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Monday, November 10th, 2008 6:26 PM
Writing Sample for Psychopedia.com
JUNGLE JOEL
An excerpt from the memoir Fangboner; Adventures on the Road to Eldorado
By Sam Shaber
My boss at the Sony Archives called me into his office.
"Sam," he said kindly, "you know I support what you do."
"Mm-hm?" I nodded, apprehensively. Had he finally found out about my excessive use of the phone and the mail room?
"I like the CD you gave me and I think it's great that you're really trying to do this. But while the hours are flexible here, that does not mean you can work one week on, three weeks off, work another week and then be gone for a month, and so on."
"Right," I said. He had a point there. While it was still mainly coffee shops and open mic features, my touring career had started to get pretty busy.
So I quit my day job.
Sort of.
I found a different temp agency than the one I'd been with before Sony, and when I wasn't on the road, I was back answering the occasional phone and looking for peoples' Wall Street Journals. But I was free. And I was gone more than I was home. That felt like a real victory. I had only quit the day job because I had to. I was too busy for full-time employment.
But temping again was proving less than savory. I could never seem to put pantyhose on without starting a run from my toenails, and I only had two real suits. Plus I would be so tired from eight hours under fluorescent lights, staring at a Solitaire game on my computer screen, that I couldn't think about writing songs when I got home.
Oh woe is me. So pathetic having to live like a real person, eh?
It was easy to be a good temp, since I was never at any job for more than a couple weeks and I could sustain a decent level of dedication in those short doses. Often, being friendly was all it really took. There was also a lot of filing involved, so knowing the alphabet was handy.
At one job I think I was too good, unfortunately.
"We have you at Joel Stern today," my perky temp agent said on the phone that morning. "But he's tough, so we need you to be thick-skinned. Can you handle it?"
"Tough?" I asked, wiping the sleep out of my eyes.
"Well he's got a terrible temper and he's sexist too. He insists that all the women in the office wear skirts. And make sure you're really organized and you write down every detail when you take phone messages. Can we count on you?"
How bad could he be, I thought. I'm no rocket scientist, but I went to college for chrissake. It's not a real job anyway. I would just remember that I had a life outside this office. I would treat it like an adventure.
I got out my one corporate skirt and my latest pair of pantyhose, dabbed some clear nail polish on the runs that had already started, and headed to Midtown. I would be the greatest damn temp this Joel person had ever worked with.
For the first three days, Joel was out of the office traveling. This is what he'd built his business on — giving seminars on books he'd published about Value-Added something-or-other. He was an expert in his field.
The other two assistants hated him and took smoke breaks once an hour. One of them looked like a kindly grandmother, complete with reading glasses down her nose and a pink cable-knit sweater eternally draped over her shoulders to combat the corporate air conditioning. The other had very big, frosted hair and long nails. Both were fun to work with. They warned me from their cubicles.
"Joel will call you about every twenty minutes for his messages. And be sure to keep track of what time zone he's in. Also he wants his Wall Street Journal first thing every morning at his hotel, and he'll freak out if it's not there."
Joel was in Australia that day. And his Wall Street Journal was not.
"Why are you so incompetent?!?" he bellowed at me from across the world.
"I'm sorry," I smiled into the phone, "I don't know why you don't have it yet."
"Well make it get here!" he demanded in fabulous English. "I don't care what you have to do. Fax the fucking thing to me! Shit."
Joel cursed at people too.
After twenty minutes at the photocopier, trying to make the pages of Joel's beloved Journal fax-ready, I got another call.
"What the fuck is wrong with you?"
"I'm sorry," I said. I was all sweetness and charm, but I had to admit this was starting to feel like an anxiety dream. "I'm trying to copy it for you so I can send it through, but the copier isn't working."
"So use another goddamn copier!" he shouted. "They have one downstairs for fuck's sake! Jesus."
"Oh — okay. I didn't know that. No problem!" Sweetness and charm. Sweetness and charm. Do not crack, Shaber.
The folks downstairs would not let me use their copier. They hated Joel too. Everyone hated Joel.
Another twenty minutes, and another angry phone call.
"I don't know if you understand how important this is. I'm all the way over here in AUSTRALIA, ten thousand miles from fucking home, and all I want is a Wall Street Journal! I just don't see what the fucking problem is!"
Finally, the rebellious copy machine cooperated. Much to my relief.
Three days into my week's tenure, Joel appeared. Instead of a looming monster, I was presented with a short, potbellied man in his fifties, with very little hair left and a flat upper lip like George W. Bush. He was actually easier to take in person, perhaps because he was no longer ten thousand miles from fucking home, and perhaps because I had won him over with all my sweetness and charm. And my copious phone messages.
I might even have won him over a little too much.
At the end of my second-to-last day, 5:55pm, Joel called me in to his large corner office. He motioned for me to sit, which I did awkwardly in my knee-length skirt. No need to show Joel Stern my underwear. For fuck's sake.
He came over and sat in another chair facing me.
"Samantha, I just want to thank you for the work you're doing."
"Oh, well thanks," I said.
"No, really. I'm very impressed. Very impressed. In fact, I want to show you my appreciation, so I'm going to take you to dinner tonight."
Wow.
"Oh, no I really have to leave at six," I said without hesitation. "Thank you for the offer, though."
Joel was clearly stunned at the rejection.
"What do you mean?" he stammered momentarily. "Where do you have to go?"
I thought this was funny, being that I was just a temp and my real life was none of Joel Stern's business. I certainly was not going to invite him to my gig in the West Village that night.
"I just have to go," I said.
The next day, my last day, Joel left early for a meeting and then called me at my desk, again at 5:55.
"Samantha, this is Joel!"
Like I wouldn't know.
