I’ve decided to abandon blogging on another site and go out into the world to get a real job.
I don’t make enough money off lukeford.net to live in the style to which I have become accustomed.
I bought a suit for $25 Monday at a Jewish charity store on Pico/La Cienega. I also took my undertaker suit and four dirty shirts in for dry cleaning.
This will be a whole new me. I’m sure the disco look will be great for job interviews.
I’m polishing my resume. Is it terribly immoral to drop Mickey Kaus’s name as a reference without getting his permission?
I haven’t had a real job in a decade (instead making my living as a blogger).
It’s not because my conscience is so delicate I don’t want to take money from immoral advertisers. I’m just tired of fighting my religious friends on this.
My Amalekite friends are dubious about my prospects.
Khunrum emails: "I agree with whoever said you were not gay or young enough to be anyone’s private secretary. Why not take my advice and be a mailman? Don’t laugh. You’ll ace the test and with your poor health they’ll have you sorting mail, not carrying it. It must be a great job. Just look at all the Afro Americans who do it….haaaaa! Great benefits too. You’ll be able to afford a new ride. Maybe even a bigger hovel."
Chaim Amalek writes:
Haven’t you been down this road before? The cynic in me wants to take bets on how long this will last. ON THE OTHER HAND – there’s that old adage, or several, that say pretty much the same thing: If you always do what you’ve always done you’ll always get what you always got.
One definition of madness: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting to achieve a different result.
You live the life of Luke Ford, who, while he gets to go to great parties and appear on 60 Minutes (does the rabbinate bar you from that as well?), lives in a divided garage. It is what it is. Maybe this will light a fire under you and propel you to better things in life.
On the other hand, you could join a torah-centric reform temple, could you not? I have a hard time picturing you giving up the fleshpots of LA for the chance to become a man-secretary. Sorry, but I just don’t think it will take.
If only Luke had been born a Jew, this would not even be an issue in his life.
Luke, ditch the orthodox world (you know you don’t believe) and move over to the reform/reconstructionist side. They have much better parties.
I like this idea of Luke going Postal. I actually took a test to become some sort of post office technician a few years back, mainly for the social experience. Hundreds of men (and a few women) of all backgrounds collected themselves in remotest Queens one early morning (7AM!) to sit for a five hour test. Why? The benefits. And a man of Luke’s age needs to be thinking about the poverty he will otherwise be living in come old age which, I am sorry to remind him, is closer than his twentieth birthday. Do you want to be sixty and living in a hovel? What’s the plan, Luke, what’s the plan?
I know what the plan SHOULD have been. He should have done whatever was necessary and legal to make Holly his wife. That would have solved virtually all of his problems in one swoop: guaranteed housing and sex and food for life. Freedom to while away the days "blogging" and "writing" (same as me). A rich social life. The possibility of becoming a writer who does not have to pay people to publish his books. Respect in shul and the chance to wear the coveted Tallit Gadol. Fatherhood with fertile, fecund and lovely Holly the bearer of your Aryan seed. (Had it been me, I would not have hesitated to woo her.)
If more people just did what Amalek told them to do, there would be more happy people in the world.
I predict this won’t take. Luke will return to the smegma-encrusted fold within six months.
PS to Luke: I have another idea of how you might make money. Offer your services as a ghost writer/blogger for others, especially CEO types. Offer to correct grammar of corporate email. I’m not joking about this. Not many things are worse than a 41 year old straight man trying to make his way in life as a manretary.
Bob writes: "At my post office CFS seems to be a job requirement."
Khunrum emails: ""Instead of everyone in porn hating Luke, it could be the general population of L.A. who are waiting patiently for Luke to ring up their stamp purchases. Besides earning a decent wage with benefits, you could be pissing off many more people."
Bob emails:
Why are you dumping your most consistent stream of income (again)?
I just read the terrible news! Dumping your bird in the hand again.
