susieworld

Seriously, who wouldn't want to hang out with these characters?

I grew up watching Sesame Street.  It debuted on my older brother’s first birthday in 1969 and I started watching it before I can even remember.  I grew up in Central California suburbia.  My childhood couldn’t have been much better.  But here’s why I’d rather have been born and raised on Sesame Street.

1.)  It’s the coolest inner-city barrio on the planet!  Despite it’s muppety cuteness, Sesame Street isn’t in the nicest of neighborhoods, yet no one ever gets mugged, raped or murdered.

2.)  I support its “gay agenda.”  Okay, there’s no such thing as a gay agenda.  But Ernie and Bert are the Odd Couple of the muppet set.  I enjoy pigeons and bottlecaps, and, on the rarest of occasions, I have been unable to hear because I had a banana in my ear.

3.)  How flippin’ cool would it be to buy a 40-oz. and a pack of smokes at Hooper’s Store?

4.)  One word. SNUFFLEUPPAGUS!

5.)  Gordon and Susan.  These two people have to be the nicest, sweetest, most CONDESCENDING …. no wait.  They’re just nice and sweet.  Plus, Gordon is a chrome dome.  I always remember wondering if I could see my reflection in that shiny head of his.

6.)  I do, in fact, know how to get there.  Well, I could at least fly to NYC and locate Sesame Street Studios and/or the Muppet Workshop. I also know the way to San Jose, but I digress.  I’d say that’s pretty good for a girl who completely lacks any semblance of a sense of direction.

7.)  I could meet that handsome devil behind the voice and muppeteering of Elmo.  I would like to toss Elmo in front of a truck, but his muppeteer is really hot!

8.)  I could go out in the field with Kermit for Sesame Street News.  I’ll never forget his interview with Peter Piper’s family: “All the Pipers pick pickled peppers, but Peter gets all the publicity.”

9.)  I’d demand a tour of Oscar’s trash can.  We all know he’s got a pool in there, though who knows if it has ever been cleaned.  I know I’d get Oscar to do my bidding because I can be quite the grouch when I want to me, as my brother will attest.  I bet Oscar would actually LIKE ME.  Maybe together, we could preach the benefits of anti-depressants.

10.)  The SPONSORSHIPS!  The entire alphabet, plus the numbers 1-12!  Think of the ad revenue!

Only five jobs?? What's the matter with you, ya lazy bum!

No, I’m not referring to the passing of Apple founder Steve Jobs.

Nor is it about the unemployment rates in the U.S.

It’s about me.  ALL ABOUT ME!!!!! Mwahahahahahaha!

They say when it rains it pours.  This is usually a negative thing, but since I like the rain, I consider this onslaught a positive thing.  Of course it’s positive because I may soon be the proud holder of as many as five jobs!  The Jamaicans from In Living Color would be so proud.

At 1:00 today, I’m interviewing for a volunteer position as the social media director for Vision Literacy, a San Jose-area non-profit designed to help adults learn to read.  I am really excited about this.  Not only will I be able to experience the joy of being able to help people, but I will also gain invaluable knowledge for a potential future career in social media.  Of course, this is all assuming they hire me.  I will know in a few short hours.

I am waiting for a response to my application and writing submissions to a South Bay magazine for the arts.  I am in the running to be their calendar editor and would publish event details and briefs on the local arts scene for the bi-monthly mag.  I know I’m capable of enjoying this one.  It has the potential to open up my eyes to all the talent San Jose has to offer and I would again be learning new skills to add to my resume for future employment as a journalist.  $350 per issue is nothing to sneeze at either, considering what a part-time job this would be.

Finally, I heard back today from Courthouse News, a nationwide reporting service covering federal courts across the country.  If hired, I would cover the U.S. District Court in San Jose by paying a daily visit to the court to look up new civil court filings and turn pages-long legal-ese into a few sentences of plain ol’ English.  Occasionally, I’d be able to cover high-profile trials and conduct interviews and the pay is pretty good.  They’re even offering $200 a month toward my health insurance and would pay a portion of my internet and cell phone bills.