"I need you to bring something downstairs to me right away."
He instructed me towards a stack of boxes on a hand truck. I was relieved to be done finally with this awful job, and was really not in the mood to be delayed that day. Plus I was sure he was up to something. But I brought the hand truck downstairs.
At the curb, in the broad sunshine of Sixth Avenue, Joel sat in the back seat of a Cadillac. I wheeled the truck over and the driver began loading boxes into the trunk. Joel opened the car door and stood up.
"Samantha," he said smiling, with that icy, bossy voice, "you've been a great help to me this week."
"Thanks," I said.
"I've really enjoyed working with you," he emphasized.
"Thanks," I said again. He looked at me.
"Well," he sighed, "I guess it's time to go."
He got in the car and put the window down.
"You know," he said, leaning up towards my face, "sometimes they call me Jungle Joel."
"Mmmm," I said.
"Do you know why?"
"No." I said.
"Because," he pumped his eyebrows up and down, "I've been known to wear furry underwear."
Time stopped for a second while I pondered this.
"I'll keep that in mind," I managed to answer finally, turning around and walking back into the building.
When I got upstairs, the big-haired secretary took one look at the expression on my face.
"He gave you the Jungle Joel line, didn't he?"
Being on the road was a big relief after the temp job with Jungle Joel. Touring will always be more satisfying than a job like that. That's a no-brainer. But of course there were other times when I couldn't make enough money to cover my expenses and I didn't feel like I was building anything at all. I couldn't get any Industry people out to see me, I didn't have a manager, I was still doing it all by myself. Why couldn't I get anyone's attention?
"I'll never get famous at this rate," I'd think. "No one gets famous by playing vegetarian restaurants in New Haven once a month."
The bitterness is always lurking, trying to get your attention. Because when you spend all of your time working on your career, you might eventually find yourself ignoring the world around you, never enjoying anything — even your own success — because if it doesn't immediately get you closer to the goal then who cares? And slowly, very slowly, while you're out loving the adventures and the craziness at first, sleeping on porches and hooking up with cute percussionists, so slowly that you don't realize it until maybe it's too late, your innocence is dying, your debt is growing, your heart is getting hard and crusty, your eyebrows are forming into a permanent wrinkle, your health is declining, your eyesight is blurring, your bones are stiffening, your car is swerving, your sweetness is growing sour, and — worst of all — your love for what you do is turning to hate.
You hate your job because it keeps you away from home.
You hate being home because it keeps you from making money, so you hate your job more because it makes you leave your home to make enough money to be able to keep leaving.
Because if you didn't keep leaving, you'd have to stay home and get some real job to make money, and then you remember Jungle Joel and you know you'd really be miserable so you can't stay — you can't — and you get back on the phone and on the computer and on line at the post office and on your calculator and in your checkbook, and you juggle balances from one credit card to another as the 0% interest offers come in and end, and you pack your suitcases again, and you find your car where you left it after street cleaning on Tuesday, and you leave.
And your first gig is amazing. The fans come and they bring their co-workers who buy your CDs in large numbers, and you remember how great it feels to face people and sing your heart out. You flip your hair around. You even try something new on the bridge of that up-tempo, alt-country song, and you pull it off while the whole room cheers. After the show you get in your Mazda Protegé with a loud, blissful sigh because it is all worth it after all.
But six days later you get to Nashville, where musicians are treated like cattle, and you're not paid anything, and no one comes and the sound guy is an asshole. Once again you are having a relationship with your cell phone more than any human being, and you're listening to public radio like a lifeline, and stopping at diners in incredibly American towns that look like postcards from the Fifties, down to the Formica tables and ruffled waitress aprons. And it's all so cool and so On the Road and so damn poetic, but you don't have anyone with you to share it. So you step outside into the cold wind of Butte, Montana, or Salina, Kansas, or wherever-the-fuck Maine, and you buy a high bouncing ball in the 50˘ machine and mail it home to your new boyfriend George, because that's as close as you're gonna get for another three weeks. Three weeks which is 21 lifetimes on the road.
And this is why, years later, I suddenly understand Jungle Joel. I realize how hard it is to be away from home so much and to face the unknown so constantly. I realize how strongly one might crave familiar things, and how important it might be to find a Wall Street Journal, or some other piece of comfort, when you're ten thousand miles from fucking home. It's why I tend to gravitate towards the greeting card aisles of CVS drugstores all over this country. Nothing more familiar than that. I realize how moody and impatient one might get if unable to find people one can communicate easily with. I yell at my steering wheel just like Joel yelled at me. In a way, I feel sorry for him. The empire he's built all himself is the very thing that makes him miserable. I know exactly how he feels.
I still don't get the furry underwear thing, though. That's just weird, Joel.
An excerpt from the memoir Fangboner; Adventures on the Road to Eldorado
By Sam Shaber
My boss at the Sony Archives called me into his office.
"Sam," he said kindly, "you know I support what you do."
"Mm-hm?" I nodded, apprehensively. Had he finally found out about my excessive use of the phone and the mail room?
"I like the CD you gave me and I think it's great that you're really trying to do this. But while the hours are flexible here, that does not mean you can work one week on, three weeks off, work another week and then be gone for a month, and so on."
"Right," I said. He had a point there. While it was still mainly coffee shops and open mic features, my touring career had started to get pretty busy.
So I quit my day job.
Sort of.
I found a different temp agency than the one I'd been with before Sony, and when I wasn't on the road, I was back answering the occasional phone and looking for peoples' Wall Street Journals. But I was free. And I was gone more than I was home. That felt like a real victory. I had only quit the day job because I had to. I was too busy for full-time employment.
