If you don’t already know, MTV’s The Real World has started filming here in DC. MTV has also started airing the RW Cancun so the DC chapter will probably air early next year. rumor has it they’re going to film until Thanksgiving, which would mean a solid four months of footage.

The house is at 20th & S, NW. You can’t miss it at night, it’s lit up like the daytime and during the daytime I’m sure there are camera crews everywhere. Local residents of that intersection aren’t necessarily thrilled with the media and personal interest onslaught that has taken up camp in their neighborhood. And I can’t say I really blame them, seeing as these interlopers will have no vested interest in their neighborhood and, relying on past RW chapters, will end up vomiting, pissing, fighting and all those other things 20-year-olds with starry eyes will do. The Anti Real World DC’s (new) blog is here.

Last night I was out with an out-of-town friend at Black Cat and told her about the RWDC and she wanted to go by the house. I thought it would be fun to piss off some of the cast members, as it appears to be the new fun thing to do in DC this summer. So we did.

It was late, around last call, so I was hoping some of the cast would stumble around the corner and then we could yell things at them to disrupt their filming (this is the de facto act to commit I’ve heard, as then they will have to edit out the audio of “Real World sucks!”). But the security detail in the truck across the street looked pretty relaxed so we surmised they were all already inside shooting pool or making daquiris or whatever they do. We did notice some movement in the glazed-over windows, but it looked mainly to be the crew.

We chatted with  security for a while but they weren’t budging on giving us any info. All of a sudden, there was movement the front door. Two of the cast members came out to eat their late night take-out on the front steps. So I hurried over to snap some pictures and one of the narcissist started cowering with his head down, as if he didn’t want any limelight. Um, dude, you’ve got cameras following you for the next four months. It’s a little too early in the game to be shying away from the cameras so soon. They had glowstick bracelets on, so they had been out partying somewhere that evening. Needless to say, after a few minutes of heavy sighing they packed up their styrofoam packs and went back inside.

It was a fun bit of fun but I’m really dreading the time they invade a restaurant or bar or some other venue that I’m at because I’ve heard the camera crews are pretty pushy and rude. Anything that gets the shot, right guys?

Forty years ago, way before I composed this post that Wordpress decided to not remember and so now I’m writing it again, I was jumping off a jungle gym into the hot west Texas sand. This may or may not have been the day that, while jumping, I lodged my front tooth into the gum of my mandible to be discovered three years later as my adult tooth moved into position. Regardless, it was on this day (or possibly a couple of days later, as 40 years ago was on a Sunday) that time stood still and we were instructed to crane our heads towards the warm yellow sun and stare at it.

Like Dag I would repeat this exercise throughout my early childhood until my eyes would bleed with tears. I thought it was something I was supposed to do regularly but only on those summer days when the temperature and cloud conditions were right. I would step off my red tricycle, stop the game I was playing and stare until my eyes were wet.

It was only many years later that I understood what I was supposed to be looking at on that hot El Paso day at Kiddie Korner: it wasn’t the sun, it was the moon. And possibily the moon was visible on that day or maybe it was only something we couldn’t see but were still supposed to believe.

I won’t get into a huge diatribe about whether or not we landed on the moon that day, but I think we’re all going to be in for a big surprise in 2030 when the Chinese send their moon probe out and there’s no indication of an American flag or a Banana Splits-style moon rover waiting for them to drive around.

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Blogger pal and sometimes drinking buddy Joe.My.God reports that DC is the #1 U.S. city for job postings, and by a wide margin.

This is not really surprising since the largest office building in the world is right across the river, and the Feds employing so many more not to mention our 10% tax thriving restaurant scene. Do I want to be a civil servant? No. Do I want to be a waiter? No.

That was just a dream.

Six months ago while I contemplated moving to another city to find employment it actually seemed plausible with some good, almost perfect, jobs that I was applying for. Apparently the big thing for employers these days is to not send out any kind of “Thank you, but no.” correspondence. Hell, I’d be happy with a “Fuck off” email returned from a prospective employer, at least that way I would know that they actually received my resume. Maybe stamps are too expensive these days to send out so many TYBN letters.