Forget the man secretary gig. Quite frankly you don’t come off as gay enough. This is the station of a much younger "twink."
Does Jenna Jameson need a personal assistant? Does Asia Carrera need a "manny"? Does Mary Carey need a life coach? Stick with the industry. You could do much worse.
Stephen emails:
If you work as a "clerk" (a benign-sounding title for a job designed for insanity) at the P.O., union seniority rules guarantee that it will take you at least ten years to get off the graveyard shift heaving sacks of mail or punching in zip codes, one-per-second. Also, I hope you like haggard, middle-aged Filipinas and burly mestizo broads. You’ll be meeting hundreds of them. Don’t worry: after a while on the 11 p.m. to 8 a.m. shift, they’ll start to look good to you. Mainly because by then you’ll have taken up excessive drinking in order to try to sleep during the day. Definitely read Charles Bukowski’s "Post Office" — he was a nightshift mail clerk for years. It’s all true, every word. I was there.
(UPS more better if you can stand physical labor. I worked as a relief driver for a few months. The guy who trained me was hooking up with a couple of receptionists/nurses in Dr’s offices along our route in his off-hours. Bored, lonely women in offices really do fantasize about "the UPS Guy." For some of them, that daily delivery is the highlight of their day.)
I call a friend.
"I’m right behind you," he says. "You don’t mind that you’re going to sell it?"
"I don’t."
"Do they get the camera of death in the purchase?
"There’s a hot demand for your video of karaoke….of Powder running around Sardo’s."
Luke: "Your close to getting out."
"I just don’t think we’re going to get married as long as we’re in this industry."
Friend: "I had that same discussion. It’s twofold. That you and I don’t pull our penises out of our pants and don’t film actual pornography, we might as well have. You have the scarlet letter on you. When you do meet a nice girl, what do they say? ‘How do I tell my mother what you do?’ It’s always a problem.
"I met a girl the other day who I really like. But at the end of the day, I’m the porn guy and it works against me.
"I really enjoyed my last job because it was as far away from porn as I could be and still be in porn. It was a corporate job. But now I’m back in porn and I really feel sh—- about myself. I’m sitting here trying to acquire content from studios, midget porn and guys with big cocks."
Luke: "We’ve given the best years of our lives to this industry. We’ve had it good. We’ve gotten a ton of press."
Friend: "I’ve gotten a helluva lot more pussy than you did."
Luke: "True."
Friend: "But it got old. It took about seven or eight years to get old."
"When you interview these porn stars… I used to sit there and think, ‘Why does Luke care so much and ask these girls these questions about what do your parents think?’ Then I realized. They might have different color hair and they might have big tits or small tits but it’s the same girl over and over again. I watched that video you got of Nadia Brown. That chick is the universal porn chick. Same problems, same manic-depression, same chemical imbalance."
Luke: "Lost her dog, lost her cat, lost her job, getting drunk."
Friend: "We did give the best years of our life. I should’ve made a lot more money. I should be retired now.
"I’m going home to my 20th reunion in two weeks. I’m realizing that I’m middle-aged. I’m going to go through a mid-life crisis in the next year or two. There were guys when I left town who were working as interns at radio stations. They’re still at the same stations, only now they are general managers. I used to think they were dumb for working for free."
"I’m wondering if I came out ahead. You never made any real money. You never made more than $50k in a year. You could’ve made so much money but you lacked the killer instinct to say, ‘You don’t like what’s written about you? Pay me for an ad and I’ll never write about you again.’ But that’s not your character."
Luke: "I’m looking forward to going to work and meeting girls."
Friend: "I’m sitting here in my place listening to the wind rustle around my windows. This is my office and my home. I never get a chance to go out and meet anybody aside from industry events."
"We have this other problem. Now you’re going to put a resume together and go out and look for a job and you’ve got all this s— about you. I’d like to become a sales manager at a radio station but I’m too much of a risk. Sexual harassment cases are running rampant."