But temping again was proving less than savory. I could never seem to put pantyhose on without starting a run from my toenails, and I only had two real suits. Plus I would be so tired from eight hours under fluorescent lights, staring at a Solitaire game on my computer screen, that I couldn't think about writing songs when I got home.
Oh woe is me. So pathetic having to live like a real person, eh?
It was easy to be a good temp, since I was never at any job for more than a couple weeks and I could sustain a decent level of dedication in those short doses. Often, being friendly was all it really took. There was also a lot of filing involved, so knowing the alphabet was handy.
At one job I think I was too good, unfortunately.
"We have you at Joel Stern today," my perky temp agent said on the phone that morning. "But he's tough, so we need you to be thick-skinned. Can you handle it?"
"Tough?" I asked, wiping the sleep out of my eyes.
"Well he's got a terrible temper and he's sexist too. He insists that all the women in the office wear skirts. And make sure you're really organized and you write down every detail when you take phone messages. Can we count on you?"
How bad could he be, I thought. I'm no rocket scientist, but I went to college for chrissake. It's not a real job anyway. I would just remember that I had a life outside this office. I would treat it like an adventure.
I got out my one corporate skirt and my latest pair of pantyhose, dabbed some clear nail polish on the runs that had already started, and headed to Midtown. I would be the greatest damn temp this Joel person had ever worked with.
For the first three days, Joel was out of the office traveling. This is what he'd built his business on — giving seminars on books he'd published about Value-Added something-or-other. He was an expert in his field.
The other two assistants hated him and took smoke breaks once an hour. One of them looked like a kindly grandmother, complete with reading glasses down her nose and a pink cable-knit sweater eternally draped over her shoulders to combat the corporate air conditioning. The other had very big, frosted hair and long nails. Both were fun to work with. They warned me from their cubicles.
"Joel will call you about every twenty minutes for his messages. And be sure to keep track of what time zone he's in. Also he wants his Wall Street Journal first thing every morning at his hotel, and he'll freak out if it's not there."
Joel was in Australia that day. And his Wall Street Journal was not.
"Why are you so incompetent?!?" he bellowed at me from across the world.
"I'm sorry," I smiled into the phone, "I don't know why you don't have it yet."
"Well make it get here!" he demanded in fabulous English. "I don't care what you have to do. Fax the fucking thing to me! Shit."
Joel cursed at people too.
After twenty minutes at the photocopier, trying to make the pages of Joel's beloved Journal fax-ready, I got another call.
"What the fuck is wrong with you?"
"I'm sorry," I said. I was all sweetness and charm, but I had to admit this was starting to feel like an anxiety dream. "I'm trying to copy it for you so I can send it through, but the copier isn't working."
"So use another goddamn copier!" he shouted. "They have one downstairs for fuck's sake! Jesus."
"Oh — okay. I didn't know that. No problem!" Sweetness and charm. Sweetness and charm. Do not crack, Shaber.
The folks downstairs would not let me use their copier. They hated Joel too. Everyone hated Joel.
Another twenty minutes, and another angry phone call.
"I don't know if you understand how important this is. I'm all the way over here in AUSTRALIA, ten thousand miles from fucking home, and all I want is a Wall Street Journal! I just don't see what the fucking problem is!"
Finally, the rebellious copy machine cooperated. Much to my relief.
Three days into my week's tenure, Joel appeared. Instead of a looming monster, I was presented with a short, potbellied man in his fifties, with very little hair left and a flat upper lip like George W. Bush. He was actually easier to take in person, perhaps because he was no longer ten thousand miles from fucking home, and perhaps because I had won him over with all my sweetness and charm. And my copious phone messages.
I might even have won him over a little too much.
At the end of my second-to-last day, 5:55pm, Joel called me in to his large corner office. He motioned for me to sit, which I did awkwardly in my knee-length skirt. No need to show Joel Stern my underwear. For fuck's sake.
He came over and sat in another chair facing me.
"Samantha, I just want to thank you for the work you're doing."
"Oh, well thanks," I said.
"No, really. I'm very impressed. Very impressed. In fact, I want to show you my appreciation, so I'm going to take you to dinner tonight."
Wow.
"Oh, no I really have to leave at six," I said without hesitation. "Thank you for the offer, though."
Joel was clearly stunned at the rejection.
"What do you mean?" he stammered momentarily. "Where do you have to go?"
I thought this was funny, being that I was just a temp and my real life was none of Joel Stern's business. I certainly was not going to invite him to my gig in the West Village that night.
"I just have to go," I said.
The next day, my last day, Joel left early for a meeting and then called me at my desk, again at 5:55.
"Samantha, this is Joel!"
Like I wouldn't know.
"I need you to bring something downstairs to me right away."
He instructed me towards a stack of boxes on a hand truck. I was relieved to be done finally with this awful job, and was really not in the mood to be delayed that day. Plus I was sure he was up to something. But I brought the hand truck downstairs.
At the curb, in the broad sunshine of Sixth Avenue, Joel sat in the back seat of a Cadillac. I wheeled the truck over and the driver began loading boxes into the trunk. Joel opened the car door and stood up.
"Samantha," he said smiling, with that icy, bossy voice, "you've been a great help to me this week."
"Thanks," I said.
"I've really enjoyed working with you," he emphasized.
"Thanks," I said again. He looked at me.
"Well," he sighed, "I guess it's time to go."
He got in the car and put the window down.
"You know," he said, leaning up towards my face, "sometimes they call me Jungle Joel."
"Mmmm," I said.
"Do you know why?"
"No." I said.
"Because," he pumped his eyebrows up and down, "I've been known to wear furry underwear."
Time stopped for a second while I pondered this.
"I'll keep that in mind," I managed to answer finally, turning around and walking back into the building.