If I can add these three to the two writing jobs I already have, I think I might actually pull in a decent living.

So keep your fingers crossed for me, people.  I’m in a rut I’m dying to get out of, so this stuff would certainly help.  And it would be nice to be able to put some of MY money into the family coffers again.

So my other job, the one that pays a little more than what I’m paid for blogging ($0), is being a crime/courts reporter for my fair little city here in the heart of Silicon Valley.

Yesterday was essentially orgasmic for reporters across the Bay Area because some crazy man decided to shoot 8 work colleagues before his first cup of coffee.  This turned into an INSANE manhunt involving multiple police agencies, the FBI, and U.S. Marshals.

Reporters don’t fear for their lives or spend much time concerning themselves with the lives of victims because we can’t.  If we get too involved, we might start to feel something. And feeling something would make this job impossible.  So forgive me if I sound nonchalant about three people dying at the hands of a nutcase, but I can’t be any other way.

So as I was saying, journalists have been pretty much creaming their jeans over this story.  The guy was on the loose with an AK-47, had just KILLED three co-workers, and no one knew where he was.  He could have been anywhere.  Schools were locked down and everyone was freaking out since their airspace was completely full of police helicopters.

The guy ended up going for the “suicide by cop” option, which doesn’t pay out much life insurance-wise.  Police shot him this morning in some random neighborhood…in the driveway where a young mother and baby were living.  SCARY!

But reporters eat this shit up! This is amazing stuff.  I was nearly manic yesterday and today trying to keep up with events that were happening and turning stories in before they became irrelevant.  The news was breaking so fast, I had no time to fix it.

Today, in addition to the officer-involved shooting, which involved more than one officer, I had to write about another young mother who was found dead in the outskirts of town. She disappeared over the weekend and no one yet knows what happened to her.  It’s not clear if she was murdered or not, though I suspect the former.  She was a pretty woman and some douchebag out there probably thought she deserved it.

THEN I learn about two cases of prosecutorial misconduct.  In one case, a man was accused of raping a mentally disabled girl.  He was found guilty and sent to prison, but it turns out a cop completely MADE UP a coroner’s report.  He made up some random name and forged it on the coroner’s letterhead.  The D.A. prosecuting the case encouraged the defense to accept a plea deal based solely on this evidence and she may have known the evidence was falsified.  Now everyone’s getting sued.

My local cop shop has been in a heap of trouble lately.  Last month, an officer was arrested for allegedly having sexual contact with some teenage boys he met through Craigslist.  And on Monday, two more cops were arrested for stealing money from the local chapter of a nationwide police  officers’ fund that gives scholarships to needy minority children.  They pocketed over $100K.  And a local lawyer cheated a bunch of people out of their life savings by claiming they’d get major returns on their investments, while said investments were being spent on necessities like a MERCEDES.

Crime is everywhere.  It makes my job fascinating.  But I sure wish it would spread itself out a little bit so I won’t feel the need to pop Xanax like Tic Tacs.

Slang of the '80s - TOTALLY GNARLY!

Today’s slang totally blows chunks, doesn’t it?  Isn’t it high time we brought back some words from our shoulder-padded, big-haired past?  I’d say so!

So I was at the mall and I saw this major dweeb who was totally butt-ugly.  He was totally checking me out, so I told him to bite me.  I mean, what a total dipstick!  Like, barf me out!  Not even!  He was such a major spaz!  So grody.

So I left to meet my boyfriend, who’s a total hunk and has a bitchin’ car.  We met friends to party hearty.  I was so amped!  All my best friends came to hang out and it was wild!  A totally bodacious party and not a single wanna-be showed up.  Stacy started being a total bitch though so I had to tell her to take a chill pill.  It was such a burn!

It was a majorly good day.  Fer sher.  Fuckin’ A!

The End.

See?  That doesn’t sound as stupid as today’s kids sound, right?  Okay. Don’t answer that.