Whatevs.

So besides scouring the want ads, the only thing I’ve done today is nothing. Supposedly the weather was beautiful today but beautiful weather on Saturdays is for people who have jobs and can’t normally be out in the daytime enjoying it. So I stayed inside and let me have it all to themselves. I hope they had a good time doing whatever it was they were doing.

Enjoy.

Douglas Coupland, 1993:

“My friend Graham Law took the footage of me with a Super-8 camera. All told, it took maybe 30 minutes. When it was developed, there was a bunch of footage still on the reel that he’d taken in Toronto years before. One of the most beautiful images was that of the nuns walking around on the square boardwalk. His studio used to look out over this walk. It was a rest home for nuns with Alzheimers, and its sort of sad because they’d spent their life devoted to God and then in the end they couldn’t remember it. Or could they? It’s a fascinating question.”

I thought about how odd it is for billions of people to be alive and yet not one of them is really quite sure of what makes people people. The only activities I could think of that humans do that have no animal equivalent were smoking and writing and body-building. That’s not much, considering how special we seem to think we are.

Forget about Thriller, here is the real Michael Jackson video from 1984 that we’ve all waited 25 years to see: outtakes from the pyrotechnic mishap on the Pepsi commercial set. Previously there was only a fuzzy film still, shot from the front, of him descending the stairs with a tuft of flame coming from the crown of his head.

Now we get the full detail.

Maybe we’ve changed over the years. We’re more de-sensitized now, after watching planes flying into buildings and their subsequent collapses. Now we want our stars accosted by an army of photogs while crossing the street. There are no press releases anymore, because some gossip site has already spilled the beans. Press agents are only called in for damage control.

Way back in 1984 when this happened sure it made news coverage. But it was a minor blip, quickly glossed over by a publicity shot of a sequined glove being carried away on a stretcher. Now that (some kind of) drug addiction seems to be the leading cause of Michael Jackson’s death they’re pointing to this event as the start for his pill-popping. Now we get to see the full event as-it-happened, with the best camera angle possible.

BONUS: here is an incredibly badly designed PowerPoint slide that tries to explain the sales of MJ’s records since his death. It includes an awkward chronology graph and folding arrows!

I have been awake for about 27 hours now, not counting the hour-long nap yesterday afternoon.

I woke up yesterday with a headache and a headcold. I think the headache stems from the “sleep aid” pills that I frequently (these days) take, but they’re nothing but generic Benadryl tablets.

So yesterday morning I stayed in bed, trying to see if I could snooze off the headaches and the grogginess but I couldn’t get to back to sleep. Needless to say I had no appetite either so I haven’t really eaten much in the last 48 hours other than two hard pretzels.

Last night I went to bed around midnight, which is pretty average. I decidedly opted to not take any sleeping pills, figuring I’d be exhausted enough from being sick all day. Here I am ten and a half hours later and still not sleepy or tired enough to fall unconscious. And I only had two small cups of coffee yesterday as my only caffeine intake so I don’t think it’s that.

I guess I should get up and get on and wait for the brickwall crash that is inevitably going to hit me.

UPDATE: Around noon I made some scrambled eggs, figuring that a full stomach would conk me out. Soon enough it did. But only for about 3.5 hours.

If you read here, you’ll notice that DHS stated that I would have to bring validation from the VEC (Virginia Employment Commision) and proof of payments for rent, utilities and phone in order to complete my paperwork. As I was gathering these together I noticed that my July deposit (which was supposed to cut off in June) went through so I figured it wasn’t a rush to get back down there. I figured I’ll have to take everything in before the end of July but at least it gave me time to get everything together.

This I received in the mail last week:

Your application for food stamp recertification has been approved effective July, 2009 through June, 2010.

So, they’ve obviously processed the form as is without any verfications of my private information. And they’ve extended benefits for an additional 12 months! Ridiculous. Hopefully I won’t be needing them for much longer though, but the job search continues on.

with this?