When I got upstairs, the big-haired secretary took one look at the expression on my face.
"He gave you the Jungle Joel line, didn't he?"
Being on the road was a big relief after the temp job with Jungle Joel. Touring will always be more satisfying than a job like that. That's a no-brainer. But of course there were other times when I couldn't make enough money to cover my expenses and I didn't feel like I was building anything at all. I couldn't get any Industry people out to see me, I didn't have a manager, I was still doing it all by myself. Why couldn't I get anyone's attention?
"I'll never get famous at this rate," I'd think. "No one gets famous by playing vegetarian restaurants in New Haven once a month."
The bitterness is always lurking, trying to get your attention. Because when you spend all of your time working on your career, you might eventually find yourself ignoring the world around you, never enjoying anything — even your own success — because if it doesn't immediately get you closer to the goal then who cares? And slowly, very slowly, while you're out loving the adventures and the craziness at first, sleeping on porches and hooking up with cute percussionists, so slowly that you don't realize it until maybe it's too late, your innocence is dying, your debt is growing, your heart is getting hard and crusty, your eyebrows are forming into a permanent wrinkle, your health is declining, your eyesight is blurring, your bones are stiffening, your car is swerving, your sweetness is growing sour, and — worst of all — your love for what you do is turning to hate.
You hate your job because it keeps you away from home.
You hate being home because it keeps you from making money, so you hate your job more because it makes you leave your home to make enough money to be able to keep leaving.
Because if you didn't keep leaving, you'd have to stay home and get some real job to make money, and then you remember Jungle Joel and you know you'd really be miserable so you can't stay — you can't — and you get back on the phone and on the computer and on line at the post office and on your calculator and in your checkbook, and you juggle balances from one credit card to another as the 0% interest offers come in and end, and you pack your suitcases again, and you find your car where you left it after street cleaning on Tuesday, and you leave.
And your first gig is amazing. The fans come and they bring their co-workers who buy your CDs in large numbers, and you remember how great it feels to face people and sing your heart out. You flip your hair around. You even try something new on the bridge of that up-tempo, alt-country song, and you pull it off while the whole room cheers. After the show you get in your Mazda Protegé with a loud, blissful sigh because it is all worth it after all.
But six days later you get to Nashville, where musicians are treated like cattle, and you're not paid anything, and no one comes and the sound guy is an asshole. Once again you are having a relationship with your cell phone more than any human being, and you're listening to public radio like a lifeline, and stopping at diners in incredibly American towns that look like postcards from the Fifties, down to the Formica tables and ruffled waitress aprons. And it's all so cool and so On the Road and so damn poetic, but you don't have anyone with you to share it. So you step outside into the cold wind of Butte, Montana, or Salina, Kansas, or wherever-the-fuck Maine, and you buy a high bouncing ball in the 50˘ machine and mail it home to your new boyfriend George, because that's as close as you're gonna get for another three weeks. Three weeks which is 21 lifetimes on the road.
And this is why, years later, I suddenly understand Jungle Joel. I realize how hard it is to be away from home so much and to face the unknown so constantly. I realize how strongly one might crave familiar things, and how important it might be to find a Wall Street Journal, or some other piece of comfort, when you're ten thousand miles from fucking home. It's why I tend to gravitate towards the greeting card aisles of CVS drugstores all over this country. Nothing more familiar than that. I realize how moody and impatient one might get if unable to find people one can communicate easily with. I yell at my steering wheel just like Joel yelled at me. In a way, I feel sorry for him. The empire he's built all himself is the very thing that makes him miserable. I know exactly how he feels.
I still don't get the furry underwear thing, though. That's just weird, Joel.
Friday, November 7th, 2008 3:02 AM
ShNovember HappyShaberber!
FULL BLOG at www.thehappyproblem.wordpress.com
Hello! Hello! Here we are. It's November, it's dark, but it's a whole new world. And the happy problem are celebrating with our first live gigs together EVER! Now, THAT's groundbraking, eh? Here are the first shows:
Friday, November 7, 2008 9pm
Gallagher's Pub and Grill
300 Pacific Coast Highway 113
Huntington Beach, CA 92648
714-536-2422
gallagherspub.com
Come celebrate the happy problem's FIRST SHOW! Other great acts on the bill: 8pm: Christina Dietz 9pm: the happy problem 10pm: Modified 11pm: Vale
******
Wednesday, November 19, 2008 9pm
Old Towne Pub
66 N. Fair Oaks Ave
Pasadena, CA 91103
626-577-6583
myspace.com/oldtownepubpasadena
******
Monday, December 8, 2008 8pm
The Scene
806 E Colorado Blvd.
Glendale, CA 91205
818-241-7029
www.thescenebar.com
******
And now I leave you to the world of Wordpress where you can read the rest of this month's brain drizzle from the Shaber, along with pictures, videos, links, and OH so much wit - as you would EXPECT, now, right?
FULL BLOG AT www.thehappyproblem.wordpress.com
Hope to see you out there!
Sam
www.thehappyproblem.wordpress.com
www.myspace.com/thehappyproblem
>
Hello! Hello! Here we are. It's November, it's dark, but it's a whole new world. And the happy problem are celebrating with our first live gigs together EVER! Now, THAT's groundbraking, eh? Here are the first shows:
Friday, November 7, 2008 9pm
Gallagher's Pub and Grill
300 Pacific Coast Highway 113
Huntington Beach, CA 92648
714-536-2422
gallagherspub.com
Come celebrate the happy problem's FIRST SHOW! Other great acts on the bill: 8pm: Christina Dietz 9pm: the happy problem 10pm: Modified 11pm: Vale
******
Wednesday, November 19, 2008 9pm
Old Towne Pub
66 N. Fair Oaks Ave
Pasadena, CA 91103
626-577-6583
myspace.com/oldtownepubpasadena
******
Monday, December 8, 2008 8pm
The Scene
806 E Colorado Blvd.
Glendale, CA 91205
818-241-7029
www.thescenebar.com
******
And now I leave you to the world of Wordpress where you can read the rest of this month's brain drizzle from the Shaber, along with pictures, videos, links, and OH so much wit - as you would EXPECT, now, right?
