out.
I've been taken out of the loop, deprived of leads, even though my work is first-rate, I treat every stupid, ignorant piece of shit artist with respect, I even do bullshit favours for my mentors buddies. But because I don't consider it an honour to stand in my mentor's none-too intimidating shadow, I'm being shut out.

The last few months has seen my freelance income drop off by 40-50%, which is especially disconcerting since this is traditionally the busiest time of year. So, I'm not fired, just sort of cut loose.

who are your employers competitors and find out what they want exactly, on the sly.

sadly, this is a one paper town.
so, I think it's time for the HMS Mann to find a new port.

Dude, call the label publicists and find out what editors are looking for staff! They know who needs writers. Bypass your boss.

Oh for crap's sake, Horace, I just got around to sending you my album yesterday, at least stick around until it gets at the office. ;-)

Time to move to the 'Peg, Horace. Take over for Bartley K1ves, the sycophantic cunt.

Orbit has a good idea: do like the rest of us and network the hell out of your contacts (other writers, labels, large zines, etc.) As so many must have read your work, someone is bound to hire you. (Course, I'm assuming the paper is available on the Web?)

yeah, I'll still be here for a while. but in a much diminished capacity (maybe now I can work on my much-rumoured comedic novel about a guy who works at a newspaper and gets treated like dogshit).
Chris, I'm excited to get it. I think Saskatchewan is going to be hot this year. It gets decent name-dropping in two new books (though one of them is a reissue, but the other is Dave Eggers novel). So add the that the Minor Thirds, and Saskatchewan is this year's Kato Kaelin. Of little actual value, but fun to say.

What the? Dave Eggers is stepping onto my turf?!

Bryan: Don't you think someone could just google for "Bartley" and be satisfied?

especially if they googled for "Bart1ey" and "cunt" like I always do.

I mean I don't remember any Sask content in ...Velocity! -- is there another Eggers book coming up?

It's in the first few pages when they're sorting out their itinerary.

Oh that hardly counts.

(the other mention is in Thomas Perry's Metzger's Dog, when after they successfully steal a pound of pure cocaine and sell it back to some drug dealers, the criminal element contemplates investing their ill-gotten gains in a beefalo ranch in SK)

None of these people are as committed to Sask as I am. I don't see Dave Eggers lining up a Canadian prairies tour.

no no, it has to count. Saskatchewan gets name-dropped like crazy. It gets mentioned, but nobody ever goes there. I've been compiling a list of literary SK mentions since I was six yrs old that includes The Hardy Boys and the Viking Symbol Mystery and Kerouac's On the Road.

But you're the only one who cares for the province behind the goofy name.

I will admit that my fascination started with the goofy name. Now I keep dreaming of driving through endless wheat fields. And shattering my poorly-constructed illusions.

Once again I have hijacked a thread that was vaguely about Canada. Sigh. Sorry.

Anyway, sorry about the job suckage. Get a funder, start a prairie-wide music rag of yr own. Fun!

I occasionally see cars in town with Sask license plates... I saw an old one once... entropy had almost rendered it unreadable.. but there it was.. a miserable air-stained beige on faded green old skool Saskatchewan license plate. I was moved.

hey while I have yr attention, peoples should tune in to http://www.cjtr.ca at 4 p.m. SK time (and every thursday) to hear me have fun with my brother and play some not-terrible music.

"Most of Saskatchewan Canada is in the Central Time Zone and does not observe daylight saving time. The city of Lloydminster is an exception. Lloydminster uses Mountain Time and also observes Daylight Saving Time."

Sigh. So that means 3pm Pacific US time, right? In an hour?

yes.

Hrm, it seems to require Windows. Let me try with the other PC on my desk.

OK we are go! Saskaradio here I am!

There is a Gordon Korman book where the hero comes from Saskatchewan. He moves to New York and is great success, perhaps you could try this?

I am digging the accents so much.

Horace: I'm digging the accents as well, though I'm practically your neighbour (as far as Canada goes). In the past couple of years everyone in Edmonton has affected a sort of middle-class British accent ... hearing a Regina accent reminds of what Edmontonians used to sound like before we all became mod boho hipster wankers (oops, did I say wanker? I meant hoser).

Hrm, it seems to require Windows. Let me try with the other PC on my desk.

Chris: you don't have Windows Media Player for Mac? (a contradiction in terms I know but it works great).

Well I thought I did, but perhaps not.

Well that was a fun show. "You might be tuning in from Portlan Or-ee-gone" indeed! ;-)

Saskatchewan blows. Leave as soon as you can.

H, you hurt me in my landlocked heart.

Why? You live in Portland, land of (no) opportunity.

Sure but my heart belongs to Saskatchewan, or, at least, I keep lecturing small groups of people on the demographics of SK.