FULL BLOG AT www.thehappyproblem.wordpress.com
Hope to see you out there!
Sam
www.thehappyproblem.wordpress.com
www.myspace.com/thehappyproblem
Sunday, October 26th, 2008 10:26 PM
ONE SHEET
Sunday, October 19th, 2008 10:35 PM
AIDS Walk Successful!!
Hello! Check out my latest posting on Wordpress:
www.thehappyproblem.wordpress.com
And read all about the successful AIDS Walk today. Many many thanks
to everyone who donated - you are making a difference in this world!
And thas' it, folks. It's a new world, and a new way of workin' it,
so it's all about WordPress from here on out. I hope you will join me
in the blogosphere!
wuv,
Sam
p.s. Check out sneak preview pics of the new band at
www.myspace.com/thehappyproblem. Shhh...
www.thehappyproblem.wordpress.com
And read all about the successful AIDS Walk today. Many many thanks
to everyone who donated - you are making a difference in this world!
And thas' it, folks. It's a new world, and a new way of workin' it,
so it's all about WordPress from here on out. I hope you will join me
in the blogosphere!
wuv,
Sam
p.s. Check out sneak preview pics of the new band at
www.myspace.com/thehappyproblem. Shhh...
Tuesday, October 7th, 2008 6:41 AM
SHOCTOBER SHABERBABER!
ATTENTION! FOR BEST RESULTS, FROM NOW ON, SUBSCRIBE TO THIS BLOG AND READ NEWSLETTER HERE:
www.thehappyproblem.wordpress.com
JUST DO IT. TRUST ME, IT'S CUTER.
(And while you're at it, visit thehappyproblem.com too!)
aaand, begin:
Yes, it is I, back from the dead. Okay, not really dead perse, but recovering from knee surgery. Yes the old Shaber had some arthroscopic knee surgery this summer - first I had to learn how to say "arthroscopic", and then they stuck it to me. Literally.
And so for the past several weeks, I've been doing single heel raises and planks and lunges and bridges and something called a "hot plate" which is much less exciting than it sounds. I'm sporting two cute purple dots on either side of my right knee, and I am the proud owner of a series of photographs of the inside of my patella.
photo by Remy Shaber
Okay, that is NOT a picture of my patella, that is me on a moped in Rhode Island recently, but I just wanted to show you people, you lively, wonderful, stubborn people, how much more fun it is to read this newslettery thingy in its new, BLOG form. You can do this just by going to www.thehappyproblem.wordpress.com. And then you can enjoy the fact that I have titled the blog SAMINATING SHABERMURS, which let's face it, sounds like something kinda penis-related, so that's pretty funny.
Sam--
THEN! If you feel comfortable once you get there, you can SUBSCRIBE to it, and you'll get notices in your email box when a new "episode" is up and ready for your viewing pleasure, just like you've been getting these newsletters from me all these years! Except NOW you'll get them with the AWESOME PICTURES - like THIS ONE of two BUNNIES wearing HATS:
See how GREAT that is?? And how about THIS one:
Okay that one's just silly. I mean, really, people. There are no words.
And don'tcha love the colum on the left, there? It has everything from great links about the happy problem to a little biography. AND I am launching a brand new feature page in that there column as well - SAM'S FAVORITE OFF-BEAT OFFORDABLE DINERIES! (F.O.O.D. - get it?)
Oh god, Sam--
Oh yes, many of you know I love food, and more of you know I love CHEAP food, and when I find the perfect combination of both, I just can't keep it to myself. So on this here bloggedy doo, I will be frequently adding to my F.O.O.D. list.
<<<<<<<<<< In fact, you can check out the very first posting right now!
(If you're reading this on the blog page, that is. PSYCH!)
And if that's going well, I might add a WALKING AROUND LOVELY KORNERS (W.A.L.K.) page, describing my fave places to wander all over this country, or a FAVORITE SUPER-EASY RECIPES page, (don't even try - no initials on that one), or... Well as you can see, the BLOGGIBILITIES are staggering!
How could you not subscribe now??
It's all part of the new-and-improved world of Sam Shaber, the world of MORE COOL WEB THINGS, the world of NEW SONGS and a NEW BAND. In fact, it's almost a PROBLEM that there are so many great new things going on. You might even say it's a HAPPY PROBLEM. Oh - I slay myself…
Yeah, we know.
And along with the new fun webby things for you, we have also released the FIRST SINGLE from the happy problem, appropriately titled "Happy Happy Happy." (I promise, not everything I ever do from here on out will include the word "happy" - but just indulge me for now…)
We also have a CUTE video to this song!! You can watch the video RIGHT HERE IN THIS BLOG if you are viewing it at www.thehappyproblem.wordpress.com:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M-vx6Iw8rpQ]
AND, you can buy that song at iTunes, or you can DOWNLOAD IT FREE at one of these awesome, incredibly lengthy websites:
www.ilike.com/artist/the+happy+problem
www.soundtrack.mtv.com/profile/thehappyproblem
www.last.fm/music/the+happy+problem
www.facebook.com/pages/the-happy-problem/40252985477
And you can watch the video, link to it, share it, lick the screen when it plays, ANYTHING you like, at these sites:
www.ilike.com/artist/the+happy+problem
www.soundtrack.mtv.com/profile/thehappyproblem
www.vimeo.com/1474844
www.youtube.com/TheHappyProblem
www.last.fm/music/the+happy+problem
www.facebook.com/pages/the-happy-problem/40252985477
Ahem, to continue…
So, here in Kneeland things are looking up. The swelling is almost gone, the range of motion is almost returned, and - best of all - I went on my first BIKE RIDE on Saturday! (And then I went on my second bike ride on Sunday, and my third bike ride today, and…)
So, I feel that I must CELEBRATE my return to knee health with something big. Something exciting. Something downright FABULOUS, you get me?
Soooo, I will be doing the AIDS WALK on October 19th!
Yes - what a better way to show off my new non-limp but to parade it all around West Hollywood on a Sunday! And I can see it now: I'll casually STROLL up to the registration desk, like I hadn't a care in the world (or a knee problem), and I'll sign-in, just like everyone else, and then I'll get some FREE FOOD which they always give you, and probably a hat or something, and then I will take my place among all the other perfectly ambulatory humans on Santa Monica Boulevard and I will begin… step… step… step…
And a handsome young walker will turn to me and say, "Wow - you are a great walker! Where'd you get that awesome style? I love the way you put full weight on your right leg as you come down and then it's so cool how you straighten that knee joint all the way as you shift weight to the other foot, and then your follow-through when you pick your right heel back up again - OH! - words just can't do it justice!"
And this walker will start to shout with inspired glee at my incredible form, and call others over to witness and then we will WALK together, with grace and strength and the knowledge that for billions of years--
Sam? SAM? SAAAAM!
--what? Oh, sorry. I got a little carried away there.
No, really?
Well it's just very exciting and I'm sorry. It's not like I just WALK around all the time, okay? Well, okay, I do walk around all the time, but I don't get to walk to RAISE MONEY for AIDS RESEARCH all the time, now do I?
No, we suppose you don't.
Ha-hah then!
Okay you're special and marvelous and we worship you.
THAT'S a little more like it! Finally you people are starting to see my point.
Um, yeah. So we also assume you're going to ask us for money at some point in this presentation?
OH, right. Yes, well, there is that part, yes. And I KNOW this is the worst time in the history of ever to be asking for money. And I KNOW that many of us have already been doing copious amounts of walking, thanks to the insane price of gas these days, but I am here to tell you, --
Yes?
Well, no I´m here to ASK you--
Uh-huh? Get on with it.
Well, if you could just spare a few bucks for this really great cause, I would be so amazingly thankful.
Amazingly?
Yes. Amazingly thankful.
And perhaps would you say MARVELOUSLY?
Oh, yes! Marvelously thankful!
SO, then perhaps you would say that WE are SPECIAL and MARVELOUS and that you WORSHIP US?
Well, let's not get carried away here.
Fine. We´ll see you lat--
OK YES! YOU ARE SPECIAL AND MARVELOUS AND I WORSHIP ALL OF YOU! I DO. AND TO SHOW MY TRUEST LOVE FOR ALL OF YOU, I AM OFFERING TO WALK FOR YOU!! Seriously, you don't even have to get out of your chairs or your tubs or your BEDS! You can help change the course of this disease without ever lifting a FINGER because I will do that FOR YOU!
Oh wait - no, you do need to lift a finger, because you need to actually DONATE for me to be able to walk for you. SO, if you want to limber up your fingers a bit, here is the website you can visit to make said donation, and then you can pour yourself a cup of tea and sit back with a big, happy sigh and feel really good about yourself because YOU are a special and marvelous person!
Well, that is quite a sales pitch, we must admit.
YES! So here is the website… ready?
Yes, yes, ready already. JEEZ.
www.aidswalklosangeles2008.kintera.org/samshaber
(And now, for those of you reading this at www.thehappyproblem.wordpress.com, here are the pretty pictures - oh, and they're also LINKS! So click on them and see where they take you:)
and
There you have it! You can make donations online of $25 and up, or you can print out the little form and mail in a donation of any size. And I'm totally serious when I say that ANY AMOUNT IS APPRECIATED! If you give $5, I will walk you! If you give $2, I will walk you! If you give $100, I will maybe even SKIP you!
Wait-- that came out wrong.
My goal is to raise $1500 and so far I have about $300, so there's a ways to go. Think of it as therapy - maybe not retail therapy so much, but let's call it KARMA THERAPY! Yes! The world might be nose-diving around our ears, but we can still take care of a few things and feel a little lift in our lives!
If you want, you can imagine that with every step, I am squooshing Sarah Palin's smiley face! If you go the other way, you can pretend each stride is a yank on one of Obama's ears. Whatever you like! We can even bring Ross Perot back into this fantasy - I DON'T CARE!
Ross Perot, Sam?
Yeah, I was just waxin' sentimental about old Ross the other day. Whatever happened to him? I mean, other than getting his own personal sidenote in the canon of American history, which perhaps is all he wanted anyway, let's be honest.
Doesn't Ross Perot sound like a sparkling wine? Maybe from the Loire Valley region?
I don't even know if they have vineyards in the Loire Valley.
Here's another pretty picture for those of you reading this at www.thehappyproblem.wordpress.com:
photo by Julie Guest, Sweet Tea Photo
See how great this is? I'm not even going to say what that picture was - you people will just have to go to--
YEAH YEAH OKAY WE KNOW ALREADY!
Oh do you? Because I don't think you really do. I don't think you really understand how great this whole BLOG revolution is, people. I'm talking about not only pictures, but MUSIC too!! Like for instance:
Happy Happy Happy
Okay that's not the best way to do it, but it DID get you to a page where you could get the song for free and also listen to it. Pretty cool, eh?
And in happy problem news, we will soon be playing out on the West Coast (sorry East Coasters - we'll be working our way over to you as soon as possible, I promise!) and we're excited to have the debut CDs finished! We're not sure of the release date, but we will definitely keep you posted. Maybe even HERE: www.thehappyproblem.wordpress.com
Oy do I know how to belabor a point, or WHAT?
We are also in the market for a webmaster to do our new official website, so we appreciate all suggestions!
AND you can listen for us in a few new exciting places! MTV has been licensing happy problem tunes for everything from "Cribs" to "The Hills," and we've also just been told they're using a song on the new CW show, "Privileged." We'll try to let you know when we have airdates and channels for these.
And that, my friends, brings us to the end of this debut BLOG performance. For those of you braving the strange new world of WordPress, I salute you. For those of you back in the dark days of text-only email, well, what can I say? Best to put it in PICTURES:
and
RIGHT?
Have a great SHOCTOBER SHABERBABER and hope to see you out there!
-Sam
www.thehappyproblem.wordpress.com
JUST DO IT. TRUST ME, IT'S CUTER.
(And while you're at it, visit thehappyproblem.com too!)
aaand, begin:
Yes, it is I, back from the dead. Okay, not really dead perse, but recovering from knee surgery. Yes the old Shaber had some arthroscopic knee surgery this summer - first I had to learn how to say "arthroscopic", and then they stuck it to me. Literally.
And so for the past several weeks, I've been doing single heel raises and planks and lunges and bridges and something called a "hot plate" which is much less exciting than it sounds. I'm sporting two cute purple dots on either side of my right knee, and I am the proud owner of a series of photographs of the inside of my patella.
photo by Remy Shaber
Okay, that is NOT a picture of my patella, that is me on a moped in Rhode Island recently, but I just wanted to show you people, you lively, wonderful, stubborn people, how much more fun it is to read this newslettery thingy in its new, BLOG form. You can do this just by going to www.thehappyproblem.wordpress.com. And then you can enjoy the fact that I have titled the blog SAMINATING SHABERMURS, which let's face it, sounds like something kinda penis-related, so that's pretty funny.
Sam--
THEN! If you feel comfortable once you get there, you can SUBSCRIBE to it, and you'll get notices in your email box when a new "episode" is up and ready for your viewing pleasure, just like you've been getting these newsletters from me all these years! Except NOW you'll get them with the AWESOME PICTURES - like THIS ONE of two BUNNIES wearing HATS:
See how GREAT that is?? And how about THIS one:
Okay that one's just silly. I mean, really, people. There are no words.
And don'tcha love the colum on the left, there? It has everything from great links about the happy problem to a little biography. AND I am launching a brand new feature page in that there column as well - SAM'S FAVORITE OFF-BEAT OFFORDABLE DINERIES! (F.O.O.D. - get it?)
Oh god, Sam--
Oh yes, many of you know I love food, and more of you know I love CHEAP food, and when I find the perfect combination of both, I just can't keep it to myself. So on this here bloggedy doo, I will be frequently adding to my F.O.O.D. list.
<<<<<<<<<< In fact, you can check out the very first posting right now!
(If you're reading this on the blog page, that is. PSYCH!)
And if that's going well, I might add a WALKING AROUND LOVELY KORNERS (W.A.L.K.) page, describing my fave places to wander all over this country, or a FAVORITE SUPER-EASY RECIPES page, (don't even try - no initials on that one), or... Well as you can see, the BLOGGIBILITIES are staggering!
How could you not subscribe now??
It's all part of the new-and-improved world of Sam Shaber, the world of MORE COOL WEB THINGS, the world of NEW SONGS and a NEW BAND. In fact, it's almost a PROBLEM that there are so many great new things going on. You might even say it's a HAPPY PROBLEM. Oh - I slay myself…
Yeah, we know.
And along with the new fun webby things for you, we have also released the FIRST SINGLE from the happy problem, appropriately titled "Happy Happy Happy." (I promise, not everything I ever do from here on out will include the word "happy" - but just indulge me for now…)
We also have a CUTE video to this song!! You can watch the video RIGHT HERE IN THIS BLOG if you are viewing it at www.thehappyproblem.wordpress.com:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M-vx6Iw8rpQ]
AND, you can buy that song at iTunes, or you can DOWNLOAD IT FREE at one of these awesome, incredibly lengthy websites:
www.ilike.com/artist/the+happy+problem
www.soundtrack.mtv.com/profile/thehappyproblem
www.last.fm/music/the+happy+problem
www.facebook.com/pages/the-happy-problem/40252985477
And you can watch the video, link to it, share it, lick the screen when it plays, ANYTHING you like, at these sites:
www.ilike.com/artist/the+happy+problem
www.soundtrack.mtv.com/profile/thehappyproblem
www.vimeo.com/1474844
www.youtube.com/TheHappyProblem
www.last.fm/music/the+happy+problem
www.facebook.com/pages/the-happy-problem/40252985477
Ahem, to continue…
So, here in Kneeland things are looking up. The swelling is almost gone, the range of motion is almost returned, and - best of all - I went on my first BIKE RIDE on Saturday! (And then I went on my second bike ride on Sunday, and my third bike ride today, and…)
So, I feel that I must CELEBRATE my return to knee health with something big. Something exciting. Something downright FABULOUS, you get me?
Soooo, I will be doing the AIDS WALK on October 19th!
Yes - what a better way to show off my new non-limp but to parade it all around West Hollywood on a Sunday! And I can see it now: I'll casually STROLL up to the registration desk, like I hadn't a care in the world (or a knee problem), and I'll sign-in, just like everyone else, and then I'll get some FREE FOOD which they always give you, and probably a hat or something, and then I will take my place among all the other perfectly ambulatory humans on Santa Monica Boulevard and I will begin… step… step… step…
And a handsome young walker will turn to me and say, "Wow - you are a great walker! Where'd you get that awesome style? I love the way you put full weight on your right leg as you come down and then it's so cool how you straighten that knee joint all the way as you shift weight to the other foot, and then your follow-through when you pick your right heel back up again - OH! - words just can't do it justice!"
And this walker will start to shout with inspired glee at my incredible form, and call others over to witness and then we will WALK together, with grace and strength and the knowledge that for billions of years--
Sam? SAM? SAAAAM!
--what? Oh, sorry. I got a little carried away there.
No, really?
Well it's just very exciting and I'm sorry. It's not like I just WALK around all the time, okay? Well, okay, I do walk around all the time, but I don't get to walk to RAISE MONEY for AIDS RESEARCH all the time, now do I?
No, we suppose you don't.
Ha-hah then!
Okay you're special and marvelous and we worship you.
THAT'S a little more like it! Finally you people are starting to see my point.
Um, yeah. So we also assume you're going to ask us for money at some point in this presentation?
OH, right. Yes, well, there is that part, yes. And I KNOW this is the worst time in the history of ever to be asking for money. And I KNOW that many of us have already been doing copious amounts of walking, thanks to the insane price of gas these days, but I am here to tell you, --
Yes?
Well, no I´m here to ASK you--
Uh-huh? Get on with it.
Well, if you could just spare a few bucks for this really great cause, I would be so amazingly thankful.
Amazingly?
Yes. Amazingly thankful.
And perhaps would you say MARVELOUSLY?
Oh, yes! Marvelously thankful!
SO, then perhaps you would say that WE are SPECIAL and MARVELOUS and that you WORSHIP US?
Well, let's not get carried away here.
Fine. We´ll see you lat--
OK YES! YOU ARE SPECIAL AND MARVELOUS AND I WORSHIP ALL OF YOU! I DO. AND TO SHOW MY TRUEST LOVE FOR ALL OF YOU, I AM OFFERING TO WALK FOR YOU!! Seriously, you don't even have to get out of your chairs or your tubs or your BEDS! You can help change the course of this disease without ever lifting a FINGER because I will do that FOR YOU!
Oh wait - no, you do need to lift a finger, because you need to actually DONATE for me to be able to walk for you. SO, if you want to limber up your fingers a bit, here is the website you can visit to make said donation, and then you can pour yourself a cup of tea and sit back with a big, happy sigh and feel really good about yourself because YOU are a special and marvelous person!
Well, that is quite a sales pitch, we must admit.
YES! So here is the website… ready?
Yes, yes, ready already. JEEZ.
www.aidswalklosangeles2008.kintera.org/samshaber
(And now, for those of you reading this at www.thehappyproblem.wordpress.com, here are the pretty pictures - oh, and they're also LINKS! So click on them and see where they take you:)
and
There you have it! You can make donations online of $25 and up, or you can print out the little form and mail in a donation of any size. And I'm totally serious when I say that ANY AMOUNT IS APPRECIATED! If you give $5, I will walk you! If you give $2, I will walk you! If you give $100, I will maybe even SKIP you!
Wait-- that came out wrong.
My goal is to raise $1500 and so far I have about $300, so there's a ways to go. Think of it as therapy - maybe not retail therapy so much, but let's call it KARMA THERAPY! Yes! The world might be nose-diving around our ears, but we can still take care of a few things and feel a little lift in our lives!
If you want, you can imagine that with every step, I am squooshing Sarah Palin's smiley face! If you go the other way, you can pretend each stride is a yank on one of Obama's ears. Whatever you like! We can even bring Ross Perot back into this fantasy - I DON'T CARE!
Ross Perot, Sam?
Yeah, I was just waxin' sentimental about old Ross the other day. Whatever happened to him? I mean, other than getting his own personal sidenote in the canon of American history, which perhaps is all he wanted anyway, let's be honest.
Doesn't Ross Perot sound like a sparkling wine? Maybe from the Loire Valley region?
I don't even know if they have vineyards in the Loire Valley.
Here's another pretty picture for those of you reading this at www.thehappyproblem.wordpress.com:
photo by Julie Guest, Sweet Tea Photo
See how great this is? I'm not even going to say what that picture was - you people will just have to go to--
YEAH YEAH OKAY WE KNOW ALREADY!
Oh do you? Because I don't think you really do. I don't think you really understand how great this whole BLOG revolution is, people. I'm talking about not only pictures, but MUSIC too!! Like for instance:
Happy Happy Happy
Okay that's not the best way to do it, but it DID get you to a page where you could get the song for free and also listen to it. Pretty cool, eh?
And in happy problem news, we will soon be playing out on the West Coast (sorry East Coasters - we'll be working our way over to you as soon as possible, I promise!) and we're excited to have the debut CDs finished! We're not sure of the release date, but we will definitely keep you posted. Maybe even HERE: www.thehappyproblem.wordpress.com
Oy do I know how to belabor a point, or WHAT?
We are also in the market for a webmaster to do our new official website, so we appreciate all suggestions!
AND you can listen for us in a few new exciting places! MTV has been licensing happy problem tunes for everything from "Cribs" to "The Hills," and we've also just been told they're using a song on the new CW show, "Privileged." We'll try to let you know when we have airdates and channels for these.
And that, my friends, brings us to the end of this debut BLOG performance. For those of you braving the strange new world of WordPress, I salute you. For those of you back in the dark days of text-only email, well, what can I say? Best to put it in PICTURES:
and
RIGHT?
Have a great SHOCTOBER SHABERBABER and hope to see you out there!
-Sam
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